Building a Financial Planning Practice Around Better Decisions with Gareth Collier

0:00What does it take to build a financial planning practice and business, but around better decisions? Not just better investment decisions, but better client conversations, better processes and better follow through. This morning I'm joined by Gareth Collier, founder of FireCREAS Group and an FBI financial planning institute of Southern Africa financial plan of the finalist this year and are we going to go inside the way that he works? What he has learned from building his own business and what the rest of us can take from that and put into action welcome to propulsion. Welcome to propulsion, the weekly show for financial planners and advisors who want to build better, more successful businesses. I'm your host, Francher de Dwy and every week we dive into the practical strategies that matter from growing your client base and improving your services to developing yourself and your team whether you're running your own practice or you're part of a larger firm you are guaranteed to find actionable insights to help your business thrive.

1:02So with that welcome and let's get into today's episode. Gareth Collier is a certified financial planner professional and founder of FireCREAS Group with more than a decade of experience working with individuals, families and business owners. Also, one of the this year's financial planner of the year finalists that is part of the financial planning institute's financial planner of the competition and today we're looking beyond the title to explore how he thinks, how he works and what he has learned from building his own business and with that Gareth will welcome to propulsion live this morning. Yeah, morning fronsoir, great to be here. Yeah, great stuff, Ben. Um, awesome to see you again, as I said you're actually it's the second time that you've now here but it's the first time we're going to really get into the thick of things so I'm really excited for that and thanks for being willing to obviously, um you know show us a little bit

2:04behind the doors what's going on. So so looking forward to to that first of all congratulations on being a finalist. How does it feel? Is there's a second or the third time? I can't remember exactly second time, third time? Yeah, second time now, first time was two years ago. So it's it's been interesting to have it had a little break and kind of go through the process again now taking some of the learnings from two years ago and and and sort of some of the changes in my professional status the last sort of 24 months. So yeah, it's been it's been it's been good fun. Yeah, because that's my question that did you start the business after the first time or was it just before or how did that timing fall? Yeah, so I launched with FireCrest beginning of 25 so it was a little after the competition had finalised in in 24 and yeah, I think it had been something that had been on my mind for a while and the timing just felt felt right. You know, having been through that process, having kind of stress tested yourself as a planner kind of get that little

3:10bit of abuse to know, you know, you really can go and do this thing. Awesome. So let's get into it. Obviously, I'm so obviously right, but I'm making a massive assumption. I'm going to ask this question the over the years like if you think back to when you started in the in the profession and where you are now, I'm sort of quite keen to to learn how has your view around what good financial planning look like? Has that evolved? Has it always as it remained constant? Has it changed over the years? And what is it at the moment? Yeah, I think like most of us, you know, when we first doing when we first enter into financial planning, we have a certain idea of what it means. I think pretty much everybody thinks that it's it's product related. So we get out there, we want to get in front of clients, we possibly want to show them how smart we are, how clever we are, you know, what what solutions we can provide. And I think moving from that status throughout

4:12my career now, I realize that good financial planning, ironically really has very little to do with the client finances itself. It's rather what happens around the finances. It means getting to understand the people behind their balance sheets, which you know, and then gain some real clarity on what it means for them to live a good life, fulfilling life. What would that look like for them? And then once you've kind of covered that ground, you can really start to give advice and use planning to then use their finances as the enabler to ideally help them achieve that good life. I'm sort of quite keen. I don't think people ask this always, Gareth, that you know, like how did that insight come to you? Is it something that you learned somewhere, you know, of course, read somewhere in a book? Is it something that you're just as you were having conversations, things were evolving? Like what brought that specific insight to you to say like, this isn't

5:16really about the money. Like, we did that. What was that moment when that sort of became a parent year? Yeah, I think there's no specific moment. I think it's an accumulation of, you know, conversations with clients, conversations with colleagues, people that you get exposed to hearing different points of views, I think being able to be in the, you know, sort of fortunate enough to be in some really good rooms over the years and hearing from some experienced people that have kind of made this realisation before you've had exposure to it. And then I think understanding that, wow, that really does make a lot of sense. And then leaning into that as opposed to being focused on the products and the outcomes and the performance and the production of, you know, what's so much of this, what's like the industry aspect of financial planning is so focused on and really moving

6:18into what I'm all thinking of as like the professional aspect, which is looking after the people behind the balance sheet. So yeah, it's a journey. I think like most clients' planning is a journey. It's almost like that famous sort of Simon Sinek Singh when he says, you know, which day did you know you fell in love with your spouse and you're going to marry this person? And you can't really pick a specific day, you know, you know, it happened over a period of time, but there maybe isn't one particular moment that you can always point to and say, right, that was the, that was the tipping point. Yeah, it's very interesting. And I also think, my last question on this is, do you think like somebody who starts today, right? And I think regardless of age, because there's always this thing about the arts at youngsters starting, but it just might just be somebody new to the profession. You know, somebody had 45 deciding I'm moving out of banking and becoming a financial planner or you know, whatever, but somebody who's new in the profession now,

7:21and possibly for some reason has not engaged with a lot of clients, a lot of people yet from from that point of view. Do you think that knowing these things from the onset, oh, let me not put it this way? Do you think it's possible to teach new commercial to the profession? This approach and say like, you've got to focus on the person and not the money initially. Or do you think like, look, I mean, the way that people grow up in the profession is not going to change or it hasn't changed because we all start off, oh, we've got to create it. You've got to have contracts, you've got to know the products, you've got to understand the basics, obviously, of all of the regulations and things, or maybe not the basics, but everything in detail, so that you stay on the right side of the line so that you can start. And unfortunately, it's one of those things we're only later on in your career, you get to focus more on the person because in from the start to there, it's more about survival than than anything else. Or doesn't it depend very much on the environment where you start?

8:25So I would just maybe you'll take on on that. Yeah, look, I think environment does play a big role in it. You know, throughout my career, I've worked in several different environments, from one that was heavily sort of commercially focused, where it's about driving product and production, then moving sort of more into a space where it was about being a lot more professional and focusing on the planning. And then, sort of taking that journey and now being in the space to be able to step into your own expression of that from building something from the ground up. I don't think it's necessarily an age thing. Yes, there are technical aspects of what we do, so that there's certain things that you can learn, but I think your approach ultimately comes down to what you believe. So you can be exposed to the fact that like we really should focus on, the people behind the balance sheets, we should focus on helping them live a good life,

9:30not necessarily just maximising return on investment and balance sheet value. And I think ultimately it depends on the individual. If you don't fundamentally believe that to be true, it's very difficult to teach somebody that that should be the way to do it. It's not always necessarily wrong. I think then you may be more focused on the wealth management and maybe more better suited for asset management as opposed to planning, like I said earlier, I think I certainly believe is everything that happens around the money itself. So I think it's obviously really important that you get exposure, maybe to that mindset, because the the converse of that is that it might be something that you really believe, but you might be in an environment that doesn't really put much emphasis on it, and therefore maybe you get a warped vision of where the profession is. And you might sort of think, okay, well this is all it's about. It's just about pushing numbers

10:32in production. And that in itself can have the unintended consequence that we lose really good talented people along the way. And a lot of the time it just depends on the environment that they land up in. So yeah, I think it's a combination. We definitely need to be able to teach these things, to be open-minded, to learn these things. But I think fundamentally it's how it falls with that individual person. And if it's something that you can really believe in and get behind, then it's going to probably more naturally lead you to have that way of being and that way of engaging with clients and the way that you do your planning, as opposed to just sort of focusing on maximizing a state value. Yeah. Thanks very much for that, Gareth. So it's go inside your process. Okay, now I want to start with what happens from the first conversation within your client. And the first thing I want to ask is like, what are you trying to understand

11:33before you even start looking at any solutions? And that doesn't still happen. Like I just want to maybe just just for a little add-on question there is like, you know, do you still, while you're talking to a client, does your mind sometimes go to, I really know what the solution is, is that something you've got to manage? Because I mean, if you've been around for so long, you've almost heard and seen it all, not always, but I mean, you've seen a lot and heard a lot and you recognize patterns. So also, does it come in or do you just solely focus on the person and don't and solutions, doesn't even cross your mind at all? Yeah, I think we've all got to be aware of that. I think we've got to be aware of that unconscious laziness where we've, you know, you've developed these heuristics, you've seen this pattern before, you kind of know the situation, you know, what the solution should be. And then you've got to have that discipline to say, no, no, hang on, I need to remain in the moment, I need to like understand what the person is actually saying, because if you run ahead of yourself, you're making assumptions and then you're not possibly remaining too focused on what's going on. So I mean, typically what we would really want to see is like, what is this person's

12:38like burning platform? You know, people really come and see a financial planner on a quiet Tuesday afternoon for no reason at all. There's almost always certainly some sort of catalyst or a major life event that's kind of put them in, you know, put them in your radar, you know, it could be a new baby or career transition or maybe an inheritance or even a frustration with a previous advisor. So that initial conversation for us is really trying to identify any of those like core pain points that somebody's maybe experiencing. In that sort of space, we might try and outline just at a high level, you know, how we could possibly help. Obviously layout sort of fee options and gauge, engagement options with clients. And then really kind of put the ball back in their court and say like, you know, given everything here, do you think you as the client could see value in partnering with us? And then what type of questions do you find open up the most useful conversations?

13:46What type of questions do you ask to get people to open up and share with you the things that really matter? Look, I think it really depends on the type of the client and their circumstances. I think there's just two in particular that work incredibly well and you can pretty much use with any client. Looking firstly, we try to explore their personal history with money. So if you spend a bit of time up front working with, you know, working with a client and working through how they experienced money when they grew up, that will often be a really, really good predictor and indicator of how they're going to interact with money today. And that kind of then gives us some insight and understanding as to how we will probably need to best work with them, you know, where they're going to need more of our support, where they maybe need a little bit less of our support. Maybe sometimes they need us to be a bit of a devil's advocate to challenge their thinking.

14:47So that tends to work quite well. And secondly, you know, I like to just ask them, you know, what do you do purely for fun? You know, what brings you joy right now? And that often sort of is a great little revealer for what actually fulfills that person, you know, regardless of their bank balance. I find it's a great proxy for that, you know, if money was no object kind of question, without actually having to frame it like that, because I think all of us are guilty. We, you know, set around the bribe. I win the lottery, you know, if money was no object, what often happens? I think we all guilty a little bit of taking that mental shortcut and we jump straight to the fantasy shopping list of all the stuff we'd buy, you know, and maybe we trend away from forgetting about the, you know, the stuff we would do regardless of our money status. Yeah, that's that's very powerful. Thanks for for sharing that. Then also at what point to the numbers become part of the conversation, is that something that you touched on early on,

15:51does it come later or is there a specific point when you go like, okay, now let's talk about the numbers. Yeah, I mean, I think you're getting a sense already of how I like to work. And really, it usually becomes right at the very end. And funny enough, by that stage, it usually becomes the simplest part of the conversation. As I've kind of said, you know, money, the numbers are really just the enabler. So we first try and understand what a client is truly trying to achieve, before we try and make any plans for the finances. It comes to realize and understand over the years, you know, just that, just because something is like very tax-efficient, doesn't automatically mean that it's the correct option for that specific client or their family or the circumstances that it's in. I think like we mentioned earlier, you know, you feel like sometimes you've seen it all before and you want to rush off to give an answer and we can all be a bit guilty of saying, you know,

16:52we want to show off how clever we are or maybe what planning would look like with us without focusing on the fact that, you know, that balance sheet is really there to serve the client and not the other way around. And maybe a little bit of a sneaky question in a way, because it wasn't on the list of things I wanted to talk about. But now something that dawns on me is the, you know, back in the day, like even maybe before your time, like back in my day, many years ago, got it in the 90s, you know, it was usually a one meeting, maybe two meetings. It's one meeting to see the client, two meeting to call it close the deal and move on to the next one, right? But I mean, obviously, I have a lot of conversations with a lot of different people and businesses and practices and so forth and that is no longer the case for me. They take three, four, five meetings before they get to the point where anything is maybe implemented. So my question to you is this, is that due to all the regulation, or are we being intentional to take the client on a journey? And this,

17:59I guess, there's honestly going to be different for different businesses, right? But I mean, if we just zoom out and just look at it in general, do you think, or what's your view? You know, is it something that we are intentionally said, look, we can't do the one meeting to me because I can't get to know you well enough in one or two meetings. If I don't know you from a bar of soap, to really give you the right advice, so we need to make this a longer process. Or is it because of all of the paperwork and the regulation and all of the difficulties that has come our way and the hurdles that we've got to overcome? Which is all meant to help us, by the way, it's not meant it's a bad thing. But do you think it's because we are evolving as a profession, or is it because we are forced to do so? And is there a way to still keep it as few meetings as possible? I think maybe not so much evolving, maybe maturing as a profession. I think, you know, I've obviously heard the stories from that initial environment, some of the older guys there,

19:03and it was exactly that, you know, you kind of, you went in and it was very much a sales technique, right? And there you almost coached to plant seeds in the clients. When you're having the conversation around, well, you've got a problem here and you've got a problem here. So you kind of manufacture a need and then that clients maybe think they didn't realise that they had and then you go back the next time and you sort of present yourself as the saviour and say, well, I've got this product, this can solve all the problems that you had the last time. And maybe it's more sort of a product-led process where we now, I think the planning has come more to the forefront and that's where the maturity aspect is possibly starting to shine through. We've had a journey and experience before and said, right, that was one way of doing it and it solved certain needs. But really, I think also that approach is also sort of resulted in a lot of the need for a lot of the

20:08regulation that's in place because unfortunately, you know, you're always going to get people that see the ways to possibly abuse those situations. And then also, I think people's access to information has really changed. I think historically, you were kind of like the walking catalog of all the products. There was information gap between what was available and what people were aware of and what they knew about. So the planners kind of had to fill that gap on the product facing things. Whereas now that gap is closed quite a bit and now it's really, I think, understanding that the planning is about the people and not the product. So like I'm quite excited, I think the where it's moving in terms of the professionalisation and the chosen approach in terms of how we engage with clients is something that's really great. You see it in all the conferences we attend now.

21:12I think that the bulk of the conversations really revolve around how do we use tools to get a great client experience? How do we use the sort of coaching approaches to help clients make really, really good decisions? So that's something that's really, really great to be part of. Yeah, awesome. Karat then, I mean, obviously, I'm pretty sure that most, if not all, for natural planning, understand what a good advice process look like or what a good process in general looks like, doesn't matter what process it is. I think the thing that we certainly also find difficult in our business, even I'd see it in all businesses, whether it's a countenance or whether it's doctors, even, or doesn't matter like you see it all over is speaking to the process consistently, making sure that that process, if you've designed a client journey that that journey is, that you deliver on it consistently. So are there any things that you rely on to help you deliver that experience consistently like routines, checklist processes, systems, anything

22:17like that? Yeah, I think there's some really good guiding principles that we use, but for us, I think you take a step back and say, fine, what is our north stop? What do we, what am I as the planner? And that includes everybody that works with us from a support from a support basis. What do we, what what service are we trying to be, what are what service are we trying to be there to provide for for a client? And you know, there's some some great things. So like you're you know, you're six step financial planning process is an awesome base and framework to work with them. And then I think a lot of it is to say, well, what do we do really well that we can that we can make sure that we can communicate that to a client and say like, is this going to be something of value to you? Do you need like an accountability partner when you're looking at making decisions and choices?

23:18How do we make sure that we stay on track to achieve those long-term goals? Yeah, there's some practical elements. I think, you know, finding a good CRM system that works for you and your team is really important. What that functionality needs to look like, how do you use your your AI tools, your tech tools, just to just to make sure that when you are doing the, let's say the important points of the planning, because there's the technical points, there's the, you know, contributions need to be made, et cetera, et cetera, but it's the it's really the finer details that comes from the discussions with the clients to say like, look, we spoke about this this thing being really important to you at the last meeting, you know, maybe it's something I should check up in three months to see how you progressing with that decision and how do we how do we follow up with that, be that a calendar or, you know, a calendar reminder or an email check-in or maybe a phone call. So really being in I think it's important to be intentional about those about those final points.

24:24How you do it, I don't think there's there's one right way, I think the most important thing is to find a way that works for you. Just just just the one line on so yeah, what's your aim are you using in your business? We currently use wealth box. Well, box awesome, okay, cool. Then on the, once the advice has now been been given, how do you move clients from from understanding, because as we said earlier, like that's the world we're moving into, you've got to prove that people understand what we are telling them, whether it's the disclosure, the agreement they sign, the advice they've been given, all the recommendations that they receive, all of those things they need to understand, but how do you move, you know, from there now to, you know, let's take action like now we need to do whatever it is that we recommend. Yeah, look, I think that really pulls back to how you've walked that process, that journey with

25:28them up until that point. So if we've had great, had like a good conversation where we've asked really sort of important questions, relevant questions to the client and have let them express where, you know, where they currently at, where they're trying to go, what are they struggling with, and then designing a solution from there, it should feel pretty natural to want to step into that, into that sort of recommended solution. I often find that if there's resistance to it, then the first thing I do is I can let well, let's reflect on the conversations we've had up to this point because maybe we thought this is what the problem was, but it's slightly different for yourself. We haven't properly explored this just yet. Maybe you've kind of thought that it was a big issue for you than it actually was. So it's really kind of, you know, if we get to the point where we think, okay, fine, we're ready to take action now and there's some hesitancy from a client

26:33perspective. I think we need to kind of go back to the process, go back to the conversations, you know, kind of rework through some stuff there and really kind of, you know, get to the point sometimes where I always use these like doctor patient analogies, but at some point it's kind of like we kind of need you to say, right, you kind of have to take your medicine. If you don't, you're just going to get stuck in this point and really if you don't want to, then we can't really help you until you do that. And just maybe just quickly go to the like, how do you, how do you, if you have that client that they just don't they understand everything they they've followed everything they engaged everything, but they just don't act and that revisit thing doesn't change anything. Reminding them doesn't change like nothing changes or can get them to act is there a point that you decide, okay, you know, when you really come back to us or is it a case, you know, maybe we're not the best fit or like how do you deal with something like that and how do you

27:34make sure that you cover yourself in that in that instance as well? Yeah, I think that that talks right back to where we start in terms of the engagement that they want to have. So so we offer sort of three layers of of engagement. So one is, you know, do you just need to have a consultation? So you have a specific question, you want to, you know, effectively engage for half an hour an hour of our time. You have a question, you know, you've got, you know, you're sort of coming in, you've got this arrow in your back, you know, it's there and you need help with treating it. And we can we can jump on that and we can we can do it in that in that space. So it becomes a very narrow sort of conversation or it's a case of you come in with maybe a little bit more of like a let's call it like a project. So you come to me and say, right, I really need to just look at my state planning, right? I know I've done some things, but I've got everything all over the place and I need you to help me just put it all in place and we might engage on that level and then

28:35often that will evolve into a full-blown planning engagement where it's an ongoing relationship. If you know and and and that all kind of ties back to where we look at like a service level agreement. So typically a service level agreement are found historically will be me talking at the clients saying these are all the things that we're going to commit to, but a service level agreement I think is a bit of a two-way street, you know, it comes from the original conversations to say, well these are the things we need you to commit to. This is how we're able to help you and if we get to that kind of impasse and we go back to that document and say like, well hang on, we're not being able to proceed from here. Like do you acknowledge that is it maybe something that having gone through the process now you are a bit more informed and you realise maybe it's the relationship with us is not for you and it could go both ways, you know, I think sometimes you've just got to be I say brave enough to have that conversation with the client to say like,

29:35if you're unwilling to make these decisions I can't really help you and also understand that or acknowledge the fact that not making a decision is also a decision, you know, sitting in that sort of freeze mentality and I don't believe that any more conversations, any more planning can really help you, we can help you progress. So it's either a case of, you know, you're welcome to go and sort of try and find a better fit for you for your needs or maybe you need to just go and sit with it and come back when things look a little bit different so we can see if it's the right time to reengage. But Jai, I think you've got to manage each one on a case by case basis. Yeah, absolutely. Let's move on a little bit to your use of technology and Wayne is asking in the chat what percentage of your client meetings are and interactions with clients on virtual versus in person. Look, I think finding that the vast majority have gone have gone virtual. I think it's

30:40just the nature of the maybe the clientele that we that we work with. A lot of them have only so much time. So, you know, and we as well. So it's, I think people find a lot more convenient to engage online. It also allows us to, although we can do it in person as well, and clients are a way but we'll use our transcribing tools, which is great because then I find that you can be very present in the conversation or the presentation or whatever it is that you're giving. People might not be able to completely focus or remember everything that you that you cover in an hour and hour and a half conversation. So it's a great record keeping tool as well. And then we use that to kind of make some like really pertinent like notes and meeting minutes from afterwards. So I would say the bulk of them go virtual now. Typically, I like to specifically for new clients as far as possible have at least one or two

31:43meetings in person. I feel like you can't really replace that human interaction. I still feel like people will naturally trust each other when they've met in person. I mean, how often will you engage with people online or maybe it's a service provider or somebody helps you with something and eventually say, oh, it's so nice to meet in person and put a face to a nap. So that certainly sits there, but I think once you once you're in that kind of like in the flow of the relationship then going online works works really well. Awesome. Then also with regards to technology, Gareth Weir in the business. Let me say, where do you lean heavily on technology and which parts of the business or parts of the process or so forth have you decided to deliberately not use technology? Are there any anything like that? In your business where you decide, yeah, we can use tech here, but we are deciding not to do that

32:44and just maybe if you could just let's just start there. Is there other things like that? Yeah, I think we're kind of in a really interesting situation now because when you when you build something from the start, you know, you can kind of trim away a lot of the legacy things that you may have observed in previous sort of businesses or situations, you say like, oh, that's not really all that efficient. It doesn't really work all that well here. So we lean quite heavily into the technology space and really, but what it is, it's a bad kind of outsourcing that that mundane repetitive work. I think, you know, I would never certainly not yet allow like an AR agent to sort of automatically reply to a client email or action and instruction or something, you know, we still want to have that that human to human contact and engagement with the client, but I think there's a there's a big bulk of the work that we do, which you can now

33:47sort of really heavily lean into tech to to help you with that. And what it does is it frees up you and frees up your support team to just have more and better conversations with your clients because you're not getting so bogged down, making meeting minutes afterwards or having a conversation with a client where you've got your note pad in front of you and you're having to write things down. And I know like I've been on the other side of that where people say like, look, please excuse me, I'm not not listening to you. I'm just making some notes, but it does affect the more organic flow of the conversation. So those things really kind of lean into I think adding a lot of value to the to the client relationship. And I think it just frees us up that much more to really focus in on the the relationship aspect with clients. Can you give me like just maybe two or three quick examples of things that you classify as mundane that it better different things that you outsource to to the tech side? Yeah, maybe mandates the wrong word, but with something like it's really nice to

34:52have a transcript of a client meeting, you know, we use sort of a professional Gemini in our practice. And you know, there you can build your Gem and you can actually coach it beforehand and Sarah, these are these are the things I'm looking for in meeting minutes. This is how I'd like you to summarize it so it keeps a bit of consistency. You also know what that conversation looks like then you can take the transcript feed it through there and it gives you a draft and, you know, you work through it, you sort of add or remove what you don't want in there. And all of a sudden you can produce meeting minutes in five minutes what might have taken you 45 minutes beforehand. You know, and it means you can you can get it out and focus on it while it's fresh because also sometimes you know you'll you'll exit a meeting and then there's something that pops up that's like the well that's urgent it needs to be taken care of. It's like oh okay, well that'll that'll take me a few minutes to sort out and the meeting notes will take 45 minutes. I'll do that and then by the time I get back to the meeting notes maybe the you know your brain is kind of like switched focus a little bit. So that's quite nice. And then we you know,

36:00me personally is still really exploring like what you what you can do with these things. I mean part of part of my part of my process. I mean I really enjoy writing and I contribute to many web quite a bit and I find that I use it now is like a almost like an old school dictafate. Like as I'm having an idea or thought of this thing connects to that thing while I'm driving, you know, you can actually just jump in there and talk to it, you know, and it helps you organise your thoughts and like really pull these things together where you know a lot of the time, you know, it's like you have an idea and it's like I really need to commit to remembering that. And typically you struggle to recall it later. So those are some really cool things that that I'm using it for. Probably still only scratching the very surface of it though. Yeah, no, I think we're all just scratching the surface. It doesn't matter how much we learn and do. And just as made for those who are wondering about like why Gemini, it's I know that you guys will use Google workspace obviously as your environment. So as

37:01we other people would be using Microsoft, you more into the Google space. So it makes sense to have an AI that operates in that environment with your data that's already in that environment, right? Correct. Gareth, maybe one quick thing to end us off. I mean, once again, congratulations for being one of the final three again. Is there is there one thing like or can you share one thing that you change in your business as a result of going through the process that you thought like, oh, this is something that we can really up outgrain a little bit or great better outcomes for our clients. Is there anything that's stood out for you that goes to make that change in your in your business? Yeah, it's tricky to identify one specific thing. I think the whole process really challenges your personal thinking and approach to all the sort of really key aspects to professional planning,

38:03right? From the technical assessment to how do you approach your practice in your business, to you as an individual and a person and a professional. So really, I think it's going through that process and stress testing what you think and assume is good planning against a very, very high standard that's being set externally and kind of like stress testing it. And again, I don't know if there's one explicit thing. I think it's very focused on those like little micro improvements and adjustments which add up to quite a lot. So yeah, on the spot, I don't know if there's one specific thing. I think it's really, well, it maybe lands up being like a confirmation that like, well, possibly you're not as far away from it as what you thought you were, but which is great. It's a nice little bit of sort of feedback and reinforcement, but it also gives you the opportunity to kind of reflect and make those micro improvements

39:08through art, you know, through art the whole process. I think a big takeaway for me from that is as well that you need to. If you don't put yourself out there, you don't really have anything to compare your business and yourself to, right? And we know we say comparison is the thief of joy. We know that. But I mean, ultimately, it is also just about like this is about building a great business, a business that can have a bigger impact and having more fun in your business and enjoy of what it is that you do. And unless you get amongst other people or through a process like this, that's got very high standards, etc. You have nothing to really measure because there's no real data available out in the open market. You know, how do you compare yourself? And it's very hard to compare yourself to an American business or a UK business or a, you know, we love listening to the international, you know, sort of podcasts and things like that. But ultimately, a lot of those things don't apply here and they won't work here. And our clients are different and those kinds of things as well to a large

40:12degree. But also, there are obviously a lot of similarities. So there's a lot that we can take away from that. But it's always like, okay, how do we make a practical here for us on our ground? So, Karat, massive thank you for your time this morning. Thank you for everything that you've shared. And also, based off luck, I'll definitely see you at that evening. So good luck. And thank you. Yeah, wishing you all the best. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Francois. Thanks for joining us this morning. Yeah, and if you want to follow Karat, I know you're not as busy as Rudolph online, but I know like your stuff is there. So if anybody wants to connect with you, they obviously can on LinkedIn. But yeah, so just that as well. And thanks very much. Have a good weekend. Cheers. I'm very happy that my voice held up today. Thank you very much, Karat, once again. Thanks, everyone. I join us today. My guest next week is the one and only you see our most weeks. Lelani beside and out, but this time she's going to be in the hot seat and I'm going to be

41:17putting her through her paces next week. So looking forward to that. But until then, obviously, I have a fantastic weekend. Stay safe, be blessed and prosper. And continue to raise the ball and just take curious. I think that's the secret in the world where we're in today. Stay curious and be mindful probably as well. So my advice to Edna is getting very wrong. Anyway, bye bye. Thanks for joining us on propulsion. If you found value in today's episode, then there's plenty more with us. Come from, you can find all our previous episodes right here on the podcast as well as on our YouTube channel. And talking about the YouTube channel, we go live every single Friday at 8am until 9am and we host many different guests. And we also talk about interesting topics. And on the live show, there's also some incredible segments hosted by some of the most well-known and influential financial planning professionals. So you are most welcome to join us every single Friday. Put it in your diary and we will see you there. And on that

42:20note, also please do check out propulsion.co.z for the community for all of the goodness and learn more about how you can become part of our amazing community and how that would benefit you, your business and your career. So on that note, stay curious and keep raising the ball.