A self-professed \u201cterrible manager\u201d has explained how\u00a0reconfiguring his\u00a0leadership\u00a0role and investing in digital\u00a0employees, as well as his team, has helped scale his advice practice.<\/b>\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the most attractive features of a career in financial advice is the\u00a0relatively clear\u00a0pathway to business ownership. The trouble here is that while there are many excellent financial advisers, the skill set\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0directly translate to being an\u00a0effective\u00a0manager\u00a0which can\u00a0be\u00a0challenging\u00a0for those wanting to expand their operations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This is something Michael Bova faced after setting up\u00a0Sydney-based\u00a0Family Wealth Advisory\u00a0in 2009.\u00a0Ten\u00a0years into its operations, he found that while he was comfortable with the position the business was in, he\u00a0faced an ongoing staff turnover which was limiting the company\u2019s growth.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI kept hiring good people, but they would only last about 18-24\u00a0months\u00a0and then\u00a0they would leave. I found that\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0just not a good manager.\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0not\u00a0good at bringing\u00a0out the best in people in terms of sitting with them\u00a0in terms of [asking]\u00a0what\u2019s\u00a0going on in your day and how can I adjust it?\u201d Bova told the IMAP conference in Sydney.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m\u00a0really good\u00a0at, \u2018This is the vision,\u00a0this is where we\u2019re heading to\u2019.\u00a0I\u00a0hire\u00a0really good\u00a0people, and I just expect them to\u00a0do\u00a0their job. After\u00a0I\u2019d\u00a0lost about\u00a0two or\u00a0three\u00a0really good\u00a0people, I realised\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0not\u00a0them,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0me.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, either I really scale down, or I push through\u00a0and that was\u00a0the\u00a0pivotal moment. I was losing\u00a0[staff],\u00a0and\u00a0also\u00a0I just\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0feel that looking after 125 families\u00a0was\u00a0it. I always had this goal of getting to 1,000.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
This led Bova to build up a team that could support the needs of staff while he focused on the future direction for the firm,\u00a0but as he began to put more\u00a0capital\u00a0into building\u00a0up the\u00a0business,\u00a0he was faced with new hurdles.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI underestimated how the\u00a0depths of the valley of death, of how deep that\u00a0actually goes.\u00a0Anyone that\u00a0has\u00a0invested\u00a0in\u00a0growing\u00a0a business knows that you make these investments and\u00a0there\u2019s\u00a0no guarantee that growth is\u00a0going to show up.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The launch of ChatGPT,\u00a0in particular,\u00a0triggered\u00a0an existential crisis where he considered selling his business out of fear that he and financial advisers more\u00a0generally would be replaced by the technology. But rather than\u00a0giving in, Bova decided to embrace AI\u00a0which has now delivered valuable efficiency gains.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI hired a CTO six months after ChatGPT launched. I\u00a0thought,\u00a0\u2018We\u2019ve got to be ahead of this\u2019,\u00a0and thank goodness we did,\u201d Bova said.\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019ve spent a good two years investing in that, and\u00a0we\u2019ve\u00a0now launched four digital employees this year and the savings, the efficiency, and client experience gains from those four digital employees is\u00a0absolutely enormous.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He added:\u00a0\u201c[After] those first two years where it just flatlines, and I thought,\u00a0what\u2019s\u00a0the\u00a0point of all of this?\u00a0All of a sudden, now the challenge is scaling from\u00a0310 families to 1,000,\u00a0to make sure that we can onboard and\u00a0maintain\u00a0that level of excellence, but with the growth\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0showing up.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Essentially, a\u00a0\u2018digital employee\u2019 is simply an AI agent capable to actioning tasks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the digital employees, Bindi, helps with the onboarding process, and\u00a0that\u2019d\u00a0probably save\u00a0900 hours just on onboarding.\u00a0We\u2019ve\u00a0got another digital employee\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0going to help with review reports.\u00a0We\u2019re\u00a0just finalising that\u00a0at the moment. The savings on that is going to be enormous.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re never looking to let any of our existing staff members go. We just want them to keep going up the stack in terms of value proposition back to clients, and then\u00a0we\u2019ve\u00a0got a quality review one\u00a0and\u00a0we\u2019ve\u00a0got one that helps with implementation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
As a result, Bova\u00a0said he will be able to hire more in-person advisers, helping\u00a0him move closer to the\u00a0ultimate goal\u00a0of supporting 1,000 families.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The digital\u00a0employees are designed specifically to take the admin workload of human staff, he explained, allowing them to focus on high-value tasks instead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAssociates used to have to do a lot of that data entry because it was complex. We deal with complexities, family businesses, companies, trusts, self-managed super funds, and multiple versions of them all, and\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0doing it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy is that important? Because if we onboarded 60 families last year and\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0complex families, so\u00a0we\u2019ve\u00a0onboarded I think five families in July and two to start in September, one of which a\u00a0$65 million\u00a0family. There is so much complexity there.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0allowing us to keep delivering that solution with our existing team, and\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0the importance of getting that digital solution part right.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A self-professed \u201cterrible manager\u201d has explained how\u00a0reconfiguring his\u00a0leadership\u00a0role and investing in digital\u00a0employees, as well as his team, has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[177],"tags":[291,79,257311,18,19,53875,17,234,235],"class_list":["post-609340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-ai","tag-business","tag-digital-agents","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-imap","tag-ireland","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117001244228732431","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}