Engine Room Podcast #1 – Mitchell Ramsbotham – Transcript

Andrew Rocks
Hi, welcome to the engine room podcast from Ensombl. I’m Andrew Rocks, and I’m going to spend the next little while with a great practice manager. The whole purpose of the engine room is to promote the business of the business. And we’re working through some of Australia’s leading practices, both existing and also visionary, to find out what makes those practices tick. And I’m here today with Mitchell Ramsbotham. And he’s from Coastal Advice Group. Good morning, how are you?

Mitchell Ramsbotham
Very well, Rocksy, thank you very much. Now, in your preamble, you told me that this is where my opportunity exists to either keep people or lose people on this podcast. So ladies and gentlemen, I asked you, if I am starting to lose you here. The best is yet to come. So stick with me.

Andrew Rocks
Yeah, so desperation is not really a usual selling tactic that we endorse. But I think that the term is authentic vulnerability, and you’ve heard it here. So I suppose just to kick things off, and it’s always good to get a bit of a feel for the people. I don’t know that you’ve been on an ensemble podcast before. Just give us a bit of an idea more about how you’ve managed to get to the role of practice manager or general manager within your group. But how you got there on your journey, please?

Mitchell Ramsbotham
Sure. So I started with coastal two years ago, the role that I’m in at the moment of group General Manager encompasses all of that, you know, the whole multiple, multiple disciplinary business that we run up and down the east coast, where I’ve come from, just to clarify the east coast of where is Coast of Australia, right, New South Wales. So my backstory is, I have been in financial planning financial services since since I was butter baby. This is where I landed, following a stint at university that I didn’t that I thought was going to be my bag, but really didn’t end up being what I wanted to do. As you find with most people, I fell into financial services, but I didn’t just fall into financial services, I fell in love with financial services. And I really, really enjoy what I do. I did a brief stint as an advisor, I then had an opportunity following success over there to go with a manager at the time into product distribution land as an opportunity where he you know, he asked me to come along with him which I which I grabbed the opportunity with open arms. And that’s where I remained for the next 15 or so years. Wow. From you know, little baby, little baby BDM floundering away with next to no idea what he was doing, but a really positive attitude about it all the way through to spending the period prior to moving into this role as the strategic partnerships manager for AIA, so I looked after all of the national licensee relationships and platform relationships for AIA.

Andrew Rocks
So you kind of had a bit of an advantage in that you you’ve been assessing your potential long term suitors from that particular perspective. And when you said you you fell in love with financial planning. I almost threw in some sort of swipe gag, but I thought I’d leave that there because you’ve already pulled the desperation card. Much, much. Leave me alone. So then you you’re getting a decent lens across all practices. Yes. And where were you located?

Mitchell Ramsbotham
I’ve all I did a stint in in Sydney. I thought that during the formative years of my career, it would be silly of me not to be able to do all of the extracurricular meet the people build the network in the in the industry to make sure that

Andrew Rocks
very topical with people. You know, I speak to a lot of people who worry about their young people not working from home all the time. And you’ve just sort of, I suppose inadvertently summarized why it’s good to have a healthy mix of both

Mitchell Ramsbotham
Absolutely. And I had on heart would say that that was a key to the success of that particular point in time because I really put myself out there. I was young and had a lot of time on my hands and didn’t have kids like I do now. And it was pretty easy to go out for Friday drinks and go to all of the industry events and go to everything that I was invited to all invited myself to invariably but you know, that was a that was a core part of it. I then I now live on the Central Coast and have done for a long time. That’s where I that’s where I grew up and where my formative years were. I found myself couch surfing most weekends and just spending bulk rent in Sydney and spending most of my weekends on the Central Coast anyway, so it made sense, but the flexibility of the role and the way that the BDM role worked for me just meant that if I was spending the right amount of time client facing, I didn’t need to be in the office anyway. So if I was happy to do the hours, and happy to do the case, it didn’t matter where I positioned myself.

Andrew Rocks
And the coastal business wasn’t a startup, it had been around for some years. And was it a case of you went to them and presented sort of a role and opportunity? Or were they actively looking at that stage?

Mitchell Ramsbotham
Or might they were hunting me Come on. So I’d known I’ve known Daniel for 10 years of that, that element of my career. And just as Daniel, I just as I’ve watched Daniel go through the throes of his evolution, I first visited him while he was an advisor with his uncle that Newcastle financial planning and an older business in the junction prior 10 years down the track, we find ourselves at a point where I had been his BDM. For a long time, he’d seen what I had done and what I was focusing on doing in my career and trying to differentiate myself from your regular BDM that comes out drops a brochure, this is a generalization, sorry, videos. But you know, the, the perspective would be there is some very, very good BDMS out there. And a really, really good BDM does stand out, because they are not just there, to push them to peddle their own wares peddle their own agenda. They have an acute awareness of the business, acute aware awareness of the desires, the growth plans, the pain points, the frictions, all of the things that you can actually assist them to bring best practice into the business. On a completely selfless basis.

Andrew Rocks
I think I think you’re right, I think the best part is BDMS do actually have that consultative approach, which is why there’s quite a few people who’ve made careers out of it, they’ve changed providers, they’ve changed the label, but they still retain those relationships, because of the value that they’ve added Absolutely, would be would be my thoughts and many names sprang to mind. So you’ve now can I ask, and this is a great question. By the way, what do you refer to the title of your role, because spam is part of this podcast, we’re trying to sort of promote practicing managers, general management, what’s what’s your title,

Mitchell Ramsbotham
so my title is group general manager of the coastal advice group, group General Manager, because it is not just a financial planning business, it is a multidisciplinary business. At the end, the hub and spoke model that we have built or that I’ve built, since starting means that there is multiple disparate different aspects brands, and businesses that fall under that one umbrella.

Andrew Rocks
Or maybe let’s let’s lift lid on that. So you’ve got the coastal advice group, and you said that you group which is means as a few disciplines, maybe give us a bit of an idea, I’d love to know about your organizational structure, your hours, how you structure them, how you structure their support. The reason is, is if I was working for you, what would I expect, I suppose is the best way of answering this. So So where do you sit now?

Mitchell Ramsbotham
Okay, so that’s a really big question to unpack. Really big question. So the people pieces, we did speak about it earlier, we did or no, but you’ve sideswiped me now. So at the moment, we’re sitting at circa 50. Staff. We also have offshoring arrangements for both administrative services, and SOA production and delivery. The AR numbers at this particular point in time is at 11.

Andrew Rocks
So 11 of the 50 or are authorized representative

Mitchell Ramsbotham
representatives 10 of those being Wealth Advisors with a with a flick of risk in that we have one advisor that looks after all risk only clients separate to that.

Andrew Rocks
And what are the risks? What how do you organize the support? Yeah, this is your jam. Yeah,

Mitchell Ramsbotham
absolutely. So the when I started the business is now the business now due to the size. We got to a point where we’ve moved away from the the genesis of the business, which was Daniel, with a couple of people. Everybody’s doing a lot of stuff, doing it, okay, but not really well. And everybody’s got their strengths and weaknesses, right. Yeah. And to Daniel’s credit, he is a serial entrepreneur. That’s why you and him get along so well Rocksy. He is very, very good at blue sky thinking and new concepts and growth and all of that sort of stuff. But you know, there’s some vulnerabilities as well. And some. And some of the things that he was lacking, he was really open to realized and then has started to build out a team around him which is which. Absolutely to him as a credit to him being able to look inwardly and go, You know what, as much as I’m good at driving the growth of the business, I can find the opportunities, but I need somebody else to put it all together for me.

Andrew Rocks
And so what did that? How did that? How did that land? So what how are you organized now in order to be able to deliver? So you’ve got your strategy, how do you execute for these 11 hrs who, who are lucky enough to find themselves at Coastal

Mitchell Ramsbotham
perfect, we so we’ve moved from the the generalist to one of our mantras in this business now is right people in the right roles, the right people in the right roles, means to us that we should have advisors, you know, 70 to 80% of the time spending their time with, or in front of, or speaking to, or, or servicing our clients and ensuring that they’re getting the value that they deserve from what they pay. So we’ve broken that out into two completely different channels, one of which I lead, which is the advice channel, which encompasses all of the advisors, advisors support, and the marketing side of the business, then we’ve got an engine room and an upper like an operations arm of the business, which is headed by my counterpart and a fantastic resource and a very, very good employee in our business, and also a partner in the business, Nicole Mundi who, absolutely on this credit card, on this podcast, I will give credit to

Andrew Rocks
Nicole. Nicole was my first choice. Yeah, absolutely.

Mitchell Ramsbotham
She wasn’t available today. Sorry. So we now have to really defined arms of the business with management and an accountability chart that goes both ways. As to what roles outcomes and specific big rocks, people have to work on, on a 6091 8360 sort of basis.

Andrew Rocks
And to me, like you just said, you’ve an ambitious target of of having your your hours or your your financial planners spending 70% of their time with clients. And you know, if I just drop off every financial planner that that’s sort of bordering on fantasy. So is that one of your your sort of big rocks or and and how, how do you? How did you convince them to let go when you were doing the change management, because, as you said, the business has evolved, and many practices out there really want to be able to do that statement. But you know, their advisor wants to do a little bit of power planning, the power planner wants to still maybe do a bit of admin, how did you do that change management,

Mitchell Ramsbotham
it’s still happening. And it’s one of those things that come with human nature, right. Even throughout my career, there’s certain things that you find it hard to let go off, because there’s just a certain way that you liked them delivered. One of the one of the things that we’ve really become conscious of though, is that I think you call it do you call it highest and best use I think is your your term for it.

Andrew Rocks
Yeah, what are the right people doing the right things at the right time is also just another awesome way of saying I like

Mitchell Ramsbotham
to call it highest positive purpose. So I like people to be working towards their highest positive purpose and where they can add value. One of the things that I like goals

Andrew Rocks
based team membership rather than goals based advice, right? Yeah,

Mitchell Ramsbotham
what and what I like to reinforce is on on one side, what, you know, if the culture in the culture of our business, I really feel as though we have one big happy family. And I think that if you canvassed any of the people downstairs, from where we are today, they’d probably agree. One of the things that I think people struggle to remember is that if you are not working to your highest positive purpose, you’re probably actually hurting the person that you’re sitting next to, you are taking away their opportunity to shine in what is their highest positive purpose, if you’re holding on to work that you shouldn’t be doing that they would thrive at doing and stand out. You’re actually hamstringing them from really shining.

Andrew Rocks
Maybe give us a couple of like real world examples in say, in a practice well, what would be things that you’re that you’ve you’ve taken off people, or what tasks as an example.

Mitchell Ramsbotham
So we were really fortunate in this business, that we have incredible people and we’ve designed it in a certain way so that there is a really cascading effect to the different arms of the business, which has a couple of which has a couple of benefits, I suppose one of which is a really clear career trajectory for anybody working within the business, but also a very specific skill set of the person sitting next year. So an example would be As an advisor, much like a accounting practice or a legal practice, in our big, hairy audacious goal of 70 to 80%, client facing time, our expectation is that we book a specific amount of time for an advisor meeting, which should encompass enough enough time for them simply to do the final note, goals, strategy and scoping for the plan, and walk out and simply be able to have somebody that is trained, educated and skilled enough sitting, I won’t say behind, but next to them to just pick that up and run with it. And it’s then their opportunity to really well via turnaround times data, client outcomes, feedback, it’s for them then to take hold of that, and really well, the business and the clients with the outcomes that they deliver, rather than the adviser holding on to it and not following that highest and best use.

Andrew Rocks
And do you say the first first thing is that, clearly, you didn’t walk out of a meeting during COVID and give to someone else? So So in relation to running a team that, you know, is potentially even I will ask question around hybrid work, and you’re sure you’ve got just to clarify if you other ones, um, how many offices do you have? We’ve got four at present, and geographically how far apart? Are they from each other?

Mitchell Ramsbotham
Significantly? This is Australia after all, it’s not it. So we’ve got we do have a serviced office in Sydney. So we could call it five. But predominantly, our practices are error and are on the Central Coast. Newcastle, Port Macquarie and Byron Bay Ballena.

Andrew Rocks
Right. So there’s, there’s a fair drive so so you must trust in your systems and technology and, and maybe as a as a headline? What type of advice? I mean, what type of advice do you typically give? What’s your avatar?

Mitchell Ramsbotham
It’s a good and very broad question again. So that’s another benefit of a business with scale is that I have an advisor demographic from late 20s, to late 60s, male or female, with all sorts of different specialties. So for me, there’s lots of disparate avatars available within the business for me to be able to say, and I know that sounds, it sounds a bit cheap, but I, we can literally take all comers. It’s not that one advisor will do it. But irrespective of the advice, specifics, or the strategy to be employed, I have somebody that specializes in some way, shape, or form. And I and the beauty of that is that it allows the person to inwardly look, discover what that avatar is. And that that can be their thing, you don’t have to fit into a specific mold to be an advisor for the coastal advice group, if you’ve got a specialty, or desire, and it makes sense. Go ahead, spread your wings. And I’ll try to I’ll try to enable it for you.

Andrew Rocks
And just to clarify, or your advisors, it is an employed model, are their employees of the overall group or are they are they’ve got their own sub businesses? What’s the structure of how they’re engaged with you guys?

Mitchell Ramsbotham
At present, we have five shareholders. So there is a mix of shareholder employee. Yep. And, and straight employee.

Andrew Rocks
Okay. So but they’re all employees. Okay. Because I do know that from memory you have you guys have acquired and absorbed businesses and, and whatnot. And in order to be able to have that level of ADRs and, and do the, you know, all the requirements for reviews and whatnot. You mentioned that how do you like now your advice process? Maybe I’ll just start with your licensee or yourself licensed?

Mitchell Ramsbotham
We’re licensed. Yeah, we’re licensed via ri advice. insignia. Okay. And how long has that been the case a long time since that step since the inception of the coastal advice business, way back when that was, we’ve been with them for a long time. And to be honest, we have a really, really strong institutional commercial partnership with the Ri advice, guys, and we don’t see the need, you know, there’s a lot of talk in the marketplace about self licensing and you know, positives pitfalls. We’re in a really strong partnership with the Insignia guys and has been fantastic. Well, there

Andrew Rocks
you go. There you go. Hope they’re listening. So maybe you’re desperate play at the beginning has kept them this long. So and then and now how do you generate the advice? I mean, what’s the process or is it all I mean, is it digital advice? Do you’ve got you said you’ve got like some outsourcing paper plan you’ve got if you’ve got an Australian based paraplanning team as well.

Mitchell Ramsbotham
We don’t so we We run, we run in our business. So we’re really big proponents of trying to find the best of the best. And we’ve worked really heavily over the last couple of years to try to go out and absorb all of the best practice that there is in the marketplace from the most weird and wonderful places that we possibly could. It’s a it’s a, an investment, and it costs. But we’ve come back with some unbelievable takeaways. The way that we structure it is we run a diamond. So diamond teams were a big buzzword a little while ago, where you’ve got a lead advisor at the top, and you’ve then got to associate advisors or advisors under them and a support person, okay? We run in this business what’s called a house structure.

Andrew Rocks
Keep talking, it’s, that’s all you’re gonna get run with cubic ciconia. But damn Nana, our structures that is still good,

Mitchell Ramsbotham
same, same, but different, right, so it has a lead advisor at the top. So our predominant goal would be to have every advisor, every house running in excess of $1.5 million worth of annual recurring revenue, yep. With a lead advisor at the top, working with clients on a segmented basis, so there’s more of your high net worth. And then supporting and doing, you know, some of that finding, originating and conversion work. So you’d have a real mix of a lead advisor at the top that is multidisciplinary, quite experienced and has a bit of responsibility they prey player, a branch manager or team leader type role supported by two advisors underneath who they help to originate and convert leads with to support people underneath them with a bit of a career trajectory through it. So one, one of the support put people in generally doing a more of a CSA type role. The other would then be stepping, taking the next step into a more strategic advice, delivery. Pseudo paraplanning role or strategy roll without actually having to do the minutiae of developing the document. And you

Andrew Rocks
mentioned, you do a bit of marketing. And, you know, for many years marketing wasn’t really something that financial planners did, because they were just struggling to get through the change that has happened regulatory X, does your marketing to to coastal itself generates a lot of the inquiries, or is it reliant on those partners? Because it sounds like if you’re managing one and a half million dollars worth of revenue, and you’re retaining that, we, it’s pretty hard to go out and have a bunch of spare time. So what does what does coastal do to assist with bringing in those clients?

Mitchell Ramsbotham
So the there’s some really strict metrics that we run to, we’ve got a fantastic business coach, by the name of David heights, who you may have met. David has had some real success in his career, you know, anybody that doesn’t know, David, chuck it into Google have a look. They say that success is often a path well traveled. And he’s one of those blokes that has most certainly traveled that path. So we’ve developed out some, some dashboarding, and some metrics that the business really strictly adheres to, and, and really allows us to make considered decisions around capacity and resource management and making sure that we do still have the ability to grow. So I’ve got at any stage the ability to lob some some numbers out of our data lake that you would call a data pond and, and chuck them into our chuck them into our metrics. And we’re able to work out exactly where we are from a capacity point of view at any particular point in time so that we can make some considered HR and and resourcing type decisions. And we have the ability to plan forward based on our current run rate for any capacity that we’ll need. And at present, to be honest, it’s, the need is absolutely there. So we will be putting people on I would suggest over the next little while, both from a merger and acquisition point of view, but also from an organic growth perspective.

Andrew Rocks
So just to clarify on that if I’m, if I’m an advisor, but I don’t come with an existing client base. You guys would be open to that because you’ve got sufficient current and future demand. Is that correct?

Mitchell Ramsbotham
Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s a different type of advisor that can come along and do that. It’s a very, very it’s a very, very confident very How do I put this in a PC way? I’m very confident he’s try. It takes a really different advisor, as an employee to build a confidently build and convert leads to an extent that allows it to be commercially Trouble. But if you’ve got if you’ve got that ability and acumen to get in and really convert, absolutely, we’ve got an advisor doing it now. So I’ve got an advisor right now who’s just coming out of his professional year, who at this, at this point in time is eight from eight, since the eight from eight or seven from it since the start of the year, and he’s absolutely on fire meeting all of our minimum meeting all of our minimums. All of them are going on to ongoings. And he’s an absolute gun, but he’s a bit of a unicorn. But absolutely, the opportunities there.

Andrew Rocks
And I suppose I just changed tack, because we spoke, we’ve spoken about your licensee, they’re one of your, your stakeholders and your success. And, and it’s always good to give a positive a shout out. Another key part of people’s successes is the tech stack that they’re operating. So what’s what’s the tech stack look like at Coastal, not just for financial planning, but the overall group.

Mitchell Ramsbotham
That’s there’s a couple of parts to that we do to the size now. Working a lot heavier on what we need to do from a tech point of view, it’s not going to be tenable for us to continue running the way that we are

Andrew Rocks
what’s what’s your incumbent, what does that look like? Looks like

Mitchell Ramsbotham
multiple disparate spreadsheets and data points being pulled from all different all sorts of different places, which is cool.

Andrew Rocks
And you got the standard ri, advice generation Iris stuff.

Mitchell Ramsbotham
And that’s the only one that’s the only one hamstring I would suggest is just when you are with a licensee like that you are simply you get their iteration of x plan, you’re you’re open to or closed up by what they what data they are prepared to share or not and how they’re looking to to synergize with any of the other third parties out there.

Andrew Rocks
But the flip side is you don’t have to pay for it all to be done Kirsov license, you have that but potentially you’re paying, it comes at a price.

Mitchell Ramsbotham
Absolutely. And we do get fantastic. You know, we’ve got some great guys in our eye that if we do need anything, they will do their utmost to get the information to us. But it does start to become a little time intensive. But to their credit, we’re working with a couple of tech providers at the moment. We’ve got we’ve got three names. We’re looking at Zeppo. At present Paul Campbell, we’re talking to Zeppo. I run three different scoreboards out of this business, one for the for the team, another from a management perspective. And then I put together a balanced scorecard, which is the individual advisor KPIs and metrics for the year,

Andrew Rocks
is that a built or off the shelf piece of technology? Because I’ve built it

Mitchell Ramsbotham
myself? Yeah. So I’m looking, you know that the amount of time that it takes me to pull all that data together out of our data, like it’s just monumental and getting bigger and bigger, considering the growth of the business. So we’re looking to have to automate that sooner rather than later. And which we’re in the midst of that as we speak. Awesome. And

Andrew Rocks
then the other thing is just getting a bit of a feel for you mentioned, you’ve got some employees, shareholders. And we’re in a second, I’m going to get you to tell us about your people or culture, things like you know, is there Aesop’s he’s because these days, talent is your, your greatest resource and your greatest cost, okay? And running, running your people really well. And making sure they hit their goals is is a fundamental pillar of being a best practice. You can’t get to a large number of people who are retained unless you’re doing something, right. Yes. So I’d be I’d be very interested to hear you’ve got your you’ve got, you’ve got your shareholders, you’ve got these these people, you’ve got them from different areas. I’d like to hear how you bring people in when you say the how do you culturally assimilate someone if you’ve gone and bought a practice? Maybe at the end, we’ll see if you’re in the market for buying new ones if anyone’s out there or whatnot. So what makes I’ll reframe is, so let’s say that I wanted to work for coastal. What makes you guys special? What makes you different and, and try and be relatively clear on this? Yeah, like, because what we’re hoping to achieve with this series, is getting the best and most appropriate talent to work their way to the best and most appropriate practices. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, what makes you special?

Mitchell Ramsbotham
That’s a good question. Can I add something to the last one? First, I’ve taken note of your whole question. I just want I want to add, as part of the tech stack, something that I think is really, really important. Go for it. We’ve got a part of the tech stack. It’s available through in Sydney but it’s replicated elsewhere. It’s called wealth central that we use the others the likes of LUMION, which is the great and powerful Sandy Bridge. There’s my prosperity, all those sorts of different iterations out there. What we have found from a, an efficiency and a client engagement point of view, value is moving away from talking about, you know, two a4 pages worth of returns and putting them in front of a client, when they walk into a meeting, gone are the days when you derive your value from individual line items and what they’re returning the cash flow modeling the central communication hub, the security, the goals, and aspirations, the values based conversations that can come out of software like that, we have found huge in this business. So I just wanted to touch on that, because I thought I thought it would be, you know, left unsaid core tenet of what we do you know,

Andrew Rocks
that well, Central’s close to my heart, I use them in my practice, worked with Tim the founder. And, and, you know, I was passionate about that clients only perceive the value they see. So they’re not overly concerned that you’ve had to spend 24 minutes on hold to Centrelink, or on hold to one of the product providers. What they care about what they see. And I think that, you know, you mentioned quite a few variations there. And I think it’s a vital part of, of not just obtaining but retaining clients, and also making them making your team feel really happy about what they’re delivering. So yeah, thanks for that. And, and but the other part of people and culture is, if you’ve give your team the best tools, they’re going to be happy to start with Yeah. But over to you, what

Mitchell Ramsbotham
are the highest and best use? That’s it? So look, as far as why would why would you work at Coastal advice. We’re at a point now where I think when you get to the size and scale that we are with the really defined roles, you know, we’ve we’ve got things like the white, the, just some of the philosophies that we’ve got a Ramin clearly written documented, remuneration, philosophy, remuneration, philosophy, which outlines where, you know, based on your job grade and your role and your experience, where should where you should expect to be and what you should expect to be paid into the

Andrew Rocks
future. So you’re giving them a career path when

Mitchell Ramsbotham
they start? Absolutely. Okay. So we’ve got, we’ve got that documented out. So where you would start at a baseline, or where would you where you would expect to be and what the remuneration would be at that point, what you’re, what the key, the key achieve the chief achievable, or core competencies at that point would be, and then what your trajectory looks like both from a aspirational career point of view, but also from a remuneration point of view. So when we’re really, really transparent as far as what that looks like, not just from the pure dollars aspect, because you and I both know that it’s not just about dollars, it’s about wanting to turn up at the same time.

Andrew Rocks
And how do you find having Eddie find those regional markets? Are you are you still a sourcing most of your team from the local area in those those those towns that you mentioned or not? Or what’s your experience?

Mitchell Ramsbotham
Yeah, we are actually, I think that there’s based on some of the movements in the market recently, with banks getting out in some of the larger instances, making some of the moves that they are, there’s some really good talent around and available, if people know that you’re around and know that you’re available, and you hold yourself out there as a as a decent place to work. And I think that some of the things that we have and some of the the visibility that we have based on our our footprint, and what we do with social media and advertising and sponsorship, and community events and community work and that sort of stuff, hold us in that sort of esteem and reflects the culture and persona of the business to be a bit of a drawcard maybe give

Andrew Rocks
a couple of examples of those

Mitchell Ramsbotham
points, right. So from not just an employee onboarding, but from a Client Onboarding point of view as well. We would regularly get a resume through the door from somebody hearing looking aware of us and what we do, having come across as previously. We are on a couple of buses up in Newcastle. We sponsored the Knights last year, we sponsor the local body boarding club. We just wanted the hunter Melanoma Research Institute and attended their 35th birthday, fundraising, charity fundraising event. We’ve really put ourselves out there. locations like this tend to be quite parochial. Right, right. We focus on the regional areas outside of capital city. and as you know, you would know you’re a year from Tamworth, right?

Andrew Rocks
I wish I was from Tamworth. tanworth was the place they went to on holidays, but I get it. Without us West Western New South

Mitchell Ramsbotham
Western thrive, right? So on the same I’m a country boy born and bred, I, I grew up in my younger younger years in Tenterfield. So I’m a, I’m a small town and

Andrew Rocks
you didn’t become a satellite despite the song. That’s right.

Mitchell Ramsbotham
But you find that the Central Coast, Newcastle, Port Macquarie, they are all still big country towns and Uber parochial, and if you are seeking to be which we are, and we happily do to be supporting the local community, you end up in, you end up in the in the spotlight, right.

Andrew Rocks
So a couple of things from that. I mean, the same conversation can be had in regional Queensland towns down south. Anyway, you know, Victoria’s got really big, parochial towns all through there. And is the decisions around sponsorship and just support? Is that? Is that a collaborative exercise? You know, if I’m an advisor, is there forums where I can sort of say, I’m interested in that? How does that work? You know, what’s, what’s your policy for having that sort of feedback in the business?

Mitchell Ramsbotham
Absolutely. We had a marketing budget, the year before last, and we put it to the vote. For example, the best example that we’ve got, is that we sponsored the Central Coast mariners. And that was a joint collaborative decision via open forum, we have a marketing budget to spend, what’s the highest and best use of these marketing dollars, would you like to be able to, on a on a family to family, you know, person to person basis, like to be able to take your clients out, rub shoulders with them, you know, build a relationship, show some value, but also be able to show some value in the community and what we’re doing in supporting some of the some of the things that they do. And that was that was made by the team that was put that that that was was ratified by the whole team.

Andrew Rocks
And I’m really interested in how people, you know, there’s a whole adage of hire slow, and fire fast. We’re not here today to talk about firing, but we but I’m really interested in different people’s approach to hiring, regardless of the role. What’s the approach? And how do you guys what’s your process? And, you know, do you use psychometric testing? Do not do you do panel interviews, just give me a bit of an idea of what you guys do, not just to bring people in, but also to defend the existing culture? Right? Because you’re only as strong as your weakest link. Agree. So So what’s what’s what’s the, what’s the council process?

Mitchell Ramsbotham
So we’ve had, that’s, that’s a real learning that we’ve had over the last little while, it’s me specifically, I’ve come from a position where I have managed some people, most of those chosen for me, previously, and not somebody that I’d hired. So that’s been a real learning for me and a real growth over the last couple of years. I won’t say a couple of mistakes were made. But you do because that’s the truth. Because it’s not a it’s not a mistake, it’s a learning, right? You never make any mistakes. They’re just opportunities to learn. And I learned I learned from them.

Andrew Rocks
So what have you refined it to now

Mitchell Ramsbotham
we have gone from, you know, it’s all about your viewpoint of it to when you look at when you believe that things are scarce, and that you need a solution. And if you don’t take the solution that’s right in front of you, you’re just going to miss the opportunity. You change your mindset to one of abundance, and that there’s people out there, and that you’ve done all of the work on your brand and your business that you are in a position where you can command the type of people that you want, it fundamentally changes the way that things work out to. So we now put them through. We have previously used some recruitment, directly, we use centers of influence and some of the relationships that we’ve got around to find opportunities as well. Otherwise, it’s recruitment or ad out on seeking those types of things. And they go through a to interview, then DiSC Profile profiling, okay, because we have the ability now based on the type of personality to put them, you know, to really shuffle the deck chairs around a little bit and make a home for somebody, if they’re the right culture fit, which is the most important part. If there are a right culture fit, but they have a certain skill set that we need to move things around to make that work. We’re absolutely able to do it. So as long as they meet the pub rules of they turn up, they do good work and they’re a pretty decent person. We’re going to be okay to be able to manipulate the system in some way, shape or form to make sure that the right people get into the right spots and to support it the right way to do their highest and best.

Andrew Rocks
And look, I, I’m a big fan of using the psychometric testings and because the last thing you want to do is set people up in an environment where they fail, because that’s kind of not just their fault, it’s yours as well.

Mitchell Ramsbotham
So no set a farmer up with as a hunter that says,

Andrew Rocks
or something along those lines. Yeah. And then the other aspect is like, how do you onboard someone? So say, for instance, you know, this is about practice management, but getting the people right is important. So you’ve got to find the right people, you give me an idea that you’ve that they know how to find you, you’ve got a bit of you’ve given me an another idea of how you feel to them. But then how did they start? Because she’s that first three days? 30 days? 60? Not? They’re very important. What how would you onboard regardless of the person? And is there anything specific? Do you have a culture kind of onboarding component to it? What’s what’s I mean, I note today, we’re doing a session and the rest of your team. The reason it’s so quiet in your office is they’re doing boxing. Yep. So I’m not sure if that’s dance performance appraisal, I haven’t actually dug deep into the type of box.

Mitchell Ramsbotham
I may miss out on a bonus or a pay increase this year, because I didn’t go

Andrew Rocks
back to onboarding, you know, how does it look? How do they? How did they what’s a structured approach to bring them into your culture? Okay.

Mitchell Ramsbotham
I don’t think my personal viewpoint is culture is something that you do every day, it’s not something that you roll out, right. So my opinion is that we went, another thing that we’ve really had to develop is the onboarding. process that we go through, and we fill it out, I can fall on my sword and say, happily to any of my employees that are listening now that probably came in a year ago, I’m sorry for what that looked for what that looked like. And we did not have a written detailed procedure processes and procedures manual, we had a lot of key person risk and a lot of stakeholder risk. Whereas we now have a written procedures manual. We didn’t have a line by line project plan, onboarding type project plan with day one, getting everything set up what your week two looks like, with shadowing advisors, Laurent learning about the investment philosophy, how we use the systems, shadowing the operations team to make sure that they understand exactly how the rhythms of routines, and routines of our fixed price, fixed price agreements, work and the date that they need to use and what goes where, and the tasks and all of the things that go into the minutiae of what needs to happen behind the scenes, you get the right person on it to go, Yeah, you’re a great adviser strategically, you can give solid advice. That’s not enough. Because the business works in such a way that there’s a lot once you scratch the surface, there’s a lot that goes on in a financial planning practice, a lot of it enabled by technology, a lot of that technology may not have been used by this individual before because they’re coming from a different business licensee operating model, whatever it might be. You need to make sure that rather than throwing people in the deep end, you give them the best opportunity for success. And I can hand on heart say that we didn’t do that at the start. But again, it wasn’t a failure. It was a learning and we learnt from it. And we did very quickly because you get that feedback. So we’ve put together a really rigorous documented now onboarding, onboarding process, when people come on over about a month period to really get them into the rhythms, routines, and cadence of what we do. And they’ve got a Bible to refer to at any stage, if they’re stuck, but they’ve still got, you know, 50 people around them that you’re going to be able to find the answer somewhere as well.

Andrew Rocks
Thanks. Thanks for that. And then I’m just just looping back when you’re talking about the type of business or your multi-discipline practice to do other things outside of financial planning what what’s what’s one of the other offerings that your business has, and how do you run the delivery and the people in those those offerings?

Mitchell Ramsbotham
We we saw a risk and an opportunity. I think it’s been spoken about at nauseam, that the the opportunity of a multiple, you know a hub and spoke type. Multidisciplinary practice is huge, not just for the opportunity for different channels and different types of revenue into the business but also to ensure that your clients aren’t having to go elsewhere to seek the services and potentially be referred to somebody else. We we love our clients. We do Do goals and value based advice and to be able to handle all of that inquiry to be able to knock all of that on its head within the coastal advice Group of Companies? Was that was a huge driver of mine. And how do you do it? How we do it is we have the financial planning business. Within coastal advice group, we have a specialist life insurance arm, a fantastic, lifelong insurance advisor in our business who gives specific insurance only advice. So

Andrew Rocks
your financial planner, when they got when they get to the specialist insurance advice would then you know, they’re almost the I mean, I’m the general practitioner and they go to the specialist to come in to give that and you both deliver that to the

Mitchell Ramsbotham
client? Absolutely. Just like a GP, right. If you needed open heart surgery, you wouldn’t go to the GP if you need a mole removed. You can though, right? Yeah, same same premise. If the wealth advisor has a bit of life insurance, a bit of TPD and something fairly standard that they need to write, they can and are empowered to that when it gets starts to get a bit technical, we have that expertise, we have that ability. We also then run a mortgage and lending business powered by, powered by and power is the operative word powered by Lydian Roxy, where the partnership that we have with with Lydian and your business on that side, I’m not going to do the proverbial but we have a very we have an outstanding professional partnership with Lydian lending, especially in today’s world is a core deliverable for a financial planning practice around any type of you know, bucket strategy, cash flow strategy, the whole the whole ecosystem of somebody’s world at the moment has been flipped on its head by the way that the world is working. So for us to be able to handle that in house, internalize the conversation, walk away and have all of that delivered and be and the ability to control the narrative and the outcome to a certain extent was of huge importance to us as well.

Andrew Rocks
Awesome. Awesome. Andy, what about when it comes to one of the other pillars? The the accounting and legal? How do you how do you handle that? So

Mitchell Ramsbotham
legal, we have multiple, geographically based, vetted partnerships and centers of influence. The same with accounting, accounting, with an asterix behind it because we have internalized the self managed Superfund admin, accounting and audit functions via another third party your arrangement. And who’s that there’s a business on the Central Coast, a connection of mind that I used to work with named Matt, he, he owned the accounting arm of the first financial planning practice that I ever worked with. Yeah, right. Yeah. And we are working together now to build out this whole program within the business, anybody that would like to entertain something like this. Roxie will be able to pass on my details, I’m sure that there’ll be somewhere where you can find me on LinkedIn, I would happily do a warm introduction to Matt and his team, to ensure that you can stand up the same thing in your practice, if it’s something that you’d like to do. So it’s

Andrew Rocks
like it’s like, it’s like, sort of getting a consultant in but it’s still retained, you’d return the asset value, you bring in the smarts and the execution is

Mitchell Ramsbotham
there, right? Yeah. And again, we work we work in parallel with each other. So I am aware and confident and comfortable with the service that’s delivered, how it’s done, the timely way that it’s performed, what the clients should expect to see what they will provide us what we will provide them and it is just seamless, and it is done at a cost that is about 3020 to 30% down from what they can expect to see in market.

Andrew Rocks
There you go. So that and is this the sort of business coastal where majority of the clients come through the financial planning and then cascade out or, or do they start another divisions? Or do you get a lot of accounting leads? Give me an idea of like, is it I have a feeling I know the answer to this, but is it it’s a financial planning first, cash flow? Is that exact exactly the process,

Mitchell Ramsbotham
we’re now a business that provides financial planning, we’re not a financial planning business. We’re a business that provides financial planning, lending and the SMSF services that we do because of our core competency, and what the business has been doing for such a long time. Yes, I agree that at right now, in the absence of our ability to have really worked on the marketing side of things for coastal superadmin and for coastal Mortgage Group. They’re not really a revenue generator there are servicing at the moment. However, I really foresee some growth in that area over the next little while as well. put our foot down, it is just another ability to differentiate yourself. And from a marketing point of view, the the SEO opportunities, the authority opportunities online that you get from being able to present those types of services. Absolutely, they can be a feeder to the the company as a whole.

Andrew Rocks
And look, I’ll give you a shout out as well, I know that I hear feedback from our alidium business that the clients that come through particularly our strategic relationship with h&r block are really well service from that overall perspective from within your group. So big thanks to you on that, because it’s a it’s a big job and, and we were looking for a good partner. Thank you for giving us an overview of where you’re at a bit of a feeling for the fact that it’s very much a local business, you’ve outlined the sponsorship, I would like to ask for your vision for the future, a couple of aspects. The first one is a vision and the vision for the future of the industry, the future of coastal and where you see the role of general manager or CIO being positioned in the practices of the future. So industry, coastal, and we’re you say that,

Mitchell Ramsbotham
okay, so the industry wait and see. Cuellar I’m was very, very happy, as I’m sure you were to see some of the suggestions that came out of that. We’ll just see how that goes. Now.

Andrew Rocks
And we won’t talk too much about that. Because if this point, after this, after this is handed down, we don’t want to be caught with our pants up, down or sideways.

Mitchell Ramsbotham
Correct. So and that’s why I thought I’d leave it there. I don’t I don’t want to I don’t want to go into any conjecture there. But I think what we’re starting to see in the way that our business runs, and the way that the the industry is going, I think the industry is probably moving towards exactly what I was just talking about. There is a lot more businesses now starting to move into a position where they are, rather than a financial planner, trying to run a business and not having a lot of time to spend on the business, just being in the business and having to keep the wheels turning over. We’re getting into a more corporatized model, I believe we’re getting into a more corporatized model or seeing success in a corporatized model where there is a business shouldn’t be

Andrew Rocks
shocked by that. I mean, this is the birth of financial planning really happen with the advent of compulsory superannuation 92. But accounting firms, you know, we’ve always looked at it. So they’ve admitted firms, and I think that it’s not going to be for everyone. And maybe it might not be perfect in some of the small regionals. But the organizational structure very much so I’m, I’m in agreement.

Mitchell Ramsbotham
And you know, when you talk about a cottage industry, we’re now really the professionalism that has been thrust upon us training wheels are off, yep, training wheels are off. I am all for different strokes for different folks, there’s going to be lifestyle businesses out there. And it is not the wrong thing to do. If you are the type of advisor that thrives on a lifestyle business where you’ve got 500 600 700,000 worth of revenue, very happy clients that are very close friends as well, you got a couple of core people in your business to competencies are all there, they’re keeping the lights on, everybody’s happy. I absolutely hand on heart say congratulations to you and keep doing that if that’s what makes you happy. On the other hand, there is pressures or headwinds coming to a certain extent, that means that in a lot of circumstances, there’s going to be a limit to that, where businesses are going to be hit with more and more cost, potentially, you know, we left QA behind let’s just pretend that’s not there. More than what there has been an overlay of increasing costs and complexity to running a business. That means that, you know, some of your margins are squeezed, and it makes it a lot harder

Andrew Rocks
clients want. Clients want to experience in their professionals, which is at the equivalent of the experience I just got. So when I go home, I can choose any television stream, I can flick between I can get what I want when I want it. And as a as a professional service provider, we have to be as good as their other experiences, or they’re just not going to want to buy what we’ve got.

Mitchell Ramsbotham
And they’ll just turn you off like they do everybody else. Exactly. Instant gratification. They can do that. Now you just turn it off. That’s

Andrew Rocks
right. So so that’s and so what about the vision for the you’re getting to the point that that the small practices, and lifestyle practice everything but arguably, if I’m coming to work in coastal and I’m at Byron Bay, I can’t see more of a lifestyle destination on this country than Byron Bay. It couldn’t I effectively run a business within a business and have that but with all the support, isn’t that what you’re intimating?

Mitchell Ramsbotham
yatse. You’ve hit the nail on the head and that is our strategy. That’s our ongoing strategy at the moment. One of our largest focuses are we are looking for so I’m happy to be out open and honest about it we’re looking at, we’re looking for a 15% plus organic growth rate from our existing businesses year on year. And we are also looking for strategic acquisition and merger opportunities that up and down the east coast of Australia as well. From from when you said it’s coast from Sydney to the Gulf Coast,

Andrew Rocks
okay, yeah. Okay. So, okay, well, that’s, that’s, that’s awesome. And when was the, how many of those have you done in the last couple of years? Or since you in your tenure? Seven, seven. Okay. So for those listening, these guys, like they practiced on their employees years ago, they’ve just practiced on their previous acquisition. So increasingly, they’re getting it more and more right, and more and more refined. So yeah,

Mitchell Ramsbotham
yeah. And again, we I don’t, I wouldn’t think we’ve always been pretty good at that. A lot of the initial things that I built out when I came across to the business work to support that, because it’s a really different dynamic. Once you’ve got a core group of people that come across that are used to having been self employed, having a level of control, making their own decisions, well, we were always really confident that it was a fundamental shift away from doing that to being an employee. So there’s, you know, there’s a mix, there’s a mixture of things that we do around how we onboard the clients. Sorry, how we onboard the advisors and, and what the deals structure looks like whether that’s a full buyout, whether there’s a seat at the table, or you know, there’s the opportunities there are endless, but we there had to be an ability for them to fold into the business and not to see a wholesale change in the way that they do things. So the structure around empowering them to still have a seat at the table, from a shareholder perspective, but then also to still have a Leadership and Mentoring position, to still be able to make the forum to have the forums to make collaborative decisions around how the business is run, and all of those sorts of things. We empower that so that you don’t you know, one of the hardest things for a business owner to do coming across is to let go of control.

Andrew Rocks
And does that mean, on the ground? Does that look like do you do you do like conferences or getaways or, you know, over and above the licensee

Mitchell Ramsbotham
100%. So we did. Two last year, we did an all CAG a whole business conference last year, we took everybody down to the quarantine station in situ, not just the advisors that was just the advisors whole team. We took the advisors then to an off site up at Byron. We took a cohort away to the licensee conference two weeks ago. From a cultural point of view. We do Founders Day and Founders Day is the day that coastal advice was started. We roll it out every year and every

Andrew Rocks
fan given Abraham Lincoln’s speech no we do.

Mitchell Ramsbotham
We do awards though. So we get everybody together, family friends, the whole lot. Yep. From the receptionist, to the CEO, everybody comes and brings the family along, including kids. We hosted the whole day hired out of the local surf lifesaving club, we did awards and call called out all of our special people in front of their special people for all of the really special things that they did, which was amazing.

Andrew Rocks
So, uh, brings out that last comment brings me to, you know, a really fun part of what I’m looking to do here is just to give some shout outs, yep. Okay, so we’ve already spoken about you’ve given you know, is there any, any one or any team you’d like to give a shout out to and then then then we sort of like want to round out with a bit of an idea of people have had a good listen to your business, they can look up the links. If any of this has resonated, you know exactly what you’re looking for. We can we can we can sort of bring that one home with this one. But first of all, if you’ve got any, any shoutouts to people that have helped you from a business perspective from inside coastal, I think you mentioned coaching before, go for it.

Mitchell Ramsbotham
Yep. So I’m a firm believer that your coach is not just your manager, that coaches are everywhere, your coaches, your wife, your coaches, your kids, your coaches, your coat coaches are all around you. You just have to be able to see them for what they are. So ultimately, I’d like to let you know I’ve thanked all the older guys that insignia from Darren where it Pete Ormsby and all the guys in the PDM team, outsourcing partners, VBP advice lab, coaches, David Hines, but coaches for me, thanks to all of the fantastic businesses that I had the opportunity to go out and see during my tenure as a BDM and in distribution Because you guys ultimately irrespective of what your business makeup was, at the time, selfishly, I was able to take some of the unbelievable things that you guys were doing, irrespective of how big or small that they might have been and integrate and execute into some of the things that I’m doing at the moment. We’ve got partners like, you know, Liddy and the Self Managed Superfund team that we’ve got, but also the internal team at Coastal. Our manager at you know, the manager Dan Brown, the CEO here absolute visionary, Nicole Mundy, who I mentioned before, we have our marketing team, you asked me, Why would somebody come and work at Coastal, I have a marketing team that last month, organically gathered 60 Plus opportunities from Google and SEO work alone and booked 47 of those because they were deemed to be an ideal client fit for our business. Stacy Jones, she is an absolute magician. So you know, why would you why would you join coastal because we not only from an employee point of view, we support you with growth, where you would like to be and the opportunities within the business because of the scale and the way the makeup of the business now in general. And as we continue to grow, as you could imagine, and as you’ve seen Roxy, those opportunities just become endless, and the things that people can skew into and some of the specialties that you can start to tease out the goals and aspirations of the pet just like you do as a financial planner, you start to learn more of the goals and aspirations of your employees, because ultimately, they’re my clients. And I get to them very

Andrew Rocks
interesting. They’re your clients. That’s, that’s, that’s you because you do have a duty of care. That’s the wonderful thing about being a gym owner. And

Mitchell Ramsbotham
that’s why I love what I do. i That’s why I come from financial planning, I love what I do, because I still have the ability to make a real difference. It’s just to a different clients that now. So I’m really excited. Some of the the integrations that we’re doing with merger and acquisition and the way that we’re doing that with best practice. And really honed our skill and ability there to make sure that all of the things that we’re doing are fit for purpose. Everybody feel happy, love, like they’ve got fair value, they’ve still got a seat at the table. And we’re one big happy family, and all of the opportunities then from all of the organic stuff that we’re doing the opportunity, a bounce for any advisor that we take on.

Andrew Rocks
And look, I think I can do your call to action for you. And for those of you at home, we were playing the word family bingo. That’s the ninth time that is referred to family. So I suppose if if you’re wondering, the type of environment and the type of team it is, it is a family focused, there’s the they’re always talking about bringing the kids the family, so So if that resonates with you, then then they’re the type of group that really embraced that. It’s fair to say across the locations, what were your locations? Again? Central coast. Yep.

Mitchell Ramsbotham
Newcastle. Yep. Port Macquarie? Yep. Byron Bay, Bella Amber.

Andrew Rocks
So if you’re aspirational, you’re local, you want to stay local not have to, to head to the big city to get that big career break, and be well worth reaching out to these guys, if you’ve if family is important to you either now, or aspirationally. In the future, that sounds that there. And now you’re still in the market for acquisitions.

Mitchell Ramsbotham
Absolutely. So the call to as an extension to that call to action, anybody out there that they believe that their highest and best purpose is providing fantastic financial outcomes for as many Australians as we possibly can. Tired of running a business, tired of compliance pressures, tired of risk, tired of playing HR, finance and everything altogether, we now have a business to support you, which will allow you to continue to, you know, to do that highest and best purpose to receive your fair value for all of the hard yards that you’ve put in during the time, but continue to have a seat at the table, continue to have control and continue to grow along with us.

Andrew Rocks
And look, I don’t think I could sum it up any better than that. And with that, I’d like to thank you. I’d like to thank the coastal group. And yet, the engineering podcast is, as we said about matching up the right and best quality talent in this country with the most appropriate and best quality practice. I want to thank you for your time, mate.

Mitchell Ramsbotham
I’d like to thank you for the opportunity and thank you all for listening