Innovation in advice isn’t new. Over the years we’ve seen a variety of innovative changes taking shape across different elements of the advice value chain.

Much of this innovation has focused on driving down costs using technology, client segmentation and outsourcing. We’ve seen practices step up their client engagement game too, with online fact finds, videos, podcasts, mobile apps and social media becoming common features of the advice landscape.

But as worthy as these types of innovations are, they may have been driven from a licensee perspective. They’ve also focused primarily on removing pain points for advice practices, rather than for advice clients.

Many of these innovations have been developed within a framework that keeps the SOA and its compliance requirements at the centre like some fixed, immovable object. Rather than getting to the root of the problem, the industry has been tinkering at the edges to try and make weighty advice documents less off-putting. But the answer doesn’t lie in simply adding some pictures and colour to an SOA.

Enter the new breed of advice entrepreneur. What makes these advisers different is that they’re empowered by their newfound thinking and an appetite for taking calculated risks. Because they’re starting with a blank sheet of paper, they can identify the real pain points of their clients and engineer solutions that will solve them.

For these advice entrepreneurs, their ‘north star’ is the client, not the SOA. This enables them to apply a design-thinking approach within their business. This inspires innovation and new ways of looking at how to deliver advice in a process and format that matches the needs and preferences of their clients.

HUB24 and XY Adviser, the professional network for financial advisers, spoke to a range of entrepreneurial advisers across the industry to find out what they are doing differently – how they are innovating within their business to make advice more client centric and more accessible.