Meet Sage D’Costa

Sage is a Financial Planner at Empower Wealth with over 7 years’ experience in the wealth management and financial planning industry. Sage holds a bachelor’s degree in Commerce (Finance/Financial Planning), Diploma of Commerce (Management) and a SMSF Accreditation Certificate with aspirations to attain further post graduate qualification as CFP.

Transcript

I’m based in Altona at the moment. If I’m not working, then I’ll be either at the gym, and I compete in powerlifting, and I’ve got a bit of a side operation. On the weekends, I consult to youth athletes in strength and conditioning.

What is the most rewarding aspect of being a Financial Advisor?

I feel one of the most rewarding things is, I try to put my clients in the best position to grow their wealth, but also protect their wealth. That defense aspect, I think, if we can ensure that’s in place and it’s meeting the clients, their position, their goals and objectives, that’s quite rewarding, because at times clients are coming to us with some really real types of things that they want to achieve. And by providing that foundation, I think, is really helpful.

I feel one of the most rewarding things is, I try to put my clients in the best position to grow their wealth, but also protect their wealth.

How did you get started in the Financial Planning Industry?

I was in a boutique financial planning firm, and prior to that, I was in a larger financial planning firm. It was good experience because I got some broad exposure to different types of clients, different businesses, and different processes and systems as well.

There was an SMSF focus with the company, so we had a lot of clients coming to us, for self managed super fund advice. Sometimes that would be through property, sometimes that would be through just their… They were quite curious about it. So, there was a bit of a focus. And then, we had a few small to medium enterprises, small businesses, that were very curious about that structure as well. And then, we also just had defense positions similar to the power wealth where clients had a lot of, possibly, debt and they needed to look at how to protect themselves, if anything were to happen, so to mitigate that risk.

What advice would you give to someone looking for a Financial Advisor?

That’s a great question. Some of the questions or answers, they’ll come up organically and we can unpack them. But, I think, what clients should preempt before a financial planning consultation is, have a basic understanding of their financial position or their needs and objectives.

And if there’s any immediate needs and objectives that they need to be addressed, there could be two types.

If we take super, for example, you don’t know what’s happening with your super fund. You might have five different superannuation funds and you might say, Sage, I don’t know what’s happening. I got five different superannuation accounts. Would it be worthwhile consolidating them, from a cost perspective and an investment perspective? So, that could be one type of need.

The other need could be as simple as, I don’t have any insurance in place, and I’ve got this debt, I’ve accumulated assets and in case anything happens to me, I want my family to be protected. Or, is my insurance through super adequate? Is it enough? Is it appropriate? Have that discussion with their financial planner.

To answer your question, if there’s any immediate needs, goals and objectives, that would be a good start. And then, I think, everything else would be unpacked quite organically.

What does an initial consultation with you look like?

My initial consultation, I’d really like to get to know the client. I’d like to get to know them from a very high level. So, know what their needs, objectives, their goals are. What’s their financial situation? It’s lucky that most clients, we have that visibility through the MyWealth Portal. That makes things a lot easier. But, the initial consultation is just getting to know you, understanding what we can do for you, what value we can provide, and then progressing from there.

If the clients do choose to engage with us, we do require some documents back. And that’ll give us a little bit more understanding of where we can provide value, whether it’s through certain superannuation and insurance, or if it’s anything else outside of that. We get clients to complete a risk profile questionnaire, a client health questionnaire. And those are very important too, from an investment point of view, but also from an insurance and a protection point of view as well.

You can learn more about Sage D’Costa here. Or if you’d like to book an initial consultation with our Financial Planners, simply fill in the form below and we’ll email you the next steps.