#423 Nicola Beswick – Transcript

James Wrigley
Hello. Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I’ve got the pleasure of speaking with Nicola Beswick from FMD. Today Nicola, thank you for joining me on the podcast.

Nicola Beswick
Absolute pleasure lovely to be here on I will say a sunny Melbourne day.

James Wrigley
It is for once, isn’t it? We’ve had a bit of a run of the nice warm weather. Have you been getting out enjoying it at all? Are you stuck in the you’re in the office by the looks of things you’re stuck inside all day.

Nicola Beswick
Stuck inside all day. But try try to make the most of it when I get home. I’m very much. One thing that I have done this year at the start of the year was taken up running. Yes. So from 10 years of not actually running. I got back into it and thoughts. No, stop, stop doing something that’s going to help me survive my crazy life.

James Wrigley
Did you do any of the Melbourne marathon events, the half marathon or the five K’s or any of those types of things?

Nicola Beswick
I took the 10k first 10k in a long time. And it went according to my race plan in my head. I was Yeah, I was so wrapped. And

James Wrigley
that finishes in the MCG as well. So you’re still finishing them CJ, you get Did you get a medal and all the rest of it? Yeah, yeah, that’s

Nicola Beswick
probably hanging up on my wall at home. So yeah, I’m I’m very proud of myself for getting through it.

James Wrigley
Financial Planning one on one isn’t it you kind of set yourself a goal. And then it sounds like you had a bit of a training plan to, to execute

Nicola Beswick
that success. Exactly. Right. You’re exactly it and, and the nice thing and this I’ll use the financial planning kind of things, those little things that come along and you don’t expect them but they really help you. I had at the AK Mark, where I knew the whole mental barrier would come in. My favorite song of all time came up on my playlist.

James Wrigley
And I wasn’t on purpose.

Nicola Beswick
So I was absolutely wrapped. It was no time whatsoever on my part with that. And it just just that extra little bit of

James Wrigley
boost. Boost. Yeah. Good on you. Good on you. Well, we’re going to talk financial planning stuff rather than running stuff because I’m not much of a not much of a runner. We I obviously beat you for the first time a couple of weeks ago on the financial standard event and we’re sitting on the couch and we’re talking about all these different things. And I felt like I’m not doing enough when there was you and John there going, Oh, we’re doing this we’re doing this we’re doing this like, Hey, I just put some videos on Tik Tok. So maybe we’ll we’ll talk in a bit of detail about the different things that you’re up to. But so you’re talking about maybe talking about your role at FMD to begin with? And we’ll I don’t know what we’ll go from there. Definitely,

Nicola Beswick
definitely. So I’ve been at FMD financial for just under three years now. And I am a senior advisor here. It’s one of these places where I have the ability to do all these little extra things that just do we got a lot of really great support. With the team really great team behind me that helps me particularly with some of the clients and some of those you know, I how you just have people that you work really, really well with together. Yeah, so really, really fortunate with that. But it’s like the whenever I talk to any anyone about what I do, I just I love, I love financial planning, I love what we do as a profession, and being able to do it in a place where I’ve got really great supporters is amazing. So

James Wrigley
what is that, in a measure of support is from a business perspective and then letting you do the things that you want to do? Yeah, what what is your support look like from a client base perspective? Like, do you have an associate advisor with you? Do you have a client service manager like what what is your little bit of a structure look like?

Nicola Beswick
So we’ve got a team of associated advisors that help the advisors here, particularly when you’ve got new client new prospective clients coming in. I know all the advisors listening on to into this. There’s so much that always goes on and a new client meeting that you have to be really aware of and having a second person there to help. See we hit Being asked the questions that you may not have thought of or get a different perspective. And then you know all importantly, make sure you’re doing all your file notes and things like that. They’re there as well from that support team. But then also, I think it’s important because that gives a client another point of contact, if I’m not available, and I think worth its weight in gold. I’ve also been got some wonderful client services team behind me. And there, again, I use the same expression with the way to gold as well, in terms of that kind of liaising with all the bits and pieces behind the scenes, that real administrative component that goes into our roles. And allows us to just do the things that we we say we’re good at. I’m not I’m not so good on maybe filling in paperwork sometimes. But that’s what they are good at.

James Wrigley
Both of those are both of those the associate advisor and the client services, both of those pooled teams, or do you have like a dedicated associate advisor, dedicated client service manager, what does that look like?

Nicola Beswick
So I’m gonna do the caterers, client, service manager, and then the associated advisors. It’s an interesting structure. So it is pulled. But I think with a pod system, you naturally end up having people available at different times. When the client comes in, then you’ve also got the people that will know will work well with particular client situations. So you just end up fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, gravitating to specific people for specific things. Yeah, yeah. So

James Wrigley
in that, like in that new client sounds like you with a new client, you’ve got an associate advisor coming into that meeting with you, as you said, to help you there’s questions that you forget to ask for when and whatever else might be going on? Do they then somehow get tagged that to that client so that they’re then involved in that client’s journey through the process? Or or to someone else come in? Like, how do you deal with that?

Nicola Beswick
At the moment, currently, they’re tied, and we’ve got to feel the next plan where it’s you’ve got a the advisor, and then the associated advisor role. So that system allows everyone else to know who the associated advisor is for that particular client. So they do follow the journey. And I haven’t got to a stage where I’ve had to swap advice, associated advisors or anything like that. And there may be one or two, just from a timing perspective, and so forth. But generally, it works. And it’s, I think, when you come back from it from a client perspective, they know they’ve got that person, they know that it’s going to be that consistency along their journey as well. And that’s ultimately, what we’re doing is helping someone on their journey and to have that support. And that structure there, I think is really, really valuable.

James Wrigley
It’s a good way of doing this we have, we’re kind of the reverse, we have a we have an associate advisor that you kind of buddied up with either works directly with you. But then a poor Client Services team and the feedback we get from time to time are mostly associated advisors, like my associate advisors just had a few days off, he’s going to come back to a whole bunch of stuff that’s coming from clients that then there’s no pool of tasks that are being done. Whereas if that was all, as much as they might be tagged to a particular client, but at least if they’re on leave the bulk of their work, you can still be done by other people in the team. It’s a good idea. Yeah,

Nicola Beswick
yeah, it’s, I think, talking to different people. There’s, there’s so many different ways to skin a cat, so to speak in this situation, and I don’t know if any, there’s pros and cons for all of them. And you know, you’re right, it’s, it’s always when things have put it this stresses stress points where you really find where that I’d say weak point is, yeah, so but it is, it’s if you’ve got I think it comes down to the people you’re working with as well. And if you know that, I know from recent experience, I went away on holiday for 10 days. It was the first time in my whole working life. This is gonna sound really terrible that I completely switched off my emails didn’t do anything. And I could do that because I knew the people that were the behind me has been involved. With the work that was going on, and I had complete confidence in that, and I, I love that it was really. And what even made it even more wonderful is there was a couple of really key things that came up during that break, that the team just they just dealt with it. They, they knew what to do, they knew the clients. So these were particularly in these situations. One was a new prospective client one was an existing client, because the associate advisor had knowing they’d been involved with that client through those journeys. They knew them, the client felt comfortable, they could sort it all out. And then when I got back to my desk, it’s probably Monday morning or something like that. She was like, Okay, this has happened, this has happened, this has happened. And this is what I’ve done in the split I’ve done and we’re going to call this client now now. And it was just, it was really nice. It just was that ability to yep, I can just switch off and I can enter

James Wrigley
they have so the the associated advisors or someone else do they have access to your emails, do that, or your audit clients not email you directly they email the associate like has that client communication thing? Because that, like if I think if I didn’t, if I switched off for 10 days, which I should, but I never do, if if if I did, there’d be a ton of unread emails that no one would have action because no one’s looking at my, in my emails and adding to deal with that.

Nicola Beswick
I put a lot of trust in the out of office. System. And I think because I knew this trip was coming up, a lot of the clients I’d had regular contact with knew I was going away. And it just, yeah, I know exactly what you mean, you get you come back from a couple of weeks off, and there’s still these emails that you have to go through and, you know, seems like a big overwhelming thing. But, you know, this is way back to me started running again, you know, you need to somehow take those mental checklists and have faith in the technology. I’m laughing as I say that sentence. But you know, it is a little bit of that self care it is that. You know, making sure that we’re taking out time for ourselves so we can do our job better. Yeah. And I say that I sound like I’m doing this really well. But I’m not. Yeah,

James Wrigley
you’ve done it. I couldn’t say put my hand up and say I went on a 10 day holiday and I didn’t look at my emails once. last 10 hours, and then I’ll look at them. Yeah, I’m a shocker when it comes to that. So you so you’ve been at FMD for three years, what were you up to before joining FMD so

Nicola Beswick
before that I was at a company called jfn wealth advisory. And they very specific SMSF focused. So I was there for gosh, just over six years. And then before that it I was at and this is my first ever job in financial planning a little small boutique business in Palmdale. And I am forever grateful for this guy Gary employing me. This was my first job out of my my legal my other my other previous legal career life. He he was the first person out of around probably 400 applications that I sent off that offered me a job, or 100 Yep. So I know that because I literally kept every single cover letter I sent off. When and when I was looking for a job. And it was that. You know, it was something that I just went, I know I really want to do this. I’m just not going to stop until I actually get a role. And it was initially a part time paraplanning position which then led into a full time position between me getting the job and then signing a contract and without him I would not be where I am today. Because that’s that was a huge leap of faith. I think one thing I think with him, he say the transferable skills that I had. So before getting into financial advice, I was an intellectual property patient Attorney and I was there. I did that for 10 or so years, you know, very specialized. But what I found was, I think, when you go for a job application go through a change of Korea, or you’re going through a new, like role is that real? checkbox kind of thing that unfortunately, we all do it to some extent. But he, I think, almost saw just those skills that I had and being able to transfer across and yeah, to this day, whenever I look back at what I’ve done, and what I’ve achieved so far, I just I think of that. And I think of just that really defining moment where someone Someone finally took a chance on me chance

James Wrigley
I can’t believe that it took 400 attempts for someone to give you a chance like Yeah, different story. I don’t know if you’re completely uneducated, and you can’t like but he had a Korea. He is and into in his as a lawyer. And then and then it was took 400 goes for someone to give you a chance to jump the jump across into financial advice. Yeah, incredible.

Nicola Beswick
All right. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a and I just, yeah. At the time, it was pretty. EDA, yes. You go through all the emotions don’t yet with this.

But it’s, and as you’re talking about that I’d actually even finished my diploma in financial planning as well, because I would I was studying at the same time getting that I wouldn’t know I knew what I had to do. And yeah, so it’s giving

James Wrigley
you the chance. Yeah, we’re all better for it, I think because of it. So what what was it that made you want to change, like, why you seem pretty committed to it, if you’re doing a Diploma of financial planning or whatever studying you’re doing at the same time as a, as a completely different career, what was the change it all,

Nicola Beswick
it all came about from my dad. So my, my dad was our back then, about five years ago, now, times gone really fast. But he was the person he’s a person living with multiple sclerosis. And for him, that manifested in a way where he essentially lost a lot of his right side. So couldn’t write, couldn’t shave, uses a cane now to walk and back then he was an executive at Telecom, so the equivalent of Telstra here. And he took them three years as medical team three years to essentially diagnose what he has a and he eventually couldn’t work anywhere near the role that he was doing. And so he ended up going on an income protection payout. And so that for me, when I and I distinctly remember the conversation that I had with dad, sitting in a cafe back in Auckland, we were talking about him getting this income protection payout and what that meant for him and my stepmom and how that then meant they didn’t have to worry so much about money right then. And I went holy crap, I’ve been stuck with stuff. I don’t know anything about finance. You know, I was just working along and then a legal job and you know, same kind of story we hear time and time again and I just from that learning my own benefit seeing what dad and Ellie So Ellen, my stepmom, their situation and how their lives changed. It just to me, it was like a no brainer. Just that being able to really influence someone’s life for the better. And

James Wrigley
you hear so many stories of the circumstances are all different but some event in my family happened and this thing happened and that set in motion because in your case the career change a lot. It seems to be people in financial advice. They they just ended up there because they just somehow ended up there. They got a job and it just continued on or, or they like you that there’s some trigger point and quite often that something in your family, your dad, you know, with his with his diagnosis has triggered the change. Yeah.

Nicola Beswick
Yeah, yeah. So it’s it’s it’s, it’s wonderful because with well, it’s wonderful finding this sense of fulfillment and passions through something that is obviously quite a life changing experience for something for someone else. And I think, for me, whenever I’m seeing people and sitting in front of clients, that’s the way you can kind of look at things. Yeah, yeah.

James Wrigley
So who are you who you’re typically working with? Now, like I said, the previous business was a, you know, a lot of SMSF. Work by the sounds of things a bit of a specialty in SMSF? Who, what are your typical clients look like now?

Nicola Beswick
So now I have I kind of put them in two separate camps. You certainly like a lot of financial planners out there, I’ve got the C standard standard, the the common kind of pre retirees, retirees, people that know that they’re getting to that point in life where they, they do have to think of what you’re going to do when they eventually retire. So, you know, they’re certainly in that standard journey, that a number of people will be able to understand the second group of people or people that have gone through some kind of compensation, so workers, workers compensation, THC payouts, TPD payout, so people that has gone through some kind of trauma or trigger or something that has really disrupted their life. And for them, it’s, you know, if you, if you think about what they what they need from a financial planning space, it’s very similar kind of role. There’s retirees and pre retirees. But what I love about those type of clients is, there is so much you can do for them. You can actually, you know, if you set things up, right, from, you know, you can look at Centrelink, you can invest the money, you can, you know, create a pension for someone who is in their 40s Because of this, and they still got that regular income stream. You know, it’s all those little kind of intricacies that really help someone when they’ve gone through the worst. Yeah.

James Wrigley
And how did you how did you get into that? i

Nicola Beswick
It’s a, I think it was initially just like, I knew that’s what I thought financial planning is, if that makes sense.

But I eat, it was through working with a client advocate for a legal firm, who came in one day with a particular client who and I can’t. I can’t, I can’t remember the client specifically, but I can remember the situation. And it was that situation where they had got a THC payout. They knew that that money had to last for the rest of that person’s life. They, and this is the common thing with a couple of them. And as I’m talking, I’m thinking about a couple of the clients I’ve seen. And I’ve seen a gentleman who was in his early 30s gets completely brain damaged and had something has something like 5% mental capacity, and his dad is now his person that has to manage everything. I’ve got a lady, young lady who had a car accident at the age of 21 and got a PAC payout. And she she’s not working at the moment and survives on income and a little bit of Centrelink. So it’s it was just through that real connection with this client advocate and themed talking to these people that she had kind of brought in and I sat down and talked through that I just went This is this is why we exist.

James Wrigley
Sounds really fulfilling work. Yeah, yeah,

Nicola Beswick
I get a lot of joy out of it, I get a lot of joy out of that real piece of work and helping those people.

James Wrigley
Is that Is that how these clients with their different different, you know THC payouts or whatever? Is that how they’re finding you in the first place? Is that through some relationship with a lawyer or whoever’s dealing with the compensation claim, then they’re saying, Hey, you should go and talk to Nicola, like, how are they finding you in the first place?

Nicola Beswick
That’s exactly it’s it’s all about the relationships, it’s all about building the relationships with, like lawyers that specialize in this area. And and what I found over time is lawyers love understanding what it is that you’re doing for clients, and the reasons why and a couple of lawyers that I spent a little bit of time with. We had two clients we were working on together, and I had lunch with them, ended up telling them, okay, this is what I’m doing for them and draw out throughout on a small napkin, what we were doing and talk through the strategy and why. And that’s the penny just drops, they could really see the benefits of clients, building a relationship with someone, and how it could work. And so I just, I think, you know, when when you think about us, and what we do as a profession, we know what we do we know how the benefits of doing it, but the general public don’t?

James Wrigley
Yeah, that’s it. And that’s the if you can, if you can find a way of explaining what it is that you do in a simple enough way that people can understand it, that’s when you start to have that. That level of success, whether it’s drawing it on a napkin, whether it’s doing a video on tick tock or something like that, but making it digestible, and so that people can understand actually, that’s what Nicola does. I hear I know, a lot of other people that could deal with that kind of help. And then and then off it goes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I, I stumbled across your website, a couple of weeks ago, I just Googled your name, and and this amazing website comes up. What’s this? What’s the story behind that?

Nicola Beswick
Ah, so this was this is again, another same leap of faith. A lovely friend of mine, who is also a coach said to me, you need to get a personal website, because people built by people. He didn’t probably say it quite like that. But that was the essence of the conversation. And, you know, the more I thought about that, and thought about what something from a personal website perspective can do is it helps people get to understand you, as a as a person, it’s a bit like you with your videos, you ticked off, you know, people, they watch you they and they get to understand who you are, they can see you in real life. And I think that builds that connection and builds that trust that is so important with what we do. And so yeah, went through this, because it was actually a really incredible journey, putting it all together in terms of making sure that you’ve got all the right elements, the colors, the all those bits and pieces. And it was it was an amazing experience. And I absolutely love it as well. So yeah, it’s for me, it’s, it helps you that journey and communicate what I do what I do, I

James Wrigley
think it’s I think it’s a really good bridge between, like, you know, we’re talking about a lawyer dealing with a THC payment and saying, Hey, you should go and talk to Nicola. And then the first thing that they’re going to do, if they have any interest in talking to you, they’re going to Google your name, ensure that FMD website will come up and there’s your work with the FMD website, but I think it’s a good bridge in between. Or it’s, it’s, it makes it referenced that you work in FMD. But, but it talks about you as a person and in nice colors and photos and all of these kinds of things. I think quite separately, there’s the FMD website. It’s it’s really good. Yeah, I was impressed. I kind of wrote it down on my list of things to eventually get through. For myself.

Nicola Beswick
Definitely, definitely because you Your, the way you’ve articulated it is so right. You know it is that that bridge between people, yes, you can see us on a website and you got a little blurb, but then you don’t really get the depth of understanding who it is that we are and why and that sense of purpose. And and building that connection.

James Wrigley
It’s good. Now, the other thing that I wanted to tackle with us the pro bono work that you do what you want, I don’t even know where to start with it. What what do we what are you up to who, you know, what’s the group? How do you? How does that all come together? Tell us a bit about the pro bono work.

Nicola Beswick
So this is another one of these very fortunate moments in my life, which I look back and I’m smiling and I’m really excited about is the Pro, the pro bono financial advice network is a group of advisers that are willing to help clients that can’t ordinarily forward advice, get advice. Now, that is extremely vague. And I know there’s a lot of people out there that would fit within that, like very definition. So what we do is we help people with illness or injury. And we are building relationships with specific charities. Because, again, there’s so many people out there that would fit into that camp, we’ve had to the board and and I have had to take the approach of let’s just work with specific charities and help them first and as we get more advisors on board, then we can help more and more people. So the charities we work with, so the multiple sclerosis community. And so this is surprising, that was surprising. And that was actually how I got involved was because MS was the charity. When I started looking at pro bono work and a girlfriend of mine who actually has MS as well, she suggested I got in contact with the group. So I did it. And it’s just the the relationships just built from there. And then so I joined as an advisor, and then did some webinars. And then I was asked to be director and which I was extremely excited about or for the art of the pro bono financial advice network. And and then the last year decided to leave and basically went around and asked everyone that they thought I should be chair and they all agreed and hearings me I think goes I’m leaving and we want you to be the chair and I’m like, sure. Okay. So that was that was again another really big career highlight for me. And since then with with staff started working with the motor neuron disease community, so MND and pain care. So they pancreatic cancer and upper GI tract cancers. So those unfortunately, those two illnesses, the terminal. Ms, you know, you is not terminal. So, no, this is I guess, where I do my little plug in and say advisors, we need you. All we need is for you to put your hand up for one case a year. So we can help more and more people coming in through those, those three charities.

James Wrigley
So what does it what does it look like in terms of the advice that you’re doing? So is it you’re running some some webinars to some people at large is is it? Do you then get into individual like fully fledged statements of advice? And just like anyone that might be paying your fee? I can can you talk about the different ways that you’re interacting with people from MS or what the other community groups? Well,

Nicola Beswick
yes, of course. So what we are is we’re so pay fan or the pro bono network is like a conduit from these clients or charities coming through. What we do is we have a simple questionnaire that the clients fill out. We then make sure that yes, they can’t afford her advice just because, you know, they they may be extremely wealthy and they could pay for advice we what we were focusing on as those clients that ordinarily,

James Wrigley
we get some sense of the acid position or something beforehand, and there’s decisions that get you as much as you, you need our help, you can afford to pay for it, but this person also needs your help, and they can’t afford to pay for it. And present.

Nicola Beswick
That’s exactly it. Yeah. And then once they get once the client goes, compliance, once that person goes through that assessment, and we go, yes, they fit that criteria, we then put the call out to advisors on our register. And what we try and do is match advisors and clients based on skills and needs. So we, we have a range of advisors all around the country, that that we try and that we record what the areas of expertise are, what areas they don’t want to provide advice and or current. And then we match them up. And then hopefully, when the call goes out, an advisor puts their hand up and CCS, I’ve got capacity to take that client on, we then introduce them to each other, so the client and the advisor and let them carry on as like a normal relationship. We very much that then becomes the advisors, obligations in terms of what they need to do, etc, etc, we, you know, very much each case, each case that from a client perspective is very different. So whether it’s a phone call, or chat, versus doing a statement or advice, you know, that’s all we ask clients advisors to do. We don’t expect advisors to have an ongoing relationship free of charge. That obviously is not fear on anyone. But it’s just that initial contact. And that’s the ability for people to feel pay, I may not be in a position where I can afford advice, or I can really just feel really bad about where I am and feel really guilty. And this is a place where they can doto and as someone that has the expertise to help guide them. And we’ve had, we’ve had so many wonderful stories off the back of it, I’m sure you would. Yeah, yeah. And and I think that comes back to really showcasing the difference advisors can make in people’s lives. And yeah, so it’s, it’s offensive kind of, again, this is why I run, because it is very much like a second job. And there’s so much going on. But you know, I’m really fortunate there to have so much support. With my board members, they will be bringing in different areas of expertise and skills. We’ve got the support of a marketing team within hub 24. So you know, that’s fantastic. And we’ve just employed in the 10 year history of proof and being around our very first admin person. Very first person. Yes. So

James Wrigley
So where did where does? Where do you get the money from to employ them? Is it through sponsorships and things? How do you? How does it all work? Yeah. Okay.

Nicola Beswick
Yeah. So we’ve just through through sponsors, and the supportive I think there’s so many organizations out there that are looking for ways to give back and, you know, when we and particularly organizations that are in the financial space, they get it. It’s about and so we’ve, we’ve had a lot of interest and and a lot of support financially from from people, particularly over the last few years. So it’s been, it’s wonderful, absolutely wonderful to say that.

James Wrigley
So if anyone wants to get where did where did people go to get involved if they want to be one of the advisors on the on the list of people doing the pro bono work? Where do they where do they go to for that?

Nicola Beswick
So we’ve got a website. So pro bono advice.com.au. And then we also have an email address support at pro bono advice.com.au as well. So that goes to the beautiful list who now looks after all of that admin stuff.

James Wrigley
First of all, I’m employee So what is it like that? That itself almost sounds like a full time job, as you said, and then you have your full time Senior Advisor, like what is your? What is your week look like? Or your month? Like how do you? How do you split your time? How do you manage that?

Nicola Beswick
That’s a good question. I, oh, gosh. The things I’m if learning time management, I’m also ever learning to question whether I need to do something, or can someone else do it. And this, again, comes into that support piece and having that those people around you to really help navigate these things as they come up and knowing who to go to. With these questions are, so it’s it has been something that has been ever evolving. It’s definitely something that I’m still learning and you know, each each week is different, and each month is different. And, yeah, and

James Wrigley
it sounds like you’ve got the support of FMD whether, you know, from a business perspective, you know, associated advisors client services to, to let you just do you by the, by the sounds of things and, and they’re happy with with you doing you? Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Nicola Beswick
no, you’re exactly you’re exactly right. Exactly. Right. And I think, you know, I’m really, I’m really lucky in that regard, you know, in terms of being able to I can I can be me. Yeah. Fantastic.

James Wrigley
Well, Nicola, we might read, leave it there, wrap it up there. Thank you for joining me on this Monday afternoon, as we’re recording this. Thank you for your time. Lots of lots of amazing stuff that you’re up to there. We’ll put some links to the the website that you mentioned and, and your own and so forth in the shownotes for anyone that wants to reach out and get amongst it.

Nicola Beswick
Thank you and thank you so much for spending spending time with me as well. Thanks.