Light-bulb leads to long-term Levera leverage

It is so often the case, that a successful product or service arises from necessity. For financial adviser Steve Sloane, managing director of Link Wealth Advice, it came from a clogged-up workflow.

Ten years ago, Steve Sloane’s advice business, Link Wealth Advice, had a problem. “We were getting overwhelmed with administrative tasks, that were taking up the time of not only our support staff but our advisers,” he says. “We were really bogged down, and we were getting increasingly frustrated because we knew that the admin tasks were getting in the way of delivering the best possible service to clients.”

Sloane knew he had to streamline the flow of documentation and data input. But his first instinct was not the right one. “I tried to hire more administrative staff,” he says. “But I couldn’t find them anywhere, and if I did, they wanted too much money, training was difficult, and so was retention.” 

In a light-bulb moment, Sloane decided that outsourcing was the solution. “I knew I had to build a back-office somewhere. I went and visited companies in India, Malaysia, Philippines and a couple other countries to work out where I set it up. I landed on the Philippines about eight years ago.”

There were good business reasons for that choice, but also a healthy dose of gut feel.

“They speak good English, and most candidates have a very good education. For some reason, we just have a really good culture fit; we just seem to get along as Aussies and Filipinos.”

Sloane established a business in the Philippines called Link Wealth Adviser Support in 2017, with two employees. “Initially, I only intended that it would support our practice, so that’s why I called it that. It just worked so well, it started to grow quite quickly. It was so effective for us, we realised that there was a whole new business outsourcing market there to be tapped,” he says. “There was high demand: we had a lot of people asking to use the service, and we picked-up that there was a fair bit of dissatisfaction with the existing providers.”

So, in 2021, he rebranded the firm to Levera Solutions, with a business mission of providing tailored outsourcing support that helps financial professionals to simplify their workflow and focus on their core strengths. There are now about 30 external middle-market financial advice businesses that use Levera, and next month the business will reach a headcount of 80 staff.

From the earliest days, Sloane had to be relaxed at the thought of his staff working to help his competitors, but he was “always cool with that,” believing in the growth of the industry. “The bottom line is, there’s just so much work for everybody. I’m very happy to help other advice firms grow, it doesn’t bother me at all, because it goes both ways. All the lessons we’ve learned over 12 years are built-in to what Levera does, but we still run into issues at Link Wealth where we can ask all the other 30 practices that Levera looks after, ‘how do you people fix it?’ We’ve actually created a community.”

And at the heart of this community is Levera, which operates from three office locations in the city of Angeles City, north of Manila. Levera provides back-office administration services, including end-to-end advice implementation processes, and the associated paperwork; other back-office administration requirements; CRM management; and data entry. The business also offers solutions for mortgage broking, accounting and digital marketing firms, but its “bread and butter” is the “back-office grunt work” for financial planners.

Far from being a side hustle for Link Wealth, Levera has evolved into a major business unit. “We have some pretty big growth goals for Levera, as we do for the combined group,” says Sloane. “Link Wealth Group comprises four entities, with a $300 million annual revenue target by 2035, and we’d expect Levera to make up 30 per cent of that. So, it’s going to have to keep growing, and I think it really can, because the amount of opportunity for it is significant.”

Internationalisation is a big part of those plans. “A natural next step for Levera is New Zealand, definitely; that would be on the cards at some stage. It makes more sense to look at those markets that are similar to Australia, which is New Zealand, Singapore and the UK, in the first instance. But absolutely, the services can be offered around the world, and even the US market has potential, as well.”

Growing out Levera’s capacity has given the team opportunities for progression and career development, which Sloane says has been “very satisfying.” The business is run by trusted, long-term Filipino managers and team leaders, with operational oversight from Link Wealth – Sloane estimates that Levera takes up to 40 per cent of his weekly time.

Culturally, the fit is great, he says, but as Levera has grown, so have the expectations. “We put a heavy focus on critical thinking and aptitude testing in recruitment, and only 30 per cent of candidates pass through to the interview stage. As we have progressed the business, we have aligned it closely with Australian work hours, holidays, and KPIs, and we’ve implemented an inhouse semi-long-term incentive plan to replicate something similar to superannuation. That was only fair, because our team in the Philippines are the ones implementing all of these superannuation setups. Naturally, they’re asking, ‘why haven’t we got anything like this?’ So, we built our own.”

Sloane has a “great management team,” but paradoxically, finds himself going to the Philippines a lot more frequently, as the business grows. “Either Josh (fellow Link Wealth director Josh Lee) or I am over there around every six to eight weeks. That will probably become once every two to three weeks, to be honest,” he says.

That simply reflects the growing importance of Levera, which is starting to attract interest from larger entities; not that Sloane is interested in selling. “No, I’m not too interested at this stage to offload it, although external equity could be something we look at. The way we look at it is, Levera is integral for Link Wealth, and given where we want to go with Link, I really need Levera to back that. So, we’re not interested in losing control of Levera.”