#391 Renae Vercoe – Transcript

James Wrigley
Hello, I’m back for another episode. I’m James Wrigley. Today, I’ve got the pleasure of Renae Vercoe joining me from money mode or your businesses called Money mode. Renae, thank you for joining me today could have a chat with you.

Renae Vercoe
Thanks, James. It sounds Yeah, it’s great to be out to have a chat with you. And thanks for having me on.

James Wrigley
It’s been a little while since we’ve had chat anyway, as you’re saying may as well, ah, have a catch up and record the podcast at the same time. So don’t make that much money mode. As the name itself is interesting. Work with where’s the name money mode come from? Does it have some particular meaning to or?

Renae Vercoe
Yeah, yeah, good question. Because I agonized over, you know, my business day when I set my business up, you know, a few years ago, and, um, for me, it came about, like, I sort of, you know, I felt that the money conversation needed to be on the table, like, it’s like, we all work in finance and personal finance, and dealing with people’s money day to day, but like, it’s almost like money’s this secret language. So I was like, you know, part of my philosophy is really yeah, having that money conversation on the table and being really upfront about it. So I was like, Well, I’m gonna put money in my business name. And mode was really, you know, the way you know, the way that you use it can be different for every person. So it’s more about like money in your motive, if you like, because also my you know, big belief sort of system is that money is there to support people in the way that they want to live their lives, there’s lots of different ways you can get to that destination of where they want to get to, but really, the ultimate goal is to be able to, you know, help people support their lifestyle in the way that, you know, they want to be living it. So money serves that purpose to be able to do that.

James Wrigley
Interesting story. Good. So how long have you had the business for LM? Have you been operating?

Renae Vercoe
So officially? I think it’s nearly five years, but I haven’t long already. Yeah, it has been, I haven’t sort of been actively working in it until probably the last three years. So I’ve got two young children. So I started, actually started the business after returning to well, you know, sort of returned from maternity leave with my first child. And that’s sort of when I decided to, you know, sort of go into starting a business. And then I had my second child, and he was really unwell when he was born. So I spent quite a lot of time in hospital, and that really put, you know, sort of things in the business on hold. So it’s sort of been, yeah, probably the last couple of years that I’ve really been, you know, back into the swing of things.

James Wrigley
Yeah. Yeah. And your son’s letter. Yes. He’s great

Renae Vercoe
now. Really good. So yes, that was a certainly a bumpy ride in those early days. So he had sort of major heart problems when he was born. But they’ve miracles of medicine these days. He’s Yeah, he’s really good.

James Wrigley
Good. It’s good to hear. And so So prior to starting, I guess, prior to maternity leave, if you started after maternity leave with the first child. Yeah, we’re doing before that.

Renae Vercoe
Yeah. So I’m, I’m coming well, just over 20 years in financial services, which is showing my age, but when I, I sort of, I did a bachelor’s degree in commerce when I sort of went to uni, and I didn’t really know what I like most young people you don’t know what you want to do when you when you grow up. But I’d always done really well in accounting and maths and sort of, you know, sort of followed that pathway through and that’s why I ended up doing a commerce degree, but still not really knowing what I wanted to do. And I was studying at Deakin Uni, and they just introduced the financial planning as a like sub major of their finance theme. So I was sort of one of the first ones to go through that. And as soon as I started, like, this is honest to God, as soon as I started studying it, I was like, this is exactly what I wanted to wanted to do. I just knew straightaway that that was the space I wanted to get into. I think just knowing that you could actually impact an individual’s lives in an individual’s life was really a powerful thing for me to go through. And then so, but it was really hard to get your foot in the door in financial planning. 20 years ago, sorry, I did start out in accounting, and then, you know, eventually made some contacts and went into a small, one man, sort of shop out in East Berlin. But that was a really great experience, because he was a great advisor who just really genuinely cared about his clients. So it was a great, you know, it was a great intro to financial planning. I then went on to work as an advisor with one of the big banks, which was an experience as well, great training crowds, but not, you know, not sort of something where my values really aligned with, you know, sort of how that played out. And then I moved into a firm that was called wh k. So which became, you know, a number of other businesses that went along, but that was really and accounting, financial planning, self managed Superfund finance firm, and I had a loan, you know, and the variations of that business as it went through. So I had a long period of time working for them as an advisor, and then into sort of operations strategy into the, you know, head office in, in sort of, and then into practice management there.

James Wrigley
All right. And so who so who are you? So you’ve, you’ve had a couple of different businesses that you’ve worked in, I suspect, through that process worked out who you do like to work with who you don’t like to work with? You just spoke about aligning with your values around the name. So who is it that you’re that you tend to be working with now in your, your current business or your clients? Yeah, good?

Renae Vercoe
That’s a great question. So I’ve been a female advisor, and I’ve probably bought a bit of a female voice too. You know, in the way I, you know, sort of talk about financial planning, my brand colors are all pinks, and all that sort of thing, which is, you know, so I am attracting a lot of female clients. So I’ve got, you know, I do have some males as well, but a predominantly attracting male, don’t just say her female clients say those, you know, I’ve got a whole range, those people are widows, divorcees. And it ranging in from, you know, sort of the empty nesters to, you know, to younger families and to retirees. So I’ve got a full breadth, which is what I enjoy are like, the, you know, the different types of clients to work with, I think, for me, what what, and this is probably, you know, I’m sure we’ll get to this, but one of my probably big frustrations with the industry, which I know, a lot of advisors feel is that there’s because the cost to produce advice is so high. The cost to, you know, for clients to, you know, to get that advice is also high. So often, it’s the high net worth clients that, you know, that ended up being seen by advisors, because they’re the ones that can afford it. And typically, you know, I guess that’s, you know, those who are often in their retirement or really high income earners, or, you know, heading towards retirement. So, you know, I try and I like to be able to help people sort of at least 10 years out from retirement, I think you make a really big impact in that space. But that might lead us into talking about my money road school as well.

James Wrigley
So we’re so but how are you? So I, you know, I remember a conversation that I had with you years ago about this idea of kind of some businesses set up in a way where it’s almost like you’re renting the rich guys money charging fees. This comment that you made that stuck with me for feet for years? I don’t even know if you remember making it but it’s it did. It stuck with me ever since. I guess I you, are you engaging with people that aren’t the really rich high income earners, the wealthy clients, where most financial advisors seems to have had a choice? There’s a few businesses that are that are doing other things, but are you working with those that maybe don’t have the income or don’t have the assets? And how are you providing advice to them? What are you doing with the motors? Yeah, it’s

Renae Vercoe
very, yeah, yes, and no, and I think this is where, you know, because it does get to that cost benefit point, you know, like, with what you have to charge to be able to provide that one on one personalized advice, which is my big frustration with the, with the industry, which I know, a lot of us have, but it is yeah, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense. But I you know, and that’s really where I’ve been sort of brought in this part into my business, which is education based. And being able to help provide the education know how to the those, those you know, that class I guess, of clients or society so that, then they can at least go about doing something before them and know when to go and get the advice that they need. But at least that they’re getting some support before they’re ready to, you know, to take that advice step.

James Wrigley
Yeah. You mentioned before your, your pink of colors and your branding and when I follow your, your business Instagram page, and and it’s like it’s really polished. It’s really it does a lot of looks like a lot of care. And that thought has gone into that. Is that all is that all you did you work with someone is someone that does, yeah, yeah. Let’s see graphics and things like how’s that all work? Yeah,

Renae Vercoe
a bit of both. So I was very, very fortunate that I’ve got a cousin that has a marketing firm, and they really sort of helped me get off the ground ground. And in terms of my branding, and yeah, I mean, the look and feel of my business, I sort of went to them and said, I just want something completely different to the rest of the industry. I don’t want any blue, I don’t want any sort of masculinity, about my branding at all, I want it to be really. Yeah, soft and feminine. And, and just something that doesn’t look like the typical, you know, financial services firm. But that was a very specific kind of request to them make it fun and feel good. And, and it wasn’t, it wasn’t necessarily to be, you know, anti masculinity. It was also, I wanted to make finance more exciting and digestible and fun. And, you know, because we kind of look at, you know, this is probably five years ago, and you look at, you know, how being the Instagram, I mean, it still is, but it was at that time, and everyone’s sort of scrolling pretty things. And it’s like, well, let’s make something pretty that’s like, hopefully going to stop people in their tracks and get them a little bit excited about personal finance,

James Wrigley
that has that, from from a business building perspective is that like, as Instagram been successful for you, like would work with clients

Renae Vercoe
been hugely successful for me, it’s blown me away actually always had the idea that it could be, but until you kind of try it out, you don’t really know. And look in the early days. Certainly, my clients, you know, few came from word of mouth, but I’ve, I’ve got a lot of clients that have come to me from Instagram, and I’ve never, I’ve never said book an appointment with me or direct marketed by my Instagram channel, it’s all been about, you know, trying to share, you know, my, you know, my message is sort of coming across and provide education and that sort of thing. But yeah, I’ve had a lot of clients come from that channel, and also the money mode school that I run, uh, you know, that’s, that’s the beach, I guess, you know, place where, where students come from on there as well. So yeah, it’s been really successful. Part of my marketing lenses

James Wrigley
are good. Guinea, obviously mentioned money mode, school. And so before we started recording, I was really interested in what that is how it came about, like what you do. So can you can you talk us through your what you call

Renae Vercoe
me? Yeah. Yep, sorry, it’s some, I think that I would say, That’s my big passion project. And when, you know, one of the, I guess, drivers when I, you know, sort of started my own business was, was wanting to, to, you know, one of the immediate things I wanted to do was to create this education, you know, platform, if you like, or, you know, resource for people. But it’s a hard gig when you first start out, because you don’t have an audience to, you know, to tell about. So that’s why it’s been, you know, it’s been a number of years, I guess, in the making and building up. Yeah, building up people in my community that, you know, I guess, is the best way to put it. But it really, you know, if I look back, it was something that I’d always, you know, for a number of years, thought was a great opportunity to do. To be able to help people, I saw a massive gap in our industry, like, it was just sitting back and watching, you know, I think watching the Barefoot Investor phenomenon, just really highlighted and then as we talked about, before, the cost of advice as I go see this massive gap, so everyone’s buying this personal finance book, millions of people to read to understand what to do with their money to, and most of us advisors would look at that and go, Oh, how does not How does everyone not know these, you know, basic concepts, then you start talking to your friend groups and all the rest of it. And particularly for me, also that experience of being on maternity leave and going back to work, like I had got myself in a well thought out position where I could choose when I wanted to go back to work and how many days and the rest of it whereas a lot of my peers around me who are well educated in good jobs, and you know, what you would perceive as reasonably financially well established, were forced back to work because they couldn’t, you know, sort of keep up with their lifestyle. So it was sort of, it’s like, there was this huge gap around, you know, just the basics for people could see that with all the millions of people buying this book. And then there was nothing in between to financial advice for 1000s of dollars. So in a sort of, that’s where my sort of passion came around with creating the money mode school was to kind of be able to find a sort of middle ground to that fair to give people a bit more support than the basics of a book. And to be able to educate them and have a place where they can ask questions and get support and help but to really kind of, yeah, build their financial knowledge, their financial literacy, get some of the basic foundations in place. so that they’re, you know, they’re able to, yeah, get better at their personal finances.

James Wrigley
So can you talk us through? Like the structure of it? Is that like, units that they do? Like, what does it actually look like?

Renae Vercoe
Yeah, sure it so. So firstly, I mean, the reason I’ve called it the money road school again, is because, you know, it’s sort of like money’s not taught at school. So this is the place where you can come and learn about all the things that you you never learned. And so it’s really follows three key phases. So the first, and so there’s a number, I think there’s over 30 online lessons on there. So they have, you know, there’s written content with those like little workbooks, there’s video tutorials that they can work through. So it’s, yeah, as I said, it’s set up in three phases. And the first phase is really about foundations. So, you know, cash flow, making sure you’ve got, you know, your worst case plan catered for you got emergency funds, you know, an overview of what insurances are all about, like, it’s education based, of course, estate planning, you know, debt and navigating all of those sorts of things. So it’s really is the basic foundations, and then the middle module, middle sort of section or talk a lot about money mindset, this year around the psychology of money, touching on our money stories, and, and the importance of, you know, really sort of thinking about your values and creating your life plan, that then allows you to create your goals, because that’s, you know, as I sort of said, at the start my big philosophies, I think the money side of things, is there to underpin your life plan. So we spend a lot of time sort of in the middle of talking about that. And then the last section is like really, like, you know, educational content around building your wealth. So covering the basics of investing the basics of superannuation, and you know, what retirement looks like, in Australia?

James Wrigley
Yeah. Yeah. And so is that is that you hosting, like webinars with the students that are enrolled? And you’re in? Yeah, following a course? Or, or is it some portal that they just get access to all of these resources

Renae Vercoe
to say the nuts and bolts of it is a portal with the ready made content in there, but I do. So I’m running people through actually a six month program at the moment. So we’d started out as three months. And it’s just because it’s such a big piece of work. We just found that, you know, people needed a longer period of time to do it, so people can work through it at their own pace. But in that six month period, I’m providing like a monthly, a monthly kind of masterclass if you like, in there, and then we have a monthly like, q&a. So whereas they can, you know, bring their questions and I can sort of add to their questions and all that sort of thing live, and I record those for the people that can’t make it, and then they can just watch those on replay. And I’ve got had some guests come in from time to time as well, who will run you know, sort of special master classes. So I’ve had an estate planning lawyer, a life coach, the sort of the different, different topics that sort of tie in, but that might not be my expertise.

James Wrigley
And so the sort of the monthly webinars or so that that’s keeping a pretty particular pace through the Yes, yes, we journey. Yeah. And then around that, there’s all the other resources that you’ve written up so people can,

Renae Vercoe
yeah, and I sort of got a workbook that they work through, you know, it’s sort of like a pathway to financial independence, if you like it, sort of giving them the tools to build their own financial plan along the way, but very much point out to them, the areas where, you know, this is an area where you might need advice, but at least they’ve kind of got some of the background knowledge when they go and speak to an advisor, whether that’s me or someone else, about, you know, what they what they need to have thought about or what you know, what they might be looking for, because often people you know, that don’t have a lot of it, because that’s a real barrier to advice. I think, too, because you don’t kind of know what you don’t know. So, yeah, so I want to sort of break that down as much as possible as well.

James Wrigley
And so there’s people going through the school that pay some particular fee, whatever you charge, charge the school make their way through the six monthly program. What do you find happens with these people at the end today? There’s a proportion of them turn around to you and Zack actually weren’t before bone financial advice now like what? What’s happening? Yeah, it’s

Renae Vercoe
like yes, I’ve had a couple that have done that, that have come through and said, You know, I want to do advice. It might have been a couple that it just want. Scale advice might be like, can we just get some assistance with our insurance insurance? And then I’ve also had others who have said, I want to sit on another round. Because you know, it is a lot to go through, like, you know, when you work with clients one on one, how long it can take, if you’re doing a holistic plan, how long it can take to, you know, support them through getting everything in order. And I feel like that a lot of that work, a lot of those, it’s that first module of all the basics and the foundations that does hold a lot of people up, because it is overwhelming for them to deal with all the you know, a lot of the life admin stuff. Yeah, you know, the investing in whatever is the exciting part of it, people often want to jump straight into, like, let’s just start investing in sci fi got nothing in order over here. And you don’t even know why you’re investing. So you know, we kind of need to go back and sort those things out.

James Wrigley
So how are you is, and this isn’t necessarily people that have come through money mode school, but just in general, what is your engagement with clients look like? What’s your process? If I was a brand new client? And they said, Hey, Rene, I need some help. Like, what? What’s your process look like?

Renae Vercoe
Yeah, probably not very different to yours. You know, I, your client will make an inquiry, I will try and get a bit, well, I’ll get a bit of information from them upfront, they’ll fill out a short questionnaire, we’ll have our first meeting, really sort of trying to flesh out what their, you know, what they’re trying to achieve, or what their goals and their objectives are, and then I’ll go away and put together a short proposal for them. And I’ll send that out to them. In some cases, we’ll get together and just go through the proposal. Because, you know, always want to make sure we can make an impact for them. And then they’re going to, it’s going to be benefiting them getting advice on what sort of benefits they’re gonna get from it. They’ll say, yes, we want to go ahead, and then it’s just working on that normal process will gather a lot of information, have a number of meetings, get to advice, presentation stage, and then, you know, depending on what type of client is will depend on what sort of ongoing service we put in place,

James Wrigley
using any tools to do that, like no, no prefer other podcasts with other advisors talking about the sudden they get really deep into, like the cash flow, cash flow, budgeting, whatever you want to call it, and then they using various apps. Yep. And why prosperity or whatever they might be to a using any of that.

Renae Vercoe
Yeah, so we have been using last prosperity. Yeah, so and that’s been, and again, like some clients really love it. Like, I think the younger clients really kind of love it. It’s, I’ve really had hoped, I suppose that it would become more of a cash flow based thing for clients. But you know, I think once you’ve got your initial cash flow setup, and it’s ticking along, alright, that ongoing monitoring of it’s not really needed. But it has been a great, I guess, front end experience for clients.

James Wrigley
Yeah, I tried. This is going back years ago, before the the likes of WordPress growth. And some of these others are around like, there was a, like a simplified down version of zero, that there’s a few clients for a while in similar to your experience, that there’s only one particular client that getting deep into what they were spending their money on. Yeah, to this client, and they have to, you have to earn X amount of money to pay tax to then pay your gardeners like, you know, you had $15,000 You’re paying in your garden, you’re actually having put in 30,000. They made some massive changes, but But outside of that, aside from this one client, I found that was, yeah, a lot of work for Yeah, not a lot of reward for the client and, and other advisors, and a lot of success in that.

Renae Vercoe
Yeah, look, I find, I think, you know, sort of doing that detailed cash flow and diagnostic work, I suppose in that initial stage can be really important and powerful for people. But I try and stay away from monitoring every dollar on an ongoing basis to sort of and that’s where I, you know, from a cash flow point of view, encourage people to get it and you’ve got to know your numbers, you have to know your numbers to know, you know, what you’ve got to do, but sort of like let’s now then add a bit of a bucket approach for their spending. Yeah, I will give yourself like let’s use their detailed cash flow to set your you know, set your cash flow model app to start with, but then you know, try not to be watching every single dollar that you’re spending because Miss we’re so we want to focus on the big picture, want to focus on that outcome of the goals, too.

James Wrigley
So, you mentioned couple of young young children like how are you operationally how are you running the business? Is it just you on your own? Do you have some type of support like how many days a week you’re working like what what is the Use mislocalized for it.

Renae Vercoe
Yeah. So now because so I’ve got a full time or she’s not full time, actually, she’s three days a week support person who works with me. So that was, that’s been almost 12 months. So it was, you know, I started the business from scratch, I didn’t buy any clients I didn’t, because I hadn’t been in an advisor role for five or so years, I didn’t have clients that, you know, came over with me. So I started from ground zero. So it was, you know, it was like, I wore every single hat in those first couple of years, which was pretty intense at times. But yeah, it got to a position last year where I put on a part time support person, Carrie, who’s was been an absolute game changer for me. And I do outsource little bits here and there. So I do now have someone on and off, that helps me a little bit with my social media, doing some, you know, content and content on my website, newsletters and things like that. And so I just sort of outsource bits and pieces of that. And have, you know, paraplanning support as well. So I, you know, I also because I have got the young kids. And that was a bit of a decision in starting my own business as well as I want to be there for school, drop off in school pick up and be able to, you know, take them to after school activities and be the parent helper in the classroom from time to time. So I try to I try to stick to four days a week. But that can be spread over some nights and weekends. But it gives me flexibility during the day. So yeah, I’m trying to get better at my work life balance every week.

James Wrigley
And it I’ve spoken to a couple of other people that have started their business from scratch someone I was speaking to recently. That is like, really in the in the early stages of starting. How and when do you know when to get that first? Support? You mentioned someone that you’ve been working with your part time now, head? Look, how did you know when to do that? Was it when you thought I had the money in the business to afford it? That was? Yeah, what decisions do come to?

Renae Vercoe
Yeah, for me it was that like I’m, I’m I’m quite conservative, in terms of like business projections and things like that I probably could have bought her on earlier in the in hindsight, having her having someone earlier would have been a lot less stressful for me, but it was so challenging to find someone that’s the other, you know, really challenging to find someone. Um, she’s actually based in Brisbane, I’m in Melbourne. So but you know, so much done online now that it works fine. So for me, it was sort of it was a bit of a financial decision, sort of, like, I’ve got to get to this point before I can, you know, sort of justify putting someone on. But you look back in hindsight and go, I probably could have done it a bit sooner. Yeah. Right. Because it allows you then to see more clients to do, you know, to do more growth activities. But yeah, I, I sort of waited until I was nearly, you know, burnt out easy. Like, yeah, so anyway, so it’s been Yeah, it’s been a great experience having her on board

James Wrigley
and use the recruitment was challenging. We find here if someone, an advisor, Client Services, whatever, whatever leaves, what are we advertising on SQL, what we are advertising for?

Renae Vercoe
I did LinkedIn, I did seek to no avail. And believe it or not found her on Instagram. So say, Yeah, that’s right. So that networks been incredible for me. So another advisor, I, I think I might have posted on there that I was looking for somebody. And I think another advisor knew this person, and yeah, and recommended them. And so it was, yeah, so that kind of blew me away.

James Wrigley
And so what’s next for you? What do you what are you working on next?

Renae Vercoe
Yeah. So I really, really want to, you know, sort of continued to tweak in reprove and grow and develop the money mode school. I think that’s, you know, if I look back, probably was dreaming about that eight to 10 years ago about being able to do something like that one day. But the reality is that, you know, it is it’s a different business model to advice. Like, that’s probably been my biggest learning curve, like course creation and financial advice are two completely different types of businesses. So I would like to, you know, probably get some more support in my business around that side of things and to be able to, you know, to continue to build and, and develop that.

James Wrigley
Yeah, how many people that are getting going through the course.

Renae Vercoe
So I’ve got about 35 through at the minute, going through, so not huge numbers. I’ve done different iterations of the course leading up to this. So this is really my first official round of the money mode school. I had run what I called a Keeks course in the past, which was a lower price point, it was a shorter period. It was a six week course. And it was really around the real sort of cash flow basics and foundation and had much higher uptakes on that, but I just found then they needed something else. And they weren’t they really weren’t ideal. Well, they weren’t ready for advice. So being able to sort of build out the school. So yeah, so I’m getting continue to sort of tweak that and find I don’t think I’ve quite nailed exactly where I, you know, where it needs to be right now. But, yeah, to continue to develop, that would probably be my next focus.

James Wrigley
And I’m sure that’s something that will just continue to evolve over time as Yeah, industry changes as your interests change. I don’t imagine that ever be a point where, hey, my money mode schools finished and you don’t touch it for five years? Yeah. Well, the be tinkering with it all the time. Yeah,

Renae Vercoe
yep. Yep, continuing to do that. And I think, you know, in terms of the advice business, it’s, it’s a really, I’m in a bit of a quandary at the moment about how I move that forward. Because there’s only so much one advisor can take on. And I sort of think, do I take on another advisor? Or do I just sort of CAP my clients, at a certain point, bring on more support staff, but it’s sort of then comes into? Yeah, how I want to grow that forward. So I mean, the over the next few next few years, I need to decide what I want to do with that as well.

James Wrigley
It’s a tough point that to get to, yeah, I work in, because it’s, it’s at the other end of the spectrum. There’s lots and lots of people here, but other friends and colleagues in financial advice, getting to that same point where they’re saying, you know, I’m the one advisor, I’m wearing all the hats. Yes. And I’ve got a bit of support, whether it’s interstate or overseas or sitting next to you. But it’s how do you get what what do you do? Do you just cap it at the one advisor, and just to your hours, and then that’s it or roll the business into something bigger and buys you time to keep doing the things that you want to do, but there’s more people around that can support you? Yeah, for every one, I think.

Renae Vercoe
Yeah, it is. It is. But I think you know, it. It’s just shown to me that there’s there is no shortage of clients out there and people needing advice and support, for sure. So hopefully, we can attract more advisors into the industry when we need to get to be able to do

James Wrigley
that. Good. All right, Renae. Well, thanks for joining me today.

Renae Vercoe
Thanks for having me, James.

James Wrigley
Nice to hear about the money mode school wish you all the best with it.

Renae Vercoe
Thank you. It’s always nice to reflect on the story. And you know, you’re sort of in it every day. So it’s nice to sort of go back and look at the last few years and how it’s all about

James Wrigley
you kind of reflect and appreciate what what you’ve built over time could on Yes, yeah. Well, thanks, Renae.

Renae Vercoe
No worries. Thanks for having me. See you James.