April 21, 2025 • 30 mins
Sean Graham, Managing Director of Assured Support, takes us on a journey through the evolution of compliance in Australia's financial advice landscape. Far from the rigid box-ticking exercise of decades past, today's compliance function requires creativity, psychological insight, and commercial acumen to drive better business outcomes.
What makes an exceptional compliance professional? Sean argues the best are creative problem-solvers who can contextualise regulations and influence behaviour without direct authority.
For advisors seeking to build sustainable, profitable practices delivering superior client outcomes, this episode offers invaluable insights into leveraging compliance as a strategic advantage rather than viewing it as a necessary evil. Whether you're a professional or considering a career in financial services, Sean's journey from aspiring criminal lawyer to compliance expert demonstrates how the most rewarding paths often emerge unexpectedly.
Enjoyed the episode? Follow Finance Friends Podcast on Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok for daily updates and more inspiring conversations. Got questions or ideas for future episodes? Send us a DM @financefriendspodcast!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Welcome to Finance Friends with Fabian podcast and
today we have Sean Graham, theManaging Director of Assured
Support.
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Thank you, how are you?
I'm fantastically well andthanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Well, thank you for coming on the podcast, so let's
just start by Assured Support.
What is.
Assured Support.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Well, in a nutshell, assured support does everything
that licensees and advisors need, so you can think about it as
compliance, risk management,governance technology.
Pretty much every step alongthe way of the advice process,
we're there to support advisorsand licensees.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Yeah, okay.
So if I'm for our audience thatmight not know what an advice
needs, so obviously they need tobe compliant, give compliant
financial advice.
So do you help them with?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
that we certainly help them.
We do a lot of coaching.
You take a step back at abusiness level, though.
Right, Australian financialservices licensees.
Most advisors work in probablythe most complicated, complex
and frequently changingenvironment in the world.
Right, Probably childcare's abit more regulated, but it
doesn't change as much asfinancial services does.
(01:34):
So there's a lot of complexityand if you're trying to advise
clients and trying to helpeveryday Australians to get
better, or you're trying to runa business and be consistently
profitable, it's hard to do thatand also concentrate on the
legs and regs and everythingelse you need to do.
And that's where we come in.
We step in to help, supportthem and make sure they're okay.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
So for our listeners that don't know, legs and regs
are legislation.
And regulation and regulationthat's right which is constantly
evolving.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
And you know I used to be a financial advisor and
during my time, you know therewas a thing called FOFA Future
of Financial Advice, and thenthere was, you know, advisors
have to opt in, opt out feedisclosure statements.
There's lots of, you know, lotsof changes.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
So when I entered the industry in 1996, which is a
long, long time ago I'd justfinished my law degree and I was
working in an insurance company.
I spoke to her at legal aboutwhat I should do next, where I
should get legal experience, andshe said whatever you do, don't
go into compliance because allthe work's been done.
Now that was 1996.
And every year since thatthere's been a program of
(02:39):
regulatory reform.
Every year advisors say to meoh, this is going to be the end
of it.
Reform.
Every year advisors say to meoh, this is going to be the end
of it.
What are you going to do whenthere's going to be no more need
for compliance?
And over 30 years it has notchanged the fact that there are
businesses like mine and Isuppose we're the only one with
the scale, resources and thetech footprint that we do.
But all these businesses haveevolved and entered the industry
(03:03):
because of that complexity,because it's a specialised field
.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, so I saw an interesting statistic where
maybe back in the 90s, there wasmaybe one compliance person per
I don't know maybe say 100 or150 advisors.
It's interesting to see howmany.
Well, obviously it's changedbecause of the last I've just
gone blank when the banks had toreview their advice and that.
(03:28):
What was that?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
We had the Royal Commission, we had the Delivery
and Better Financial Outcomes,which is the most recent change.
You had a whole range ofremediation programs that came
after the back of theCommonwealth Bank issues and
even before that as well.
But the issue is really this iswe can go back to the old days
where there used to be onecompliance person for 50
advisors.
(03:50):
That used to be in the early2000s, right?
So I didn't think you were thatold.
But look at it now and you lookat the ratios.
But the more important thing isto think about well, everyone's
a compliance person, right?
Every advisor, everyone in thebusiness, is doing compliance,
because all compliance is isactually running a business that
doesn't get you into trouble,right?
(04:10):
That's where it comes down to.
And the other part of it iswell, what is a compliance
person?
Because back in the 2000s itused to be people who would go
out and would be able to tickboxes on a checklist.
I don't want to dig into theinstitutional licensees, but
that's traditionally how theyran it, right, it was command
and control model.
Whereas what compliance is nowis very, very different to what
(04:31):
it was 30 years ago, and what'sinteresting is that rate of
change has accelerated and it'sreally disparate, because there
are some groups who are stillout there in that old tick box
regime and there are others whogo.
This is the key to building amore successful, more
consistently profitable business.
So one of our clients says hesees compliance as the only real
(04:55):
leverage point for practicevalue.
Right, so he's really investedin it.
So it's always interesting whenyou sit down with advisors and
principals and they want to talkmore about compliance than you
do, right?
Yeah, because they get it andtheir businesses thrive as a
result.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Yeah, so maybe let's touch on when you say compliance
.
30 years ago in the 90s,someone mentioned to you you
know all- the compliance is doneto now.
What actually has changed?
Obviously, you talk aboutregulation and legislation.
But if you go back 30-odd yearsago to today, just a high level
(05:32):
.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah, so a high level .
30 years ago I think peoplejust thought it was process that
if you give me a checklist anda process document, I'm going to
be compliant Whereas now weknow well, it's nothing like
that.
It's like basic criminology,which is why do people do what
they do and how do you drivebehavior.
And also now complianceinvolves everything right,
(05:55):
because it's so broad and yourobligations to the law are so
broad.
Compliance people nowadays haveto know the law.
They've got to have a solidfoundation of the law, but
they've got to know a lot ofpsychology as well, because it's
about how do you changebehaviour, how do you influence
people where you don't have thatcommand and control power, like
when they're an employee, it'sfine.
(06:15):
You can tell employees to dothings, but when you're running
a licensee and when you'redealing with authorised reps,
these are effectivelyindependent subcontractors, so
they don't take well to beingtold what to do.
So it's a very different skillset.
And this is where the skill setneeded for compliance people
now is very different, becausethey need to be creative people
(06:37):
fundamentally, because it's notabout you know, knowing the
rules and knowing the basis forwhat needs to be done.
That's, I guess, the ticket toride.
But your skill is your abilityto be able to contextualize that
, to commercialize thoseobligations and to recognize
where the opportunities are, andalso then to be able to take
(06:57):
people with you, because it'sfine knowing what needs to be
done, but if you can't engagepeople and get them to say, hang
on, that's a really good idea.
I'm going to do that.
You're going to fail.
And that's been the big shift.
It's this shift away fromsomething being bureaucratic and
imposed to being somethingorganic and self-generated.
So, like I said, advisors andlicensees are talking more about
(07:19):
this and they don't talk aboutcompliance per se.
They just talk about terms interms of they might talk about
it as governance or running abusiness, but they just talk
about it as good advice.
Right, we just want to givegood advice.
What do we need to do?
And here's how you do it.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Yeah, well, to give good advice, you need to be
compliant ultimately, becauseotherwise the reason why you
wouldn't be compliant is ifyou're not giving good advice or
advice in line with legislation.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
But for so long like particularly in the 90s, early
2000s, up until the RoyalCommission if you sold a lot of
product, then it didn't matter.
So you could say what you didwas good advice.
Because there was no.
Until we built what isessentially the industry index.
Until we did that, there was noobjective measure for how
(08:06):
advice quality could be assessedright.
So you go out and see guys whowere writing a lot of group
product and you could point outcompliance issues to them and
they wouldn't care less becauseit didn't matter.
They were making a lot of money.
Head office was very happy withthem because they were writing
a lot of product.
Now, until the Royal Commissioncame along and someone opened
(08:26):
that up and said hang on, lookat what client detriment's been
caused.
That started the change.
But there's still those pocketswhere compliance is an add-on
or compliance is an obstacle tomove around.
Or, if we can't just ignore it,what's the bare minimum?
We need to do A lot of that'schanged.
If we can't just ignore it,what's the bare minimum we need
to do?
A lot of that's changed.
(08:47):
And this is where the industryhas really shifted over the past
five years in a way that Idon't think some of the older
players have really woken up toyet.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah, so, because obviously there's been a change
in education requirements andwith new entrants into financial
advice as well as existingadvisors having to do an ethics
course and having to do afinancial advisor exam, and do
you think?
And we've gone from give ortake numbers, 28,000 advisors
(09:16):
now to 15,000 advisorsnationally and a lot have gone
out of the industry due tochanging compliance requirements
and education.
So do you think, have you seenthe I'm sure you would have seen
it evolve, especially over thelast circa 10 years since the
Royal Commission, how theadvisors that are currently
(09:37):
giving advice versus you know,overall, the advisors that used
to give advice?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
some years ago.
I'm in a good position to beable to talk based on the data.
So we've reviewed over 21,000client files since 2012, each at
a granular, really detailedlevel across over 200 licensees
over that period of time.
So what we've seen over timeand I'll give you the bad news
(10:03):
and then I'll start with the badnews.
And then I'll start with thebad news.
The bad news is there's stillabout 12% of advisors who cannot
meet minimum regulatorystandards Right Now.
Remember so compliance mostlicences talk about compliance
minimum standards.
So there's about 12% who can'tdo that.
They can't issue SOAs or advice.
That's inappropriate,conflicted, whatever else.
(10:23):
They don't hit the professionalethical standards.
On the other side, otherprofessional advisors have
gotten better year on year.
As the regulation increases.
They're still getting betterand one of the great things
we've noticed recently based onthe data is that we've had all
these people come through withtheir professional year.
So, as a consequence of theprofessional year, they have
(10:43):
five files reviewed.
So we often come in and reviewthose five files and we track
them through.
What we find is that theprofessional year advisors what
happens is when you review theiradvice, when they finish, they
are well above the industrymedian, well above the industry
median.
And what is also interesting istheir supervisor.
(11:05):
Regardless of what their ratingwas before they started
mentoring, they improve.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
That's an example of you learn the most when you
teach.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
That's exactly right, but this is where advisors,
when they look at this and theygo.
Where are the next group ofadvisors going to come from, and
why should I invest time indoing this?
They might go somewhere else.
There's some really goodreasons to invest in developing
professional year advisors.
One you're going to build yourbusiness.
You're going to bring newadvisors in who are inculcated
with your culture and yourapproach.
(11:34):
But also, you're going to getbetter.
Right, you might think you arethe apotheosis of advisors at
the moment.
Right, but you can get better,and by having to sit down and
explain, well, a man teaches.
He learns, exactly as you said.
While they do that, they'regoing to get better.
So there are so many advantagesto do that and I think that's a
really good sign for theprofession.
If you get the right people in,in the right culture and you're
(11:56):
trained to support them, you'regoing to go with great guns.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
That's great.
Thank you for sharing.
We've spoken a lot aboutcompliance and advice, and
that's obviously a lot of whatyou do, but I want to know more
about you as an individual rightbecause that's what you're here
for and that's what ourlisteners want to hear about.
So you did a.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Bachelor of Laws at Macquarie.
I did a Bachelor of Arts andBachelor of Law and at the time
I wanted to go to the bar and Iwanted to do family and criminal
law.
And I took a year out to justwork on a phone-based call
centre.
Because in New South Wales onceyou finish your law degree,
before you went into practiceyou had to go through the
(12:36):
College of Knowledge, theCollege of Law at St Leonard's,
and I was sitting down with allthese people who are my peers
and they're really brilliantpeople but I couldn't understand
a single word they said.
It was like they were speakingdifferent languages and I
thought how pretentious arethese people?
You know they're talking downto people, whatever.
And then I thought, well, maybethat's me right, maybe I'm
(12:56):
doing exactly the same thing.
So after I finished that, Iwent into a call centre just to
get over my nerves of talking topeople and just to develop the
skill of being able to relate toall different types of people.
So when you're doing 300 calls,you know, routinely you learn
those skills.
So I did that.
Then I went to do and worked onthe Threadbow Inquest as part
(13:16):
of the Crown Solicitors LegalTeam.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
So just for our younger listeners, maybe explain
to everyone what the ThreadbowInquest is.
There is a gentleman calledStuart Diver, is that right?
Yes, from my memory.
So this is a very long time ago.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
But essentially what happened is a lodge at Threadbow
in the snow fields collapsedand it collapsed and trapped 18
people and 17 people died.
And so the coroner, derek Hand,was charged with exploring how
that happened and what partieswere involved and how it all
occurred.
There were national parks andLen Lease and Kosciuszko,
(13:54):
threadbow and Greater UnionNational Parks.
Everyone was involved becauseit was such a big case and that
went on for years.
And while I, there werenational parks and Lend, lease
and Kosciuszko, threadbow andGreater Union National Parks.
Everyone was involved becauseit was such a big case and that
went on for years.
And while I was working therewith the barristers and they
said, well, senior counsel andjunior counsel, they said, well,
what do you want to do next?
And I said I want to go to thebar and I want to do family and
criminal law because you knowI'd grown up on Rumpole and LA
(14:17):
law and all that stuff.
That's where it was interesting.
And the junior barrister lookedat me and he goes you mix with
all the wrong sort of people andthey never pay their bills.
He said, if you do corporatelaw, no one dies and everyone
pays.
And so then I went into consult.
After that I went into workwith one of the big consulting
(14:38):
groups and this was just whenthe major investment had started
.
So this idea that there's awhole new compliance for managed
schemes and all these bits andpieces and that was my
introduction to that I neverimagined ever that I would go
into compliance.
I didn't even know what it was.
It's one of those industrieswhich it has a name and people
(15:00):
think they know what it is, butit's one of those things that
has a multitude right.
It could be anything you reallywant it to be, and that's one
of the advantages and thedisadvantages of working in
compliance is everyone thinksthey understand what it is, but
no one can actually articulatein a way that makes sense.
So, from a service provider,it's great because what you find
is when you start working withpeople on what is ostensibly a
(15:23):
very simple job, once you buildthat relationship of trust, then
it moves across things andyou're dealing with marketing
and business plans and sometimesrecruitment and all those bits
and pieces.
You're there just as a trustedsource, not driving things, but
guiding the decision makers, andthat's a really useful and
(15:46):
needed function in our industry.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
And also you say guiding, but it's also
influencing because, like yousaid, when I first worked in
financial advice, my old bossand I won't mention this
person's name would say you knowcompliance they don't get.
You know they don't get reallife.
You know they just tick boxes.
You know we need to becommercial, we need to make
money.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Yes, and that's true, but so do the compliance people
.
But the compliance people arealso motivated to make sure that
the business is sustainable.
There's no client detriment.
I remember I used to work for abig licensee and I was the RM
and I set the policies and oneof the policies I set was the
gearing policy, so borrowing toinvest.
(16:27):
So there was no double gearing,so you couldn't borrow money
and then borrow against it toleverage your investment and the
maximum amount you could borrowwas 70%.
Well, at the time I was in myoffice in Sydney and I had
people come down.
The head of one of the dealergroups, the head of margin
lending and my boss would allcome to me and explain to me.
(16:48):
You know I was in the wrong.
I had to change the position.
I was holding them back frombusiness.
They were trying to competewith a big business in North
Queensland and they justcouldn't possibly do it with
these restrictive policies.
Yeah, and there's pressure allthe time, but the reality is
that, as I said to them, youknow a 20% fall in share market
(17:08):
value when you're double gearedis 100% loss of capital and
there is no director of the bankwho wants to be chased down the
street by a current affair.
Yeah Right, so we're not doingit Now.
I still got all that pressurefor a long period of time, but
what happened was when Stormfell over and it exposed
everything.
What was interesting is not.
One of them came back and saidyou know what?
You're right, thank you verymuch.
(17:30):
It was just forgotten about andthat's part of the lot of
compliance people is it'sinfluence, but sometimes
maintaining a position againstpressure, and that's a challenge
.
There's a compliance manager weused to work with who used to
say that a good compliancemanager will not be in their job
any longer than three years,because after three years their
(17:56):
licensee or their employeeshould get rid of them because
they've done everything.
They've either built everythingand everything's working fine,
or they're not achievinganything, so they should be
shifting around more frequently.
So a compliance manager who'sin a job for 20 years it's
probably going to be largelyineffective.
And when you look at the ASICreport on the institutional
licensees, what did they find isthat all these employed
(18:18):
compliance people werehopelessly ineffective because
they weren't calling anythingout, because it wasn't in their
interest to do so, so theywouldn't even criticise you
because you could have a word totheir boss and that could
impact their progress andwhatever else, and that's.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
I guess there's a bit of an internal conflict.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
That's incredible and that's why external businesses
like ours work so effectively.
It's because we're engaged todo a job.
We'll do a job, and I alwayssay to our clients if you don't
like my advice, don't hire meagain.
Yeah Right, this is how we doit.
We're not.
We have to survive on ourreputation.
We stand behind our advice, westand behind our clients, but
that means we're going to tellyou if you're doing something
(18:55):
wrong, yeah, and if you don'twant to listen, that's fine,
that's on you, but it's not.
You know, that's not how itworks.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
So I've got listening to what you've said in the last
10 minutes or so.
I've got a good understandingof what makes it.
You know what skills make agreat compliance or risk person.
So what do you think the mostimportant skills are in being
great at?
You know risk and compliance,yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Or managing risk and compliance.
And it's interesting because,you know, the reason I was
talking to you earlier was I'vehad some incredible bad hires.
You know incredibly bad hiresbecause one of the things I
always look for is that I alwayslike to work with people I've
worked with before, which, again, is the classic blind spot,
because you don't questionthings that you should be doing.
(19:42):
And this is the great thingabout using an external
recruiter as a general principleis that they will see through
the blind spots that you can'tsee right.
And often you know have youdone reference checking?
Have you done?
Oh, they're a good guy, I knowthem, you know, and that's
incredible.
So what do I look for in goodpeople?
One is cultural alignment.
(20:03):
Do they get what you're talkingabout?
If you're interviewing acompliance person, someone who
wants to work in compliance andbecause I like following
checklists, then there's nopoint.
Yeah, because the law and thelegislation and the regulation
is evolving faster than mostpeople can cope with.
So you need people who arereally good on their feet, who
(20:31):
can think contextually, who canthink commercially and who can
find solutions, because that'sthe job of a compliance person
is to find a solution.
Sure, identify problems, butthen how do we fix it?
How do we avoid it happeningagain?
How do we mitigate the damagehere?
How do we put the client backin the position they should be
in?
So you need people who arecreative people and often when
you talk to advisors, they go.
You don't want creative people.
That's exactly who you want andyou need.
Need people, people, right,Because there's no point knowing
(20:53):
what needs to be done if youcan't communicate it.
And we saw this a couple ofyears ago in the banks where
they, in their insurancedivision, they brought in all
these new graduates and so theSOAs that were going out were
excellent.
They were fantastic, detailed,had everything in there.
There were no sales because thegraduates lacked the ability to
(21:14):
connect with the clients, sothey wouldn't challenge them or
raise any issues.
They'd just have thatconversation with them, go back
and then churn out an SOA thatdidn't resonate with the client
and didn't really identify theissues.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah, it's interesting you say that because
quite regularly we hear fromour clients around you know very
technical, very smart peopleespecially with the increase in
education requirements forfinancial advisors but lack the
ability to build rapport withtheir clients the EQ to
understand the client.
So, as part of the, you know,I'm a committee member for the
(21:48):
FAAA and we're running an eventin the coming months, hopefully
before this gets publishedaround how do you engage your
client better, how do youunderstand your client and how
do you get them to actuallytrust you, and what are the key
skills?
Speaker 2 (22:02):
to do that.
So we've published a lot ofstuff on that particular issue,
which is how do you driveengagement as an advisor?
Because it's one of thosereally challenging jobs, because
it requires such a high levelof intimacy so quickly and you
can't force it.
And yet if you don't get theright level, then the advice is
going to be inappropriate andyou're going to do a disservice
(22:26):
to your client but, moreimportantly, expose yourself and
your employer to risk, andthat's if you get to that point
right you need to actually getthe client to engage.
But you can even fall overbefore that happens, right?
So that whole engagement and thepre-engagement process and the
discovery process is often nottalked about, and when you talk
to advisors about it, they go oh, it's just compliance, no, no,
(22:47):
no, it's the whole sales process, right?
This is where, when you thinkabout what we're talking about,
it's about understanding theclient and their needs.
Yeah, and whether you want tosell something to them or advise
them or to support them or tomeasure appropriateness, you
need to understand what that is.
And so this is where thatdiscovery process the ability to
(23:08):
sit down with clients to getthe information you need, to get
the relevant information andalso to explore those comments
they make which might get in theway of your sales process.
Sometimes clients will saysomething and you'll move on to
the next piece, and this is whya lot of really good advisors,
when they'll do the discoveryprocess, they'll have two people
(23:29):
there, or they'll now use AI inthe background to record what's
going on, because it's veryhard to be present and talk to
someone and then keep reallydetailed notes you can use for
compliance later on.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
I know that's my job trying to remember everything
and writing notes so we use anAI tool as well for our
engagements with clients andcandidates.
So maybe if someone wanted towork in compliance that might
not be in compliance or risk atthe moment, what advice that's?
(24:00):
You know someone that's maybequite young, maybe at university
.
What advice would you give themand what learnings have you had
over your journey?
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Okay.
So the advice I'd give isprobably this is that I spoke to
a group of grads recently and Isaid find something you enjoy
and, you know, throw yourselfinto it.
And one of them said well,that's probably a high bar to
find something you enjoy.
Why not just find somethingthat is going to allow you to
get through the day.
You're not going to killyourself if you're doing the job
.
Yeah, going to allow you to getthrough the day.
(24:30):
You're not going to killyourself if you're doing the job
.
When I talk to graduates now,I'm talking about well, don't
worry about what you expect thejob to be about.
Right, if you're coming out ofuniversity, you're going to have
skills, hopefully to think andcommunicate, whatever else and
they are broad-ranging skills.
You know, one of thedifficulties is you become too
specialised because careers arechanging all the time.
(24:52):
Like you, one of thedifficulties is becoming too
specialised because careers arechanging all the time.
You've done financial planningyou've probably done a range of
different things over your timeas well is that we have to
reinvent ourselves periodically.
So, if you're a new graduate, ifyou're creative and you like
dealing with people and you likealmost the architect of the
framework issues about how do wetweak things and how do we do
things.
If you've got an inquiring mindand an abiding curiosity,
(25:14):
that's compliance, and I'd reachout to firms like ours and say
I'd like to work on this.
I've really got a good ideaabout analytics and indexes and
whatever.
Whatever it is like.
Um, obviously, we've got areally uh strong tech focus, so
we do a lot of that developmentas well.
There's a whole broad range ofskills, and possible compliance
is that it's just understandingwhat that opportunity is and
(25:37):
wanting to go for it, and mostpeople in compliance didn't wake
up when, when our kids say Iwant to be in compliance, right,
it's an industry that'sdeveloped over the last 30 years
and so we've all developed withit so I'm mindful of time.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
I really love this conversation, but I think we're
at about 25 minutes of work hereto work.
So where do I've seen itpersonally where people that now
work in compliance come from,but maybe where you share some
just a high-level, quick coupleof minutes around some people
you have in your team and whattheir background is.
(26:10):
So it gives an idea of maybeyou know, maybe you might be
working in a client services ata financial planning firm, or
maybe you might be working inyou know family law and you
realise I'm sick of my clientsnot paying me.
So where does some of your youknow, your great team members
come from and what's theirbackground?
Speaker 2 (26:27):
So unsurprisingly, some of them have come from
compliance and that people haveworked with over a long period
of time.
So you know, when you've workedwith someone over 10 to 12
years, you probably got a goodidea.
But a lot of the others thathave joined since about 2015, I
haven't had that directrelationship with and some of
them have come fromnon-compliance roles.
(26:48):
So one of our best coaches hewas in advising right and he was
a bit burnt out and so he cameand just decided he wanted to
work with us while he worked outhis garden leave or whatever
was required there.
I don't want to do this, butit's a short-term thing and
whatever else.
And then he realised how muchmore satisfying it was than
(27:12):
being an advisor, because you'rehaving a direct impact and a
direct connection with somebody.
And that's where he said well,the real value of being able to
improve advice and ensure peoplegot really good advice outcomes
by working with the providersand coaching them.
And one of the things we do is,after we do the reviews, we
(27:32):
survey every advisor.
We don't ask them whether theyenjoyed the review, because you
know no one enjoys beingcriticised at all.
Yeah, of course, but did Ilearn from it?
Did the reviewer identifythings that I wasn't aware of?
Has it improved my practice?
Is it going to make me a betteradvisor?
That type of thing.
And those scores are over thetop.
(27:52):
And what's more interesting isthat often, when I try to look
at the correlation between that,I often think that when people
give really good feedback, it'sbecause they got a really good
report, like if I come in andsay you're the most awesome
person I've ever met.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Yeah, five stars, thumbs up you know great, yeah,
it's interesting because youknow, sometimes I'm very mindful
of time, but sometimes, youknow, when I give advice, I'm
very transparent and my job isto.
I can't get everyone a job, butI can help everyone that I
speak to and sometimes, you know, people are very receptive to
feedback and and sometimespeople aren't, so you know, but
I think one of the the lessonI've learned from this is that
(28:28):
the people who most often getthe bad results because they
need the feedback and thesupport they respond most
brilliantly to it.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Because being an advisor in a lot of places is
pretty lonely.
You don't get a lot of supportfrom your licence.
You've got PD days, maybe oncea quarter, but when you've got
questions or just interactions,you just don't have it right.
You're expected to do it allyourself and it's really complex
and it's intimidating and it'schallenging.
And I think when they get thatfeedback to say here's what
(29:00):
you've done wrong, here's howyou can get better, they
appreciate it and they learnfrom it and they get better.
And that's been the greattestament to the resilience of
the financial planning industry.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Yeah, and obviously you know you're in the coaching
game.
I'm in the coaching game too,to a degree, and the people that
you are actually able to helpand give that and they can use
that to become betterprofessionals, they will never
forget you.
They'll thank you for life.
So, and I guess that you know,this conversation's been great
and I love to keep talking, butI'm extremely mindful of time.
So, sean, thank you very much.
(29:36):
Thank you for the opportunityFor coming in today to our
Sydney office and recordingstudio and, you know, if anyone
wants to, you know, use yourservices, we'll obviously
connect you, connect the teamonline.
So thank you very much for thatand it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Thank you for the opportunity.
It's been fun.
Thank you Sorry.
I should warn you I talk toomuch.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
No, that was good.
Welcome to Finance Friends with Fabian podcast and
today we have Sean Graham, theManaging Director of Assured
Support.
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Thank you, how are you?
I'm fantastically well andthanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Well, thank you for coming on the podcast, so let's
just start by Assured Support.
What is.
Assured Support.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Well, in a nutshell, assured support does everything
that licensees and advisors need, so you can think about it as
compliance, risk management,governance technology.
Pretty much every step alongthe way of the advice process,
we're there to support advisorsand licensees.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Yeah, okay.
So if I'm for our audience thatmight not know what an advice
needs, so obviously they need tobe compliant, give compliant
financial advice.
So do you help them with?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
that we certainly help them.
We do a lot of coaching.
You take a step back at abusiness level, though.
Right, Australian financialservices licensees.
Most advisors work in probablythe most complicated, complex
and frequently changingenvironment in the world.
Right, Probably childcare's abit more regulated, but it
doesn't change as much asfinancial services does.
(01:34):
So there's a lot of complexityand if you're trying to advise
clients and trying to helpeveryday Australians to get
better, or you're trying to runa business and be consistently
profitable, it's hard to do thatand also concentrate on the
legs and regs and everythingelse you need to do.
And that's where we come in.
We step in to help, supportthem and make sure they're okay.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
So for our listeners that don't know, legs and regs
are legislation.
And regulation and regulationthat's right which is constantly
evolving.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
And you know I used to be a financial advisor and
during my time, you know therewas a thing called FOFA Future
of Financial Advice, and thenthere was, you know, advisors
have to opt in, opt out feedisclosure statements.
There's lots of, you know, lotsof changes.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
So when I entered the industry in 1996, which is a
long, long time ago I'd justfinished my law degree and I was
working in an insurance company.
I spoke to her at legal aboutwhat I should do next, where I
should get legal experience, andshe said whatever you do, don't
go into compliance because allthe work's been done.
Now that was 1996.
And every year since thatthere's been a program of
(02:39):
regulatory reform.
Every year advisors say to meoh, this is going to be the end
of it.
Reform.
Every year advisors say to meoh, this is going to be the end
of it.
What are you going to do whenthere's going to be no more need
for compliance?
And over 30 years it has notchanged the fact that there are
businesses like mine and Isuppose we're the only one with
the scale, resources and thetech footprint that we do.
But all these businesses haveevolved and entered the industry
(03:03):
because of that complexity,because it's a specialised field
.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, so I saw an interesting statistic where
maybe back in the 90s, there wasmaybe one compliance person per
I don't know maybe say 100 or150 advisors.
It's interesting to see howmany.
Well, obviously it's changedbecause of the last I've just
gone blank when the banks had toreview their advice and that.
(03:28):
What was that?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
We had the Royal Commission, we had the Delivery
and Better Financial Outcomes,which is the most recent change.
You had a whole range ofremediation programs that came
after the back of theCommonwealth Bank issues and
even before that as well.
But the issue is really this iswe can go back to the old days
where there used to be onecompliance person for 50
advisors.
(03:50):
That used to be in the early2000s, right?
So I didn't think you were thatold.
But look at it now and you lookat the ratios.
But the more important thing isto think about well, everyone's
a compliance person, right?
Every advisor, everyone in thebusiness, is doing compliance,
because all compliance is isactually running a business that
doesn't get you into trouble,right?
(04:10):
That's where it comes down to.
And the other part of it iswell, what is a compliance
person?
Because back in the 2000s itused to be people who would go
out and would be able to tickboxes on a checklist.
I don't want to dig into theinstitutional licensees, but
that's traditionally how theyran it, right, it was command
and control model.
Whereas what compliance is nowis very, very different to what
(04:31):
it was 30 years ago, and what'sinteresting is that rate of
change has accelerated and it'sreally disparate, because there
are some groups who are stillout there in that old tick box
regime and there are others whogo.
This is the key to building amore successful, more
consistently profitable business.
So one of our clients says hesees compliance as the only real
(04:55):
leverage point for practicevalue.
Right, so he's really investedin it.
So it's always interesting whenyou sit down with advisors and
principals and they want to talkmore about compliance than you
do, right?
Yeah, because they get it andtheir businesses thrive as a
result.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Yeah, so maybe let's touch on when you say compliance
.
30 years ago in the 90s,someone mentioned to you you
know all- the compliance is doneto now.
What actually has changed?
Obviously, you talk aboutregulation and legislation.
But if you go back 30-odd yearsago to today, just a high level
(05:32):
.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah, so a high level .
30 years ago I think peoplejust thought it was process that
if you give me a checklist anda process document, I'm going to
be compliant Whereas now weknow well, it's nothing like
that.
It's like basic criminology,which is why do people do what
they do and how do you drivebehavior.
And also now complianceinvolves everything right,
(05:55):
because it's so broad and yourobligations to the law are so
broad.
Compliance people nowadays haveto know the law.
They've got to have a solidfoundation of the law, but
they've got to know a lot ofpsychology as well, because it's
about how do you changebehaviour, how do you influence
people where you don't have thatcommand and control power, like
when they're an employee, it'sfine.
(06:15):
You can tell employees to dothings, but when you're running
a licensee and when you'redealing with authorised reps,
these are effectivelyindependent subcontractors, so
they don't take well to beingtold what to do.
So it's a very different skillset.
And this is where the skill setneeded for compliance people
now is very different, becausethey need to be creative people
(06:37):
fundamentally, because it's notabout you know, knowing the
rules and knowing the basis forwhat needs to be done.
That's, I guess, the ticket toride.
But your skill is your abilityto be able to contextualize that
, to commercialize thoseobligations and to recognize
where the opportunities are, andalso then to be able to take
(06:57):
people with you, because it'sfine knowing what needs to be
done, but if you can't engagepeople and get them to say, hang
on, that's a really good idea.
I'm going to do that.
You're going to fail.
And that's been the big shift.
It's this shift away fromsomething being bureaucratic and
imposed to being somethingorganic and self-generated.
So, like I said, advisors andlicensees are talking more about
(07:19):
this and they don't talk aboutcompliance per se.
They just talk about terms interms of they might talk about
it as governance or running abusiness, but they just talk
about it as good advice.
Right, we just want to givegood advice.
What do we need to do?
And here's how you do it.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Yeah, well, to give good advice, you need to be
compliant ultimately, becauseotherwise the reason why you
wouldn't be compliant is ifyou're not giving good advice or
advice in line with legislation.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
But for so long like particularly in the 90s, early
2000s, up until the RoyalCommission if you sold a lot of
product, then it didn't matter.
So you could say what you didwas good advice.
Because there was no.
Until we built what isessentially the industry index.
Until we did that, there was noobjective measure for how
(08:06):
advice quality could be assessedright.
So you go out and see guys whowere writing a lot of group
product and you could point outcompliance issues to them and
they wouldn't care less becauseit didn't matter.
They were making a lot of money.
Head office was very happy withthem because they were writing
a lot of product.
Now, until the Royal Commissioncame along and someone opened
(08:26):
that up and said hang on, lookat what client detriment's been
caused.
That started the change.
But there's still those pocketswhere compliance is an add-on
or compliance is an obstacle tomove around.
Or, if we can't just ignore it,what's the bare minimum?
We need to do A lot of that'schanged.
If we can't just ignore it,what's the bare minimum we need
to do?
A lot of that's changed.
(08:47):
And this is where the industryhas really shifted over the past
five years in a way that Idon't think some of the older
players have really woken up toyet.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah, so, because obviously there's been a change
in education requirements andwith new entrants into financial
advice as well as existingadvisors having to do an ethics
course and having to do afinancial advisor exam, and do
you think?
And we've gone from give ortake numbers, 28,000 advisors
(09:16):
now to 15,000 advisorsnationally and a lot have gone
out of the industry due tochanging compliance requirements
and education.
So do you think, have you seenthe I'm sure you would have seen
it evolve, especially over thelast circa 10 years since the
Royal Commission, how theadvisors that are currently
(09:37):
giving advice versus you know,overall, the advisors that used
to give advice?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
some years ago.
I'm in a good position to beable to talk based on the data.
So we've reviewed over 21,000client files since 2012, each at
a granular, really detailedlevel across over 200 licensees
over that period of time.
So what we've seen over timeand I'll give you the bad news
(10:03):
and then I'll start with the badnews.
And then I'll start with thebad news.
The bad news is there's stillabout 12% of advisors who cannot
meet minimum regulatorystandards Right Now.
Remember so compliance mostlicences talk about compliance
minimum standards.
So there's about 12% who can'tdo that.
They can't issue SOAs or advice.
That's inappropriate,conflicted, whatever else.
(10:23):
They don't hit the professionalethical standards.
On the other side, otherprofessional advisors have
gotten better year on year.
As the regulation increases.
They're still getting betterand one of the great things
we've noticed recently based onthe data is that we've had all
these people come through withtheir professional year.
So, as a consequence of theprofessional year, they have
(10:43):
five files reviewed.
So we often come in and reviewthose five files and we track
them through.
What we find is that theprofessional year advisors what
happens is when you review theiradvice, when they finish, they
are well above the industrymedian, well above the industry
median.
And what is also interesting istheir supervisor.
(11:05):
Regardless of what their ratingwas before they started
mentoring, they improve.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
That's an example of you learn the most when you
teach.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
That's exactly right, but this is where advisors,
when they look at this and theygo.
Where are the next group ofadvisors going to come from, and
why should I invest time indoing this?
They might go somewhere else.
There's some really goodreasons to invest in developing
professional year advisors.
One you're going to build yourbusiness.
You're going to bring newadvisors in who are inculcated
with your culture and yourapproach.
(11:34):
But also, you're going to getbetter.
Right, you might think you arethe apotheosis of advisors at
the moment.
Right, but you can get better,and by having to sit down and
explain, well, a man teaches.
He learns, exactly as you said.
While they do that, they'regoing to get better.
So there are so many advantagesto do that and I think that's a
really good sign for theprofession.
If you get the right people in,in the right culture and you're
(11:56):
trained to support them, you'regoing to go with great guns.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
That's great.
Thank you for sharing.
We've spoken a lot aboutcompliance and advice, and
that's obviously a lot of whatyou do, but I want to know more
about you as an individual rightbecause that's what you're here
for and that's what ourlisteners want to hear about.
So you did a.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Bachelor of Laws at Macquarie.
I did a Bachelor of Arts andBachelor of Law and at the time
I wanted to go to the bar and Iwanted to do family and criminal
law.
And I took a year out to justwork on a phone-based call
centre.
Because in New South Wales onceyou finish your law degree,
before you went into practiceyou had to go through the
(12:36):
College of Knowledge, theCollege of Law at St Leonard's,
and I was sitting down with allthese people who are my peers
and they're really brilliantpeople but I couldn't understand
a single word they said.
It was like they were speakingdifferent languages and I
thought how pretentious arethese people?
You know they're talking downto people, whatever.
And then I thought, well, maybethat's me right, maybe I'm
(12:56):
doing exactly the same thing.
So after I finished that, Iwent into a call centre just to
get over my nerves of talking topeople and just to develop the
skill of being able to relate toall different types of people.
So when you're doing 300 calls,you know, routinely you learn
those skills.
So I did that.
Then I went to do and worked onthe Threadbow Inquest as part
(13:16):
of the Crown Solicitors LegalTeam.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
So just for our younger listeners, maybe explain
to everyone what the ThreadbowInquest is.
There is a gentleman calledStuart Diver, is that right?
Yes, from my memory.
So this is a very long time ago.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
But essentially what happened is a lodge at Threadbow
in the snow fields collapsedand it collapsed and trapped 18
people and 17 people died.
And so the coroner, derek Hand,was charged with exploring how
that happened and what partieswere involved and how it all
occurred.
There were national parks andLen Lease and Kosciuszko,
(13:54):
threadbow and Greater UnionNational Parks.
Everyone was involved becauseit was such a big case and that
went on for years.
And while I, there werenational parks and Lend, lease
and Kosciuszko, threadbow andGreater Union National Parks.
Everyone was involved becauseit was such a big case and that
went on for years.
And while I was working therewith the barristers and they
said, well, senior counsel andjunior counsel, they said, well,
what do you want to do next?
And I said I want to go to thebar and I want to do family and
criminal law because you knowI'd grown up on Rumpole and LA
(14:17):
law and all that stuff.
That's where it was interesting.
And the junior barrister lookedat me and he goes you mix with
all the wrong sort of people andthey never pay their bills.
He said, if you do corporatelaw, no one dies and everyone
pays.
And so then I went into consult.
After that I went into workwith one of the big consulting
(14:38):
groups and this was just whenthe major investment had started
.
So this idea that there's awhole new compliance for managed
schemes and all these bits andpieces and that was my
introduction to that I neverimagined ever that I would go
into compliance.
I didn't even know what it was.
It's one of those industrieswhich it has a name and people
(15:00):
think they know what it is, butit's one of those things that
has a multitude right.
It could be anything you reallywant it to be, and that's one
of the advantages and thedisadvantages of working in
compliance is everyone thinksthey understand what it is, but
no one can actually articulatein a way that makes sense.
So, from a service provider,it's great because what you find
is when you start working withpeople on what is ostensibly a
(15:23):
very simple job, once you buildthat relationship of trust, then
it moves across things andyou're dealing with marketing
and business plans and sometimesrecruitment and all those bits
and pieces.
You're there just as a trustedsource, not driving things, but
guiding the decision makers, andthat's a really useful and
(15:46):
needed function in our industry.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
And also you say guiding, but it's also
influencing because, like yousaid, when I first worked in
financial advice, my old bossand I won't mention this
person's name would say you knowcompliance they don't get.
You know they don't get reallife.
You know they just tick boxes.
You know we need to becommercial, we need to make
money.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Yes, and that's true, but so do the compliance people
.
But the compliance people arealso motivated to make sure that
the business is sustainable.
There's no client detriment.
I remember I used to work for abig licensee and I was the RM
and I set the policies and oneof the policies I set was the
gearing policy, so borrowing toinvest.
(16:27):
So there was no double gearing,so you couldn't borrow money
and then borrow against it toleverage your investment and the
maximum amount you could borrowwas 70%.
Well, at the time I was in myoffice in Sydney and I had
people come down.
The head of one of the dealergroups, the head of margin
lending and my boss would allcome to me and explain to me.
(16:48):
You know I was in the wrong.
I had to change the position.
I was holding them back frombusiness.
They were trying to competewith a big business in North
Queensland and they justcouldn't possibly do it with
these restrictive policies.
Yeah, and there's pressure allthe time, but the reality is
that, as I said to them, youknow a 20% fall in share market
(17:08):
value when you're double gearedis 100% loss of capital and
there is no director of the bankwho wants to be chased down the
street by a current affair.
Yeah Right, so we're not doingit Now.
I still got all that pressurefor a long period of time, but
what happened was when Stormfell over and it exposed
everything.
What was interesting is not.
One of them came back and saidyou know what?
You're right, thank you verymuch.
(17:30):
It was just forgotten about andthat's part of the lot of
compliance people is it'sinfluence, but sometimes
maintaining a position againstpressure, and that's a challenge
.
There's a compliance manager weused to work with who used to
say that a good compliancemanager will not be in their job
any longer than three years,because after three years their
(17:56):
licensee or their employeeshould get rid of them because
they've done everything.
They've either built everythingand everything's working fine,
or they're not achievinganything, so they should be
shifting around more frequently.
So a compliance manager who'sin a job for 20 years it's
probably going to be largelyineffective.
And when you look at the ASICreport on the institutional
licensees, what did they find isthat all these employed
(18:18):
compliance people werehopelessly ineffective because
they weren't calling anythingout, because it wasn't in their
interest to do so, so theywouldn't even criticise you
because you could have a word totheir boss and that could
impact their progress andwhatever else, and that's.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
I guess there's a bit of an internal conflict.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
That's incredible and that's why external businesses
like ours work so effectively.
It's because we're engaged todo a job.
We'll do a job, and I alwayssay to our clients if you don't
like my advice, don't hire meagain.
Yeah Right, this is how we doit.
We're not.
We have to survive on ourreputation.
We stand behind our advice, westand behind our clients, but
that means we're going to tellyou if you're doing something
(18:55):
wrong, yeah, and if you don'twant to listen, that's fine,
that's on you, but it's not.
You know, that's not how itworks.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
So I've got listening to what you've said in the last
10 minutes or so.
I've got a good understandingof what makes it.
You know what skills make agreat compliance or risk person.
So what do you think the mostimportant skills are in being
great at?
You know risk and compliance,yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Or managing risk and compliance.
And it's interesting because,you know, the reason I was
talking to you earlier was I'vehad some incredible bad hires.
You know incredibly bad hiresbecause one of the things I
always look for is that I alwayslike to work with people I've
worked with before, which, again, is the classic blind spot,
because you don't questionthings that you should be doing.
(19:42):
And this is the great thingabout using an external
recruiter as a general principleis that they will see through
the blind spots that you can'tsee right.
And often you know have youdone reference checking?
Have you done?
Oh, they're a good guy, I knowthem, you know, and that's
incredible.
So what do I look for in goodpeople?
One is cultural alignment.
(20:03):
Do they get what you're talkingabout?
If you're interviewing acompliance person, someone who
wants to work in compliance andbecause I like following
checklists, then there's nopoint.
Yeah, because the law and thelegislation and the regulation
is evolving faster than mostpeople can cope with.
So you need people who arereally good on their feet, who
(20:31):
can think contextually, who canthink commercially and who can
find solutions, because that'sthe job of a compliance person
is to find a solution.
Sure, identify problems, butthen how do we fix it?
How do we avoid it happeningagain?
How do we mitigate the damagehere?
How do we put the client backin the position they should be
in?
So you need people who arecreative people and often when
you talk to advisors, they go.
You don't want creative people.
That's exactly who you want andyou need.
Need people, people, right,Because there's no point knowing
(20:53):
what needs to be done if youcan't communicate it.
And we saw this a couple ofyears ago in the banks where
they, in their insurancedivision, they brought in all
these new graduates and so theSOAs that were going out were
excellent.
They were fantastic, detailed,had everything in there.
There were no sales because thegraduates lacked the ability to
(21:14):
connect with the clients, sothey wouldn't challenge them or
raise any issues.
They'd just have thatconversation with them, go back
and then churn out an SOA thatdidn't resonate with the client
and didn't really identify theissues.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah, it's interesting you say that because
quite regularly we hear fromour clients around you know very
technical, very smart peopleespecially with the increase in
education requirements forfinancial advisors but lack the
ability to build rapport withtheir clients the EQ to
understand the client.
So, as part of the, you know,I'm a committee member for the
(21:48):
FAAA and we're running an eventin the coming months, hopefully
before this gets publishedaround how do you engage your
client better, how do youunderstand your client and how
do you get them to actuallytrust you, and what are the key
skills?
Speaker 2 (22:02):
to do that.
So we've published a lot ofstuff on that particular issue,
which is how do you driveengagement as an advisor?
Because it's one of thosereally challenging jobs, because
it requires such a high levelof intimacy so quickly and you
can't force it.
And yet if you don't get theright level, then the advice is
going to be inappropriate andyou're going to do a disservice
(22:26):
to your client but, moreimportantly, expose yourself and
your employer to risk, andthat's if you get to that point
right you need to actually getthe client to engage.
But you can even fall overbefore that happens, right?
So that whole engagement and thepre-engagement process and the
discovery process is often nottalked about, and when you talk
to advisors about it, they go oh, it's just compliance, no, no,
(22:47):
no, it's the whole sales process, right?
This is where, when you thinkabout what we're talking about,
it's about understanding theclient and their needs.
Yeah, and whether you want tosell something to them or advise
them or to support them or tomeasure appropriateness, you
need to understand what that is.
And so this is where thatdiscovery process the ability to
(23:08):
sit down with clients to getthe information you need, to get
the relevant information andalso to explore those comments
they make which might get in theway of your sales process.
Sometimes clients will saysomething and you'll move on to
the next piece, and this is whya lot of really good advisors,
when they'll do the discoveryprocess, they'll have two people
(23:29):
there, or they'll now use AI inthe background to record what's
going on, because it's veryhard to be present and talk to
someone and then keep reallydetailed notes you can use for
compliance later on.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
I know that's my job trying to remember everything
and writing notes so we use anAI tool as well for our
engagements with clients andcandidates.
So maybe if someone wanted towork in compliance that might
not be in compliance or risk atthe moment, what advice that's?
(24:00):
You know someone that's maybequite young, maybe at university
.
What advice would you give themand what learnings have you had
over your journey?
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Okay.
So the advice I'd give isprobably this is that I spoke to
a group of grads recently and Isaid find something you enjoy
and, you know, throw yourselfinto it.
And one of them said well,that's probably a high bar to
find something you enjoy.
Why not just find somethingthat is going to allow you to
get through the day.
You're not going to killyourself if you're doing the job
.
Yeah, going to allow you to getthrough the day.
(24:30):
You're not going to killyourself if you're doing the job
.
When I talk to graduates now,I'm talking about well, don't
worry about what you expect thejob to be about.
Right, if you're coming out ofuniversity, you're going to have
skills, hopefully to think andcommunicate, whatever else and
they are broad-ranging skills.
You know, one of thedifficulties is you become too
specialised because careers arechanging all the time.
(24:52):
Like you, one of thedifficulties is becoming too
specialised because careers arechanging all the time.
You've done financial planningyou've probably done a range of
different things over your timeas well is that we have to
reinvent ourselves periodically.
So, if you're a new graduate, ifyou're creative and you like
dealing with people and you likealmost the architect of the
framework issues about how do wetweak things and how do we do
things.
If you've got an inquiring mindand an abiding curiosity,
(25:14):
that's compliance, and I'd reachout to firms like ours and say
I'd like to work on this.
I've really got a good ideaabout analytics and indexes and
whatever.
Whatever it is like.
Um, obviously, we've got areally uh strong tech focus, so
we do a lot of that developmentas well.
There's a whole broad range ofskills, and possible compliance
is that it's just understandingwhat that opportunity is and
(25:37):
wanting to go for it, and mostpeople in compliance didn't wake
up when, when our kids say Iwant to be in compliance, right,
it's an industry that'sdeveloped over the last 30 years
and so we've all developed withit so I'm mindful of time.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
I really love this conversation, but I think we're
at about 25 minutes of work hereto work.
So where do I've seen itpersonally where people that now
work in compliance come from,but maybe where you share some
just a high-level, quick coupleof minutes around some people
you have in your team and whattheir background is.
(26:10):
So it gives an idea of maybeyou know, maybe you might be
working in a client services ata financial planning firm, or
maybe you might be working inyou know family law and you
realise I'm sick of my clientsnot paying me.
So where does some of your youknow, your great team members
come from and what's theirbackground?
Speaker 2 (26:27):
So unsurprisingly, some of them have come from
compliance and that people haveworked with over a long period
of time.
So you know, when you've workedwith someone over 10 to 12
years, you probably got a goodidea.
But a lot of the others thathave joined since about 2015, I
haven't had that directrelationship with and some of
them have come fromnon-compliance roles.
(26:48):
So one of our best coaches hewas in advising right and he was
a bit burnt out and so he cameand just decided he wanted to
work with us while he worked outhis garden leave or whatever
was required there.
I don't want to do this, butit's a short-term thing and
whatever else.
And then he realised how muchmore satisfying it was than
(27:12):
being an advisor, because you'rehaving a direct impact and a
direct connection with somebody.
And that's where he said well,the real value of being able to
improve advice and ensure peoplegot really good advice outcomes
by working with the providersand coaching them.
And one of the things we do is,after we do the reviews, we
(27:32):
survey every advisor.
We don't ask them whether theyenjoyed the review, because you
know no one enjoys beingcriticised at all.
Yeah, of course, but did Ilearn from it?
Did the reviewer identifythings that I wasn't aware of?
Has it improved my practice?
Is it going to make me a betteradvisor?
That type of thing.
And those scores are over thetop.
(27:52):
And what's more interesting isthat often, when I try to look
at the correlation between that,I often think that when people
give really good feedback, it'sbecause they got a really good
report, like if I come in andsay you're the most awesome
person I've ever met.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Yeah, five stars, thumbs up you know great, yeah,
it's interesting because youknow, sometimes I'm very mindful
of time, but sometimes, youknow, when I give advice, I'm
very transparent and my job isto.
I can't get everyone a job, butI can help everyone that I
speak to and sometimes, you know, people are very receptive to
feedback and and sometimespeople aren't, so you know, but
I think one of the the lessonI've learned from this is that
(28:28):
the people who most often getthe bad results because they
need the feedback and thesupport they respond most
brilliantly to it.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Because being an advisor in a lot of places is
pretty lonely.
You don't get a lot of supportfrom your licence.
You've got PD days, maybe oncea quarter, but when you've got
questions or just interactions,you just don't have it right.
You're expected to do it allyourself and it's really complex
and it's intimidating and it'schallenging.
And I think when they get thatfeedback to say here's what
(29:00):
you've done wrong, here's howyou can get better, they
appreciate it and they learnfrom it and they get better.
And that's been the greattestament to the resilience of
the financial planning industry.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Yeah, and obviously you know you're in the coaching
game.
I'm in the coaching game too,to a degree, and the people that
you are actually able to helpand give that and they can use
that to become betterprofessionals, they will never
forget you.
They'll thank you for life.
So, and I guess that you know,this conversation's been great
and I love to keep talking, butI'm extremely mindful of time.
So, sean, thank you very much.
(29:36):
Thank you for the opportunityFor coming in today to our
Sydney office and recordingstudio and, you know, if anyone
wants to, you know, use yourservices, we'll obviously
connect you, connect the teamonline.
So thank you very much for thatand it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Thank you for the opportunity.
It's been fun.
Thank you Sorry.
I should warn you I talk toomuch.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
No, that was good.
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