AdviceTech Podcast #29 – MyProsperity – Transcript

Peita Diamantidis
Hello and welcome to the Ensombl advice tech Podcast. I’m Peita Diamantidis and the guests joining me here today to deep dive into my prosperity was born in Warsaw, Poland but raised in Australia represented Victoria in soccer has studied in Shanghai, China and speaks three languages what an underachiever thank you so much for joining me on the show. Karolina Kuszyk.

Karolina Kuszyk
Hello, thank you. Thank you for the warm welcomes.

Peita Diamantidis
Not at all. I really feel like I need to go out and do more sport and learn more things clearly to keep up. That’s an impressive background you’ve got there.

Karolina Kuszyk
Oh, thank you very much.

Peita Diamantidis
Now I’m super keen to dive into all things My prosperity, but let’s just get to know you a little first through your use of technology. So tell me tell me, what is your most used emoji? Do you even use emojis

Karolina Kuszyk
are 100% So I’m all about the visuals. I don’t like I’m not a woman of many words. Someone messages me, it’s usually a thumbs up. So whether it’s the boss telling me oh, you know, trying to get me to do something? I’ll do the thumbs up or say it’s, you know, a client that’s running late. I’ll just do the thumbs up. Yeah, mom asks me how are you going? Thumbs up? Just a good old rounder.

Peita Diamantidis
It is, isn’t it? And shorthand. We love shorthand. That’s fantastic. And how about Look, we all live without our smartphones permanently, or almost surgically attached to us if you had to wipe everything off your smartphone, and then just keep three apps? Which three would you keep?

Karolina Kuszyk
Yes, so a no brainer. For me the first one, I need to keep in touch with my family and friends. So for me, that would be messenger because message, a lot of put a lot of group chats in there. You know, we share a lot of photos, etc. The next one would be my banking app, because it is just so easy to do transfers. And you know, you don’t need to drag around your wallet anyway, you just pay for everything through the app. And the third one, I am being a little bit biased. But I do love the My prosperity app because I get to see my entire financial world in one place, I don’t need to log into 20 different places. So that would be my three.

Peita Diamantidis
Nice, very nice. And on brand. I love it. So to that point, let’s dive into my prosperity. Now. Look, a number of the listeners probably are aware of what you guys do. But just in case, they’re not anybody listening isn’t aware of it, then let’s sort of, you know, go to a higher level first, where do you guys sit in the advice tech or FinTech space? You know, sort of what category do you generally fall under? Who are you generally lined up against when people are looking at a tech tool?

Karolina Kuszyk
Yeah, absolutely. And yes, you’re correct. A lot of people have heard about my prosperity, because we have been around for 11 years. But you know, so some people may have heard about us through the traps, but not exactly understand what we do, or they may have seen us years ago. So essentially, what we are is we are a client portal, we are a front end solution. What we are not is a CRM or lead generation tool or a projection tool. So I’ll give you a really good analogy. One of our top partners actually said to me, once, you know what KK, I would never invite my clients into my back office, I would always invite them into the boardroom. X plans, my back office, my prosperity is my boardroom. And it was a really great analogy, because, you know, when we’re not that back office, tall, wood, there are many great Back Office tools, we don’t play in that space, we we you know, all our funds go into the front office, so to speak. So that’s where we play, we are an all in one, so that, you know, client portal. So there are, I guess we don’t really have many direct competitors, because there are so many indirect competitors, do that help with different, you know, solving problems to different types of solutions. So I guess the main primary problem our app is trying to solve is to really just help Australian households access one place to view their entire personal financial affairs and collaborate with their financial advisor in a more engaging way, because the reality is client engagement for many firms hasn’t changed in the last 20 years. Yep. And, you know, our founder, Peter McCarthy, he was a very well respected financial planner back in the day who ran a small boutique business here in Melbourne and looked at a very high net worth, affluent client base. And you know, that’s when he realized back then that there has to be a more engaging way. It has to be more efficient way to service clients, but at the same time, give the clients one place to go and have mutual business. ability over everything documents, balancers, etc.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, yeah. And look, it is a the challenge with this sort of stuff, is that actually to the public? As far as they’re concerned, why doesn’t that already exist? You know, it’s funny, isn’t it like, it’s to them, it doesn’t seem like a big thing. Whereas in the game, we all know, it is quite a big thing to have everything in one place. So it’s almost like tools like yours have just got us to where everybody thought we should have already been. Which is, which is so interesting. So in terms of then, so from the practices perspective, then the do you find when you’ve got the practice utilizing this tool for their clients? Who’s the primary user within the practice? Or is do you find it’s every sort of member of the team ends up interacting via the app?

Karolina Kuszyk
Yeah, absolutely. So look, we’ve got two key clients, really, it’s the end user and the advisor. And from an advisor perspective, we’ve actually had a record number of partner logins in the last couple of months into the practice courts into the Practice Portal, which is increasing. And so it’s not only the advisor, that’s having visibility, but they’re adding, you know, their power planners and support staff to be able to, you know, send documents, and you know, there’s more and more staff accounts being activated. So, so that’s, that’s been, you know, quite an interesting statistic for us, because it is now widely used amongst the firm. And, you know, when you look at the end users, it’s also interesting, because out of the last 100,000, client logins close to 80% of the work through the mobile app, not being browser, on the website. So you know, there is a misconception, I think still out there that it’s for young people, but you know, age demographics have changed. We have an app that can assist any client know, the features used by end users very, you know, a younger person might be interested in their cash flow and goals. You know, pre retirees just want access to net worth estate planning and being used an easy way to everyone’s got iPads and, you know, smartphones now, right? At the end of the day, that’s where the advisors clients are, they’re always either on their phone or their iPad. So so it just makes sense. And I think, look, I think COVID accelerated the adoption of technology in a way. I remember, I still have some advisors just saying, Oh, my clients don’t even know how to use Zoom. But then when COVID hit, they’re like, you know, they’re like, send me a link now.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, yeah. It’s so true. And I think the other thing that you’ve got to really watch the behavior of the people around you to truly understand how things have changed, because I think, you know, the devices themselves might not be doing certain things, but watch the family, you know, how are they interacting, and most of us, even when we’re chilling on the couch, have a secondary screen open. So you might be watching TV, but you’ve got your iPad in front of you, or your mobile in front of you. So people are constantly even when they’re after hours, they probably got one of those devices open. And so that’s where to me, you know, understanding behavior is so important, because that could be the most convenient time for them to look at something or to act on it or to even execute something who knows, right? So we’ve got to really think about when we act, I mean, I know there’s some random things I do when I’m sitting in front of the TV that does almost life admin stuff. And so we sort of need to adjust it so that it’s, they don’t have to necessarily, like you say, log on to a website. What if it’s just easier if it’s in an app? You know, this is it’s a different type of thinking to that end? Is it an app itself, like an app as in from the app store? Or is it a link to a website, that is what people would get on their phone or iPad.

Karolina Kuszyk
So there’s two ways to log into my prosperity. So they will get a link that they can put onto their website. So you probably notice, some firms have like a client login button. But when you click on that client login button, it typically goes to a client portal, like ourselves, or I have seen some cheeky advisors, say, Client Portal, but when you click in there, it then goes to a different page and it says log into hub 24, log into my portal, let’s just log into your portfolios. And then obviously, we’ve got the app, right, so where they can go. So what the better firms are doing is they’re getting their clients to download the app as soon as they onboard them. And they tell them just you know, download the app on your iPad and on your phone. And, you know, it says this is the way that we’re going to service you moving forward. So yeah, so it is in the App Store and gute and Andrew

Peita Diamantidis
Yep, perfect. So because they and for those of you listening who don’t sort of fully understand why I’m asking the difference, because it sounds like it’s the same right? It sounds well you just accessing the same thing. The difference for me that is you important is once something is an app, then the thing that’s possible is things like notifications. Right? So that’s a world to me, that’s exciting. Whereas a website or something via the web only, then it’s very difficult to nudge them, you know, like to, to remind them to go in or to get them to do something is a bit harder. And really, your only option is say, email. Whereas if something’s you know, as an app, then you do have that lovely notification. We all know how interruptive notifications aren’t. Right? So that’s a powerful tool to get people to do things. So why don’t we start there? Is a So do you guys have the ability to have notifications via the app? And how are people using that? Oh, absolutely. So

Karolina Kuszyk
in app notifications are huge for us. Because when you think about it, like you just mentioned before, you know, when advisors are sending an email to a client, you know, they might not see it till late at night, they’ll forget about it. And then they’re, you know, support staff are playing phone tag for the rest of the week. So we’ll eliminate a lot of that follow up, because you can create what we call them to dues, which are essentially reminders within the app. So you might create a reminder and say, you know, I need you to upload document, ABC, I need it by a certain date, you can also choose how often you want them to get reminded code, you know, some firms don’t want their clients to get reminded, you know, every few days, they might want it every week. So that’s fine, you can choose, you know, there’s there’s a whole heap of options there. And so what that means is that your client will not only get a push notification on the app and an email as well, just to remind you, every few days, if that’s the thing, you’ve got it on, they’ll get keep getting reminded until they’ve completed that task. And then once they’ve completed that task, it will just stop reminding them. And they’ll actually have almost like that view of all the tasks that have been completed. Within the app, we do have a new feature that we launched about two years ago, when when I say new, it’s because we’ve been around for 11 years, but it’s really becoming like one of our most use features, because we’ve got statistics on what firms are using. And it’s really interesting to say that rooms is becoming more and more popular by a lot of advisors, because yes, one you can create these notifications in rooms, but rooms is a collaboration place where you’re moving away from email, essentially, and the easiest way that a lot of advisors have told me that they’ve started getting their clients to use rooms is they say, Look emails not secure. You know, there’s no reminders, an email, whereas, yeah, you know, we can share documentation securely, we can chat in here sexually, we can, you know, add other, you know, third parties that are serious. So for example, if they want to invite a solicitor in to help with estate planning, they can do that as well. So it’s been quite powerful.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, you mentioned before about people saying, oh, you know, different generations, may or may not use this technology. The thing about, you know, the younger generation is, if you were to get their phone, and even mine, and I’m not that young, you know, to be an app on somebody’s phone is is multiple scrolls to even get to an app, right, we’ve got pages and pages of them, whereas the older generations don’t have that many apps on their phone. So in fact, if you have one for your practice, then you can be Top of the Pops, you can be on the front page. So you know, actually, it can be it can be far more exposure to your practice than otherwise you would, you know, so. So I actually think it’s a powerful thing for the older generation. And also you’re opening worlds to them that otherwise they might not. And as long as you’ve got a great onboarding process, that really steps them through how things work and how to use the tool, then, often they’re very appreciative of that energy and that attention. So, you know, I actually think we’ve almost got to reverse our approach to this and focus on it for older clients, because I think they really will be grateful for you know, demonstrating more introducing them to a new tool and helping them use it. So yeah, we’ve that’s what we found anyway, in our practice. You know, he responded well,

Karolina Kuszyk
yeah, absolutely. And look, you know, even the example of my mom, right, you know, she’s got her iPad and you know, if she can’t, you know, we chat everyday, right? So if I have to send her the coffee emoji in the morning, it’s like, she gets worried and you know, she tries to call me a messenger. If she can’t catch me on Messenger. She tries to call me on WhatsApp if she called me. She tried different sets, you know, that’s, it’s good.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, absolutely. And so, I’m sure that particularly given the timeframe you guys have been around but also the number of practices you’ve worked with, then you’d have a good sense for you know, who this works well for versus who struggles now I’m betting it’s probably not as much about the practices itself as it isn’t At the way they decide to use the tool, but do you see anything that stands out between the ones that really nail it, and it works well versus the others

Karolina Kuszyk
are? Absolutely. So look, we are not for firms who just want to be doing what they’ve been doing for the last 10 years. And think more about the back office, these, typically firms that resist change, they look back with negativity. And, you know, they do get busy, right, and they want to focus on other things, and that’s fine. However, it’s quite simple for us, we want to work with firms that are looking to grow and scale and are focused on the client experience. And, you know, and these firms are looking forward with optimism, and they can see that, you know, this is the way of the future. You know, like I said, before, you know, the client engagement for many firms, you know, hasn’t changed over the years. And, and if you look at any other tech company, outside the financial advice, industry, you know, they’ve been able to help, you know, solve a lot of the problems in other industries, where I feel here, there’s been, it’s been a little bit, you know, takes time, and effort. And, you know, I think I mentioned this prior to the recording that I know, a lot of the time, when I’m chatting to advisors, there’s a big educational piece there. That’s why we’re, we’ve made it, you know, for us as a business, we’ve made sure that we’ve got a very good, you know, account management team support team tech support team. So we know that, you know, some advisors want to make the change, they just, you know, they’ve got other things or other matters that prioritize. But yeah, if they do, and want to not almost like fall behind in this scenario, obviously, the way that Tech’s moving forward, then it is a really good time to give it a go, you know, the best thing that you come in, what’s the worst that’s going to happen? Right? Give it a go work with the team, learn from other advisors. I mean, we’ve got, you know, 600 firms that we work with, so so we really drill down into what works for them and what doesn’t, and how our team can actually sit with them and go through it, because it really depends on what they’re trying to solve. Like, yeah, like I said, before, you know, we’ve got too many features within my prosperity, right. But it really is up to sitting down understanding what the first thing is that they’re trying to achieve. And then, you know, helping them implement that which will flow into the next thing. So,

Peita Diamantidis
and look, it is something I mean, the single question I get asked the most in various forms, of course, but it’s generally the same thing all paid about, what’s the next thing I should implement? You know, what’s the next hot thing? Because really, they’re asking me all, you know, what’s the next hot app? And I’ll always respond with? Well, I can’t answer that until I know what the problem is you’re trying to solve? Exactly. Yeah. Right. And that’s, that’s where any of this goes asunder, because they choose the app before they’ve worked out their problem. So, you know, knowing why you’re, you’re approaching something makes, I actually think massively increases the likelihood of the implementation succeeding, because you’re addressing a specific challenge or opportunity, or whatever it is, there’s a there’s something that is driving this, therefore, you’re going to make sure it achieves you know, whereas they talk about this a lot. And I guess it’s a new thing, I’ll just get it and implement it. Well, it’s, it’s not going to succeed because it doesn’t have any direction. It doesn’t have any focus. Exactly. Yeah. And and particularly with something like this. So a it’s it’s a different approach, potentially, from what they’ve had, but also be particularly in the evolution of, say, My prosperity, all the elements, you guys can now turn on in terms of this, this portal, that it’s a big suite of options. So, you know, to get that right, they’re also going to have to know what they’re trying to achieve. So given that, actually, why don’t we just sort of cover off in terms of the the big chunky bits, so you mentioned, having the client having everything if their financial situation in one place? So I’m assuming that sort of like the data feed or the, you know, the wealth picture for them, that’s what bank bank feeds, balances, that sort of stuff. Talk us through that sort of element of the Yeah, look,

Karolina Kuszyk
it’s about not not just all the data feeds. So so so just to take one little step back. So what I find with a lot of advisors, the way that a lot of them successfully implement my prosperity is they use the must have features with their clients. So when I say the must have features because the data feeds and everything that’s more like the nice to haves, like yes, and wire up assets and liabilities, and that’s fantastic, however, and I think this is where the misconception sometimes comes out that we’re actually quite expensive when we’re not because in the partner fee You can actually roll out my prosperity to all of your clients, you know, on the basic account, which doesn’t cost you any extra, so your clients can have an app, etc. And you can do things must have beaches, because what do you need to do as an advisor, you need to share documents with them, right? So you can share with documents, you need to sign documents, you can sign documents with them. So we’ve got unlimited digital docs signing, we don’t charge per user. And, you know, a lot of advisors send, you know, compliance documents through to clients to sign off on or agreements or, you know, a lot of product providers, you know, accepting our digital doc signing as well, which is great. Good. And, and obviously, the secure chat rooms, that’s become a huge saying to clients, because it’s a no brainer, right saying to them, Hey, we’re going to move away from emails, because as you know, emails aren’t that secure. And we’re going to actually start, you know, collaborating in the secure room suite, because you can create rooms for different topics as well, whether it’s onboarding or an implementation room, or something might come out of an annual review meeting where you want to create an insurances room, or Superframe, or wills room, or whatever it is, yep. And you can use all that on the basic account, which is great. So if you just want to use it with your clients, and get them into that habit of collaborating with you, that’s where we see the success. And then and then advisors can can go right, well, which clients now are we switching on the data feeds for so so that they do have that visibility of the balance sheet, etc, they’re really good, because I didn’t mention this as well. But obviously, we’ve got the digital factfinder, as well. So, you know, that’s been really popular too, in terms of being able to gather information even prior, you’re even with a prospect prior to them even coming in now, we can insert like a little video of the advisor just saying, you know, I look forward to meeting you, you know, prior to our initial meeting, here’s some basic questions I need. And the cool thing about our digital form is it’s so easy to use, you know, when the client comes in, or if it’s a Zoom meeting, the adviser can just have it on, you know, on the big screen and just keep going with it. They can, you know, add documents, correct to dues, you know, put their own page notes in. And, you know, one thing that we’re actually really proud of which I’ll talk about, probably a little bit later if we touch base on integrations, but you know, our fact find I’m so wrapped because we had a very basic integration with x plan. But now we’ve got to effect fine integration with X plans. So a lot of that data goes in there. So. So that’s another great efficiency to have.

Peita Diamantidis
It’s so interesting isn’t, and it’s exciting to hear you sort of focus on the more, you know, client interaction stuff over the data feeds, because I’ve always found, I’ve always found that data feeds as a singular focus a bit curious, because we might find data exciting, lots of the public don’t. Like I don’t, I don’t want to look at that all the time. What that that’s not going to make me log into that worse. I think the misconception historically for advisors is all this is, you know, the client is going to want to open the app all the time to see how things have changed. And I’m think we’re overriding that night. Don’t get me wrong, some might. But I actually think like any app, any app we interact with, you need to give them a reason to go like there’s got to be some activity or some like you say interaction chat, reminders, like all those are things that are going to cause somebody to interact, not randomly going, huh, I wonder how my personal balance sheet is? Like, it’s not how people think, like,

Karolina Kuszyk
yeah, it’s like, you know, yeah, how often do they actually look at their spreadsheet, right? Because because, essentially, their balance sheet is a is a really cool spreadsheet, just in the app. But the cool thing is, is that a lot of advisors, you know, say what, this is really great for us, like yes, for the client, because, you know, they don’t have to call us to, you know, understand their balances, and they don’t need to update, you know, us on information, we don’t need to chase them. So on average, most advisors have told us that they save about five hours per client per review, just by having that data there. Yeah,

Peita Diamantidis
yep. Which is great. So it’s like that combo it’s it’s getting you know, value to the advice process as opposed to value in and of itself. Which you know, as well looks data feeds could be powerful if you’ve designed a user experience I mean, the advisor has that gets them to hop in and out of that like you’ve given them like the maybe they’re learning about things are all going check this so, you know, has this what’s happened to this belt? Like if you’ve designed an experience well for sure. But if there isn’t a something that’s nudging them to check for that just for that element, then I question how often it will happen. So yeah, the I’m with you the whole interaction thing is where the magic is going to happen. And, and we do have to get off for him. No, we don’t have a choice. This is this is where it’s where it’s all going. And I was listening to a session by a cybersecurity expert just days ago, who and I’m going to get this percentage figure wrong, but it was so high that really the actual figure is irrelevant. You know, 90% of cyber attacks start with an email.

Karolina Kuszyk
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And it’s interesting, because sometimes, you know, when I’m, when I’m showing my prosperity, I’m like it drilled on security. Right. And, and trust me, we have a big spend on charity. Right. But then I just asked the simple question. Now that I’ve told you about our security, how do you currently gather information from clients? Email? Yeah. So absolutely. I think, you know, what, I think more and more advisors are aware of it now. You know, it is on our sixth radar. So absolutely. You know, they’re, they’re more aware of it day by day,

Peita Diamantidis
for sure. And, and, I mean, the truth is to that the, the options, we have become, you know, more feature rich, you know, my prosperity has evolved over time to like, these things have now become something that truly can be used as this interaction sort of hub. And that’s where it’s going to work so well, for practices is where really, the clients and your team live in this thing. You know, that’s where that’s where they really live. So now, you mentioned, he mentioned mentioned integrations. So a deep x plan sort of connection is fantastic. that’ll cover a lot of a lot of listeners in terms of, you know, data coming in, is it just data? Or is it notes? How does that work? How does the x plane interaction work?

Karolina Kuszyk
Yeah, so, so we can bring in the client list, from x plan and the IPS feeds. And we can push out our balance sheet. So say for, if, you know, regardless whether the clients manually put it in or whether they’re using the data feeds, that whole balance sheet can get pushed through. Now, now, with the full factfinding integration, it means all of those key fields that you need an X plan, they will get pre populated, which is great from that from that backline. So it means that a lot of the double handling that, you know, support staff were doing, that will be eliminated, which is great. So, so, so that’s currently being tested by a lot of it. So it’s ready, it’s been currently tested by a lot of our partners, we’re just getting a lot of feedback we’ve got in house surveys for them. So I’m really proud to say we’ve had a high rate of, because I think it’s like a smiley face to say, This is amazing, you know, a neutral face and a sad face. And if that doesn’t work, because obviously we want, we know that some integrations haven’t worked overtime, and it is incredibly hard to do some operations, right and very costly. So, but we’re really proud, and we’re really happy, we are gonna go to market with it very shortly. But that the feedback we’ve been getting so far, from a lot of our, you know, I can’t actually mention one of them. But he was just so excited. And he just sent our whole message. And yeah, it was just, it’s just been great. I’m really, I’m really excited. Because at the end of the day as a tech company, when you go to market with something, you want to make sure it works. So we’re really, really, really passionate about that. And, you know, we believe the future is connectivity and integration is something we’re passionate about. So now that we’ve, you know, worked on our main expand one, we’ve already got like a midwinter integration, I know, advice, advisor logics working with us as well at the moment. So it is all coming. We’re just yeah, we’ve actually created a bit of framework around our API as well, which we’re really pleased about. So that is the future.

Peita Diamantidis
Fantastic. And, and then in terms of how practices, so there’s things like the fact finder client data, which is great. There’s also your trail of breadcrumbs. And what I mean by that is, they’ll have been, you know, chat and conversation effectively in the app. And, you know, three years down the track, and you need to dig into something and provide evidence of oval how how a practice is doing that, like he’s there? Oh, well, it just means we’re gonna have to, you know, look in the CRM, and in the behind the scenes of the apple, what are they doing to sort of ensure they’ve got that trail of breadcrumbs of the interactions with the client?

Karolina Kuszyk
Yeah, absolutely. So great question and very important for compliance as well. But we’ve got an export button in the room section so they can export the entire chat all the documents associated with it into the zip file that we’ll go into that they can add into x plan. So I kept on it so it’s more it’s not like an integration as such, but it’s more of like an export it out and added into x plan.

Peita Diamantidis
So that could just be part of the rituals that they undergo to ensure that yeah, fantastic. And I guess that’s part of the reason it makes sense. You know, For rooms, then as you were describing that I can I in my head, I was thinking it’s almost like events. It’s like, okay, you’ve come up to a major event you have a room for that. Once that’s all finished, then you could you could do that, you know, the Export button. Okay.

Karolina Kuszyk
Yeah, absolutely. And you know what, at the end of the day, you just want, you know, you just want people in and out of the room as fast as possible. As we know, like, I’ve spoken to advisors, where they’ve said, God, before, we had my prosperities, to take us like two months to onboard clients, whereas now, through rooms, they onboard them quite quick. They’ve got the in app notifications, you know, everything. Can somebody throw a room? Jets, that’s, that’s just that’s just get more efficient. So that’s been great feedback as

Peita Diamantidis
well. Yeah. And it’s an interesting shift in approach, isn’t it? Because, in fact, I was literally just in a webinar, where we were talking through even how you set up files and things like that. And historically, often, a client file might be broken up more into almost categories based on who’s who they you know, general correspondence, yes. But there might be advice docs, and there might be, you know, paperwork, and then like, they separate them, and then, you know, the therefore you’ve got to jump in and out of each one. Whereas, actually, the way we have those is more event based, you know, it’s it’s this review for that timeframe. And yeah, under that is everything. And this is sort of similar, isn’t it? The rooms are more like, this is a moment in time what happened during that moment in time? Now, it’s done good. Move on.

Karolina Kuszyk
Yeah. And archive it. And you know, why don’t we do exactly the same with all my tech stuff, right. So I can go back. So rather than calling my accountant and saying, oh, where’s that document from my tax return from you know, three years ago? Yes. Go in there. That’s all that you know, in all the different folders? Yep.

Peita Diamantidis
To that end, do? Have you found any of the practices have clients who were sort of using the app as a bit of a vault in that sense of not necessarily just documents for the process? Or for the advice process? But the I mean, I don’t know, like travel insurance documents or like anything like that? Are they using it for

Karolina Kuszyk
other things? Estate planning is really big. So having all of their insurance, documents, estate planning documents, because once again, you know, God forbid, something happens to the client, at least everything’s there. So all their documentation in there. So everything you know, from Yeah, SOA is are always agreements, etc, all the way through to, you know, estate planning documents, POA pays. Yeah. All insurance, you know, life and TPD insurance policies, you can add all of those in.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. Okay. Fantastic. To that in then just sort of taking a step back, actually, from what we were covering before the the login or, you know, security. So this is an app on somebody’s phone, you then, you know, suggesting to advisors that they get clients to make sure they’ve always got either face recognition, or, you know, some other layer on the phone itself. Like, is that what you’re suggesting people do to ensure clients are protected?

Karolina Kuszyk
Yeah, absolutely. It’s like and put in a password or face recognition. And we’ve got an MFA on both as well. So there’s MFA on the app and also on the Practice

Peita Diamantidis
Portal. Fantastic, fantastic. And it’s really important, I think, when we’re introducing these things to clients to ensure that they’re doing that didn’t mean like, it’s like, use all the tools available to you to protect you. Yeah, we can get caught up in inconvenience, and that’s fine. But the baddies out there are relying on us wanting to make things faster and skipping steps. So, you know, things may take a little longer, but it’s not that much longer. But you know, it’s there to protect us. So, you know, we are constantly reminding clients of that, and just take the extra step. So let’s talk about so you’ve got your current users, and I mean, huge number of practices, which is great. What are some things you feel like people aren’t yet sort of taking advantage of is there any stuff that you like? While you know, this is a great opportunity? You know, more of them could use that part of the app?

Karolina Kuszyk
Yeah, low crumb, I think, to be honest, I mean, I like the nice to haves as well, I think I think a lot of firms are using the must haves quite well. But to be honest, I feel a lot of firms, and it takes a certain advisor on how to position this. And I’ll give you an example. We’ve got one berm where, you know, she started using my prosperity and this is years ago, like she’s just a gun, and she’s a one man band. And she just and I her client base, by the way is all pre retiree ex coppers. Sorry, copies or ex copies. And yeah. And it was just interesting, because she said, You know what? This is, this is just the best thing because I’m using it as a secure hub. But then at review time, I actually upgrade them because I tell them I actually need to see your data feeds. And you know, this is and she and she actually talks to them about security. She says, Look, this is safer than Internet banking, because with Internet Banking, people can transact in it whereas he can’t No, no, this is just read only. And she goes on and I need that read only information. And so and the way that she positions with us so well, so she’s got, you know, a lot of her clients where, you know, she knows exactly where they’re at, she doesn’t have to chase for balances. It’s, you know, they’re happy because they’ve got access to it at any point in time. And she uses all the must haves, like she signed stocks through it, she shares, Docs, Sheets, she loves rooms. In fact, she was one of the first advisors that started using rooms when lockdowns happened, actually, and I remember, I was doing an interview with particular advisor and, and Peter McCarthy’s founder actually popped in his head and he said, Gee, you’ve opened up more rooms and a hotel quarantine worker. So that was really good. So. So I think, you know, have that, you know, at the bare minimum, just get your clients understanding that this is a secure hub. And then you can have those conversations down the track at review time, you know, by updating all of their assets and liabilities and just having it there so that they see their financial position, and you can

Peita Diamantidis
track it. Yeah. And I think that is something I like that sort of staged approach, which just eases people in gets them, it also gets them used to it in a way that they understand before you then say elevate that experience, which is awesome. But also, you know, we can’t underrate how uninterested, most people are in forensic accounting. And so, going to the trouble of digging out all these numbers, they’re just not interested. So yeah, a little bit of magic that will do that. For them. I think a lot more people are happy to do that than we think. You know, they just, it’s an I get it, you know, it’s a pain in the neck? Well, I’ve got to dig it out. And, you know, it’s like, Can’t this just be done with them by, you know, a wave of the magic wand? And therefore, you’re right, by positioning that correctly, then it seems like the perfect solution. Absolutely.

Karolina Kuszyk
Matches great. And just on that, too, I did forget to mention that. With the app, you can actually customize how you want the app to look for look like that your clients in the Practice Portal. So you can actually move around. So say, for example, you know, we’ve got a lot of pre retiree firms, or sorry, firms that look after pre retirees, retirees, high net worths, etc. Want the cash flow section on the screen, you can actually move it out, or completely delete it out. So you can actually have that unique customer experience to each firm, which is great. Sorry. And the

Peita Diamantidis
truth is probably everybody should be thinking that way anyway, like, what is your unique consumer experience? And the app is part of that, you know, so we should sort of have a bit of a map, shouldn’t we have how we see the experience for the for the client, the incline? And you know, like you say is, does it involve the cash flow thing? Or doesn’t it does it, you know, so really making proactive decisions about when you expect to be in and out of the tool and how it’s going to work? And I’m guessing that that’s the difference between somebody successfully implementing it or not, is whether they actually lean into that, or just sort of see it as something to bolt on?

Karolina Kuszyk
Yeah, no, it definitely is the firm’s that really customize that experience for their clients and embrace that change and embrace, you know, using the must have features with their clients. They’re the ones that that certainly do do the best.

Peita Diamantidis
So then let’s talk about what’s coming up. So, you know, what is what’s on the development path? What’s what’s coming down the line that people can get excited about in terms of where you guys are taking the app,

Karolina Kuszyk
just more integrations, I mean, we are investing a lot in well, you know, the aesthetic look of the app, so to speak, but but to be honest, it’s integrations, we’re spending a lot of money on that we, you know, we’re spending a lot of money on making our API, you know, more flexible for other tech companies, etc. Yeah, we’ve got we’ve got we’re already integrate with a lot of different investment platforms. You know, we already get a whole heap of different data feeds from property, bank accounts, credit cards, you know, we’ve started that open banking as well with some institutions too, which is great. But essentially, for us, it’s I guess, integrations and also Security Security, we invest a significant amount of time and money on security, we’ve got our ISO certification, so we’re just keep adding to our security.

Peita Diamantidis
Fantastic. Well, as we all should, right and that’ll be never ending as long as a piece of string. I think that exercise will be we’ll just we’ll keep on iterating and improving over time. Anything else? We’ve missed any parts of the app or the way it

Karolina Kuszyk
can be used? No, no, sir. So basically, I Guess our number one focus is just amplifying the value of advisors, you know, and you know to do that is to make it easier for them to get the right advice, service or product for, you know, for the right time with their clients. And we believe that’s should be seamless in collaboration between the advisor and the client. So we’re just going to keep working on, you know, helping that collaboration piece. And, yeah, there’s lots of exciting things that we’re obviously in terms of integrations that we’re working on. So slowly, bit by bit, we’ll announce those as we go

Peita Diamantidis
on advice, explorers. If you’d like to find out more about my prosperity, then the website link is in the episode show notes, along with Karolina’s LinkedIn details. So I’m sure if you reach out to her, then she’d happy to point you to the right person in the team who could do a demo and talk you through how it might apply for your practice. Thank you so much for joining us, Carolina. The I’m really excited about, you know, another tool that actually has some history in the industry that’s providing, you know, a client portal option, because it helps that you guys understand us all so well. And so understand how we’ve got to work and all the compliance challenges we face. So keep it up, I look forward to seeing what else do you guys get up to in the future?

Karolina Kuszyk
No, thank you. And I really appreciate you reaching out. And I’ve really enjoyed our session today.

Peita Diamantidis
Beautiful. So I you are a current user of my prosperity, there’s a good chance that you are with hundreds and hundreds of practices using it then, if you are, please get on that ensemble platform and share your experience, what worked, what challenges you face that maybe you can share so that people don’t face the same ones if they decide to, to implement the tool, we really want to hear all the pros and cons, and anything you agree or disagree in my conversation there with Carolina. So now as for my thoughts, one thing I did want to sort of cover off, I really do think we need to be honest with ourselves in this industry. And I guess I’m talking broader than financial advice. We’re also talking financial services here, we need to acknowledge that actually, this isn’t a game of keeping up with current technology, we’re actually well behind the eight ball. So we’re already way behind, right. So any of the stuff that we’re doing now hasn’t even got us, you know, line, side by line side by side, sorry, with other industries, we’ve got a lot of catching up to do. So while it may feel like it’s a bit difficult, and a bit torturous, all this tech stuff, we need to do this to even be able to compete. So you know, viewing these things as new and different and really a portal, that doesn’t make much sense. So do I need to we absolutely do. And it’s just that cyber hacks and all those those things have brought this to the fore. And so whether it’s my prosperity or another portal, there might be a portal attached to the CRM you use, it might be an external one, we’re probably all going to have to by the end of this year, this year being 2023, probably all of us are going to need to have one version of this at least some sort of version that does some basic things, to protect our clients information. Now, the way to look at this though, and I loved where she was going with that sort of description is, you know, this is our virtual shop front, right, we don’t have us, most of us don’t have a store on High Street. But this can be it, it’s just in, in, you know, web land. And so this is your virtual shop front. And so take advantage of the ways that you can interact with people in it. Think about whether, you know, if you’re still struggling to get through to a client in the chat function of something like this change the time of day that you’re sending a message, change the type of message. So you know, all that sort of thing, we can just the same thing you do in real life and in person or over the phone, you can you can learn and do in these client portals. And the key will be how well and how cleverly we onboard a client to this, you know, lots of helpful tips, lots of basic tips, how to log in what to do when you first log in what to do second after you log in, taking them through the experience, so they can see all the different elements, perhaps gamifying, some of that, so they’ve got some to dues when they first log into the platform that are actually merely about experiencing all the different elements, introducing them to the concept, say hear of a room, you know, getting them to sign something simple, so that they can experience that process. So the better we design the onboarding, the more likely they are to use it. And my final point with any of these sorts of things, but particularly something that we get the clients to join us on the journey with is you’ve got to be serious about it. You need to have the full intent for the entire practice to be using this right we’ve got to fold it into every interaction. If you’re setting up a portal like this, but you’re also then emailing people, then that’s probably going to fail over time, right? We’ve really got to get them used to a new way of interacting with this right And you know, email, maybe that’s just a backup, that we don’t use that as the primary communication tool. So that’ll require some change and shift in mindset for your team and yourself. But that’s what’s going to really increase your like your likelihood of success. Now, as you know, there’s only one skill we need to become bionic advisors. And that’s avid curiosity. So today for the curiosity corner, I wanted to cover off GPT for now, we have already had a bit of a chat about chat, GBT. But G GPT. 3.5 is the model that’s behind chat. GPT right. And open API, the people that release that, consider that sort of a test run, letting the public at the sing and see what happens, right. Whereas open API have released GPT. Four. And of course, as it sounds, this is an upgrade. This is got more features, and done in his improvement in the whole AI sort of experience. And what’s interesting is the results are really incredible. So when Chat GPT took the simulated bar exam, you know, for the bar, solicitors then it, it generally performed in the bottom 10% of test takers, right? So hey, it could take the test. But it didn’t do all that. Well. GPT, four, so far has been in the top 10% of test takers taking a simulated bar exam. So which is interesting, right? This thing is really improving over time. And something that’s even more interesting is that it supports putting images in and then asking it questions about the images. It even understands the humor of memes, right? So it’s really, really interesting. And I bring it up because to me, at the very least, we just need to understand it enough by playing with it, we just need to see what it’s capable of. So GPT four is now available in chat GPT plus. So I’d love to hear if you’ve already started playing with it. What have you used it for? What have what’s it worked really well for? What does it not work well for? Anytime you use these tools, remember, they aren’t secure in the sense that if you put somebody’s private information in there, that that is not a secure space. So this is for something that you otherwise would do in the public. If you’re writing a blog, if you you know any of that sort of stuff, it’s all fine. So that’s where I would encourage you to test the experience and see how it can prove potentially your your comms your marketing, blogs, all those sort of things. Give it a good whirl. Hey, if the first trial is, you know, writing somebody a wonderful 60th birthday message then do that too. So either way, give it a try and let me know on the ensemble platform how you go Well, that’s all we’ve got for this week. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you’ll get your advice tech fix automatically sent to you each Friday. And look if you’re feeling really overwhelmed about all this advice tech stuff, you don’t know where to start on your advice tech journey, then I would encourage you to check out my niche down and scale up masterclass with Jenny Pierce. It’s going on in the next month or so, as that session is actually two sessions will help you narrow down to the very best next thing for you to automate and streamline in your practice. And we’ll also going to be giving you tips and tricks on what tech tools could solve that problem or that thing that you’re trying to improve upgrade or, or even elevate your the experience for your clients. So if any of this is of interest, then please reach out to me at LinkedIn. That’s LinkedIn forward slash Peita M D PEITA M D otherwise, I look forward to turning up in your earbuds next week. And remember advice explorers Stay curious.