Engine Room Podcast #15 – Belinda Marley-Wallace – Transcript

Andrew Rocks
Hi, it’s Andrew Rocks and welcome to another edition of the Engine Room. Today I’m sitting down with the lovely Belinda Marley-Wallace from Evalesco in Sydney. Belinda. Welcome to the engine room.

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Thanks, Rocksy. Good to be here.

Andrew Rocks
And look, Belinda, it’s a pleasure to have you as well. It’s always good. You’ve brightened up the room, which is, you know, obviously translates very well to people listening. But just if you could just visualize someone who’s brightening up the room, then then we would, it’d be perfect. And, and I’m looking forward to this today because we’ve known each other for several years, and I’ve seen your development growth and also the positive impact that’s had on the Evalesco team. So I suppose to get the listeners to get a bit of a feel of where you’ve come from. It’d be interesting to hear about your backstory sort of how you got into, I suppose the financial planning industry? And how is it you find yourself as general manager or practice manager have Evalesco?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yeah, thanks, Rocksy. I am like a lot of people I’ve spoken to fell into financial planning. I came out of uni, and took a support role with one of the big fours and realized very quickly that I was not going to be there long term. After about six months, I looked around and took an opportunity with a risk only business working really closely with one of the directors on some ultra high net worth clients. That gave me a really good foundation to the risk industry.

Andrew Rocks
And what year was this roughly?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
2004? So that was it was a really good grounding and foundation. After that, I moved on to some paraplanning contracting in early 2008. And then mid 2008, got contacted by a friend and said, I know these guys, they’re looking for someone. They’re a holistic advice firm coming together. And I guess the rest is history.

Andrew Rocks
And this is the team Marshall, retinol and Jeff Rick, is that right? That’s correct.

Belinda Marley-Wallace
So I started working with Marshall and Jeff, literally, just as the GFC hit. I was gonna

Andrew Rocks
mention that. So out of that guy, yeah, it was

Belinda Marley-Wallace
a big eye opener and a very steep learning curve. I’d come from pure risk. So to jump into holistic FP world at JFC time. Yeah, it was it was interesting, some big hours, and but we worked really closely together and instantly hit it off. And I knew straight away that I’d be there long term. And yep, fast forward 15 years, and I’m still there.

Andrew Rocks
And is there anyone? Obviously you mentioned your work with a risk professional, then you’ve, you’ve moved into working with Marshall and Jeff, is there anyone, I suppose in your background, or that journey that in particular that that really has assisted you or anyone has given you some guidance?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yeah, look, I think, after working with Matt and Jeff, for so long, and in such a small team, because it started was just the three of us. So we have grown together. And we’ve been at similar life stages, having kids together, that sort of thing. So I think their support has been immeasurable. I certainly wouldn’t be where I am today, without both of them behind me, backing me every step of the way. There’s been a couple of team members here and there, one in particular, who came in while I was on one lot of Matt leave, she sort of came in to manage the team and I came back and we instantly just bounced off each other. She’s now an amazing advisor. And we’ve just supported each other along the way. So

Andrew Rocks
Oh, fantastic. And when when you came into the team in 2008, apart from a GFC, this was pre faux fur, you know, what have you what have you seen in the growth because what’s the headcount now in the business, we’ve got 2525 years. So you know, you were you were person number three, and not much to General Manager back then. I just your own diary. Yeah. So what have you seen? Or what would you put down as a couple of the key personal sort of things that you’ve that you’ve seen over the last 10 years that have assisted you?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
I think the world, the financial planning world, as we know it, everyone would agree has changed dramatically. Not always for the better at the time, it doesn’t feel like it. But if we reflect back and how far we’ve come, it’s only made the industry better. We may have lost some really great people from the industry for various reasons. But where we are today has built a much stronger industry as a whole and producing some really amazing people coming through the ranks now.

Andrew Rocks
And you mentioned you’ve touched on the fact that you’ve you’ve had some kids, you’ve had some met leave so And you’ve obviously navigated that with with with the business partners as well. And which is, by the way is pretty awesome. Because you’re sitting here, you’re still full of energy. And you know, when you said 2004, I found that quite hard to believe. What was that? What what did you do at university? What was your course?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
It was actually an international management degree.

Andrew Rocks
Okay, so you and you did that at Sydney, and then you’ve stayed in Sydney, is that right? Yeah, yeah. Well, there is a there is a body of water here. So yeah,

Belinda Marley-Wallace
exactly, exactly. It was very broad, had no idea what I wanted to do, as I said, fell into this and instantly loved it. What I knew I wanted to help people. So in my role, now, I get to help the team and clients indirectly, whereas advisors help clients directly and the team indirectly. I’m the reverse.

Andrew Rocks
Yeah. And look, we had the conversation earlier, and what are influenced with Ensombl? Is it that we’re all about the positive evolution of financial advice. And, and the whole impetus of this engineroom was to get exactly people such as yourself who’ve come in are passionate, and creating an environment for the advisors who were there to succeed, but also create genuine career pathways for people, not just client facing in organizations. Yeah, absolutely. And let’s maybe quickly change gears to get a bit of a feel for Mr. Lesko. You know, it’s I’m sure it’s a completely different business to, to what Marshall and Jeff were kicking around in 2008. So, you know, you mentioned there’s 25 people within the business as we speak, how does your org structure look?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
So we’ve, we’ve got Jeff as our CEO, I’m our GM. So we obviously work really closely together day to day. And then Marshall, who’s also a director heads up our Investment Committee, and he’s also an investment on the investment committee with our license as well. So that’s sort of the leadership team. And then we head into our advice pod. So there’s five holistic advice pods, a risk only pod and a lending pod as well.

Andrew Rocks
So you get five holistic advice pots, and each one of those pods, what is the composition of that look like?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
So we’ve got an advisor with an associate who is typically an AR, or going through their py or looking to do that in the future.

Andrew Rocks
This is this is also part of your future plan for you.

Belinda Marley-Wallace
And then there’s usually one to two admin support.

Andrew Rocks
Okay. And in addition to that, you’ve got a separate hub for lending and a separate what was the last one? rescaling? rescaling? Yeah. And do does that infer that you’re holistic people referring to the risk only as risk specialists?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Correct? Yeah, absolutely. Okay.

Andrew Rocks
And has it always been a hub? A sorry, a pod structure?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yes, yeah, we’ve always had the pod structure, the back office has looked a bit different, which is something that we’ve evolved and developed and trialed along the way, where we had people looking after implementation only or ongoing advice, typically separately, and then we made the call quite some time ago now to sort of bring it together and keep them as one pod. So the clients knew who to go to.

Unknown Speaker
Why do you do that?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
So the client, it’s quite an experience.

Andrew Rocks
Great. Yeah, yeah. I think you’re right. I think sometimes. I’ve asked this question a few times, and different people are at different stages. And we can’t disregard the client experience from the operational efficiency, not at all, because clients don’t want to be commoditized.

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Absolutely. They want to know who they’re going to and who they’re talking to at all times.

Andrew Rocks
But it’s a paradox because we need to as operators or businesses, we need to create efficiencies to ensure that we can deliver what they want at a price point that they’re happy with. But at the same time, they don’t want to feel as if we’ve done that exercise. So absolutely. It’s a struggle every day. Yeah. I’m sure that over the years, some pods have got that faster than others. And, you know, it’s it’s sitting there now, with the pod structure. Does that mean that each one of those pods reports like their own quasi p&l line, and that cascades up to you and the other directors,

Belinda Marley-Wallace
we’re actually evolving that at the moment. We’ve gone through setting a new business plan and strategy at the back end of last year. So that’s, that’s an evolvement. It hasn’t been to date. It hasn’t been a focus. We’ve just been giving good advice to good people. But we’re taking that next leap, I guess, if that’s what you’d like to call it in terms of operating as their own p&l and holding the advisors accountable for that.

Andrew Rocks
Yeah, the I would, you know, it’s it’s kind of, it’s a bit of sweet work, but it does need to happen because when everyone’s accountable, no one’s accountable. So absolutely. You know, I think that’s it there. So you mentioned you like giving good advice to good people. What doesn’t have a less go client, but like, what’s a good person?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Someone who wants and needs advice and is willing to take it. They’re good people. They’re nice people, they’re good to deal with. They want to take our advice. They’ve sought us out typically, or they’ve been referred in. But they’re just really nice people who need some help.

Andrew Rocks
And I think what you’ve mentioned there is they’re willing to delegate and but they also make decisions in your and although this is an engineering podcast, I’m just curious, in your taking on over client. So when they’ve come in, how do you work out that like over isn’t a one meeting or a two, when you know that they’re going to delegate and they’re going to actually make decisions?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yeah, we typically we’ve introduced over the last couple of years of vetting call to really try and knock out if they’re going to be suitable or not. And then that first face to face meeting, you’ll get a feel for it. It’s then typically, the interactions in between the next meeting that are really the cleated clear determinant are

Andrew Rocks
both phone and email, and just whether they’re responsive and absolutely, yeah, we’re having some experience in the lending game. If someone’s not responsive to sending in their information, but they still want a home loan in the next two weeks, it becomes quite an awkward conversation. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. And um, so let’s say for instance, I was coming, God, God love you, that’s that’s actually going to be a stretch. Let’s just say that, you know, what does it what does a pod typically look after? How many like what kind of family units to look after? Do you? Do you tailor some of the client pods to the life stages of the advisors? Or maybe give us a feel there?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yes. So they’ve all got key focus that has kind of evolved over time as well. Marshall looks after a lot of our retirees and pre retirees. A couple of the younger advisors look after more higher net worth wealth accumulator families, there’s typically somewhere between sort of 80 and 130 client groups per advisor, separate to the risk pod, that’s obviously all policyholders. So that’s a little bit different.

Andrew Rocks
So and then I’m getting to the you know, you mentioned martial does a lot of the the investment stuff. You guys a self license from memory, but you share your self licensing with a couple of other really quality practices. What What made you do that? And what’s what’s sort of the reason why you do that?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yeah, so we stepped away six years ago, from a larger licensee. And that was purely because we felt like we’re being dictated to, we didn’t have a lot of say we had lots of scale, but we just weren’t getting the say. So there were three other smaller practices, who Martin Jeff had a really good relationship with, that came together. So there’s a boutique of four groups, and we share at that investment level, the licensee the compliance, the marketing, all that sort of stuff. It’s a full range. But we’ve shared resources, the big collaboration, we’re actually all heading to Melbourne, in September, for a licensee off site. So we’ve still got that scale, that sharing those thought processes, all that sort of stuff, the back office, I’m on the operational Compliance Committee, and everyone, there’s there’s a representative from each office. So we all share, push back to the license with any suggestions or thoughts as a group. And it just means that we’ve got a little bit more say, whilst compliance are still tight with do have more say in the end game.

Andrew Rocks
And I would imagine that by pulling those resources, you have your built in an SMA or an MDA that.

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yep. So we’ve we’ve using an SMA isn’t there, the models and that sort of thing are managed at the licensee level? So there is an investment committee that looks after that. And, again, each practice has representatives within that.

Andrew Rocks
So there’s it representative, the Investment Committee, and do you have a platform that you guys run off?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yeah, so we’ve run off premium primarily. So that’s, again, managed at that investment committee level, and then individually with each of the practices as well.

Andrew Rocks
And we’ll thank you for that. And then in relation to the risk because I’ve had, I’ve had quite a few practices on here, and some of them are pure risk, okay. And they obviously get it. Some of them have done risk, but kind of have been mumbling that it’s hard, etc. And I’ve had a couple of practices that have a risk specialist in their, their organization. Okay, so why has that always been the case? And what benefit does that risk specialist person bring to the other pot?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
So, it hasn’t always been the case. Ice. It was only a couple of years ago that we brought in a risk specialist. And that was as a result primarily of an acquisition or risk only book. So we brought Dom in two years ago, his wealth and knowledge of the risk industry. And it’s the little quirks. He shared some stories last week with the team at our team meeting. And the little quirks are what distinguishes his his knowledge and his brilliance in that in that, and really demonstrates to us as a leadership team, that there’s serious value in having him within the team to be able to take that off the advisors for them to focus on what they need to focus on. And he can focus on helping those clients with those risk focused goals.

Andrew Rocks
Well, in essence, I mean, the financial planners pedal peace of mind, and in this regard, your advisors have got peace of mind that the IRS specialist has got their back. Absolutely. And when we’ve spoken with people who do risk really well, it’s that extra value add that you can give will ensure the outcome. Just not You’re not doing badly. She’s

doing really well. Please wait for that. Sorry. Karen, this young girl is currently being handcuffed. We always knew this day would come. Ya cool. Okay, so I’m about to get into your tech stack. Yep. If I’ve missed anything, just talk to me. Okay. Yeah. Cool. And what we’re talking about life insurance. How have you guys built your engine room to deliver those plans? You know, how do you do it efficiently.

Belinda Marley-Wallace
So we outsource our power planning. It’s not offshore, it’s onshore but it is outsourced from from ever Lesko. We also, we use x plan we’re currently going through introducing Zepo. To work with x plan for x plan will be purely our compliance doc generation and some modeling. We’re moving away from having it as our CRM that will be there post focus, we’ve also using CDM. So all that insurance data will come through. And then we’ve got slack for internal comms Asana for task management. The biggest benefit we’ve seen from Zepo. And it’s very early days, is having access to greater and clearer reporting, gaining consistencies and efficiencies whilst enhancing and improving that client experience.

Andrew Rocks
So I normally ask what your tech stack is. But I think you’ve pretty clearly laid that out to you. You’re using slack as your comms. And you know, we’re going to speak about, you know, where your people are located, whether you’re an in house without house combination, etc. But a tool such as slack, and I was an early adopter of slack back when I had my business announcer 15 years ago, actually just had us ready for COVID, which we never thought was going to happen. But yeah, so maybe this gives us a feel for how you utilize slack as a communication tool. And then also, I’m here where i Where are you located? And where’s the team located?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yep. So slack as a communication tool has been amazing. It’s been a game changer. It’s taken all unnecessary comms out of email. And instant instant time

Andrew Rocks
in Mars. Yaki. Yeah, very.

Belinda Marley-Wallace
So that’s been a big game changer. For the team. We can also jump on video calls in there. We can pin documents in there. So it’s easy reference. No one can turn around and tell me that they haven’t been told. Because I know it’s in there.

Andrew Rocks
And when did you start on that?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
It’s been? Gosh, it’s been a while maybe. I think we were early early adopters. So well before COVID. Oh, yeah. Well, and truly well before COVID. But it did make life easier in COVID, when we all of a sudden had to all work from home.

Andrew Rocks
Absolutely. So speaking about that. Where are you located? Where’s head office?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
We’re in the Sydney CBD. So it’s nice and easy for everyone easy access for public transport. But we also do have part of our team offshore. So part of our team is in Cebu. We work really closely with VBP, which is an awesome relationship that we’re really happy. We’ve got and we’re really thankful that we’ve got them as part of our team. We’ve been working with them for four to five years now.

Andrew Rocks
And look, I can see a quick look at your people on your website. I can see all these happy smiley, smiley faces there. So I’m going to talk about people and culture in a minute. But and we might be able to touch on that. But yeah, it’s clear that there’s a There’s an inner glow in the people in your business. Do you? So although you share I ever sell, does your business have a board per se? Or is it just the the senior leadership of you three that sort of make the decisions?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yeah, we’ve got this the three of us. We’ve also, in the last six months, six to 12 months, engaged with encore advisory. So we’ve got Mark as part of our board as well, which we have identified as a leadership team has been a bit of a game changer. For us as a group. It just helps us stay on track holds us accountable, accountable, far more than ever did. We’ve been able to set out project plans and that sort of thing, all the stuff that we just have in conversations, and it would typically fall back on me to track and make happen. We’ve got someone else to help us push those along,

Andrew Rocks
look and a shout out to encore and we’ll give put some details attached to this of of who they are. And hopefully they still open for new clients, because they’ll probably get some. And look, I’m a mad fan of having coaching. In fact, my current business partner in VBP was my previous business coach, as a financial planning owner. So holding holding owners to account remember the word accountability. What we’ve learned talking to practice managers is they’ve got to hold people technically below them in the org chart accountable. But the ones that do it well hold themselves and the people above them the org chart accountable. Would you say that your role?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That’s spot on. And it’s only really come to light. That that has been an become a clear focus, since we’ve started working with Mark and Tom, so

Andrew Rocks
and so right now. Is all of your team in Sydney. I know you’ve got the Philippines business, but it’s all your team in Sydney working in the office.

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yeah, they are. So we’ve got a hybrid work set up. So they work from home one to two days a week. And then in the office. There’s certain times we’ve got them we stipulate they come in. So for team meetings and that sort of thing, ideally, they’ll be in the office. But other than that we’re pretty flexible. We’ve we’ve identified that that’s really important to them. And so we’re working with them on that.

Andrew Rocks
And as the as the sort of the person running the business, with things such as meeting rhythms and cadences. What does everless Guys meeting cadence look like? Do you know? Is it structured? Yeah, give us a bit of a feel for if I’m working in your business. What are the non negotiables? How does it work? What do we know?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
So typically, each pod will meet once or twice a week, we do monthly roundtable meetings with our advisors. We do separate ones with our associates, because obviously they focus on can focus on different things. I do fortnightly catch ups with the admin team as well, which involves our Cebu team. And then we’ve got fortnightly management meetings for the leadership team, which is chaired by Mark so he can provide input regularly, that will probably push out to monthly eventually, but for now it’s fortnightly. We’ve got monthly team meetings as well. And that’s more business update type stuff, recognizing achievements, birthdays, anniversaries, all that sort of fun stuff. That’s where we share our financials as well with the team, we give them updates on the strategic plan, that sort of thing, just to bring them in the fold each month. That’s probably

Andrew Rocks
and just I suppose is confirmed the mark you’re referring to is my max eggless mag snagless. Okay, okay, Max eggless. Yeah, I’m always just just just making sure I’ve got that confirmation there. And with the the cadence there, so you’re meeting with your operations team as collectively. And then do you do sort of annual reviews or quarterly reviews individually.

Belinda Marley-Wallace
So we do annual performance reviews. And on the back of that training, a development plans are set. We also have Jeff and I do monthly one on ones with each of the team depending on who they are as to who they are with. But we do monthly one on ones less formal, that sort of a check in try and not focus on on the day to day more the bigger picture.

Andrew Rocks
I’ve looked at your website, and you’ve got a few associate advisors there. How do you know when they’re ready to step up and be an advisor? And if you’ve got any of it wrong? Have you left people too long? Or have you promoted people to oh, they’re probably still there. So we can talk about that. But But where did you know? Have you got it wrong before? Yeah, absolutely.

Belinda Marley-Wallace
We’ve made mistakes, mistakes, for sure. Did you learn from it? Absolutely. Otherwise, we’d still be making the same thing over and over again. I think with the team, what we’ve identified and Jeff’s really good at identifying this is he can see they’re ready before they know they’re ready. So it’s giving them that confidence really, they know that typical stuff, the soft skills and the confidence is really the the major steps for a lot of associates. So it’s just making sure that we’re pushing them as much as we can at the right time.

Andrew Rocks
And it’s getting those first sort of dozen, as sort of standalone meetings with clients, clients or clients, the good and fun part. You know, when you look at the ecosystem, they’re the they’re the most compliant people in our business model. Yeah. Especially if you’ve got the vetting and whatnot in there. So you’re right, it’s probably giving them that confidence and getting, you know, because the other way, promoting people too early can actually be quite problematic as well. And that does happen with some practices. And I’ve been guilty of that historically, as well. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I

Belinda Marley-Wallace
think so. Definitely.

Andrew Rocks
You mentioned you share your financials with your team. Okay. And that’s when a monthly basis.

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Is that right? Yeah. High level? Yep. monthly basis.

Andrew Rocks
And so does that mean, you’ve got some critical numbers? Like, is it is it revenue? Is it is it farm is like, what what? What are the critical numbers that you like, look at in your lands? Yeah,

Belinda Marley-Wallace
it’s for us, it’s revenue, because we’ve set some pretty big targets. So we do regular check ins on those targets with the team to make sure that we’re tracking towards those.

Andrew Rocks
And I suppose if you wind the clock back, you mentioned that some of your pods have 80 family units, and some have 130. Is there a utopian number that you’d like everyone to get to? And if so, what are you doing as the practice manager, and general manager to to facilitate this?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yeah, I think we’ve thrown around high numbers of sort of that 175 upwards. What I’m doing personally, is looking at all the efficiencies and that’s part of Zepo, pushing that and rolling that through the business. But it’s those efficiencies that are going to allow that to happen, and making sure that the team are aware of those and utilizing those as much as they can.

Andrew Rocks
And let’s snap our fingers and assume that you do your job. Well, what’s the marketing engine behind Mr. Lesko to be able to attract these new business clients?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
So we have a marketing manager, we do monthly webinars. That’s probably more focused on existing clients. But that’s typically where most of and the best referrals come from.

Andrew Rocks
When you ask him. Okay, but we’re keeping that in. Right, where am I starting?

Speaker 3
I was just listening to the most referrals come from, and then it started. Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. We’re all good. Thanks. Good,

Andrew Rocks
good, crash, good. If we missed anything, you want me to loop back and open up,

Speaker 3
we’re all good. That last sentence, again, the most referrals come from nothing.

Belinda Marley-Wallace
That’s where we find the most referrals come from. So it’s an COVID really turned that and that became our key focus was because for a period of time, we just had to focus and focus on them. So we pivoted and stopped the new business focus, and it was just being there for our clients. And from that point forward, we’ve continued that so it’s newsletters became far more of a focus updates, phone calls, webinars, the whole bit. And since then, we’ve found that that’s, that’s been such a great focus and a source of new business as well.

Andrew Rocks
And you’ve invested the time and money in having a marketing person. Yep, absolutely leading that and they will be accountable as well, I

Belinda Marley-Wallace
imagine. Absolutely.

Andrew Rocks
Definitely. Yeah, they are. So for practices out there looking to accelerate the number of family groups that their advisors see, well, then you’ve got to do the work.

Belinda Marley-Wallace
You do and we we dabbled in different structures before. At one point Marshall was doing all the marketing at one point I took it all on. And we were just going round in circles and not really cutting through.

Andrew Rocks
I can’t see Marshall on a 60 foot billboard advertising. If Alesco was between companies. This is I’m only saying that to see if he listens to this because I’ll get it now I’m joining ever Lesko you know like I often asked, you know what makes people join and what makes them stay? How do you recruit people?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yeah, for a long time there. We were going through seek doing it ourselves. It was a process and it was not a fun process sifting through that so in the last Couple of years we have engaged with and built a really strong relationship with a recruiter who allows us to work. And sorry, that allows us to work with someone that understands our business knows what we do knows what we’re looking for, give him a shout out. So that’s Pat, from Barbican. So he has been amazing for us. The quality of candidates and people that are joining the team has certainly stepped up a notch. Since working alongside him. We’ve seen it Yeah, it’s been a game changer.

Andrew Rocks
And so does Pat do a lot of the heavy lifting around things like psych tests and stuff? Or is there still a fair bit that goes into once the candidates identified? Is there you know, your panel interview, give me give it a feel.

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yeah, so we meet with the team members initially. So Jeff and or I, typically we’ll meet with them. And then we, if interested, get them back for a second interview. And at that point, they’ll meet with more of the team that they will be working directly with. And that gives the current team a sense of ownership almost over those people. And then coming along the journey, but also allows us to suss out the culture fit from there, if they’re successful, we then go on to case study. So we’ll issue there and we’ll send them out a case study and get them to do a case study for us just to try and gauge where they’re at.

Andrew Rocks
And just to clarify you and your role as GM. You’re interviewing the potential advisors. Yes, yep. So so you’re providing that, that counterpoint to advisors, interviewing advisors? Yes. Correct. It is. Much it’s been my European

Unknown Speaker
European stripe.

Andrew Rocks
COMM A second video, I’m gonna ask a question, Belinda. Why I thought that was an important question is lead advisors, quite a few CEOs in our industry have been successful advisors, you have to have trans direct, sort of built themselves into CEO. And there’s two types. There’s ones that have actually reached out and got coaching and, you know, shared the burden and employ general managers. And there’s others that just put a new title on their name, because they’re good at selling. They make terrible interviews. And it’s always good then to have that counterpoint. Because everyone’s awesome to them. You know, so it’s like The Lego Movie. Everyone’s awesome. And I can’t wait from the start. And you probably sit there sometimes going, Yeah, but I think they’re going to be a hot mess. Maybe not now, because you’ve got the recruiter involved. But prior to that, yeah, you’d be like, I’m gonna clean up a lot of mess if this

Belinda Marley-Wallace
person Yeah, absolutely.

Andrew Rocks
The training. So how’s your retention with with with your team, you know, your overall team? How do you find retaining them? And keeping them in is? Is it because you run, like you mentioned to do a development and training plan? So what’s your tips on that?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yeah, look, for us this year is actually been a little bit different. rolling out our strategy. And our plan has meant that some people aren’t on the journey anymore with us. We’ve had a little bit of turnover for the first time since I can remember in saying that, a lot of our team members are 345 plus years, we’ve got a few anywhere upwards of eight 910 years. And obviously, I’m 15. So we’ve certainly got some stays, and some that are part of the furniture. But there are some that aren’t still on the journey. And that’s okay, they’ve they’ve taken a different path. And we are fully supportive of that.

Andrew Rocks
And I look at when I when I met you, in person might have been a couple of years ago was actually in Cebu. And it was actually at a function and you know, quite a few of the practices on the engine room have have employed, you know, offshoring as part of their, their, the way in which I deliver their stuff, and I’m less interested in the efficiencies and the cost arbitrage than that any advice you’ve got on how to manage them as the people. So what tips would you have to people who either are listening to this and haven’t done it, or are doing it at the moment or a bit frustrated?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yeah. We have learned the hard way. So we tried a couple of other businesses to partner with offshore, and it didn’t work. And we found VBP. And the difference we found was we had a dedicated resource. It wasn’t just going to a team and someone was picking it up. We had a dedicated resource. And the key there is they’re part of the team. They’re just not in physically in our office. They have to be part of the team. They have to feel like they’re part of the firm HR. And that has been an absolute game changer

Andrew Rocks
in so for instance, you know, you’ve got your slack. They’re communicating constantly, they feel part of the team. And and look, that’s a common a common theme. And you’ve built a team over there as well, which, which which works. Yeah. And the successful people I’ve interviewed, regardless of the provider, there’s a real commonality there that people are people.

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yeah, absolutely. And we’re really excited, Jeff and I are heading over actually in a couple of weeks for their conference. So we’re really excited. We’re taking our team offshore, we’ve got we’re going crossed one of the islands for a couple of days prior to the actual VBP conference. So we’re really excited to spend a good couple of days with the team.

Andrew Rocks
And what about your training plans? So how do you implement, I’m specifically going to ask about you running your operations part of the business. Because in a world where there’s 3% unemployment, and it’s been a tough slog, like the thing with the regulatory change in financial advice in the last decade, is everyone thinks the advisors have had a bad time. And they have but geez, the people who support them, have done some big hours and had a lot of stress as well. So now that we’ve won the war, how do you win the peace as a manager? For these people?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yeah, we’ve, we’ve taken a little bit of a different approach this year, where we’ve promoted a couple of people from our admin team. So one has gone into a training and development specialist role. And one has gone into a internal and client relations role. So we identified those as key areas. So the training and development specialist looks after exactly that. Our onboarding, our ongoing training, process, development, process, enhancements, all that sort of thing. And the internal relations looks at more of the HR side of things, so she’s checking in with new entrants, all that sort of stuff. And that’s, that’s been a huge change. For me, I’ve had to let go. But it’s also been awesome, because I’ve got people that can help me. And these two are amazing. And they’ve taken so much off my load, that I don’t feel like I’m not achieving in every area, because I know that they’ve got it. And they come to me with anything, but I know they’ve got it. So they have stepping into those new roles beautifully. And I know the team are feeling far more supported as well. And that’s been a big key driver is they needed more support. And I didn’t have enough man hours to do that. So it was recognizing that.

Andrew Rocks
And look, I’m going off pace to be here. But you can’t be all things to all people as the GM right? And I’m really interested in what are you doing personally? Or, or have a preference that What are you doing? Or what would you like to be doing with your own personal and professional development in your role? What courses would you like to do? Or? Or what would you? How would you like to be more supported as a general manager,

Belinda Marley-Wallace
I’ve gone through over the years, the guys have supported me. And I’ve done a couple of leadership courses,

Andrew Rocks
which any standout courses,

Belinda Marley-Wallace
I did one with Kylie Denton, that was great. That was a two part course, over a 14 week period, which happened to be in COVID, which was amazing because I was at home anyway. And I could just jump on and focus on it was actually really good timing. She was phenomenal. And now we’re working really closely with Mark and Tom at Encore. Mark’s doing a lot of coaching with Jeff and I as we go through this process and in our fortnightly management meetings and all that sort of stuff. So I think the key is that leadership piece, a lot of people just fall into those roles and evolve into those roles, because it’s a business need. But without the right training, you just gonna keep fumbling

Andrew Rocks
100%. In fact, as I intimated, a lot of CEOs of planners who became CEOs and a lot of general managers are people who’ve been there and know the business really well. And I just see a distinct lack of intellectual and community resources for practice managers, and general managers or and or general managers, which is the impetus for doing this podcast series. And further to that, quite Ironically, one of the few places that I find a lot of GMs and practice managers get together is at that offshore operations conference, and it was never meant to be designed like that. But maybe if I could just pick your brains around. Like if I’m an advisor and I was an advisor for years with a plenty of places to hang out with advisors is every second email is saying, hey, advisors get together. Yeah. What would you like to see the practice managers in general managers, would you like to see more corporate companies sort of getting them together. Would you like to see more collaboration? Can you give us a blueprint on how to perfect? Well, because ensemble definitely wants to. But we don’t want to do things that aren’t going to appeal to exactly the target market. Which is you?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yeah, look, I think there’s massive value in that. Obviously being last year in Cebu, the benefit there has been huge in terms of broadening the circle, and those that you can work with and share with, at our license level as well, we find they’re the most valuable sessions is talking at that business level? what’s working, what’s not what should take, what takes working, what’s not, what are you traveling? What are you seeing, like, it’s all those sorts of things that aren’t, you can’t put in an email, it doesn’t work, face to face conversations, then just open up and broaden. And you start talking and going down different paths and find different things out. So yeah, look, sessions like that. I certainly have a place for sure.

Andrew Rocks
And so this is complete, completely self serving. But if you’re listening out there, and what am I talking about who’s not? And and you’re trying to, you know, really get into the hearts and minds of advisors will the gateway to that is quite often in the medium to large businesses, their practice managers, their general managers, providing them the level of support that historically you’ve provided to the advisors and then cascading down the paraplanners and whatnot, is something that we really, really recommend it and look in on an ensemble is doing that. And but I think it is the this is the evolution. If I look at the successful practices that are growing, not going it is very much the the general manager is working out what works best for the business, the the team members and the clients. And that’s a big departure from your the operations manager who sort of very reactionary, and you have a pretty, you know, I’m increasingly seeing the general managers and practice managers being equity owners of the business sharing in that because, you know, smart advisors have worked out they’ve got to have that counterpart. Yeah. Is that sort of the way in which you feel about Evalesco and where you are?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And that’s something that we are working towards, as a business. The plan is to have that finalized by the end of the year and rolled out in the new year, to longer term team members, and then quite possibly, to then others in the team as well. Yeah, I

Andrew Rocks
think people want to belong, they do, you know, like, working hard.

Belinda Marley-Wallace
They want to be working hard for something.

Andrew Rocks
Yeah, yeah. That’s right. And, and being part, you know, there’s, there’s a, you know, we’ve got millennials, and we’ve got Gen Z kids, and I think they’re much maligned. And I really think in the same way in which people whether they’re in this country and other country, people are people that stick I think the different generations are all people that people as well. And there’s nothing replacing that, that real feeling of walking out your door in the morning and walk into a place where you feel valued and you feel you belong, and you feel that you can be authentic and not judged. And, and in saying that, that sort of intimating that financial planning practices as he’s going to get the bigger and, and one of the questions I wanted to ask you is, what’s your vision for the future of Mr. Lesko? First question, then the vision of how you see the industry going, you guys are a genuine, you’re a multi discipline practice in that you do the debt advice. And you do the financial planning, but boy, I bet if I’m a client, I don’t realize that I just think you’re helping me. Yeah, absolutely. And but but you know, not all, not all practices are like that. So yeah. What what do you see is the vision for your practice and your role?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yeah. So I think they go hand in hand. The aim that I’m working with is maximizing the performance of our people. And what how do you define that maximize the performance of our people. It’s them realizing their potential and working hard at that, and making sure that nothing’s left on the table.

Andrew Rocks
What gets in their way.

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Their confidence, absolutely. Compliance, which is certainly something that we’re working on, and trying to create more efficiencies, and better use systems to help that without lowering our service standards. And that is, it’s a hard juggle at times.

Andrew Rocks
Yeah, I think there’s a point where you can become business ruthless, but at the end of the day, kind of our employers in this industry are the clients. Yeah. When so we’ve got a duty of care to make sure that we happy Absolutely, absolutely, because they can vote with their feet per se, but yes, you and go back to you Sorry to interrupt your role, your vision for the MSK. Business. Yes.

Belinda Marley-Wallace
So working on maximizing the performance of our people and our teams, leading to improved efficiencies, and enhanced client experience. And that’s what it’s really coming down to is that client experience, we’ve got a big focus on that. Making sure that our clients are getting that great experience every time that they come to us. So they feel safe, they feel secure, they feel supported in achieving their goals.

Andrew Rocks
So this is the user experience. So you know, by under the line, you’re investing, well, you’re doing correct life insurance, you’re placing them in in lenders that are both flexible and well priced. Yeah, you’re already doing that. Yeah. So what do you mean by increased sort of positive experiences, given that you’re already doing pretty well?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yeah. So they’ve come to us to outsource. So we want to be able to do that for them. And having to tick all the boxes doesn’t always allow that. So it’s, it’s making sure that we’re working towards taking that off their plate and doing as much for them as possible along the way, so that they come to us and go, Yep, I’ve ticked that goal, through your help.

Andrew Rocks
And from experience, it’s also sort of telling them that you’ve actually achieved the goal. Yes. Because quite awesome. Absolutely. They’re on the journey. And but every so often, there needs to be a few stops on the train, right? to smell the roses and say, well, actually, we did this. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And, um, and I will never let go, you’re looking to introduce any more service lines, per se, have you? Have you got? So at the moment, you would be with what a wealth q minus retirees, you would have an estate planning referral panel? I suggest?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yeah, we do. So we work closely with the solicitors, there’s lawyers, we’ve got an estate planning solution, which is very tight. So for anything more complex that is referred out, but we do have an internal estate planning solution, and whose role is it to introduce that the risk specialists can’t go hand in hand.

Andrew Rocks
So he Jesus risk specialist is getting a bit of a plague. Dave, you know,

Belinda Marley-Wallace
is he’s, so he looks after that as well with his team.

Andrew Rocks
Awesome, awesome. And what about the roles of general managers or practice managers? In other practices? Where do you see practices going in the future? With the backdrop of what’s happened?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yeah, I think the role is to start stepping into that visionary role within the business that typically comes from leaders, owners, CEOs, typically, GM sort of just make it all happen. But I’ve been working really closely with the guys over the last couple of years, and being able to be exposed to those new ideas at a different level, has really meant that I bring a different perspective. And we can collectively come together as a leadership team to make decisions and offer those different perspectives when decision making comes about. So I think that’s a that’s a big thing. If you’re investing in in that GM role, allow them in to that. Because it can definitely bring different perspectives and different thought processes and ideas to the table that you may not have thought of as a CEO or head advisor or just the business owner standalone. So it’s Yeah, bringing that in.

Andrew Rocks
And the wherever this goes at the moment, as far as growing, are you in the market for you know, you’ve, you’ve mentioned, you’ve got your pod structure, you’re looking to increase up from some of the 131 75 is less ever let’s go into 2023 in the market for new ARS, up associate advisors, associate advisors actually pretty alluring because there’s a real kind of lack of new entrants coming through I know that ensemble with with the generous support of CFS have got a p y program on their platform. But yeah, what’s ever Lesko looking for? Or would you be merging or or bringing people in? What’s your thoughts?

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Yeah, I think for the 2023 year, through some changes, and having our admin team offshore, and through this some promotions, we’re looking to feel a really good, experienced admin role initially. But it typically comes down to good people, the and I say the admin role because it’s so client relationships that are really important. We’ve got great advisors, we’ve got great associates, we’ve got a great team. Just need a little bit more hands on doing at the moment.

Andrew Rocks
So people who are competent and talking with the clients as well lately. Yeah, it’s a rare rare beast who’s competent in talking with their own team and also with the clients. Yeah, and And I think that not only, you know, my takeaways is that there needs to be more structured support for gyms and practice managers, potentially even a course that can be manufactured. So sound guy, we might be talking about that afterwards. And, and also, you know, good quality practices being good quality advisors being quality advice and the stakeholders in that the general public and I think that we’ve always needed the general public on board. And but I think, you know, coming out of the last 10 years, I think that if we can really, you know, press upon that, then we’re going to see tailwinds in our industries rather than headwinds. And look, it’s been a cracking time with you today. Blender. I’ve been really keen to get this one. This particular podcast done. I see the growth in your business I see it from from an outsider but also looking at some of your engine room. And don’t underestimate the role that you bring as the glue in your business. And I’m sure that you get told this from time to time but I’m telling you again, so it was wonderful having you on the engine room.

Belinda Marley-Wallace
Thanks, Rocksy. Really appreciate it.