Beacon Advisers

09/08/2024

Tribute to Mr Lee Kuan Yew on this National Day.
59yrs ago, this man must have been badly crushed.

A belief of an integration with Malaysia, a multi-racial harmony society he had so much conviction that he spent his entire adult life working so hard when he had nothing much to build was terminated on this day 59yrs ago.

I can feel how much pain it must have caused him.

But also because he had no more choice, he took up the responsibility to take care of his people to continue working back from scratch, that’s why we have the prosperous, inter-racial harmony nation that we enjoy today.

I take that moment as a learning point in our business. Many times, people fail not because they are lazy or stupid. But a lot of times, we don’t take responsibility, especially over making decision.

Many of us fail in time management, in health etc because we want too many things. That’s why we never force ourselves to be left with no choice but to make what we had work.

This video reminds me that I need to be more mindful and be courageous to make a choice.
If necessary, burn my bridges behind me so that I will not have any options left, but to pursue what I strongly believe in, just like our founding fathers who had that grit and determined spirit to build singapore.

Happy birthday Singapore.
I love u. 🇸🇬

To mark Lee Kuan Yew's 100th birth anniversary on Sep 16, 2023, CNA is looking back at his more memorable quotes. https://cna.asia/leekuanyewquotes On Aug 9,...

17/07/2024

Disclaimer:
This post is Not financial advice. Please ask a qualified financial adviser before you decide on any investment options.

Recently a client was asking me “James, Dimensional Funds are cheap in fees. Can we consider investing in their funds?”

I think as an objective FA, this is a reasonable request to explore if there are merits since fees are low, therefore it can potentially mean they already have an advantage in returns.

But after running some fair reference, conclusion is shocking: low fees does not always mean better returns!

In the screenshot, I used infinity funds which is also passively managed, but charged at close to 2x more mgmt fee (Dimensional 0.22-0.31%, infinity 0.48% range) but infinity has consistently beat the returns over many time observation periods.

Even for fixed income, returns are paltry for dimensional but after screening good funds like Fullerton cash fund where risk is even lower than dimensional, its giving superior returns as well.

This exercise gave me a few conclusion:

1. Low fees does not always mean better returns. We need to look at the underlying assets and their historical performance.

2. Passive funds with low fees does not always turn out strongest net return. What u don’t see here are some actively managed funds and they actually give very impressive returns of 25-35% returns for US equities space last year. The outperformance vs S&P can actually cushion future years of lower than benchmark returns and giving net overall higher real gains in spite of their high mgmt fees of 1.5% range.

3. Low fees sound good, but net returns after fees should be the biggest consideration factor. Sometimes paying more is because the operator is doing a good job, just like how a good worker should deserve better pay and salary.

4. The importance of working with a financial adviser. The role of a financial adviser is not to push products randomly to clients. But it’s partnership consultation with clients and to help clients source and filter options so they can make an educated decision for best value (not price/cost). If not for the client’s trust with me as his FA, most people in his position would probably just switch funds because they got attracted by low fees. But because of the trust, he can confidently check in with me before making a decision and comes out more informed.

Having a good and objective FA is actually important to consumers. Just like a company CEO cannot run a company managing everything including finance, and they hire CFO to help with the financial aspects, I really want to encourage the retail public to hire your family CFO to help you manage your family finances better.

The salary that CEOs pay to CFO helps to make the company perform better. Likewise, the fees and commissions you let your FA earn helps u save time to screen things and give u good perspective to make your family and personal finance perform better.

(Screen is a bit small, hope u can zoom to see performance if u are curious).

21/05/2024

“James, I am really sick and tired of cold calling…”

Recently I had an opportunity to speak to a struggling adviser about her predicaments.

Have you wondered: why must this career as a financial adviser rep need to do cold call?

Please don’t accuse me for not being understanding here, but my journey for the past 20yrs has generally been 99% warm connections and I depend very little on cold call. Doing well with warm is actually a lot easier and let me explain why:

There is KNOW-LIKE-TRUST built. Transactions only happen when clients feel safe and assured your advice can be trusted. Cold call will not be able to build this fast enough.

Warm connections are willing to follow and interested in your updates. And this will also lead to greater chance of referrals which make business even easier for you.

However, not all are so lucky to start the career with no need to cold call right?

My suggestion is this:
If you really do not have any connections, then cold call is a quick way to make yourself known.

But we cannot stay there. We must make these connections like us and follow us. So here it’s not about persistently following up on their appointment availability. This can actually be counter-productive and annoy them. Rather, it’s about allowing yourself to show up in their lives and social media on things that u can value-add. This increases trust in a very fast way.

From here it’ll be very easy for prospects to start calling you up instead of you desperately initiating a meetup.

Second: find help that can help you effectively build skillset to warm your connections and make them hot. Praying and hoping that cold call will solve your long term success is not ideal if you keep these clients at transactional level. You got to build relationships because this is a relationship business if you want to see good results. At my team, we make it a point to onboard a client FOR LIFE and not just over a one-time purchase. That itself carries responsibility, conviction and deep connection with clients on a marathon journey.

So, if you are struggling at cold call, I’ll like to comfort you that at least you have connections. Now, step out of your comfort zone and start warming up your connections to make them love u! Connections are precious for you to BUILD YOUR OWN PRACTICE and OWN THEM instead of running the wheel for your employer and then having to do this month in month out over and over again without you building anything that can last in future.

If you are looking for a great place to hone that skill and use that to make a good living? I happen to know where’s a good team to consider 😆😆.

Let me know if you need any assistance to find your breakthrough!

To your breakthrough!
James