Advisers go head-to-head in inaugural The Adviser Games

Advisers Conaill Keniry and Benjamin Collins have teamed up to launch the inaugural The Adviser Games – a fun and unique take on professional development days.

The Amazing Race-style challenge, held in Brisbane on 19 October, is set to be the first of a series of events hosted by the adviser duo, with two more planned for Melbourne and Sydney next year.

Speaking to ifa ahead of the games, Mr Keniry explained that the idea was born out of many conversations with peers and business development managers (BDMs) who identified that classic events don’t provide enough time for informal education or valuable peer interactions.

“We asked our advisers and other advisers what they wanted out of PD days and industry events. It turns out what they’re looking for, yes, a little bit of education, but they really want interaction with other advisers,” he said.

With the Brisbane event having wrapped up last week, Mr Keniry has unpacked how the day panned out.

Namely, 50 advisers were divided into 10 teams of five, where they were tasked with completing sponsor-facilitated “hybrid” challenges, guided by a series of clues.

“It’s a hybrid between a game or a challenge, and then education,” Mr Keniry told ifa.

“One of the stops we had was trivia, but it was in the form of mini golf. So to actually answer the question, you had to put it into the right hole. You still are getting that education part, you’re just kind of doing it in a fun way.

“Ask any adviser, you can sit and listen to a 30-minute presentation and there might be like five key points you get out of that. Our explanation, the thing that we wanted from the sponsors was, can you just give us those five key points through the medium of a game? So, you’re kind of getting the best of both worlds.”

The starting line for the race began at Mr Keniry and Mr Collins’ Brisbane office, before each team set off with their first clues, leading them on differing paths.

“Even at that point, I was unsure how it was going to go. Would the advisers walk, would they stroll? But no, they were ready to compete from the first second.”

According to Mr Keniry, the process of creating all of the clues was a 10-hour process alone.

“You’ve got 50 people with 10 locations, that’s 100 clues,” he said.

“We then couldn’t put the advisers in all the same order, otherwise that was going to form a bottleneck. So, we actually had three different paths they were all following.”

All the hard work, Mr Keniry said, paid off with flying colours, having received a plethora of positive feedback from both advisers and business development managers (BDM).

“I was overwhelmed by how much the advisers enjoyed it – how much the BDMs enjoyed it. And even on the day, we probably had more inquiries from advisers than from other sponsors,” he said.

“We had 10, 20 bits of inquiry while the event was happening.”

On the back of increasing demand from professionals to see the events being held in their own cities, upcoming dates for the games have been booked for Melbourne and Sydney on 7 March and 21 March 2024, respectively.

“They will be like an amazing race, that same style. And then once we’ve done those, we’re going to change that style. I’m thinking Adviser Olympics,” Mr Keniry added.

Delving into the inspiration behind the games, he said that this unique and fun way of thinking about PD days presents an unprecedented opportunity to form a greater community of advisers.

“It’s really about making that community,” Mr Keniry said.

“Advisers were coming up to us after the event, sort of saying, ‘Hey, I just spent six hours with these advisers I never have met, never would have met before and they’re now contacts that I’ll use for years to come’.”

To hear more from Conaill Keniry, tune in here.