What do in inbound marketing and Barack Obama have in common?

Here in Boston, this man (Marc Maron) is talking about interviewing President Barack Obama. In his garage. That's Marc's, garage, not the President's.

For Australians, Marc is a comedian, performer and hugely successful U.S. podcaster. And the White House called him, not the other way around, to do this podcast with the President.

Before we go too far I should explain I'm at Inbound15 soaking up all the free marketing intelligence I can from some of the world's best marketers, thanks to the good folk at Hubspot.

What can I share with you?

First, it's overwhelming. I have chronic first-timer's syndrome: brain is full, not sure what to do with it all but know I have gold in my swag.

Secondly, it's both personal and professional. Seeing Brene Brown live, listening to Marc talk about Barack Obama might well be once in lifetime experiences.

Third, this is real. The marketing revolution is well underway. And it's now completely accessible to any individual, small or medium sized business or large corporate.

How do I know?

Because we are IN it: we and our clients, and all 10,000+ people here today, are already doing much of what we've heard.

Why?

It works. It generates attention, traffic, leads, influence. It drives revenue and business growth.

And that is a thing of wonder. Not that long ago we and our clients were all sitting around, scratching our heads, experiencing patchy success but not yet seeing the full benefits of our efforts.

And partly that's because we've done a lot of "yak shaving", as Seth Godin calls it. A lot of blogging, social media, content, public relations and speaking that led absolutely nowhere commercially. That's just BlueChip's marketing over the last six years, but it's fair to say a lot of our clients' efforts have also been less than clearly commercially successful.

It's the old story: I'm wasting half of my marketing, I just don't know which half.

David Meerman Scott opened the conference, and introduced Seth Godin. These two men alone, both marketing prophets, foretold where we'd be now. Many of us read their predictions over the last ten years and hedged our bets - trying to move into social, integrated, content-led marketing but held back by stodgy corporate culture, lack of the right tools and strategy and the biggest barrier - fear.

Or we took their advice and simply didn't get enough of a return on our efforts. Measurement and attribution were hard or impossible, many of us were just addicted to activity (traditional marketing) not outcomes, or we simply didn't know where and how to start.

The good news, and the overall message from INBOUND15, is that the blueprint for marketing success is now well developed, available to anyone with a laptop, and can reliably deliver commercial outcomes.

AMEN.

In this new world The President of the United States, Marc Maron, Brene Brown, BlueChip and all financial services brands are now content producers and inbound marketers.

Superannuation: governance and competition failing us?

"We worked very hard in the FSI to not base our decisions on personal experience. But let me tell you one..."

So started a dyspeptic and damning summary of the super system as seen through the eyes of Financial Systems Inquiry Chairman, former CBA CEO, inaugural Chairman of the Future Fund Board of Guardians and now Credit Suisse consultant, David Murray.

Murray proceeded to tell delegates at the FSC Annual Conference this afternoon about his daughter's experience on entering the super system as a casual employees.

In a nutshell it was this: she joined the fund without knowing about it, she was paying insurance premiums she was unaware of it. And she found herself, ultimately, "booted out" of the fund because her savings had been eroded to zero by insurance premiums.

Stepping back from the personal to the macro view, Murray was clear that, in examing the super system, the FSI "found no evidence of a competitive system". Fighting words.

Competition

How would we know a competitive system if we'd found it, asked Murray, rhetorically?

We'd see choice, freedom of entry and exit and a lack of information symmetry.

In a damning assessment of super, Murray suggested our super system is far more admired offshore than it deserves.

Governance

Governance, and remedies for not meeting governance standards, should be lifted. His general tenor was that super is not competitive, and we need to lift our game.

Murray, of course was also the inaugural Chairman of the Future Fund Board of Guardians. And guard they do, based on Murray's quick relating of the level of governance and the penalties Guardians may face if they don't come up to scratch.

Board members at the Future Fund must make a declaration of interests, including all financial affiliations dating back some three years from the date of the declaration. If you fail to make a declaration that every other Board member has seen, and witnessed, and you're found be in breach, you're open to criminal, not civil proceedings.

It's a high risk game - as it should be when you're responsible for decisions involving other people's money.

"You have to ask, who stands to benefit from opposing independent directors on super fund boards?"

Why is Murray so vehement? Murray's personal view is that the arguments around governance have devolved into what he calls "very silly suggestions".

If the super system is to be of any value to us, says Murray, we need a transparent evolution.

Conflict of interest

Judith Fox of the Governance Institute cited a lack of perception of conflict as key - not jus the reality of a lack of conflict of interest

A Board skills matrix, assessing current and future requirements can enable super Boards to set out proactively to find the skills needed to best serve members best interests. In contrast, perhaps, to a limited pool of candidates who happen to have some alignment to a related union or employer.

Further she said, it makes sense than super find boards should reflect the standards expected of their investee companies.

What of the member?

Independence doesn't equal governance, says Fox. So what about the rights of members? Currently, with no significantly say in the governance of their funds, are they left out of the governance conversation? Not okay, says Fox.

She's right of course. But surely the question then becomes how on earth to get them to understand the issues and have a well-informed and effective voice?

Say "HI" to your new financial planner? #roboadvisor

The afternoon advice concurrent session at Day 2 of the FSC Annual Conference canvassed trust, digital delivery and the ability to scale advice.

Will so-called "robo advice" replace human financial planners?

Not a chance.

One panellist's research shows that when someone wants to start a planing relationship eight out of 10 want to eyeball the planner first.

Why? To establish trust, see the office and surroundings, the pictures on the wall and the quality of the individual.

But let's be really clear: after that they're really happy NOT to see their planner.

After a face-to-face meeting five out of 10 people are then more than happy to be served in alternative ways - online, digital and phone based channels.

Back to "robo advice", what is it anyway? Anything from investment advice and personal portfolio creation to software that helps make overall financial planning decisions.

Does using Google qualify? More people over 40 are using Google searches to access planning advice than are using financial planners.

Or, as the lawyer on the panel asked, is that "ro-oh-no" advice?

Importantly, robo advice in any form probably can't be done properly under the existing legislative regime. It can be done, but it won't be a quick fix.

The question and answer section in these sessions is always where it gets really interesting.

Q: Is robo advice conflict free?
Not necessarily. If a human can be conflicted so too can be the person who writes the algorithm

Q: Isn't people's trust in planners misplaced - history tells us people make poor decisions about whether they can trust someone - so isn't robo advice a much better option?

Simply put we still live in a world where financial services are sold, not bought. Can a program sufficiently encompass all the exchanges in a financial planning interaction?

Q: What kinds of robo advice work offshore?
Portfolio management, for one, which works well to rebalance and more. But it's important to note that this is off the back of an industry that did this well already. In the UK there's a provider than uses social media to track likes of various brands and stocks - and recommend investment portfolios accordingly. Dangerous, maybe, but it does access the trend to trust others' recommendations via social media. The wisdom of crowds - perhaps. Or think of this: technology that allows you to walk through a supermarket, scan a brand barcode and invest on the spot.

In summary, when only three in a hundred people (according to a Harvard study cited) left to their own devices will actually act on a plan, it seems human planners are pretty safe for now. Behaviour finance and decades of experience shows most of us won't act in our own self-interest without a human holding our feet to the fire.

Apple are an investing case study - they launched online stores but because significantly more successful actually selling stuff once they launched a physical store.

Why? Humans trust humans.

Long may it remain. I'm not sure I want to live in a world where a machine can read my emotions, access my deepest hopes and fears and then tell me how to organise my finances as a result.

Quality financial advice? Let the numbers speak for themselves

Will raising education standards really improve the quality of advice in this country?

Yes, no, maybe?

Probably. But let the numbers speak for themselves - read on for why, and how.

Other measures to support professionalism are needed also.

BT's GM Advice Mark Spiers, AMP Director of Channel Services Michael Paff and Infocus MD Rod Bristow landed on a number of other measures that are just as important. One of those other measures includes pre-employment checks across organisations.

In the first concurrent session of Day 2 at the Financial Services Annual Conference some of Australia's most influential executives listened to panellists and debated their contribution.

The topic was "to what degree will raising education standards ensure quality advice and how else can the advice industry drive the journey t professionalism?"

The audience included the heads of some of the country's largest and most professional dealer groups. At least two key advice CEOs were not afraid to put some clear views to the panel.

Q: If the community don't trust the planning profession - but do trust their adviser - what more can we do improve the public standing of the profession - including removing the wrong people? Given raising education standards may take a generation to improve (industry-wide) what else should or could we do now?

Improve the quality of recruits, make standards clearer for the existing advisers in transition - over perhaps three to five years. By 2022 BT modelling suggests the existing force will be up to scratch: all with: tertiary education; biannual certification; meeting financial ethical literacy and meeting annual CPD point requirements - as well as operating in an environment in which their advice is quality checked on an ongoing basis.

Some may be good right now at outing "bad apples" but we all need to be better at it, was the bottom line from panellists.

Q: If professionalism isn't possible without a qualification what of the self-regulatory professional bodies needed to deliver and enforce high standards? Ultimately who is responsible?

An independent, apolitical industry self-regulator body with a disciplinary arm - perhaps along FINRA (US) lines.

Q: Are trails being paid on hybrids? 
No clear answer from the panel but if so, technology at the front line should deliver monitoring that stamps out a practice that's just not okay.

Q: How much self-regulation control should we give up in order to get to better standards?
In part it depends on the outcome of the PJC process. Perhaps a coalition of the willing, providing funding and an independent board could reprint consumers and stkaehodlers in order to get this right - perhaps in as little as a year.

Q: To what extent can the reputation of the advice profession improve without real change - which may take a long time?
Broaden the footprint of advice from the 20% who currently seek, and use, advice to the rest of the community. Get the positive messages out: about what advisers, advice and the organisations behind them contribute to the community, overall social good and the very real and positive impact on people's lives. BT Adviser View, with some 750 advisers and 2,000 pieces of client feedback, allows anyone seeking advice to judge for themselves.

The ultimate answer really comes down to numbers. Whether internally measured Net Promoter Scores, external independent ratings such as Adviser Ratings or the 4.89/5 average adviser quality rating on BT Adviser View, perhaps we can just let consumers be the final judge.

TripAdviser for financial planning consumers?

Yes. In any number of formats, whether by the institutions themselves or (ideally) outsiders like Adviser Ratings.

Perhaps we can just let those who matter most be the judge.

Retirement incomes: are we lazy because we're already good?

Attending the Financial Services Council Annual Conference for the next two days, it strikes me we're way undercooked on the retirement income discussion nationally. 

It was pretty predictable we'd end up here, soon. 

"Here", of course, is with people taking more money out of super than is going in. AKA decumulation. But relative to the size and importance of the issue have we really done it justice, with enough lead time, as an industry?

Vanguard's Rodney Comegys, when pushed on the panel, said "Yes" perhaps Australia it's exactly because Australia is good at retirement income saving as a nation, that we're not particularly engaged as individuals. Either as potential retirees or industry participants thinking about the future. 

Somewhat surprisingly, in answer to "should we move to 15%?" Dr. Michael Keating says no.

In fact 12% could even be too much cites Keating. As one of the founders of the super system he's worth listening to. Accumulation is working well, he says. It's the decumulation piece that's now the priority. Perhaps not surprising given we've only just reached a tipping point.

Are we, as nation, able to innovate retirement income product well enough yet? Always room to improve was the diplomatic answer from Vanguard. A 'layer' of different options is needed. Once upon a time you retired with a single fund. You chose the asset mix based on your own views about investing or that advised by an advisor. Now it's not that simple, so alternatives that provide for a range of contingencies might be smarter - funds of different types, combined, perhaps, with deferred annuities, longevity insurance, mandatory payout funds - and of course a well defined spending policy that doesn't have to radically adjust to differing investment returns but where there is some flexibility to dial up and oddness based on changing circumstances. 

Oh and one more thing? Good advice. Very possibly from a super fund.

When should planning for all this start? Our 30s and 40s. 

A side note: while I agree, I'm also probably about 1% of the population. Where that leaves everyone else, particularly the less well off, is frightening.

How much is enough? About 70-80% of your pre-retirement income. But plan for the very good and very bad events that might alter that number.

Finally, what about a death tax on unconsumed super? Fighting my extreme ire I managed to write it down. But seriously - do we really need another way to encourage people NOT to save?

How many businesses could you start this week?

This week, as we celebrate and encourage women entrepreneurs in honour of Women's Entrepreneurship Day last November 19, I have to stop and remind myself what it was like to have very little.

In 1988 I left home aged 17 with about $35.

I quickly learned if I didn’t manage my money I couldn’t eat, get transport or buy the textbooks I needed that would ultimately help me work my way out of my week-to-week existence.

Fast forward 25 years and I can reflect on how fortunate I was to have access to loans.

Access to a small amount of money can go a long way to changing the future of a woman’s life. For the women Opportunity International Australia assists it can be a matter of life or death for them and their families. A loan of $100 can help them create a more secure future for their children.

As a 17-year-old, I still had options. And in hindsight I was pretty fortunate – I was able to get paid well enough in my part-time jobs, access temporary student loans to make ends meet when it got ugly, and graduate earning enough (in time) to repay my uni fees. Which I did, promptly.

Where would I have been without those student loans? Arguably not where I am now – in a position to give back to younger women, or to causes such as microfinance.

A passionate believer in the idea of helping women work their way out of poverty.

People who struggle financially are more likely to be women. The United Nations Development Program evidence is compelling:

“Many of the world's poorest people are women who must, as the primary family caretakers and producers of food, shoulder the burden of tilling land, grinding grain, carrying water and cooking... Yet some 75 percent of the world's women cannot get bank loans because they have unpaid or insecure jobs and are not entitled to property ownership… When women have equal access to education, and go on to participate fully in business and economic decision-making, they are a key driving force against poverty.”

These comments are backed up by Opportunity’s track record. It shows women who are given microfinance loans go on to repay those loans then re-invest their earnings in ways that help break the inter-generational poverty cycle – educating their children, accessing healthcare and creating jobs for women and men.

BlueChip Communication, the business I own, donates about 2.5% of our billable time (and potential revenue) to help Opportunity International Australia.

We do this because, as a mostly-female business, and as business people in the finance sector, we can see what a game-changer just little amounts of money – hundreds of dollars – can be. Living and working in Sydney, it’s easy to forget what the rest of the world looks like. Our reality is so very different to that of Opportunity’s clients.

Australia’s top 1 per cent of earners take home around an average of just under $400,000 a year. For argument’s sake, let’s assume this average is representative and that ALL of the 180,000 top 1% in Australia earn $400,000 per annum. Let’s also assume everyone earning that much money in our country donated just 1% of their income. (For simplicity, we will say they don’t right now). The resulting pool of funds would be $720 million.

The income alone (if it was invested in fixed income say at 5.5%) would be $39.6 million a year. That’s a lot of small loans – around 396,000 of $100 loans a year!

In four years, Australia’s top 1% of income earners could help more than a million women borrow, work and earn their way out of poverty.

As a business owner, mother and Opportunity supporter it makes good commercial sense to me. This Women's Entrepreneurship Day, what could your 1% of time or money achieve?

Help a woman like Seema start a business today.

This post was first published on the Opportunity International Australia website.

Leadership communication: three things about all great conference presentations

Attending the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) 2014 with 1899 other delegates from the financial services industry, I was struck by a few realisations yesterday. 


Realisation 1: How unusual it is to have an all-female keynote or plenary line-up on Day One

Realisation 2: Truly great keynote speeches all have the same ingredients

Realisation 3: The more information we are faced with, the more meaningless it becomes

These things may not sound like blinding insights, but they do point to some important lessons for wanna-be conference speakers, or those of us who speak regularly but sometimes fall into the trap of telling people what we know, instead of something the audience might actually find both useful and entertaining.

And make no mistake, whether you're an actuary, asset management PhD or Australian of the Year, you need to be both useful AND entertaining. That's the bit in points two and three about using narrative techniques that work well for you and your audience - regardless of the topic.  

If you disagree, think for one minute about a well-known Superannuation Board member and former Central Banker who is like a human sleeping pill. Incredibly capable, a national treasure, well respected and yet induces narcolepsy in even the most well-caffeinated of audiences.

Due credit to ASFA for putting together a diverse Day One speaker line-up, all of whom met the "useful and entertaining" test. Due credit also for having a Day One line-up where Rosemary Vilgan and Ita Buttrose were the Day One opening Plenary speakers. Both are exceptional leaders, with an informed view and much value to offer the audience. Both are also women - but it's rare (and laudable) to see two women keynoting.  

Here is the anatomy of what each speaker did, to varying degrees of success.

First: know thy audience

Ita Buttrose and Mark Bouris are paid keynote speakers, household names and leaders in their field. If it's good enough for them to study their audience, in this case superannuation industry leaders, and work hard to connect with us, it's good enough for you and I. 

I am humbled by how much work good professional speakers do to make sure they know who they are talking to and how to relate their story to those people. Ita Buttrose did not make the mistake of turning up and saying what she always says - she (or a speech writer) thought about what would resonate with us as well as serve her own purposes (promoting the cause of dementia and Alzheimer’s' disease).

It's this process of sitting in the audience's shoes, and thinking deeply about our own agenda form their perspective, that humbles us, makes for a generous presentation and help us connect with people who give time and attention to us.

Second: know your "why"

Listening to Russell Investment's indomitable Don Ezra was a delight. And that's despite the fact that I am not a 60+ year old semi-retired investment guru. Don was so passionate and warm in his delivery that he infected me with his own enthusiasm for a better way to think and behave about income in retirement. 

I'm not sure this was always his spiel, but he sounds like a man fired up on behalf of a large and growing group of people - of whom he is one, but also on whom he is a subject matter expert. 

Don is an investment strategist, now semi-retired but also, it seems to me, in the happy place of having arrived at a moment in time during which his work is both a higher purpose and source of income. Perhaps it was always this way for Don. Or perhaps he's worked hard to reach the destination.

Either way, all truly great speakers (Buttrose and Bouris included) are clear about what they care deeply about - and able to infect us with their own passion as a result.

Rosemary Vilgan had a lot more content to impart but also was crystal clear about what matters most - and that's the best possible outcome for Australians who are retired, delivered by a super system that needs to evolve. It's clearly something she cares deeply about, as should we all if we are to work in financial services.

Third: keep it as simple as you can

We all "know" that this is the age of information overload. But do we really use that when we sit down to prepare a conference presentation? Mmmm not often enough if my years of conference attendance are anything to go by.

From an evolutionary biology point of view we are the equivalent of slightly evolved apes staring, confused and aghast, into the matrix. That's sounds a bit harsh, but Google "information overload" and "evolutionary biology", or "behavioural finance choice" and you'll see what I mean. 

The short version is this:

- We live in an age where the amount of information available to us has outstripped our ability to process it

- Most of us living and working in an urban environment experience some level of overload

- The more information we are presented with (or allow in) the less helpful it becomes - and our ability to make good decisions drops accordingly

So what does that mean if you're a conference speaker? You probably consistently over-estimate your audience's ability to absorb what you are saying. And your own ability to make it simple enough to be useful.

In short, the more time invested up front making our subject matter expertise accessible, the better. 

Matt Church (an expert on Thought Leadership) gets this, so I'm very much looking forward to his session on Friday. 

Perhaps that should be compulsory viewing for more conference speakers.

Bouris, Buttrose, Ezra and Vilgan kept it at the right level - there was well thought through content, but there were also clear themes even the most overloaded brain could follow.

There's much more to truly great speaking that three ingredients. That said, even just getting these right is an act of generousity towards our audiences.

Isn't that what leadership and leadership communication is all about - serving our audience, not just ourselves?