AN ACCOUNTANT EXPANDING INTO FAMILY OFFICE

This podcast is going to:

• Get insights from a qualified accountant about why explore Family Office
• The pathway from employee at Sunshine Coast to multi-family office in Brisbane
• Leanings to date of selling and delivering a Family Office to a client.

Chris Davey is a qualified Accountant, father of his 3-year-old son, Nikita and overall good person. Chris approached me circa one year ago to assist with Family Office coaching and I’m pleased to say, he has his first client with second looking very likely any day.

Chris, hullo, welcome and thank you for your time and agreeing to share your journey into Family Office.

• How did you go from a safe and secure job as an Accountant on the Sunshine Coast to selling your first Family Office?
• How’s the home life with the change?
• What would you say was the hook for you to explore Family Office?
• Any regrets?
• How hard has it been grasping Family Office?
• Do you think that you could achieve this own your own?
• Your second client looks likely to be onboarded any day, how different was it to receive the lead passed over to you from me?
• What learnings would you gift our audience if they are considering putting their toe in the water with regards Family Office?

Lessons learnt: Knowing what you know now, what are the things you wish you had learned earlier in your career?

What is the best way for anyone in the audience who wishes to contact you, discuss some Family Office coaching, refer a client?

NEW ADVISOR TO FAMILY OFFICE, HOW HAS IT BEEN?

Cody Harmon, Cruz Family Office walks us though his pathway to being a Family Office adviser.

He shares the nuggets about what he has learnt to date along with the good, bad and the ugly.

We both hear and feel the light-bulb moment where he made the decision to move to Family Office from Financial Planning.

Cody provides his counsel to anyone listening if they are pondering whether or not to put their toe in the water and explore Family Office.

What would he have done differently on his journey?

WHAT IS IT LIKE FOR AN ACCOUNTANT WORKING WITH MULTI FAMILY OFFICE?

• The difference in experience for a qualified accountant in the day-to-day dealings with clients to that of dealing with a Family Office.
• If you’re a qualified accountant, should or shouldn’t you broaden your service offering to include Family Office?
• What’s it like to experience the synergy and collaboration of a Family Office Management Team?

WHAT ARE THE ATTRIBUTES OF A FAMILY OFFICE CLIENT?

What traits you need to look for when deciding on the suitability of a Family Office client for your business.

At Generational, we identify the following attributes or we don’t proceed with the family as a client. • No. 1: Delegators • No. 2: Time poor • Pride in establishing a legacy | purpose • A desire to make a difference to the betterment of others • Seeking security for what and who is important to them • Are interesting people - living and people are more important than money • Value integrity • Social inclusion - committed to playing a role in empowering individuals to participate as fully as possible in society • Enjoy simplicity and freedom that comes from having all their financial issues under the watchful eye of a corporate trusted advisor • A necessity to hear the truth • Value the collaboration of professionals working together for their purpose; and • Appreciation of time saving and reduction of grief that Management Team meetings provide.

Why selecting the wrong prospect hurts? • The capacity of your business will be eroded with a relationship that both parties don’t want to be in • You can’t undo a family office easily nor quickly • At Generational our success to date has been 100% aligned, engaged and wonderful clients – this is no luck. If you have ANY doubt, don’t proceed • My three G’s of business | life: Grateful | Grumpy | Greedy (you don’t want your business, yourself, your family nor your staff dealing with a greedy client

Referrals: there’s a difference between grateful and thankful • A Patriarch &/or Matriarch who are: o happy with living their lives, having created a legacy; and o knowing that their eulogy will be aligned with what their values and purpose will be GRATEFUL and your best referrers

• A client being thankful is nice, cute, and financially rewarding but well short of the emotional beauty and richness of a grateful client.

Being grateful is about appreciating what one has (this is a Family Office client), as opposed to what one wants (a prospect who wants what a Family offering delivers but doesn’t want to pay for it) Being thankful implies thanks for something that someone has given you (this is typically a transactional-based relationship).

A FINANCIAL PLANNER'S FIRST FAMILY OFFICE EXPERIENCE

Co-host is Nat Daley, Financial Adviser & Managing Partner at Hard-Line Wealth (Coolangatta, Queensland). Nat is a gentleman, a father to young Lenny Jean, husband, and someone I respect. He certainly punches above his wait in the financial planning sector.

Nat is in the process of adding Family Office to the service offering of Hard Line Wealth.

Recently, Nat was a guest of our largest Family Office, Management Team meeting so he could experience the reality, not the theory of what goes on. Nat answered the below questions:

• The difference in experience and offering between being a financial planning, and a Family Office client
• If you’re a financial planner, should or shouldn’t you broaden your Financial Planning offer or take a leap of faith and explore Family Office and why?
• What’s it like to experience a Family Office Management Team?
• What is it that excites you about having Family Office clients?
• What have your observed to be the key differences between being a high-end Financial Planning | Private Wealth client and being a Family Office client?
• Knowing what you know now, would you recommend to the financial planners listening to this episode, that they broaden their Financial Planning offer or take a leap of faith and explore Family Office and why?
• What advice would you give our audience if they are weighing up whether to put their ‘toe in the water’ and looking at becoming a multi-family Office?
• After your experience of sitting in on the Management Team of our largest Family Office, how (or has) this changed how you deal with prospects & existing financial planning clients?
• In your career, have you come across, or experienced, a similar offering to Family Office?

WHY ADD FAMILY OFFICE TO YOUR SERVICE OFFERING?

What levers do you currently have, or use, to stop the loss of your key clients?

Here are the only two that I observe financial planners use: 1) Lower the price? 2) Stager services, conversations &/or the implementation of the services

It becomes very difficult to keep justifying the same fee or payment every year given you have already been paid to implement what was recommended | needed in your Statement of Advice.

Why add Family Office to your service offering?

1) You will have a clear point of difference 2) Engagement, engagement, engagement is not tomorrows story, it was not yesterday’s story and it will remain the ONLY thing you have to remain relevant. Professionalism and care are a given but engagement is the no. 1 item on every research item that I read on client dissatisfaction 3) Currently the discussions | solutions | recommendations revolve around goals, objectives, performance, and inheritance, whereas a Family Office implemented (via coaching from Generational), moves every conversation to legacy (this is an incredibly powerful and enduring competitive advantage) 4) Marketing rule 101 is to seek an SCA (a sustainable competitive advantage). Very, very, very few businesses ever achieve this goal and as such, it always remains an ideology. Adding Family Office to your service offering delivers you a sustainable competitive advantage 5) Your business will be the envy of your peers as they deal in a crowded sector with reducing revenue per client 6) Increased revenue per client per annum (or at your discretion, leave the pricing as is and add value) 7) Sustainable engagement via discussions that involve emotional intelligence not transactions 8) A further 3 generations of sustainable income 9) Unique, pre-qualified, high price point leads

FASEA Code of Ethics

• It is now very, very clear, that commissions | fees | payments from all sources are under severe scrutiny, especially from a 3rd party • The code of ethics is going to impact on businesses that rely on revenue from 3rd party referral arrangement • Implementing Family Office to your service offering, not only replaces such income but will surpass it

HOW MANY HOURS P.A FOR HOW MUCH INCOME?

• When it comes to pricing, is it a fixed price per annum and then adjust the hours to suit the price OR is it the hours and then establish the price (like and Accountant | Lawyer)?
• 36 is the number of hours p.a per Family Office.
• How does controlling the hours work? The format I utilise and strongly recommend to my coaching clients, is to capture items in an Agenda. This Agenda is disbursed to the Management Team at a certain time, in a format and the hours of the meeting is capped to 2 hours. Depending on location, travel or not, style of meeting (virtual, face to face etc.) and other variables, you will generally have 2 to 3 meetings p.a to ensure the total (inclusive of ALL the back-office admin ‘stuff’) no. of hours p.a = 36 p.a per Family Office client.
• What is the maximum number of Family Office clients you can service? The number is 26
• Are you currently earning $286,000 p.a, working 40 weeks a year, 4 days a week and 6 hours a day = $305 an hour?