Advice businesses need to ask themselves whether they are in the business of running a business or just delivering advice or things will get “busier and busier”, according to Certainty Advice Group.
Jim Stackpool, managing director of advisory consultancy Certainty Advice Group, said businesses that thought they were just in the business of giving advice and holding onto clients were on the path to a “salt mine”.
“You’re just going to get busier and busier and potentially going to need advice on how you are going to get to the next stage of your own career,” said Stackpool.
He said new FASEA requirements, the relinquishment of advisers by institutional advisories post royal commission, concerns about the shifting landscape of compliance, and stable demand for advice throughout COVID-19 had created a “perfect storm” driving overly-busy advisers.
“I don’t have any advisers saying to me ‘I’m going out of business because there’s too much uncertainty’, they’re saying ‘I’m so busy and I can’t scratch myself’.”
He said those with business skills that could objectively make business decisions, such as deciding not to be too many things to clients and maintaining a team that was not stretched, were surviving while those with poor business skills were suffering, regardless of their advice skills.
Stackpool said a business objective plan was the most important document in the whole office.
“If your client plans are more important than your plan, you’ll keep deferring to the priorities of your clients,” he said.
“Imagine an emergency hospital not having its own plan of hygiene and ensuring staff are up for the job?”
Many firms were deferring continually to the priorities that had been thrown at them by the marketplace and the clients rather than their business plan.
“Unless you’re healthy, unless your team is healthy, unless you’re on top of your own systems and procedures, you’re just going to get run over by this train of activity.”
