Glen James is the financial adviser whose life does not revolve around his work. Instead, he moulds his work around his life up on the Central Coast and enjoys every minute of it. After starting his business Fortify Financial at the ripe age of 25, Glen recalls being young enough and dumb enough to think he could do it – and it turns out he could. With 8 years under his belt as a self-employed adviser, Glen has discovered what works and what doesn’t work in his business and shares with us some of the lessons and ideas he has picked up along the way, like: 

• Why he will only meet with clients on his terms (and what those terms are)
• Glen’s guaranteed way to lock in a financial relationship with a client
• How to find a quality dealer group and build a strong professional relationship with them
• How Glen is using his ‘2k18 Savings Challenge’ as a one to many approach and the response he is getting
• Why he uses the review process to re-educate his clients and how effective it is
• How he built his ‘Sort Your Money Out’ podcast from scratch
• Why Glen tells people he retired at 25 and what he loves about being a financial adviser

Plus much, much more…

This podcast is full of witty remarks, memorable one-liners and a bunch of new ideas and strategies that will have you thinking about how to shake things up within your practice and with your clients.  

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As always, we'd like to give a big shout out to our major partner Zurich and to SunSuper for the continued support.

At the age of 20, James Millard had it all figured out. He was going to make it big in the clothing industry, sell his ‘Insufficient Funds’ branded T-shirts to Billabong and never work a day in his life. Unfortunately for James this dream never eventuated, but fortunately for us, this failed business venture sent James down a 10-year career path in personal finance for which he now co-owns YOLO Financial Services, hustles a lifestyle blog called ‘Sufficient Fundz’ and shares with us a some of the cool and innovative things he and his partners are trying within their business.

Amongst the many topics discussed, here’s some we really liked:

• How YOLO developed an in-depth marketing plan and how they are catering to three very different client demographics
• The (really cool) types of content marketing James and YOLO are focusing on in 2018
• What James thinks is one of the best business play cards you can have (hint: it rhymes with ‘biting a hook’)
• Why it’s difficult for advisers to incorporate an element of ‘story telling’ and how to not just overcome it, but nail it
• Why there is a massive market for one-to-many online courses and who benefits most from this kind of business model

Between juggling a financial planning business, maintaining a blog and recently adding the title ‘Dad’ to his repertoire, James has also kindly put his hand up to be the MC at our upcoming event in Sydney (thanks legend!) with a discussion around starting and scaling an advice business. With a power panel of speakers and an MC all with startup financial advice practices, it’s guaranteed to be a night full of great ideas, advice and inspiration. Click here to grab your tickets.

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And as always, a big thank you to our major partner Zurich and to SunSuper for the continued support.

If straight up insight and opinion on the royal commission and areas around best interest duty, tough regulation for advisers and everything in between makes your ears prick up then this XY Podcast is exactly what you’ve been waiting for.

Master of ‘technoclientology’, financial adviser, behavioural specialist, speaker and author, there’s not much that Andy Marshall can’t do.

It’s been two years since he hosted XY’s ‘The Modern Adviser’ event so we thought a catch up on all things finance, behaviour and everything in between was well and truly in order.

In this comical and thought provoking podcast, Andy gives his insights and demonstrates his expertise by highlighting some important points surrounding the systematic and behavioural elements within the financial advice environment, some of which include:

• The importance of peer-to-peer networks and how this creates innovation within your business
• Why client’s respond well to forward thinking advisers and how seasoned advisers are staying relevant
• How to balance the ‘warm and fuzzy’ goals based advice with the investment position to deliver the best possible outcomes for clients.
• Why sharing your own life experiences or those of other client’s is extremely beneficial in building trust during the client journey
• The best kind of Fintech solution to add to your ‘weapons of advice choice’
• Three things the best advice businesses are doing differently

Andy Marshall is a serious wealth of knowledge who now spends most of his time with financial advisers, providing new ideas to help implement efficiency into their businesses. With a book titled ‘Client Engagement for Financial Advisors’ and a passion for using technology to engage with clients in a meaningful and relevant way, this is a guy you definitely want to listen to (and then google later on).