How Viridian Advisory is creating ‘client-ready’ advisers

Viridian Advisory’s Brett Arnol has detailed how the firm is fostering the next generation of advisers through its Professional Year (PY) program.

Viridian was established in 2015 and has more than 100 advisers in its offices across Australia, including NSW, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, the ACT, South Australia and Tasmania.

Arnol, who is the firm’s co-founder and general manager of advice, spoke with Money Management to unpack how Viridian’s PY program operates and its focus on creating client-ready advisers.

The company first commenced its PY program in 2021 as a number of its support staff and associates were seeking a career pathway into advising roles.

“We said: Let’s build out a three- to five-year program for these kinds of individuals where you start as a customer support manager, move into an associate role, move into a PY year, and then from there we really develop you to make sure that you’re advice-ready, client-ready,” Arnol explained.

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Viridian has seen 10 individuals finish the program, with eight currently completing it and another 11 waiting to start their PY.

While the title of a PY suggests a year-long process, the co-founder unpacked why its candidates typically spend 18 months to two years completing the program on average.

“What we find is that our first two quarters that we run our people through are generally pretty tick-a-box, but the second two quarters – quarter three and quarter four – we generally try and make that last for at least a year or longer.

“[That’s when] we’re starting to talk about file management, client interactions and strategy development. To just tick a three-month box, I think you’re not setting up for success for the industry or the people that are entering the industry,” Arnol said.

“We’re really focused on client-ready advisers at the end of it.”

As many of Viridian’s PY candidates have a background working as an associate or support staff member, this means the first two quarters of the program are reasonably easy to complete, he added.

“Once you get into running client meetings and so forth, it’s more the second half of the professional year where we really want to spend the energy with those people.”

Colonial First State (CFS) partnership

Arnol also explained how Viridian’s recent partnership with CFS is another critical component of its PY program.

Earlier this month, CFS announced an arrangement with Viridian to offer unadvised CFS FirstChoice superannuation, pension and investment members with one-off, topic-based financial advice.

This covers specific topics including personal investments, debt, superannuation, pensions, retirement planning and Centrelink. Members can access this advice in modular blocks starting at $500, with any combination of blocks capped at $3,000.

Arnol said that once individuals complete their PY program at Viridian and gain the fully qualified adviser status, they begin advising clients through the CFS partnership.

He added: “What this [CFS] partnership does is it allows almost the best training that anyone can get – which is to see a brand-new client and understand their needs and goals and then put a strategy together for them. All of our PY program alumni are now new entrants in the industry and they go into this partnership program to start seeing clients.”

As members can access the CFS offering through modular blocks, clients can determine the price they want to pay and the level of advice they will receive in return.

“The way that we interact with these clients is if you want to pay $500, this is what you get. If you want to pay $1,600, this is what you get. The client has a lot of control over what they want to pay and what they get for that. That takes a bit of the pressure off the adviser, from a scoping perspective.”

This ultimately ensures that new entrants working at Viridian can either continue working with CFS clients if they wish or progress to more in-depth, holistic conversations with their own clients.

Looking ahead, Arnol concluded: “As a business of our size, we feel that a healthy industry has healthy adviser numbers in it, and they’re linked to each other.

“We want to help the industry so we want to keep replenishing it. If we can continually add five to 10 advisers, maybe more, a year, then we feel that we’re doing our part.”