#56 Kobus Kleyn – Transcript

Louis van der Merwe
Welcome to another episode of Financial Planners, South Africa. Today in the studio, I have one of the guests that has probably been the most requested. It’s someone that should have been here for season one, it is the person with probably the most passionate, vocal outlet in our profession. It’s Kobus Kleyn Certified Financial Planner. Kobus, thank you so much for joining us today.

Kobus Kleyn
Thank you, Louis. It’s a pleasure to be here. And I’m really looking forward to this interview

Louis van der Merwe
Kobus, you are the master in branding. Whenever I see a video, whenever I see any images of goobers, there has to be a South African flag. Please tell us the story behind that.

Kobus Kleyn
Well, you know, our flat color is the most amazing flat color Louis, I’ve traveled the world. And whenever I get to the airport, you always see this flexion of every country and whenever you go to hotels, and some countries they’re hanging out. And I just believe our South African flag is beautiful, as I believe our country is beautiful. And therefore I have somehow attached myself to this beautiful South African flag being proudly South Africa, and really living in a country where if we live here, we have to take the advantages with the disadvantages. And you’re either embrace it, or you complain. But I have this for this philosophy. I stay positive. I joined what I call the Mad club, make a difference club. And I stay away from the naysayers club. Because you get nothing from standing around this water bottle in our office and just complaining about life, about our country about our profession. And because I’m so proudly South Africa, I go out of my way to look for South African stuff I can use it doesn’t matter if it’s a cap if it’s a shirt. And my kids already know. And my wife knows if I need the president, if they don’t have to ask, they can just buy me anything with a South African flag on. So yes, I am proudly South Africa, I want our country to be proud between all this difficult times all this complexity, that we are really a rainbow nation, and my God, our flag, really emphasize that rainbow nation, the colors are just perfect.

Louis van der Merwe
That is such a nice way to start this conversation. You know, branding with financial planners, sometimes we feel like someone has to give us permission. We, from our conversations, it seems like quickness, you are comfortable taking permission and saying hey, I’m going to lead this I’m going to kind of run into the battlefield with this positivity with this mad club, the need for for change, like how do we start changing our mindset from Oh, someone needs to give me permission versus Oh, I’m gonna go out and change the world?

Kobus Kleyn
That’s a hell of a good question. Because you know, I’ve got that thing early adopter, and I’ll go that, that saying you have to disrupt yourself, or you’re gonna be disrupted. So I believe disrupting myself is much easier than someone from the outside outside of my control, disrupt me, and therefore this early adoption thing. Branding, as you know, I love branding is personal. And it has to start with us in a personal capacity. Now, for instance, you can have a brand on LinkedIn or social media around mastering your financial profession, and your brand could be as a financial advisor, nothing wrong with it. But sometimes, maybe you want to take it a step further. Why not brand something else as well while you’re at it, because you need to be unique, you need to be cubus claim that can’t be copied as far as possible by somebody else. So I feel like over the years, I’ve highlighted like free things and new things come along. But the first thing was really this professional brand, and what I call passion for the profession, how that came about, I still don’t know. But our logo did, I put a brand to it, or mastered it. And I decided I liked that passion for the profession. And that’s why I wrote the book about it, or talk about it. But secondly, I’d in overtime, said, South Africa, I want to brand myself as a South African, I want to brand myself as proudly South Africa, why not? So whenever I get this opportunity, there’s a sign certificate, I’m staying, there’s a flagpole on this part of town, I actually look for reasons to take a camera shot of that flag of myself in a click. And obviously, I post on LinkedIn, always whenever I go on holidays or working from anywhere, I have this flag with me. And believe me, I’ve also suitcase just got all these flags and caps and shirts and things with proudly South Africa. But one of the things I said, you notice this whole new world now the quality the virtual world, call it the digital world, call it working from anywhere, call it working from home. So why not brand that concept working from anywhere. And over the last 18 months, I have done everything possible, to look for reasons to work from anywhere, to look for reasons to use the hashtag working from anywhere working from home. But therefore, again, you can only brand it if you put it out there. So many of us has got brands, but for some reason we so scared to put it on social media to get it out there. Why are we scared? Why must you ask permission, as you say? I mean, maybe some people are a couple of companies, to financial service providers, and they’ve got rules and regulations, I’m gonna say something is very wrong was probably our right to do something and then ask for apologies than rather ask and get a no, no, no, that’s very wrong, I shouldn’t be saying that. But you know, if we, if we are fearing these things, if we are fearing social media, if we are fearing how we want to deal with mastering your brand, you’re going to get short. So it’s about that uniqueness. It’s about putting something out there. And the next thing could be something completely different. I would pick it up as an early adopter of technology. And our brand it accordingly said at Cooper SQLite is not just one brand out there comes clean, it’s got different brands. That’s what’s important. You know, in my book, fashion, this is a chapter called personal brand, because I talked about mastering the nine piece. One of those chapters is called personal branding. And it’s all about social media, it’s about exactly how to brand yourself to become the magnet, because you should be the magnet, because if you can become a social media magnet, you’re not gonna have to push for any business for anything, people are going to be pulled to you through that mechanism that you’ve built up. But I’m currently busy with my fourth book. I took personal branding chapter. And I said no, there’s much more to it. I’ve learned so much over the last couple of years through COVID that I started writing a book called Accelerate your brand, mastering your brand, and the whole book. It’s been tough, I haven’t finished it. And you know, normally I want to get things done. But COVID has been a new experience. You have to look first off the clients, the human side of your clients help through them full empathy, people dying, and therefore the book got behind. But I can tell you now have booked a two week cruise at the end of the year that I’m going to write my book finish accelerate your bed my fourth out of five books I plan to write and it’s all mastering something. Mastering the profession. Mastering audio mastering crypto, mastering your brand by flipbook. I don’t know yet. But branding critical. Firstly,

Louis van der Merwe
Kobus it sounds like it’s it’s the same codebase it’s just a different version, that showing up hey, we’ve kind of refined it a little bit. There’s a new nuance to it. But that takes a lot of time cultivating this clarity of thought. What are the habits that you have committed to your life to clarify your thoughts?

Kobus Kleyn
Well, firstly, it must be about authenticity, Louis, we have to be authentic across all platforms, all online communication and all media. So that quivers is still Kurvers uniquely an authentic to quivers as a person that’s very important. We can’t be different crevices on different platforms on social media and cetera. But secondly, what is important is the consistency that habit then you’ve mentioned the name habits and amazing things. Listen to a show on propulsion from Tanya Kwanzaa. I’ll always remember it. And Tanya He said that takes 66 days to form a habit. Now over COVID, we had incredible time on your hands to form habits. And one habit that is important is that consistency. So how do you put yourself out there consistently? How do you get your mindset, right consistently, that you put something on social media on a regular basis, so that your brand can be exposed, so that the winners can be driven to your brand? And that comes down to an habit are called consistency? And the second habit is, how do you manage your time? How do you manage your time to do all these things, be involved with so many organizations, so many committees and so many platforms? While it is about making time? And therefore it is about creating that calm concepts? And how do we create it? Or how did I create it, I looked at how can I create a new T income. Because once you create a new T income, that a new income allows you to actually advise and be a professional advisor, and be a professional financial planner, without having to sell or do investment or do policies, that should be a consequence of that advice. Because once you build that annuity income, you will have so much time on your hands that you can actually consistently perform out there and create all these things in your life. And obviously, one of the things, the whole COVID-19 has been a blessing in disguise three years, unfortunately, it has been negative. But again, I don’t look at the negatives, I find the silver linings, I find the blessings in disguise. And COVID-19 has blessed my life. My clients lives, my family’s lives. Because suddenly I can work virtually my practice is now 99% virtually it’s it is amazing. And therefore I can now work from anywhere. And that is a complete different quality of life. And you create time by using your technology, right? By using your your zoom and your teams by using everything to make the experience for you and your client as comfortable as possible. So that is about Tom, that’s a huge heavy, Jeff perform.

Louis van der Merwe
Kobus it’s wonderful hearing you kind of reinvent yourself and saying, Okay, I can see the positive. And I’m going to work towards that I’m going to work towards this vision that I have for the people that might not be familiar with your story. Can you share a little bit of the backstory of how you got into the financial services profession?

Kobus Kleyn
That goes back on first of August? That would actually be 21 years later. Let me first start there. And secondly, limit earlier on Monday on the 11th of July, I turned 59. So I’m a bit of old character in this. But before that 21 years in the financial services profession, I was a corporate man. I started as a junior engineer at the company called middlebox in Paul Capetown. But I was there for two and a half years. And never again, did I decide this technique myself in one position, I climbed the corporate ladder, every two and a half to three years, through some major blue chip companies up to managing divisional MD of one of bullfinches companies at Ultron. And that was 18 years of my life. I was successful for all the wrong reasons. Now that sounds good was successful for all the wrong reasons. Well, I was successful because I was passive. I was passionate about what I did even then. But I was competitive. That was actually the other side of it said a passion was overruled by the competitiveness. So I wanted to perform. I wanted to be the best always. But you know what? The last eight to 10 years of that career, I became successful and climbed the corporate ladder, because I did consider only considered maybe I did not only consider but I was told to consider shareholders interests and not stakeholders interests. That means a lot of my success came from outsourcing, reengineering, restructuring, and paying people or free severance or retrenchments, my management team at that level, simpler to look at when I go into a factory into a business into a company because I was perceived as somebody called the World Class manufacturer, I can change companies from a nonprofit to profitable company. How did you do that by cutting people out? Now, this is importantly for every one blue collar worker that my team retrenched at people’s last one negatively impacted people’s lives negatively. I woke up one morning and it’s in my first book, and I just couldn’t sleep with most I couldn’t wake up to what I was doing that that shareholders interested in all that stakeholders interest and I told my wife, I’m gonna find my way. And if I find my wife, I want the purpose fully driven to get that Y to work for me. And if I’m very fortunate, I want In it, attach my passion to what I love to do for the rest of my life to that purpose. For nine months while I was working at the senior level, knowing I have to give 90 months notice, I looked at every small, medium exco small businesses, I looked at business opportunities. I looked at max kitchens and McDonald’s and you name it. Until one day, in the Sunday Times, actually, I found this advert that was around financial services, and looking for corporate people with the skills to come into the financial services profession. That was 21 years ago, just about, and I found my why as the following. I want to change people’s lives, while I change my own life and my family’s life. But most important, I want to when I touch one person’s life, I want to touch eight people’s lives positively. I want that human factor. I want to see the tears on see the happiness. I want to change people’s lives. And there was no better profession for me to enter in. I remember of the nonnamous decided to enter the financial profession. Not many people do that upfront. At age 57. of all ages, I started all over. I gave up all those benefits all those business class tickets and company cards and credit cards, you name it. And I started with nothing the next month

Louis van der Merwe
show that is such a powerful why behind what you’re doing. Who’s been your greatest cheerleader through the last 21 years?

Kobus Kleyn
Sure. I have to say, my wife. I know it sounds the odd one. Why your wife always because we started from scratch. I mean, you gave up everything a huge success. And you started a new, a new Korea, a new business. And if she wasn’t there, and my kids obviously, but my kids were much younger than. But if she wasn’t my cheerleader, if she didn’t support that sacrifices, we did that first five years, we would not be where we are today. But I knew that if I was going to go on in a corporate world, I was hitting the glass ceiling, we had some very big diversity changes in our country. And I would have been the next CEO maybe have one or a big company would have been happy. No. Would my family have been happy? No. But my wife had been happy. No. So she has been a huge cheerleader. And her supporters made this possible that 21 years later, we cannot live a lifestyle. We have a lifestyle practice, and we can live our lives.

Louis van der Merwe
Can we talk a little bit about those difficult years, because oftentimes in the beginning of building your practice, it’s really difficult. You know, we see this with a lot of financial planners saying, I’m in this industry, I feel like I have to sell things to make a living. I’m struggling with it, you know, maybe two or three years in and I want to leave in a big group from from my class left, there was probably less than 10% of our CFP class is still in the industry in the profession. Tell us your story and how you got through those steps.

Kobus Kleyn
I think every story is differently. I come from a corporate career, or come from a very successful business environment came from a huge network, a network that owed me No, it sounds funny, but a network it owed me why. Because in my corporate career, I’ve always believed in building friendships, building networks, because you never know when you need somebody in life. And the day I started, I knew I had a list of people I can contact. But that list of people was so strong, that trusted relationship was so strong doesn’t matter to us, colleagues, or friends or clients or customers that I knew if I phoned him, I would find him and tell them, I’m gonna come and see you. I didn’t even have to tell him why I’m coming to see them. Now that is a powerful network. And that is what I think most advisors lack at age 25 or age, you know, any age under age 50. In my opinion, I still believe the base average age to join this profession is age 45. And if you think about average agents are Africa’s most probably 50 and in the world 55. In advisors, then that’s a good idea at age 45. But too many advisors joined below age 50. Now I’m not saying they shouldn’t of course they should. But they joined straight out of university with a network. Now fortunately, because I had that network. The reason I had to sacrifice because I came from a huge package corporate package with huge benefits. I mean, if I tell you that 21 years ago, that package was 750,000 Rand a year. Now Now that doesn’t sound like a lot but 21 years that was a lot. So I had to sacrifice but I knew my ability, my capability Lee. I knew my business experience and acumen and that means I knew that I’m going to sacrifice for maybe a year 18 months on income on quality of life. But if that is going to be the sacrifice, I have to due to, to have self actualization to enjoy life for different reasons, to have that human touch to it, I was willing to sacrifice it. But it still doesn’t mean because I had a huge network that it was easy for me in the first year or two, because you still had to have income doesn’t matter how we look at it, we all have to earn income. It’s how we earn that income to me, that makes a difference to successful and sustainable advisor versus somebody chasing Commission, or chasing products, or chasing income. Because I said, I’m going to chase advice. And if I chase advice, the rest will follow automatically. Now for young advisors, or not young enough advisors, but to newer advisors, because you can have advisor coming in at age 57, like me, but it’s a to newer advisors, I’ll tell you why only the success rate is about 50% for new advances coming into our profession, as you said, a 10%. But it really varies on your support structures and what what you get in when you join, and what you do in that first five years, but particularly in first two years. And to me, it’s about the activity. And that activity means that we need to see five people a day, Lee, we need to see 25 people a week. Why? Because if you’re not in front of people, either virtually or in person these days is much easier. If you’re not in front of people, how are you going to get the pipeline full? Now you’re going to get the advice platform for how you’re going to get financial planning full. Because remember, I always say the financial plan is the car, the engine is the retirement annuity, you need to reduce the tax for that person, or to keep it away from creditors or the state. And that’s what we’ll talk about. If you get the pipeline, right, if you get the activity, right, you will not struggle in this business. But most importantly, don’t sell advice. We all have to sell eventually. But you can do that by giving advice to the human factor of the financial plan. The last all the dreams, the goals, the objectives, focus on those things. Still today only. If I close my office on a Friday at home these days, if my diary assistant doesn’t let me know at 450, that my daughter has got 25 appointments in for next week, I still get butterflies in my tummy, I still feel nervous, doesn’t matter if all 25 is annual reviews or quarterly reviews or six monthly reviews, it doesn’t matter. So new advisors will make it in this profession will have a much higher success rate. If their activities they will be focused on advice bought and full financial planning part holistic doesn’t matter if you want to do investments and risk only. But the second thing is to support the mentorship. There’s so many of us that’s willing to mentor, why are we not mentoring those young advisors? Why are we not making sure diversity comes into our profession through us as monsters, or whatever you want to call it in between us or beginners. But somebody needs to take our young advisors by the hand and make them successful. So do so we have a 70% success rate, not a 50% success rate.

Louis van der Merwe
I’m very curious to hear about what your day looks like. So it sounds like these five meetings, you know, I’m guessing most of them an hour long to engage with existing clients or prospects. What does the rest of your workday look like?

Kobus Kleyn
I’ve actually read them a couple of articles for international local magazines A Day in the Life of grievous Cloner call it and actually my day is very interesting. And it depends. These days, it’s changed largely depends if I’m working from anyway, or if I’m working from home. So working from home and they differ a lot, but let me just go through it briefly. So I am not an early waker let me be upfront like it, I would rather work later than early I’m not a really bad person. But I would normally be up at about six o’clock. And from there I will walk when I’m at home down to my garden. And I’ve actually got two roses in my garden with a little bench and I actually smell the roses and I just for 20 minutes or 10 minutes that depends how cold to this but because I can sit and look at the roses as well if it’s a bit cold, and I would take 20 to 20 minutes Lee to get the mindset right, because if you are in control of your mind, life becomes so much easier. And I would just think about all the positives awaiting me this day. When I’m finished smelling the roses or smelling the coffee as well as sometimes when I make myself a quick cup of coffee, I would go up to a different room. We are trying to do some exercises, half an hour just in house exercises, you know they’ll sit ups and all these things. At 59 you need to stay a bit healthier. And and I would do that I would then go and shower and then I will dress up and I would dress up professionally as I’m standing here at my house. I’m fully dressed. Most of the time I wear I have shoes on, but I will have my socks on, and mostly South African socks and so on. Because I just love it. I just feel comfortable when I’m fully dressed. I feel it doesn’t mean you have to wear a tie and all these things. That’s my culture. I’m, I’m a corporate man, I love a suit, or I love it time, I love to look professional. I’m not saying that’s what everyone should be. But that’s I’m just giving you my day. So I didn’t get together. And then I walked down to my office. And that would normally be around 750, to be honest with you. And my office is now separate from my house, but it’s very close, it’s very easy, no traffic, nothing like that anymore. And I would have five meetings. And those five meetings will all be these days, virtual meetings, either via zoom or teams. I prefer zoom for many, many reasons. I can record the Zoom meeting, I can transcript, the Zoom meeting with otter.com. And it’s just so formal, I can share the screens with my clients. I mean, I have three screens, it’s much easier to look at it and make it work. And those five meetings would normally be review meetings, if you want to call it that a strategic objectives. And where are we coming off the 20 years or 10 years or five years, 45 minutes would be long. If it’s a couple, it would be an hour, most probably. But with the virtual, where I used to do four meetings a day or five meetings a day in office, you know, and cetera, I can actually do sometimes seven meetings a day, and on many days have seven meetings a day now. But 45 minutes to 45 minutes, since I don’t get computer fatigue, I don’t get virtual fatigue. Because again, it’s it’s about the passion, it’s Red Bull, if I can do something, my clients off on busy, you have them, Louis, I don’t get tired. I can do this hour, an hour an hour. And the only thing I say to myself, but now I’m sitting at my home, I’m looking outside, I’m looking at my pool, and I’m going to Mass garden and wolves, and I’m doing it for eight hours, there must be a better way to do it. And that’s where COVID Mountain came in. And that’s where the hybrid world came in. And that Lee is we’re working from anyway came in a way for the last 12 months. And actually July was 12 months. For the last 12 months. My wife and myself have visited all seven provinces in our country, at least once a month, we go and we take a week. And we just look for a dam, a bush or a river otters See, now I can sit and working from anywhere for eight hours, look at the complete different environment, I can walk in the mornings with my wife on the beach, we can even go on Bush dryers. That is what the world has brought us. And we should embrace it and make it work for us. And for 12 months, we’ve been doing that now. And I can tell you, our next 12 months is already set up to do exactly the same. We’re just taking it one step further. In November, we will do a month session. So we will go and we will go for month to Plettenberg Bay from the first of November to the 31st of November. And we’re going to work for month from Plettenberg by on the sea on the lagoon. Amazing. That is called a moment or a swallow virtual financial advisor.

Louis van der Merwe
That’s brilliant. And I mean, nothing’s holding you back in terms of employing staff anywhere in the world moving, you know in different countries. I am curious in terms of your conversations with your clients, how has that evolved over the last 21 years? Like maybe what how was it the last 10 years? And kind of what are the things that’s coming up in your conversations now that you wouldn’t have expected 10 years ago?

Kobus Kleyn
I think it’s it’s become more human. And I have to say that because in all the days I remember my first couple of years and so on, it was all about stats about figures about analysis about graphs about you know, growth. And I just found that you go over your clients hits. And you know, the bottom line, that and that’s what has changed his last couple of years in his last two years even more drastically, is my clients want to know that if I go and sleep tonight, and if I don’t wake up tomorrow morning, is my family going to be okay? My clients want to know, if I’m gonna cry. Excellent. And I survived that quite excellent. Am I going to be okay, if I have that heart attack? Am I going to be okay? The client wants this you decide to do although we’ve done the financial needs analysis, although we’ve done review, we don’t focus on the status anymore. We don’t focus on the fingers anymore. We focus on the dreams. We focus on objectives. We focus on the education at that university. And that is when it comes to conversation has changed drastically. It’s changed from a technical discussion to a human discussion. And these days most of my discussions would be around the human factor of estate planning would be around the human factor of protecting your kids against third parties in US would be about the human factor of making sure that your dreams are on track, that your family’s dreams are on track. And somehow that you’re going to be okay, under all circumstances. And that conversation will then go further. When there’s life changing events, how do we deal with those life changing events, those marriages, those divorces, those children, those career changes, those retrenchments, those promotions. How do we deal so my conversations, the FNA is just the this, make sure the client can see one quick, big picture. That’s all okay. On those five, what we call the five problems in life or opportunities and love? Are you paying too much taxes? Are you if you die too quickly if you live too long if you become disabled. So conversation is completely different than when I started in this profession. 21 years ago,

Louis van der Merwe
it’s just the new version of goobers and the new version of the engagement and sounds like you’re the personal motivational speaker, you get them excited for moving towards this vision of their life.

Kobus Kleyn
You know, Lee, you’re making a very good point there. But personal motivational speaker, an inspirational speaker, we have become our clients, psychologists, we have become our clients on to cry on, if you want to call it that. We have become our clients motivation. Because if I take, and I’ve got a simple thing that I use that over the last well, three years has made such a different to my clients myself. And it’s called a whatsapp broadcast message system that I’ve implemented. And it’s a single way or single communication web tool. And you know, what, over the last two and a half years over COVID, I used it before for many times, but ever COVID, it became a new tool, it became that tool where I would always have a picture, I’ll have a short message. And I would become the factual news of my clients, the motivation of my clients. So when locked down, more locked down, I would look at it differently. And I would send out these messages to my distribution this on my broadcast Whatsapp group, and the amount of feedback I’ve got over the last couple of years and every month and every time I send it out, is Gervase, you are the beacon of light in this tough and dark, COVID class. And goobers. We don’t even read other WhatsApp, or Facebook messages anymore. Because if you say President Rama Pasa is going to talk on Monday or Sunday, we know he’s going to talk, if you say we’re going to go from level two to level three, we know what’s going to happen. And that’s an amazing, powerful tool. But when we will look down as extended, I would send out a simple motivational message saying there’s light in the tunnel, there’s a silver lining, you’re going to spend more time with your family. And by doing that inspirational messages, one pick one message, maybe a video clip, one of the things I’ve been doing very successfully is to do short video clips, 30 seconds, 20 seconds and put it on broadcast message. I mean, that is we use say, what are we more than a financial advisor, we mourn in a financial planner, we are the psychologist we must lead the doctor, we must probably the shoulder to cry on. We are the persons that our clients will look up to as professionals because we can change their lives. We can change the mindset. I mean, to go from a 95% office based practice we are was in January 2020. To go from a 95% office space practice. We my clients come to my office to a 99% virtual hybrid practice. That means somebody’s mindsets had to change. And many clients mindsets had to change. How do you do it? That’s a long story. But it is about inspiration, motivation, manipulation to set the next thing if you want to use Zoom, but nice manipulation indicates me so it’s a model for the

Louis van der Merwe
for the benefit. And, you know, as you’re saying this group is it can be a very heavy burden to be. And so for some people, they might feel oh, this responsibility is way too big. You know, I didn’t sign up for this. I just want to help someone maybe implement a product is the is there a middle ground between the two? Or are we moving? Are we gearing to move this profession into the phase where we are becoming this pillar in a client’s life or this beacon of light?

Kobus Kleyn
You know, Lou when you say those things you give me goosebumps? Because in afford about this many times and when I started and I don’t know call it a vision, but I think it was around 2010 2012 that I just saw through my affiliations and through people that are looked up to that is more to this profession or what was called an industry or my pistol called an industry. There’s more to it. Why if we stand around a bride or we are at the top of a party or that round table or road Free. Why if people ask us what do we do? Do we are hesitant to say we are financial professionals? Why do we say Yeah, but you know, we sold insurance or we do this and that, why are we not proud of it, Louis? You know, what, if you stand around that same boy, and your general practitioner standing, and he says, I’m a GP? Have you look up to that person? I’m a neurosurgeon. I’m an advocate. I’m a chartered accountant. Got you just look up there, as people say, wow, wow, you’ve done it. Why are people not looking at us as professionals? Like, you know why? Because we don’t act like professionals. We don’t put ourselves out there. As professionals. We don’t use social media to say we as good as our GPPs, our medical professional peers, our attorneys, our nurses, our educators, because we still call ourselves an industry, how are we ever going to get out of it? If histochemical aside some industry, if we still call ourselves life insurance consultants, or, you know, insurance advisors, or like the FCA wants to call us product supplier agents? I mean, my gosh, are we ever going to be a profession I want in 10 to 15 years from now. And I’ve at least got another 20 years before I will think of slowing down, I want to be part of a movement, part of the FBI bought of FIA bought a FISA, ESA all this organization, a c sub, I want to be part of my fellow professional financial advisors and professional CFPs out there, that when we are finished 10 to 15 years from now, and you stand around the brain, and you introduce yourself as a financial planner, people must look at us, like professionals, and respect us accordingly.

Louis van der Merwe
It’s so funny, because I had this exact same conversation with an industry colleague or professional colleague this morning, talking about how do you position the service that you bring and is financial plan or advisor, or financial professional isn’t even good enough? Because it doesn’t really encapsulate the pieces of someone’s life that we get to touch and the impact that we get to make? How do you position yourself so I’m guessing it would be Hey, I’m a financial professional. But I’m sure you have very specific wording. So I’d love for you to share that with our audience. When you’re meeting with a prospective client that that fits in your target market.

Kobus Kleyn
You know, I always had my introductory meeting, as I call it. So I have free meetings to form meetings with my prospects or clients over a period of two months, most probably. But and I don’t take on many clients to be honest with you, you’re barely take on clients anymore, because you know, you have to manage your client base you’ve got if you want to do everything possible for the right reasons. So when I have my introduction meeting, I do firstly, play a two minute clip from the FBI, about the CFP to certified financial planner, if you haven’t seen that clip, yet, it’s a very little drauf guidroz and said, What is the difference between a certified financial planner, and how many they ease and so on. And I started that clip. And actually, when I was still in office based practice, I would let my clients walk into my office after that the coffee and menus and coffee and all that experience. And then I had a big screen, and then I would put on this video. And so just excuse me, I just want to walk out, I didn’t walk out on purpose, they look at this two minute clip. And I noticed Tommy did not walk in off the descriptions. And I said no, let me just introduce myself. And what I do and how I do it. I am a financial professional. In technical basis. I’m a certified financial planner, but I’m a financial professional, and what reason I’m using the word professional, because I want to see, I want you to see me, as you would see your cardiovascular specialist, or your oncologist. Because the day you lie on that operation table, John, and I’m going to operate on you, John, you’re not going to ask or tell me what to do or how to do it, you’re going to trust me as your trusted cardiovascular specialist surgeon to do something about that cardiovascular problem you’ve got. And therefore John, the reason I’m explain to you the difference between the cardiovascular specialist and then I’ll say the GP, maybe the GP is somebody that’s going to identify a problem, give you medication, you’re going to be back next year, maybe next year after it. But on the cardiovascular specialist, and a professional, I’m using this as an example. Because if the markets go wild, please don’t listen to colleagues and friends or advices. Listen to me as your professional. I’m going to communicate with you I’m not going to run away. And therefore this relationship this matrimonial relationship John, I’m going to have with you and this is the reason we have this introductory meeting, to make sure you want to be married to me financially for the rest of your life or my succession partners if something were to happen to me, and therefore I’m making clear to you as this professional, how he’s going to operate with you. And I’m using cardiovascular specialists as a great example that you don’t worry about the market. You don’t worry about what happens if you’re going to die with relying on it operation table. I And my team will be there for you to take care of you as a professional,

Louis van der Merwe
it’s so wonderful to hear how the creativity, how you’ve used creativity to bring a truly wonderful experience to your client. And, you know, I know in the world, some people might not resonate with it. And other people might really love that. How much of this is kind of just preaching to the choir and saying, Okay, if this is what you’re looking for, I don’t need to service everyone. But for the clients that really resonate with this, I want to be there for the rest of their lives.

Kobus Kleyn
It’s it, you have to decide how many people number one you can look after, you have to decide after when it was the niche market, but the client types you want to deal with. And I’m, I’m a, I’m a corporate man, I used to be, I’ve got business experience, I’ve got people with professional experience. And therefore my market out of interest consists of mostly 60%, small medium enterprises, because that’s where I can make a difference. Those are starting up the startup companies have companies want to grow from small to medium, and so on. 20% or more clients are professionals. Those are your psychologists, your doctors, your engineers, and so on. 10% of my clients is corporate men, the CEOs, the financial directors, the boards of talk of other corporates, OBE companies, and 10% is the domestic market, the daughter of the CEO that I need to take care of, and so on. And when you structure that correctly, that that’s the market you want to operate. That’s where you want to change people’s lives while you change your own life. And you put that to the tee to that client, upfront and make sure he understands how you’re going to operate and how you’re gonna expect him to operate. And are you deaf, we’re gonna have a mutual successful, trusted agreement running for many, many, many years to come. And if you operate on that basis, your clients will accept it. And you will be able to operate efficiently without all these walls coming up along the way.

Louis van der Merwe
Kobus what’s the next thing years? What does that look like for you? Where you 10 years from now? What impact are you making, because I’m I’m very sure that you have a very clear vision of what that might look like.

Kobus Kleyn
Sure, what I’m going to say now, Lee is not to impress you, but to impress upon you certain things, and I hope to the listeners, I’ve achieved what I believe I could achieve in life, in our profession. Yes, in my family life as well. From my grandchild to my children to my wife, I have achieved my personal successes, and personal self actualization. Because the lifestyle talks to itself and you live a quality life. What I have not achieved, and not me as an individual, me as part of a movement as part of a group of individuals, companies entities is for our industry, to be a profession, in a real sense of it. And it was going to take me the next 10 years, the next 15 years, I see myself as the next 20 years of Tom for this, I’m gonna focus much more fruit, the power of social media, through the power of my affiliations like MDRT, and FBI. And if I own all these, I belong to eight affiliations soon nine, for reason that I can make a contribution. And I want to have this profession be seen being perceived as a real profession. And it’s going to take God’s love me, you the franchisor, the toys, the Leilani personas that David cops, the I can throw names around all night, all day here, it’s gonna take us to stand up to raise the bar. And to make a difference where the public, the financial consumer is going to perceive us not as policy sellers as investment sellers, we’re not going to perceive us as a profession. So that is a massive objective. But I believe it can be done in the next 10 years, at least the next the only other thing that I believe is, is really to enjoy life. And it’s really to create a lifestyle, to working from anywhere working from home, to mentor young advisors to take over the baton one day when I am at. Like many of us if the average age is 50 or 55 As it is we need a lot of young advisors to take us forward. But if there’s one dream, that dream is that we are really a profession. And yes, there is a small part of us. And that’s most probably 4800 CFPs members of the FBI, or 208,000 CFPs in the world members of the financial planning standards board that can call themselves a profession. Yes, but you can’t have a smooth profession. You need to have a big profession to make. The medical profession doesn’t have just potions as a medical profession. All of them are professionals. So So we need to turn that 4800 CFPs into 41,000 CFPs. Because that is how many long term investment insurance, wealth managers, whatever you want to call us, is in South Africa, there is 123,000 Odd intermediaries in South Africa. But it’s about 41,000, of which only 4800 of the CFPs what are we doing? Because we all can’t be CFPs. But this RSP since AFP, and what are we doing to uplift our education, our skills, our experience, so the financial consumer, the media, the newspapers, that TV can start talking about us as financial professionals, and a profession

Louis van der Merwe
Kobus your passion really shines through. I love this concept of a trusted professional ecosystem, where clients can feel safe and they can be looked after this show is all about the positive evolution of financial advice. You have lived it out, I think, the last 21 years you will be living it out the next 21 years. I want to thank you so much for being here today. All the base with this journey will be backing you and supporting as far as we can. And please don’t let that passion reduce at all. Just keep on feeling it.

Kobus Kleyn
Thank you, Louis. I really appreciate these opportunities. I love talking about our profession. I love young advisors listening and your podcast is incredible. I’ve listened to a couple of them the time and effort you put into it. I don’t know where you get it because you involve with so many other things as well. But thanks, thanks thanks for for being there for our profession because shows like franchise to a your show many other shows are the platform we all need to get the message out there to not only the public, not only government, not only regulation bodies, but to the public entity ourselves. Thank you.

Louis van der Merwe
Thank you Kobus.