Advisers must view change as the norm if they want to survive, according to Complete Financial Balance GM Brendan Cox.

“You experience, learn and then act,” he told an Association of Financial Advisers roadshow in Melbourne last week.

“But after three or four times, you understand why you are changing.”

Mr Cox, who spent 25 years in the army, says a financial planning practice is like a force supporting troops on the ground.

“As an adviser meeting a client, you are representing a machine that is there to service the client,” he said. “Despite change, you have to stay true to that vision. Our clients are a unifying purpose for the adviser and the support team.”

Mr Cox says this is why clients seek advisers’ expertise.

“That is why everybody is still inter-related in the business, so we have to create an organisation that is going to engage everybody with the client.”

Mr Cox says at his practice it is important to reaffirm the team’s values: “we care”.

“Talk about what the business does and the people who are in it. Create the ability to respond to whatever comes up and take those people along the journey with you.”

He says principals must create an environment in which advisers respond to whatever clients throw at them.

“You have got to get your people along for the journey. This can include dealing with a client’s question at 5pm when you are due to go home.”

Mr Cox gives everybody at his practice an extra responsibility, to encourage them to be leaders.

Complete Financial Balance specialises in financial advice to the medical profession. Mr Cox says to win a client’s trust, advisers must know about their profession.

“We focus on delivering value over a long period of time and we talk their language. It is not about transactions.”

He says educating clients about what is happening below the line is key, to help them gain trust and confidence in an adviser.

“There are periods of time when the client is not engaged, so we are reassuring them all the time that things are happening.

“A computer cannot do that. They don’t deliver client-centric strategies.”