Challenge the Standard in Financial Advice

We're joined this week by Jim Stackpool of Certainty Advice Group , a long-time advocate of the sheer power of great financial advice...and a fierce defender of advisers charging appropriately for the immense value they bring to their clients lives.  Throw in the impact his work has had on Jordan's views over his career, and the ground is fertile for some strong opinions, thoughts and views.  We d...

How well do you think you know the rules around conflicted remuneration? Leaning on research Nathan's been doing, this week we chat about: The looooonnngggg path we've taken to get to where we are What IS and what ISN'T considered conflicted Why morality isn't a driving force in the regulatory environment How conflicted rem can affect the payER and the payEE under the rules And just how much the a...

In this week's episode, Nadia Docker from Kinetic Compliance comes on to share her insights about the ever-changing compliance landscape we advisers have to trudge through. She answers quickfire questions on: Regulatory changes Why your SoA sucks Data security Wholesale investments And of course, "Can I use an ROA for this?" Nadia also valiantly works on making Jordan and Nathan get on board the A...

Continuing this season's theme of asking 'yeah, but who's it for ?', this week we explore some of the ethical considerations advisers have around investment portfolios.  Leaving aside Jordan's regulation soapbox-upon-soapbox ranting around the annoyingly lazy and central role 'FUM' still has in advice businesses, he and Nathan cover: Paying DIY client's due respect for the portfolio they've built...

"I just want milk that tastes like real milk." Fair to say that what started as a serious topic went off the rails pretty quickly - but today's topic was, ostensibly, client portals.  What are they, why do we have them, who wants them (hint: nobody, really), how can we use them and who benefits? Nathan and Jordan explore this topic, proposing that security and connectivity should be our primary ta...

This week, we're flashing back many, many years to a more innocent time. A purer time, where both hosts were fonts of positivity, optimism and naivete.  Joking.  Because this week we're discussing this video ( The Single AR Challenge) that a younger, but more hirsute, Nathan released into the void back in the early 90s. Or three years ago. One of them.  Where he expounded on where he saw the Singl...

Putting aside their avowed determination to stop talking about AI, this week Jordan and Nathan explore the growing role AI is playing in adviser businesses. The rapid escalation of AI's position in advice reminds them both of the way hiring Virtual Assistants (VAs) took off in the mid 2010s.  They're particularly interested in the overlap between the different options advisers face to grow their b...

"Sorry, our PI insurer says you can't do that - we're not covered." "Our PI says we need to have this 27-step process in place before you can recommend an industry super fund." "That's what's so good about wholesale advice - PI doesn't care, it's not covered!" Nathan and Jordan have long suspected the PI insurers have been used as a convenient boogeyman for lazy, or perhaps dodgy, licensees to thr...

This week, regular listeners may ask themselves, much like the hosts, 'haven't they done this episode before?'. Turns out that, no, not really - but it does cover a lot of the same territory these chatty terriers have covered before: The importance of branding and niching How vital it is to have support, processs, and spend time on marketing Intentionality in your business The pros and (many, many...

You've done it - you're at a point where you have enough enquiries coming in each week to fill your books. Plenty of meetings, plenty of engagements, plenty of clients.  But, sorry, what's that? Now you don't have plenty of time? Now there isn't enough hours in the week to do all the work you've promised all these wonderful clients? What's the solution? Well, this week, we discuss one possible sol...

Phil Anderson, General Manager Policy, Advocacy & Standards, has announced his retirement. So, naturally, we thought we'd drag him onto the podcast again to run through: The FAAA's response to Dr Mulino's policy release the other day The greatest hits of his many years at the helm of the profession's response to policy and regulatory changes The importance of all members getting involved in respon...

Fair to say the Professional Year experience has involved a lot of pioneering spirit from all involved. And it's now been around long enough that we're seeing people roll out from the 18m-long-year into being fully fledged financial advisers.  And Jordan and Nathan were curious about how that looks for the now-advisers brave enough to weather the experimental process.  Which is why this conversati...

Like most of our listeners, we at Challenge the Standard believe that the regulatory landscape for financial advisers has been too stable, for too long. Just the same rules, nothing changing, for years and years and years.  Which is why we were so overjoyed at the prospect of there finally being some reform in the works, some evolution in the rules around financial advice for us and our clients. ...

This week's episode is centred on important question - when should you hire staff? Inspired by a post from Matthew Jarvis on LinkedIn, Nathan and Jordan are asking just when is the right time to bring on new people? And then, when the time IS right - just what do you have them actually do? Do you compensate for weaknesses? Push for efficiencies? Emphasise your strengths? And where do you get them...

How well do you remember your higher education? Beyond that - how much did you give back during your uni days? Then, coming out of those halcyon / dreaded days, how did you find those first steps into the real world? Were you wobbly, stumbling around like Bambi, trying to make your way in the mean streets of financial advice?  Or were you, like our guest this week, more of a take charge, grab the...

It's the debate that doesn't go away, the frustration that infuriates, the conflict that challenges - the age-old argument adviser have every day, about which super fund their client should be using.  Our views are often infected by ideology, but then as we discuss in this week's episode, the counter can be true as well - the desire to avoid what we see as an ideological position can drive us into...

Leaving aside the deeply tongue-in-cheek title, this episode was a challenge to record.  After all, both Jordan and Nathan use AI every day - they're very conscious of how much efficiency, effectiveness and, um, enthusiasm it brings to their practices.  But, at the same time, they also have some reservations and notes about it all.  So this episode is all about examining those reservations, explor...

How do you recognise, assess and accommodate the vulnerabilities your clients bring into your meetings?  In this week's episode, Nathan and Jordan explore the many different vulnerabilties clients carry in our work together. Bouncing from their work in the divorce, bereavement and aged care spaces, they discuss: How vulnerability is not, and shouldn't be seen as, an impairment or disability The di...

Do you wind up more SMSFs that you open? So does everyone else apparently, so who is opening SMSFs then?  In this episode Jordan and Nathan open SMSF discussions with little regard for recourse, discussing The CSLR Treasury paper and it's comment on SMSF inclusion The recent changes to residential LRBAs  Accountant exemptions Working with vulnerable clients who have SMSF Served piping hot like a p...

Hot new ASIC report dropped this week and just like the classic, finger-on-the-pulse tastemakers they are, Nathan and Jordan are here to unpack it.  Donning their best Meldrum-style hats, Nathan and Jordan dive into REP 833, which examines ASIC's concerns with the way platform trustees just don't seem ready to get their act together.  There's a fair bit of ground covered: What ASIC's concerns seem...

Take a short flight, with a hot cup of tea (but bring your own teabag) for this episode, where Jordan and Nathan answer some listener questions. They discuss How they got a break into the profession Their advice for new entrants on how to break into the profession Remuneration for junior advisers, and whether profit share is common Whether a power of attorney can/should appoint a beneficiary nomin...

How much work can you reasonably get done? How many SOAs per week, per quarter, per 40 week year is youre realistic capacity? Or is that approach old fashioned, and missing so much of the nuance in your capacity to meet your goals, in the short term but in the long term? Given it's the end of financial year, Jordan and Nathan reflect on  The difference between motivation and consistency The factor...

Well, isn't this all very exciting?! Some big new listings hitting the market and it's such fun watching everybody lose. their. goddamned. minds.  Rules no longer need apply which, in the world of index investing, is kind of a big deal.  So, this week, Nathan and Jordan try (honestly, we really tried) to focus on the client-facing-reality of all the noise your clients are hearing about these big f...

We've talked about Aged Care before, but things have changed. Lots of things! There are new rules about how fees are calculated, applied and, most importantly for any government agency, renamed. (Who knew 'hotelling' was a word...look it up though) Nathan's been doing some even more interesting work in this valuable, important space - and written many a CPD piece on it.  And even Jordan's getting...

Apparently the Federal Government dropped some sort of Budget thingamajig the other day. It's got many people in a lather with the injustice of it all.  Dragged into the discussion with their characteristic reluctance to share an uninformed opinion, Nathan and Jordan thought an episode on this epoch-ending disaster* (going by the reaction of some of the panic merchants out there) would be a good i...