I am very pleased and proud to announce that Lifespan Financial Planning scored three gongs at the 2019 IFA Excellence Awards in Sydney last Friday, the 6th of September.
Our National Practice Manager, Michael Gershkov, the received Practice Management Consultant of the Year Award, while Prashant Nagarajan from Finnacle (one of our Victorian based advisers) won the Innovator of the Year Award. I was very honoured to win the Dealer Group Executive of the Year Award – an achievement only made possible due to the outstanding efforts of the Lifespan head office team, our incredible network of advisers and of course the unwaivering support of my wife Pamella. So thank you to all of you.
We also had a number of other Lifespan advisers nominated as finalists for awards including Gail Gadd, James McFall from Yield Financial Planning, Phillip Richards, Robert Rich & Glen Malkiewicz from Endorphin Wealth as well as Smart Home Deposit.
Michael was a worthy winner of the Practice Management Consultant of the Year category. Since joining Lifespan earlier this year, he has worked tirelessly to support our advisers. From helping them recruit and retain staff, to engaging with clients, build referral partnerships and find ways to improve efficiencies through technology. Michael has done a great job of partnering with our advisers for success.
The Innovator of the Year award was thoroughly deserved for Prashant, who has shown an incredible amount of initiative and creativity in incorporating digital solutions to enhance the efficiency of his business. See below for a very interesting summary from Prashant on his approach to digital innovation.
In 2020, we hope to assist more of our advisers to participate in the IFA Excellence Awards. The process is very rewarding and a terrific way to reflect on what you have done and articulate your value proposition. We will issue more information on how you can prepare your business for awards success in the near future.
Prashant Nagarajan from Finnacle – Innovator of the Year
“As a financial adviser and principal of a technology focused financial services business, I must always think about better ways of doing things, especially regarding the use of technology and automation in the advice delivery process. We have a number of practices within the business that are both innovative and demonstrate a new way to think about client engagement. We conduct our meetings via video conferencing to reduce wasted time and travel commitments for our clients. This also means we can service clients anywhere is Australia and around the world.
“We also write and draw throughout our meetings using new technology solutions, while sharing the screen with clients to create an interactive and highly informative experience. This also allows digital signatures and recordings to help with compliance and education for clients which can be reviewed and enjoyed anytime.
“We have created online data capture forms making the completion of important compliance steps easy and simple for our valued clients, and when submitted they are automatically emailed at the press of one button. We have found clients do not wish to deal with paperwork and at Finnacle, we have none!
“When it comes to marketing, technology has become our primary source of lead generation. This has been integrated with instant text notification when someone has submitted their contact details for one of our promotional campaigns so we can get in contact with them within minutes.
“Clients love our service offering which is based on a subscription model (similar to a phone plan) where ‘members’ choose the services or advice solutions they want plus they can pay for these via a monthly fee. We believe this is the new way of providing financial services, especially to the younger generations (who are our target market).
“With a team of four and a network of specialist referral partners to help clients, our innovations have created an improved low-cost business model coupled with significant financial gains now and down the pipeline. Process efficiency has resulted in very high customer satisfaction levels demonstrated in regular client surveys.
“Zoom meetings, online data capture and automated social media advertising have resulted in a more systemised way of doing business where leads are generated regularly, information is collected in a timely manner and we have many touch points with clients without them having to travel.
“Our business innovations have also helped with the satisfaction of our staff as they can work from home and in their own time frames. The continuous technology developments available to us ensures new innovations can overcome most issues we are faced with and what are problems for some advisers become opportunities for us. In turn, our business gains leverage by being a low cost, efficient solution which translates into a very affordable service for our Gen Y and Millennial clients.”
