Merry Christmas & That’s a Wrap, 2018!

Hi Ben Kingsley here, Managing Director of Empower Wealth. And, yep, it’s that time of the year again — I’m sure the hat gave it away — but it’s my Christmas and calendar year wrap for Empower Wealth!

It has been a massive year for Empower Wealth, and each year I like to check in with you to share some of the achievements and milestones that have occurred throughout the course of 2018. So let’s just run through a few of them…

 

We’re starting with the Financial Planning business, where we did 182 New Insurance Policies, making sure we’ve got the defence strategy behind those people. We’re now managing $95 million worth of Investment funds in Superannuation and Managed Funds — so a very busy team in the Financial Planning area.

Our Mortgage Broking team have also been busy settling over 550 mortgages closing in to the value of $250 million worth of new lending. So they’ve had a very, very busy year.

Our Property Wealth Planning team have been designing and building Property Portfolio Plans for our clients so they can achieve financial peace.

Our Qualified Property Investment Advisors completed 425 plans throughout the course of the calendar year. This includes over $600 million of recommended future property investments for those clients, so it’s going to be an exciting time for these clients as they progress throughout the course of their journey.

Our Buyer’s Agents team — they haven’t been sitting back either — purchased 226 properties, and with a few more days before the end of the year, might even buy a few more. This is over $153 million worth of residential real estate for these clients.

 

The business itself has also been very, very busy. We’ve had several milestones…

• we’re approaching over 60 staff members in the team
• we opened up our Sydney office in March
• we’ve employed a new CEO to look after the business as it grows up there in Sydney
• Since opening up in October of 2007, we’ve looked after up to 4,000 clients

… so it’s been an absolute honor and a privilege to be able to serve those people and look after them. The team here have also experienced some other important milestones throughout the course of the year.

 

If we look at our podcast The Property Couch, we had some very, very big milestones this calendar year….

• we had our 200th Episode with Paul Clitheroe — if you haven’t listened to it, check it out here
• we’ve had over 4 million downloads of our shows
• we’ve had over 1000 five-star reviews, which is by far the biggest Australian-produced business podcast — not just property podcast; we’re talking out all of the podcasts in the business section with that many reviews on iTunes

… so we’re very, very proud of that!

 

In terms of the other teaching and education material that we’ve released….

• we released our brand new book in October, Make Money Simple Again
• we built The Property Couch’s Money SMARTS Platform to help Australians trap more surplus through our Money SMART System

 

Just recently, we’ve developed the Money SMARTS system inside the MyWealth Portal for every client to use. So please check it out. It’s really, really simple to use, and takes less than 10 minutes a month to organise your money and trap more surplus.

 

It’s all organised in there for you, so you’re welcome to check that out when you log in to your MyWealth Portal. There’s some educational videos in there to help you on your journey as well.

 

From the Awards point of view, a couple of big wins for us….

• The Australian Broking Awards — we won Best Office – Non- Franchise. This means we’ve been recognised as the Best Mortgage Broking Office across Australia.
• The one close to my heart — we won the inaugural award from Your Property Investment Magazine for the Best Property Investment Advisory Firm in 2018. It’s the first time this award has been on offer, and Empower Wealth took the honours there!
• The Australian Financial Review’s Fast 100, which we’ve featured in, both in 2016 and 2017 — this year in 2018 we took the 47th position.

.. so it has been a very big year!

But our work is not done. There’s lots of clients who we want to look after. It’s a relationship; it’s a destination we want to guide you to, so you can achieve your financial peace.

We’ve got some exciting things that we’re working on behind closed doors, in regards to more insights into benchmarking, how you’re tracking your spending, and how you look after your money. That’s why the Money SMARTS Platform is available, both on its own, and the superior version that exists within your MyWealth Portal. I’ll be talking to you a lot more around money management next year, and getting on that platform will allow you to benchmark yourself against other similar households across Australia to see how you’re going. This might be the impetus to make some changes — to improve or to pat yourself on the back as well.

 

Whether you’re home with family and friends around your own Christmas tree, or you’re planning to have a white Christmas and festive season, or how about a European experience throughout the holiday period, or how about spending New Year’s Eve in the Big Apple — but if that’s not your fancy how about an Outback Christmas where the sun’s hot and maybe the refreshments are ice cold? Or, how about in Australia, where you get the famous beach Christmas, prawns on the Barbie and all the seafood!

Whatever you fancy, go away, take that time out, refresh, recharge and create those great memories with family and friends.

Reflect on those people who can’t be with us, and also remember to look after those who are in great need in these times. So have fun, be safe, and all the best for the 2019 year. Because I know, with the right attitude and mindset, you can make 2019 a year of transformation for you and your family.

All the best.