Communicating with younger people setting up SMSFs has been flagged as the next challenge for the industry, as this generation has significantly different requirements for how they use and receive advice.
“All of us as advisers need to be very careful because we’ve been used to dealing with baby boomers face-to-face,” NowInfinity principal Grant Abbott told the SMSF Conference convened by ARC Super, NowInfinity and WPIAS Training in Queenstown, New Zealand, last Thursday.
“We get them in and have a cup of coffee while they spend an hour and a half with you, which is a great thing, but the next generation haven’t got time for advice.”
Abbott said in everyday life people were using different channels, such as texting, Facebook Messenger, What’s App and Viber, to communicate with different people.
“Our lives are becoming increasingly complex and there’s so much information out there, and so our systems are really changing,” he said.
“So your next goal is going to be communicating with these [younger] people [setting up SMSFs] in a completely different way.”
Furthermore, overarching that shift was digital disruption, he said.
“It’s a changing atmosphere and we need to focus on what our position is within this whole industry,” he said.
“You’re not an accountant and you’re not a financial planner anymore – those roles aren’t there because they’re either going offshore or a robot is going to take over.
“So your expertise is either going to be a good manager of systems or you’re going to be face-to-face and that face-to-face will make a big difference because it’s not necessarily face-to-face how you and I know it, it’s face-to-face through Facebook, Twitter, et cetera.
“That’s where I see it going.”
