Hello, and welcome to yet another episode of Risk Advisors Podcast Series. I'm Scott Hodder, and today, once again, I'm joined by Sasha Lipkowski of Orion Financial Group, coming back to talk to us a little bit more specifically about her business following a great discussion last time about things throughout the industry. Sasha, welcome back. Round two.
Thank you for having me back. That's all right. This is the first time we've actually had someone come back for a second ago. I mean, technically, this is only our fourth ever episode, which is great.
They've been received very well, but now I'm going to get straight back into it. Last time we left off with you talking about your top three tips for this year, what you can be doing and what other advisors can be doing. And now you sort of dodged the last two couple of tips and only really gave us one, but that's great, because that's exactly what I wanted to say. It was a strategy.
It was strategic. My strategy of putting you on the spot, I guess, that's going to happen. But look, it actually sets us up perfectly, because this is one thing I really wanted to talk about, and it comes all down to client engagement, which you said is going to be the biggest thing for you and for other advisors this year. So I guess in the same things, what will you guys be doing this year, or in the future, rather, around client engagement?
Look, it's actually a multifaceted approach as to how we are going to engage our clients. There's the marketing channel, if you will, which then is broken up into social media engagement, newsletters, blogs, YouTube, vlogs. I really don't like that word, but the video content. So there's the whole social media engagement.
Then there's within our business channel, and how we actually engage clients on the onboarding process and the ongoing process. I mentioned that, I believe, in the last podcast. Once a client becomes a client, what then? They just get their one newsletter a month and one review a year, and that review is probably just going to be an email, if at all.
I know a lot of advice firms have to really focus on their review process. So onboarding and then ongoing engagement. Then review engagement, and then how we keep clients on top of their overall portfolio, because I'm not sure how much we touched on last time. I think we did, but we've evolved our business from risk-only to holistic.
So how do we engage clients across multiple channels? That's going to be a new challenge for us, and something we're setting ourselves up for. So client engagement is not just social media. It's not just one thing.
It's a whole strategy, and that's why I do believe mapping it out, putting dates on the calendar, and really sticking to it consistently is key here. You mentioned again, and we spoke about this last time, that Lufin Tailored Insurance Solutions had become, or merged with an accounting practice to become Orion Financial Group, which is an interesting one. We're slowly starting to see this pop up in the industry, where risk guys and girls across the industry are looking to broaden the services that they can offer. By becoming or creating the new business, how much of an opportunity has that given you to review the whole client engagement process?
Has it given you an opportunity to look at this from a blank canvas and say, this is what we did last time, this is what we can do now, let's see what works? Oh, 100%. It really is looking at it with a fresh pair of eyes. And of course, bringing other services on, including the people who staff those services, the advisors in those space, that's also fresh pairs of eyes.
It is a brilliant opportunity, and that's one thing that is taking a lot of our time in the early stages, is getting a process to begin with, and then constant tweaking. If you put it in place once, it's probably not going to be perfect, even if you do a lot of testing beforehand. So one thing that we've found with our risk processes is that every 6 to 12 months, they need changing. So that in itself is a whole other job.
So yeah, great opportunity, a lot of work, but it is for the client's benefit at the end of the day, because we want our clients to have the best experience and be educated as part of being our clients. That's really important. When you look at it now, how much of what you were doing previously when you were working with your dad, your dad's still working with you now, he's also a director of this company, awesome. So how much of what you were doing beforehand has gone out the window, if any?
Look, on the risk side, I wouldn't say too much. I'd say the risk side has simply evolved, and a key process for us in that has been our review process. Previously, under our risk-only business, Lufin, there was no opportunity to provide our services for clients or even let them know. We didn't have informal or formal relationships with local businesses in our area.
We were solely risk. So now our review process has changed to let clients know that we can help you in these areas and how to engage with us and identifying opportunities from clients' files to say, targeted-wise, you're a perfect candidate for a transition to retirement strategy. Let's investigate. This is what it is.
Let's investigate. So I would say that our review process as a specific standalone item here has become more robust as a result, and all, again, to benefit and educate the client. Fantastic. Client engagement, obviously a great one, but first of all, we actually need to have clients.
In the last podcast, you mentioned that you guys did have quite a substantial client base or client book, rather. When it comes to bringing on new clients now, I know it's still very early days. The business is still being tweaked and whatnot, but is there any changes in the way that you guys get clients, or is that pretty much the same? It actually has been an interesting challenge, and it's been interesting to identify how we believe clients are going to engage with us.
So if we were to start a business from scratch, not having sold a portion, la, la, la, you would go out and find clients, right? Or clients would look you up online and want to talk to you. We see our situation as we have X number of clients who don't know that we offer these services, so we're going to them to let them know. So it's a little bit of a different angle to approach it from.
How much of the way you acquire clients has changed? I know that a lot of the time, when you come into a new business that you've got not only your client base, but the other business's client base as well, was there a lot of clients in that side of the business that didn't have risk insurance? Yeah, correct. It's actually one of our biggest opportunities now, is having the accountants buy into our business.
What's been fantastic about that is the trust that already came with that. I count my lucky stars every day that I actually work one day a week out of our accountant's office, and we're talking every day, every week that I work, they're handing me clients and we're talking through how they can be approached and that sort of thing. I'd say we're lucky in the sense that we're not having to do too many hard yards to get new acquisitions at the moment, but at the same time, I wouldn't say that new acquisitions are a huge focus for us, because the opportunity within our own book of clients is quite good. I think it's a reasonably good position to be in, but it doesn't change the level of work required, of course.
Those are always great opportunities, and the fact that sometimes you have a cyber left, going, good, I don't have to go crazy trying to find people to come into the business. Exhaust that number of clients that you're kind of stuck back at, going, all right, now we need to go back to the drawing board and start looking at how to bring clients back into the business. Oh, absolutely, yeah. Look, I guess that's a 12 to 18-month goal for us.
In the initial stages, there's so much we can do for clients, even in the first two years, but in this time, it's also key for us to continue building relationships with our existing referral partners, new referral partners, and one thing that we love is that location is not a boundary for us. We have offices in Brisbane, Chatswood, Parramatta, so we've got opportunities all up and down the East Coast at the moment, and expansion into other territories is not a particular concern for us either, so I'm definitely looking forward with a 12 to 24-month goal on building new relationships, but the focus right now is internal. When broaching these guys, or these clients, rather, and trying to say, hey, look, we can now offer you insurances that you didn't want to have before, do they actually say, hang on a second, how do I pay for this sort of thing? Is it, like, having to walk them through the whole process of going, well, actually, we get commission on this, what's their reaction to that discussion?
I can't say I've had that sort of reaction so far, and I think one of the reasons why is that because we focus on the relationship management of the situation rather than anything else. So clients coming through the accounting channel, you know, accountants traditionally are not, quote, unquote, salespeople, terrible words, shouldn't you that I know, but they generally don't have that sort of aspect to their relationship with their clients. So what's important for us is having a meeting with the accountant, with the client, and with us, where the accountant generally identifies and says, look, you know, I don't see income protection, tax deduction on your tax return. You're a self-employed person.
You know, we'd like to, you know, say we're born into this business that can now help us with this, and we really think that, you know, you need this. That implied consent from the trust that the client has with the existing relationship is quite powerful. Honestly, if it's about the price up front, I know this might sound a little bit arrogant, but one, I'm not really interested in dealing with that client, and two, if they're focusing on price, then the messaging was wrong from the start, and that's feedback for us. It has been my experience so far.
Absolutely. And this is one thing that I wanted to, actually, I forgot to ask you in the previous podcast. When it came to merging with this accountancy group, who approached who? Did you approach them?
Did they approach you? How did that work? It was a little bit of a mutual approach, really. It was my father who was in charge of that decision, and he'd known this group of accountants for some time, and just both of them really saw the opportunity.
They'd been trying to work something out for some time, but they just saw that opportunity, you know, we sold a portion of the business to them, and it just happened quite quickly, as things usually do, it seems. That's great. One thing that I was going to ask off the back of that is that there are a lot of guys out there with their business going on, what do I do in terms of looking to partner with someone or looking to sell their business as a whole? And I guess, what sort of suggestions or strategies would you give to these guys who are looking to do something similar to what you've done?
Look, in terms of partnering with other service providers, traditionally, our profession looks to accountants. It's no secret that it takes some time to build up trust with accountants, and I dare say that, you know, I said it happened quite quickly, and we think that it's always an overnight scenario, but, you know, Igor, my father, had known that group of accountants for many years, five, six, seven years plus, before we finally decided to, you know, quote, unquote, get into bed together. So, look, it's not, it's, I'd be realistic and say it's not an overnight thing, but find, just like clients in a way, find other professionals that you like to deal with, and, you know, don't necessarily chase it for the money, chase it for what it does for your clients and what it brings to you personally as well. You've mentioned a couple of times where you sort of see the business going in the next 12, 18 months.
I know it's always hard to crystal all these things, and I know a lot of people like to say, oh, you know, I've got these goals, I've got these strategies in place, but say like in five years time, or a five-year time frame, where do you sort of see or hope that the business will be ending up, both for the loose inside of the business that's still around and for Orion Financial Group? Added to that five-year goal is the other sort of transition to retirement that my father might be experiencing. He is starting to transition out of the business, so that is one thing that we have to plan for. In terms of the larger Orion model, we want to ensure that we have an education focus for our clients and a really strong engagement strategy with our clients, and that our clients want to deal with us.
But in terms of the nuts and bolts of the operation, Igor and I have sort of had the vision of growing to a large enterprise, you know, 25 to 50 employees up and down the East Coast offices. We use a lot of technology in our business, so we're not concerned by people who may believe that financial advice can only be provided face-to-face, so we've always done things remotely and with technology. So, yeah, that's pretty much the goal, is a larger process-driven but client-focused and education-focused firm. Sasha, again, thank you for coming in and joining us.
It's been absolutely great, especially, you know, understanding the things that you're doing around client acquisition and engagement. I think that's something that everyone listening today and later down the track can take away from, but I'm now going to put you on the spot again. You're going to do it, aren't you? I'm going to do it.
I'm going to do it. But because you gave us one top tip, one top tip last time, you're only going to give me two. So, Sasha, as you said before me now, what would be your other two top tips for not only yourself but for other advisors this year and going into the future? I knew you were going to do this, so I have been thinking about it.
You can't say I put you on the spot. I knew I wasn't going to get away with this. Look, I do really think that the review process is an incredible opportunity, and I've spoken with many advisors who don't take advantage of it. They might just send a letter, or they might not even do anything, and it is such a brilliant opportunity.
So, if you can build a really robust procedure around that, I think that it benefits you, it benefits the clients, and it makes us stronger relationships. I know that we hear a lot about it in our profession, and as a blanket term, technology is very vague. We're just trying to introduce some sort of easier way for clients to communicate with you and engage with you, whether that is via ramping up a Facebook page. When a client types your company name into Google, the reality is if you don't have a Facebook presence or if you don't have a simple engaging website, that actually says a lot about your business.
And as the generations change, we're dealing with younger and younger clients who do engage that way. We need to get on top of what we can do to make clients' lives easier. So, that's one, and that's two, and that's everything. You just need your hands there, just going, yes, I did it this time.
Sasha, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you again for coming in. Definitely keen to speak to you maybe a little later down the track again. Everyone, thank you for listening to yet another episode of Risk Advisors Podcast Series.
Be sure to listen in again next time as we continue to discuss the things that happen in your industry and affect your business.