Engine Room Podcast #22 – Hugh Robertson – Transcript

Andrew Rocks
Hi, my name is Andrew rocks, and welcome to another edition of the Engine Room Podcast. I’m joined today with a gentleman who I’ve known for a couple of years, and he will talk your ear off about basketball. So I have given him the pre one that only 75% of this podcast has basketball metaphors. He’s been in financial services for many years and built a great business up on the Gold Coast. Hugh Robertson, welcome to the podcast.

Hugh Robertson
Thank you very much, Rocksy, very happy to be here.

Andrew Rocks
And it is bright and early. So we are both caffeine fueled. Now, you’ve been doing this for quite some time, a quick look at your LinkedIn. And I think it’s been over a dozen years that you’ve run this business, which is Centaur financial services in the Gold Coast, and maybe give us a bit of a feel of how did you end up doing that? So you’re not bad? You’re not. But that older guy to have such so many years sort of under your belt? were you always interested in financial planning? Was there a family leave maybe give us a bit of a sort of backstory?

Hugh Robertson
Yes. So I suppose when I went to uni, I started in law. But Robertson said kind of always done more. And when I was speaking to my dad, he kind of questioned why I did it. And I just thought well, that we all do.

Andrew Rocks
Sorry, your dad’s a lawyer. Yeah. So he cross examined you, I think is the best terminology,

Hugh Robertson
effectively. And we he kind of sort of said he never really had that passion for it, which really then led me on a journey to find something just through university courses, what I was passionate about, and finance, the investing side of finance really appealed to me in that it is black, it’s not black and white, there is gray area, there’s always going to be it’s always going to be dynamic. And there’ll always be challenges. So I kind of gravitated towards that space, and walked out with a international finance degree, which is now just a commerce degree, and then into a grad program with Commonwealth Bank. So I was one of their graduate intakes and amazing opportunity out of university to get into something like that. And I met my future wife there. So that’s definitely the highlight for me, but three years there and got very early exposure into advice, probably too soon, in hindsight. So what year was that roughly? That was 2004. I started as a graduate 2005 as an advisor. And then as we went through that journey, someone said, You should be at your first role for at least three years. Otherwise, it looks bad on your resume. So I stayed there three years, then one month, and then off to where to come back. Not very good. I know there’s gotta say again. And for me, that was the home of financial advice. And I thought that would have been my forever home. Because I’ve just got so much respect for Nora Whitaker and Sharon McNaughton, what they tried to do, what financial advice and for poor people, when you talk to them, they really did believe in helping people when there wasn’t sales targets or things like that, that great environment.

Andrew Rocks
And I think I think those guys along with Paul Koodo, back in that corner dealer really demystified and bought financial planning to the general public in a positive way.

Hugh Robertson
And I think also back then there was probably easier to do nowadays you might try but there’s a lot of general advice disclaimers that goes with everything. So that was a really great place for me who was might have been a bit disenchanted about what I thought financial advice was after the bank experience. They were really great at sales and helping people but it wasn’t quite what I want to align myself with. Widdecombe ignored was great, but then when the GFC hit Widdecombe, ignored, who had sold to Halifax, Bank of Scotland who also owned bank west, so to CBA. So there was no going back to the mothership for me. So that then was what led central financial services in 2009.

Andrew Rocks
So you’ve started the business on November 2009. So you’re, you think you will, at least the market can’t get lower? Is that correct?

Hugh Robertson
Yeah. Oh, forever an optimist or a full one at one of the two. But it was really that I wanted to build something that would have my signature on it are good or bad. I’m always happy to wear it. But I just the way I had set I had seen how it had been done. So with a note I effectively just wanted to create a mini Widdecombe ignore it or 2.0 of that. So there was some accountants who sort of put their businesses together their financial advice business was very small. And unbeknownst to me that done a lot of unlisted property. So I kind of walked out of Whitaker McNaught where we’d had just normal market volatility during the GFC into another storm of unlisted property. So again, that probably took three years to unwind all that requirements and that was a really interesting point of having to unwind a lot of positions for people that you never invested. Someone else did. So that’s an early age, I learned to take accountability, responsibility, even if it wasn’t my fault, because the goal was the clients were upset the clients were scared the clients were uncertain about their futures. though that was a really nice moment for me to realize they weren’t yelling or crying at me, it was something that we just needed to fix for them. And I think that’s kind of really set the direction for center in terms of client service, and client focus going forward.

Andrew Rocks
So since you started off small, as you say yourself, and and it’s, it’s now grown over the last four to 1213 years, what was some of the the key moments or milestones or even some of the people who may have helped you get that part of your journey,

Hugh Robertson
I think fundamentally like the basketball team,

Andrew Rocks
and you get five minutes off you go.

Hugh Robertson
You’re only as good as your team. So we talked a lot nowadays about a racecar team. And if it’s, if it takes three people to change the tires in one second, but the fourth was the change in three seconds, what’s our time, it’s three seconds. So it’s not, we don’t get to average out, especially when you’re a small team, that people component is the most important. And what I’ve learned is different people to different sizes of the business. Early on, I had very efficient people, and really good at just getting through a large volume of work. But they might not have necessarily been the people that were going to help us scale or grow, when you start incorporating more team members and things like that. So you’ll often hear us talk about center, 1.0 and 2.0.

Andrew Rocks
This office today, so when did when did the one turn into the two,

Hugh Robertson
probably around 2089. Once we started to get a bit of that scale really came through weird, fixed all the unlisted property issues, we’re starting to grow more of a professional office. And that’s also turning from a family to a sports team. A lot of people say, you know, we’re a family, we’re a family. Some of the times the problem with a family, I’ve got four young children, it’s mum and dad do everything. The kids get to do all the fun stuff. We go to the kids parties, we go to kids sports, and I kind of had that brain moment where I went, Well, hang on, this doesn’t work we need, we need direction, we need strategy, we need vision. So that’s where we went to now with a sporting team. So the family, mum and dad ended up having to do everything. Now as a sports team, everyone’s got clear accountabilities clear lines of sight into what they have to do. So at 19, it’s where we really start to turn a corner and the growth as a result really started to ramp up and into unintentionally.

Andrew Rocks
And you mentioned you’ve got yourself and your lovely wife have four children, what, under what age.

Hugh Robertson
So I’ve got a 975 and three year old, okay, so for everyone who

Andrew Rocks
is listening, just let how to collect collective gasp at that. And I’ve noticed I noticed them just just by looking at that the wonderful people on your website, that it looks like a lot of your team members are Robert in that design or thinking of going through it is that kind of part of how it’s come together or by design

Hugh Robertson
by the people that we’ve built, share our values. So the damage is going to be there, they’re aligned to trying to achieve there are lines of our family days where we really try and fit work into our life. And you hear this often talk about life into work. Because if we don’t have them fully engaged in, in what they’re doing outside of work, they’re not going to be fully engaged in what they’re doing inside of work.

Andrew Rocks
And I haven’t asked this question before, but I’m actually going to now put it in all of my questions with people with young kids. If I was to ask you for children, what their parents did for a living, what do you think they would say?

Hugh Robertson
My kids will say that I help people perfect. And we were very intentional with with the words that we use with our children in everything because we don’t want them to talk money or, or things or things of that nature. And we really want to build that, that fabric within them of what you know, we have our work base, but as we have our own sort of Robertson values that we’re trying to instill in our children about kindness, generosity, work, hard work ethic, work ethic, and really build that self confidence that and this is a professional thing as well that if you do all the right inputs, the outputs will take care of themselves.

Andrew Rocks
Yep, yep, yep, you’re right. I mean, it’s, it is a it is a progression. You don’t just get an outcome that happens overnight. And if you do, potentially, it’s been a corner cut somewhere.

So in relation to the business at the Miami, you’re located in the Gulf Coast, and you’ve been there. Are you a born and bred Gulf Coast person?

Hugh Robertson
No, I grew up in the Hawke’s Bay Area in in Sydney and at 18. I finished year 12 Up here on the Gulf Coast,

Andrew Rocks
went to school on a one way ticket. Yes,

Hugh Robertson
basically. And then I figured I was always going to end up back down in Sydney, but then you did University, you’re playing your state league basketball, which keeps you here and it kinda then I got a graduate program but found the goalpost got, you know, plants. So I always intended to go to Sydney and then probably, you know, six years into my career I kind of felt there’s not a better place in the world than the Gold Coast and if I could build a realistically So business er would really get the best of both worlds and especially with young family, sort of every opportunities available to them here and we’re more southern Gold Coast. I really think it’s just one of the world’s best kept secrets. Wonderful people relaxed lifestyle, but very successful as well.

Andrew Rocks
Oh, lucky. We don’t have many listeners some material. And that’s it. But I think I think we will, we will now especially a lot of people from the southern states for about three or four months of the year becomes one of our fantasies, sort of pinups. But now, the actual business yourself, you’ve now been sent your, which is cool, because you mentioned you weren’t a family business, but you’ve deliberately made sure that it’s not linked to you as a person, was there a motivation behind that?

Hugh Robertson
Definitely, I have seen a lot of previous businesses and you know, you, you look around at all your competitors. And there was always a little bit of inherent ego in that I felt, and you always made it about you. Central being that I’m from a team sport background, I’ve always been very intentional that this business isn’t about me. And even if you look at now, with two of our young advisors, Bobby and Nick, they’re superstars of the industry, and they’re going to be amazing. And I’ve really loved helping people and being being the Rockstar advisor, but I’m also loving now being that coach and mentor, and it really gives me a lot of energy seeing these guys grow. And, you know, if you name the business after yourself, you kind of limit the opportunity to do that.

Andrew Rocks
In a talk. I agree. I agree and not that some people are saddled with it, because you know, sometimes you’ve got an intergenerational brand. And that works. But if it’s grainfields, and you’ve got the option of starting, that’s probably sage advice. Now, this is the engine room podcast, and we’re talking earlier, I’ve had a look at your website. And, and like a lot of financial planning practices, they’ve got their partners involved in the business. And you’re working with with your bet much better half. And you’ve also got a lady Kelly, who’s known as head of people and culture. And when I asked you, you know, when when when you’re looking at about the succession for the engine room style person, you said, Well, it’s going to be a combination, but I’d love to hear your your thoughts or vision on on that particular role in your business,

Hugh Robertson
it took us a long time to get to this spot, we everyone kind of thinks about the business development, how to get more referral sources, how to get, you know, more leads, and all of that. And I’ve kind of flipped it on its head a little bit in my own thinking and thought, If I can just get the best people. And the most important resource we need someone who’s going to manage manage their, their hopes, their dreams, their aspirations, and really build out their capabilities. So because you

Andrew Rocks
can’t afford three second pitstops

Hugh Robertson
Can’t you cannot afford and if you do a three second pitstops, your other three guys who are doing one second pitstops will leave Correct. That’s probably been our evolution that we can’t have, we talked about eight players. And then all we want to really just be them. The number one that the thought was that a players now and a player is going to have to do a lot more work. But they’re going to be working in autonomous environment, they’re going to be self directed, they’re gonna take accountability. So our evolution has been that if we can get those guys and not have the CS, or even, you know, you look at, I know you’re a fan of scaling up as I am. And you know that if we’ve got that attitude and those core values right on on one, one axis, and on the on the cross axis, you know, the x axis, the performance, we really want those guys that are doing the high performance and high values. But if we have to choose between a performance or values will always choose values, because we can train the performance we can correct.

Andrew Rocks
So it’s changeable. That’s correct.

Hugh Robertson
And and Kelly’s been amazed that if anyone ever gets the opportunity to meet Kelly, it’s a shot in the arm of energy, and positivity and an unrelenting focus on client service. And that’s our industry, we’ve we had this industry fatigued, going through the 10 years of change all the regulatory changes, profile, you know, Royal commissions, and I think sometimes we’ve got about clients. So with all that, in that no one’s fault. That’s just what happens. So we’ve really, really engaged in Alright, let’s focus on our people, and make sure they’re focused on their clients. And that’s going to create a bit of a Jim Collins flywheel effect for us. So if we’re doing great service, great advice, that’s gonna lead to more clients, more service. So we’ll be able to really grow by by service and everyone talks about strategy wise, what’s your differentiation? And they try come up with these weird and wonderful things. Sometimes it can be as simple as returning phone calls quickly.

Andrew Rocks
Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. You’ve just given a couple of nuggets of gold there and might just Add to Kieran the soundguy and go and just make sure we’ve got the Jim Collins link there which no doubt a lot of people have have looked at and also the sky tally up the Rockefeller habits by Vern Harnish that, as you rightfully mentioned, you I’m a massive fan boy oven. And it’s probably been one of the critical chip sliding door moments of my life when I embraced that in about 2005.

Hugh Robertson
Yeah, but it got us focused in on people first. And I think all of us, I’m a big dreamer. So I was always sharing how to make the biggest advice and best advice practice over and it really just got back from me back to the point of focusing on our people and growing our people and if I grow their capability, let’s well then go Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Andrew Rocks
We’re gonna run out of weeks, I think you were gonna keep them coming.

Hugh Robertson
See, you know that production of that production capability

Andrew Rocks
are fantastic. We’re gonna go I want to do is just quickly punchy pipe pipe the picture of your practice. So give us a few, whatever sort of client types that you guys want and the good at.

Hugh Robertson
So this is we’ve just been through this exercise, we want people aged 50 over 50. Plus. Typically, we’re looking at 750 to 2.5 million in investable assets. That fits the life stage pre post retiree there. And so do they have enough to retire on? How are they going to do retirement? Will I get age pension? What are they gonna do with adult children intergenerational wealth transfer? Are they gonna get I mentioned estate planning consequences. So we can really be number one in Australia and that and we’ve really worked hard at building our capability to be the number one there with a very focused strategy. And what that will ladies when there are the young accumulators that come in, we’ll help them we’ll have referral sources to lenders to insurance guys, and we’ll build out our our external capability, but we might still run the point on it. So because the strategic advice component is still vital, but we might not, you know, I heard Ray Dalio say you need, we need the right answers. But we don’t need to be the person with the right answer. So we can find those right people to help our clients. And then we just connect that

Andrew Rocks
two points on that I am seeing a tapestry of answers in my travels in the engine room. And I think, increasingly, financial planning, businesses want to be able to offer all the services but they don’t necessarily have to have the engineering for every single discipline, because your client wants the Netflix experience where they they bounce some of high level of professionalism and user experience to the next one to the next one. And as long as you’re the strategic owner of the relationship, it doesn’t matter if you bring in other specialists, like a doctor and a GP, or, sorry, a specialist,

Hugh Robertson
or law. Well, I think that’s also do what you’re good at, if you’re not good at it as people better than and if you’re a media sort of professional ego out the way I want the best outcome for a client. Sure if there’s a better personal insurance for me, I should refer to them. And my client will get a better outcome

Andrew Rocks
and a look at them. So you’ve got clients age 50 and above and, and having a quick look at your good at your team. It looks like your team, we’re about sort of 10 to 15 years younger than that as an average. And is that a selling point? So are you saying to your clients that you want long after you’re retired, you know, my team are in the prime of their life? Or is that just been accidental?

Hugh Robertson
Absolutely intentional? That’s absolutely one of our selling points to clients is that we will see you through your retirement. Most people we understand that 50 year olds would feel comfortable joining up with someone their own age. But if they’ve done their job, well, financial advisor, they should be retiring before their clients.

Andrew Rocks
Yeah, no, look, if you’re if you’re wrangling full, full young kids, you’re probably very much emulating what a little via kids are doing anyway. So there’s a lot of relatability there. So can I ask, you’ve got how many? I asked you have any business, including myself three. And so when you say including yourself, does that intimate that you’re on the tools? You’re halfway? You know, it’s always a question I like to ask of fan advisor founders. And, and start with being honest, because I’ll tell you my story is when I had trade advisors, I was the worst. When I had 10, I was the worst. And when I had 20, I was the worst. And I think when you own that,

Hugh Robertson
right? Yeah, it’s it is it gives you a lot of comfort. When you say how smart your advisors are, and they’re asking you really technical questions. And you. I think it’s this. No, they’re definitely bright. They’re definitely people. And we’re, as we transition myself and the existing clients who have joined me, initially back in the early days and letting them know that these guys are the future and they’re amazing. And then then it’s up to those guys to really earn that relationship. But certainly most most new advice, clients come going forward. They’re coming in straighter, Bobby and Nick.

Andrew Rocks
Well, let’s talk about you know, first question is how do you get your clients do you have a network? Do you have a b2c sort of engineer or you know, how do people come to the front door of your business?

Hugh Robertson
Marketing has probably been the hardest thing For me to do because, you know, you never want to be a big note or, or anything like that. So everything we try and invert everything. And we always thought that if we give amazing service, clients will refer. And if you went through the majority of our business grew that way, just to just really good service, really good communication, always talking to clients, open door policy for meetings. Then we went down the SEO path and really spent some time on our website and building out the content in that. And you’ll see

Andrew Rocks
you’ve got, you’ve got detailed life goals, life stages, you’re, you’re giving a lot of content away to the universe. And is that, Hey, you didn’t get called actions from that. Yeah, so

Hugh Robertson
75% of our work would come from the work that comes in the door would come from Google nowadays. And that’s not necessarily the marketing, the advertising spend, we do spend on bird Google ads, but it’s mostly organic. And then from our existing clients, that’s probably the remaining 10 15%. Oh, and 15%. And then 10, is from some professional referral sources, we don’t have tie ups with them. It’s just that we’ve served their clients or we’ve got mutual clients, and they send stuff to us and Emily Clemmie family units. So you guys

Andrew Rocks
managing about 360

Hugh Robertson
at the minute. And you’re really trying to work on the the efficiency piece of software that everyone we’re all looking for that, you know, let’s dig

Andrew Rocks
into let’s dig into efficiency. So maybe give me an idea of the organizational structure, as far as United Iran is, advisors got their own remit of clients, how you run your advice, delivery, all of that sorts of things. Um, it’d be good to get a feel for, you know, if we’re always looking to join you, as a team member. Alternatively, let’s say for instance, I was out there and wanted to, you know, offer more services and might be merging with you. How would How does it look?

Hugh Robertson
It’s a great question. From our perspective, we’ve got a pod structure, we have a pod structure within the for each advisor. So for example, Bobby, and Caitlin will work together as a close team, and Nick and Mateen, will work as a close team, we’ve then got an in house paraplanner. So again, that’s one of our competitive advantages that we have the ability to run modeling quickly at a high level, it’s the

Andrew Rocks
turnaround that gives you a faster turnaround time. I think having that that adding that dedicated PowerPoint is just, I mean, I love them by xYc of contract PowerPoint is Piper playing like everyone has a role. But but you do pay more, and it does cost more, but it gives you that luxury of of that fast turnaround,

Hugh Robertson
when we talk about client experience. So even with the PUD structure, they’re racing, we’ve done that within our team knows how to work together with each other well, there’s a clear pathway in terms of career progression. If you want to go down that pathway from client service off state into your py into advisor, there’s going to be a capacity to do that. And how are we going to, I suppose one of our our statechart goals is we’re going to build the diamond team structure,

Andrew Rocks
I was only talking to Ben Calder, and dad and Adelaide a while ago when he he was telling me he was doing exactly the same. So maybe I don’t know if you know each other, but it might be worth doing a quick intro it so and because the philosophy is very sound. Yes. And I feel like it’s your take us through it he for the for the listeners. So effectively, if I’m

Hugh Robertson
a young advisor slide out or I’m out of university, I’m typically going to walk into an advice practice as a client service kind of role. And that’s really important that you understand that role. And that you do your time in that role. Because one day you are going to be a senior advisor and you want to walk the walk. So you can have the respect of people and understand what everyone does within the team. So you might start there. And then you might work your way into an associate advisor role. So you start to really move in that direction, which will then be into your py. So you might be doing from client service to associate advisor. So as the Associate advisor or py, you’re now getting exposure into meetings, you’re doing your meeting minutes, you’re doing a lot more follow up. And then you build yourself into your own financial advisor. And from there, you’re now kind of head of your own team, almost all you could still be reporting to a senior advisor, but it’s almost like the accounting partnership model. I’m seeing how they’ve done that.

Andrew Rocks
And I suppose with the with the the evolution of the py gives a bit more rigor and timeframes around that that rather than some people thinking that they can, they can do it in six months and other people thinking it might be 10 years, there’s almost a prescriptive period of time where you can start here and work your way through isn’t there

Hugh Robertson
I feel we need that in the industry because we’re all ambitious and we all want to be in the role as quick as possible. But you’ve got to go through some stuff. You know, some market experienced having some bad things happen to clients, the low the soft skills and not just about technical skills and we’ve really got to give give these younger advisors or you know, associated advisors exposure in the meeting rooms so they get How to handle those conversations and how not to have the empathy, have those soft skills to really listen and understand what the clients really saying and what their real concerns are. So by working with a diamond team structure, you’re going to get that exposure. And it’s also great for the people at the top of the top of the diamond, because they’re going to learn their leadership. So it’s going to be another skill set for those guys, as future leaders of our business, grow, grow your pod first and grow your team. And then you know, these guys will be very influential for the future growth of Central

Andrew Rocks
and just looking at potentially a pinch point in your business. You got 360 I think coin grip should make you mentioned. You seen your PowerPoint of Rene, is that right? Yes. Yep. Um, but how does she get through the work just for the existing clients that no doubt have seen, you know, two or three times a year and also take on these clients that as it turns out, you’ve racialist sleep attract through Google and whatnot,

Hugh Robertson
it’s pretty hectic, she runs pretty hard, we’re very, we work a lot on our processes and how we get more efficient. So that really, she’s not entering a lot of the data into the system. That’s all for her. So, you know, we really want to use people’s best talents where they’re suited. So I don’t want Renee. And just from a business point of view, I don’t want to be paying her her hourly rate versus some administration person that their hourly rate, I’d rather they’ve entered the data. And then Renee takes and just writes the SLA. So that’s been okay as true just process. And if we gave her 10 new clients in a week, she wouldn’t be happy with us. But, but she’d get through it. And I think ultimately, as the business grows, that will be a maybe more of an outsourced solution. And then we talked about this diamond team structure, and she’d probably be head of her diamond team. And we might have an outsourced solution that she would say, yeah, now

Andrew Rocks
raising, how do you. So you’ve got the pod structure, which is soon to be the diamond structure. We’re running out of American sports, by the way, so I’m expecting some sort of ice hockey HR principle at the end, which is probably not instructive. But so you’ve then got, you’ve got your advice, delivery done, you’ve got your client services offices, domestically, you’ve got some some help with people doing the repetitive tasks, you’re building that that one team culture, which I’m going to get into people and culture later and maybe gets a feel for how you, you feel that you can build a culture in a place where although you are geographically sort of concentrated, you do have people working from home some days from overseas, some days, etc. But what’s the cadence of how the engineering runs do you guys do? Does each pod was started, does each advisor or head of the diamond have accountability over the p&l for their clients and run that independently? Or is there sort of pretty fixed, you know, masters in a week for you

Hugh Robertson
meeting rhythms, or twice a week, all of us meet every morning, and we go through, you know, what we’ve got on our plate, what our stockpile, things like that. So that’s just to keep everything moving forward. And the pods will meet daily as well. So about what what they’ve got to do individually. The advisors, as heads of the pods are accountable to certain numbers, they know what they need to manage. They know they know their targets really well. And we kind of celebrate, we have our celebrations or when a client finds out that that’s not a bad thing. And we sort of feel that that’s a dirty word. Sometimes we celebrate that, because it’s someone else who’s now trusted you on their journey to hit their life goals and all of this, so we should reward that. And so we just we have our number, you know, we want to add 25 ideal clients per quarter. And we’ve got, you know, we track every time we do it, we go printed out against liquid on the wall, and we celebrate the wings. Oh,

Andrew Rocks
absolutely. And, and, you know, part of part of working in a remote kind of fashion quite often is is is I’d be curious to say you slap it on the wall, but then you’ve then got some people that are working home. So some days, etc. So, you know, maybe I’ll ask Are you are you a Microsoft sort of platform business? Or how are you? So Ms teams resume or what’s what’s the tool that you use

Hugh Robertson
closes teams, you know, and then a buddy tech stack.

Andrew Rocks
Let’s do it now go for

Hugh Robertson
it. So tech stack is we’re running through Office 365, you know, including obviously, teams outlaw SharePoint, we utilize depo. So we know that that’s a game changer for it, we would rate ourselves to three out of 10 with it in implementation so far, from what we’ve actually done, which is pretty interesting. We usually leave one person or one project and I think that’s fluid. So we’ve actually been rotated to another person to do it. Now. fresh set of eyes has given us a whole new perspective on it. So it

Andrew Rocks
is a quarterly thing is is part of the Rockefeller habits you you have your core Lee sort of objectives.

Hugh Robertson
Yes, Yep, absolutely. So this is one of our rocks is to get that sorted. And that’s been a bit of a revelation to us. And Alright, let’s let’s rotate the job roles on certain things. And we’re looking at Zeppo a whole new way to what we were six months ago now, and a lot more dynamic and positive weather. Because as you as we retrain someone else in it, the product itself has evolved, the software itself has evolved. So now there’s new capabilities that it has. So we can take advantage of that the person who learned previously isn’t looking for the new stuff, because they’ve learned their way. So that’s been really good. And we’re really excited about what Zepo will be able to do and continued support that, you know, we’ve then got triennial. So that was, you know, you need a warehouse for your policies and procedures, rather than give someone a 360 page document. And that’s got kind of a bit of our culture, piece in there, our values, the basic stuff, but also the processes. And we’ve just recently added employment hero. So that was really to make health life easier. And there’s also in there some one of our key metrics, we’ve got four pillars that we’re really going to judge going forward with Central, the revenues, the profitability, the employee, net promoter score, and our client net promoter score. So that’s how we’re going to judge a lot of our success. And through that employment here, or you can send out the monthly shout out monthly happiness and things like that, we’re going to measure that, well, the APS

Andrew Rocks
it’s a, it’s a much underlooked people focus on net promoter scores, but you can make your clients happy and your people miserable. And the art of the deal is to make sure that they’re both getting happy at the same rate. And I think if

Hugh Robertson
we do great point at the same rate, I think that’s true, we’ve got to make sure that they’re happy and engaged. And that’s where the covariances become really important for us to to, we’ve got the six core barriers up on the wall, and we know what we need to achieve. And we they become yes, no answers. Are we are we doing this? Yes or no?

Andrew Rocks
And just a quick, quick sort of a review of you located as a single site. Is it a bigger motor? Besides, where’s your wood? How’s it work

Hugh Robertson
single sites of Palm Beach office, at this point in time, we’re always looking, I suppose for for growth opportunities. And, and to see where we end where we, where we end up. So there’s obviously we’ve got clients online, and who are happy during during pages that way, but the majority of our our client base, they do prefer the face to face meetings, and so that we’ve kind of built the business as to what they’ve wanted in the survey responses and things like that. So it’s they’ve been able to build central collaboratively with us.

Andrew Rocks
And I’m just gonna ask a random question, because you probably one of the one of the practices that outside of sort of Albury Wodonga you’re the ones who brought on the border. How did you handle COVID? When were any of your team members on the other side of the border? Yeah,

Hugh Robertson
that was tough. We might have had some Mexican How many kilometers to the border?

Andrew Rocks
You guys five? Yeah. Right. So so yeah. When can keep going on? I’m curious now worried? Because you pretty, pretty hectic.

Hugh Robertson
Yeah. And that was a dynamic environment. We week, we had three people that worked in from New South Wales there to laid at home.

Andrew Rocks
If you’re a Queensland Government, zombie apocalypse state?

Hugh Robertson
Yeah, it was, it was tough. Kelly may have crossed the border a few times when she shouldn’t have. But for her it was it was very important for her to be with the team. So it was really tough, because you’re sort of waiting 45 minutes. One of the benefits of working here is 15 minutes to work, no matter where you live. And now it’s taking 45 minutes an hour. So we gave them the option. We all fundamentally agreed though, that we are all better together, the learning the collaboration, the synergy is better when we’re all together. And we’ve had to actually work hard and probably a lot of businesses had, on re defining getting our culture back to what it was pre COVID We probably thought Oh, it’ll just automatically happen. And we really needed to work hard on that. And it’s,

Andrew Rocks
I’m gonna ask you a question that one too, so because I’m involved in, in various businesses and, and like everyone, where they all used to work together. And then there came a moment in March 2020. All together. And my business had to send 700 people and, and then we’re, we’re now bringing them back. And, and the the real art of the deal is where it’s going to land as far as what’s the new normal. So the new normal is not in home full time, the new normal might not be at work from time. So what do you see in your business as far as the new normal for people being in the office? And just how you’re running it and also how you interact with people who aren’t in your office?

Hugh Robertson
I really think we haven’t probably as an industry paid enough attention to this and

Andrew Rocks
don’t beat us up. No one has like like it’s we get this get this one. Be a university massive subject for almost every every course in high child finance forever, is how the case study of the last three or four years.

Hugh Robertson
And I think it comes to trust. And if there’s clear job roles, clear accountabilities clear ability to track their progress, then it doesn’t really matter where they work from our power plan or on a one day a week, she works from home because that suits her family environment. In years gone by, we had people that would work from home, because that suited them and their families. And we had 100% trust from the business perspective from that. So we’re very flexible with that. And I think it might end up being a three in two or four in one will end up being cluttered the numbers when you, when you look at it, they’ve still got to be in the opposite side, because you do miss if people are out they do put themselves away from the team a bit. So I think there’s just a synergy from being all together.

Andrew Rocks
Yeah, agreed, agreed. And, and we will work on that when we touch on people and culture. So I work in your business, you’ve got clear coatings, as far as the way in which you run the business. It’s all pretty transparent. People have got clear job descriptions. Which one of the, I suppose more unusual scenarios, especially given the last five or six years is you attract organic clients, he told me about 100 new families coming in over every year, which is, which will be a sort of a 20% increase of your overall business. That’s really ambitious. The actual corporate part of your business? I mean, how are you owned today, if you’ve got investors like, because, you know, we spoke off air and, and you mentioned, you know, 1.0 2.0, but I think we’re all in Mad agreeance that if you can build your engine room in your platform, it’d be silly not to take the next step. So yeah, you know, what’s the ownership structure? What’s the ambition,

Hugh Robertson
currently, I own 100% of center. And there’ll be the people within the team that will that will buy into the business and I suppose Bigger, bigger than that is the appetite or some acquisition, we’ve got outside investors that will contribute capital, you know, there’ll be some things that we do through through that to be the succession plan for a lot of businesses that have clients similar to ours, that that ideal client, and maybe they’ve already got someone that they have in their business, who is going to be good, but couldn’t afford to buy it. So they might stay within the business and be one of the key advisor there as we kind of come in and bring our capital and our expertise now, ecosystem infrastructure branding, because again, with the size that we get, now, we’ve got really good scout discounts. So if we come into a business, we can bring a lot of expertise there, as well as give a better client outcome through reduced costs. And with our in house investment capability, maybe a better investment experience. So I feel there’s with a lot of the advisors, a shrinking advisor, workforce, they want that really great client experience to continue that they’ve been amazing at. So you want to align yourself culturally with someone who honors that, and will always be respectful to that as one of their core values.

Andrew Rocks
Potentially, they are doing that. But they’re doing that with 80 hours a week labor at the moment.

Hugh Robertson
Yeah, and it’s expensive. You know, if you’re a one or two person business right now, it’s very expensive. And quite possibly, you’ve also lost your love for, for what got you into the industry. And so part of my focus would be well, how do we get you to do that thing that you love, you know, that we’re you’re going to operate amazingly well, and you’re going to help people, and we can take care of those headaches. Because we’ve built the we’ve built the back engine, the engine room effectively to be able to do that for you. And I think

Andrew Rocks
it was a drinking game, I just took a sip well done. I don’t normally get too many engine rooms thrown back at me, but my subliminal programming is working. Keep going.

Hugh Robertson
I feel that I try and think what would I have liked if I’m towards the end of my career? Or if I’m a young person, what would I want in my career, and if you can kind of build that? I would, if I was, you know, towards the last three, four years of my career, I’d want to know my clients for taking care of because I’m still going to see them in the streets. Sometimes I still can’t see him at the shop.

Andrew Rocks
Absolutely. And you know what, in regional and big towns, it’s more relevant, because you are gonna walk past them, you know, they, they might be your doctor, they could you know, the banker, they could be these people. So I often think that that other history of the industry and I have for sale is especially the big ones where they they offered this whereby you and that you don’t really know the person the house is gonna buy you and we’re gonna pick the person who looks after your clients. Artists think that would be you know, after the, the exercise, the financial exercising, a lot of regret be able to post so much more. So, remorse from these people anecdotally

Hugh Robertson
Well, I feel we’ve seen that with people that have done some of those This transactions and that has been their feedback. I think there’s that cultural alignment piece is important. And that’s part of the youth of our business is you know that we’re going to be able to take care of those clients. And I fundamentally believe that all advisors want to help people. So that’s a very important thing for us. And those big businesses that talk about we’re just going to do bolt ons and acquisitions. Sometimes the thing we forget about is the client and the client experience will exterminate

Andrew Rocks
the client experience, you’re targeting clients that are pre retirees. It’s really, you know, you do an SMA and MDA is already platform that that are doing good things for you that you’d like to reward with a mention. Is there any sort of direction you’re heading in? Yes, as

Hugh Robertson
since 2015, we were an early adopter of SMS and managed accounts. And that’s been, that was a game changer for us, because we were doing it so that we wouldn’t have to do our ways, which again, was an efficiency gain, we’re always looking to how we do efficiency gains. And we didn’t know that it would go to be what it has been. It’s, it’s been amazing for us in terms of being able to go and get out discounts with managers, and to build best of breed solutions that everyone, everyone gets the benefit of from day one. If we believe that x y Zed is the best fund, then everyone should have it. So I suppose in there, there is a bit of a view that our client base does benefit from active management. And whereas I think there’s a conversation that a lot of accumulators could do index and do really well. But in you think last year, you had the US shares and US bonds, both went down more than 10% in a year. So if that’s your retiree client, that doesn’t work. So we need different strategies that are going to get them through. So premium is who we built that through. So we’ve had a really good working relationship with them over time. And they know that we hold them to account on things. And they’ve, we always talk partnership about everything. And that’s someone who we feel they’ve really partnered well with us over time. So we’ve been pleased with there. And you know, that’s a continued evolution products are always evolving. So we’re always looking, you know, there’s, it’s pretty exciting times for a client right now, because they’re fighting for each other. They’re all fighting for dollars.

Andrew Rocks
Yeah, that’s right. And earlier, in the podcast, you mentioned that you, you sort of surround yourself with professionals in the in the life insurance and the dead space, but tiny specifically to intergenerational wealth transfer, and, you know, taking the children of your clients on GMA estate planning time, that will also then complement all of those words,

Hugh Robertson
I get, yes, that was our first time. Because that we again, part of our goal is to give people peace of mind. So these are the non financial benefits that, you know, the intangible, so we really wanted to get that to be great, and we’ve got a business now that will come into the office, see the client, sit down with them fixed fee, and they really benefit from that. So although we don’t make any money out of it, the clients know that we care.

Andrew Rocks
So they’re getting, they’re getting a family office experience, you know, you’re getting your person on point surrounding themselves with professionals. And although, or they, you know, you’re on the Gold Coast, they’re really getting a, you know, a high street experience. So they don’t have to necessarily go to Brisbane or Sydney or Melbourne to get that kind of experience of a private wealth practice really well. And

Hugh Robertson
this was the realization of why we had to grow. Because I wasn’t in I never intentionally started and said, I want to have the biggest business in the world. But it kind of became that well, the more scar we get, the more benefit we can bring to our clients. Well, so that’s been an evolution. Fantastic.

Andrew Rocks
And in relation to your people. You know, I always like to ask them, you know, why do people join you? Why do they stay? And how do you grow together? And maybe give me a bit of an idea of, of how you identify talent and bring them in or recruit them.

Hugh Robertson
This is probably every business is hardest thing to do. And we’ve gone through a few ways I could probably tell you more ways that don’t work and what do work.

Andrew Rocks
Hold on to this. Give us a couple of days. We’ve got what lessons to be learned here.

Hugh Robertson
I think we’ve really got to test people out in it in almost like a game time simulation. So often I’ll just go off people use

Andrew Rocks
ice hockey, is it there’s lacrosse going on? Yeah.

Hugh Robertson
gridiron one American football one, that we would just take people’s word and we that they’ve been an advisor for five years. And we would assume that they had that knowledge, we would assume that they would know how to do it our way with CSS, we might assume that they would know how to use the platforms that we use, we would assume that they would know how to processes. And so going going forward we’ve really went through well once we once we know that articulate that they will fit our culture and we like their attitude. So that’s that’s just making great Telly does all of that nowadays and she’s got her question sets and goes through that we’re not we haven’t done yet. The profiling, but we will based off Do you know our team’s profiles? And what will work there? We utilize things like 16 personalities and things like that just so we know each other’s work styles, and personal, but going through that to really build out, then using the case studies, they’re the things we should have done better.

Andrew Rocks
Now that you mentioned your company culture. What is told you to carry out on that because the word culture gets thrown around. And it’s, you know, something above what’s in yogurt. So what’s what’s what, how do you sum up your company, culture,

Hugh Robertson
cultures, everything. And that starts from the leader, I’ve learned, I feel Yeah, it’s like your slip your core values on the wall doesn’t really mean anything. And I think from our perspective, we let our coach actually falter during, during COVID. And probably we had things creep in, and we didn’t really address them quick enough. So Coach, Ross is leading at the front, he is taking accountability, responsibility, having fun, like I think people confuse culture with, let’s go do fun stuff. And our culture is accountability, responsibility, leading clients on the journey. And working together collaboratively. We were big on team, we’re big on client first. And we reward that too. So in people’s bonuses and remuneration there, there is a culture score that that’s so they actually know that not only do we talk, the talk, we we reward, reward the work too. So if you’re doing that, even if you don’t hit financial numbers, you’re still going to get a reward because you live in our values. You live in our culture. And I think the more more you lead it, and you’ve you’ve got to be at the front of that as the leader of the business, the more people follow, and doing things away, we went on a conference last week, you know, we do our monthly massages, things like that are those nice to haves, but just show that they care that we care about them as people. And I think culturally like any good team, or sports team, it’s not necessarily about having a team of superstars. It’s having a superstar team and knowing everyone that’s also culture contributes to everyone knowing their role, like go back to Jim Collins, right seat on the bus, like the right people in the right seats. And if they know that they’ve got clear job, accountability, they know how they succeed. And that feels good as well. And that brings positivity. And I think also having those crucial conversations quick when there’s someone’s button needs to be kicked. Let’s just get it over with quick and stopping. We call it the no triangles. So I’m not going to talk about you to him. And don’t usual and let’s just have that conversation. Great. And that’s that’s where they used to

Andrew Rocks
call that gossiping, whew.

Hugh Robertson
I love it. So we really tried to remove that as a, there’s a problem. So make no mistake, let’s all get and talk about it quick. Because everyone, we’ve got a really smart team, we’ve got really good people. So we know if someone makes a mistake, it’s a mistake. So let’s, let’s just fix it.

Andrew Rocks
So I’m gonna ask you a question and hold you to account.

Hugh Robertson
My children and my wife.

Andrew Rocks
Shout out Joanne, I’m looking at her smiley face on the website. And we both disclose that both of our respective partners have got a background in psychology. So that says more about us than them. So yeah, so what do you mean by that? What’s your what’s your sense? Check, right? Because you said you did say you’re a dreamer. And you’ve got this vision, and you are rolling things out? You have, you have the foresight to make sure that you’re tethering how you operate to some pretty successful business structures, whether they be Jim Collins, or whomever, but then deep down who hold you to account

Hugh Robertson
deep down it. In our world, it would be the one page strategic plan. And then Kelly will be the one saying, Okay, where are we at with that? But at this point, really, they that’s a fluffy answer. And that’s probably something if we’re very honest, we do need to address and that’s where, you know, you see a lot of other people have the business coaches, we’ve gone in and out with business coaches over the over the years, when we’ve needed it, we’ve used it and when we’ve kind of not needed it, we’ve we’ve canned it.

Andrew Rocks
Well, I ruined my business coach, my business coach was Dave Carney who ended up becoming his business partner. So so. So yeah, there’s one less business coach, but one more successful businessman.

Hugh Robertson
scaled up framework works really well for me. And that that is what I think actually can help CEOs look out

Andrew Rocks
that and I think, you know, you know, 3.0 when you’re reading through some of your team members as equity holders, when you’ve got, you know, investors, when when, when your board meetings, actually, you know, you’re looking at return on investment. It’s just a natural progression. And while I’m on that, you know, you mentioned that you’ve got in people’s sort of employment structure, you’ve got, you know, a thing for culture, and there’s also you know, NPS and EPS is and employee satisfaction. And is that what you’re using employment here to assist you in the scaffolding of booting? Was this early days?

Hugh Robertson
No, that is helping us and that’s everything we’re building we’re building so we can scale so that that’s a key bit of infrastructure for us. And those and just having data points all in one spot, you know? Yep. And

Andrew Rocks
and how do you say you mentioned you do team awards? I did hear your relative sleep, the monthly massage, you know, it’s, it takes me out of context. That’s, that’s not going to fly but But I understand it’s it’s a good word. But you’ve got you’ve got people that are made, how do you? How do you and what severe people in the engine room have? Businesses, they have different offices, they’ve got people who aren’t always physically in front of them? How do you ensure that the culture is a one team one dream, you know, what’s what’s, what’s one of the common tethers that you use?

Hugh Robertson
I think that’s a great question. From our perspective. The one team one dream kind of approach means that we’re all crystal clear on what the goals are. And we just celebrate ourselves, we, you know, even on through employment hero, this shout out, yeah, we do that we have the month where we will dial in the people who aren’t in the office. So we’ve got it this afternoon, we have the month then you know, that certificate, we’ve got the trophy, and at the end of the year, it just got the most, it’s almost like a brown low, that they can win that and with their there’s a we’ve given them a cash prize. But also they’ve got to use that to go away and do something nice for themselves. But every every month, there’ll be that and you know, our people who have been off site have won it. And our people on site have won and and everyone gets to vote. So it’s, we definitely everyone’s part of the same team. We don’t, we’re if we talked about the guys over and overseas, they’re our team, they’re not the guys, they’re outsourced or our VPS, or our, they’re just our team, and those guys are as good a teammate as you could ever want. Which

Andrew Rocks
I can see this shining photos on their website as well. So, you know, it’s like Christian

Hugh Robertson
talk so much smack about basketball. And Dan’s about to have my first baby, and we’re excited. And but those guys, you know, will, if we’re having a strategy day or a town hall, we’ll buy them lunch over there. So we’ve got the ability to facilitate those things, which just incorporate some part of our team, we’ve got another group, another financial planning group in Australia, who use a lot of VBP. So we’ve got our team next to close to their team, so they can feel to get that synergy and learn from each other. So it really works well. When you focus on it, I think that’s the one thing we’ve realized. And if you look at our business, like our first people that’s ahead of anything, it’s people in culture. So from my perspective, that’s our most important resource. That’s the thing we’re really trying to grow grow out.

Andrew Rocks
And when we’re talking the results of these people and culture and looking after your clients and whatnot, in a financial perspective, um, what’s what’s kind of, what do you see is a is an adequate level of revenue per IR per pod? And, and what do you hope to achieve as a percentage, for for a bit,

Hugh Robertson
I feel the advisors could easily manage around $100 million in the construction, if you look at our, our structure going forward is

Andrew Rocks
circa 800, to $1.2 million in revenue. Yeah.

Hugh Robertson
So that that wouldn’t be difficult. And as we grow the diamond team through that, that probably, you know, gets to 250 million with with teams underneath you, and synergist. And if you look at the quality of advice, review, you know, maybe you know, SOA is maybe things like that some streamlined efficiencies coming in, there’s some good software solutions that are there that can model things quicker, we’re going to become a better business that I think EBIT, really entry line should be 30%. And you can get higher through synergy. And with that, you know, you can then make your profit pools for your team. So you can really individually incentivize your pods and your team so that with our we had a whole team remuneration, but our bonus structure, and that we had two advisors that did really, really well, and one advisor that didn’t do well at all, and the team missed out on that. So that wasn’t fair. So we’ve the remuneration, the profit pools, we’ve talked to our team and said, Look, this is dynamic, we’re still figuring it out. But we will be very transparent with you about it about the profitability of the business about those four pillars, what we’re trying to achieve. So they know that they’re going to win, but only if the team wins.

Andrew Rocks
I think transparency is the key and, and you know, we can all be a bit vulnerable and all the vulnerable as well. So when you’re looking at that, that profit number, I sometimes think that, that what was historically done is you know, you’re always building it, you’re fooling the couple, you’re building a capacity cup. And given the fact that you’ve made the active decision, not to go and build your own estate plan law firm not to go and build your own a debt firm not to go and build your own life insurance firm means that the you’re not cross subsidizing. So you’re not going you’re not sort of dipping into the profit pool view. And I did that for years, because I wanted to build and potentially, you know, there wasn’t as big a culture 15 years ago sharing clients between professional service providers, look, the whole reason I’ve been involved with ensemble many, many years ago, was that I just wish there was an environment like this when I was coming through where like minded people could share advice, and you could build trust with colleagues. So is that does that resonate with you, you are being quite hyper specific. And that should drop some profit

Hugh Robertson
100% edits, it’s, I want to be the best at what I do. And I want my team to be the best at what we do. And we realize that we can’t be the best at everything we tried. And I don’t think the clients got a great outcome saw or as good as they could have, if we had have outsourced and given up on those things, you know, the we were going to grow the wealth accumulate a space, which is a really natural niche for us, given our age, but we weren’t great at lending. We weren’t great at insurance. So from that perspective, you know, right, well, let’s find people who are and definitely that will now increase the profitability, where we went from, we lowered our profitability when we scaled up our team, we went with newcomers, and we invested in them. So we went from great profitability to really low profitability. And that was why because we knew it’s almost like those valleys of death. They talked about, and we know, we’ve got to spend that to grow. But then really assess Okay, how’s it? How’s it working? What we need to, you know, what do we need to change, and be quick, quick to move when things aren’t

Andrew Rocks
just using real language when we spoke off earlier? And I sort of said, well, you got a pretty good thing going on? Do you really need anyone? Like, are you looking to for people and talent, you said, Look, you know, what, ideally, we want to have great people in our firm. And you mentioned that getting great people you can always train. But you also said that, that you’re after, if anyone’s looking out there, in your geographical area, even beyond for that sort of, there might be a one or two person operator, and in front of them over the next five to 10 years is a big valley of death, you know, if they bought are going to make the decision and go through that. And they’ve got a strap in for lower profits for 567 years, in order to come out the other end, or alternatively, and increasingly, they could start to learn to work with a practice, such as yours, bringing their two or three people and avoid, avoid that that big valley of death, which some people don’t come out of. And we’ve seen that, you know, massive reduction in in advisor numbers and andando in saying that, yes, the education standards, were one part of it, but geez, I, I’d like to actually overlay that with the people who just couldn’t make a fist of it with their engineering, the hardest

Hugh Robertson
thing in the world is to grow an engineer, it really is. And you’ve got to make a lot of mistakes before you figure it out. And if I reflect you know, it’s 1314 years Central has been running, and I only now this far into a year that I’ve got it right. And I know there’s still a lot to figure out. But my team now is the best it’s been. We’re all aligned. We haven’t had that before. And the cost there, how do you do the marketing, the compliance, the investment expertise, how are your clients getting the best outcome because what the client judges you by really is the service experience. And so if we can get people to just be focused on that, and take care of everything else, I know, if that had been presented to me all those years ago, it would have been really attractive, and your profitability would have been great. And you wouldn’t your worry, I always say like for my advisors I want they worry to be their client. That’s and you should worry about that. But don’t be worried about HR stuff. Don’t be worried about the compliance, you know, the AFSL requirements, that’d be worried about the necessarily, you know, all these other things, the stuff that gets in the way and distracts you from your main keep the main thing, the main thing, and I think there’s for like minded businesses, I think there’s a real synergy that could come from that. And

Andrew Rocks
one final question that was basically your agent had this in your rider? Is your predictions for the following NBA season, just the winner,

Hugh Robertson
kind of go past Golden State Warriors.

Andrew Rocks
Okay. And we will, I won’t, I won’t end on that. I’ll let everyone have a collective sigh at that one. But that you it’s early in the morning, I knew this would be a great podcast, you very so you’ve got this mix of your enthusiastic. But you’re also honest, you know, throughout this, this podcast, you’ve you’ve actually opened up and said, here’s the things that didn’t work. And you’ve learned from that. And I think that people are attracted to people who understand their failings. And I think you know, shiny, shiny, shiny stickers in financial planning just aren’t the future. And having that authentic, continuous kind of dialog is all part of it. We’re going to put a lot of links, he was prolific in dropping the tools that he uses in this, we’re also probably going to put a bit of an overall sort of HR perspective of the business if you want to get in touch with you. You can follow him through the ensemble one but but to look on behalf of you and your team and your engine room. I’d like to thank you for your words of wisdom. Cheers, Mike,

Hugh Robertson
thank you very much. Cheers.