Are you giving advice with a hammer?

Renato Mota, Group General Manager – Wealth Management

"If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" - Abraham Maslow, The Psychology of Science, 1966.

As a weekend handyman, there is nothing more frustrating than trying to complete a project with the wrong tools or equipment. We end up making do with the tools we have and inevitably end up taking longer and/or delivering an inferior outcome.

As a result of this frustration, there is a temptation to over compensate and fill our sheds with tools and gadgets that look good in stores, only to be used once and gather dust thereafter. At least my kids will inherent some well-preserved relics of the past…

It’s a similar story for advice

Over the past few years, I have observed the same dynamic in our advice industry. While it’s refreshing to see the industry challenge itself in how it delivers better outcomes for clients, this has resulted in a proliferation of different tools, capabilities and products, all of which in isolation solve only one part of a much larger challenge.

Many of the latest tools take a very narrow view of financial advice which underestimates the value, not to mention the time and complexity, of providing a comprehensive financial plan.

So it begs the question….. “do you know what your clients want you to build or are you simply looking for a more modern, efficient hammer?”

Understanding your clients and finding the right tools for them will help you find efficiencies in your business processes and, ultimately, help you grow your business.

IOOF Advice Academy

The IOOF Advice Academy is looking to tackle the challenge of defining and delivering value to clients from its very core – in a way that rewards both the client and the adviser. Complementing this is the delivery of a set of technologies and processes that advisers can adopt in their business to enable the delivery of effective and consistent advice. It is this consistency of the advice process that ensures we have the right tools for the right tasks.

Partnering with market-leading professionals, the IOOF Advice Academy has developed a specific tool kit for specific jobs – focusing on:

• Creating the foundation for success
• Progress based financial planning
• Converting prospects and engaging clients
• Enhancing the client experience
• Harnessing the power of your business model

We are excited by the commencement of the next adviser intake of over the coming weeks and look forward to giving advisers a toolkit that allows them to build the future their clients and their businesses deserve.