#83 Estian Visagie – Transcript

Louis van der Merwe
Welcome to another episode of Ensombl Advice South Africa. Today, I’m very excited to have with me, my good friend, Mr. Estian Visagie is down as a financial planning consultant at Alexander Forbes, a certified financial planner, and someone that I studied with at the University of Stellenbosch where our friendship started more than 15 years ago. Estian, thank you for being here.

Estian Visagie
Thank you 15 years. You always say that I don’t feel that all but then you realize it’s been 15 years? Yeah. So it’s been quite a few years, we’ve known each other and studied together and our paths diverged a bit after working, but we’ve always stayed friends. So thanks for having me looking forward to this.

Louis van der Merwe
It’s a pleasure. I mean, we were one of the few ones that have actually, I think kicked in or stayed in this industry, at least which I’d love to hear your take on. Why is it so difficult for people to hang on?

Estian Visagie
Oh, I think it’s something we’ve talked about the other day because you look on LinkedIn. And you see the people you started with and very few of the people I started my career with are still in the industry. I think it’s one or two weeks. The other one is on the fringe because they’re not actually practicing. They’re more in the field. And I think starting in this industry is hard. So it has a high cost because it’s it’s you either swim or you sink and there’s no in between. Sadly, there is no slowly building your career and growing. I remember when I started my career with Absa Absa insurance and financial advisors in the day that I don’t think they exist anymore. And that’s I think the telling tale sign that you see is that it’s a struggling industry. I remember we were 22 that started. After the first three years, they were three of us left. So and I think the other guy that I met, this guy would still be going strong. But the reality was you started and I remember I started on a loan. So I didn’t get a salary. I didn’t get a fee. You just said you go, I had to find my own laptop, my own insurance, everything. And there you go. And that’s a daunting task. And I don’t think it’s the cup of tea for everyone. So I think it’s also businesses to blame because they apply the sink and swim model. But that’s the reality sink or swim.

Louis van der Merwe
But what was the rationale behind the upside, including financial planners in the offering? Was it to just extract more value out of the customers or delivering something special?

Estian Visagie
I think that’s a good question. I thought back about it. Because when you start working, you’re actually no idea what really everyone offers. Because you go in, you apply for jobs, and you get these different different offers. And you’re trying to figure out what’s the best I went with absorbed mainly because of the base to access to leads, because for me, that makes all the sense to pay it. And now I was always thinking that’s what apps us foods were as well saying, well listen, guys, you come in, you have access to over banking clients, you literally log in, you see who’s sitting with money, markets and access. So you can find clients quite easily. And then just market yourself. I think the down side to that was is you had basically the epsa model was you get six months loan, and you have to repay that loan effectively from the fees you write in the end of the day. I think what’s nice about that model is you get people that will survive in this industry. But the bad thing is you also lose a lot of people that would have survived if you’ve just given them more of a chance. So these are some rationality in it. But I wouldn’t advise people to use that model because I do think you lose good advisors. And you retain perhaps more sales orientated people. I see myself lucky that I think I fit into both spheres, I’m highly analytical. And I can probably say market myself quite well. And I think that’s the people that survived, but your analytical people, they didn’t survive, and I think we need more of them in the industry.

Louis van der Merwe
Absolutely. I mean, if you can flex your financial planning muscle, you still need that relationship with a client. Right? We we see a few people thriving in the paraplanning space. But it always feels as if that is seen as slightly less than someone actually interacting with the client like where do you see the financial plan? When do you see the profession of paraplanners play out in South Africa and I’d love to hear your thoughts on that Estian?

Estian Visagie
I’m a big I see myself a bit of a jack of all trades. So I’m comfortable speaking to people I’m I’ve done public speaking my whole life so I can get them from 2000 people and speak without being nervous where I know some of my colleagues they it’s If I refuse it and I can be comfortable in front of clients, I can handle conflict. So I found myself that sort of skilled, but I’ve realized it’s actually quite rare. But I was also can tell you this, I don’t like always doing it. It’s very, very draining for me to do analysis to older to write reports where other people thrive in that and paraplanners I see as a central part of where we can grow towards because it’s impossible for everyone to be good at everything. We have to sort of realize where your limitations are, and also where your strengths are, and rather grow yourself into what you enjoy doing. like talking to people, it energizes me quite a bit. Sometimes, sometimes it don’t. But, and then I enjoy the analytical part. But there’s some people that just loves doing it and synergized working, we have a paraplanner and the client facing person should be key. The problem I think, is one is being overvalued, and being paid more, I’ve personally think paraplanners are underpaid, usually. And that’s why we don’t always see them feature as much as they should in practices.

Louis van der Merwe
I love this idea of it’s what you gain energy from and how do you measure that? Do you do you sit back at the end of the day and say, Hey, I feel energized. Or it reminds me of this idea of if someone’s extroverted, they tend to get energy from people versus being alone if you’re introverted, like how do you apply this model to your skills? Good question.

Estian Visagie
I must say it’s something you have to discover. And that’s why I tell everyone, you have to try every bit of a business. You can’t just say I’m this. If I do my personality test, and my wife always says I’m, I’m probably a bit mental. Because when I do my test, I land on the line between extroverted and introverted. So I’m not an extrovert. And I’m not an introvert, which I’m not sure what it means the best of

Louis van der Merwe
both is the

Estian Visagie
worst of both, we don’t really even know. For me, it’s the fun thing is when I go out to clients, and I hear problem, that’s probably what excites me. So that’s where my political blind kicks in. I, I listened to them, I hear the problem they’re having. And immediately I start seeing solutions. And I sit down. And I’ve, I think where my skill comes in is I can convey the possible out solutions to them in a very easy speaking way where they get excited because they have this problem. And I will say clients usually come to me because they don’t know the questions do the answers they want. And for me, it’s quite nice helping clients find those questions, and then help looking them for the answers. That’s what energizes me if I walk away, I was like, Oh, I can’t go away do this. But then I see clients a whole day in the next day, I have to go and sit and I have to actually go do this, I have to go write this up. And I have to write this idea into a story that’s compliant. Perhaps that’s the best word in our industry to use. And I think that’s where it drains my energy. I know because I have to do this today often isn’t go write stuff down. But I’d rather sit with clients find the solutions, and do that. But you have to experiment with it. Because you only know what you love. If you do it. And you feel that energy. It’s tangible.

Louis van der Merwe
I think it’s a great segue for us into the work you do at Alex Forbes, where a lot of the clients might not have such complex needs. And I specifically mean, you’re on what you were saying, figuring out the questions to ask to get to the right answers. How do you convey complex financial decisions that have life changing impact to someone that doesn’t have the financial background? And and at the same time, please share with us a little bit of who the typical client would be that you would you’d work with, or at least the range of clients?

Estian Visagie
Yeah, so the reality range of clients is wide. I think that’s a good place to start. I think that’s unique, where I’m currently at is that I work from the guy in the front of the store to the CEO. And one thing I can tell you, the leads are not that different. I think that’s something that people sometimes miss is that I think, because one person is earning 7000 Rand a month and others earning free million Rand a year. But these persons have drastically different needs. I disagree to a sense, because I believe in the simplistic core basics. Now when I see any client I explained to him Listen, these three things that you need to look at and one is retirement planning. Now I always say why I started retirement planning is because we all will retire at some point. That’s sort of the constant we all know at some point, we will retire the definition of retirement we can debate on a bit what that means because it doesn’t mean sit on the stoop and do nothing. It might be something different. But retirement planning, I start with because that’s a certainty. Most people I work with that’s kind of a certainty. They have a shelf life. And we know sort of when that date will be.

Louis van der Merwe
But if you’re lucky enough to reach that age, you would have to stop Working.

Estian Visagie
That’s the idea. So that’s what I start with, because that’s something tangible we can work with. And clients can relate to that because all of them can understand, listen, at one point, I’m not going to earn an income. And it’s quite easy to segment that part off. And that’s what I found is segment discussions elude to what’s more, but to help the client focus on one element and understand that so when I tell a client isn’t today, we will do retirement planning. But note, there’s still going to be estate planning, and I tell them estate planning is if you pass away during this time, we didn’t know that’s going to happen. We all know we’re going to die, but we don’t know the date. So that’s why I leave that second said, we have a different theme. It’s a different fee. And we will look at if you pass away that we can solve your retirement goals. And is usually split it to a state liquidity and then survivor K we we say well, let’s look after the people. And those two topics help people understand sort of more what we’ll do there. And then the last what I tell them, we’ll do risk planning, where we look at your disability and critical illness. But we’ll leave those because those might never happen. You might never be become disabled, you might never get a critical illness, I highly unlikely in today’s terms. But if you segment that off, clients feel in control, because now when you sit with them, it’s a topic today retirement planning. They know what we’re talking about. And this works from the youngest guy to the oldest person, because it’s something more tangible now they can sort of take on say, okay, retirement. Now we go segment that in retirement planning is they’re not limited to retirement funds. You look at tax free savings, you look at investment accounts, you look at property, you expand that topic to include more in that. Now, trust me, this is not we’re blind is limited. But this is sort of what I call the foundation phase where we start with a member, and just take them through the journey and map it out. What do you have, say, This is what I have here. This is what I have this sorted vacant sort of being part of the conversation. Because I feel this is where the difference comes in is if you sit with a client, and they don’t know what questions to ask, they don’t they’re not a participant in the journey, they all buy just a sort of outsider watching you do something, I prefer having a client involved in the decision making, I just need to enable him to make those decisions, which is a bit harder to do than sale selling, here’s a quote and you go over that, and then you’ll be fine. So that’s how I see it. And that’s universal across all members from the CEO. I’m dealing with one of the executive blinds. Now, that’s exactly the same process I’ve dealt with use these more assets and more puzzle pieces. But the principles are the same.

Louis van der Merwe
What are the questions that you asked to pull them in? You just mentioned, that could very easily be an outsider to the conversation, I’d love to hear the questions that you would ask to just start putting them into the conversation.

Estian Visagie
So I think that differs on personality more than, you know, I wouldn’t say I have some questions I know I’m going to ask it sort of instinct. If I see a client is not engaged. I try and get them engaged by asking them do they know people in the same situation because I usually try and stress them. So let’s focus on retirement planning. Because I think that’s a bit easier and something I work with mostly. Let’s say I’m retiring someone, I try and understand what they’ve earned what they need to. So I’m trying to bring reality to the table. And then once I have reality to the table, I say to them, okay, what do you want. And this is the sad reality is, most clients we see probably retire with a third they were earning before they came to see us. Now I know that it’s going to be sort of this statistic. And from numbers I can quickly see because I prayed beforehand. I know what I’m going to tell this guy, but now I need to get him to a point to realize what he wants. And I want him to engage. If he doesn’t have it. I asked him to bring bank statements so that we can sort of see what he’s spending and help him build a budget and once he has that budget and that tangible what he knows needs to come in. Now I show him okay, what can he get? And women raise that gap and ask him how will we do for this gap? Because then he is part of this because he realizes he needs to do something I tell them listen, you can’t do much now because I usually see people at retirement, then it’s I always tell people if you come and see me at retirement, it’s not financial planning. It’s crisis management. Where if you see me 510 years out then we can actually plan and structure and do something but when you get to that gap analysis we have to look say what’s the best option we can do on disabled I tell them the cards has been dealt we now have to play this hand. How do we bridge this gap? debase and then most people engage in it stuff I always tell people stuff because I had a client recently where they were earning 15,000 grand before we retired and when when they retired and in five, how do you feel 10,000 Rand a month and get but then you start chatting about other options saying listen, every forbear being an Uber driver things, expanding the thought patterns in that regard, and then they engage, but there’s no easy answer. And it will differ. I found highly analytical clients automatically engage because they ask questions about everything, then you actually have to try and put back more in the box too seldom focus those questions. So it really depends on the client. But mostly, it’s it’s instinct, I can’t really explain that too much. But you’ll find that you enjoy finding guiding the client down the road,

Louis van der Merwe
like how you’ve grouped that into two, it’s either saying, Okay, how engaged are you? And then when you engage? Are you engaging on the right things? Because we can so easily have conversations about things that are interesting, but are not important. How do you apply that thinking to when you’re developing yourself as a financial planner, because there’s, there’s so many things out there, that’s very interesting, yet, it’s not as important to delivering better advice, share with with us a little bit like how SDN develops, himself, because I know this is something that you’re very passionate about. But I want to know, that filtering process to say, actually, this is where I’m based going to spend my time in the next.

Estian Visagie
I think that stuff, because you have to find a niche that works for you. And it’s only through failure, that you know what works, you have to constantly fail forward and realize what works or doesn’t work. So one thing I’ve done is we I’ve seen clients struggle, I go make my own little brochure, or I explain something in a way that works. And when I present that, and I refine it, I take my presentation. So I really actually started with presentations in PowerPoint. So death by PowerPoint initially, where it was like 100 slides. That 100 Slide, PowerPoint slide is now down to lesson 10, where I’ve taken the crucial elements, which clients need to focus on. So let’s take retirement as example. So I’ve broken down retirement, which I’ve realized these three key decisions anyone has to make. One, when do you want to retire? This is very important. I started lines that say when do you want to retire? Because do you want to defer? Do you need an income? So that leads to a lot of questions. The second one is how much cash do you want to take? Then we focus on capital needs debt repayment, things like that. But then we’ll also talk about the tax. And then the third question is, what income do you want? What’s the sustainability? So those are the three components in retirement I focus on that’s all I do have a client. A good example, if a client comes to you, I want a quote, I tell them, No, I won’t give you a good, I will go through advice process. Sure. But if you want to quote, that’s not me. And you have to be hard on that. Because the problem you will find is if you try and get the deal, you will start dancing to the clients tune. If you start dancing to the clients tune, you’ll stop playing the sales game. And you will always lose. Because sales, there’s always going to be a better salesman out to a venue is always going to be a better brochure. That’s how it is. But advice is going to be solid and a process. And it’s not easy to replicate that process. So you have to find what works. In that moment, I found focus on these three topics, and helping clients focus on that. And that came down from 100 slides it was if my PowerPoint initially, but you refine it your day by day, year by year, I’ve just redone mine, we have looked at it and I and you have to critically assess yourself.

Louis van der Merwe
So that’s a self assessment. So I think this is less important. It doesn’t resonate with my audience, or how did you

Estian Visagie
see it as well, because sometimes when clients say I don’t understand this, or we clients, I love this. You have to take those feedback as well and define it but it needs to make sense that you can comfortably explain it as well. Take my acid maps now I know there’s a program acid map but I’ve been for years been doing this little on nanograms mind maps, whatever it might be to explain everything of a client on a one pager. And that sort of has led to clients engaging more because now they can engage on a level that I am because I’ve simplified it to that level. So it’s good to test it. You need to be willing to fail and to be open to criticism. You can’t always and share ideas. One thing I’ve noticed in the way I work is people sort of I found something that works I don’t want to share and I found my secret

Louis van der Merwe
sauce. So I’m not gonna share it with anyone else. And it’s quite silly

Estian Visagie
because even if that I use some of the other people’s secret sauce, it doesn’t work for me because I don’t, it’s not my style. So collaborate, talk, look at how people are doing thing but don’t copy paste, tasted, adjusted and constantly review it. There is no magic bullet that works every time every year. You have to adjust it for like for instance, when my highly technical clients, I will probably include cash flows for non technical clients. They don’t care. They didn’t understand the linear projection that showed me with the assumptions and everything. I don’t focus on cash flow So the I focus on key principles. So you have to understand that there’s no blanket approach. It’s going to be per person by individual, but you have to constantly Teach Yourself. Now self evaluation is good, but you need to test it with others and your clients have the best feedback you can get. But you have to listen to them.

Louis van der Merwe
This theme of constantly adapting your actual plan, or the planning process to the client, makes me wonder, do you do some kind of an assessment with a client to figure out, oh, this person is more analytical? Or what skills have you developed to pick those things up?

Estian Visagie
Okay, so I’ve seen what do you do? You are a lot better than earlier, you actually do a questionnaire, I have the, how should I put it? And knack, I just guess it’s a gut feel. I sort of know, either instinct that I know what the client approaches and you sort of know, because let me use example, a client, let’s use by the same example. So now it’s December. It’s an interesting time. I usually try not to go and leave because it’s panic mode from the bedside. And I worry more than anything else. Because on the 15th, I get people that call me, hey, listen, I’ve retired now, how do I get an income. Now this person is retiring in December, off the 40 years of service, and now they need guidance. I know that sort of person is not someone that’s attention to detail, but they now in crisis management mode, where I get people that 1015 years from retirement, and then we sit down and they come with everything packed and ready. They have everything summarized there, the Excel spreadsheet. So the certain tell sale time signs that you get telltale signs that you can pick up, sit down and see, okay, this guy’s knows what he’s doing. He has a spreadsheet. He’s monitoring this, and he knows it. And if you see the spreadsheet has a weekly amount, and you know, okay, this guy is very much on performance. So you’ll pick that up, but I don’t I don’t have a specific method. But I do think having a method to perhaps begin to approach now I

Louis van der Merwe
like that. I mean, the, these clues, right, and things, people like, you know, if you’re focused on performance, you tend to do these things. We tend to over engineer advice, and, and sometimes just saying, oh, okay, I think this would work better for you. Yeah,

Estian Visagie
I think a good example of that is risk profile. So because I have a lot of risk profile, sometimes the amount of results you could get from that. And for me, it’s honest, when I sit down with a client and tell them listen, today with today’s flavor, your willingness and your ability and stuff, and I think the over engineering of stuff is sometimes where you lose the key message. And I think that’s where you need to total down what works for you. And what does the client understand. I think if you have a target market, you can really refine it a lot better. My challenge is I don’t have a target market, because my target is my funds I have to serve. So I do have a sort of market but from an income wise, I are retired someone that’s earning 7000 a month to 3 million quite easily. So we if you, for instance, just work in a company with this specific worker engineers, for instance, you can perhaps refine that. But the key I think is you have to realize that everyone is different. And that’s why you constantly have to tune to find the universal points. But then also, when you add something additional to show where it works. And for instance, yesterday I sat with a client and all I did is on the team’s meeting is I saw she was struggling with why she should preserve her money. And all I did is I showed her time value of money. And I showed her if you withdraw this, you’re learning from future you This is how much you need to repay future you to make sure you’re in the same position. And she immediately said, I’m not gonna withdraw my money anymore. Because she saw it, we changed the concept and that’s why I say you sometimes have to be able to adjust on the spot to see okay, this person is not getting what I’m saying they want to withdraw because they want to buy this car now that cars a beautiful car, but they don’t understand the cost. So you have to sometimes change about to help them reach that understanding you have because I’ve heard so many of my younger business stupid, they stupid because you haven’t shown them why they’re stupid. They didn’t understand if they view smart I need a scar. Now I have this money, I have 59 years left to save. I’m gonna cash everything in by the corner for 89 years to make it up. One thing we use, for instance, what I did yesterday is I show she had 39 years. So in her case, I just took that amount and I said do you have 39 years but he actually only have 468 paychecks left. That changed the discussion as well because it suddenly she realized this is not as simple as I think it is. So you have to constantly adjust there’s no right answer the

Louis van der Merwe
take a reframing the conversation. And I mean there’s there’s two things that I’m thinking of the one is that you’re almost acting like a teacher just adapting the whole time figuring out how to create this complex thing in a way where the student or the client in that section would be able to understand And then at the second time, you’re also tapping into that emotional connection to do what’s best for them in the long term, not necessarily what’s best for them now,

Estian Visagie
yeah, no, that’s what the that’s what I think your question about paraplanners. And consultants are key because I would love to refine the skill even more. But I have to spend forenza. This week I’m I’ve seen to clients, but I’m mostly doing admin. And I hate it. But I’m doing it because I have to do it. And I think that’s what you need. You need to focus where you spend time, if you spend all your time on admin, you’re not going to hone these skills pick up on these cues. I think that’s fun, I sort of enjoy figuring out a person. And I think I might be jumping a topic now. But thinking of this as well, one thing is technology is when clients and gain engages well with technology versus not. So for instance, I prefer my first meetings being teams nowadays. So I can establish that if I see a client uncomfortable, or face to face onwards from the, but what I do like about the technology is I can record that session. So I feel more freely sharing information, because the client can rewatch it. So I can info dump a little bit more in that session where if it’s a face to face session, I would focus more on drawing a picture and helping clients more fix that knowledge I’m trying to shape. Also using Excel, as example, putting down doing the calculation of power, time value of money. So the client can see open, this guy actually knows his math, and then explain the math to them and say, Well, this is how it’s done. And that’s why I like the formulas I apply over. And over more fans, I can apply them. So this is it, and we can change it and we can play around. And you can actually in that moment, alpha client, suddenly, this thing of retirement, it’s 59 years in the future, something becomes something now. By doing now it cost me eight 900 a month. If I take all this money in cash over and above I need to save and when you show them, okay, what do you need to save to achieve your goals? And I like I’m behind. And then the biggest asset she has time is suddenly valuable to her. We previously it was not

Louis van der Merwe
literally just in that point, the words that you used, spoke to what you’re trying to accomplish, where you could have said this is only 900 grand, the client might say, Oh, get in that case, let me take it right, I have more than enough time, you know, retirements gonna look very different the day we retire, or those kinds of how much do you think we influence our clients by our own bias and our own way of showing up our own experiences? And like, do we spend enough time uncovering that?

Estian Visagie
No. I think we’re guilty on that. And this is I think, a point a lot of people differ with me because one criticism I’ve received a lot. And I’m a bit tricky about that, because I’m not sure if it’s a criticism I want to take on board completely. My approach is aggressive with clients, because my thing is I need to tell this guy now the truth. And sorry, you’re not gonna get that go. Let me use the example of approach where I’ve got receive criticism, and this links to this point where you really need to challenge yourself, but because this is where I get sales versus advice, because I see those two is vastly different. I dislike sales. Feminists, venomous. It’s a curse word for me, because sales means you sell something where advice means you understand what a client needs and make implements now, I’m not blind these links to it. But here’s the example. I sent to the client that has 1.5 million Rand in a pension fund, she wants to withdraw a third, she’s left with a million Rand she needs to obtain 1000 Rand a month in pension. Now, we both know that’s not a sustainable drawdown rate and a living annuity. However, I told her I refuse to give you a living annuity because there is no good outcome here. Your guaranteed annuity option life annuity gives you a better outcome. However, it’s not gonna give you the income you need, but at least it’s a sustainable outcome. She went to another broker to another company, and he just sold it out and said no fines, no problem. Here’s the quote implemented. And she said to me, and she put a complaint in at HR and told them how ACN didn’t want to give me what I want. Now I refuse to give a client what they want, because the client doesn’t know what they need. But I do also know what they need. And that’s why I say his advice is you need to sort of help a client really see reality. And that’s why I dislike sales because sales craft creates the reality the client wants to see where advice forces the client more into the reality they need to face to deal with it. Either one client that’s a brilliant example. We sat down in a tough conversation. He was so angry at me. But I told him you have to sell your house. You have to move in a smaller place. You have to do something now to achieve your goals to be retired, otherwise you won’t you’re gonna have to sell this house At some point, the question is, is it going to be a voluntary sell or for sale? He’s done all that he’s retiring next year. And he’s actually going to achieve his goals because for the last eight years, he made the hard decisions to change his lifestyle, his budget, do we can actually afford to retire on what he will have available? And that’s something I feel is more valuable than telling this guy now you’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. And you reach retirement, I had another client the other day we, his brokers, his buddy, they go and hunt, they’d go to bars together. I did this analysis. He says no, don’t need to everyone says I’ll in 40,000 ran easy per month. I’m not sure Well, let’s face that, when I did the analysis, he’s not even getting to 20. Now he’s mad at me, Russia in math, it’s not rocket science, drawdown rates is drawdown rates, you can’t sustain a 10% plus drawdown right. So you have to be willing to be uncomfortable with your clients and be in conflict with your client because you have to shatter the reality of what they want for what it is. And that’s why I say it’s, it’s tough.

Louis van der Merwe
I’d like to know, if you had that client that wanted the living annuity in a meeting room today? How would you have approached it differently for her to maybe see your point? more clearly? Is there a way that we can approach it in a way where a client has that aha moment? Or do we just get comfortable to say, some clients will probably not be able to see it? Because they don’t want to see it?

Estian Visagie
Yeah. I’ve honestly come to conclusions. They don’t want to see it. They don’t want to see it. You can bring a horse to the water, but he can’t make a drink. I’ve sort of learned that the hard way. Now, yes, there are ways if I had more time, where I can engage with them and show them the folly of their mistakes. But if a client decides they want to do they want to do it. I take another example a client years ago, you decided he’s going to take a level fixed annuity because gives the maximum income and he’s going to save every month. And when funders only increases human nature, it sounds great on paper, and this guy was engineers, sharp, bright, and he just said he’s going to do that. Life happens. Human nature takes over, you just spend year spending, and now he’s running into trouble. And now he’s coming to me. So can we change this? And I say to him, Listen, remember that stage? I told you don’t do it? You did it, I can’t, we can’t change this. Now, you said you’re gonna fund it. So I always tell people, it’s like gaining weight. Just one day the gene doesn’t fit. And this is usually it as people ignore the problem until it’s too late. But then it’s quite a journey to get back to it. And sometimes he can’t get back to it, especially in finance. So I don’t know, I would without the part of me would hope you could change people. But to be honest, the amount of effort it would take from consultant to really for someone in that way. I don’t think that’s a reasonable as well, because my job is giving people advice, the best advice I possibly can give objectively on the table, subjectively, they need to decide if that’s good for them. If they don’t, they have to live with their consequences. They adults, that’s that’s the key is we can’t change that.

Louis van der Merwe
Yeah, I think a big part of this is where your experience comes in to say, I’ve seen this before, like you said, it’s the stories that you tell people, right, this is these are the pitfalls and you can warn people, but a lot of the time, you know, that’s okay, I’m comfortable taking that risk all go and find someone that can that can implement it. Those clients that have come back to you and said, Oh, now I can I can afford to actually retire compared to where I thought I was like, what’s the feedback that you’re getting from those clients now?

Estian Visagie
Gold, the people testify, I’ve changed their lives. And that’s what makes me feel good. Because I think the thing about financial planning is the rewards you receive for that type of engagement is usually quite far in the future. And by seeing this, and now sitting with this client, and even getting up and telling other people listen, you this guy changed my life, because this is where I was heading. Now I’ve changed it. And it’s not big changes. But suddenly, if something that was fun, the future became a reality for client, which he was an active partner. And I think that’s nice, because this guy trusts me now. And that’s our currency is trust. You build trust by giving good advice. You destroy trust by selling things. That’s my opinion on it is I’ve just seen this, if you get to a client and they want a quote, and you just give them what they want. They usually come back in the complaint. I’ve seen it with the guys in the industry is client come in, oh, I’ve got this big deal of 2 million this guy just walked in and I just put him in a unit trust, but it was no meaningful engagement or really process. And that’s example and I use example. When I started. One day a lady walked in at our offices. She said oh, she has 10 million to invest now that’s a walking house. It’s possible you don’t get 10 million walkins said no, she was always staying with the money and her money market account but her friend told her she should put it into Ellen gray equity fund because it’s a good fund. Now she wants to do that. But after taking you through the process, she doesn’t need to, there is no need for to take any amounts of risk. This is the only money she has no, yes, you can put abortion but offer that whole process, we actually just invested it in a completely different investment where if she walked in, I gave her what she wanted, I probably would have had a complaint. At some point, if the market dips in that level of volatility, she didn’t understand. She just said it’s a good fund. So it’s you have to take the client through the journey, that’s going to be the key,

Louis van der Merwe
those presenting symptoms, right? They come in saying, Oh, my toe hurts. Meanwhile, it’s a hard problem.

Estian Visagie
No, I must say I think I take the Dr. House approach to finance and that is, you really have to point clients out where they are silly to help them understand now I’m probably not on that level, he does it. But you really have to make clients question themselves sort of vague, because that’s your job as you need to really help people engage with themselves. If you’re not doing that, I don’t think you’re adding value. And that’s why clients will seek other places. Because if you like, that’s what I always tell people is why we will always be better than AI is because we can have these engagements technology, yes, it can have a complex decision tree to guidelines through decisions, but it can never read into what’s meaningful to the client, get to what really matters the most.

Louis van der Merwe
And to tie in with that SDN. If you if you look at the generative AI, where most people are saying it’s the quality of the prompt, it’s the quality of the questions that actually determines. And that’s exactly what you say, it’s what questions to ask to get to the answer. We don’t know where to start. And actually, the role of financial planners or consultants are to help clients figure out where’s the best place to start right now, so that you’re in a better position, X amount of years later?

Estian Visagie
No, I think the problem of AI and what I like I said is I think it’s important that you split AI into two categories. The sort of AI we have today is more all of these complex decision trees that we have. It’s not really a machine learning in its true scenes, what we think and movies and where it’s a machine that actually develops in a thought process completely. I think we saw an odd few years away from that now, chat DTB and most things are quite exciting in terms of what it does. But it’s still the key is it’s dependent on the input. Now, I can tell you from experience, dealing with large number of people is the quality of the inputs you get is scary. And if the quality of the input determines the output in the current IR models, there’s a high risk. And that’s what I say is even with consultants, that inexperienced ones, I’ve seen the young guys, sometimes they don’t pick up on the important cues, which actually could be the key. So for instance, a client that said, I’ve been in out of the hospital a lot and sorry, Mr. Meeting, and when the guy just go right right to life annuity, but he never asked her why have you been in the hospital? Is there a medical condition? So the key is, you really need to be quite listening to the cues. But that’s something you pick up from experience, there’s no course you can take, I didn’t go and take a course. It’s just something that you pick up. And I don’t think I’m a very good people person. I don’t have a lot of friends. I’m not very sociable. But I’ve sort of learned how to engage with people by failing a lot, seeing clients getting nose and then learning why I’ve gotten that. No, I think that’s something you have to engage as if I received and I haven’t even called up a client. Why did you tell me? No. But I’ve asked myself, Why would this guy have said no. And you can usually find that answer. If you want to be truthful to yourself, you can find the reason.

Louis van der Merwe
And that’s such a big thing. If you want to be truthful to yourself as a financial planner to improve SDN. As we come towards the end of this conversation, what’s next for you? Like what are you working on in terms of skill development or areas that you want to focus on as a as a financial planner?

Estian Visagie
You’re so much I think one thing I’m working on is simplicity, just streamlining my process so that it’s more uniform in what I do. I think all of us have a Franken system. So we have all the technology. I’m using calendar year. I’m using it today. But the integration of the tools and the unify client journey is sort of what I’m focusing on getting that right. So that and also with the new online engagements I found during COVID. I found it easy because everything was online. But now that I’m finding the hybrid model, scheduling my days and just understanding how I can more efficiently deal with my clients because one thing technology brought is more clients. Now seeing more clients, I have to do more admin, so I have to explore the option of getting a paraplanner. So to more focus on doing what I did like doing and get to more what I want to do so I think it constantly have to change in this industry and challenge yourself. I have a rule. I tell my kids as well. If you’re ever comfortable, you’re not great. And I found it of myself And I think I’m annoyingly at that point. irritate myself because as soon as I feel I’ve done well, I start getting anxious because then I’m realized I’m not growing. I need to change something. So I don’t know if it’s a mental condition, but that’s probably where I’ll be rest of my life. Annoyingly changing all the time.

Louis van der Merwe
What a graduate in our conversation, may this annoying changes forever. Last. Thank you for great conversation and thank you for great friendship. They stay on. I wish you all the best.

Estian Visagie
Thanks. Appreciate it.