Episode 25: Integrating Technology and the Human Touch with Nataša Williams

Sam 1:23

Hi, everyone. I'm Sam Sivarajan and welcome to today's. Episode of The Future Ready Advisor. Today I'm here with Natasha Williams, a top financial. Advisor and. The co-founder of Cadro, a leading new technology based. Wealth management firm in London, UK. Natasha, welcome to the show.

Natasa 1:44

Thank you, Sam. It's wonderful to be your guest after all those years and certainly after the circumstances under which we met. It's a really fitting subject that we're discussing today.

Sam 1:56

. Natasha co-founded Cadro in: 2022

Natasa 3:28

Sure. Thank you very much, Sam. And yeah, we too, are surprised to be nominated for accolades this early on in our journey. And I ascribe it all to our head of content, my colleague Pete, whom I've now renamed Midas Pete because everything he does turns to gold. I'm delighted to have some valuable colleagues here. The philosophy of wealth, you know, is becoming more and more apparent to me with time is each person and each family are very unique and I think weirdly more unique in their wealth than in the body. So, like, you think medicine is a pretty personal thing you want to discuss with the doctor, but money is so much more personal and deeper, something that's difficult to discuss, something that's impossible to compare to the layers and layers of sort of preconceptions that we all have about money and wealth, how we were raised, the kind of people we hang out with within our families. And so it sort of becomes a very one on one kind of issue to many. You know, you'd be surprised, but wealth becomes a source of burden and anxiety, and too infrequently is the enabler in people's lives. But actually it should be and this is kind of my big passion is sort of how to help people look at their balance sheet, look at their wealth and see how it can help them lead the life they want to lead rather than them feeling enslaved by their balance sheet and their wealth. Whichever way, whether that's not enough of it or very often in my case, there's a lot of it. You know, there's this thing, Oh, while you've made a lot of money, you'll be happy forever. It creates a problem of stewardship. It creates a problem of what to do with it. Is it good enough? Are you good enough? And so I try and help people apply some methods to this madness and to enable them to lead the kind of life they would really want to have.

Sam 5:41

It's funny that you say that. there's a song that has the refrain more money, more problems. And I think nobody actually kind of really subscribe to it, or at least they say, I'd like to be in that situation. Where I have it. But I you're so right that the nature. Of wealth. Creates a unique. Situation for every individual, for all of the reasons that you mentioned. Okay, What family did they grow up in? What were the values that they had? I always joke that, you know, people's. Attitude towards money, much like a lot of other things, it's partly it's either because their parents did it or it's because their parents didn't do it. it's hard to. Say which one it

Natasa 6:23

That's

Sam 6:23

is, but it's one of those influences that come into. Place. And to your point, if we are to truly serve our clients properly and not let money be. Their control or money, be the end all and be all like money is valuable only in and so far it allows you to do what you truly want to do. If you can get that and you do that,

Natasa 6:45

correct.

Sam 6:45

then you're free. If you're not, then you're enslaved, as you say, to your money. And part of what we need to. Do as advisors and what you're talking about. Is understand. Our clients so well through discovery and building that trust, etc., that we understand all of these things that are going on beneath the surface, that their values, their previous

Natasa 7:08

Exactly.

Sam 7:08

experiences, their influences that they have, the worries, hopes, fears, dreams, all of that that comes into play. Before you can prescribe. Them the right kind of solution to or the approach to that they need to take.

Natasa 7:23

I totally agree with you. And also, you know, I think the first conversation to me is was much bigger than the actual application of the assets themselves. You know, sort of the purpose, the objective, which is those are very important conversations. And not every person is actually prepared to have those conversations. And I respect that. You know, when people answer them, they're not them, that we walk around them.

Sam 7:48

Yeah, I you're right on. you hit something that to me always resonates. They haven't had the conversation. and they don't even. Necessarily need to know the answers. They just have. To think about the questions. And that's what you're doing. What you're talking about is raising questions that they've never, ever considered before,

Natasa 8:08

Correct. Correct. And, you know, I find I often meet clients halfway through their wealth journey where they have never thought about that, and they ended up making haphazard investment decisions. So not kind of looking at it in a deliberate strategic way and, you know, you say receive a wealth, you have a wealth event for whatever reason, and then you do not apply any strategy. You don't ask yourself those questions. Three, five years later, ten years later, your balance sheet is almost an accidental occurrence rather than a strategic outcome of your thought process. And this is where a lot of people get problems because no matter how big your balance sheet, something need to generate an income, for example, that needs to kind of cover your expenditure. And it doesn't matter if it's 1 million or 100, it's possible to fix those problems in all of those scenarios. So you know, what gives you joy, what you want to spend your time doing and applying some aspect of your finances to supporting you in that. So I am really sort of quite big in this category, also developing this tool called your balance sheet where you can see everything you've got so that you understand what enables different aspects of your life, what generates income, where are risks, where are no risks, and where do you deliberately want to apply risk? I mean, there are people who apply very little risk to their financial affairs. And, you know, as GDP grows, economy grows, they find out they haven't enriched their wealth is also problematic. And then we've got people who, you know, meet somebody on a train who convinces them this one investment is the best thing ever and that they know their best friends just on a really good investment. And then they write a very large cheque. Right. And we know what happens very occasionally goes right, but most often it goes horribly wrong. And I've seen these things first hand and you always think, hold on, let's have a plan, you have a strategy, you want to invest. The people who make them trains great, but make it 10% of your wealth right?

Sam: 10:12

100%. it's important to have that kind of snapshot or understanding, but recognizing that those things change and evolve, right? Like your needs and your interests

Natasa: 10:24

Correct.

Sam: 10:24

and what you want to spend money on or where you get joy from, that's going to change from when you're 40 to 40 5 to 50 to 60 to 70.

Natasa: 10:34

Yeah, I agree. And I think this is what actually the British industry does this conversation quite well in the main. It's just that it's an expensive conversation. And and this is what a lot of people you know when you go see a lawyer, you know, it's going to be an expensive conversation, Right? Because they're not going to speak to you for more than half an hour without the famous lawyer clock coming on right. But financial advisors, we're quite friendly and people think it's just a chat. Right. Then at one point you need to sort of make it an economical relationship or, you know, where you provide advice and somebody is paying for it. And this is where it gets tricky. And I spoke to a lot of people in the industry, you know, how do people pay for advice? Should they pay for advice? What is quality advice? Of course, one thing is about choosing your financial instruments, but there is a general kind of overall life advice with your finances, which I think is hugely valuable to clients. And, you know, increasingly I think the industry is pushing advisors to charge for that advice quite explicitly and disclose that it's going to lead to a problem. I think where there will be, you know, already is a sections in sections of population that will find it very difficult to find quality access at the price point that they are willing to pay for, you know, a myriad of robo advisors are coming in, a lot of people looking how technology could fill that advice gap. But I don't think it's clear.

Sam: 12:07

That's a. Great observation, and I'd like to explore that a little bit more because. It is happening here. In Canada. But as in all of these things, I think the UK is a few years ahead. So I wanted to talk a little. Bit about the evolution of the industry in the UK. So the RDR changed ten years ago. Retail distribution review for Canadian listeners. Introduced. Wholesale and often controversial changes to the UK's financial advice sector, and it reformed the way retail consumers were offered, paid for and received investment advice, effectively unbundling advice from the product costs, etc. and. I think you touched on one. Consequence, which is that there are people perhaps that are priced out of getting advice at a price point that they can afford. I'd like you to maybe expand. A little bit on what your experience was and how you found that the people like yourselves like Cadro the successful adapted to this new regime, how you went about doing. That?

Natasa: 13:12

So, you know, I think RDR was a brilliant piece of legislation. And I think just sort of for the listeners in Canada, you know, before an advisor say, I advise you, Sam, and you know that I charge a fee or there is a fee that comes out of your portfolio. But what you didn't know was that the funds that we invested your money in were also paying me a fee, right? So creates a huge conflict of interest view of a client. Why as the provider of funds that you're investing in paying me as well, I'm double dipping quite happily, so you never know whether I've actually given you the best advice, Right? Or have I just placed from Stop, stop. I have. Yeah, right. And I think in finance, this battle hasn't quite been over because who pays the advisor and how to incentivise advisors to give the best advice rather than just the place products. And you know, this kind of product pushing has had such a great name. It is so ideal ten years ago. Clean that up. You can't do that. A fund manager can offer you a cheaper share class that you would put to a client and then you would charge on top. So the card always knows MiFID has further

built on that, which was the old EU legislation that we still have here. And that is where every year we have to give a very transparent costs and charges analysis to every single client. And since then we have had new legislation very recently called Consumer Duty, which adds additional layers of duty of care that the industry owes to the client. And here it's much bigger than treating customers fairly. It's sort of being careful that you cannot charge one client more than another for the same service, for example. And you have huge amounts of

protection as a client. That's where the burden and burdens of that word, the burden of advice, of understanding client very much rests with the advisor. So the bar in the UK has consistently been rising, making advice from the regulatory perspective, quite expensive to give and to police, so to speak. Right? Because you're running a company, you need to make sure you give them that kind of advice and the customers are treated correctly. So ultimately people adapt because ultimately, you know, most times I've worked or always had a philosophy of client first, I could criticise them not for incentive, but genuinely and generally the good financial firms do actually want to take care of their clients because they want to have the client for a very long time. So interests have always been quite well aligned. So the cleaning up off the idea was quite quick in the firms. There were progressive firms I worked for, didn't find that idea too stressful that the other thing that idea did, it actually put additional requirements on training, competence of advisers and disclosures. So your disclosures say there was something happened with a client they complained against. Do you carry that with you, the next firm up? So as an adviser, you are almost like a Premier League football player. I cover your, you know, your track record with your firm, which we aren't quite as much. But anyway, so so the idea I cleaned up a lot. I think it did a lot for the consumers, but it creates a lot of regulatory

oversight in the industry. I think firms adapt it well. If you have the right philosophy about how you're going to handle your client, if your client centricity and genuine willingness and wish to do the best by your client is your mantra, then I think none of these regulatory issues should be problematic for a firm. What becomes more problematic is documenting it, making sure you're on it, and of course, monitoring large teams of people. So immediately what it's done, all of the stuff is it created management layers and everybody hates management layers, right? Most of all, shareholders.

Sam: 17:25

Yeah,

Natasa: 17:26

So the client thought to you so so perhaps it's made financial services clunkier, less agile, less consumer friendly as a sort of unintended consequence.

Sam: 17:39

yeah. I think I. Can see all of that and, and maybe we can dive into a little bit to that theme. Obviously there is clunkiness, there is additional work, monitoring, documentation, etc.. And I suspect. That the technology can play a role in easing that burden here. And I think Cadro marries technology and the human side, of wealth management. Can you talk a little bit about both. About how the technology plays a role and how you still retain that human element that I think is critical to offering that personalised type of solutions that you're talking. About?

Natasa: 18:22

Yeah. Yeah. With, with pleasure. Yeah. I spent years thinking this through, you know, what is the human element of a relationship that is critical in wealth and what can be automated and should be automated for all the reasons that you mentioned, not the learn the efficiency and risk management of how clients are invested. So we as a company, first of all, didn't compromise on governance investment approach, but we innovated with technology so that we can provide great investment platform, great investment solutions, fantastic oversight as a company. But the value offered to clients in a more engaged way. And our mission is to create engaged and informed investors how to raise engagement because not really understanding. Oh, I didn't know what I'm invested in. I don't know what this is. You just do it. I'm not going to look at it as long as it goes up is not the correct attitude anymore. In the age of digital technology, of digital information, sort of, oh, I'm just not going to look at it. You know, people used to call me and say, why do you do the best things for clients? It's not to look at their portfolios because that's just going to get concerned about how can you not look at something you own, right? So let's look at it and the standard, enjoy it and present it in a way that is interesting and engaging. So we even commissioned primary psychology research about how do people understand that? Well, how do people understand finance? This is not people like you and I who have grown up in finance, but most people haven't tried. So we just how do we talk to the population in general about wealth? So we created lots of visual aids. We created visualisation tools, our communication tools, in order to make this subject matter more accessible, if I can use that word. And that's what countries technology does. So if you own lots of assets, we upload one minute cocktail videos about what you own, how it's doing, upload photos can be analysed visually, so bigger things are actually bigger and we use a lot of colour to coat the risk. And then you can remember which portfolio is which because one's a bit more yellow and one's a bit more blue and a lot of people that is the way we learn, That's the way we understand, right? That's how we differentiate each other. If you go to meet somebody, I'll be the one in the red jumper. Right. Okay. That's him or her. Right. So, so we're using kind of the broader cognitive ability of people. We're using kind of slightly more modern psychology to sort of try and bring the subject matter into the modern realm. So our technology is more of a facilitator of this human communication and connection because we use a lot of multimedia, we use a lot of videos that we all record. Yeah, we've all learned to be multimedia stars. It makes the human in your pocket or in your phone or on your web app, whichever way you're looking at our stuff, you know, the humans are there, you know, that's the chief investment officer. And so when we have been gone, some they say, oh, I've met you have met, you actually

Sam: 21:37

MM

Natasa: 21:37

have met me, but you've probably seen my video. So we try and amplify the human experience by using technology, if that makes sense.

Sam: 21:45

It makes total sense. I love it. I love the, the idea that it's a facilitator, I love the idea that you're actually making it visually relevant to your clients that from size, from color, etc.. I think it gives that we are visual people, as you write, as you rightly

Natasa: 22:05

Yes.

Sam: 22:05

put it, I think we take in so much information visually, etc. that to have reports or updates, etc., that there is a better visual component than just a chart or a table of figures, etc. I think does wonders for creating that kind of connection and trust with your client.

Natasa: 22:26

Agreed. Agreed. And you know, and then sound and, you know, things. But then ultimately, we are, I think a psychology research came out with something like 85% of people are spatial visualizes. Right. So you want to see things like, you know, spatially we're using PowerPoint figured out very long time ago. It was much to draw. So so that is one side. But the other side of the human human human side is we still bond with our clients. Client has an advisor who knows the client circumstances can advise them properly as to how to navigate the world of finance. So in our world, Khadra, the client, has a lot of choice as to whether to call the adviser to look it up on the app or when they look it up, do they look up at the pictures of the they look at the videos or they look at the tables? So we are trying to create you know, we are trying to put the client in the centre and giving them control as to how they get their data, how they consume their data in whatever format suits them. And of course the wonderful world of analytics and over time will give us a lot of feedback and we will further understand clients. You know, for example, you know, women with red hair, you know, watch their videos on a Wednesday and,

Sam: 23:43

Mm

Natasa: 23:43

you know, whatever

Sam: 23:44

hmm.

Natasa: 23:44

the outcome might be so that we can then further improve the delivery of content and further improve the communication styles through a digital platform. And this is where I think we can start to approximate the human experience using digital means without ever losing your advisor. My advisor is there on your app. You know who it is because that's the person normally that gets you into the into the farm, that helps you set the portfolio and you've got them on speed dial. So this is where so we have our different fintech, right? We are fintech with less numbers, not more.

Sam: 24:21

A good way of putting it, and I'm obviously biased, but. To me that. Looks like the future of where wealth management is. It's that marrying is what I call that cyborg advisor. You're

Natasa: 24:35

Yes,

Sam: 24:35

blending artificial intelligence and technology with the human empathy and intelligence because at the end of the day it doesn't matter. And we've learnt this, whether through RDR, our own regulatory development here in Canada. At the end of the day, the product policy or portfolio are relatively. I wouldn't say. Fungible, but they're commodified at this stage. It's the person

Natasa: 25:00

entirely.

Sam: 25:00

at the end the other side of the table that you have to show that you understand and the process that you follow to uncover their motivations and influences. That's what sets you apart and builds that successful relationship that is long term.

Natasa: 25:18

I could not agree more. And I think the also the onset of passive investing, you know, has sort of made and the portfolio theory has converged. Right. What is a good balanced portfolio is not going to be that different. If you speak to three different houses, there'll be nuances. But I don't think you go to wealth manager because you think they're so smart, they're going to make you so much more money to somebody else, because if they do that, there's a problem. They're taking risks somewhere. You probably aren't aware. And you know, we all know what happens to those sorts of risk positions. So ultimately, you're right. You know, it's about having a steady hand that manages your money, that helps you understand, understand the money. But what will differentiate houses is how people feel in those situations, how they do they feel at home. Is this a native way of communication to them, or is this something that granddad used to do? You know, and I've got to go hear that in the oak panelled room and you know, this is going to happen. And then three guys are going to talk out to me and I won't understand them. When I said I understand they're going to bring another three guys right?

So this is what we're trying to change.

Sam: 26:29

And that's great. Now the UK is and always has been a very competitive market in particular for financial advice and even wealth tech firms. So what would you. Say are the key elements that you and Cadro have tried to focus on as your differentiators to set yourselves apart in this. Market?

Natasa: 26:52

Yeah, Yeah. I think first of all, with the communication piece I just talked about is our big differentiator, you know, the fact that we have used technology to make the processes very efficient and so that we can upload real time information, real time opinions to clients or personalise opinions because a lot of what comes to you is very personalised. So you don't have to ring and wait, you know, say market false 10%. We can just upload to the correct clients explanations pretty much in real time. How ever on the investing side, we also have been trying very hard to be distinct and where we are distinct is to be cost effective on the liquid portfolio management. So using trackers where appropriate, sometimes not, but not just loading up clients with secondary and tertiary costs, which, you know, if typically wealth management industry is quite chummy here, you can see lots of fund managers that will think you can match lunches and choose their funds and you put it into clients portfolios. The client base two layers of fees, huge drag on performance over time. So we're trying to be very cost light and risk effective with a liquid portfolios and then instead helping clients build more, say, alpha through private markets portfolios

Sam: 28:19

Mm hmm.

Natasa: 28:19

where that's appropriate, where the client's going to of the correct size and longevity of their approach. And this is where people really do get the more exciting exposure to up and coming companies, to opportunities that are more sort of, I'd say, timely, you know, where you see development of the global economy and particularly you mentioned I write, you have to get exposure through the big technology companies, but also through, you know, perhaps more innovative private

Sam: 28:50

Mm hmm.

Natasa: 28:50

equity funds that you can invest in. There's been a huge amount of innovation in the private market space. So it's become easier for clients to access that and easier for people like us to build portfolios that are not put hundreds of millions in size. So so we are differentiating by trying to sort of offer both sides of the investment world to people. And then, you know, it's up to each client to decide where they sit on this. However, you know, using this technology, we hope to engage them to make this interesting, to make them feel like they belong in the world of finance and to make them feel like they can learn the world of finance. Quite easily.

Sam: 29:37

Right now, in your role. As co-founder of Cardinal, you're a leader. And part of what you're talking about is this culture of innovation and client centricity that you have and that you'll continue to have to develop and evolve as Cadro grows, as you hire more people, etc.. What have been some of the challenges. And successes that you've encountered in this shaping of culture within your firm?

Natasa: 30:08

Yeah, this is a really good question. I and I thought about it a lot. You know, I think interestingly when we started with my co-founder Jordan, we went to see some VCs and VCs were like, Oh, this is too conservative. You've got to go fast and break things. And we were like, What we're dealing with people's money. We can't go fast and break things and

quite important, but we don't

Sam: 30:35

Very

Natasa: 30:35

actually.

Sam: 30:35

much so, yes.

Natasa: 30:37

And so how you can frame innovation and culture of innovation, but make sure the solid pillars are solid, as solid as they can be so that you can win the trust of clients who are very successful and very wealthy. But it has been quite a challenge for us as a company to set the branding out that way and all of our processes. So we have obviously decided not to go so fast to break things and I think we've decided, one, that we need very strong provenance as a company, which we have by having a very strong chairman, we have a very strong investment committee with external voting members that are kind of veterans of the industry in the UK. So those are the things we feel that is rock solid and obviously advisors that we employ are of very high calibre. Where we are innovating as a team is through that technology. The delivery of information, through how a client would experience this and how we kind of present stuff visually as we discuss. And the culture of innovation has to be big because otherwise you do one big piece of innovation and then it stops. And that's Khadra. We innovated back in the day kind of company. We didn't want to be that company, right? Plenty of ideas around one idea, but no. So we didn't want to be one of those. So what has been important to us is the following Knowing where you can make mistakes and where you shouldn't make mistakes. Putting together a very diverse team, thinking about diversity of thought. So, you know, really quite deliberately bringing people in that are very different from some of us, which in financial services is generally not done, you know, and then encouraging cross-disciplinary collaboration. And so because we waited for the FCA approval to come through, it took about a year. It's how long it takes. We can build the tech in that time. And working with tech teams was phenomenal for me personally, just learning how they work, how they prepare for work, how they non-hierarchical, communicate issues that they see, how they look at projects through so many angles of so many people layering their ideas so that they can improve how things get started, how you don't judge when this thing fails. And they said that idea didn't work. Okay, let's note that. So we don't do that again. But those three things work. Well, let's do that again. And tech companies have something I'm actually still struggling to incorporate, but keep trying. They they have a notion of retrospective. So when a sprint of work is finished, they all sit down and they take the time to discuss how they felt doing this. Oh, no, this feels like that. That feels like that. And they then put rules or new, new things into their working practices to improve how they work. So it's very collaborative way of looking at lots of ideas, rinsing, repeating and openly discussing what goes right and what goes wrong. And that's very difficult in supply and finance, where we're naturally so hierarchical. You know, the boss says, Yes, we all run. We say what the boss said, right? Nobody questions. And and so this is the culture that is not going to succeed in an innovative environment. So keeping that non-hierarchical and participative culture has been key for us. So we have lots of team meetings. I kind of want to cry. I want to see how many we have. But it means that everybody from our data analysts to a head of engineering to a client advisor have opportunities to sit together and discuss what we're working on and help each other achieve more and help control, innovate farther,

Sam: 34:32

That's such great insight. Natasha, Having worked and been involved with a number of fintechs, it totally resonates with me that their approach to this is sprints and scrums that there is. It's very short meetings, it's focused on a particular issue, etc. It's not revolution. It's evolution, right? They're looking to see how they can improve some segment of this. And they have a cross-functional team. Everybody's got a role to play. And I love the point that you highlighted about the retrospective afterwards. You go back to sit there and say what worked, what didn't, how did we feel, etc. and totally agree. In my experience, we don't do enough of that in the finance industry, that we don't sit there and look at when there is success is it's very cursory that we celebrate and we're happy. But when there are failures, there's very. Little. Effort to sit there without looking to finger point to understand what is it that we didn't get here, what and what can we learn to do differently in the next

Natasa: 35:37

current

Sam: 35:37

approach? Because that's critical. especially in a client. Facing scenario, I think so many advisors can benefit from looking at when they didn't land a client or when a client was not happy, etc.. But what are the learnings from this that might inform how we do things going forward?

Natasa: 35:56

Correct. And these, you know, in our culture of kind of egos and big hierarchies, these conversations just don't come naturally. There was a really good book

about the airline industry and medicine, you know, comparing how people deal with errors, black box thinking. And in the book, I think it's a look at why every time there's a plane crash, aviation issues, the whole industry collaborates to understand the minutia of the errors that took place. Right. And then sort of safety has evolved as a result of that. Right. Which, you know, and they sort of looked at this kind of cross-disciplinary, collaborative non finger pointing and biomet as a critical kind of force, and that's a kind of safety improvement. So we're trying our best. It's not always easy, especially it's not easy being the boss, knowing the often wrong, you know, people can tell you that

Sam: 36:57

Well, look, you're. Doing something right. It's not easy for any of us, but especially when you've grown up in an industry where there was a particular way of doing things the now turn around and try to change at least elements of it, you're doing it for the right reasons. So, it's learnings for, for your team, it's learnings for your client. I think it's learnings for for yourself. So

Natasa: 37:18

it is. But you know, one thing I think why it's actually more important is because the younger generations expect this in the working environment. And I think they don't subscribe to the kind of stuff we lived through 20 years ago. Right. They just walk out. And so how to get our talent, our younger talent to participate, grow, get, engage with our project because our clients are getting younger and younger. So I think it's really critical that we stay ahead and kind of the work culture as well.

Sam: 37:51

I think that's absolutely. True for whether it's a large firm or whether it's an advisor practice thinking about how you're going to transition both your business, your practice. But also your. Client base to that next generation. And there is a degree of evolution that is going to be required in terms of not just the products that you offer or the advice that you offer or the technology that you provide. But also in terms of culture and mindset and the approach that you take as well right,

Natasa: 38:19

But

it's easier to do that in a smaller company right?

Sam: 38:23

Of course. So looking ahead, what emerging trends. Do you see shaping the wealth management industry, say, in the next 5 to 10 years? And how are you preparing how is Cadro preparing to leverage these trends?

Natasa: 38:38

Yeah, Well, one we've just talked about, right? And that is the generational transition, right? We are in this kind of big, multigenerational, intergenerational move of assets from basically the baby boomers or whatever we call them to the next gen. But the next thing next to that which possibly is even more important, is the sources of wealth being generated have changed. And you know the adage, when our kids were little and they said, your children will have jobs that don't exist today, this is kind of your clients are going to come from areas that you don't know exist today. And that is so true, right. Where where some of the clients have come from, how they've made money, what they've innovated as entrepreneurs is amazing is is incredible. The breadth of areas that now throw entrepreneurship and innovation. And those are our clients. So we have to stay ahead so that those kinds of clients find us relevant. So younger clients, clients that come from industry, that are innovative themselves, that are and this is not financially kind of sophisticated people, far from it are super bright people, but often also with, you know, learning styles that we would call kind of non-mainstream as well, right? Because people have got talents and in other ways and express them in different ways, which is why I think our means of communication has to be relevant and means of communication with clients is changing right? We WhatsApp these days, who knows how are we going to communicate in five years time? I don't want to define that today. A lot of people watch videos. Yeah, we do today. But in five you start. I bet you there'll be some other way that social media will event that we receive information and we just need to stay relevant to whichever way human communication develops through technology. So being relevant to young people, being relevant to new sources of wealth, an innovator and staying at least in line with modern communication techniques is where Kasra is positioned to be. How talent, breadth of talent, quality of talent and healthily innovating within the constraints I mentioned earlier.

Sam: 41:02

I like that. the the idea of being flexible, not necessarily trying to predict what's going to happen, but being flexible enough to adapt to changes that are coming. Not to say this is the way that we've always done it. There's another interesting point that you made that actually quite resonates with me. It's the idea that we need to be prepared for new sources of wealth. And that is. So bang on. We are. Now seeing. Technology, wealth, tech wealth that's coming in. who knows? It is tomorrow. But we remember at the you remember I remember, you know, 20, 30 years ago that sources of wealth used to be professionals, right? Like that there were

Natasa: 41:42

That's

Sam: 41:42

executives or that they were doctors or dentists or other professionals that built their wealth. That's not to say that they won't continue. to exist in the years ahead, but there are new sources of wealth and we need to stay relevant to them by communicating in the style that they want, by communicating the content that is relevant to them, etc.. So you know what we might have. Taught ourselves. Is advisors specialising in that niche about medical practices or dental practices. We need to kind of bring that same kind of mindset and approach and discipline to learning about other niches that are emerging in order to stay relevant and credible to those potential new clients.

Natasa: 42:26

correct. And I think this is what you hit the nail on the head. We have as an industry need to accept. We have to learn all the time about our clients. You know, we don't want to, you know, now you're rich. Let me tell you how your rich well know they're going to be rich the way they want to do it. We need to support them.

Sam: 42:42

Brilliant. Natasha, we're coming to the end of our podcast, so I have a few. Final rapidfire questions for you. What I ask all of our guests. So if you're ready, number one,

Natasa: 42:55

Yeah,

Sam: 42:56

what is the most. Important lesson you learned over the years?

Natasa: 43:01

I think by far people and relationships are critical to business and business success.

Sam: 43:08

I couldn't agree. More. Number two, finish this sentence. I wish I had known.

Natasa: 43:17

I wish I had known that it's okay to take personal career risks because entrepreneurial careers can be so much more rewarding than corporate ladder careers.

Sam: 43:29

there are lots of certainly advisors that are listening to this podcast that would totally agree with you. I've talked to many that said they wished they had known to start at ten or 20 years earlier in their careers right.

Natasa: 43:41

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree.

Sam: 43:44

Number three, what do you think is the biggest. Pain point for most advisors and what advice would you give them?

Natasa: 43:53

Yeah. Look, I think it is documenting that you are indeed complying with regulations. What advice it give them. I don't know. I'm not the most organized person, by the way. Use whatever works for you. Make notes religiously, file the right stuff because you know you forget and you know how you manage this large data of clients that you are, that you have consciously, subconsciously, in order to always document and justify that indeed you are complying with regulations is really important because I know that a lot of us, we all know we've given good advice and, you know, but sometimes stuff happens and you go, Oh, did I say that? Or did I just think that? So I think regulation is only going to get more stringent. And I think that pain point, you know, everybody has to figure out how to handle it, to be efficient.

Sam: 44:48

I totally agree. I used to tell my team that if it isn't written down, it didn't happen. And it's not because I don't believe it. But you can't show it to a regulator that it happened. And so you're absolutely right. that's only going to become more of a point going forward. And however you do it, hopefully there are technology, but it's not technology only as a solution. It's just getting into good habits and processes that you can sustain it going forward.

Natasa: 45:16

Absolutely

Sam: 45:17

Natasha This has been awesome. I really enjoyed our discussion. It's been great catching up after so many years and lots of, key insights that although from the UK perspective, that are directly applicable to advisors in Canada and other jurisdictions. If listeners want to learn. More about you or find out about your work, where should they go?

Natasa: 45:38

our website Cadro dot com so C a D arrow dot com. We've got lots of ways you can contact us, get in touch or LinkedIn and Natasa Williams no H and I would love to connect people in Canada, fabulous country by the way. I love the countryside. I yeah, I'm slightly jealous of Basam, We're having a dreadful spring here in London so I hope you guys are having a much nicer spring than us and wish you a lovely weekend.

Sam: 46:08

This has been great. Natasha, thanks so much. Lovely talking to you.

Natasa: 46:12

Take care. Bye bye.