Our rural advisers are often thought of as poorer cousins when it comes to providing advice. We tend to think advances come from being in the bustling cities, handy to fund managers, stock exchanges and the like, but when we strive to become more a part of the community we have to work much harder at it. For our country cousins, it's a way of life. Hardships such as the drought affect everyone in a community and the adviser is often in a much more empathetic situation to strike a rapport with local clientele.
Winning referrals is also something that is more natural in a smaller community, however, poor references can also be much more hurtful. Stephen Blaxhall visited some rural planners for this week's feature. In other news, researcher Andrew Wheeler's Dealer Group Survey has found dealer group services costs are down on last year. Not only are the costs of providing dealer services down but the costs to the adviser are also down, and down more than just the percentage saving from the reduced dealer group costs.
However, the institutions are feeling the pinch from the removal of preferential pricing arrangements and those advisers from institutionally-owned dealer groups are paying up to 4.6 per cent more than they did last year for dealer group services, the most affected being those with revenues over $500,000. For those at non-institutional-owned groups, they are saving up to 15 per cent on last year's costs for similar services. While dealer cost averages are cheaper for non-instos for the lower end of the adviser revenue scale, when advisers are earning more than $500,000 this starts to change as the institutions vie to keep them on board.
