When I think about the job to be done on financially educating people, particularly since COVID-19, I sometimes lose heart and feel like we will never get the job done.
There are so many people with so many different financial challenges. While we continue to make educational content to help people navigate our industry and the decisions they need to make, I do believe the best lessons around money come face to face.
I also believe that the people best placed to do that are financial planners: the very people who are managing education standards and business model reform to stay profitable. And while the capacity may not be there for one-on-one advice currently, there is certainly a case to be made that planners should be given some sort of grant or assistance to host educational sessions online and in person to help people think differently about money.
We understand the many pressures on planners’ time. When we are filming one of our shows, we are always very mindful of the time an adviser gives us and ensure we keep all our filming and work to a strict timetable to get them back to their clients. But wouldn’t it be great if advisers were remunerated to take on an educational role for people in their community? It would then be financially viable to allocate a fair proportion of time to the role of overall education, rather than one-on-one planning.
Is it a pipe dream? Perhaps. But only 20% of people get financial advice, and with 10% of mortgage-holders freezing their repayments during COVID-19 – not to mention over a million people unemployed – there’s a huge population of Australians who need inspiration, practical skills and at least a pathway that helps them identify which levers they can pull, and how to clear a financial path ahead.
So perhaps the industry bodies and stakeholders around advisers can all start to think about how advisers can make it part of their business model to be able to help with this problem. Even if it is tea and biscuits like shareholder meetings traditionally are, it’s an opportunity to teach the basics and give people options on what to do, and who to talk to in common scenarios.
We will be working on more tools and content to give planners so they can send them out to those who need it most. And we are running some interesting discussions around improving adviser tech with Iress.
But we also know the power of planners and their ability to give people direction and comfort. It is planners that will make the biggest difference in this crisis. And we need to find a way to help facilitate that.
As always, we’ll be championing advisers and their transformative powers for people.
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