In this episode of The Trusted Adviser Podcast, host Rob Pyne speaks with Zacary Leeson, Financial Adviser and Director at HPH Solutions, about how the firm has evolved its approach to create truly life-centered conversations with clients.
Zac shares how HPH’s “Progress Update” framework transforms traditional review meetings into deeply engaging, goal-focused experiences that help clients feel lighter, more confident, and genuinely connected to their financial journey. Together, Rob and Zac explore the discipline, tools, and mindset shifts required for advisers to move beyond investment-centric advice and build sustainable, human-centered client relationships that drive lasting value.
LISTEN
SHOW NOTES
Topics Discussed
- The evolution of the client review into a “Progress Update” meeting
- How to structure life-centered conversations that drive engagement
- The role of caring, values alignment, and boundaries in client service
- Avoiding burnout and over-servicing while maintaining high standards
- Why transitioning from investment-focused to life-focused advice must be gradual
- Using tools and team processes to enhance consistency and experience
- How AI and process efficiency will shape the future of client engagement
- Building sustainable, scalable frameworks that keep advisers connected to purpose
Episode Highlights
(Timestamps are approximate)
(00:00) – Introduction: Reframing the client experience at HPH Solutions
(03:20) – What makes the “Progress Update” meeting different from traditional reviews
(08:05) – How clients feel after seeing their financial and life progress
(12:10) – The balance between caring deeply and maintaining healthy adviser boundaries
(16:45) – Aligning client and adviser values for better relationships
(19:50) – How to transition from investment-centric to life-centered advice
(24:00) – The role of data, systems, and technology in freeing up adviser time
(26:30) – The future of financial advice: becoming the “CEO of household finances”
(29:10) – Closing reflections on building meaningful and scalable client experiences
Quotes
“Clients walk out of that meeting feeling lighter. They finally know where they are on their journey, what they’ve achieved, and what to do next.” – Zacary Leeson
“You have to care deeply about your clients, but within boundaries—because without them, you’ll burn out and can’t sustainably serve anyone.” – Zacary Leeson
“If your values align with your clients’, and you’ve got the tools and process to support that relationship, you’ll create the best client experience possible.” – Zacary Leeson
“It’s about progress, not portfolios. Clients want to talk about their life, not last year’s market movements.” – Rob Pyne
“Our role is becoming more integrated—almost like the CEO of the household finances—so clients can focus on living their lives, knowing everything’s under control.” – Zacary Leeson
Resources & Links
- HPH Solutions: https://hphsolutions.com.au/
- Follow The Trusted Adviser Podcast
- Connect with Rob Pyne on LinkedIn
- Connect with Zacary Leeson on LinkedIn
Key Takeaways
- Progress-focused meetings help clients feel ownership, direction, and motivation around their goals.
- Caring with structure—having the right guardrails—is essential to avoid burnout and maintain service quality.
- Values alignment between adviser and client builds trust and engagement.
- Transitioning to life-centered advice requires patience, communication, and supportive tools.
- Efficiency and AI will enable advisers to spend more time building relationships, not managing admin.
- The profession is moving toward a model where advisers serve as “household CFOs”, managing every aspect of financial life through proactive engagement and seamless processes.
TRANSCRIPT
Rob Pyne
Rob welcome trusted advisors. This is the Podcast where we explore what it really takes to build, grow and sustain a thriving financial planning business. Every fortnight, you’ll hear candid conversations with the leaders, innovators and trailblazers of our profession, people who have navigated the challenges, embrace your opportunities and are willing to share what they’ve learned along the way. If you’re curious, ambitious and committed to raising the bar in advice, you’re in the right place. Welcome back to the trusted advisor today. I’m joined by someone very close to home, Zach Leeson, senior financial advisor and part of our leadership group here at HPH Solutions, Zach began his journey with us at HPH back in 2014 and over the years, has become a key part of how we deliver advice, helping clients connect their financial decisions to what really matters in their lives. In this episode, we’re going to explore the client experience process at HPH, from that very first meeting with a new client through to the annual progress update meeting, we reflect on how clients are tracking towards their goals. We’ll talk about how our process has evolved from being investment centric to genuinely life centered, and the practical tools Zach uses to make those conversations more meaningful.
So with that, let’s get started. Welcome Zach to the trusted advisor podcast. Excited to be here. Rob Zach, take us back to the
Rob Pyne
beginning, when you first joined HPH back in 2014 What did you know about financial planning back then, and what did you think it offered you as a career path?
Zacary Leeson
That is a pretty easy answer. I think I knew almost absolutely nothing at all. You were there in my first interview, I Googled what financial planning was. Before that interview, probably should have Googled what the super contribution rate was, or something like that. It might have helped me out a little bit more, but yeah, I think you know, when I did, did Google what financial planning was and was kind of helping clients really understand themselves, help them achieve their goals and use our financial prowess to be able to do that. It seemed like a pretty great place to start. And worst case scenario, I think maybe I could help my own finances out and learn along the way as well. Yeah, so it was almost absolutely nothing, but then, yeah, pretty steep learning curve, and was able to kind of progress over the last 10 years, 12 years, to where we are now.
Rob Pyne
Yeah, it’s been quite the journey for you and us as a business, but it’s a pretty good place to start, isn’t it? Thinking that I’ll learn a bit about how to do my own financial planning, which is a pretty good place to begin. And then, of course, once you do that, you can apply it to everyone else, including parents and uncles and aunties and friends and in laws and everything. So it’s a great, rewarding profession to be in. We’re on the same page there. So you’ve come a long way in that time. You were recognized as a certified financial planner of the year in 2020, at the time by the Financial Planning Association now the financial advice association of Australia. What did that award mean to you at the time, personally, and what do you think it reflected about the way you were delivering advice at the time?
Zacary Leeson
I remember going for the award because, as you said, just before, I started knowing absolutely nothing at all and only been with hBH. And I still only ever been with hBH, kind of from day one. So I didn’t really have a good understanding of what other firms were doing, short of kind of a couple of conferences or, you know, just the normal interactions that you have with outside businesses through the course of the year. So I kind of wanted to hold the work up, but we’re doing a good job, but hold the work up to a microscope, be judged by peers, a jury of your peers, kind of thing to see if we were on the right track. I suppose, pretty daunting to do that in hindsight. But we were really, really lucky or fortunate supposed to kind of make the finalists and then end up taking out the award of financial planner of the year and firm of the year. So it was a really humbling experience, and looking back now, I think we thought we were doing the right thing at the time, and we definitely were. But even over the last five years, we’ve gone even further and come a lot further on that journey, and our advice is different again. So yeah, in hindsight, we’re on the right track, and it was a good position to be in for where the industry was at the time, but always developing more and more.
Rob Pyne
Yeah, never complacent. Always improving where we can. And say, concept we talk about aggregation of marginal gains, always looking to make marginal gains and and the compounding effect over time. So just tell me for a second there. You haven’t been anywhere else to give advice. You’ve shared this personally with me, that what was the secret to actually deciding that actually I’m going to stay here long term, because way before we had our employee share plan, which you’re a big part of, obviously, but you got a good friend at our workplace who was pretty keen on a young lady and from Melbourne, and he left, moved to Melbourne for a bit. So talk us through that, and what his perspective was. I. And how that helped shape your perspective about working at HPH and what it meant to be an advisor here at our business.
Zacary Leeson
Yeah, I call it the twin study when I’m telling this story in that Nick who’s now our CIO, me and him effectively started at the same time on the same trajectory, and was always great here at HPH. Never had any issues whatsoever. But if you’re with one firm for your career, your whole life, you kind of always have that feeling of, is the grass greener? And I never really had to find out, because Nick did that. He followed his now wife Zoe to Melbourne and worked in a few firms there, and then came back to Perth and worked in a few firms here, and eventually, kind of worked his way back to hBH with the thought that, okay, well, I’ve gone out, I’ve seen the world, and I want to come back to hBH. So it kind of answered my question, and I really didn’t have to do anything other than just keep in contact with Nick.
Rob Pyne
Yeah, no. It was fortunate for us in many ways. At the time he was leaving, we weren’t very happy about it. Happy for him, because obviously he was very keen on Zoe, and now they’re married. So you’ve made a good decision to move to Melbourne for a little bit, but we’re so pleased to have him back, obviously, and you guys, it’s a nice way of putting it. The twin study started at the same time, and you’ve both obviously become a really key part of our future as next gen leaders of our team. But going back to the advice perspective, how has your view of great financial advice changed or evolved since you first started. What’s it been like over that full 10 year plus journey that you’ve been with us?
Zacary Leeson
It’s changed a lot. It’s really changed a lot. I think, kind of initially starting as a young advisor, and I remember walking in to my first meeting. I think it was the first week as a 24 year old, and Michael, another director of the firm here, my first meeting is talking about all these life experiences that he’s gone through, and using that to have the conversations with the client provide guidance, because he had that experience, and I was thinking myself, it’s going to be 20 years before I can have that conversation, because I haven’t had any of those experiences yet. How am I going to do this? So you kind of rely on what you can do, and which is really, really the technical so being spot on with absolutely everything down to the dollar, from a cash flow plan to the best investment return, and really kind of trying to optimize everything with no wriggle room, so to speak, it’s you should do this. This this is going to give you the best outcome, so therefore, why are you not doing it? Kind of mindset, which makes sense, because that’s that’s all you know. It’s what you’ve trained for. It’s what you’ve studied, and you haven’t really gone through those life experiences yet to know that life doesn’t always go according to the spreadsheet that you’ve developed. Life is messy, so you’ve kind of just got to do the best with what you’ve got, and there’s always going to be curve balls and obstacles that come your way, and you need to pivot around those. So I think bit of a tangent here. But to answer that question, kind of, I’ve transitioned from almost technical and aligning to a spreadsheet to make sure finances are optimized, just kind of trying to understand the client more, understand what drives them, and in doing that, you can kind of start to assist them to create better behaviors, to kind of incrementally change and move the needle. They might not maximize their super in that year, or they might not be able to hit that target, or you might not need to get the best investment return. But as long as they’re improving and they’re feeling better about how they’re going about it, and they’re less stressed, more comfortable, less worried, you know, organized and in control, if you’re able to hit all of those things, then you’re still really providing value. And sometimes you’re not creating as much stress because you’re not telling them, Oh, you didn’t do that this year. You should do it. So it’s transitioned more into a coaching and development role and journey, as opposed to maximizing the best financial outcome. I think it’s a fairly natural arc, isn’t it?
Rob Pyne
I remember the same being very focused on the technicals that there’s a young person you want to prove that you know what you’re talking about. You’re trying to get credibility in the eyes of someone who’s probably 30 years older than you, and thinking, what does this young guy know? So you do lean heavily on technicals early on, but as you say, it’s a really natural arc to become much more oriented around coaching and development and speaking to the client, listening to more of what their goals are. And we really obviously have leaned right into that and moved away from some of those sort of more investment centric conversations to a more meaningful life conversation style. What was it like to make that change? You’ve been there for that whole journey for us and how we went more in that direction, to have meaningful life conversations. How did the clients respond to it when we started? Induced that to the clients you were dealing with.
Zacary Leeson
Yeah, the change was scary. Imagine a 28 year old asking about life issues kind of thing, when my biggest issue was trying to save for a deposit for a house and where am I going to the pub on the weekend. So it was a big, big switch to go from investment to goal planning and client centric stuff, but we found, in hindsight that it was all in our heads, and it seems obvious now, but you kind of look back. And it’s really obvious that clients are clearly more interested in talking about themselves, their family, what they’re trying to achieve, what their life is going to look like, big issues that are coming up, what’s happening with work, it’s their life, and they’re more interested about that. So if you can kind of start with that, talk through those things and be able to kind of then fit the answers around the planning and the technical into that bigger view. It’s a much better conversation, and you get a lot more take up from the advice that you’re providing, because it’s linked directly to exactly what they want to achieve out of their life. They don’t really care. Year on year, I got 6% last year, absent this year, got 15% year before one year down the line. They don’t even remember that, but they’re always going to remember I’ve got to go on that holiday. I got to send my son to private school, like any of those things, it’s a much better outcome, and I’ve got a lot less clients eyes glazing over in meetings when you’re talking about Australian Equities versus US equities, and this is what’s happening. It’s a really focused conversation and a really, really good one. Yeah,
Rob Pyne
it reminds me, as you’re saying, that then of the Simon Sinek, start with why. You know the why and the what and the how, but the why is the thing that actually everyone’s motivated by. Why do you want to achieve something and and why is a very judgmental question. So we don’t frame it that way when we talk to our clients, but really understanding what their motivations are, because that’s the stuff that really motivates their decision making and their ability to stick to a plan. Because they know why they’re doing it. They’ve got a real belief in the purpose behind the decisions that you’re helping them take to make their finances put them in good order to achieve those things they’ve set out to achieve.
Zacary Leeson
Yeah, said all the time you’re no longer saving for the sake of saving, and you’re no longer saving for that rainy day, which I mean you are. But there’s more important things that happen between now and 60 or now and 65 that you want to enjoy and do. So let’s start there.
Rob Pyne
So let’s go then to some specifics. Can you walk us through what that initial engagement process looks like when a new client first comes to see you. So what happens from that first conversation?
Zacary Leeson
Yeah, so usually there’s a kind of a trigger event in a client’s life, whether that be buying a house or selling a house or new job or inheritance, whatever that might be, but they will then be referred to us, or they’ll call us up just an unsolicited inquiry. There’s some way that they find us effectively, and we’ll set a meeting, sorry, set a time for an initial call, and that can typically run from from 15 to 30 minutes. And the idea behind that is just to kind of gage what a client is looking for, but also understand if we’re the firm for them, and if we can add value to their position. If that’s the case, we then kind of set a first meeting. We call it an explore meeting. Traditionally, it might have been called a discovery meeting, and that can go from kind of anywhere between one and a half to two hours, where we work through kind of all of that initial burning issue type feeling, but then also, kind of using the tools we have, change the conversation to a broader style conversation about what’s going well for you in your life right now and what’s contributed to that always good. To start with the positive. When clients are coming in with the this is my issue. This is a negative. We kind of want to say, well, it’s not all bad, and then working through what those issues are from a financial perspective, but also from a life perspective, because typically, there’s a lot of goals and areas that they want to achieve. So if we can focus on those, we work through that in that first meeting, and then kind of flip it around after the first hour, hour and 15 of really asking questions and understanding them to then kind of closing out the meeting with illustrating what we think the key areas are, how we can go about doing that, and illustrating, through, kind of our deliverable document, we call it the progress update report, what the service actually looks like, so they’ve got some clarity on on, really what our version of financial planning is. And then at the end of that meeting, a terms of engagement document, which is, this is what we’re going to do, as we said, and this is the cost for doing so, and hopefully works for you, and we can sail off into the sunset together.
Rob Pyne
Yeah, you talk about that, how they come in with a burning issue, and everyone does to be there’s trigger event that’s caused them to seek financial advice, but then how the tools and templates we use helps to broaden the conversation and not immediately address that one issue, but sort of park it, make sure it’s given a priority, like the client really wants to address it, but broadening that conversation, and as you said, they’re taking that appreciative inquiry approach, which social science says to start with the positive, start with things that are working. Give people a sense that there’s a lot that’s working already, maybe a few things they want to work on, but starting with what’s working first, because we’re all wired to immediately look at where the gaps are in our life, but starting with the positives first makes a great deal of difference in those conversations and giving people a sense of they’ve come a long way already. They’re often coming to us with dire situations they’re looking to enhance and. Improve what they have. So at the end of that process, let’s say they say that sounds like a good arrangement. They’ve really appreciated the conversation and the questions that we’ve asked them, and they sign the terms to become a client. How many meetings are involved from there before a client kind of gets to the end of getting an advice document for you. How do you take the clients through that process, and what’s the focus of each stage of the process?
Zacary Leeson
Yeah, so there’s probably another depending on the client, but effectively three meetings. So the first meeting is the Explore, then, yeah, another two meetings before the fourth meeting is effectively the advice document. And by the time the client receives the advice document itself, there really shouldn’t be any surprises in that document, because we’ve worked through what we’re working towards and the ideas and strategies that we want to put in place over the following two meetings before that advice, because kind of just getting hit with 100 page document after one meeting, we talked about eyes glazing over in one of the first questions. You know, you’ve got your whole life in a document there. It needs to be able to be broken down. But following on from that engagement, we then move forward and kind of dive deeper and utilize some more tools to understand those goals a little bit further we use. It’s called a wheel of life. So we’ve kind of taken the surface level. These are my issues in the first meeting, and this is what I want my life to look like, to then break that down even further across, I guess, nine facets of their life, the wheel of life, so to speak, if you think about it as spokes on a wheel, we’ve got nine spokes, or nine areas that we really want to talk about and dive deeper into, around home, family, leisure, community finances, obviously being one of the key ones personal growth. And what we ask the clients to do is rate themselves one to 10 in terms of their satisfaction levels. 10 being everything perfect, one being okay. We probably really need to focus on this, because there’s some improvement that we want to tackle here, and in going through that exercise, it helps to expand on those typical goals that people have, which is, retire early, pay off the debt, help the kids out. We want to build out a lot deeper than that. So kind of that’s that area there, and the first half of that second meeting, and then we use that to work in some assumptions for projections as well. So we haven’t done the projections at that point, but we’ve effectively built out not matching the finances, but the assumptions of what they want to achieve. So we know that the projections that we create will align exactly to what the first meeting and a half plus the phone call areas that we’ve discussed.
Rob Pyne
Yeah, so you’re talking about strategy with the client at meeting three, kind of getting real clarity for them. You’ve done the projections leading into meeting three. You can give them guidance as to what we’re thinking. So you’re really giving them almost like a verbal roadmap, essentially, in that third meeting, to say, this is how we’re thinking, and they want to contribute to varying that based on preferences they may not have shared thus far. We can do that there and then. By the fourth meeting, essentially, the advice has been pre agreed in many ways. Yeah? So that’s really a formality of going through the advice document, making sure there’s nothing that they want to add to it, but getting comfortable that that’s the point at which we can implement if they’re agreeing with all the steps.
Zacary Leeson
Yeah, exactly right. So that third meeting, then, is between the second and a third we’ve effectively gone away and in the background, we’ve been collecting all of the financial information, because we’ve got to get that at some point. It’s all well and good to talk about goals and everything, you know, if life was perfect, but there’s always trade offs. So between the second and third meeting, we’ve got to effectively match the finances to the goal planning, and that’s where that projection and strategy work comes in. And ideally the strategy meeting, we can just say yes to everything, and sometimes that happens, but realistically, there’s trade offs to be made, and that third meeting is about. This is the strategy that will give you the highest chance, highest probability, with the lowest risk, that you can achieve all of these things. But hey, these are probably some of the changes that we need to make, because you can’t retire at 50 if you’re spending $200,000 a year. So it’s up to you what you want to do there. You can add 10 years of work on or we can make some changes now and and because you’re linking those changes to the goals that you’ve effectively created and worked on together, it’s not just me telling you to save more, to invest more, it’s well, you wanted this. This is the answer. Here’s the trade offs. It’s your choice. Do you still want it?
Rob Pyne
Yeah. So it’s a collaborative conversation that they get to look at the trade offs and then make judgments. But it’s never an authoritative conversation, from our standpoint, to give people direction. It’s really saying here’s what the trade offs are. Are you comfortable with that still being the way you want to go and and they then get to contribute to getting a plan that’s really in line with what they want to achieve, most of all, priority wise. Yeah, exactly right. So you’ve mentioned the wheel of life there as one of the tools we use, we use several in the process of engaging clients and even ongoing. Obviously, we repeat some of those tools for. Progress update meetings each year. Which of the tools do you find most powerful in working with the client, and why?
Zacary Leeson
I think there’s two. So I mentioned the wheel of life. The wheel of life’s really good because it expands, but the first one is the financial satisfaction survey, and I like that for a couple of reasons. Number one, we get both members of the couple to fill it out separately, and we find that it’s usually 5050, with the alignment. So sometimes couples are really aligned. The other time, there’s some big differences in how people are feeling about their finances, their worries about their debt, position, their retirement planning, and usually it’s because one person in the household controls the finances and is interested in that, and the other person usually runs the household and has a separation between what they’re spending and what the finances effectively are. And sometimes that can create some issues there, because one person doesn’t know how much it costs to run the household, and the other person doesn’t know how much is coming in. So that gap can create issues in relationships, and that survey allows us to kind of talk through what those issues are in a really constructive and positive way, because sometimes they haven’t even spoken about it with themselves. It’s been kind of a worry in the back of their mind that they haven’t really brought to the surface because life gets busy. So utilizing that survey, financial satisfaction survey allows you to kind of open up that conversation. And it’s sometimes it’s quite shocking, because the spouses don’t know that. That’s how the other has been feeling. It’s just been a we’ll put it to the back of the mind, and we’ll deal with that later. So that’s why I really like that survey. And then once we’ve kind of uncovered that looked under the bonnet, so to speak, you can then relay that into the goal planning, which becomes a much more expansive conversation, because they’ve had the freedom to kind of say what they really want to achieve because there is any limits on finances anymore. So the combination of the two work really well.
Rob Pyne
Yeah, I can see, I mean, especially that separation of the partners and having to do it separately and answer their own questions, how that would really uncover some interesting differences in the way people have perceived their financial position. So I can see a really powerful tool, and being able to repeat that with them over time to show how their feelings about their finances have changed year on year as well. So pretty powerful tool to use. Can you think of any really memorable client moments where one of the tools we use really shifted the direction or the depth of the conversation you were having with the client?
Zacary Leeson
Yeah, I was thinking about this question. It’s hard to kind of nail down one particular instance, because we’ve started here for so long now. But I would say there’s usually a client type, and not to point out engineers, but it’s their kind of characteristic that is really focused on numbers and being as effective as they possibly can. It’s it’s more like their personality effectively, and what falls from that is that they usually control the finances, and then there’s only an allowance that, effectively, the other person can utilize. And there’s a big divide, as I said, between what the finances are that’s coming in and what they can spend on and what household effectively costs. So in having those conversations and then providing those projections and those types of things, it kind of allows the engineer mindset to loosen their grip on what is the best outcome to focus more on. You guys are going to be okay, and you can do all of these things if you want to. And and those transitions, all those surveys allow for that transition, because it’s not the best financial outcome that those surveys are trying to seek it’s the best life outcome, and that switch in mindset allows the loosening of the belt, so to speak.
Rob Pyne
Yeah, they’re very rational thinkers, and so as long as you give them a rationale for changing and making it more life oriented, rather than just optimum efficiency, even if it’s actually compromising our lifestyle, so giving them the actual insight to be able to shift, maybe their perspective and and make it a more, you know, as you say, expansive approach, as opposed to just keeping things under tight brains. Let’s talk about the progress update meeting and what goes into preparing that. So we’ve got a progress update report that really sort of encapsulates what’s going on in the client’s world. So how does it differ from a traditional review meeting? From your perspective, you’ve been doing the progress update meetings, our version of that now for probably six years or so. How does it differ from what the review meeting was to now, and how does it kind of make more of an impact with our clients?
Zacary Leeson
I mean, comparing to what I kind of see as the traditional review meeting for an advised client, and what it was kind of 10 years ago. It’s a come in check in. Here’s your updated assets position. This is what the portfolio has done. We might need to make some tweaks and rebalance this. And okay, you’ve grown from the previous year. Great work, or markets went down, they’ll come back. That’s your hour that’s your hour and a half. I found that there were on maybe some insurance updates as well, but we found that there wasn’t really a link to what they were trying to achieve. So that’s how the progress update report came about. So in that meeting, it’s really important that we kind of start the process of that meeting a couple of months before the meeting itself. So there’s a lot of rework of the survey, so clients are required to fill those out a month prior, and then we effectively collect all of the information that we need. There shouldn’t be any life updates, because our role as an advisor is to keep in contact throughout the whole year. It’s not a check in at the end of the year. It’s we’re coaching you throughout the year. So feel that you’re not doing your job if there’s any surprises from a life perspective in that review meeting. But it’s also important to get an update from the financial position in the surveys before that meeting, so we can then effectively flow that into, as you said, our progress update report, and we can match at that point the goals work that we’ve done and the goals work that we’ve achieved, and can tick that off effectively and show them that this is what you’ve done from a goal planning perspective, but then also match the projection that we originally created to where they’re sitting right now. So it’s a tracking year on year of actual verse projected, and what the impact that has on their outcomes. So last year, we had a 16% return, as opposed to, I think we benchmark it at 7% under promise over deliver. So most clients are really far ahead of where they thought they would be. So that allows you to open up those conversations even more in that meeting, because you’ve got all the answers in that meeting, and you know what they’re looking to achieve. So yeah, it’s a lot of pre work in that meeting, but then the meeting itself and the delivery of the progress update report means that rather than a update of their financial position, it’s an update of how they’re tracking towards all of their goals, and then what they need to do to maintain that so they come out of there with a set plan already. It’s not a meeting which gives an update, and then we’ve got to do more work after the fact.
Rob Pyne
I guess it’s really tangible that meeting on where they’re sitting in that trajectory, you get a lot of great feedback, as many of our advisors do, from clients. You know, these conversations are meaningful. They’re live conversations they’re having a conversation with you they don’t have with anyone else. How do you feel? Clients feel walking out of those meetings having been able to kind of check in, talk about their life in totality, all the things that are going on, all the things that the progress they’ve made, checking off the goals they’ve achieved that we’re helping guide them around, and being able to show them the progress they’ve made from what they set out to achieve a year ago. Do you get a sense of how they typically feel from that conversation at the completion of that progress update meeting?
Zacary Leeson
Yeah, I like to think, and the feedback is good that they feel a lot lighter coming out of that meeting, because it’s been a big year since they’ve tracked, and not many people kind of track their position, you know, short of engineers every month, and life gets in the way, and they don’t know where they are in that journey. So coming out of that meeting, they’ll know exactly where they are and what they need to do. So they feel the progress, they feel what they’ve achieved, and they’ve been able to look back and kind of be proud of what they’ve done. They don’t have to have all of those worries about, are we doing it right? Do we need to do anything else? Because they can walk out of that meeting going well, we are doing it. We just need to do these five things that Zach told me to do, or I can go ahead and buy that boat now because we’re that far ahead. So at least they know they don’t have to worry.
Rob Pyne
Yeah, that sense of progress is a powerful motivator, isn’t it? Feeling like you’ve actually set out to achieve something. You have achieved much of it or all of it. You’ve ticked it off, you’ve checked in with your advisor. They’ve shown you that you’ve achieved the things you set out to achieve. It’s a very motivating feeling to think, Hey, we’re making real progress here. And I think in life, all of us look for that, whether it’s career development, or something of that nature. It’s very much about, how do we actually feel that sense of progress? So you think back across the client relationships you look after, what makes the biggest difference in delivering that exceptional client experience? What do you think
Zacary Leeson
from an advisor perspective? I don’t know if it’s one particular thing that creates the exceptional client experience. You have to care a lot, but it’s not just about that, because if there’s no parameters on the caring, you kind of tend to take on all of the clients problems yourself, and then you work extra and you can’t spread your time, and you get burnt out, and then you’re really no help to anyone. It is really important that you care and want to do a good job. And I think in order to do that for your clients, in order to want to pick up the phone and answer the client’s calls or call them, you’ve also got to like what you’re doing and who you’re working with and for, and that’s why kind of the values of those clients that you’re looking after really need to align. Align with your values and what you’re trying to achieve. So I guess if your values are aligning and you’re caring for the client, that’s a really good start. But then you’ve got to be able to have the process and the team to be able to deliver that service to the extent that it is a really good outcome, but not over deliver. So you’re effectively getting burnt out as well. And if it is a over delivery of service, then someone else isn’t getting that same service, because you’re putting all the effort into someone else. So there needs to be a fair distribution there. So I’d say our long answer to your question, but you’ve got to care the people that you’re looking after. You’ve got to want to look after. And I think the values are really important that they align with hbhs values, with your own personal values, and, obviously, with the clients. And then you’ve got to have the tools and the process and the team to be able to put the right amount of time in to that service. And then I think that will create the best client experience there as well.
Rob Pyne
Yeah, caring. I think people in the advice profession are caring by nature. We’re actually givers. We try to make a difference in people’s lives. I think people generally want that for the career they’re involved in in some way, they want to help other people and feel the difference they make. But as you say, they’re really importantly, you care. You bring yourself to that conversation to make a meaningful difference, but you also do it within essentially guardrails to make sure there’s a track to run on. Because you haven’t got a track to run on, you can actually care in so many different ways, and you can over service, or you can not be able to be sustainable, I guess, in the way deliver that service, because you can over deliver, and you actually burn yourself out in the process. So it’s trying to do that caring within that framework that actually makes you be very effective at helping as many people as we can. So, yeah, I get that perspective. So just going back to this question of investment centric conversations and life centered conversations. What advice would you give to other planners who wanted to evolve their process from being investment oriented and talking bonds versus shares and which markets went up and down? And I want to go away from that, because that’s conversation that really doesn’t meaningfully add a lot of value. Let’s be honest. I mean, evidence proves that really the most value we can provide is actually those more life oriented conversations and the coaching and development you spoke of what advice you give other planners who want to go away from investment centric to being life centered.
Zacary Leeson
I think if planners are thinking about that change, then they know that it’s going to be the best outcome to make that change. They’ve already obviously experienced something which I can’t keep doing this conversation forever. There needs to be a change there. So I dare say they would know that they want to make some changes, and some pretty significant ones. The first bit of advice would be to take the plunge. It’s definitely something that you want to do, but you’ve also got to realize that you’ve probably programmed your clients to think that your value is investment decisions. So it can’t be a straight switch from we’re no longer talking about investment anymore. We’re talking about your goal planning, and they’ll go, oh, hang on a second. That’s not what I’m paying you for. So it needs to be a steady change, but a deliberate one. So definitely take the plunge, and I would say, utilize the people and the teams around you and the companies around you that you know are effectively doing that and and ask what they’re doing, understand the tools that they’re utilizing, because you can’t just switch straight from investment to life centered conversations, unless you’re brilliant and have all the life experiences and counseling in the world, you need assistance. So the tools are really, really helpful in doing that. I mean, the 28 year old can have a life conversation just based on these tools. With a 60 year old, then they’re pretty good. So I would say, definitely take the plunge, but reach out and ask for help and utilize tools that allow that switch in a slow and steady progression. Yeah, it won’t happen overnight, but yeah, taking the first step is really important.
Rob Pyne
And I always think to myself, what kind of conversation do our clients really want anyway? I mean, I think they want to have the conversation around life and what’s important to them, as opposed to where the shares or bonds went up this month or last year. It’s a conversation that doesn’t really add a lot of real value to the client, and I don’t think they walk out of there feeling lighter as you describe. It’s kind of just more fact based discussion, as opposed to, what do you want your life to look like, and how are we tracking towards the goals you’ve set?
Zacary Leeson
Yeah, and it’s historical, so it’s already happened. There’s not much you can do about it. If we’re telling you what last year’s portfolio performance was, as you said, it’s a fact. It’s what has happened. So, yeah, yeah, there’s not much you can change about that. But if you focus on what they want to achieve, then you can start tweaking and looking forward as opposed to looking back. Yeah.
Rob Pyne
Okay, one more question for you, not that we’re into forecasting, because we don’t know what the future holds, as no one does. But looking ahead in terms of the profession, how do you see the client experience continuing to evolve, both at our business, for example, but also across the profession more broadly, how do you think the client experience is
Zacary Leeson
going to shift? I think the focus has really got to be on service and taking up those. Extra roles that clients don’t have time to do anymore, because life just continues to get busier and busier and busier. You’re bombarded with more and more and more information. So our role as planners, we’re going to have to be more frequent in our clients lives. It can’t just be a catch up once a year, because there’s too much that goes on in the other 364 days, so it needs to be a higher touch point service, and that’s how the financial planning profession is going to develop. How we do that is we’ve got to find more hours in the day, which is probably one of the biggest challenges, but the development of AI and systematic work and processes and all of the back end resourcing needs to be so smooth and efficient it will allow you more time to effectively contact the clients, do all of the work that you need to do, and become invaluable in those clients lives. So I think that’s where the financial planning service will, or should be directed to you’re almost the CEO of the household finances. Know everything that’s going on in their lives, know all the key people that are there and manage that accordingly, so the clients can then just kind of focus on themselves, knowing that everything is taken care of. So I think, yeah, there’s a lot of developments in the efficiencies of the financial planning world that will need to happen, and that will allow us to have more time in front of clients, ideally for not any additional expense. And then I think that’s when the profession will really mature.
Rob Pyne
Yeah, having great process first and foremost, and then having great technology and systems to actually help deliver that process so we can unlock human productivity. Give people more time back to sit in front of clients. And I read a blog post recently that Michael Kitsis, out of the US published, he talked about the four top things that actually unlocked advisor productivity. The first being team structure, in terms of how many people you’ve got working with you and for you, and in terms of the advisor and the support team, and one of those four was this client facing time, having more time in front of your clients. And obviously, you know, we’re on that journey to see how we can continue to give our people more leverage, leverage their time better by actually spending less time on back office processes. So yeah, total can relate to that, and that’s what we’re working on as we speak. But we’ve been working on that, as you say, right from the beginning when we started the conversations that it’s about aggregation of marginal gains, always looking to improve and seeing ways we can get better. So really appreciate you taking the time this morning. You’ve got a packed schedule, my friend and you know, sharing your insights and giving your listeners a window into how the client experience has evolved here at HPH, it’s clear that what makes your work so impactful isn’t just the structure of the process, but the depth of the conversation that it allows for clients to have, and moving beyond portfolios and performance, helping clients live more meaningful, fulfilling lives. So thanks for joining me on the trust advisor podcast, and to our listeners, thanks always for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, you can follow the trust follow the trusted advisor wherever you get your podcasts, and thanks again. Zach, great, chatting to you and talking through everything. HBH, client experience.
Zacary Leeson
No worries. Thanks for having me. I hope it was informative.
Rob Pyne
Thanks for tuning in to the trusted advisor. Hope today’s conversation brought you new insights and inspiration for growing your business. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, leave a review and share it with others in the industry, and don’t forget to connect with us on LinkedIn for updates on future episodes until next time, keep building trust, embracing innovation and driving success in your practice, you.