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‘Drown out the noise’: Industry body urges client focus

Despite the current focus on adviser educational competency, it’s important for practitioners to value themselves primarily on their relationships with clients, an industry body has said.

In a recent blog post, Profession of Independent Financial Advisers president Daniel Brammall said despite the current noise in the market around adviser qualifications and exam scores, at the end of the day adviser success should still be measured on how much value a client was getting from their services.

“Be ‘great’, sure, but not as measured by the score you got in your FASEA exam, by the address of your firm, or by the alphabet soup that goes after your name,” Mr Brammall said.

“I’m talking about your success in this career as a professional financial adviser as measured by the way your clients talk about the relationship they have with you – the confidence and trust they have in your work with them and the exceptional value it delivers them.

“And also as measured by the fees you command in exchange for the value you deliver.”

Mr Brammall added that as the cost of giving advice rose, there had also been an increased focus on the tools being used within a practice over and above an adviser’s service offering.

“In our line of work there is a lot of attention paid to having the best financial planning software and really getting the SOA process down as efficient as possible and operating the most sophisticated investment platform, plus dozens of other absolutely necessary tools that help us do our job,” he said.

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“As useful as they are, the recipe for success calls for something more – a genuine hunger to be great at what you do.”

Mr Brammall added that despite going through a challenging period following the royal commission, FASEA reforms and now the COVID-19 crisis, it was important for advisers to focus on their own performance and address their strengths and weaknesses as practitioners, as well as external factors.