Do You Need a Financial Adviser? The Truth About Picking and Being Chosen - podcast episode cover

Do You Need a Financial Adviser? The Truth About Picking and Being Chosen

Sep 05, 202436 min
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Episode description

How to pick a financial adviser?  It's one of the most common questions for investors...but a more realistic question is: Should you even bother?  Another valid issue to ponder is whether the adviser wants you in the first place? 

One in six clients were cut from the client lists of financial advisers last year. Many advisers will not admit it, but they only want 'sophisticated investors' with $2.5m to spend or else an annual income of $250,000 plus. 

Author and adviser Jacqui Clarke joins wealth editor James Kirby in this episode.

 

In today's show, we cover:

* How advisers pick their clients 

* When advice costs too much to add value 

* Key questions you must ask 

* The benefits of becoming a 'sophisticated investor'

 

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Speaker 1

Hello, and welcome to The Australian's Money Puzzle podcast. I'm James Kirby, the Wealth Edit shor at the Australian. Welcome aboard everybody. I wanted to talk to you today. I want to step outside the news cycle that you like and I want to look at something that I think is pertinent to every single listener to this show, because

you're listening to this show for information and observations. And I have a lot of financial advisors on the show, and I imagine there's no one on this show, or no one in the audience who would not benefit from good financial advice. Now, the reality of it is that it's actually, first of all, just sheer mathematics. There used to be thirty thousand advisors in Australia and the other's fifteen thousand, right, so it's twice as hour as it

used to be to find the one. Secondly, despite great efforts on the professional side, they have a mixed reputation still and that will always be the case, okay, because it's it's very hard to get it right and every advisor is different. And then on top of that, on top of that, there is as an ugly word by furcasion, all right, but there's a split going on in advice.

There was always the split in advice. Very top advisor dealt with the wealthiest people, but that is becoming severe now and we're finding that it is harder to get an advisor, and it's particularly hard to get an advisor if you're not a multimillionaire. And I mean multimillionaire. That means you have a million or so to spend. I don't mean your house is worth a million. I mean you have a million in the bank, ready to go

in any direction. So I wanted to talk to someone who really has an overview on this, who who does work at the top of the market, but also has a helicopter view, if you like, on the whole scene. It's someone I've had on the show before. She's terrific to talk to. It's Jackie Clark. How are you, Jackie?

Speaker 2

Great giants, wonderful to be back today.

Speaker 1

Great to have you on board. We haven't talked for a while, but one of the things that's happened, I think since we talked last, is this issue about the role of an advisor, and there's been some big changes and one of the things that prompted this particular show, And the topic of this show is that I had come upon something a few months ago which seemed innocuous

in and of itself, and this was two advisors. It was an industry note, and it was the industry note said, hey, guys, the average advisor in Australia, they've dropped the number of clients they have from one hundred and twenty per person to about ninety nine. And it struck me, Hey, hang on a second. That means about one in six clients

have been dropped, have been dropped by their advisor. And I did some work on it, and it did get quite a lot of attension because people were already aware that the advisor population has been halved, if you like. And then on top of that, those who are left are slicing their books back, which means it's becoming very difficult. I want to ask you, is that a reflection of what's happening? Of course, is it fair? But it's an unfair question. But is it happening? Tell me is it happening?

Am I exaggerating? And why? Now?

Speaker 2

Look, James, it's a great point that you raise. There's a genuine scarcity of advisors, particularly for what we consider the mum and dad population of Australia, those people who actually might be paying that five or ten thousand dollars a year. It's actually quite frightening because there's two sides of this coin. Obviously, the cost of advice has become increasingly difficult. So if you think of all the layers of regulation, particularly over the last decade, are seeing advisors

drop right far. So the reality is that providing advice to mom and dads is no longer commercially viable. So it makes absolute sense to me that people are dropping out of the market. And unless you're shifting from retail to wholesale, which is a whole other world. Again, there is a distinct drop in the availability of advisors who actually have the time to deliver what's required just under the regulations.

Speaker 1

When you say people are dropping, but really they're being dropped rather than voluntarily leaving.

Speaker 2

I think there's a combination of factors there, but it is becoming increasingly different. I'm also saying mergers happen again, where firms such as financial planners and insurance brokers are all coming back together to try and get some benefit of the economies of scale, if you like, of a total business, and access to perhaps a greater variety of clients who might exceed that minimum threshold somehow in the retail space.

Speaker 1

I know it's a brutal question, but I said, at the start, you want to have a million dollars whatever. I'll tell you a story I was in. I was somewher the other day, and you know, I often get pinned, as you probably get pinned, and someone said to me, I've got and I think it was like twenty five thousand dollars And they said, I've got twenty five thousand dollars I've been I can't remember whether they inherited or something.

And they said, could you recommend a financial advisor? And I hate doing this, but I said, look, I don't think you should go to a financial advisor. Not that you shouldn't go, but I don't think. I don't think when you walk into a financial advisor, they're going to look at you and they're going to say, twenty five thousand dollars. Jesus Christ, I'm wasting my time. I need to make five thousand dollars from this person.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and I'm going to spend five thousand dollars in my time doing the compliance just to opt you in as a client, which is the reality unfortunately that's been created as a function of all this what complexity, you could say. But the other thing is what do you get for five thousand bucks a year? Jameson And I think the reality is today what advisors can offer you is not much for that, especially I think since the reforms suggested that as advisors you have to get your

clients to opt in every year. So whilst we can no longer roll as a retail customer of a year, we have to opt in. That's more compliance and more paperwork and administration. So if you're getting an annual review and a chat, that's probably all your money's buying you, which is incredibly disappointing. Yes, but I'm not saying that about the advisors. They're trying to do a job, but

in an environment that's very constrained and being for your buck. Right, if you've got twenty five thousand or quite frankly a million, does it make sense for you to pay that every year? I don't think.

Speaker 1

So what do you want to be making a fair bit for it to be worth five thousand a year? Right? Because you're going to have to subtract to five thousand from whatever you make.

Speaker 2

If you make ten percent and you pay the tax, you get where this is going?

Speaker 1

Yeah, soltwhare so before we go into whostal retail? I know it's hard, but what's the number then? What's the number that you think that the average financial advisor in Australia wants to hear when you go in to talk to them, excluding the value of your home.

Speaker 2

Well, they want to know that they're playing with at least what they're investing at least one to two million dollars.

Speaker 1

That's a lot. That's a lot to have outside the value of your home. Does that include your super? If it was a self managed super fund?

Speaker 2

Is that I would say it well, as a financial advisor, it would include your super and obviously a self managed super fund then.

Speaker 1

But you would have to go in with the view that self managed super fund is open to change. It's no point to go into the advisor and saying, hey, listen, I like what I'm doing. I've got it all lovely diversified. I just want to know what do you think about it? That's kind of.

Speaker 2

Which goes a little bit full circle. To possibly you and I in a very similar boat. I would get asked every week at least once for a referral to a financial planner, and I go, let's go ten steps back. Let's actually have a look at back to the basics.

What are you actually saving? Do you understand what your costs are and work out whether there is a true sort of savings investment strategy that you've put in place before we then start engaging and paying somebody to actually take us on that next journey around taking our hard owing pash and putting it into an investment that they then will charge your commission for their time.

Speaker 1

We've kicked off on a fairly sober note. Is there circumstances where you can have less than that? And it makes sense. I'm thinking in terms of the traditional argument that you don't want to make mistakes at the start, you don't want to go on the wrong track, you don't want to make huge structural mistakes. Where he then worked for twenty years and realize, damn, I should have had some advice twenty years ago. I'll give you an example.

Once upon a time I was involved in a startup company and in the end we were ten years in this company and it was great and it was terrific, and we sold and we all did fairly well, depending on how much stock you had, of course, and I was a minor shareholder, but I didn't have it in

a family trust or anything like that. And then of course I went to a planner because I finally had something to plan with, and they said, you might have had this in the family trust, and I thought like, yeah, but when we started, I hadn't anything, and a family trust would have been It was outside my realm, if you like, at the time, because I was up to my eyes one loans and mortgages and everything else. But the irony is that's when you need the advice, not when you've made the money.

Speaker 2

Absolutely. Yeah, So there's it's a really good point. And you and I have talked about that experience before. What you really want is very early on in life. And you know, I've talked about the person finance village, and it doesn't need to be a lawyer and a charged

accountant and a financial planner. It needs to be a group of trusted individuals who have possibly or more likely more knowledge than you, perhaps in that particular area that you're contemplating whether it might be how to I structure a new investment in this startup I'm doing. You want to be surrounded by people and talking to people about

these issues because some people hold back. Right, you're supposed to know this stuff when you're in business, But the reality is we got other things to focus on, so sooner rather than later. And I suggest, sure a financial planner can help you, but there may be other earlier entry points in your network of people that can advise you.

I have no doubt that there are. There's many more trusted experience mates or family who can at least get your part of the way, and perhaps in your case, might have got you to a point of saying before you went into that startup, well, actually, in an early period in your investment, you could have transitioned your entry price or whatever sweat equity in there to a different structure that could have been even more benefit. Now I've got my tax hat on, of course, but could have

even been more beneficial to you down the track. It didn't have to be day one, but fairly quickly, playing in the right circles, you could have certainly had some further advice that would have cost you less than today's financial plan.

Speaker 1

Yes, as you say, there's no point going in, there's no point going in too late, caustic, you can't. I remember saying, well, maybe I'll open one now. I was like, that's too late. Now, all right, okay, look, we've got to take a short break. I really want to get into some of the issues that we've talked before the show started. We'll be back in a moment. Hello and welcome back to the Australians Money Puzzle podcast. I'm James Kirby and I'm talking to Jackie Clark and Jackie I

should have said your operation. I know you're explained to our listeners. I know you're very good, but they need to know you're an author. But also it's hard to repin it right because you are a consultant, you're a board member, you're an advisor to a family office. How do you describe yourself? What's your elevator pitch?

Speaker 2

Well, it's actually I don't have one specifically, I have a portfolio career. No. I obviously spent twenty almost thirty years at Deloitte and then transitioned out James support and accounting practice that I'm run with a couple of my former colleagues, and yes, consult to a number of families, and yes, became an author and spending quite a bit of time in the money space actually helping people because I love it.

Speaker 1

Might as well allow you have a plug for your book which is still out there.

Speaker 2

What's it called, Stop Worrying About Money? Only available on Amazon these days and in Great Bookstore a book type desile.

Speaker 1

Stop Worrying About Money, And you can get jack Jackie Clark's book out there if you'd like to develop further what we're talking about here today. Oh yes, Now, just before we go into that whole issue about sophisticated or retailer hostsale and etc. Which is a breakthrough perhaps for some listeners or could be, I want to ask you one other thing, because you're very experienced in the space.

The hope, the only hope of everyday financial advice available perhaps easily enough that doesn't cost an arm and leg will come and there are plans afoot to get it from the big superannuation funds, and the big funds, by the way, some of them are ware. I think it is Australian super and art. They have teams, they are

getting ready and the minister they're basically getting. The minister will sign it off sooner or later, and the big super funds will be able to give much more financial advice than they do currently on would you welcome them in? Do you think that would be good or flawed?

Speaker 2

It's a great question. Again My answer is yes with a very big butt. But is that it's conflicted advice. So I've already seen this at play. In fact, a family member recently was doing there during contribution. I said, why don't you just give them a call us with the advice to get that right? Husband was getting close to what was fifty nine or sixty. It was a really good time to have a chat with them. So I think there's absolutely a role for big super but

the conflict is a real problem. And the other thing is this going to boil down in time to some call centered type of vibe. It's hard to say, but the reality is it's a very complex area. There is a strong shortage of good technical superinnuation advisors in particular, but there's definitely a role for it, and I can see at an entry point, you know, phone call troubleshooting level, it could be quite valuable.

Speaker 1

They're talking about the very obscure term for non relevant advisors with the original thing. Then they talked about qualified advisors. They'll come up with something else, but sooner or later they will have this sort of army of advisors. What I want to ask you is articulat if you would to everyone listening, what do you mean by conflict of interest?

Speaker 2

Yeah, it's really straightforward. If you've got half a million dollars of your superannuation invested with that big industry fund and their recommendation is, well, you should stay with us, and here's an additional product that or you could change the mix of your superannuation investment, possibly putting a member into a more growth fund versus balanced or a yield depending on what path they're taking, all of which could generate substantial revenue back to the superfund. So it's a

mega conflict. Is something that other advisors, it's very difficult for them to do.

Speaker 1

To put it another way, that fund will never see take your money out of the fund.

Speaker 2

Precisely, precisely, and actually you sound like something, Yeah, you sound like somebody who would be better off X or maybe a self managed super fun is ideal for you. Now that you've reached this particular level in your investment experience. They're not going to say that. So there's things that will be left off the table or that remain unsaid that you need to hear. And that's again where that it's not independent.

Speaker 1

Yeah, but it's there almost always an element of that. And an advisor will never say, Hey, tell you what, I've just charged your five thousand dollars and you know what, I think you should do nothing, But an advisor ever say that.

Speaker 2

I'd like to think. I'd like to think that before they sat down or maybe for the first coffee that they said, maybe we're not right for you because of x yles.

Speaker 1

Yes, yes, and I suppose, being honest, that's probably more likely to happen these days because they are actively cutting their lists. Maybe there's a positive dimension to this, yes, okay.

Speaker 2

Or the one other thing James just on that comment too, I want I did want to mention. One other thing to you is to realize in this history of advisor relationships and the transition, remember the big banks have got out of more transitioned out of retail a long time ago. They saw this waves, they felt the cost of this coming pretty much since twenty twenty was since the Raw Commission, so they're head of the pack realizing that this was happening.

Speaker 1

One other thing I wanted to ask you, also, just on the same thing, is you deal with very wealthy investors. One of the things I've been reading of reading in recent times, but reading consistently, and I wonder if it's really true, is that I'm let to believe that wealthy Australians are shifting their portfolio and their money, not just shares, but all activity more and more outside Australia offshore.

Speaker 2

Is that your experience, I've got a number of different experiences in that space. What I would say is that with the wealthy families I work with, they're always looking for business opportunities offshore. So if we can park that, what I am saying perhaps with that are more the investor style type posted sale event where there may be less in their business and more as a wealthy investor. I'm definitely seeing that diversification into things like international equities.

Now people aren't necessarily moving their money offshore, they're investing in funds or other have a direct access to some type of international equity diversification. One of the things though that I must caution any of your listeners about, of course,

is the risk of inheritance tax offshore. So one of the things I do see a lot is when my clients go to help family members and send money offshore, the risk of particularly let's just say the UK and the US, where they have a really lively inheritance tax or death tax, whatever you want to call it, in place, there are multiple taxes that prevent or certainly are ugly if you like up to forty percent tax on your death, if you've gifted money in a particular way, or if

you've bought assets offshore, you want to be very careful about your planning if you are in money away and you just don't want to fall, you don't want it to fall into that other tax knit that brings that exposure to you or your family, which unfortunately a lot of the case when people become ultra wealthy, they tend to be older in Australia, in their seventies and eighties, at a time where their demise maybe forthcoming, and therefore the risks of inheritance tax rise substantially.

Speaker 1

Ah, that's I suppose that's all around the world. But I'm just trying to identify the depth of this risk. If I, as an ordinary everyday investor, went and said, the US is really good. The US market always beats the Australian market again again year after year. I'm going to just actually buy directly into the US instead of buying Australian listed dtfs. I'm going to buy US listed ETFs and the parkt in there for twenty years. That doesn't expose me to inheritance tax in the US, does it.

Speaker 2

I wouldn't be sure that it doesn't because of the asset being done the soil over there, you can actually take it where so it's worthwhile again considering the domicile of that investment itself first, so I'd be talking to somebody before I went anywhere near that.

Speaker 1

What if I use a local booker like I use Consack, but I put everything.

Speaker 2

Through same same I think where the difference is getting access from here through an advisor here, you might be actually accessing those markets in any case without necessarily putting your foot in there. So if you start to go offshore yourself, specifically into directly into a share market, you're actually connecting the profile in a foreign country where they'll ask for all sorts of numbers and things that you might not have at that particular time, creating a profile.

It's a bit different to buying into a particular asset here that has that exposure. And I think what I have seen quite a shift in is and to be fair, the Aussie stocks have underperformed, so people are definitely looking beyond our ASEX two hundred for investments.

Speaker 1

Is it percolating down is Middle Australia the mass affluence starting to actively look and seek to invest offshore, not just shares, but literally to shunt their wealth two other jurisdictions. Because that's what I'm reading.

Speaker 2

I think it would be limited because of the risks that are inherent in doing that. And I'm not talking about from a retterm perspective. I'm talking more from a global tax exposure perspective. And perhaps it's what you don't know if you've got an advisor who's not actually qualified to contemplate that. And I do see people set out structures overseas all the time and come to me and they're all very well organized from an Australian point of view,

but they haven't actually contemplated what this means. In the UK and I'm often looking at the end of life where it comes back to bite you when you're no longer here is what do we do with that asset now that you're gone?

Speaker 1

What do we tell that asset? What do others do with that asset now that you're gone? All right, we'll take sure back back in a moment. Hello and welcome back to the Australians Money Puzzle podcast. I'm James Kirkby talking to Jackie Clark. Now, Jackie is an advisor and author, and we've been talking in a way. We're talking big picture here, something we should do more often and the issue that we're always talking about on the show but we never really stand back and examine it, which is

about a financial advice. How does it work? What do they want from you? What are the realities when you go looking for an advisor? First of all, when you find one, how much do you have to pay? And is it worth paying that five thousand dollars a year and what would you expect? Now I want to explain something that Jackie brought up at the start of the show,

which is really interesting. There's two layers to financial advice in Australia, and I when we're talking about it, and when you read about it, mostly about mom and dad, right, it's mostly about the general person and all the issues they have with financial advice. The problem that the advisor has with the average investor is that that person is classified as retail. Because they're classified as retail, there is a zillion parts of regulation that they must satisfy to

satisfy the regulators that they're doing the right thing. Now, you don't have to go through all that and not everyone does, because you can qualify as a wholesale investor or what they call a sophisticated investor. Advisors love sophisticated investors because they don't have to do the paperwork and it means right, and it means they have more money, but almost as much. It means they don't have to

do as much paperwork. So Jackie, first of all, let's tell people what is the legal definition of a sophisticated investor. So money wise, you need to have either two and a half million dollars in assets acts of net assets. That excludes But now does it actually exclude your family home legally?

Speaker 2

Not?

Speaker 1

No, it doesn't. I mean it should, right, but it doesn't. Okay, So there you are. Everybody in Sydney's halfway there already they have on the average price.

Speaker 2

You forgot about the mortgage that most the average the.

Speaker 1

Mortgage is subtracted. The mortgage is subtracted. Yeah, ah, fair enough. So there's two criteria, two ways of getting into this category. Two and a half million in assets. That would could include your house, but it must be minus your debts. Okay, that's keep that in mind, Jackie. If you have a self managed superfund, that's entirely included, right, so I can take it. Yeah, So that might be the way that

most people would get in. Alternatively, and I imagine for many people listening to this show, this is much much more important. If you earn two fifty grand a year or more, you're also able to satisfy this. That doesn't mean your salary doesn't you have to be two fifty grand, by the way, if you earn it, right, So if you have two hundred but you make fifty farms something else doesn't matter what it is. If you had an investment, property or whatever, that gets you over the line as well.

So it doesn't matter where the income comes from as long as you get over this. As long as you can get an accountant to tick the box that says you met two fifty grand in the last two years. So they are the two ways in. Now it's not quite nirvana when you get past that point, but tell us how it is very different.

Speaker 2

It's a really good conversation to have because some people might not realize that they satisfy the wholesale test. You have just an access to a much more vast network of advisors who perhaps more qualified and understand certainly a greater diversity of assets and opportunities for you. Plus a

lot of them aren't cookie cutter either. So rather than having what every mom and dad has in the rest to pernuation fund, you might find that you get access to quite different investments and you can participate in more things as a wholesale investor. So it's a bit like being led into a new community, not a secret community, it's one that's quite accessible to Australians. Now you are right too, I do find that there is still a lot of admin so the fees go up, the prices

go up. People charge your percentage for managing your money. It's perhaps a little bit different in some respect.

Speaker 1

You the more you have, so it doesn't cut down the paperwork.

Speaker 2

No, it doesn't really. I think it just cuts down the barriers to entry, which is there are certain assumptions made about you in the way our financial services regulations are created that mean that the advice sort of comes in at a higher point that you're assumed to have slightly higher knowledge as well. In fact, you're signing a way that you do have greater knowledge, as the term implies sophisticated investor.

Speaker 1

And the hush reality of it is as I understand, and we have the list obviously, the top hundred Financial Advisors list which we publish every year, which by the way, is going to one hundred and fifty this year when it comes out in November, and you'll see that they all have their minimum minimum that they will see there's a minium. But as I understand, many of them, especially at the opper end, they just want sophisticated investors. They

just don't want their complication. And a lot of advisors say, hey, it's make life easy for ourselves. Let's just have horse sal investors. Sophisticated investors. Is that what's going on?

Speaker 2

Yeah, that's actually a good point because what you'll find is even though you get in the door, then they say, oh, the minimum investment for this particular asset is five hundred thousand dollars. And some of them think a little bit more about networks. So say, for example, if you're a lawyer in a law firm and a couple of you get together, they might take you on board as a client where you all put one hundred thousand dollars in,

but it's big links. Then I'm in situations where you can do ten fifteen thousand dollars investments with in a sophisticated investor relationship, but the total invest in some is then half a million or a million and so on.

Speaker 1

Yeah, explain if you could to listeners what it is they could invest in that really is worth it to get over the line as a sophisticator's investor. You mean, I don't think it's I don't, by the way, I don't think it's IPOs, which they seem to throw at you once you're qualified.

Speaker 2

Yeah, no, I think, James, to be honest, it's just again it's dependent on their network. So who are they spending time with. What's their investment committee look like? Because this is the other thing, the size of these organizations. Some of them we're not talking about JP Morgan, but we could. But if you're talking about more private operators, they might have an investment committee that puts particular investments through quite a significant process to determine whether that's suitable

for their colights, of which you then had access. So it's there's nothing consistent I would suggest about what stepping into the realms of sophisticated or wholesale investing maye you get access to particular things you can't Otherwise you.

Speaker 1

Would think logically that the big megabrands, the global names requiry to that because they are a global bank do they will sell themselves as having access to what your top notch independent advisor who has ten or fifteen people on the staff. They see the big brands were saying, those guys can't compete with us, because we've got this machine, this global machine. Is that true?

Speaker 2

It is because they also create their own They custom their own investments, with their own relationships and networks to sort their own profit loss and balance sheet out, and they give you the opportunity to join them, yeah, in an investment, and it can be very good.

Speaker 1

Well, people often get minced in these big global firms too, just as fast as they get minced by the inadequacies of an independent advisor who might have been good when they were thirty five but has got a bit dopey or soft, or just doesn't care anymore because their career they've met loads and they don't know whatever the issue is, how do you steer it between those two?

Speaker 2

You can do. What I do is I say I don't want any products that you're in. What else have you got.

Speaker 1

To expand that a little bit. I don't quite understand what that means.

Speaker 2

So if an advisor is presenting to you a number, let's say they give you five to ten investment opportunities, and you say, which one are you in? Which one is the firm in which one is the firm participating in? Yeah, So you start to understand up the tree where because you also find that in the tiers of these things, people get different price seeing benefits, some of which you may participate in coming in as an entry level wholesale investor.

So there's unfortunately, there's far too much complexity in all this for the average Joe to understand. Anyway, you're relying yeah, but you could still anyone who thinks through.

Speaker 1

It's very similar to the broker who says, we've got a really good IPO coming down the line, which we happen to be putting to the market, which we happen to be getting fees from, and you see what any other IPOs that you're not involved in. It's the same sort of thinking, right.

Speaker 2

Yeah, it is. And sometimes you can decide that you back their decisions, you back their research. We have to anyway as a client, but there's other parts of their research you might decide I'd rather remain again, independent of that. What else have you got? Now? A lot of firms will promote independent investment opportunities for you, so it's just good to understand what their approach to it is themselves.

Speaker 1

I hope I've asked the right questions. I'm just wondering before we finish, you mentioned how you get pinned, So do I all the time? I have an easy answer. So someone says, if someone has if I feel that they're just going to know it's not going to make sense, I do say to them, listen, I don't think you should spend the money. I don't think you'll get value out of it. If I think they can and they say,

can you name an advisor? I see anyone on the advisers lists be published, or any advisor who's been on my show. I think they're good enough to talk to you. There are my two answers in terms of what you want to tell the listeners about interacting with advisors, trying to find one, having one, trying to manage the relationship. Is there anything you think we haven't covered or haven't pointed out?

Speaker 2

Actually, well, the thing that we have historically covered is again making sure that you don't fall into the trap. Onlyschatics customers did, so go back making sure that if you are talking to somebody, they've got the right qualifications. Really serious point. You'll find their names listed somewhere. You

want to make sure that they have the qualifications. I think the most important thing, too, is your own preparation, Like, don't waste a financial advisor's time if you don't have your own house in order, knowing what you spend every month, what you've got saved, what you've got prepared to reinvest, don't waste their time because you're only wasting your own

time and money. This is a great opportunity to develop your own financial literacy, not just in the office of a financial advisor, like do your own homework and be prepared. And I think the last point is it's never too late to start, and you can start as early as you like, but build your network up. They don't have

to be you don't. We don't invest with people that aren't qualified, obviously, but you can certainly be talking to your network of understanding and building again your literacy up about all these things so that when you do eventually make the decision to go into a financial advisor's office and you feel like you're comfortable to develop rapport with them, mate, just whatever you do, make sure they've got the right qualifications and at the same time, make sure you've got

that rapport with them where you feel comfortable to be open and honest about the things that you're worried about with money, so that they can then help guide you on the investment part, because you're already going in with a good level of knowledge and you're very clear on where you're at. Because a lot of people walk in and this is how I prepare. People come to me, I need a financial plan to Jack, I say, hang on a minute, let's work out what you've got first.

And that's the bit that people think, they close their minds and want to just hand it over to somebody. And I don't think you want to be paying somebody an hourly rate to do that. You want to get things in order to get your house in order. As I say my book right at the start, terrific.

Speaker 1

All right, very good, Hey, thank you very much, Jackie. I give you the floor to name the title of the book again.

Speaker 2

Stop worrying about money.

Speaker 1

Stop worrying about money, by Jackie Clark. Stop worrying about money and worry about whether the financial advisor you're dealing with is good enough for you and whether that amount and at least we you know what the amount is, right, the averages five thousand a year. Does that make sense to you? Does that make sense with the amount of money you're going in the door with. Keep that in mind. Okay, terrific. Hey, thank you very much, Jackie. Wonderful to have you on the show.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Jan's great to be back and.

Speaker 1

We'll talk again. Okay, folks, keep those correspondents rolling in. Do remember if you can't mention the show to someone, you know, we really appreciate that. Today's show was produced by Lia Samango and our Email is the money puzzle at the Australian dot Com dot Au

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