MCA Financial Planners has differentiated itself from most dealer groups in the current marketplace by offering its advisers a flat fee and low risk model, according to the firm’s general manager Joe Grogan.
The dealer group’s business proposition – which charged advisers a flat fee of $8,000 per annum – put the focus back on the client, Grogan said.
“We’re the reverse of many dealer groups out there; most are only interested in people that write a lot of business – the more business they write the bigger the revenue stream is for the dealer group,” he told InvestorDaily.
“Our focus is the opposite; we’re only interested in how much risk you bring to us and therefore we charge a flat fee, so we charge that fee to assess the risk and it’s irrelevant to us how much revenue you raise.
“For example, one practice that recently came to us from one of the very large listed financial services groups was not only able to save money coming to us, but they were also saving their clients around $500 in annual fees because they were able to move their clients from a badged wrap into the cheapest wrap available.”
With increased interest from disgruntled planners looking to join the network, Grogan said MCA’s proposition was the model of the future.
“There’s certainly a level of frustration of advisers with their dealer groups wanting to drive the organisation in a different direction and always focused on revenue, revenue, revenue,” he said.
“The reality is a client comes to an adviser for advice and is happy to pay a fee for that, but the business model that we see in the marketplace is that dealer groups are trying to make more out of that equation than the adviser is; firstly by charging the adviser a share of the business generated, but secondly, by clipping the ticket on the wrap service or the fund manager.”
