Owned byAXA,Charter Financial Planninghas seen significant growth over the past four years.
AXA national manager Bruce Birchall places the number of planners currently working for Charter at 414 — almost double the number operating under the banner in 1999.
Although it’s been a rapid rise, Birchall says the idea is to grow the group fairly conservatively.
“We are not out to rack up numbers,” he says, “but to grow the numbers sensibly.”
While Charter has successfully recruited from the accounting fraternity, not everyone wanting to join Charter will make the grade.
“We are fairly selective,” Birchall says. “We want quality advice practices. We are really looking for practices with a similar way of thinking.”
Advisers wanting to join Charter must meet professional and educational requirements, and must show a willingness to grow the practice to long-term, full service financial planning practices.
“We would like all our advisers to have certified financial planner status or equivalent,” Birchall says.
“And they should be operating advice based practices that offer the full range of financial planning services — from investments to superannuation to risk management.
“We look for advisers who are operating from professional offices and we would like to see things like a commitment to using financial planning software.”
In exchange, Birchall says Charter offers much in the way of service, with practice development managers on the ground in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth offering face-to-face support.
“We decentralised the practice management operation so that advisers don’t have to deal with a 1300 number to get support,” he says.
“We have 28 practice development managers around the company. They act as small business coaches, helping the principals to set business plans, strategic development plans, operational marketing plans and so on.”
The managers assist with all aspects of the business — from helping the principals to segment client databases to implementing systems.
The idea, says Birchall, is to make the individual practices more efficient, which will benefit all concerned. The added bonus is that the businesses will ultimately become more sellable.
