In a few weeks time, we’ll be closing out 2020.  Worldwide, many will be glad to see the end of this year and eagerly waiting for 2021 (count me in!).

As a community, we’ve come a long way, faced some interesting obstacles (remind me to choose our Conference themes more carefully!) which I believe we’ve overcome with great resilience and adaptability.

We have much to look forward to as we enter 2021.  The Board and our team have spent the  last few weeks focussing on our strategy and the support we provide to you and your business.  Some of the initiatives result from your feedback, others are to prepare for the future.

Here’s what we’re ready to share;

1. We will be hiring a new Advice Coach. Ideally this person will be based in Qld, working alongside Megs to support the advisers in this state.  This person will be part of the Governance team and assisting with your file reviews, compliance questions and ongoing advice coaching.   We’re about to advertise the role.  If you know someone who you think will fit our community, please let Kerry Thomas or Jaime know.
2. Early in the New Year, we’re moving to an ‘Active’ review process. Our aim is to support you whilst you’re creating your advice instead of reviewing it after it’s been delivered to the client.   Kerry Fleming & Greg will be in touch soon to share more detail about how we’ll work together.
3. As previously indicated, we’ve placed pause on our new service and pricing model.  With the support of Clime, we see an opportunity to building something different to competitors, with the goal of creating growth and long term value for all.    We’ll spend December and January analysing and building various models with the aim to be ready by soon after. In the meantime,  any questions or concerns you may have about pricing, please give me a call.
4. Our Adviser Panel will continue to have an integral role in shaping our strategic direction.  We have decided to expand the scope of the Panel and move towards an Advisory Board.  This means we’ll require additional representatives.  Principals from Victoria and  South Australia  will be asked to participate. The existing Panel will remain (thank you) and joined by the new members once selected.
5.  Based on adviser feedback, we’re commencing a monthly investment Q&A where advisers can dial in, hear macro views, ask questions and speak to the Portfolio Managers.  Ideally this session will run after the Monthly Investment Committee (a couple of days post).  However the December IC   is close to Christmas so we’re running the first one beforehand as a learning session.    A note of thanks to Larry Ellis, Steffen Tjelder , Stephen King, Craig Buntain, Brian Lomas, Craig Muchamore, Don Sampson, Paul Giordano & Geoff Taylor for providing suggestions, detailed feedback and ideas to help shape this forum.  .  Andrea also shared content from;
6. You may have seen Andrea’s recent post in Workplace about the forum and new content from Paul Zwi, a member of our investment team.  Paul writes great “sound bites” for direct clients.  Included are market charts and commentary.  These are tools which can be used for client conversations.  They are not specific to our portfolios, simply additional education.
7. As you’re aware, Clime has a significant subscriber base as a result of the extensive amount of education and investment guidance  provided over the years.  We’ve kicked off a trial  for lead generation following the Investor briefing conducted this week which had a record attendance of 495 people. The feedback from attendees was very positive. As part of the well structured follow up campaign, the Marketing team have identified potential retail clients leads (ex advisers). Two members of the Clime team, Phil & Simon will help identify anyone who would like to speak to an adviser.  Everyone is committed to building a successful lead generation program for our group.  This campaign is an opportunity to learn and develop a process which resonates with subscribers.  I suspect we’ll need to run a few campaigns before we get solid momentum.  Once we understand the need, we’ll put a process in place to allocate leads. Any good ideas of how to maximise success is welcomed.
8. KT, Andrea, Richard Mollett (works with KT on investment and wholesale compliance), Chris Hansen (Operations team), Vince Cook (Portfolio Manager)  & Adrian Ezquerro  (PM & Head of Investments) had a meeting with the BT product governance team as part of the DD to approve Proactive Portfolio SMAs on Panorama.  I understand it was a very positive meeting. We’ll provide an update once we hear from BT about next stage.

There’s more to come, and a lot to look forward to.  The best of which (in my opinion) is our upcoming Christmas functions.  We’re really looking forward to seeing you in person. It’s been way too long.  You’ll also get to meet other members of our broader group and some of the Directors.

The invitation is open to Advisers first due to venue constraints (Covid) If you haven’t registered yet, please do.  However, if you’d like to bring a team member along, give Bethany a call and she can confirm capacity.

We hope you are all well.

Sincerely,

Annick