Learn from Brad Fox, Managing Director at SmartBrave Consulting, as he guides you through the process of creating an effective strategic roadmap to not just future-proof your business, but a strategy to thrive in 2020 and beyond.

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7. Crafting the 2020-2024
Strategic Plan for Your Practice
Brad Fox
SmartBrave Consulting
E: brad.fox@smartbraveconsulting.com

8. 5 Key Learnings for today
1. The importance of thinking strategically and how to do it
2. The forces that practice owners must consider in forming their plan
3. The essentials to a good strategy
4. How to win supporters to your plan
5. Courage to act

10. Strategic planning challenges you
to let go of things
that have been successful
in order to find
what will be successful
in the future

13. Strategic planning challenges you
to let go of things
that have been successful
in order to find
what will be successful
in the future

14. A strategic change is needed when
there is a Paradigm Shift
Paradigm Shift
A significant change in the way an individual or a
group perceives something, and the old
paradigm is replaced by a new way of thinking
Exposure to new information or experiences may
make you realise your belief or perspective is
incomplete, or wrong
Business Paradigm Shift
The methods by which your businesses goals will
best be accomplished in the future are
significantly different from how they can be
achieved today

15. Principles of Change
Three conditions must be met before a person can change:
• The person perceives a need to change
• The person perceives that he or she has the capability to change
• The person is ready to change
• (usually happens when there is more pain to stay the same rather than to try and change)
Perceived
Need
Perceived
Capability
Ready to
Act

16. Pick the
Trends
What will
successful
businesses
look like in 5
years time?
Define
Your Vision
Identity
+
Purpose
+
Strategy
Change
Analysis
What do we
have to
change to
achieve our
vision?
Win
Supporters
Give your
team and
stakeholders
ownership in
the strategy
Build the
Plan
Define and
prioritise the
important
actions to
take; celebrate
wins
Focus
Courage
Coping
Competence
Confidence
Insight and Context
7-Step Strategy Master Plan

17. The forces practice owners must consider
Insight and Context

18. Insight: Forces of Change
Here are some of the forces that you may need to consider:
• Education Standards – costs
and timing to complete
• Supply of key staff – advisers
and paraplanners
• Cost to your practice of a user
pays environment – no more
subsidies
• Client service packages – tiered
and profitably priced
• Non-traditional advice and
revenue streams
• Sources of new prospects
• Brand and reputation
management
• Consumer expectations of
value
• Remediation projects
• Process improvement
• Need for strategy – it isn’t easy
• Need for leadership and vision

19. Insight: Forces of Change
Top 5 Forces that will Change Your Business
FORCE (Paradigm Shift) IMPACT (How will you have to change)
1. Removal of Grandfathered
Commissions (excluding life
insurance)
What % of your revenue is at risk?
How can you engage those clients (if they are ideal clients for your practice) and implement
a fee structure?
What communication strategy will you have to these clients in the next 12 months?
2. Active regulation of advice fees
being paid from superannuation
How will this affect your current collection of fees?
How will you transition existing clients to more fees paid from cashflow?
What new services will be required to show value? Will the advice be tax deductible?
3. Client/Prospect expectations
from Financial Advice are changing
fast
Financial advice has to change to stay relevant as society is changing.
How can your service offering be reinvigorated, repackaged or reinvented?
Can your practice capitalise on the societal shift toward spending on wellbeing?
4. Fees for No Service Risk – need
to engage every client annually
(and profitably)
What is the appointment capacity of your practice?
How many clients can you serve in a year, and at what level of engagement?
Should you change your service packages? Should you offer transactional advice?
How much do you need to charge per client? Do you need to sell C’s and D’s?
How can you increase capacity (hiring; process change; tech etc)?
5. Threat that Risk Commissions
are banned or further reduced
How reliant is your practice on new risk commissions?
Can you experiment with a combination of an advice fee and commission for risk advice?
If you are heavily insurance-focussed, can you expand to other advice areas?

20. Pick the
Trends
What will
successful
businesses
look like in 5
years time?
Define
Your Vision
Identity
+
Purpose
+
Strategy
Change
Analysis
What do we
have to
change to
achieve our
vision?
Win
Supporters
Give your
team and
stakeholders
ownership in
the strategy
Build the
Plan
Define and
prioritise the
important
actions to
take; celebrate
wins
Focus
Courage
Coping
Competence
Confidence
Insight and Context
7-Step Strategy Master Plan

21. Pick the Trends: What will the most successful
practices be doing 5 years from now?
1. All clients re-sign every year (No more opt-in)
• annual engagement agreements
• most fees collected monthly by DD from their cashflow
6. Video conferencing accounts for 70% of appointments
• advisers now average 25 appointments/week
• average appointment time down to 30 minutes
2. 80% of clients use the practices’ branded software
• receive notifications of transactions thru the app
• client provides data into the app at least monthly
7. Practices are larger
• average is 6 advisers rather than 3 today
• CEO; effective use of outsourcing; pool of graduates.
3. A new revenue stream from Transactional Clients
• single-event advice priced to be profitable to the practice;
valuable to the client
• maintain regular communication and be there for their next
advice need
8. Practices stick to their niche
• all ongoing service agreement clients are “ideal clients”
• reciprocal referral arrangements for non-ideal clients
between advice practices
• conversion of prospects is one-third of what it is today
4. Level commission on life insurance
• insurance advice has an upfront fee (non refundable) plus
level commission on successful implementation
9. Technology is pivotal to compliance
• file notes are all created using voice to text
• SOA compliance checked with AI driven reg-tech solution
• Practice tech-stacks expand as wholistic solutions fail to scale
5. Wellbeing Advice has replaced Goals Based Advice
• Advice is now centred on each client’s life achievements and
relationship with money
• life and career coaching are part of the service offering
10. Growing. FAST.
• There are less practices and less advisers. Smart, brave
decisions have improved service delivery. Clients pay more.
• Profitability is back to 35-40% EBIT

22. Change the things that matter

23. Pick the
Trends
What will
successful
businesses
look like in 5
years time?
Define
Your Vision
Identity
+
Purpose
+
Strategy
Change
Analysis
What do we
have to
change to
achieve our
vision?
Win
Supporters
Give your
team and
stakeholders
ownership in
the strategy
Build the
Plan
Define and
prioritise the
important
actions to
take; celebrate
wins
Focus
Courage
Coping
Competence
Confidence
Insight and Context
7-Step Strategy Master Plan

24. VISION =
IDENTITY
Who
are we?
PURPOSE
Why are
we here?
STRATEGY
What are we
going to do?
+ +

25. VISION =
IDENTITY PURPOSE STRATEGY+ +
Highly trusted, innovative,
community connected people
That consistently makes a
positive impact on the life of
every client
By educating them about money,
decision making, lifestyle choices,
and keeping them focused on
getting the most from their life
+ +
Hard working, life insurance
experts
Ensuring our clients have the
protection they and their
family need and can afford
Through proactive reviews, health
improvement, and personal claims
management
+ +
Safe and conservative
investment focused experts
Helping HNW clients grow and
maintain intergenerational
wealth whilst minimizing tax
Through the use of trusts, active
asset allocation using index
funds/ETF’s and direct held
investments.
+ +

26. VISION =
IDENTITY
Who
are we?
PURPOSE
Why are
we here?
STRATEGY
What are we
going to do?
+ +
NowFuture

27. Pick the
Trends
What will
successful
businesses
look like in 5
years time?
Define
Your Vision
Identity
+
Purpose
+
Strategy
Change
Analysis
What do we
have to
change to
achieve our
vision?
Win
Supporters
Give your
team and
stakeholders
ownership in
the strategy
Build the
Plan
Define and
prioritise the
important
actions to
take; celebrate
wins
Focus
Courage
Coping
Competence
Confidence
Insight and Context
7-Step Strategy Master Plan

28. What do we have to change?
Characteristic Describe the change Priority
Order
Brand/Identity
Culture/behaviours of our team
Our advice/practice philosophies
Client service/Value proposition
Ideal Client
Fee model/Revenue Mix
Scale of our practice
Talent/Skills/Education of our team
Location/s
Use of technology
Communications/Marketing
COI’s/Networks
Other

29. Pick the
Trends
What will
successful
businesses
look like in 5
years time?
Define
Your Vision
Identity
+
Purpose
+
Strategy
Change
Analysis
What do we
have to
change to
achieve our
vision?
Win
Supporters
Give your
team and
stakeholders
ownership in
the strategy
Build the
Plan
Define and
prioritise the
important
actions to
take; celebrate
wins
Focus
Courage
Coping
Competence
Confidence
Insight and Context
7-Step Strategy Master Plan

30. Win Supporters - MOSTLY
1. Messaging Clarity; Passion; Conviction, Consistency, Persistency
2. Offsite Remove all distractions; get them mindful
3. Straight talk No subtleties, but make sure it’s a two-way
conversation. Usually needs an external facilitator
4. Translate Make sense of things; Share the changing
paradigms; what happens if we don’t change
5. Lead Engage the Protectors; Inspire the Innovators
6. Yourself Role model what you expect from others

31. Be Culture

32. Pick the
Trends
What will
successful
businesses
look like in 5
years time?
Define
Your Vision
Identity
+
Purpose
+
Strategy
Change
Analysis
What do we
have to
change to
achieve our
vision?
Win
Supporters
Give your
team and
stakeholders
ownership in
the strategy
Build the
Plan
Define and
prioritise the
important
actions to
take; celebrate
wins
Focus
Courage
Coping
Competence
Confidence
Insight and Context
7-Step Strategy Master Plan

33. Build the Plan
What do we want to achieve? By When? / /
Why is this important to our strategy?
How will we achieve it?
Task to be done Resources
Or Help
Celebration
Milestones
Owner Consults

34. Focus Area 1. Future Proof RR
What do we want to achieve? By When? 30/09/2020
We want to future proof our recurring revenue stream from the risk of legislative changes
Why is this important to our strategy?
Recurring rev is the lifeblood of our practice, and the driver of its valuation. We believe it is likely that legislative change
will remove Grandfathered Inv and Super Commissions, and intro a ban on ongoing advice fees paid from superannuation
How will we achieve it?
Task to be done Resources
Or Help
Celebration
Milestones
Owner Consults
Develop a client proposition for accum clients that take all fees as
monthly direct debits. Focus on tax-deductibility benefits, growth in
super balance, and reduction of debt. Package agreed by 21/12/2019
Accounting
practice doing
this already
Marketing
materials
complete
15/2/20
Melissa Advisers
Licensee
Tier our client base and determine our targets (A & B clients) to switch
to this prop – complete switches by 30/9/2020; sell our C and D clients
X-Plan 1st 10 switches
Sale by 31/3/20
Paul Advisers
CX
All new clients placed in this package from 1/4/2020; only accept new
ideal prospects (A’s and B’s); Refer others out.
Train Value
proposition
Each 5 new
clients
Kate Advisers
Review and make changes if necessary in June 2020 Decisions 30/6 Paul Advisers

35. Focus Area 2. Ignite Organic Growth
What do we want to achieve? By When? 01/07/2021
We want to reignite organic growth to achieve sufficient scale to restore our profitability to a 35% EBIT (now 22%)
Why is this important to our strategy?
We lost focus on growth during recent years of industry change and profits have fallen. New business growth is the
preferred way to increase revenue rather than the risk of buying someone else’s book/business.
How will we achieve it?
Task to be done Resources
Or Help
Celebration
Milestones
Owner Consults
Use a consultant to train our entire business on getting referrals
including changing our systems to make activity habitual - start Jan ’20.
Measure all related activity
Consultant First training
3/2020
30% increase in
mth-on-mth
referrals
CEO Licensee
Develop three referral campaigns using social media marketing Marketing
$30k budget
Attaining min
80 leads per
campaign.
Convert 25%
Sarah Licensee
CEO
Twice p.a. train our existing and new COI’s by presenting case studies
of our successes with their clients – combine with a social setting
One client to
present/speak
2 leads per
month per COI
CEO Advisers
Sarah

36. Pick the
Trends
What will
successful
businesses
look like in 5
years time?
Define
Your Vision
Identity
+
Purpose
+
Strategy
Change
Analysis
What do we
have to
change to
achieve our
vision?
Win
Supporters
Give your
team and
stakeholders
ownership in
the strategy
Build the
Plan
Define and
prioritise the
important
actions to
take; celebrate
wins
Focus
Courage
Coping
Competence
Confidence
Insight and Context
7-Step Strategy Master Plan

37. Focus
• Don’t sweat the detail (until you need the detail)
• To be clear is to be kind
• Find a rhythm that works for your team
• slow and steady, or project driven
• square pegs in square holes
• AVOID burnout and change fatigue
• Be an optimist AND a realist
• Develop a growth mindset that sees setbacks as temporary
• Be prepared to pivot your plans
• Report regularly on progress (and keep these sessions away from
‘business as usual’ stuff)
• Reward effort, attempts, wins and lessons

38. Courage
Coping
Competence
Confidence
Focus

39. Are you Ready to Act?
Perceived
Need
Perceived
Capability
Ready to
Act

40. Pick the
Trends
What will
successful
businesses
look like in 5
years time?
Define
Your Vision
Identity
+
Purpose
+
Strategy
Change
Analysis
What do we
have to
change to
achieve our
vision?
Win
Supporters
Give your
team and
stakeholders
ownership in
the strategy
Build the
Plan
Define and
prioritise the
important
actions to
take; celebrate
wins
Focus
It takes
courage to
start, and
confidence to
stay focussed
Insight and Context
7-Step Strategic Master Plan

41. brad.fox@smartbraveconsulting.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bradfox1/

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