AdviceTech Podcast #37 – Yodal – Transcript

Peita Diamantidis
Hello, and welcome to the Ensombl AdviceTech Podcast. I’m Peter Dimantidis. And the guest joining me here today to deep dive into Yodal Herculaneum is that he has an interesting background in recruitment, would you believe and also tapping into graduate talent from universities that I actually think possibly the financial advice industry could learn from, because we need to do a lot more of that. And now spends what I imagine is an inordinate amount of time surrounded by lawyers, which must be something of a shift for him. So thank you so much for joining me on the show. Brandon Thompson.

Brandon Thompson
Pleasure, Peter, thank you. My, my recruitment and graduate programs Australia days seemed like a million years ago, but But no, for the last, probably 15. It’s been playing with tech businesses in Australia, and New Zealand, China, Singapore and the Middle East.

Peita Diamantidis
Wow. So no experience at all?

Brandon Thompson
No, not at all. Not at all. No, no, no, no idea. No, I try. I actually don’t spend a lot of time with lawyers. Oh, that’s a good thing.

Peita Diamantidis
I nearly said that. I’m like, oh, we should feel sorry for him because he has to. But that’s not fair to our lawyers, brothers and sisters that we all know well, but hardly seems fair.

Brandon Thompson
And they are they are a very, very important part of of our process of our workflow.

Peita Diamantidis
Correct. And in fact, I think probably just like maybe people with financial advice, avoid it unnecessarily. I think maybe anything to do with lawyers, we do the same, which we probably shouldn’t write.

Brandon Thompson
Yeah, there’s a stigma with lawyers. It’s scary. It’s expensive. You generally are only talking to a lawyer when something bad is happening. And people always prioritize out things that they don’t understand exactly what people don’t understand lawyers.

Peita Diamantidis
Exactly. Well, now I’m very keen to pick your brain about all things Yodal. But before we do, let’s just take a moment to get to know you through your use of technology. What is your most used emoji? Do you even use emojis?

Brandon Thompson
I use them all the time. Pitcher pitcher says 1000 words. By my probably most used emoji meme. If I’m I’ll give you two. If I’m messaging my kids, it’s the little smiley face with a little love heart in the mouth. I use that one often. But generally, it’s the you know that smiley one with the ache face where they’re screwing up their mouth. And it’s like, oh, yeah, that seems to fit my life. And when you’re doing this sort of job that I do, yeah. And you’re you’re running a scale up technology business. Yeah, with with a million moving parts. Yeah. And very much in a changing landscape as everyone who would be an audience in this podcast would know the last couple of years, you tend to pull that face a lot, generally, just before you hit send. So, that would be that would be my the eek face.

Peita Diamantidis
I actually had a somebody with an advice comment recently that he felt that we’re all a bit like racecar drivers, it’s not that we can control the car. It’s that we just managed to keep it within the guardrails. So you know, there’s no control, but we do. We’re keeping it within the broad, broad area we’re meant to. And the rest is

Brandon Thompson
design. That is a skill on its own. Right,

Peita Diamantidis
exactly. So second tip, question, well, we’re all permanently attached to our smartphones. But if you had to take all the apps offered, and just keep three, which three would you keep?

Brandon Thompson
Three? Definitely my calendar, right. I live in a calendar, everything is in a calendar. So yeah, calendar would definitely stay. The second one would be photos without a doubt would be the photo app. Awesome. I’m, you know, I have a thing in our house and it’s on our fridge. It’s everywhere. And that is collecting memories, not things. So photos, the memories of photos, the stories behind photos, I would definitely keep that one. And the third one, that’s easy. It would be my BMW moto red app. I ride motorcycles that’s my passion. Right and right and race motorcycles has been for most of my life. Yeah. The places you go the things you see the people you meet. So yeah, we would definitely be the my BMW moto red app. That’d be my three.

Peita Diamantidis
I love it. Well, now the poor listener won’t be able to see this but you can behind me, you’ll see that there’s a whole lot of photos on the wall. They blurred but you’ll you’ll be able to see. So in fact, there’s this very cool service where you can take the photos you collect on your phone, you can select some and they print them onto what look like Polaroids and so then you can have them so that’s sort of my wall of, of moments, you know, and things that we’ve enjoyed, because I’m right there with you. I’m far less about the things and far more about the experiences and the people that really you Have you

Brandon Thompson
collected collective memories, not things salutely Things can go away, but the memories stay. Particularly, you know, you look at what we do, and that is, you know, the estate planning, or we use the words transfer and protection of wealth. Yeah. That is is largely about changes in people’s life. She had big changes. Yeah, it’s the memory stay, the photos are important. You keep the memories, even though other things around that may change.

Peita Diamantidis
Absolutely. And I think it is what, and we’ll dive into Yodal in a second in a second. But I do think even for financial advisors, not just their clients, this is a difficult topic, because it’s emotional. Like, you just can’t be clinical about this. Like, I think money is emotional, generally, to be fair, but in particular, this portion of the work that that we all do is particularly emotional, and I think that makes it that bit harder to dive into, because we’re like, how do we navigate that? You know, and if it’s, if it’s hard for clients, it’s going to be, you know, hard for us multiple times, because we’ll be doing that for multiple clients. So I do think, you know, I get why there’s lots of advice practices that aren’t quite as deep into this as they otherwise might be because of that hesitation, you know, it’s

Brandon Thompson
it is you’re, you’re exactly right. At the end of the day, you’re talking about money and loved one. You don’t get to more emotive pillars. Correct, really in anybody’s life? Correct. And that’s why we, we don’t really always steer away from the technical term of estate planning. Yep. And we talk about it or we refer to what we enable advisors to deliver. Right, yeah, we refer to that as the transfer and protection of wealth. Yep. If you’re having an estate planning conversation, that is, it’s a black and gray conversation. Yes. It is a term that historically has been negative, it has historically been associated with end of life. Yeah. So that is a difficult conversation to have. Yeah. But if you have a conversation that is about the transfer and protection of wealth, for the benefit of your family and loved ones, that is a very yellow and orange conversation. Yeah. And that is a very easy conversation for people to have. Yes. So part of what we do with our users is, is we spend a lot of time talking to them about the narrative and how to frame those conversations. You don’t have a black and gray conversation with your clients, you have a yellow and orange conversation with your client.

Peita Diamantidis
And I think there’s a lot of think there’s something we miss about the words we use a lot in financial services. I mean, we’ve recently had the federal budget. And it’s a good example, every time they use the word superannuation in the federal budget. Every Australian thinks it’s bad, and therefore they should stop contributing. It doesn’t matter whether it’s good or bad, and what they’re announcing. There’s this connotation that every time the government messes with something, it’s bad. And similarly, I think there’s weight with estate planning, because I think in people’s heads, when they hear a state, they think super wealthy Texan family in a movie, we’ve got this massive estate of money that can have anything to do with me didn’t mean like, I think we’ve all got this association with that word that in their heads means it’s nothing to do with them. Why don’t need to do that. I don’t have an estate, like

Brandon Thompson
Welcome to my hobby horse, you know. You sit down and you talk to these people, you know, Mum, Dad, a mortgage, a superannuation fund, maybe some insurance attached to superannuation? Yep. It’s not hard to come up with half a million dollars just there. Yeah. But then you start looking at the less tangible elements of your estate planning. I mean, it could be a treasured fire. It could be grandma’s wedding ring, you know, yeah, there’s a lot more to it. But then it’s not just about what you have. It’s about what position you’re putting people in that are your family and loved ones. In the event that you go through planned or unplanned changes in your life. It may not be just about, okay, I have a tremendous amount of wealth or I have a larger state, you might have a very smallest state, but your focus is equally on. I want to make this simple for people. I don’t want there to be arguments. I want my wishes and my legacy to be honored as I intended. I don’t want family disputes. I don’t want arguments. So there’s a whole nother element to the outcomes of what we do. Yeah, or the consequences of the process that we enable advisors to deliver. Yeah, that is completely not related to the size of your estate.

Peita Diamantidis
I hate I am was checked into a friend and we were talking about, she’d witnessed something, both hysterical but but not great at a wedding, you know, and some some behavior that occurred that was somebody being, you know, inappropriate and negative and all sorts of things. And we both agreed that there’s two situations that seem to bring out both the best and the absolute worst in people. And it’s weddings and funerals. And that’s the challenge with, you know, dealing with an inheritance and the person that’s going to have to potentially handle that, on our behalf is they’re going to be dealing with potentially people at their worst, unfortunately, and it’s just how it is, it’s the reality of the way the world works. And, and it’s often particularly surprising, you know, I think some people can really surprise you, as to, you know, where they dig their heels in. And so I think you’re right, being proactive about this sort of thing, and, and ensuring the person that you’re nominated, to step into that role has everything, you know, all the tools they need to minimize the extent to which,

Brandon Thompson
again, it’s the Protect word that you see in all of our narrative. Yeah, it’s protected stylee protecting your assets. It’s not protecting your wealth. It’s not only protecting your legacy, but it’s also protecting your family and loved ones, when you’re not there to do that. And it’s about protecting them, when often they’re in one of the most difficult and the most vulnerable periods of their life. Yeah. So the protection is a very, very broad term. Yeah, it is as much soft as it is hard.

Peita Diamantidis
It’s exactly. Well, look, let’s some let’s dive into Yodal, specifically. So for those that maybe haven’t heard about you guys, I’m sure lots have that haven’t you know what category broadly as a tool of service do you guys fall under for you know, financial advice as a market

Brandon Thompson
Yodal is to estate planning what zero is to accounting, okay. Okay, we don’t deliver estate planning. We don’t do estate planning. We’re not advisors. We’re not accountants, we’re not banks. We’re not super funds. We’re not lawyers, we have a tool that enables our users who are financial planners, accountants, all of those verticals, I just mentioned, to deliver an estate planning solution to their clients. end to end. Okay, so Yodal is a facilitation tool that enables our users to deliver dedicated estate planning.

Peita Diamantidis
And you mentioned, just as you’re saying that you mentioned, you know, certainly advisors, but accountants, I’m bent, like have taken a look at the website, you guys, you know, interact with dealer groups. Is there any any extent to which you deal direct to the consumer?

Brandon Thompson
Not at this point, okay. That’s not the that’s not the market that we feel. Yep. We have some consumers come to us, because they find us. And we do have, obviously the knowledge, the networks, the resources, the tools to be able to facilitate that. But that’s not our focus. Now, you’ve got to be niche, or you’ve got to be big. And we still saw an opportunity out of our founders own operational frustrations, to enable or empower, or facilitate the advice market to deliver a dedicated estate planning or transfer protection offering? Yep. And that’s the that’s the space that we feel.

Peita Diamantidis
Okay. And so the in, say, within an advice practice, then do you guys find that the primary user is the adviser or is there other members of the team that ended up interact? Like, who do who ends up playing with the tool or utilizing it? Do you find

Brandon Thompson
primarily the advisor? Okay, we have two workflows in the Yodal solution. One is what we refer to internally as DCE, which is basically direct consumer engagement, or it can be advisor lead. So regardless of whether the Willmaker is the one initiating and driving the process, or whether it’s the advisor initiating and driving the process, the Yodal workflows cater for for both

Peita Diamantidis
for both, okay, and so then because, you know, there were there might be elements of the conversations or, or you know, information gathering that a practice could probably consider other participants. But today, what you’re finding is advisors are the ones that are generally the the ones use, an advisor

Brandon Thompson
may have an administrative person that might assist with some of the document collation or the data collection. They could be used as in the system with the correct roles and permissions and access and all of those compliance elements, which are fundamental and inherent in everything at Yeovil does. Yeah. But primarily, the driver of this process is the advisor. Yep, they may get the Willmaker or their clients to do parts of that process inside Yodal, they may get internal resource says to deliver parts of that process. But the fundamental owner of any matter, that’s our terminology internally as a matter system is generally owned and driven by the advisor. Okay.

Peita Diamantidis
And so, I mean, clearly, this is something that, like I said earlier, isn’t done or proactively done for by every advice practice in the country. But I’m expecting actually over time, that’s going to change just due to the sheer volume of transfer that’s going to be happening, which is ludicrously large. And so I guess what I’m interested in is your insights for, you know, practices you have taken through that journey. So, you know, some people I’m betting come to you with, with a service that’s established, and you’re more just, you know, an enhanced tool that they use. So it’s almost like you’re just plugged into their service. Right? I’m, well, both. But I’m curious about the ones where this is this is newer to them, you know, what’s the process you take them through? And what do you find? You know, they need?

Brandon Thompson
I’ll answer that in two parts. Number one, what you touched on, at the preface of the question, was intergenerational wealth transfer. You cannot ignore it. It’s not something, it’s not something that is going to happen. It’s not something that is coming. It is something that is here. Yeah. So what we have really noticed, I would say, over the last 18 months, is a significant shift in the mindset of our clients, whether they’re accountants, financial planners, dealer groups, whoever, yep, a significant shift in their mindset about their need to be doing, what Yodal enables them to do, right. I think that comes from a number of different places. I think that comes from the outcome of all of the reviews and the turmoil in the world winds and the tornadoes that the entire industry has fought through for years. And you’re at a point where anyone who has gone through that and made a conscious decision to stay professionally operating in this industry, is now looking at, what do we need to do in our business? What can we do better? How do we engage with our clients? How do we generate new revenue? How do we maintain compliance? How do we get to service our customers? How do we grow our business? All of those sorts of things? And estate planning or transfer protection fits squarely in that? Yep. So the next part, you look at the commercial opportunity, and I’ll look at the numbers behind this. ABS data shows that nearly 1/3 of the Australian population 25 point 4 million people are over the age of 55. Okay, 63% of Australian adults do not have a current or valid will, yeah, keep in mind a will is not an estate plan, or will be a component of a very important distinction. So you look at that transfer 19%, or just over 19% of the population who are aged 40 to 54, will inherit $3.5 trillion trillion dollars, up to 20 2050. So that’s $224 billion a year. So there is not only a need an absolute need, but there’s also a significant commercial opportunity for these advice businesses. Yeah. Yeah. And and an analogy I’ll use very, very quickly, you get back to pizza shops, a pizza shop 10 years ago, they would spend a fortune on infrastructure and accommodation and leases and all those sorts of things in their businesses would operate from 5pm to 9:30pm. Okay. Those businesses look for ways to extract more value out of their assets and their expenses. Estate planning is no different for every single advice business. You already have the relationships you already have the people. Yep. Okay. with little or no effort. You can open your pizza shop from eight o’clock in the morning. Yeah, just by adding one additional service line that is entirely complimentary to what you’re already doing with these people anyway. Yeah. Yeah. and grow your business generate more revenue, all of those sorts

Peita Diamantidis
of things. And log in when it comes down to it solve the problem that they have like it this is a this is something and like you say it is more than that I mean something that’s an operational experience that you know, practices may not have gone through because they may not have the age demographic in their in their client base but you know, we have experienced powers of attorney and the need to have them in place and what happens when they aren’t and and even when you do have them trying to submit them to providers and like this is one of those pain in the neck. things if you don’t have these things in place, and we’re not talking about because you know somebody you know 90 And has dementia this can be because somebody’s overseas and can’t get something have done, you know, while they’re on a leave or like there’s all sorts of reasons these things can one

Brandon Thompson
of the one of the busiest one of the busiest periods for estate planning is holiday periods. It’s not because anything’s wrong. Yeah, it’s just minimizing risk. We’re all getting on an aeroplane. Yeah, correct. Right. So just to answer the other half of your question, and that was, what do what conversations do we normally have with advisors who come to us? Number one, advisors don’t need to be educated on the importance of estate planning. They already know it. Yeah. Okay. They either choose to do it, or they choose not to do it. Yeah. If an advice businesses business chooses to do it, there is not a set of circumstances or a commercial requirement for any advice business, that one of our various Yodle solutions or tools cannot satisfy in full. Yep. Okay. So nearly every conversation we have with an advice business, who has made a decision that they want to do estate planning converges to a successful outcome for Yodal. And then ultimately, their business. Yeah, you look at the other side of that coin, and that is people who know the importance but have not made the decision to implement something. We find that very much, they will identify a need, pick up that relationship, flick it over the fence to a lawyer recommend that their client goes and sees a lawyer. And then they spend the next six months at a massive opportunity cost chasing the client app, have you done it? Have you not done it? And that process is categorized by two things. Number one is a long time to complete. And the second is an exceptionally high fail to complete. Yes. So the end of the day, there is no service delivery, there’s no value to the client, and there’s an increased risk from a liability and compliance perspective for the advisor. So when people come back to us, they are asking a couple of questions. Number one, how do I make money from this? Yep. Okay, interestingly, you rewind three and a half years, that was seldomly ever a consideration for an advice business. seldomly ever but now, how do I make money from this? Yeah, okay. If you use Yodal correctly, it becomes a profit center, not a cost center. And you should be generating revenue. Yodal Yodal is not a cost to your business. Yes, there are costs. If you do it properly. It is not a cost. So that’s the first question they asked about the commercial arrangements in how do I make money? The second thing that they ask is, how much of my time is this going to take? We have invested very heavily in a whole series of tools and features that support advisors to set up and integrate with their websites, all the narrative, all the tips, all the tricks, all the entry points, we’ve got Yodal in a box tools which use high quality emotive base video which forms part of their marketing, we can link our DC entry points to SMS social media, we’ve got over 300 pieces of social media content advisors can use. So we’ve invested a lot of time in getting their clients to self prioritize their estate planning right and bringing those opportunities back to the advisor. That’s the first bit the second bit is processing a matter. Now that is an that’s an administrative exercise for an advisor, not an advice exercise

Peita Diamantidis
facilitation that you’re you’re the you’re the glue that sort of you are you are

Brandon Thompson
collecting wishes you are collating documents, you know, you’re not giving any advice. Yes, that’s an administrative process that again, we leverage check to make that as simple as we possibly can. And then at the end of the day, all of that goes into an electronic shoebox and gets sent over to a lawyer. Okay. So, that’s the second question they ask is about, how much time is this going to take? So the reality to that question is if you use all of the tools and exploit Yodal to its fullest potential, the time limits or the time imposed on an advisor to ensure their clients are fully protected is surprisingly minimal. Okay. The third question that we always get asked is around compliance. Any advisor any dealer group, any potential client can throw any question at us around conflict compliance defensibility Information Security APRA ASIC TPB ATO throw it at us Been there, done that got a t shirt. You know, that is it’s fundamental in the design and the development of Yodal right down to individual and editable board. trails that sit behind every single matter. So once we tick those three boxes in them in the mind of an advisor, and we do a demonstration of the solution, and people get to see how the technology works, it becomes relatively simple.

Peita Diamantidis
So then for the end, client, the end consumer, the difference between just so I can sort of really understand the difference between, you know, you’ve got an advisor who’s doing the right thing and bringing up the fact, you know, client, Mr. Client, you need to be on top of this, please go and see somebody, right. So then the client in that situation needs to, of course, go and see a lawyer, but also effectively brief understand what they want, what they need, you know, all those so there’s a, there’s a whole level of, of insight that probably the client doesn’t have to even be able to ask the lawyer what they should get. Because as a lawyer, not unlike ourselves, you know, we do fill orders in the in the sense that somebody needs to make a request of us, you know, lawyers are similar in that respect. They can’t just wave a magic wand, you know, order

Brandon Thompson
takers, verse automakers. Right.

Peita Diamantidis
Right. And so we, yeah, yeah, so for the client

Brandon Thompson
all the time, right, we, we try and make the advisor, the order taker, right. So we use our tools to promote the importance of estate planning back out to their clients. Yeah. And they do it, we don’t do it, they do it, but they use our tools, the client or the Willmaker, or that their client brings that opportunity back to the advisor. And then we enable them through the Yodal solutions to process that matter very, very simply, very, very efficiently.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. Okay. And so then, you know, so for the, for the client, then that’s engaged with the advisor, and the advisor is using noodle is the difference really, from the clients perspective, that they’re fully empowered, such that when it hits the lawyer, it’s prescriptive in that sense, in that it’s very clear what’s required.

Brandon Thompson
The work is basically done right outside of legal advice, Ryan, formalizing documents,

Peita Diamantidis
okay. So it’s almost the lawyers job at that sense. So okay, so just to draw that out. Again, for people who haven’t experienced that, then, in one instance, the lawyers almost creating from scratch something, right, because in the end, all of this is a set of a series of documents and things like that, right. Instead of creating that from scratch, what they’re really doing is casting their expertise, their legal expertise over something that’s there, and helping the client making sure the client understands what is there is that a fee?

Brandon Thompson
The advisor is the advisor is doing that as a valuable service to for and with their clients. They’re building trust, they’re building loyalty, they’re delivering advocacy. Yeah, they’re building those stronger relationships with the Willmaker. Yeah. And then it goes to the lawyer so that the reality is, every matter that that goes through Yodle must be finished with a lawyer is non negotiable. Every matter starts with a needs assessment and a recommendations report. And every matter finishes with a lawyer non negotiable book ends to the Yodal workflow. Yeah, by the time a matter goes to a lawyer, the reality is it’s probably 85%. Complete, right? You know, other than the lawyer, engaging personally with the Willmaker, which they do in every single instance, yoga is not an online, Will. I real lawyer, who is an Estate Planning Specialist, will engage with your client in every single instance, and will complete every single matter. Yeah, I can’t say that enough, because it’s a huge differential. All they are doing is confirming that their understanding of the client’s wishes is correct. providing legal advice around any specific risks that the Advisor may have identified. Yep. Could be a blended family with an estranged child, right? Yeah. It could be special needs. It could be a whole range of different things. But all the lawyers doing is confirming their understanding of this matter is correct. providing legal advice around specific elements of that set of circumstances. And then finalizing documents. That’s all the lawyers doing?

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So it’s, I’m curious about how the lawyers, so I’m, well, I’m betting that there’s some that are, you know, well engaged with this as part of the solution for the client connected to advisors. But for ones that are new to this, how do you what’s the response you get from lawyers?

Brandon Thompson
If it’s a three stage response. And about I love lawyers, by the way, yeah, I’m a big fan of lawyers. They are critical to what we do and they’re critical to the value proposition that Yodal enables our clients who are the advisors to deliver to their clients. Yeah. And the initial response from lawyers is you’re trying to take our jobs. Right. Okay, that lasts about two minutes. The second response from lawyers is, yeah, okay. Let’s have a look at this. Yep, let’s let’s, let’s see how this actually works, because it is a new way of doing things. And then once they have seen the Yodal process, what gets delivered to them and the quality of the precedent documents that are generated directly out of the Yodal solution? Yeah. They end up coming back to us going, how do we go on your preferred panel of lawyers? And can you actually be referring us work from other advice groups? Okay. So, yeah, it’s a very good, very good relationship we have with lawyers, and they are a critical part of of the service delivery.

Peita Diamantidis
And let’s be really, really open and fair here. Advisors have the same, you know, we’re skeptical about things that come from external that come to us that seem to almost sometimes encroach on what we’re doing, you know, instead of sort of going, Oh, well, let’s see, you know, like, being open, it’s natural for people to be skeptical. So, you know, I don’t, I’m with you, I don’t think we need to judge lawyers for that it’s more, it’s more about, well, you want the ones that are happy to just experience and see. And then if it adds value, of course, they’re gonna want to be want to be part of that, you know,

Brandon Thompson
they need to ensure that their professional obligations are being met, they need central sure that what we’ve done in the background, doesn’t diminish the quality or the value of their advice. And it doesn’t, in fact, Hanses enhances what they’re doing. So that becomes relatively simple. Lawyers are really just a cog in our service delivery, we don’t have a lot to do with them. We don’t go out and actively pursue lawyers. The Yodal solutions are designed to be lawyer agnostic. So if an advisor has existing relationships with a lawyer or a law firm, that where a client has existing relationships with a lawyer or a law firm, they can still use them. So all of our work and support is is directed at the client experience and advisor and not not the lawyer end.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. Okay. And in terms of the way you’re seeing practices do this. And of course, I’m imagining this as as long as a piece of string, but there’ll be some practices that do, you know, an all up, say, and I’m just picking an annual fee that in covers the covers a whole lot of things they do for clients, you know, and so this could just be one of the things, you know, so it’s all part of the, the total fee. And that’s, that’s one way but, you know, I’m imagining there’s others that because they haven’t been doing this before, then this might be like an add on, you know, it might be an extra Hey, and if you’d like to leave or if you’d like us to, here’s an add on. Are you? Is that what you think sort of like a facilitation fee or something like it’s a, is that how they’re handling it?

Brandon Thompson
We see, we see three different general ways that advice businesses work, you’ve got some businesses that charge an advice fee. And it already includes estate planning in the advice fee. Yeah, so they pick up the client relationship run the entire process through to completion via Yodal. And that entire service layer is encapsulated in the one off advice. We see another subset of our users who are generally advice businesses or accountants, who will build the estate planning, at least assessment needs assessment into every single conversation, a dedicated element of their client engagement strategy. And keep in mind, you only need to invest six or seven minutes. To go through sorry, six or seven minutes to set up a matter inside Yodal complete a 12. Question needs assessment, be given a personalized recommendations report that tells the client exactly what they need? And more importantly, the reasons why they need it. Right. And, and to give them a fixed price quote, inclusive of the cost of the lawyer, because every lawyer accepts our terms and conditions, including our costs. Yeah. So regardless of if we got lawyer a or lawyers, Ed doing the legal work on a matter, the cost is always exactly the same. Yeah. So you’re able to give them set up a matter do a needs assessment, personalized report recommendations and a fixed price quote, it’s seven or eight minutes. Yeah. So that’s, that’s the power of Yodal. Yeah. And then your client really only has one of three choices then. Yep. Let’s do this. That sounds good. Let me think about it. Or not. I don’t want to do this at all. Yeah, yeah, there is still a valid outcome for the client relationship and the advice business, regardless of which option they choose. Yep. If they decide they want to go and do it, enhance service delivery, better relationships, better retention, increased attraction, generating revenue, no risk, low or no risk. If they are going to think about it later, it’s a valid reason for you to continue to engage with that client from a relationship perspective. Yeah, if they choose not to do it, because you’ve gone through such a very, very simple but comprehensive initial process. Yeah, you still added value to your business by minimizing risk. You There is no doubt in relation to what side of the best interest duty fence that you’re sitting on. Yeah. So even though you haven’t delivered the transfer and protect service, you haven’t generated revenue, you still added value to your business by minimizing risk.

Peita Diamantidis
And so let’s talk. So then there’s the initial work clearly, that establishes a plan. But then, of course, people situations change over time, and there’s a need to update. How does that work? So how is that being handled? Or? Or what is that? Is that Is it an entirely new matter? Is it like, how does that work

Brandon Thompson
for? No, it’s not an entirely new matter. All of that data persists? Inside Yodal. Yep. But once a matter is marked complete by a lawyer, all of that data is securely archived. But in the event that there are changes planned or unplanned in someone’s life, you might it might not be in the client’s life. It could be a change in a beneficiary’s life. I was about to say change in an executives life,

Peita Diamantidis
you know, a child gets married or divorced or whatever, like,

Brandon Thompson
Oh, yes. Yep. Or Touchwood. Something far worse. But yeah. Yeah, all of that can be bought back out. You’re not starting flat footed. You already have the relationship with your advisor. He’s already you know, he or she has already has background knowledge of your circumstances. You already have a relationship with the lawyer. You are flat far from flat footed.

Peita Diamantidis
Yep, yep. Okay. So then, in terms of from the end users perspective, is there any extent to which they interact with Yodal directly? Or is it really more as an output sense?

Brandon Thompson
No, no, go to Yodal is a tool. Yeah. You would use Microsoft Word in your office. But you never talked to Microsoft? Yeah. So we don’t generally have any direct engagement interface. And we’ll make up with two exceptions. Number one is user support. Yep. Okay, full user support phone, email, online, everything. If any of the users are going through the system and something isn’t working, or they’re just not sure, they can contact Yodal support, and we’ll facilitate them through that. Yeah, but that is purely a support role. The second option, or the second instance, where we may engage directly with a Willmaker we have a service offering called Yodal concierge, where we might use our resources at the request of an advice business, right? To do the administrative functions around the data collection, document collation. Okay, an advice business may see a need for estate planning, but they don’t have resources. So they can outsource that to us. And in that instance, under the direction of the advice business, we would engage with that client, collect the information, collate the documents, identify the risks, make the notes for the lawyer, but we would do that as a representative of their business, not as Yodal. Okay, so

Peita Diamantidis
Okay, okay, perfect. How about integration? So, do you integrate with any other, you know, tools, advice, tools, or anything like that?

Brandon Thompson
Yodal has been designed and developed from day one, to be what’s called API first. Yep. So anything I can do with a computer and a keyboard? We can do via API. Yep. We have an existing integration with and the name is going to escape me. I’ll come back. I’ll remember it while I’m while I’m talking. And I’m

Unknown Speaker
asked to explain. Now it’s not

Brandon Thompson
in our plan. Watch this space on

the street, we’ll do that. There we go. We’ve got the existing integration with a student we’ll Yes, we have two others that are currently in development, and watch this space on a third. Integration is really, really important for a number of different reasons. Number one, it reduces the time and the resources required by an advisor. Yeah, that’s number one. Number two, it reduces human error in data entry. And number three, and this is where our interview Patients tend to be more bespoke rather than off the shelf plug visit and push this button you’re already connected. Often through the estate planning process or through the process where we’re collecting data. You will find that a lot of the data that is being held in advice business systems is outdated. Right? So at the completion of a matter, we’re able to push directionally feed that right back. Yep. Tag, identify and overwrite the outdated data. Yeah, okay. And in terms of integration, what we also find is there’s three types of data. There is data that will sit in an advice businesses, business systems, that can automatically be pulled across simple information, as you would expect names, addresses, contact details, business statements, all of those sorts of simple Informatica all the things Yep. You’re also always going to have a volume of data that won’t sit in any system, right? And funeral plans, funeral requests, guardianship executors, what happens with grandma’s wedding ring. So there is always going to be an element of data collection that is going to have to be done. Now whether that is done, advisor led, whether that is done by the client, who is invited securely to import that data in or whether that is done through Yodal concierge Razak, matter how that is done. But there will always be a volume of data that needs to be collected, because it doesn’t sit anywhere else,

Peita Diamantidis
because it’s unique to this particular. Absolutely.

Brandon Thompson
It’s very personal, very unique, and it’s matter specific. But whilst I use the words, volume of data, you’re talking about stuff that may take seven or eight minutes to collect.

Peita Diamantidis
Yep. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So then in terms of where he was going into, you know, looking forward, you mentioned some more integrations, which isn’t your usual thing, when we’re talking about tech, it’s always what integrations are coming up what else is on the development path, you know, what else is coming up? For you and the team?

Brandon Thompson
Okay, we have two parts to the Yodal business, we have one part, which we refer to, and I’m using internal language that we refer to its core target market. Yep. And that is our advisors, our accountants, they may have hundreds may have 1000 clients, but a critical part of our business. It’s where the Yodal business has been born, built and grown on very, very important to our learning and what we do. So that’s one half of our business. The second half of our business is more enterprise, large organizations, big dealer groups, retail banks, superannuation funds, insurers, we have seen significant opportunities in the enterprise space. And that, I guess, is driven by a couple of reasons. Number one, literally billions of dollars worth of work got tossed up in the air, when the banks exited regulated advice. People are stepping into that space. There is a huge client need, and there is a huge commercial opportunity. So we’re seeing people stepping into that void. And Yodal really does have the only dedicated enterprise solution. So we have a series of resources going into the enterprise space, watch this space for some very exciting things. So there’s definitely that from a platform perspective, we cannot ignore the AI. Yet we cannot ignore the place that AI will will play. In what way? It will never, I won’t say never, never say never. But I think we’re a long way off it replacing what Yodal does or what advisors do. Yeah, but to ignore it. Is to be ignorant. Yeah, so we can’t ignore it. We need to understand its place and its value. But we also need to understand the limitations and its risks. Yeah. Yeah. So there’s work going in there. The third area where we’re sort of focusing is the what happens when conversation. What happens when a matter is complete? So we have a new tool that will be coming online towards the end of this year, called the living will. I won’t say too much about living well, but it is very, very exciting. It is an absolute. It’s very exciting. So that is more about the wheel maker experience. Yep. After the wheel has been completed once it’s done, or at the time where elements of that will need to be enacted. Right. Because like we talked about right at the beginning, Peter at that it’s often the most horrific time for people. Yeah. So if we can step them in a fully supported way, attribute the value of that support back to their advisor. Yeah. And really do it in a color by numbers way where they feel safe. Yeah. Follow the bouncing ball and informed and empowered. Yes. Nobody loses.

Peita Diamantidis
Correct. And look, we’ve got to be frank here. This is something that happens all the time. Also some some poor person having to deal with this as the first time they’ve ever had to do it, and start from scratch. It’s, it’s crazy, right? It’s crazy that that’s how it needs, that that’s how it might be so absolutely something that says, you know, brings all all that insight together, and is a guide, you know, so can take them down that path of

Brandon Thompson
genuinely put everything you need. And I’m talking people support information resources, literally, in one place. Yeah. Yeah. Because you just don’t know what you just don’t know know, that will always be true.

Peita Diamantidis
And how could they possibly like?

Brandon Thompson
It’s just fortunately, they never know. But that won’t. You know, there will come a time where it’s like you put insurance on your car, you spend 1000s of dollars year insuring your car, but you hope you never need it. Correct. When you’re talking about estate planning, there is no set of circumstances where you will never need it. Right. Okay. It’s the one insurance policy you will always use.

Peita Diamantidis
Yep. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So anything else we’ve missed?

Brandon Thompson
Anything else we’ve missed? I guess two things. There is a very big difference between the space that Yodal plays in and that is we are a business to business solution. Yep. Business. We are not a b2c business. We have unique offerings, unique value propositions unique tools that have been designed to because financial services and professional services are their own complex, compliance driven animals. Yeah. We ensure through Yodal that compliance is maintained, accuracy is maintained. And risk, we often use the words off risk advice businesses who adopt a Yodal solution or partner with Yodal as their estate planning partner. They are off risk, we have compliance built into our tools. And the mandatory inclusion of lawyers in every single matter ensures that the advisor and the advice businesses remain off risk. Yeah. So Yodal is not is not an online will, they are probably the two points. And what I would, I guess, challenge people to do. If you are currently doing estate planning, go and have a look@Yodal.com.au and have a look at what we offer. If you are doing estate planning, and you’re not using Yodal, you can be doing better than you’re currently doing. If you are thinking about doing estate planning, and you want a dedicated partner that has a solution that will meet the requirements of your business and your clients, regardless of how big or how small you are, regardless of whether you’re doing one matter a quarter or 50 matters a month. Yeah, we have a solution and a commercial structure that works for you. And if you go to the dealer group and more enterprise space, yep. You as organizations, you need to grow your dealer groups, you need to ensure in a market sorry, in a resource deficient market, you need to ensure that you are adding maximum value to your existing licensees or existing advisors. And you also need to have the most compelling proposition to attract new advisors. There is not only the commercial and service realities of Yodal, but there is an undeniable attraction and retention value by having a conversation with us about how do we partner with you.

Peita Diamantidis
Okay, and so for, you know, the advisors, our listeners on the earth listening to the podcast, then if you’re absolutely, you know, go and check out Yodal, but feel free to point your dealer group at them say I need you guys to talk to them too because of course that’s how we work anyway, don’t we? I mean, we’ve that it’s a it’s a sort of a three dimensional relationship the way we work with a lot of these things. So I’m I’m expecting you guys a very comfortable having those conversations at a dealer group level, so they can visors

Brandon Thompson
will come to us, we’ll end up with four or five 610 advisors from a particular AFSL. They will then go, Hey, this is awesome. They’ll send us to their advisory council, the Advisory Council put us in the dealer group. But if we know that that’s the direction that the rivers flowing, we will also use our networks and attack the dealer group on their behalf from a top down approach. So everything we do is about partnerships. Yeah, if everybody doesn’t win, we’re not interested. Yeah, everybody needs to win.

Peita Diamantidis
Perfect, perfect. All right advice explores, if you’d like to find out more about Yodal, then, like we mentioned, then the website link is going to be in the episode shownotes, along with Brandon’s LinkedIn details, now I’m sure he’s not the person that will actually necessarily be answering your questions, but I’m sure it’d be happy for you to nudge him on LinkedIn. And he’ll point you in the right direction of which team member can look after you. You know, this, like you say, this is such a big space going forward. And I think at the very least for us to all, you know, as advisors inform ourselves on some more proactive ways we can provide these solutions to clients, I think, you know, will really put us but also, more importantly, our clients in good stead in the future. And

Brandon Thompson
even if at the end of the day, an advice business or dealer group makes a conscious decision that we are not going to pursue an estate planning offering. At least have a conversation with us first, when you make that decision, it’s informed.

Peita Diamantidis
Exactly. And look, that’s that’s just what we want for our clients too, isn’t it? Like it’s just informed consent, informed decisions are all the way, the way we need to move forward? Thank you so much for your time, I really appreciate it. And, you know, we’re all going to be deemed is far more not at all

Brandon Thompson
remarkable. For the opportunity. We welcome the ability to do this. And we certainly welcome the opportunity to introduce Yodal to

Peita Diamantidis
anybody interested in done. Thank you. Man, I’m really curious if you are a current user of Yodal. I know there are people out there who utilize the tool. So I’m really curious on your take on it. And you know, what your experience has been? pros, cons, tips and tricks, please share your insights on the Ensembl community platform. I know my team and I are looking into all of this. And so I’d certainly appreciate any insight you have, and I’m sure the rest of the community would to terms of my thoughts on the well, you know, but also sort of broader than that, I think, as an industry, we’re really going to need to hunt out tools that help us connect to the generations on either side of our clients, you know, whether this is for estate planning, it could be insights into aged care, longevity analysis, all sorts of things that we’re going to need to hunt out, you know, no matter what the topic is, you know, in fact, this in the reason is because it’s not just for the advisor with all the clients. So worrying about what’s going to happen as we get older worrying about what’s going to happen when we pass away, or we or we, you know, get really sick, whatever that might be. This isn’t just for all the clients, you know, I guarantee you if you have clients 40 in their 40s or 50s, say they’re going to be worrying about this and how it’s all going to work for them, how are they going to manage it? How do they bring it up with mom and dad, you know, it, it absolutely makes sense, across many generations to both have an ability to bring this up as a conversation, and also have tools that at the very least can help facilitate a result for them. And you know what, I think it really makes sense to focus on making difficult moments easier for our clients, you know, and and I think that’s ultimately our goal, right? No matter what those difficult moments might be. This could be just ensuring they get that paperwork done, it could be educating their powers of attorney on what that means and how to go about things when, you know, the worst happens. No, no matter what that is, you know, how can we make those difficult moments easier? And, you know, when I think about it, honestly, I’ve only mentioned it in the interview, but I think we probably need some better names for things. You know, I think estate planning is just something that has no meaning to anybody except those in the industry Yodal, as Britain shed uses transfer and protection. Is there something else that would make more sense to the public? And, you know, to that end, I’d actually love to hear the other way you bring this topic up with your clients, what’s the language they use? Is there something cheeky, that could otherwise be less formal and and just say what it is rather than you words that the clients may never have heard about before. So please, you know, please share any of your ideas on the ensemble platform. Alrighty, we’re up to that time. It is curiosity, corner time. And we have an app to keep your curiosity muscle working, so that we can all continue to become bionic advisors. So the app of like it’ll look at this It is called Draw fi, which is not easy to spell. Also, you can find it at draw fi.com. This is Dr. A wify.com. And their tagline is captivate your audience with unique hand drawn images. This has over 50,000 hand drawn illustrations. And what they help you do is use those to create a visual and eye catching story. What we’re thinking here, think of any diagram, maybe there’s diagrams you do on a whiteboard that you’ve always wanted to try and put into something that could be used as a PDF or something you could send to clients. But every time you try and do that in PowerPoint, or equivalent, it’s just all stiff and formal and boxes and arrows. Well, you know, if you use hand drawn illustrations to do that, perhaps it’ll have a bit more of that energy, right? So they have templates as well. So it’s not just the drawings themselves, the illustrations, they also have templates that you can then drag and drop the particular images you like into it. So really, this is all about, you know, translating that complex information into something really compelling. And also easy to remember as a visual, visual, right? So it’s, it’s not stiff and formal. It doesn’t look scientific, this is more human, and looks like that thing you’ve whipped up. But we’ve all done in a meeting where we’ve done a drawing in front of our clients. Without though what I like is without me actually having to do the drawing, because to be quite frank, I’m hideous at it. So this really caught my attention. I would love to hear if you check it out, and you think it’s worthwhile, let me know. But I think it’s one of those many things we do have that could meet a particular need, or talkie. 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. If you are not on the ensemble platform already and you’re an advisor or working in advice practice, I really would encourage you to join the ensemble community. And that is free to join in and you can get to inker interact and chat to all of your fellow fellow ensembles. Is that a word? But I would encourage you to do that now if this episode has sparked some ideas for you on you know wanting to engage with your team more get their curiosity pumping, project management, you know, coming up with ideas, then I would love to facilitate a team building session for your team. Basically around building their curiosity muscle and coming up with a structure and a format for how you can really innovate regularly and successfully in the practice. So please reach out to me on LinkedIn if that’s of interest that’s LinkedIn forward slash Peter M DPITA. M D. Otherwise oh look forward to turning up in your earbuds next week. And remember, advice explores Stay curious.