Financial planner plugs into Generation Y

A financial planner intends to use websites to attract Generation Y clients to his Melbourne-based practice.

Haywood Financial Management director Scott Haywood said the company had been registering domain names such as traumacover.com.au in the past few months, “so when somebody types ‘trauma cover’ into Google, this site will be the first name that comes up”.

The website will deliver generic advice on the issue and a link to the Haywood’s practice if the searcher wants to see an adviser for further information.

“We note that Generation Y will get 60 per cent of their information from websites, and if they think the site is good, they will pass it onto their mates,” Haywood said.

“So we see this as a way of delivering generic advice to Generation Y, as they are not going to phone us.”

He plans to have the 10 websites up and running in the next few weeks and also plans to use them as a way of getting clients ready before their first interview.

“We want future clients to look at the sites to find out what type of advice they want from us,” Haywood said.

“This will save time for us at the first client meeting as we can deliver answers directly to the areas they are looking at for advice.”

The idea for the websites came from a client survey Haywood conducted earlier this year when the practice was reviewing its business model.

“We asked our under-35 clients what they wanted online from us,” he said.

“They said they wanted an online budgeting tool to help them with knowing what areas they wanted to talk to us about.”

The shift to online generic advice is a move planners should be making to reinvent their businesses in these challenging times, Haywood said.

“Financial planners should expect change to their businesses during the forthcoming years,” he said.

“We are going to see new credit laws coming into effect in January, so planners have to look at how that will impact their businesses.”

Haywood said planners should also be looking at how their dealer group is approaching change and if that fits in with their plans.

“We know entry and exit fees will probably be abolished, so planners need to look at areas such as how clients pay for advice,” he said.

“We have charged a fee for service, but clients can pay monthly using credit cards or pay the whole year’s fee at once.

“If the planner just has an asset-based fee model, that may not suit every client.

“A planner can no longer assume the business model they have used for the past 15 years will be the one of the future.”