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Advice has got talent: it's just different now
A surge in new entrants and a shifting talent pipeline is changing the mix of candidates advisers are seeing. Here’s what’s actually happening and what it means for your next hire. Watch now Alisdair Barr is Founder & CEO at Striver, a HR-Tech platform designed to help financial planning firms more effectively attract and…
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The two types of AI every adviser needs to understand
Generative and deterministic AI fail in very different ways. Knowing which one you're using is becoming a professional skill. AI is not one thing. For advisers, two types matter, and the difference is not well discussed by AI providers. Generative AI writes and reasons in language. Deterministic AI computes against fixed…
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The true cost of cheap paraplanning
With the new financial year around the corner, every practice I speak to is running the numbers. Client fees, wages, software subscriptions and yes, the paraplanning line item. Timelines have already blown out across the industry and advisers are asking the same question: can we get this done cheaper? It is a fair…
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Why scaled advice is back on Nathan Fradley’s radar
Scaled advice never really took off. It always felt too time-intensive to gather all the context, or too resource-heavy to deliver. In this video, I explain why scaled advice is back on my radar, and how technology is making it easier than ever to deliver concise, targeted advice that still sits on a solid discovery…
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The digitally enabled adviser: a practical roadmap
Part 2 of 2 | The digitally enabled adviser series Recently I wrote about new Anthropic research showing that financial guidance is one of the most overrepresented AI use cases in Australia. That the advice gap is being filled — not by the industry, but by a general-purpose AI that any Australian can access for free. If…
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Beyond the balance sheet: How to add real value to retiring clients
Most of us got into this profession because we wanted to make a genuine difference to people's lives. And yet, if we're honest, it's easy to fall into a pattern where client reviews become a ritual of checking super balances, rebalancing portfolios, and ticking compliance boxes. For retiring clients especially, that…
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Why every advice firm needs a “relationship pulse check”
If you ask financial advisers what really drives their business, most won’t say revenue, compliance, or even performance. They’ll say relationships. Strong client relationships sustain advice businesses through market volatility, regulatory change, and fee pressure. They underpin referrals, retention, and trust. Yet,…
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No-one knows retirement like an adviser
Australia is entering a decisive phase in its retirement system. A perfect storm of demographic change, policy reform and rising cost pressures is forcing a fundamental rethink of financial advice. By 2034, almost a quarter of Australian adults will be entering the retirement phase, shifting the system’s centre of gravity…
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The advice gap has a new competitor
Part 1 of 2 | The Digitally Enabled Adviser Series For years, the financial advice industry has talked about the advice gap. Millions of Australians who need professional guidance but cannot access it — priced out, underserved, or simply not knowing where to start. The response has largely been regulatory: the Quality of…
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The break up
A few months ago, I completed one of the biggest professional decisions of my career: buying out my business partners and becoming the sole owner of our financial advice business. On paper, it sounds straightforward. We each owned shares in the business. My partners were mortgage brokers — great operators, good friends,…
