Servicing younger clients focused on accumulating wealth, who are often turned away by advisers, is an integral part of this new financial advice practice, the three directors have shared.
Continuing the New Practice Profile series, Money Management spoke with the three directors of Bold Wealth, a Melbourne-based advisory business which opened doors on 1 January 2023.
Financial advisers Bill Jackson, Dylan Pargiter-Green and Daniel Palmer began providing advice in 2013, 2016 and 2019 respectively.
The trio met each other and worked together at their previous practice in Melbourne before collectively deciding to go out on their own – the next step in their professional journey.
“The main thing about starting your own practice is that it’s something that you can stand behind,” Pargiter-Green said.
“Everything that you do is representative of your values and what you want things to be, so we we put a lot of time and effort into creating a brand around being an incredible experience for our clients, but also making sure that every single time they leave a meeting, they feel they’ve gotten better from it.”
This value-based approach forms the firm’s tagline, “be better, be well, be bold”.
The adviser added: “We want people to leave in a better position just from speaking to us. They feel better, more confident, but also feel challenged that they’re doing something that they wouldn’t have been able to do without advice.”
Bold Wealth describes themselves as “boutique licensed”, with their shared Australian financial services licence (AFSL) operating out of their office along with one other practice.
Identifying gaps in the market
The firm provides advice relating to all stages of the financial journey, from servicing younger Australians accumulating their wealth and those at retirement stage, to individuals focused on legacy planning as well as sustainable investors.
“In a typical financial planning practice, there’s loads of pre-retiree and retiree clients who make up the bulk of the client list. However, the accumulator is a growing area which Daniel is particularly passionate about,” Jackson said.
The adviser trio identified the accumulation segment as a gap in the advice market who are often left unadvised due to their age or premature stage in their investment journey.
“They might not have their initial investment but they’ve got the cash flow there and the ambition to want to make change. A lot of the time, they are getting turned away from financial planning practices because they don’t have that initial capital to invest. [Advisers] say, ‘Look, you go away, you save that and then we’ll talk to you’,” Palmer explained.
Instead of this approach, Bold Wealth looks to take on clients who may be at the beginning of their financial journey and assist them in strengthening their finances. Palmer observed the average age of his most recent clients has been around 37 years old.
“People want to make change and they want to grow their wealth, but there just doesn’t seem to be two people who want to help them,” he continued.
An opportunity mindset
With negative news often dominating the advice industry, such as declining adviser numbers and regulatory obstacles, Pargiter-Green said one person’s challenge is another person’s opportunity.
“I think we’ve been through the worst of it. We sit here as three qualified FASEA advisers, where there are almost half as many advisers as there were only four or five years ago and an increasingly open population who has a desire to seek financial advice,” he commented.
The director compared it to being one of the first lawyers or accountants in Australia, when only 15,000 of them existed.
“You’d be pretty busy with a pretty profitable business. So it’s a very unique position in terms of a market where there’s been a significant amount of regulatory change, but to find something where there is decreasing supply of providers and increasing demand of consumers is pretty awesome. If this was a stock and you found that trend, you would definitely buy that stock.”
Pargiter-Green added that the industry is in a much better position to provide high-quality advice while being held to a higher standard.
Click here to read Money Management’s previous New Practice Profiles.
