#414 Silvia Wade – Transcript

James Wrigley
Hello, welcome back to another episode. I’m James Wrigley. And I got the pleasure of speaking with Silvia Wade. This afternoon that we’re recording this one on the recording the mornings afternoon. Thanks, Silvia. Thanks for for joining me.

Silvia Wade
Well, thanks, James. It’s a pleasure to be here.

James Wrigley
No, necessarily you you run a you run a business or you have a business called mutual plans or to have an outsourced contract paraplanning businesses that is that right? Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. And what’s what’s the setup that you that you operate under? Like? How many of you who How does it work? Can you can you talk us through the setup that you’ve got?

Silvia Wade
Yeah, sure. I guess I’ll start off from my person well, a bit grander, which is more interesting. So when I was starting my second master’s degree, I was an Investment Analyst in a&p on the casual basis. At that time, my task was to create a to the monitor an indicator for the domestic share market and movements for the investment advisor, so he could, you know, kind of monitor hidden portfolio performance. There won’t be by sitting at the corner in the office, you have actually an advisor for the superannuation field. Yeah. You know, at that time, the unit didn’t teach us no pension, not at all. So I borrowed the education though. Materials from him for so many. Then yeah, after I finished the my two master degrees, which were Masters of Applied Finance, and the master big County, I got my first job as an in house power planner either taught or practiced. For some reason, they positioned me as a self managed super fund para Padma. So probably you could imagine, I’ve started from this fifth decoder, the end, but I didn’t know at that time. And then after a year, ANP merged with charter and the XR I became an a&p centralized power panel. And yeah, I mean, regardless of the big stir public opinions about money and I had to the best paraplanning trading was a&p. Yeah. So

James Wrigley
people, lots of people talk really fondly of of ANP. I think there’s a there’s a difference between the those that worked in their lives like you and you speak highly of your, of your time in your experience there versus what maybe is played out in the media and, and in other places. There’s two different sides, I guess to each story. It’s interesting.

Silvia Wade
Yeah, exactly. The people like myself and the financial advisor in the horizon program. We all appreciate to the training from ANP. That was a variable, you know, for our own personal development and to the career later on. Yeah, yeah. So I stayed in a&p for six years until a mutual pero pani was launched in 2016. Over the last seven years in the business, we have developed into a team of 12 or para Panisse with a combined of 110 years of Parapan experience. I’m pretty proud of my team. We work with 20 Plus licensees at the moment, including a MP of across Wales today, century. Singh, qualm. centerpoint. Wind Alliance, this and I double f, Sr. and other independent licensees. Another steps that I’m proud of about as a team is that we’ve completed almost a Steven shall read the statement advice. And the the auditing fail rate is zero. So we are pretty proud of that to zero record.

James Wrigley
So you’ll see so you’re in Australia and the team’s overseas. Well, all the teams are in Australia, or they’re in Australia. They’re not overseas. Yeah, right. Okay, sorry. I missed. I missed that part yet. Yeah. How do you How did you build the teams that the Toby get off people? That’s it? That’s a pretty decent paraplanning team. How did how did that come up about overtime?

Silvia Wade
Yeah, I guess I started from from myself. And then by referrals from advisors into the network, and, and the fish philosophy we hold as, you know, paraplanning supports. It’s yeah, it’s very good by the advisors. So I guess we were there. We get a lot of new advisors coming to us on the new license days. And we are fortunate, you know, to be approved paraplanner providers in the couple of larger licensees, which help us you know, to get I’m talking with law advisors in the network. Yeah. And we are prophesied to add five financial planning software including exit plan. Prudhoe soft midwinter, Viva logic and divine intelligence.

James Wrigley
That’s a whole lot of money. Is there anything else out there? Wow. Yeah.

Silvia Wade
Well, there are other, you know, plenty of financial planning software like a dash or things 365. It’s, it’s always like one of the questions from advisor to me, is that Cynthia, which is software should I use? Because there are too many options there.

James Wrigley
Yeah. And what do you what do you normally say? How do you how do you respond to that?

Silvia Wade
Well, I guess it’s probably similar to, you know, a device or process. So what are your goals? What do you expect from this software?

James Wrigley
Of course, was I think funny. It’s funny, you say that, I think, you know, there’s a lot of different a lot of different things that come up in, in running a financial advice business, you know, we’re talking about software selection, that can be staff, it can be development plans, and all the rest of it that, that when we’re sitting with clients, it’s all about, you know, what are your goals? What do you want to do? And then we’re kind of help you align the things that you’re doing with what you actually want to do. But we somehow forget that process when it’s trying to select, you know, the financial planning software or trying to help our teams with their development plans that suddenly we forget that process that works so well with clients?

Silvia Wade
Yeah, exactly. Because I always go back to the decision tree, you know, whether you hire a power planner for in house support, or you episodes a power of attorney, because actually, in the last six months or so, that became one of the most frequent ask the question from advisers? I guess, it’s a fair question. But given the tight labor market, you really call me Atsugi. Alma harapan is letting you know, I’m exploring the option whether I should hire a replace the power planner or hire outsource parapente. And again, there’s no universal answer for that. It’s depending on you know, the practice decision tree.

James Wrigley
Yep, isn’t it? And how do you? How do you go about helping someone through that making that decision? You know, obviously, from a business perspective, you’d like them to use your own services, but but I’m sure you know, there’s he can be more helpful that how do you help someone make a decision on whether to rehire an in house planner? Or are they better off just starting in house? paraplanner? Or do they? Are they just using an outsourced services like yours?

Silvia Wade
Yeah, sure. So I usually ask them, okay, what they expect from the paraplanners some of the demos are what have a face to face discussion with the paraplanner. And I want to manage, you know, he know her person I may. So if I go down that path, I think, you know, having an in house power planner might be a better option, because you can manage the person you know, directly. But if the decision tree shows, okay, you want a lower fixed, you know, overhead cost. Maybe outsourcing power panning is an option, because, as far as I know, you gonna pay the recruitment costs around 23k to find suitable paraplanner. And then on top of that, you will pay the annual salary and other obligations. If you engage with outsourcing power pain, you actually transfer the people risk. You know, the the Para panic Carpani? Yep.

James Wrigley
Yep. So where is your c teams in Australia? Are they dotted all around Australia? Like we where does everyone leave where they are working for? Yeah,

Silvia Wade
yeah, sure. So I’m based in Sydney, of course, some paraplanners. In Sydney, we’ve got other paraplanners located every capital city except the Northern Territory. So we have paraplanners in Melbourne, Adelaide, and Queensland and the purse for personal practice. It’s it’s an interesting one because although we are in Australia, there’s a time difference, ya know? Well, how would you was three or three hours difference, you know, between the East Coast and to the west coast city. So the pester power of Hannah works well with a piercer practice because they kind of that they’re talking same time sometimes.

James Wrigley
He was gonna say, do you have to they have to start earlier or later. Like I saw my associate advisor. I’m in Melbourne, my associate advisor lives in Adelaide, and it’s only half an hour difference but but yeah, he works Melbourne time rather than Adelaide time so that we’re both around at the same time. That’s easy enough to do when it’s only half an hour. Not so much when it’s a three hour time. Yes.

Silvia Wade
While we keep an eye out to different times I’ll even in wind. If Queensland, sorry, the power planner works with a purse, a device that they will have considered the time difference in mind. You know, they get up at nine o’clock start to work. Oh, it’s a similar clock, you know, some better to hold off their calls or emails until it’s nine o’clock in Perth. Yeah, otherwise, that advisor is gonna stress that I happen to brush my teeth yet I’ve got emails from my parents, and it’s

James Wrigley
yeah, we’re gonna get into we’re gonna get into hell. There’s been a few announcements, QA AR and video ISOs. And a lot, a lot of different things going on in the in the particular in the paraplanners. world, and how are they feeling which we’ll get to in a second. But I want to go back to you mentioned it in two masters degrees, what, what drove you to do two masters degrees with?

Silvia Wade
I guess, by nature, I like the numbers. Yeah. And I had as this the first master degree, sorry, the master but applied to finance down in Macquarie Uni. It was a very intensive a one year program that we need to do to all the subjects. And then, and then I feel like something’s missing in the numbers, which is accounting. I can’t they have different perspective to the financial planning, you know, the tax than that. That analysis. So I saw, I feel myself for apple with accounting knowledge. Yeah. So yes, I did get a two master degrees.

James Wrigley
And a two. And what did you think you would end up doing at the time in obviously, there, you’ve gone down the paraplanning route and running a business now. But what did you think you would do at the time when you when you had to two masters?

Silvia Wade
I wanted to be a financial planner.

But I was because I’d say this is like a, you know not to last or overnight, you know, role just to start from a Parapan that zero? And then I found Oh, okay, actually, the paraplanners probably are more suitable for myself. As you know, the financial planners have different skill sets. Yes. Although we are very correlated. In the in the advising industry. Yes. So I decided to stay on the parapet position.

James Wrigley
Yeah, it’s interesting, you point out that a lot of people on the outside looking in this our work in financial advice, I want to be a financial adviser. But it’s not until you actually get into this space, that you realize there’s so many other jobs that are available. All in and around the financial advice industry, you don’t have to be a financial advisor, you can be a power planner, you can work as an associate advisor, you can go into business operations and team leadership and an all the rest of it. There’s so many different opportunities. Yeah. Isn’t around the financial advice industry, that’s not necessarily just a financial adviser.

Silvia Wade
Exactly. Yet. You’re gonna know what you are good at.

James Wrigley
Now, we before we press record, we were having a bit of a chat about you know, what, what to talk about and coming up with some ideas and kind of raised this idea of how a power plant is feeling at the moment. So, you know, there’s there’s been this quality of the advice, reforms and so forth. Released a little a little while ago, I’m interested to get you to just sort of cover off on on what does all of that actually mean? What’s going on there and how power pain is feeling now versus how were they feeling when all of this was was going on? Yeah, sure.

Silvia Wade
Well, as you probably know, this saying, you know, there are two certainties in life, death and taxes. And then the Prudhoe software co founder Vincent Holland edited the third one recently in his article, he said financial advice regulation wolcen Bad either for sure. So on paraplanners were worried during the Cuellar review, before the minister was deciding the three streams paraplanners were scared of losing the jobs because of the removing the statement of ice and then after the minister released a stream one, the statement wise gonna change it to fit fit for all purpose documents, and paraplanners are worried again, what does that mean, you all know, to take away my daily job, and that the stick in the strategy is from the artificial intelligence Dr. Chatterjee PT, you cannot ask a chair to GPT to write a strategies, probably we’ll give you a few strategies in a few minutes. For me, that is a bit of a scary, you know, for paraplanners. But as far as I’m concerned, there’s no fear, buddy as a paraplanner. So we have to proactively prepare for the changes. Yeah. You know, financial device is a personal device, that based on the client’s goals, there’s no one size fits all approach. Even if we chatted GPT k, right strategies, it doesn’t have that person, though, you know, any minute in that, you know, kind of beautiful writing. And I think, rather than him being a robotic apparel planner, we should have been more active and be more advanced the AI Power Plan. And because traditionally, writing SOA is all in a power plan, a steady job. But in the world, new world, I think we can, you know, work with advisors more closely, by utilizing our skill with of financial modeling, and the knowledge of strategies in the product, and help the adviser to formulate so that, you know, that advice in a more thorough way. Yeah, yeah. So I think that that is a value, you know, the Power Plan is gonna shine in the new world. Black mutual plans, though we have studied involvements, we see a divisor in their process, including, you know, the devices dispersing the strategy formulation, and the product selection, even if the advisor has decided that strategies, if we see there’s a rule to improve in terms of compliance, or strategies, we will share our opinion. And yeah, it’s a feedback home advisor, that it’s a very variable for them.

James Wrigley
Are you seeing any advisors at the moment that are that are using artificial intelligence chat GPT or whatever? Kind of in conjunction with with the paraplanning services at the moment? Are you seeing any of that going on?

Silvia Wade
Not aware of? I think it’s they are cautious about using the chat GPT? I mean, the artificial edges? Tools. Yeah.

James Wrigley
So so. So do you think there’s a there’s a feeling amongst paraplanners Now that that, you know, final results or so forth, of Cuellar have been headed down yet? Do you think paraplanners are still worried about the future of the longevity of their of their careers? Or what’s

Silvia Wade
happening? Yeah, it still has that feeling. I mean, we are glad to hear the SOA is not going to remove the band. Now. It’s, it becomes a call, you know, the minister called the fit for purpose documents, man, what’s this about, you know, what, included in this new document, so everything is not very 13 at the moment. And again, you know, we’re just guessing, okay, or probably, we should, you know, include this or that, but while waiting for the guidance from them,

James Wrigley
so that I, at least in place, now, business here that whatever that document ends up looking like, and hopefully, it’s nothing like a regular SOA that we are all used to at the moment, at least in our business, the paraplanning team will still be responsible for preparing that document. It’s not so like me or any of the other advisors, we’re planning on having them write that document. So for any paraplanners that are listening or lifting our business and others that I’ve spoken to, I think there’s still there’s still absolutely a job there to be done. It’ll be a different job for sure to be a different document that you’re preparing. But as you said, there’s, you know, there’s an opportunity to to maybe work a little bit more closely with the advisors in formulating the strategies than and maybe what they what they once were in different practices.

Silvia Wade
Yes, because I believe, like, it doesn’t matter what documents we call, or what format of the documents is, all the pre SOA, you know, that that process is stays hidden, how we can help with the adviser to formulate to the right strategy for the client, how we can show the price. So that remains, and we can add value to that process.

James Wrigley
And how do you how do you interact with the advisors at the moment like how does someone how does someone request an SOA from you, Lola? What does that process look like in your business?

Silvia Wade
Yeah, so we have an online portal for the advisor to launch and appear upon your request. They could choose the services they like And they put the information in. And then from there, they will receive, you know, the ETA pricing. And they will get an email from us about who that paraplanner is. So the whole process of are very transparent. You know, like who you send the SOA, then you wait, you wait. And then after a week somebody contacts you. So we are very proactive in those process, just to make sure, you know, we are kind of on the top of everything for advisors. And then during the SLA process, you’ll expect the power panel will contact you or introduce a power planet to an advisor at the start. So, guys make the connection, then the power planner will work on the case with advisor, we customize our services, what I mean is, we even asked the advisor, what your preferred communication method is near to by email, or calls, or teams or meeting or room video advisors as either the advisors, probate ad group across the you know, from their 20s to 50s, or 60s, they all have a different preference, mind to, you know, accommodate to their personal style. Yeah.

James Wrigley
And so the other bit that we spoke about before was was around this video SOA, so the you know, there’s, there’s, you know, I’ve spoken on different different podcasts in the last few weeks about in different stages that we’re at year in to get that up and running and presenting advice and so forth. Keep the FPA there for a while was running some some sessions around the country getting some advice in the long run. Trying to upskill and this idea of, of doing a video SOA, have you had any exposure to or do you feel that there’s maybe paraplanners are feeling a little bit threatened by that or worried by that and what does that mean for their job as well?

Silvia Wade
Yeah, well, it is a change for us. While the concept of the video SOA came from if the chip away, and it’s I guess it’s a blondie the timer when people fail to pay per state and device wasn’t efficient anymore. And I feel quite a few advisors. Our clients are visual in this. Yep. And I personally attended the video SOA first workshop. Oh, you did? Yeah. Late last year. Um, so in that room, we had five rumba tables of people from different brands, you know, from the auditing compliance to financial planners and a paraplanning. So yeah, we had a very good session. It was an innovative idea, as far as I’m concerned. So like 80 pages of statement advice can be concisely demonstrated by a few slides. Why a real time you’re the presentation meeting. The clients. Zadie is a very dramatic change in the paraplanning I guess, you know, the works though. Yeah, but, but I can see, you know, devices are very interested in trying that format. Because afterwards, you know, I’m in the WhatsApp group. So I can see the WhatsApp group is very active, you know, with a divisor of inquiries or what equipment I should apply what did mark what brand and then they’ll the first the feedback about to the first video so a trial? So I give you payment? advices? Like a trying it? And yeah, and most the feedback was very positive.

James Wrigley
Have you given any thought as to how you might implement the video SOA services in your businesses as that? Is that been on your radar just yet?

Silvia Wade
Yeah, you’re right. It’s definitely on my to do list. And in my advisor, network, so far, none of them have started the video as SOA Yep. But we’ve switched to the Strategy Paper strategy slides. So sometimes advisor requires strategy paper with different you know, scenarios of analysis, and we do that modeling and we show the outcome. And we we have a discussion, we say clients are sorry, that advisors and now rather than writing down this strategy on the piece of paper, we created a visual charts and the comparison tables. Yep. So that the opposite advisor to you know, take those slides into the client and meaty and that they can demonstrate how the recommendation came out from us. The scenarios considerations as well as to how the client will be better to hold off a device yet. Yeah, I did receive positive feedback from them, because they, they felt the clients were more engaged.

James Wrigley
Because I really feel that that’s a real opportunity for for paraplanners and in a paraplanning businesses like yours that to, to kind of build that into the, into it into your sounds like you’re you’re working with a lot of big licensees as part of their, you know, their, their kind of network because of paraplanning services and and I suspect those big licensees are probably going to be reasonably slow to move in, in this in this type of fashion. I’m part of that Whatsapp group as well. And, and I think, I think it’s some of the people that have been responding in it. Not that I really know them, but I get the sense that they probably in smaller businesses, you know, it’s one or two people at most, and, and they’re and they’re doing it like one of the guys that was in the in the group that I attended. It was it was just him him on his own, I don’t even think he had a an admin person, I think it was just him on his own. And maybe you sent it a paraplanning outsource services, and he was starting to do it himself. I think that bigger businesses are going to be slower to move but But absolutely, there’s an opportunity there for for you and other businesses like yours to get to be able to offer that for those that when when they do start asking that yeah, we’ve you know, we’ve got this down, Pat, and this is and this is what what we’re doing and how an l can work in, in the other financial planning businesses.

Silvia Wade
Because I come back to the point of, you know, PowerPanel scarcity, video, SOA is not going to take away your power plan, this regular job. Instead of we just you know, we will be more creative, we just convert the old analysis into you know, the, the beautiful or more visualize the charts and the tables. So that certainly, you know, kind of increase our value in the in the process.

James Wrigley
And, and I reckon for the right, the right pair of planner, that’s it they possibly doing something that’s in this may be even more interesting to them than what they may be doing all already. Now. You’re providing that service. And so there yet it’s still, we’re, we’re doing some videos twice here. And we’ve got a bit of a launch later, later in the week. And suddenly, the paraplanning team is absolutely front and center with that document that’s coming out of the paraplanning team, there’s a whole lot less pages, but hey, there’s still a whole lot of work that’s going into it. And it’s really just the advisor presenting it in a different fashion to what they what they may be worth before.

Silvia Wade
Yes, yeah. I mean, as you know, as human beings, everybody learns things differently. For the visual learners, you can present, you know, the video is the way but the for the, for the client support, like an engineer it, you know, more years, and I prefer to read every single number in the table. Well, that’s what I was told by professional planners. Maybe the paper state of winter device, you know, steel suits, then

James Wrigley
yeah, read it from cover to cover, and then come back in a few days later and and ask the questions after they’ve read it from cover to cover. So what So what’s next for you and the business and I guess paraplanning more generally, what do you think’s next for you?

Silvia Wade
I guess, you know, we will kind of keep an updated with all of the industry changes. And every PowerPoint that you might even goes to a PD day, I mean, the professional development day, once a year to you know, get the feeling of what the industry and is happening and, and a year and I guess we will invest it ourselves some more in terms of the strategies formulation, as well as the compliance because I believe that the compliance is unavoidable. You know, in the whole advice process, yeah. And we can be the compliance gatekeeper to you know, where we prepare a state of advice if we see oh, this question of the sole purpose test, maybe we should stop in our asked advisor, peers as those purpose tests, do you have a final note you justify if we’re all fees are tied to the from the product. So while you provide the personal device, or where we prepare that stadium device, and it seems that there’s conflict in the scope of device, we can pick up a phone call and you know, have a discussion with a divisor so I guess in future we will be more involved in the advisors. Advisor process. Yep.

James Wrigley
Absolutely. Silvia, Thanks for Thanks for for joining me today for anyone that wants to reach out to you and find you maybe talk a little bit more about your services and what you offer where can people find you

Silvia Wade
Oh well I’m pleased to jump on our website mutual plans.com Go there you are giving me a boss my phone is on 24 hours every day. I’m it’s 0430130901

James Wrigley
Yeah, we’ll learn we’ll put some links to your website and an emoji on LinkedIn or something like that we’ll put some links to where people can find you and they find your website learn a little bit more about you and if they want to get in touch to to get some help. So, Silvia, thank you, thank you a lot for joining me hopefully the podcast today maybe what ratio some paraplanners that that, that listening to it that there’s absolutely still a need for for you in the industry and you’re and you’re helping your services might look a little bit different to what you’re used to at the moment, but I don’t think the job of a paraplanner is going anywhere anytime soon.

Silvia Wade
Yes. Thanks for having me here, James.