I recently participated in an interesting online discussion about ongoing fees and annual reviews – specifically what to do when your service package includes an annual review.

I recently had the pleasure of speaking at the Accountants Daily Strategy Days. My presentation was focused on how to market your business.

Recently I talked about the findings from a piece of research that Vanguard did in 2016. You can read about that here. I am also pretty keen on the old market research, and did some of my own with consumers who have seen an adviser for the first time in the last year or so. There were lots of interesting findings, but one that was seriously concerning. It turns out, that your clients aren’t really sure if they can trust you, even after they have implemented your advice!

Yesterday I heard about a report that Vanguard put out last year, focusing on what determines trust in an advice relationship. They surveyed 3400 advised clients (in the US but the findings can be applied here I think) and found that the key factors could be grouped into three areas: Functional, Emotional and Ethical. Emotional factors account for 53% of the overall trust that the consumer has, Ethical factors 30% and Functional factors only 17%.

So, life is pretty crappy right now in the land of financial advice. Between the Royal Commission, the Dover implosion, ASIC’s ongoing war on compliance issues, the court cases and the new education standards, you could be mistaken for thinking that we are seeing the beginning of the end of financial planning.

While I agree that the industry is in the middle of a pretty tough time, I really believe that the long-term future for financial advice, and financial advisors, is excellent. And here’s why…

I was lucky enough to meet with the Financial Ombudsman Service recently. I specifically wanted to find out what product providers could be doing differently when it comes to complaints regarding investments, super and insurance. My particular interest is around PDS disclosure, but of course FOS considers much more than just offer documents. It was a fascinating discussion and here is a summary of the key issues that FOS are currently seeing.

It’s all about goals these days. Goals based advice, the new AMP Goals system, for example. And not just in advice. There’s a plethora of podcasts about how to achieve your goals, how to set goals, why you need goals, the list goes on!

I’m a member of a couple of Facebook groups that focus on improving financial advisory businesses. There’s always lots of interesting discussion, and I’ve noticed a bit of a theme of late of “I have had enough of Xplan/Coin, what should I use instead?” Which is generally followed by lots of advice and comments from other planners. Which is great, except the advice never includes the idea that you should step back and work out what you need before buying new software.

It’s been a big year for Mayflower Consulting, hence the lack of regular newsletter. Not that we like to brag, but there was a successful $10b Responsible Entity transition in March – one of the biggest of its kind in Australia - and Mayflower Consulting might have been involved. But that’s all in the past right? So here’s what’s next…