Former Macquarie Group SMSF division director Sarah Penn has launched a consultancy business for all financial services firms wanting to obtain greater traction in the sector through a better understanding of how it works.
“Having spent the last year on focusing on self-managed super at Macquarie, I could really see there was a need for guidance right through the gamut from small planners through to large institutions as to understanding what self-managed super funds trustees are really all about, what makes them tick and then being able to use that information to build more effective products for the market as well as market more effectively,” Penn told selfmanagedsuper.
As a result, she established Mayflower Consulting in June with a view to assisting organisations to avoid mistakes already witnessed by the sector and making sure money spent engaging the SMSF market is being spent in a prudent manner.
“To my rough calculations there’s been somewhere in the mark of $1 billion spent on trying to crack the self-managed super market, most of which has not produced the results that any of the companies wanted,” she said.
“So I guess my business is about helping people avoid many of the mistakes that are being made.
“I’ve been lucky enough to have had a good view across the market as to what everybody has been doing and I’d like to make sure people avoid the mistakes that have been made and to build on the success where there has been success.”
She said Mayflower Consulting would not favour one end of the market over another as each segment had its own unique issues that needed addressing.
“If you’re at the small end, you might have 100 SMSF funds you look after and you do a great job with them, but can see your business isn’t scalable. Therefore it’s a question of how do you really want to compete in the SMSF market,” she said.
“At the large end it’s more around building products and services that will appeal to SMSFs.
“One of the many conversations I’ve had with people, especially in funds management, is around packaging. They think they can just package a product up and it will work.
“Unfortunately, packaging is one of the things that is most disliked by SMSF trustees.”
