Veteran practitioner Andrew Heaven has long been an advocate for building a viable financial advice industry. And now, thanks to the Macquarie VAN Build for the Future program, his team is ready to seize new opportunities to grow more sustainably.
With over 30 years’ experience as a financial adviser, Andrew Heaven has navigated the ups and downs of many market cycles. He admits recent years have been particularly challenging for the industry. However, this has also given him a chance to reflect on the future – and find new ways to evolve in a changing advice landscape.
“The lockdown periods gave us a bit of breathing space to think more broadly around the future of our business, and how we can position ourselves to make the most of opportunities in the industry. And that’s how we got involved in the VAN program.”
Andrew was one of the 21 participants in Macquarie Bank’s inaugural Virtual Advice Network (VAN) Build for the Future program in 2021-22. Over an intensive 18-month period, he undertook a series of webinars, conferences, workshops and benchmarking exercises within a small cohort of like-minded principals.
“At the time, we were looking at different ways to grow WealthPartners – by continuing to improve our client experience, reducing our cost to serve and developing our team as leaders in the industry. And I could see the value of the VAN program, in connecting with people facing similar issues and sharing our experiences,” says Andrew.
An outside perspective
Andrew knows being a financial planner also means being an entrepreneur who runs their own business.
“That’s why it’s critical to have an opportunity to work with your peers. People who are experiencing the same issues around the future of the industry, and how they’ll grow their business.”
He also believes it’s important to get a perspective from outside your usual network and challenge your views on how business should be conducted.
“For me personally, I needed to reconnect with my community,” he adds, saying how exciting it was to be around people who were invigorated and looking to the future.
“In many ways, the VAN program reignited my passion for the industry, and validated that others feel the same as me. And that together, we can build a viable future for the industry,” says Andrew.
As Andrew’s Sydney-based VAN group begins implementing changes in their own businesses, they continue to check in with each other and share experiences. Andrew has also introduced WealthPartners’ leadership team to the community, extending the opportunity to talk about specific issues.
Delivering a consistent client experience, at scale
WealthPartners’ philosophy has always been about putting the client’s needs first – and while that may seem obvious now, it was a relatively new concept when Andrew launched his practice in 2000.
“We were always very clear about who we served, and about helping them achieve their goals and objectives. As a result, referrals helped us grow quickly.”
He describes his client base today as a ‘broad church’.
“Our ideal client has complex needs and values advice, so we’re strong in pre- and post-retiree markets. But we’d also like to build our presence with a younger market – people with children and a mortgage need advice more than ever right now.”
With 22 staff – 10 onshore and 12 offshore – and a goal to double its revenue in the next three to five years, WealthPartners is ready to rethink how it can cost-effectively scale this model.
“Our investment philosophy uses sector-specific specialist managers, because we believe in the value of active management. But its time-consuming to run those portfolios individually. We’d experimented with managed discretionary accounts (MDAs), but it ended up being even more bespoke.”
However, after sharing these concerns with his peers during the VAN program, Andrew realised moving to separately managed accounts (SMAs) could be the answer. He also realised his CRM system offered untapped potential for growth. “It’s an exceptionally scalable system, and if we doubled in size we would get even more from its capacity.”
Turning strategy into action
Working through the VAN program helped Andrew confirm the strategic focus his team had already articulated: to harness the benefits of scale and sustainable growth.
“VAN effectively gave us a blueprint for success,” he explains. “By asking direct questions about our business it forced us to put those challenges in writing, and then work with our peers to sanity-check our solutions.”
He describes this as a process of validation and prioritisation – helping him feel confident he was on the right track, and that his concerns did need to be addressed.
“Often a business gets blindsided if they focus on one thing, and aren’t aware of greater risks – things which are obvious to others.”
He also valued his cohort’s insights into what to consider on that strategic journey, and the resources they might need.
“I’d say that has saved us a fortune in time, with evidence-based outcomes showing us what to look out for,” he says. “We’ve brought forward things that are quite critical – we can’t push them back as an unspecified five-year goal for the business.”
These critical areas include developing a stronger culture of ownership in the business – something that is vital to Andrew’s growth and succession plans. He is currently looking for more businesses to acquire, which he sees as a catalyst for further equity participation in WealthPartners.
“I want to be able to focus on nurturing and developing future leaders in this industry. We need to have good people in our businesses who share our values around advice, and we need to reward them. Because they’re the future.”
He describes his VAN Build for the Future experience as a genuine investment.
“The value is in what you contribute and commit to it,” he says.
“Your return on investment is largely linked to the time, effort and energy you put into the program. There’s no shortage of work in our industry – the challenge is finding a way to make it work for your business and your goals. That means taking time to self-reflect, and for me that was the most tangible benefit of the VAN program.”
To learn more about the VAN Build for the Future program, visit macquarie.com.au/advisers/van.
This article has been prepared by the Macquarie Virtual Adviser Network (VAN) which is provided by Macquarie Bank Limited ABN 46 008 583 542 AFSL 237502 (MBL). The provision of VAN, including the contents of this article, do not amount to a financial product or financial service nor does it involve the provision of general or personal financial product advice. The views and opinions expressed by the relevant client in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of MBL.
