While the financial planning industry has been "distracted" by Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) reforms, direct sales of financial products and the use of social media for business purposes have grown to become bigger factors for financial advisory practices, according to Robbie Bennets Enterprises (RBE).
Neglecting those issues to focus too much on FOFA could be detrimental to businesses, according to RBE founder Robbie Bennets, who said advisers should look to factors they have greater control over.
"The smart use of social media to generate direct product sales opens up another avenue for financial advisers and their centres of influence to work together to generate new business and deliver solutions for clients.
"It will open up new growth opportunities from client data bases and help achieve greater efficiencies from back offices," Bennetts said.
"A strategy such as this puts advisers and accountants back in control of the business they've worked hard to establish and shifts them out of the grip of FOFA," he said.
Bennetts announced a series of roadshows looking at streamlining planning businesses and the launch of a database marketing service that uses social media to generate direct product sales.
"The combination of cloud technology, social media and direct sales is delivering a new era of growth and efficiency for financial services businesses. It's occurring right now and it gives advisers a level of control over their destiny they haven't had since before the GFC [global financial crisis]," Bennetts said.
