Here’s what it takes to make a great BDM

Building trust and developing strong relationships with advisers. These are the two abilities that help make a great business development manager and are personified in the winners of this year’s Money Management BDM of the Year Award.

According to the overall winner, Shadia Kouzma of ANZ Onepath Wealth, relationship building is vital to her role as a BDM, in addition to helping her advisers grow their businesses and working with referral partners.

“That’s something I do pride myself on – building relationships with my advisers, but also helping their referral partners and their customers,” Kouzma says.

“I think a big part of my role is helping my advisers’ referral partners in understanding the need for protection or understanding how customers will overcome unforeseen life changes.”

Upon receiving the overall award, Kouzma said she felt it was humbling to be nominated, let alone win.

“My goal is obviously just to be the best BDM I can be – help my advisers. It (the award) wasn’t even on the radar, I didn’t even think of this! I’m very humbled,” she said.

Queensland BDM of the Year, Liam Carroll of TAL, believes understanding the advisers, their practice and what a BDM can help them deliver to their clients is also an important facet of the job.

“That’s what’s most important to me - helping them build a business that is going to continue and grow, and I guess it just depends on where they are in their own phase, whether they’re growing the business or whether they’re maintaining it, it’s about helping them run their business in an effective way,” Carroll says.

NSW/ACT winner Mitchell Ramsbotham, also at TAL, also places a lot of emphasis on the role of a BDM being relationship-driven.

“We’re like an adviser I suppose where we offer advice … to a certain extent to them, and we need to have the tools of the job to effectively work with them but also the relationship and trust piece needs to be there so the advice that we give them or the message that we have is actually taken on board,” Ramsbotham says.

“So, we have to do something significant and individual for each different business and to do that we have to have a pretty deep relationship with them, understand their business, anything they may need … and that just comes from experience and constantly learning and questioning and being effective at the relationship piece, I think.”

Bruce Tiver, a BDM with Colonial First State and winner in the Western Australia/South Australia/Northern Territory category, lends a lot of weight to the attributes of trust and resilience when it comes to carrying out his duties as a BDM.

“My clients must be able to rely on both my personal integrity, and that the information I provide is accurate, relevant, and timely,” he says.

“Resilience is key. It’s not always easy. We must have the capacity to keep a focus on the main game through challenging times.”

Remaining professional

All the winners are also firmly of the belief that continuing professional development is an essential component of what makes a good BDM.

“I think it’s very important. I’m only four or five years into being a BDM and it’s so important to help advisers build their businesses,” says overall winner, ANZ Onepath Wealth’s Kouzma.

“I need to be able to be competent in particular areas or continue to develop, work with other businesses or work with other BDMs to help my own professional development.

“I think when I first started, when I first became a BDM, that was a big part of my success – working with successful BDMs and seeing what they do and how their advisers and their businesses grow.”

Colonial First State’s Tiver agrees that continuing professional development is vital.

“Our clients are entitled to assume the information and guidance we provide is contemporary. That can only be so if we are well informed on industry and broader market developments,” he says.

TAL’s Carroll says continuing professional development is certainly something that is “drilled into” BDMs within his organisation, and that the benefits of this are obvious.

“We’ve got a thing called the risk academy so we’re always doing extra sessions and trying to expand,” he says.

“And the industry has changed so much where, all of a sudden, it’s not just whether you can sell life insurance or investments, it’s understanding digital media or growth via websites or different angles.

“There’s so many different areas of growth in knowledge that we just didn’t have five to 10 years ago.”

And Carroll points out that while some advisers – perhaps the “old school” ones – will probably come “kicking and screaming” in getting up to speed with all the upcoming Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) requirements, he thinks it’s going to be better for the industry and that those who do the extra study are probably going to realise what they didn’t know.

And that could only be a good thing.

TAL’s Ramsbotham says professional development is something he is currently undertaking and will continue to undertake.

“I think, especially at this point in time, with what’s happening in the industry … around the education standards that are being imposed upon advisers, for me I think it will be very important as a BDM to be on that journey with the adviser and be able to resonate with them as to what they’re going through and the struggles that may be causing them,” he says.

“I have been an adviser before, so I hold a qualification - or the previous qualification - that would have allowed me to continue studying and I’ve maintained that from a continuing professional development point of view, even as a BDM, the whole way through and will continue to do further education.

“So, once FASEA set down ultimately what their intentions are come June, I’ll dive in at that point and make my decision as to what track I’m taking and will continue along the same journey with advisers.”

What gets a BDM out of B-E-D?

What is it about the role that BDMs are most passionate about? What is it that gets them out of bed in the morning?

The answers range from helping advisers grow their businesses, the diversity that the role offers, to the collaborative nature of the relationships that are formed over time.

ANZ Onepath Wealth’s Kouzma says the most rewarding part of being a BDM is seeing a claim being paid through and helping her advisers protect more customers.

And over the past year, she says she has been involved in a large number of claims.

“So, it’s really just recognising that we are there for our customers during their greatest hour of need and hearing the customers’ stories, and how it’s changed their lives - that’s basically my ‘why’,” Kouzma says.

“The reason I am in this industry is because I have been affected, have really gone through being uninsured and seen the effect that has had on my family and myself.”

Like Kouzma, TAL’s Carroll also finds that helping people through tough times is a rewarding part of the job.

“I work in the insurance space so we deal with advisers who are dealing with deaths of clients and things like that, so being there in the down times just builds bonds between me and the advisers I deal with – I don’t think you can get that in any other industry,” he says.

“That’s why I like being on the risk side as well – it’s just a little bit different to the investment BDMs and whatnot. Everyone does different stuff but that’s why I’m on the risk side, because we get to be part of that journey with advisers and their clients.”

Colonial First State’s Tiver also finds the forging of relationships and the opportunity to help others to be one of the best parts of his role.

“A number of advisers have been clients for many years, and I now count several of them as friends. I’d like to think that over the years relationships I have built could be described as mutually beneficial partnerships,” he says.

When it comes to his enduring passion for the role, TAL’s Ramsbotham recollects one of his biggest “fist-pump” moments that he has experienced in his time as a BDM.

“It’s just the little wins that you get from the stuff that I’ve spent nearly half my life pulling together and the little things that you then can share with an adviser that can just make that material difference,” he says.

“When I talk about the little things, I got a message from an adviser about a week ago on a Saturday. I recently ran a peer group because I have a lot of clients north of Sydney – Central Coast and Newcastle. They tend to miss out on some of the ongoing education things and one-to-many learning sessions and the larger forums that they get in the city.

“So, I put together a peer group for advisers up in this area. The first one that I did, it went extremely well, was really agenda-driven and had some real outcomes to it and that sort of thing.

“On the Saturday following it I got a message to say ‘sorry for the intrusion, but due to the fact that we’ve done this peer group I was able to implement this and this and had a win that I ultimately wouldn’t have had.

“That, for me, getting that message on a Saturday, was one of the biggest fist-pump moments that I’ve had in a long time. It’s just those little things.”

The proud achievers

It can also be the little things that become the biggest and proudest achievements among BDMs.

For overall winner Kouzma, it’s watching others succeed that gives her the most satisfaction.

“I guess my most proud achievement to date … is seeing some advisers I’ve worked really closely with succeed, some advisers who were really on the brink of perhaps leaving the industry, because they weren’t succeeding,” she says.

“I know it’s only a small achievement, but to me, that’s a big achievement for me as a BDM.”

TAL’s Carroll also gets the most satisfaction from seeing others achieve their goals. Having focused on business planning and practice development and having helped some of his closest advisers implement those business plans changed his career as a BDM.

“So, that’s probably the thing I’m most proud about - seeing the guys I work with hitting those goals that we put in place some time back.”

Colonial First State’s Tiver takes pride in sharing his experience with others and playing a role in the development of some younger BDMs.

However, his nomination for BDM of the Year would also rate among his prouder moments.

“The support I received has been humbling,” he says.

TAL’s Ramsbotham shares this sentiment.

“To be honest, this is a bit of a crescendo! Recognition like this and to have a nomination like this from peers and clients, whoever it may have been, feels pretty good at the moment,” he says.

“I’m really happy about that.”

The winners of the BDM of the Year Awards were determined by an open public vote conducted via SurveyMonkey.