#88 Kim Potgieter – Transcript

Louis van der Merwe
Welcome to another episode of Ensombl Advice South Africa. Today I have with me in the studio Kim Potgieter. Kim is the Director and Head of life planning at Chartered Wealth Solutions. Kim has a string of designations. Truly someone that loves learning, but more importantly, someone that’s curious and shares that curiosity, Kim, it’s so great to actually be able to pronounce poetry there, because I’ve listened to a lot of your conversations with overseas podcast hosts, and the surname just changes and from a matter of fundamental to potty debt. Welcome to the show.

Kim Potgieter
Thanks for inviting me to be on the show.

Louis van der Merwe
Kim, I want to start off with your journey in financial services. And it’s a powerful story that I’ve heard you share quite a few times I’ve been I’ve had the privilege of learning from you through your presentations. But for our audience, you know, remembering that it’s young financial planners, but also more experienced financial planners that are saying, There must be a different way of doing this share with us those kind of first steps into the financial services world.

Kim Potgieter
So Louis, can you believe it? But I had my 15 year work anniversary at chartered wealth solutions last month, and I wait 15 years is that how long I’ve been? Yeah. Because when when I share my journey, for me, it feels like it was yesterday that it started. It doesn’t feel like it was 15 years ago. And just also, I mean, for the people that can’t see me and don’t know me to know that that was my second career, I didn’t first of all go into financial planning. That was a career change for me in my late 30s. It was something that I really want to do. So it wasn’t something that I’d studied. But it was more something that life had taught me that there was a need for the different kinds of financial planning and from our discussions today, and we will will will go into the difference. So yes, Amina was second Korea. And I had to, I suppose go about a little bit of a different way in the sense that I hadn’t learned how to sell products. And and I think I’m grateful for that, because I didn’t graduate and then come into business with that’s what I was taught. I did it the other way around. And by doing it the other way around from for me, I went and then studied, and not having any knowledge of the industry and studying to do my postgraduate was was was quite an education. And something that I really had to, I don’t know, lean on other people for and I’m always grateful Carmen fainter knows how grateful I am to her. Because my first day of going into lectures, because I was doing it through the Free State University, but I went to extra classes. And I walked into my extra class and to learn to do my, my, my studies. And I sat next to this woman who I decided was going to be my friend. She says she ducked her head and hoped that I wasn’t coming to sit next to you can ask because she’ll tell you that. But I chose her as a friend. And yeah, so we studied our postgraduates together. And then when we finished our postgraduate, I mean, she really helped me through it. And I’ll be able to proudly say to you that I finished it with distinctions. Thank you to Carmen. And, yeah, she said to me, Well, I’m changing careers because if I could teach you it, I can teach anybody and now she runs the whole school of teaching.

Louis van der Merwe
So that’s what to do. Just to add the comment has been a guest on the show. And I can also say thank you Carmen for helping through various diploma so if you’re if you’re studying towards your Postgraduate Diploma, please check our comments website and go and listen to that episode. We’ll add a link to the show.

Kim Potgieter
Yeah, a great recommendation. It all started with me because she said it. She could teach me Chica teaching

Louis van der Merwe
with original patient zero.

Kim Potgieter
But then I had this postgraduate and what do you do with a postgraduate now remember, I’m not in the industry. And I was that kind of person. And I think maybe it’s something that I’m sharing because I want to encourage people to reach out to other people in the industry for help. So they come and help me and my second person that I owe a lot of gratitude to is Andrew Bradley. And now I had my postgraduate and you know, we do Ed go with that. And I went, and I read different articles of what good financial planning was and, and reading the articles of what a good financial planner was. I chose Andrew Bradley as somebody who who represented the kind of interest Free. I wanted to be in fast, you know, go backwards to 15 years ago. And it was a brilliant work that he was doing at axis. And when I had a meeting with him, and we had a discussion and at that time in the discussion, he said to me, because look, I wasn’t, I was asking for quite a lot. I was asking for a job where I could work three mornings a week, I couldn’t do this. And I couldn’t do that, because I had a young daughter, my daughter was only two at the time. And he said to me at work, I know these forward thinking financial planners in him, it was John Campbell and Bartling Hawk, you know, maybe you should see them. And and at the time, they had just lost one of the admin people. So when I went in for the interview, they didn’t ask me match and the fact that I had a postgraduate and I didn’t want to really earn that match. Well, I mean, I was saying I didn’t want to Little did they know, they hired me on my first interview, so I’d never worked from I’d never worked with anybody because I’ve always been a entrepreneur, but I’ve got a job within a chartered chartered look very different than we were five people. We now close to about 8586 people. So in the 15 years has been quite a journey. So that’s how I came into the industry. I was now the administrator. And I had a postgraduate diploma. I. Yeah, I mean, that was a terrible administrator.

Louis van der Merwe
I’ve heard so many financial planners say that myself.

Kim Potgieter
I mean, so it’s a great learning to do and are your any financial planner. I mean, they come through our article planning program are taught and we insist that they do admin. We all know most of us hate it. Some of us are worse at it than others. I particularly was bad at it, because I didn’t have great computer skills. But they didn’t ask me that in the interview. So I ended up not really loving administration. And then I resigned. So I left chartered, I went home again, I thought, you know, there’s another way to this industry. I want to be with people. And at that time, John had one financial planner of the year through the FBI. And he went to the States and he attended the conference there. And why he was there, he picked up a book called The next step and financial planning by Roy della buta and why he was reading it keep thinking of me, because while I had worked a charter, in the beginning and gone, it’s got to be a different way of doing it. The person is the most important person. And I was trying to create something but then when you read the book, The Roy Delbert was talking about all of this life planning, George kinder, Mitch Anthony. And he said, he read it the whole way home and the plane couldn’t wait to come back and give me the book. And yeah, that was where my second career chart it started. Because I then said, Okay, I’m coming back, no salary, just let me come back. And this was the work that I want to do.

Louis van der Merwe
To interrupt you there when you now celebrate 15 years, is it from the start date of your first joining chartered? That your second wave?

Kim Potgieter
You know, what, there wasn’t much difference between the two lips? Okay. Yeah, now, I joined for three months. And so it’s actually my second joining, but I joined for three months, I was only really home for a month. And then John cook the books that if there was a small little gap, and in the in the time period,

Louis van der Merwe
that space that you stayed at home? What was it like? Just thinking about your experience, you’ve now invested a lot of time and energy studying something, a lot of time and energy trying to find the right fit? And after three months, I would imagine that some of that hope and energy was maybe lost, like, can you share with us what it felt like at that point?

Kim Potgieter
And I think it’s an important question that you’re asking me because I often feel like people don’t give the industry enough time before they decide they don’t like it. Because let me tell you, for me, and probably talk for a whole lot of people that are financial planners, we love people. We love being with people. So when we first come into it, and we are asked to do an article plan or program for three years or two years, and we’re doing administrating, and we’re doing all of Africa show this is not for me and we exit too quickly. So it’s a great question, because when are we in Toma, obviously, I love to chart up. I love the industry, I was so excited about the industry, I’d actually gone to my first conference in the, in the three years at had gone to the x’s conference and I you know when you’re so excited about something when it speaks to you, I knew this industry was for me. So it was a real disappointment that the role I was given was at as an administrator. And for people that do know me and I know you know really, I don’t know great patients. So maybe my message out there to younger people entering And then the industry have patience. You’re not going to be doing admin forever. But it is a necessary skill to be learning.

Louis van der Merwe
Curve. It’s such a tricky entry point. You know, when you think about it, we’ve been doing quite a bit of work around the Gallop string finder. And I love I know, you also love assessment, saying to someone, work on this area of yourself, even though it’s most likely not the most important part of becoming a good financial planner. What, why do you think we do it? Is it just to solidify the technical knowledge? And when, when a client is, you know, we know how that that works? Like? Yeah. Does it still make sense following that process?

Kim Potgieter
I do think it makes sense. And I’ll say why I think it makes sense is because our expectations otherwise of our team that are they helping us with all of this is unrealistic. So I mean, often as a planner, you’re with a client. And and you’re so excited, you had that aha meeting, and you just want to do the world for them in this short period of time. But our industry is a whole lot of paperwork, administration, and all of that. So I do believe it’s necessary that we have that background. So I would encourage people to get that. Because when you work with your team, even though you’re not doing it, I think it’s so valuable to know what everybody else in your team is, is is doing, and what it’s like to be doing it. And there are people out there that are brilliant at admin, and I say thank you to them every day.

Louis van der Merwe
I love that how you saying? Well, it gives us context that allows us to see what is a reasonable expectation and what is unreasonable. And I would imagine at the same time, it allows us to convey that to the client to say, Hey, hold on, we can’t do 50 things here, there’s actually there’s a process behind this and these steps, and there’s someone that actually has to do it. How do you see people react when they get that understanding, versus someone that maybe just jumped into financial planning and just give advice without that.

Kim Potgieter
It’s where we always pick up all out a problem. So in running a business, for us, we have seen that as as non negotiable. And sometimes you feel bad. I mean, somebody comes in, and they’ve had incredible experience in other industries, potentially. And now they’re coming in and they’re a little bit older. And we say to them, I’m sorry, you have to go back to doing admin. And you know, where we have lost people in the time period as well, because people go, no, no, you know, what Halak sales. But I think for us as as a business, it still makes sense as the building blocks. And whenever I meet with somebody who’s an up and coming financial planner, and they asked me, I always tell them, Go back, learn all of that, and pick it up from everybody else around you what you like, what you don’t like. And in that way, you can be a way better financial planner, than if you were just fast forwarded, and you and you didn’t get to do it all.

Louis van der Merwe
It’s almost like those undercover CEO programs where the CEO is doing the work of cleaning, you know, not to degrade the standard of administration, because to run a business, that’s probably one of the most complex areas and the most important piece to get, right.

Kim Potgieter
And, you know, if we make one mistake, one mistake, I mean, like the form gets filled in wrong, or there’s information that’s missing Arlette like, we lose all our credibility with our client, we have to pay money back because we haven’t done it properly. So it is is a vitally important role. And I do you encourage people to learn at first. Do you

Louis van der Merwe
think the stress and the pressure of that kind of role is something that we’re not talking enough about? I mean, even just the anxiety that someone knowing that a small mistake can lead to something big, must be operating under like, how does a business like chartered wealth solutions work at at that, like having these conversations?

Kim Potgieter
So I think the two conversations that you were that we could potentially look at, and I think the one is, yes, the administration part. And then there’s also the plan apart the stress of the conversations that planners are having to have with people if they’re running out of money, or they’re going through family trauma. So there’s a whole lot of support that I believe that we need to be giving to each other. And when I say support, I think it’s having that other person that checks your work. Because if you know, at the end of the day, that that you’ve you could have made a mistake, but there’s somebody else that could have checked your work. I think it’s so helpful just knowing and it doesn’t take that accountability away from you. But what it does do is it brings in the team and not the AI. So one thing that we do here is we have especially like so if you’ve written a financial plan, it has to be checked by another team, not Your teammate gets checked by another team so that we can see if things have been left off. And then from an administration point of view, we always have an admin person. And we have what’s called a CRM, a client relationship manager. And that client relationship manager needs to check the admin person’s work as well. And it’s not because we don’t trust, but it’s because otherwise, exactly what you’re saying the anxiety that that person goes through, often causes them to make the mistake.

Louis van der Merwe
I’d love to learn a bit more about the role of the CRM, is that someone that’s a trained certified financial planner?

Kim Potgieter
No, not a charter that isn’t, I think, and I think, no, it’s not a para plan. And I know we’ve got these different names are always confused people in the industry, for as the client relationship manager is somebody who actually is like a project manager is the liaison with the client books, the meetings, make sure that the client is coming in, make sure that everything’s ready for the client. And then administrators are the people that aren’t dealing with clients, they dealing with the, say, the investment, houses and all of that. So they are doing all the calls, making sure that the student has downloaded, making sure that everything is ready for the planner, when the planner walks into a meeting that they’re going in with up to date information. So our CRM is more client focused. And our administration is obviously obviously the service provider focused. And that is all supporting the planner, so that the planner can spend more time with a client doing what they do best.

Louis van der Merwe
So when you talk about these teams, would that essentially then be three people, the administrator, the CRM, and the planner within that team? Or is there is there more to it?

Kim Potgieter
So we have more on our team, so we have about five and a team. So we have a plan, I would also have what’s called an associate planner. So should planet is somebody that has got their postgraduate got their CFP, and had at least three years experience of Chartered. So they’ve got an associate in their team. And they also have what we call an article planner, and an article planner is somebody who’s just passed, the board might not have the qualification yet, there would be in the supervision time. And that person would be helping taking minutes and starting to learn how to write the plans. But that’s after they’ve done the Edmund.

Louis van der Merwe
This sounds to me so familiar. It’s almost like the work that Angie Herbert does around the diamond teams. And you know, Angie has been a guest on the show. And it just takes away that pressure. Time and time again, we see that because we also operate as a team, but you know, running a business of 85 people, yes, you get to build bigger teams. How was that in the early days? Like, did you What did you start off with? Was it just the planner and admin? Or like, what do you add first, when you’re a business owner listening to this?

Kim Potgieter
Okay, so I mean, that was before my time. So when Jonathan Barclay hired me room that they hired me as an administrator, so they had started the business 20 years ago. It’s our 20th birthday this year. So we will be doing a big celebration. They started off with add everything to Slack, you know, how we work in the industry. And then yes, they got administrators that were there, getting all the information and support 14 And there was no article planners, there was no associate planners, they were no CRMs client relationship managers. And the move that they made was an interesting one, and one that I think was very valuable as they hired a practice manager. So we look at all of this and they made a decision. So they sat down, and they made a decision that they wanted to work on the business and not always in their business. It was the one piece of advice. And the second one is they put themselves on to salaries, which you must remember that was 18 years ago, 17 years ago, that was unheard of in the industry to go onto salary, they put themselves onto set salaries, and they hired a practice manager to run and look after all of that now they had time to sit back in their business and say, Okay, what do we do how do we do this and they hired their first planner who’s still a planner that works at chartered and, and that plan has started going into meetings with them and transferring the relationship and John often shares about how when you walk past the boardroom, and it’s pet lemme I was planning I’m talking about, and he looked in into the boardroom, and the pet was sitting with one of his clients. Anyway, good luck. Doesn’t make client want to see me anymore. But that was how we started learning to not say that the client was the individual planners, and it wasn’t John or Barclays client, it now became a chartered wealth client. And that was a turning moment for them in their careers, and how they started thinking of building this business, as opposed to just how they would stay a flattener.

Louis van der Merwe
That’s such a valuable point. In saying it’s not my client, this is now a client of the business. Is that something people use in their language a chartered saying, this is a chartered client, like, is it something you would point them out on to say, Hey, this is what your client?

Kim Potgieter
Well, I mean, so I don’t have any client charter done doesn’t have any plans. And nor does Bob Lee. So we were the the three, what do you want to call us? Owners of the business, but we don’t have any clients. We go into meetings with whoever needs us to go into meeting so we can help and support them. And we always the terminology we do you use as at your charter plans, I’ll often say to a client, I mean, John, and I have this thing called Lunch with John and Kim, which is a bit like a client advisory panel that we do something we learned from Roy della Berta, that we started many years ago and is when we call our clients in, and at those meetings, I’ll often say to clients, if you do not have a good fit with your planner, do not worry, the other planners are chartered, that might have a better personality fit with you. And later on in their go all Kim M. I mean, if we go to a different planner, they won’t mar plan or be upset, I say no, because we’re all earning salaries, we are all in it because we want the clients to be happy. And there will be times where you have not very personality fixed. So yes, you’re a chartered client, and we can move you to the different teams.

Louis van der Merwe
That intentionality around, you know, this is how we set up so that we don’t have misaligned incentives, I think is such an important piece. And I want to talk a bit about the hat that you’re wearing as a business owner. You know, we can we can go off and we can up our skills in terms of becoming a better financial planner, we can do coaching courses, but it feels like there’s a be still missing around training, a really good financial planning practice business owner. Before we started, you mentioned to me that you are exploring this can can you share a little bit of where you are in that journey and what’s helpful for chartered.

Kim Potgieter
So I think what happens for most of us, and I mean, you know it you’re a business owner, is we started out with his love for planning. We did, we started out loving being with our clients. And if we’ve been good at PLANT BASE increases, and then we need help, we need someone to come in and help us with this and article planner, so I should plan ahead. So we start building it. And there’s two things we can do, we can decide. And I do think it’s, I mean, you talk about intention, and I think we need to talk intention behind it. Are we looking to be a financial planner to keep our client base and look after their client base for our laughter? Or are we looking to build a business that potentially will be around were we not around? Now we are chartered made that decision that we were building the business. So yes, we needed to get the skills and I encourage financial planners to get those skills because they’re very different to the skills of being a good financial plan. So the way I’ve been, you know, we’ve got to the point where we’ve got a lot of really good young financial planners are chartered, and I wanted to impart some of those learnings that I’ve had over the 15 years. And this year, I was fortunate that I belong to an organization called WP O which is women’s president’s organization. And one of the women on on it said to me that she had signed up last year to do the Stanford seed course. Now Stanford seat is the Stanford Business School in the States. And they run a special program for African countries and Indian countries to help entrepreneurs run proper businesses. And the CSI went through the whole application process. And they came and interviewed me and charted is on the Stanford C program this year. So we started in January, we’ll only finish at the end of November. And I’m doing it with a whole lot of the new young planners, and we’re doing four different business parts. We’re doing HR, we’re doing finance, we do marketing, and we at end and we are doing strategy. And with those four parts, they teach us the Stanford letters. We have to come up with a transformation program for chartered and it’s being I mean, we’re only we’re not halfway there yet. So a lot of work I’ll say it’s a lot of work but I have loved the time with my team talking about how we do the finances why we do it this way. What Why Why strategies this and it’s lovely having that young energy in the room. I love working with young people. I love hearing the outlooks on everything. And for me, it’s been a little bit of me being able to also share my learnings as you said at the beginning, I love to learn but also love to share.

Louis van der Merwe
I want to know why you decided to include younger people In that, you know, you mentioned a little bit of it. But I would imagine that that is not a decision that any business owner would take lightly to say, let’s bring in someone new, maybe with a fresh pair of eyes, but also someone that’s going to challenge my authority. Can you share a bit of what that thought process happened? Or is that just the way Kim was hired, wired to say this, we can’t do this without them?

Kim Potgieter
Exactly, we can’t do it without them. I mean, let’s just go back. I mean, when I go into meeting to see a client, I always go in with a younger person. And when I go in with the younger person, at first, you know, a lot of the clients have come because they’ve read my books, or they’ve heard me on the radio, and then they come in, and they want me to be the planner. And then I walk in with a younger person, she sometimes I can’t even tell the body language like, she’s not leaving me with this young person, I want to be with her because she’s got all the wisdom of all these years, and you know, she, she’ll resonate with what I’m going through. And I’ve got a seat on the way I say, we are so much better off together, I’m coming in with all his life knowledge. And my colleague here has got incredible up to date knowledge, they know how the latest investments are working, they know how the latest planning tools are working. And together, we’re a great team. So that’s when I’m with a client. So it can’t be different. When I’m running a business, if I’m running my business, and I’m keeping my outlook and the way I see the world, and I’m in a certain age bracket. I’ve only seen the world in one way and need to bring the different perspectives in. So yes, I do like the energy. I like the challenging. I like the different perspectives. And I love the pathway, I can also impart a whole lot of stuff that I’ve picked up in the 15 years of running a business of being a financial planner. So I think together, we stronger.

Louis van der Merwe
It’s so beautifully put that the clients come for wisdom. But actually what they need is the energy, the energy to actually implement some things, I want to talk a little bit about how you personally define a successful client relationship. You know, we see a lot of people just measuring it by the random things. But obviously, if you’re listening to this podcast, you probably realize that it’s not only the random thing. So I want to know, how do you define a successful client relationship.

Kim Potgieter
So loving anybody who knows me, and I’m hoping some of the listeners have maybe, you know, shared my journey before today, as well. It’s all around the client. And I, the value proposition hit for me has always been around return on investment, but also return on life. So for me how I value my client relationships is if I have managed to support a client, on their journey of life, to live the best life possible with the money they have. And not everybody has lots and lots of money. But at the same time, I see people doing incredible things with their lives, and being prudent and being clever with the way they look after their money. Likewise, if you have a lot of money, and you sit in fear every day worrying about what the returns are not living your last night having experiences and I go, I didn’t I didn’t succeed the so when I honestly see a client actually living life, this is a long on sick in love talking. That for me is when I’ve had a successful relationship with my client.

Louis van der Merwe
Do you have a favorite story of where it actually worked out? Well, obviously protecting names and things, Does anything come to mind that you would be open to share with us of where financial planning and and financial life planning has actually worked? Well.

Kim Potgieter
I have so many stories. That’s what I always say about this industry that that I love is the fact that when I go to sleep at night, I go, wow, today we had an impact today we we definitely the work we did mean something to this family. I mean, the sad story is I have one of my clients right now. And I found out yesterday morning he was out riding his motorbike and he got hit by a car. He’s in ICU right now. And at the time, I was talking to one of the other planners a charter they were saying, you know, like why does these things have to happen and then that’s not fair. And, and then we also realized that he loved being out there on his motorbike that was part of a whole plan that we put in place and I don’t know And I’m just hoping that the doctors and everything are going to be there to help him through it all. But we also know that we had all over his plans in place for his wife and for his son, that everything is taken care of. And and, you know, it is why we do what we do. It’s to help our clients through not only the good times, I mean, I can share with you a good story as well. But this is on my heart at the moment. Because all day we’ve been waiting for news of how he’s doing and has he got through this this time. So yeah, that’s that, that, that is a big thing of why we do what we do.

Louis van der Merwe
Thank you for sharing that story. Kim. And I know these relationships are not only relationships, they’re not only clients, they become friends, and you know, some even feel like family. I want to talk a bit about the work you do with Brene, brown around empathy, and how, at some point, when we feel so strongly for our clients, it could become debilitating. You know, we’ve spoken a little bit about mental health and about how we manage it. How do you straddle this space between what’s helpful empathy? versus what is too much? And is that even a valid question?

Kim Potgieter
It’s a very valid question that incredibly valid, valid because as you said, we don’t we don’t necessarily get the formal training as financial planners. I mean, if you’re a psychologist or a doctor, you’ve had all this training around, how do you support? How do you not take on people’s feelings? How do you not become too involved? So my big thing that I’ve picked up in the industry as time has gone on, a lot of times, we want to believe, and I think this goes to our conversation of young people as well, young people do not have to have gone through the experience that maybe the older clients have been through, what they need to do is they need to be able to identify them motion that the person is going through. And if you can identify that emotion, then you are way better planner than somebody who believes they have to feel for you. So my example is always when a client tells a story, they will try and better the story. Oh, I know what you’re talking about up also had somebody that got hijacked, while also had somebody that’s left the country? No, that for me is a no, no, there’s a limit between making it about the client and showing the client in body language. And then the questions we ask that we curious about them, that we shouldn’t be trying to make it about ourselves. So with the brain a work that Brene Brown, now into the states and are trained with her as a Brene, brown facilitator four years ago, life changing for me, she doesn’t offer it anymore. So I’m sorry for anybody who would want to do it. But reading her books on, which is there to lead isn’t really very valuable. And in that she not only teaches you that skill of connecting with emotions, but the second skill that I took out of it, this is one of empathy, which is what you bring up. When we are empathetic with somebody, most of us get it wrong. And we do get it wrong. We go into this mode of sympathy where we want to, you know, go down the rabbit hole was the person and actually, you know, giving them advice straightaway. You know, what could be better or it could be worse. This is what you should be doing. And as planners, we are trained to give advice. And the biggest time and we call it empathy muscles. And the biggest way we have an empathy mess is when we give advice. And so training for us as planners around meeting the client, where they are recognizing the client where they are and not trying to fix them becomes vitally important because we are not psychologists, we are financial planners, and our clients want to be heard. And they want us to be listening. They don’t want us to be fixing them. And when we get into that, I’ve got to fix my clan mode. We will burn out and we will not be able to stay in the industry. So that would be something that I would love. More teaching to be done for financial planners on what is real empathy. And how do we stay in net position as opposed to trying to fix our clients?

Louis van der Merwe
Kim the very first session I had with a psychologist she asked me, Are you a fixer or are you comfortable sitting in this space? So I want to know, if you are a fixer and you’re listening to this new cycle, I show up and I want to fix. Can you change that default? Is there a way to slightly move over to the light side away from the darker side? Or is it just noticing and saying, Oh, hold on, I need to have other people in this conversation? How would you train a younger financial planner that default is most likely to want to fix?

Kim Potgieter
So for me, I start by saying, when you have made a change in your life a significant change? Has it been because somebody told you to do it? Or has it been because somebody asked you enough questions or supported you and Nath that you made the decision to make the change. Because if we are truthful with ourselves, so we got into this mode, and we do we want to fix, I mean, I am a mother of three children,

Louis van der Merwe
ever wanting disappeared, there’s lots of fixing,

Kim Potgieter
fixing that we have really had an impact with my children. And really where I’ve made a difference is not where I’ve gone in and fix it for them. And I think that was what I would tell the young financial planners that were would be coming through the training, that it is an aha moment for yourself, as much as it is for a client when you practice with them, not fixing, not giving advice, and you watch the client, come up with idea and go and do it themselves. And then it really sticks as opposed to them leaving, and you’ve given them 10 things that they’ve got to do. And when they leave, they’re so overwhelmed that they do none of it. So I think Lee that was would be how I would train it, you have to be able to relate it to yourself, you have to think of an experience in your life and go, like when that happened, what was the aha moment for me?

Louis van der Merwe
yards from that fixing to almost more facilitating and saying, Hey, create create this space to clients expect this when they come to terms with wealth? Like? Are they showing up knowing they’re going to have these types of conversations? Because I would imagine a lot of it can really evoke strong emotions. What are they surprised when they go through the process? I just want to know, do you set them up with the expectation of what might come? Or is it a surprise. So

Kim Potgieter
there’s also two different clients that come to you. So I think the clients, I mean, are, our best way of getting new clients is from our clients. So normally, if our clients have recommended somebody, I would say the client is the new client is a really understanding the kind of conversations that they’re going to be having, there’s nothing better than a client, selling you or protecting you. But when somebody has come from outside completely, then I think there is a whole lot of expectation setting. So we are not a business that wants to do single needs. So you can come to us. And we’ll just say, you know, give you a product or give you some advice, we do have a process. And upfront we set the scene that the process is part of it is the first meeting is life planning. And in the first meeting, we will be discussing your memories of money, we will be discussing your relationship with money, we’ll be discussing your personality profile. And we’ll be looking at what is your next chapter look like? If it turns out well, so they know that they’re going to be having that kind of conversation. I mean, obviously, we’re sensitive to not just pushing people to go too deep to where they don’t want to go. But what we also want to know is what do you want, because most people want to tell us what they don’t want and not what they want. So through the life planning, we changing the conversations around, what would your life look like if it turned out? Well, now we can do your investments for you to make sure that we’re in alignment with your values and what it is you want to achieve, as opposed to us giving you what we think you need and not knowing the first thing about you. So it is a different conversation. I think there’s a different person that comes to us. I don’t think we necessarily there for everybody. But guess what, there’s more than enough clients out there. So that the ones that resonate with what we believe in come to us and the ones that resonate with what somebody else believes in can go to them.

Louis van der Merwe
And there’s clearly a big enough need for you to build a business with 85 staff members, you know, it’s not it feels like one of those things when once someone sees it, they can’t unsee it And for the listeners, it’s worthwhile to listen to the George Kinder episode where we talk about, about cultivating these skills in those meetings. I do want to ask you that I think if I stand corrected only three registered life planners in South Africa, two of them being Kim’s, is this something that clients aren’t aware of? Or do you find that it’s a piece that has to work within financial planning? I guess what I’m getting to is, why is it not as celebrated as what we see, for instance, in America and Europe where people reach out to registered life planners, or is that just my own bias showing up?

Kim Potgieter
So I’ve got quite a strong opinion on this all. And my strong opinion is that we are certified financial planners, and that we use all of these ways and skills in order to be better certified financial planners. So I have never said to one client that I’m a registered Life Planner with the George Kinsey Institute, I have never said to one client that I am a professional coach with ICF, I have never said to them about the brainy brown course, I do not. The only thing the client knows is I’m a certified financial planner. And for me, it helps me because I’m so passionate about this industry. And I believe as an industry, we fragmenting ourselves so badly because we’ve got to come up with all these different titles of who we are, and who’s better and who’s not better. And at the end of the day, we’re here to serve our clients. And so for me, it’s that’s why I mean, I just say that I’m the Certified Financial Planner. And I think the reason the business grows, and and we have more and more people coming to us is because we’re doing a good job. And we need all of those skills to do a good job. It’s not enough technical knowledge. And if we are one of these planners, and no, none of none of us listening to this, or who believe that our technical skills aren’t enough, we all are the ones that are going to be left behind. So having all of these skills and learnings from people like George Kinder Mitch Anthony brainy, has only made me be able to be what I call a better financial planner.

Louis van der Merwe
And I think that the work that you do, I mean, we didn’t even get to talk about the modern elder Academy, the work that you do outside of what’s expected by a financial planner is showing up, it shows up in the business, it shows up in your relationships, and ultimately, it makes you a better person, not just a better financial planner. I’m curious what what’s next for Kim? I mean, I know there’s a lot going on. So please don’t feel the need to blow us away. And sometimes just focusing on where things are at the moment is also okay. But is there anything that is exciting you at the moment,

Kim Potgieter
I think my biggest excitement at the moment is very much, much of what we’ve been talking about today is harder, I share this knowledge that I’ve got with younger people entering the industry. I want more young people to stay in the industry, not just enter it. I also been a woman, I resonate with a whole lot of woman who maybe have found it more difficult in our industry. And that’s why eight years ago, I started Women in finance network, which is a network where I bring more, we bring women together to support each other and keep each other in the industry. So really, my exciting thing is not necessarily going and learning and learning and learning by sharing what I’ve got and finding opportunities where actually I’m going to watch other planners become phenomenal planners. And hopefully I’ll be privileged enough that they’ll allow me to share some of what I’ve learned and and then they can use it if it benefits him.

Louis van der Merwe
Thank you so much for the work you do Kim in changing almost every financial planner, definitely in South Africa, and I’m sure there’s a couple of international guests also listening and saying yeah, she’s she’s had an influence on my journey. I wish you all this all the success in your business, and just this curiosity, may it long continue. Thank you for being here.

Kim Potgieter
Thank you for having me.