CASE STUDY
Knowing How to Value your Aged Care Advice with Aged Care Steps
Kerrie-Lee Lord ~ PSK Private Wealth
Sutherland and Wollongong, New South Wales
Background
Kerrie-Lee Lord has worked in financial advice for over 25 years, partnering with PSK Advisory Services, and has carved out a niche assisting her clients with aged care planning, wealth creation and retirement planning, and more.
Kerrie-Lee has long hoped to broaden her service offering and branch out into charging for aged care advice but wasn’t sure where to start - until she crossed paths with Aged Care Steps (ACS).
“I had known of Aged Care Steps and their great reputation for many years, but it was only in 2023 that I made the leap and worked with them to become accredited to give aged care financial advice.”
With an existing client base that was beginning to age and needing to know how their financial plans could work for them in their older years, Kerrie-Lee saw an opportunity to grow her skills and offer specialist aged care financial advice.
While providing additional value and services for her clients, Kerrie-Lee wanted to ensure she charged appropriately for the technical knowledge she had developed and for the value she delivered to clients.
Working with Aged Care Steps gave me the confidence to have better conversations with clients. I was able to see that what my clients really valued was financial advice that could take away their problems, to give them time and space to focus on what’s most important - looking after their loved ones.
Helping Advisers articulate their value
When it came to initial conversations with clients, the knowledge gained through the course undertaken through Aged Care Steps helped Kerrie-Lee to not only provide better service and advice solutions, but also to articulate the value of the help she was able to give so that clients were willing to pay for the advice.
Kerrie-Lee introduced paid aged care advice packages to her clients after completing the course at the end of 2023, and has steadily built a list of clients she has provided aged care advice to.
Aged care advice has become more of a focus for PSK Advisory services (as with many others in the financial advice industry) as they realise and begin to see the risks of an ageing client base. The new offering, supported by the resources and technical help from Aged Care Steps, has brought over 30% of Kerrie-Lee’s new business since its introduction.
“I look at providing aged care advice as an opportunity to not only help my clients plan for the future, but to meet and build relationships with the next generation of clients.”
Expert technical support when you need it most
Especially in urgent cases where people are requiring unplanned aged care, their kids are generally the ones making the important decisions in a high-stress situation, highlighting to the next generation in real-time, how important it is to not only access advice but also to plan for the future and the estates that will be left behind.
“I get great, positive feedback when working with adult children of clients - it’s great that they understand how much value we bring when they go through the process with their parent.”
Kerrie-Lee has been using the Essentials Membership with Aged Care Steps as her entry into the aged care services world, and has been surprised by the amount and quality of resources made available to members. She has been able to utilise the marketing materials to educate and advertise her services in this niche area and generate referral business. “It’s only early days, but I can see the growth potential.”
With a new advice offering and the learning curve involved, Kerrie-Lee has appreciated the always-available technical support from Aged Care Steps that assists her with expert and accurate advice that she can tailor to clients. She looks forward to growing her knowledge and skills using these tools to help her take her practice to the next level with the credibility of being an aged care financial specialist.
“The course recognition allows me to be viewed as a specialist, which gives clients confidence that I really know what I’m doing.”
Partner with Aged Care Steps to grow your business
By partnering with an industry expert, members of Aged Care Steps are able to expand their offerings, strengthen their confidence in a niche of the market, and help Australians of all ages plan for their senior years.
Interested to know more? Contact our team today to discuss how membership can help your financial advice business grow through aged care advice.