When persistence pays off

After being named as a finalist for the past two years, this year David Haintz has taken out the top prize. LARISSA TUOHY talks to the Financial Planner of the Year for 2005.

Haintz Financial Services managing director and senior financial adviser David Haintz is a good example of the power of persistence.

Highly commended for the Financial Planner of the Year Award for the past two years, 2005 has seen him finally pick up the winner’s trophy.

According to Haintz “this year I have achieved my objective of creating a successful business based on my ideals of professional standards, and achieving excellence”.

A successful practice

A financial planner for the past 17 years, Haintz now runs a very successful business, and has achieved a return-on-investment of 135 per cent in the past three years.

A client segmentation process saw around 80 per cent of existing clients transferred, so the business can now focus on providing enhanced value to those remaining.

“The restructure means that I personally look after only 50 of our top clients,” Haintz says.

“We now only work with those to whom we can add significant value, and we charge a fee for our time and expertise,” he adds.

The firm set up a board of advice five years ago, and half of its members are external.

RMIT Adjunct Professor Wes McMaster is chair of the board and it’s his “role to keep us accountable”, Haintz says.

With a team of 13 staff, Haintz has also seen his employee numbers grow from only five 12 months ago. Turnover is now $2 million per annum.

Haintz’s achievements in his own financial planning business are obviously a testament to his experience, knowledge and abilities as a financial planner.

Not that Haintz is about to rest on his laurels.

He has now committed to a path of future growth by being selected to attend Cultivating Advice — a business coaching program run by CEG Australia.

“The program is helping me to build a blueprint for a world class business; it provides a key to better business success, and a significantly enhanced relationship with our clients,” Haintz says.

After finding “an advice gap in the corporate superannuation environment”, Haintz recently formed an alliance with the Heron Partnership, a superannuation consulting firm.

He now provides personal education, and general and specific advice, to employees of medium and large-sized companies.

Contribution to the profession

But Haintz’s interest in the financial planning profession extends well beyond his own business affairs. He was one of a select group of speakers attending the UK road show for the National Group, which included interviews on British radio stations.

“I was not prepared for the impact of this road show. Typically the industry in the UK is still around investment advice, charging up-front and ongoing commissions. Since the road show I have assisted a number of UK colleagues and helped them move their business to the next level,” Haintz says.

Haintz has long been an active supporter of his professional association, and has been a member of the FPA’s profession ethics and standards committee since its inception.

He became a fellow of the association in 2002, and also sits on the FPA’s disciplinary committee.

In addition, since 2000, Haintz has been a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and holds a number of directorships, including ASX-listed Forest Enterprises and Domain Place.

He also sits on MLC’s Platform Advisory Board.

The role of an adviser

Despite this somewhat onerous workload, Haintz still spends at least 45 per cent of his time in face-to-face client meetings.

“There’s no question that the most enjoyable part is helping people. It gives you an enormous thrill, even after 17 years, to be able to see people that really have no idea about their circumstances and to be able to communicate in very simple terms what can be quite complex issues,” he says.

Haintz was motivated to begin a career in financial planning when commonsense “could see the future or the potential that the industry had, with baby boomers and more people going to be in retirement phase”.

He attributes his success to a combination of both skill and luck, saying “the cards have fallen my way a lot as well in that the superannuation legislative environment hasn’t become any more simple”.

“The skill is in recognising that the number of people that are going to be requiring advice is not going to be shrinking, it’s going to be expanding.”

Providing quality advice

Haintz Financial Services is based on a fee-for-service model.

“I’m not anti-commission, but I think it’s far clearer and far more transparent and far more professional to be fee-based.”

However, Haintz says it is the provision of ongoing advice to clients that the profession needs to address.

“People get paid a fee, whether it is a fee or commission, and aren’t providing any ongoing value for the fee or commission. This by far is the most vulnerable area in financial planning.

“If any of us are going to be receiving an ongoing fee or commission for any client, we need to be justifying and adding value for doing that. And I think that without a doubt there’s a lot of people out there who still don’t know, or don’t want to add the value but are happy to sit back and receive that ongoing trail commission or fee,” he adds.

But Haintz says the industry has also changed enormously.

“When I started in 1989 there were high entry fees, poor products and no ongoing service. Now, obviously, you have no entry fees, good ongoing service and you need to charge for that ongoing advice.

“So it’s really swung around from being a product-based industry to an advice-based industry.”

Advice for new entrants

According to Haintz, a financial planner must be a people person.

“People in this industry can be number crunchers, but they are not going to be an adviser. You need to have relationship skills.”

But he adds that it is a career path that will pay off for new entrants.

“I couldn’t think of a better industry today for somebody to be getting into. The growth that the industry has gone through, and will continue to go through, makes it, I think, the single greatest growth industry around.”

However, rolling up your shirt sleeves is essential for any individual planning a career in financial planning, Haintz says.

“It is a profession, like a whole range of other professions, and you need to work damn hard to get to where you want to get to. But the growth is there to facilitate that.”

Community support

As a keen runner, Haintz has now completed two ultra marathons with Oxfam Trailwalker, and raised $30,000 in the process. The endurance events require all participants to complete a race of 100km within 48 hours.

In addition to providing career advice to his former school, Haintz says the firm also conducts some pro bono work.

“There’s a lot of people who can’t afford financial plans. We’re certainly not the cheapest guys around, but if someone walks in and needs our advice, then in a lot of cases we will take them on.”

Haintz also provides financial support to a number of different charitable organisations, including the Leukaemia Foundation, Kokopelli’s Knights, Very Special Kids, the Royal Children’s Hospital and the Salvation Army.