Gold Coast financial planning practice Wealth Vision has achieved much of what the Future of Financial Advice reforms are designed to achieve: greater access to affordable advice for ‘mum and dad’ investors.
Its ability to service this client segment (termed ‘wealth builders’) caught the attention of ipac, which recently entered into an equity partnership with Wealth Vision through Strategic Planning Partners (SPP).
Ipac general manager of financial planning, Libby Roy, said the relationship would allow ipac to learn from what Wealth Vision was doing in this generally poorly serviced sector, and complemented SPP’s predominantly pre-retiree and retiree business.
Principal of Wealth Vision, Grant Ducat, said building a business around the wealth builder sector was a labour of love.
“The first thing I learnt a long time ago is that there is a big demographic that is poorly serviced by the industry, but it forms most of the working population,” he said.
Ducat believed the reason the majority of the industry failed to tap into this resource was because it did not start from the basics.
“The industry is largely skilled at lump sum and retirement planning, and tries to roll out the same style of services to the mums and dads who don’t have any money to invest,” he said. “The industry will never get it right until it starts from a clean slate and works out what these people really need, which is first and foremost learning how to do a household budget and how to stick to it.”
Ducat said only one in 20 families have a workable budget, and therefore Wealth Vision starts with an education process of helping clients develop a budget and manage their cash flow. With such an investment of time, one would question how this makes for a viable business. Ducat explained that his clients paid an annual fee based on the individual’s needs, although the time and energy spent at the start was really an investment in the future.
“If you invest the time into working with them to help develop a household budget and manage cash flow, they are so appreciative they then want you to manage all of their financial affairs,” he said, describing the adviser’s role as a holistic financial coach.
“It’s a one-stop-shop financial coaching service. So if you invest the time early the client will ask you to manage all their financial affairs and you end up picking up their super, risk insurance, accounting, investment needs and so forth.”
Ducat described the arrangement with ipac and SPP as a happy marriage whereby Wealth Vision brought to the table a viable wealth builder model, and ipac and SPP brought along the support services and opportunity for growth.
