Adam Torres and Tim Townsend discuss TownsendCobain.
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Show Notes:
TownsendCobain helps individuals, couples and families invest, grow, manage and enjoy the wealth they’ve built. In this episode, Adam Torres and Tim Townsend, Partner & Private Wealth Adviser at TownsendCobain – Private Wealth Partners, explore what it means to deliver personalised, strategic financial advice.
About Tim Townsend
Tim Townsend has been in the finance industry for the past 30 years, specialising in financial planning. During his early years he spent almost 10 years establishing and building Outlook Financial Planning, a credit union based financial planning company. Tim moved from Outlook to take up the role, for five years, as National Manager — Financial Planning for Perpetual Private Clients.
In that role he developed the financial planning services and processes for the Private Clients Division and drove the delivery of those services both internally and to external financial planning professionals. In addition, Tim continued to personally advise high net worth clients.
This places Tim in the position of not only speaking from past experience and the lessons learned, but the need to make that advice work as he co-drives the private practice of TownsendCobain – Private Wealth Partners forward.
About TownsendCobain
Established in 2013, Townsend Cobain is a privately owned financial advisory practice and investment house that holds its own Australian Financial Services License with ASIC.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today I have Tim Townsend on the line, and he is a partner in Private Wealth advisor over at Townsend Cobain private Wealth Partners.
Tim, welcome to the show. Hi, Adam. Thanks very much. All right, Tim, so I, I know I have you up late over there. You’re in Australia? Correct? What time is it over there? Melbourne, Australia, around about 1230 in the morning. Fantastic. And nice and late. So appreciate you staying, out there for us.
And just as we get into in today’s topic. So we’re gonna talk about personal service in a depersonalizing world, and I’m interested to get into, of course, your work at Townsend Cobain. But before we get into all that, maybe start with talking a little bit more about how you got started in finance and kind of what motivates you there.
Thanks, Adam. Yeah, look, for myself, it was probably advising or in the advising profession over the last 35 years. I, I originally came in commencing a advisory practice back in, well, gee, back in the nineties now before spending about 10 years in senior corporate roles and so forth, still in that same area.
Until that moment in time of realizing I’d, stopped doing what I love doing most, which was actually giving advice and actually dealing with real people. So, came back into advice still within larger groups until finally stepping away from that 13 years ago to commence with my business partner Rod Cobain Townsend Cobain at that point in time.
Hmm. Now the word is we were warming up for this. You said you kinda said, you know, Townsend Cobain all one word, capital T, capital C, like, you know, old school name on the door. What does that mean and like, what are some of the values that go behind, you know, that decision? ’cause I feel like there’s a lot in a name.
Yeah. Look, it, it, funnily enough, it was 13 years ago as we were establishing the practice, there was a. we were talking a lot about values, about what it is that we actually wanted to work with, and I think partly the reason for that is where we had been very successful running a large wealth management team, but where that was, had actually got to the point where as they grew, some of the corporatization culture was really starting to kick in there.
And what I meant by that was that the new management that was being employed. You could see that they’d grown up and were a product of hierarchy or management. They talked about customers when we talked about clients. Mm-hmm. And there was really a fundamental difference there where, you know, very often you, you hear people talk about customers, it’s quite a transactional type thinking where with clients you marry.
So, you know, you’ve got this relationship and so whilst the advice we got at the time is, oh no, you’ve gotta call it a B, c wealth, so you, you can put a bow around it and flog it off as soon as it’s successful. That was never really the wish for Rod and I. We wanted to build something meaningful that was good for the clients, and the old idea of putting our name above the door and having the courage to stand behind it mm-hmm.
Seemed to fit that idea. Yeah. So even just this concept of personal service, I feel like we talk about AI often. We talk about like, you know, scaling technologies. I mean, is this old school, is this thought process, do you think it’s becoming more obsolete or more needed? Yeah, that’s a, really interesting question because you can see, what, whilst our developing tech.
Is a fabulous advantage. And I love the use of the technology looking for working hard to explore how we integrate that and create efficiency. At the same time, does it satisfy our basic human needs? You know, does it leave us better or worse as individuals, as, as people seeking guidance and confidence?
You know, I’ve actually always believed our success or failure. Will be measured in the eyes, the ears and the hearts of our clients. It’s their experience, their perception that will determine our success. You know, it’s that, it’s like a philosophy that says, through their success, we can succeed.
Mm-hmm. And so it comes down to that question of what, what do they actually want? Or more importantly, what do they actually need? Because when you’re in professional advice, well. I think it’s a mistake in professional advice to tell people what they want. Mm-hmm. You are paid, you’re rewarded. You have a fiduciary duty to focus on what they need and share that.
But all of this, to some degree, is our own fault. I think, you know, there’s been mm-hmm. The pursuit of cheap or cheaper has caused changes in the way we deliver service. Our embracing of technology understandably, sort of fuels that. If you go back maybe, I don’t know, 25, 30 years, the boardroom conversation is, well, how are we gonna provide the service?
They want it, they want, don’t wanna pay as much. Tell you what we’ll do, we’ll outsource. Mm-hmm. And what did we do? First off, you know, we sent the call center overseas to somewhere where we pay people this money. You know, that that was quite common. And I dunno, maybe it was 10 or 15 years later, there’s another boardroom meeting and someone down the back says, well, what about the website?
Mm-hmm. We entered the realm of outsourcing to us. Mm-hmm. Now, when that works, don’t get me wrong, it’s great. And there’s some people that would love that they, I never wanna talk to a human being ever again. I’m gonna sit here, won’t even have to put my pants on to be on a Zoom meeting, don’t have to engage with other human beings.
But that I don’t believe is the majority of people. Hmm. And I think this world in which we’ve created has become. Quite challenging. But the problem becomes, is, accessing it. Mm-hmm. what’s in it for people who can access this concept of personalized service? ’cause many that will listen to this, maybe they’ve never experienced that, especially in their, financial lives.
Like you know, conversations you and I have had like a bank manager or who knows where they’re at, right? Or when do you get, so most people can, don’t even have never experienced what you’re talking about. So what, in it for people who can access personalized service? I suppose what it knowledge, let me explain that.
You know, we live in a world today where there is a massive and growing information flow hitting us all the time. Mm-hmm. It is phenomenal the amount of information we have at our fingertips. You can’t even have a dinner party argument anymore before somebody pulls out their phone to correct everybody else.
Right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, pretty much. But at the same time, with all that. Information, it seems that people feel lonelier, more unseen, more unheard. You know, I can show you people who, you know, I’ve got so many Facebook friends or, Twitter followers or what, but do they actually have contact with people? I think when it comes to professional advice, we used to see this, as you mentioned, you know that dodo bird that we now call a bank manager.
’cause I don’t think any of us have seen one of them for a long time. Or, and yeah. Or it used to be the fa, if you were lucky enough to have a family doctor mm-hmm. Who knew you possibly even delivered your children in smaller areas and things like that. But there was somebody who would pick up the phone with knowledge of who you are.
Yeah. And I. Accessing personal service, if you can find access to that type of thing is golden. Mm-hmm. Because, you the world we have created, we are all blessed with hearing those immortal words, these days of your call is important to us. Mm-hmm. Now, if they only had the honesty to actually finish the sentence, record it as it is.
Which goes, your call is important to us, but not important enough to employ enough staff to answer the phone. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. There is the truth of the statement, and for many of us then cursed to spend 45 minutes where they, the recording constantly tries to get us to go to the website and do it ourselves.
Mm-hmm. For many of us, that’s a debilitating process. So the concept of actually. And I’ll talk a little bit more about the how you do it, but the importance of actually, or the value of having a professional, knowledgeable of you who answers their phone with full knowledge of who you are, your circumstances.
But more than that, they know you well enough to know how you feel that. Is a golden opportunity that people, in our experience, our clients value extremely highly. Mm-hmm. how do you feel that the, next generation how do you think they play into this concept of personalized service, especially those that kinda grew up very technology, you know, center, how, how do they fit into this?
I think you, at, the end of the day, one of the things you do need is a combination. I mean, you’ve gotta, you always have to recognize the market that you serve. I mean, it was really, if I, if I could just for a second. Mm-hmm. Adam, I’ll give you a sense of this. About seven or eight years ago, I was at a dinner with practice and dealer group principles of what I used to be prior to starting my own practice.
And I remember they were all sitting around complaining bitterly about. Trying to develop ways to engage with their employees today. The younger generation of which there was very little in my practice because it was small and boutique at the time, and my initial reaction was to join right in with them as we do.
The more experienced you become, we’re all critical of, ah, well things were different in my day type of thing. Mm-hmm. But it struck me all of a sudden as they explained the changes that they were implementing. It struck me how I was wrong. Mm-hmm. Right there, I recognized that as leaders, as builders of business, as builders of teams, of builders of houses, there’s no you sitting around complaining about the bricks that are available to you.
You have to learn to build with the bricks that are there. And so it really encouraged me. I, as Stacy my middle daughter. At the time I was complaining, she showed me a link to Simon Sinek’s explanation of the millenniums, which I thought was golden. It was the first time I’d seen into the work Simon was doing, and I thought that it gave fabulous insight into starting to understand and then challenge us about how we needed to evolve to lead and build better operations and better teams.
Mm-hmm. So I think that’s a, big part of it, but I think, as you work with them, you also need to find ways to service them to their needs as well in most people’s lives. Because the work we do is not just about investment, the investments, the engine that we build into their car.
First thing you gotta do is make sure they’re in the right type of vehicle for what they’re trying to do. You gotta make sure the brakes work. You gotta make sure the accelerator operates. You’ve gotta make sure it starts. But the investment element is not your absolute focus. It’s actually the well-rounded peace of mind of clients knowing when they put their heads on the pillow at night, that their financial affairs are in order.
Their estate planning is on point. All of the different building blocks that achieves. At least peace of mind from a financial point of view. Yeah. how do you get paid sufficiently for delivering personal service? Like, talk to me about, maybe a little bit about the structure of the practice.
That’s a really good question. It’s it requires some blunt honesty, both with yourself and with others. I mean, I’ll give you an idea. When we formed the practice. We realized fairly quickly that to have that ability to answer the phone with, with that level of knowledge, you had a maximum, and there’s no science behind this, but say of 60 relationships that you maximum, that you could actually afford to manage.
I always remember when rod, my business partner 10 years younger than I am, so with great enthusiasm, drove himself all the way through 60 to 80 clients and turned his life into a living hell. Because he couldn’t deliver on that promise anymore. He was falling into the trap of having to read a file note to remember who the client was.
Mm-hmm. And that’s something that we openly display to people as we engage them. We will ensure we don’t do that. So the point I’m making here is the fact that if you’re gonna deliver personal service, you start with the premise that there is a limited numbers of buses on that seat. Mm-hmm. And that doesn’t mean you cannot run a highly successful operation.
You just need to ensure that the people that are taking those seats pay you sufficiently for you to be successful. Mm-hmm. And have a personal belief that. Our success is in our client’s interest as well. The greatest fear that clients face is our failure. Mm-hmm. To come down on a Monday morning to the office, knock on the door, and we are not there mm-hmm.
Is not a good outcome for clients, even though their money would be fine. Hmm. how has this worked out for you? like in terms of the clients, I feel like to be part of a practice like that is really a unique opportunity. Because there, it’s not often, I mean, it’s just not often something that’s even available, not with somebody with your expertise.
I think it’s interesting ’cause the last two or three years what we’ve done is start to build the practice out for sustainability. You know, you, you mentioned that we are talking from Melbourne, Australia. And a record we hold with absolutely no Great pride was being one of the most locked down cities in the world.
During COVID, a great opportunity to sit down in your basement and have a think about what you’re gonna do with the next 10 years. El Love. And one of our decisions was to build the practice out, was to actually make the practice sustainable beyond Rod and myself. I. How have we done that? We’ve introduced second advisors in all meetings.
We’ve set them the challenge to become number one chair instead of number two, pushing us back to number two. So we still can be involved with the client. We can still carry some of that personal knowledge and the work that we enjoy, but they too are lifting themselves into that trusted advisor role.
And we can see that and, and with the use of AI and the technology coming behind us. Not introducing that in too much into the client interface, but actually using it to make us more efficient. We think we can lift that number of 60, probably to about a hundred. But here’s the interesting point, Adam.
Every conference I go to lately where we talk about AI in Australia, the average number of clients per advisor currently sits, I believe, at around about 130. Mm. And everyone talks about how great it’s gonna be when we get to 300. Mm-hmm. Not for the clients. Mm-hmm. Not for the clients. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And what gets, what do you think gets lost?
What do you think is lost in that? By the way, I want you to go further into that. what gets lost in that? The personal knowledge side. Mm. I mean, AI and the, some of the things that, that will do will, help us with that. But it, to know the feelings of the people you talk to and things like that.
Mm. it’ll be interesting because I think where, the technology is, it’ll roll back the edge of non-personalized service to how far out it’s got. Mm-hmm. that’s where the first steps will actually be taken. Mm-hmm. But this core element. To actually, I mean, one, one of the things I know that I’m only suitable to serve 5% of the population in Australia.
95% of the population can’t actually afford to pay what they need to pay to get a seat on that bus. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. But here’s the interesting point. We are engaging with people now who are not necessarily in the financial position and will pay the price of the ticket anyway. For knowing or believing what that can help them be and where it can help them be 10 years from now.
Mm-hmm. That’s been a real interesting evolution over the last two years where we are finding people that we fully didn’t expect to be clients saying, no, no, no, no, no. Don’t tell me again how much I have to pay to get a ticket. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because I want somebody in my corner. I want somebody that knows me to actually partner.
Partner with me on the journey that lies ahead. Mm. And I think, we can focus on more of these types of things it’s, it’s really about, I think the core comes as you build this is understanding. And, and again, I’m gonna reference Simon Sinek as he’s now recently started to talk a lot about the why and understanding your why.
But if you can get, if you know why you are doing it, if you know how you set your systems and technology. Before selecting the what. I think so often we buy the next shiny thing that gets presented to us by very convincing people whose only real interest is to sell us the next what. But if you know your why, you design your how and always question your what, what you’re doing, knowing there’s always a better answer and you just searching for it.
If you can wear those things on your sleeve and let the clients see that. I believe in 35 years in this profession. I have never ever seen a moment where that is more valuable, worth more than it is right now today. Hmm. Fantastic, Tim. A final question. Who do you find, and you, you, you alluded to it a little bit more, but if there’s any other specifics, whether it’s demographic, whether it’s age or anything else, who do you find gets the most value out of working with you and your team?
Like what’s typically a good fit in terms of a client to get one of those? I’ll say it as you say it, to get one of those tickets on the bus. I think it’s, well, first of all, it, it needs to be people that gen, you know, are genuinely seeking advice. And what I mean by that is, is there are adv advice people, I meet people who are incapable of taking advice.
Hmm. They will waste our time, their time and everybody’s time. So we quickly try to remove that. I mean, for us, we are not trying to chase the mega wealthy market. I mean, ours is quite a affluent group, obviously, as I alluded to earlier. In our area here in Australia. But I think it’s people that are genuinely looking and recognizing that an unplanned journey is not the journey that they want to be on.
Mm-hmm. And a recognition they’ll get more from being part of an overall plan. I think if you’ve got those components and you are financially capable to be able to pay for it. That is the perfect client for us, and we are seeing that. It’s quite interesting as we’ve turned the taps back on over the last two years, we are at that phase, that exciting phase in business where you can almost hear the, engines rumbling under the deck.
Mm-hmm. You can see the new client contacts that are starting to build up. We’re starting to be creative about how we engage with other professionals Again. All of this leads to the identifi and, and we find a hunger in other professionals to want to do this type of work because it, not only gives you financial success, it gives you professional and personal pride.
Amazing. If somebody’s listening or watching this and they want to follow up and they want to connect with you and your team, Tim, how do they do that? I. Look the easiest thing. I’ve given you some contacts for our website for Townsend Cobain. I’ve also given you contacts for Wealth Leaders Exchange, which is another company that I run now where we run events in Australia for a select group of high quality advisors trying to unlock these issues.
We found a huge amount of commonality about this. I also you know, there’s a range of other topics that we now understand are the key benchmarks for this. So I also make myself available for conference speaking get across to the us every now and again, happy to do that type of work and engage with groups that really wanna unlock and get their people thinking.
Because I think one of the other things is that too many events and things I go to are more about just running an event. Mm-hmm. Whereas if I’m gonna spend my time committing to be frank with you, I need to be disturbed by it. I need to be agitated. Mm-hmm. I need to be made to feel uncomfortable because it’s through that discomfort we can create, people find change.
We don’t find it by being overly comfortable. So contacts will be there on the website for for the matter. Fantastic. And for everybody listening, just so you know, we’ll definitely put the links in the show notes so you can just click on the links and head right on over. And speaking to the audience. If this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or a follow button.
This is a daily show. Each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way in your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. And Tim, thanks again for coming on the show. Pleasure, Adam.