We built Allied Wealth a complete funnel for booking more SMSF-ready retirement advice appointments.

Thanks for booking your Introductory Meeting with us. I know how these decisions sit with people, so before anything else, a quick rundown of what happens from here.

First, the meeting itself. It's a conversation, not a sales pitch. One of our advisers will sit down with you, get a feel for where you're at, what you've built, and what you're trying to sort out before you retire. Whether that's the SMSF question, a rollover, how your super's structured, or just getting one clear plan across the whole picture. If an SMSF makes sense for you, they'll tell you. If it doesn't, they'll tell you that too. We don't have a product to sell, so there's no version of this where we talk you into something. You'll get a straight answer, and you're free to walk away with it.

Over the next few days you'll get a couple of short emails from us. They're not spam, and they're not a drip campaign trying to wear you down. Each one just answers a question most people have before they come in, so you can show up already up to speed.

Now have a look at the clips below this one. They're short, and each one tackles a question we hear a lot. Is the fixed fee actually worth it. Do you even have enough for this to matter. Aren't all advisers just selling something. Should you set up an SMSF before you retire, or is that the wrong move for you. Whether your accountant already has this covered. Watch the ones that sound like your situation. The more you've thought through, the more time the adviser can spend on what's specific to you instead of the basics.

That's it. No pressure from us, and nothing's locked in. We'll see you at the meeting, and if you've got a question before then, you've got our number. Looking forward to it.

It's a fair question, so let me put the number on the table. Our minimum fee for a twelve-month agreement is $800 a month, including GST, and it moves with how complex your situation is. There's no separate Statement of Advice fee bolted on, and the fee is generally tax deductible.

The part that matters more than the number, though, is why it's flat. We charge a flat fee on purpose, with no percentage of your assets and no commissions. So as your balance grows, your fee doesn't creep up alongside it, and nothing in how we get paid pushes us toward one product over another. You're paying for advice, full stop, not for the privilege of us managing a pile of money we get a slice of.

Think about what a structuring decision this close to retirement is actually worth getting right. The way your super's set up, whether an SMSF suits you, how your income's drawn down, how it's all taxed. Those are decisions you mostly make once. A flat fee for an independent set of eyes on that, with no incentive tugging at the answer, tends to look small against the cost of getting the structure wrong.

If you want to walk through exactly what's included for the fee, raise it in the meeting and the adviser will lay it all out, line by line.

A lot of people hold off on booking because they're privately wondering if they've got enough for this to be worthwhile. So let me clear something up.

We don't have a minimum investment to engage us. Because our fee isn't a percentage of your assets, there's no balance you need to hit before we'll talk to you. That's deliberate. The whole point of a flat fee is that it's the same conversation whether your numbers are modest or substantial.

On the SMSF side specifically, there's a question people expect us to answer with a single number, and we won't, because the honest answer isn't a figure you read off a page. Whether an SMSF suits you depends on what you're trying to do, how hands-on you want to be, what you already hold, and how close you're getting to retirement. An adviser with no product to sell can look at all of that and tell you plainly whether it stacks up for you, or whether something simpler does the job better. That's the value of asking someone who doesn't earn more either way.

Bring your actual situation to the meeting. The adviser will tell you straight whether full advice, or an SMSF, is worth it for you specifically.

If you're sceptical here, you should be. Most people who've been near financial advice have felt the gentle nudge toward a particular fund, platform or product, and there's usually a reason for the nudge sitting in how that adviser gets paid.

So let me be specific about what sets us apart, because the word independent has an actual legal definition behind it. To call yourself independent under the Corporations Act, you can't take commissions, you can't charge asset-based or percentage fees, you can't be affiliated with a product issuer, and you can't work off a restricted list of products. We meet that definition. And to give you a sense of how rare that is, there are roughly 16,000 financial advisers in Australia, and fewer than 100 are classified as truly independent.

What that means for you is simple. There's no product we're trying to move, and no commission waiting at the end of a recommendation. When we look at whether you should set up an SMSF, or roll something over, or leave things where they are, the answer comes down purely to what's right for you. It's only about you, and we answer to you alone.

If you want, ask the adviser in the meeting to show you exactly how the independence works in practice. They're happy to.

This is probably the question that brought you here, so let me be honest about it. An SMSF is a powerful structure for some people and completely the wrong move for others, and the difference usually comes down to your specific situation, not a rule of thumb.

There's a reason it's worth asking us in particular. An adviser who's tied to a platform or a product list has a reason to lean you one way. We don't. Because we're independent and we charge a flat fee, we genuinely don't care whether you end up with an SMSF, a rollover, or your super left exactly where it is. We only care that the structure's right for the income you'll need and the life you're planning. That's a rare position to be advised from when the question is this loaded.

And it's a credentialed view, not a guess. Our founder, Chris Rae, is an accredited SMSF Specialist Advisor, so the SMSF decision gets assessed by someone who genuinely knows the structure inside out, then weighed honestly against the alternatives rather than sold to you.

In the meeting, nothing's decided in advance. You get an adviser walking through your circumstances and telling you which structure actually fits, with nothing riding on the answer.

Plenty of the people we talk to have a good accountant, and some have been managing their own super for years. So we're not here to tell you that you need us. We just want to be clear that what we do is a different job.

An accountant is usually brilliant at the compliance and the admin, getting your tax return right, making sure the structure's lodged correctly, the boxes ticked. What that doesn't cover is the strategy. Whether the structure itself is the right one for where you're headed, whether your investments are set up well inside it, and whether your super, investments, tax and estate plan all fit together into one coordinated picture rather than sitting as separate pieces handled separately. That's the gap an independent adviser fills, and it sits alongside your accountant rather than replacing them.

One of our clients put it well. They said our being completely independent, and giving advice in their best interests rather than our own while working in tandem with their other advisers, led to an outcome they were genuinely happy with. That's the role. We're the strategic, independent set of eyes that ties the whole thing together, and we coordinate with the people you already trust.

If you're not sure where your accountant's job ends and ours begins, that's a great thing to raise in the meeting. The adviser will draw the line clearly for your situation.

Day 0, immediately after booking
Pillar: Welcome + expectation set
Subject A: what happens at our meeting
Subject B: your meeting is booked, a note from chris
Preview: A short read on what to expect, no prep required.

Day 1, AM
Pillar: Hard objection #1 (is advice worth a fixed monthly fee)
Subject A: the fee question most people sit on
Subject B: what you actually pay, in plain numbers
Preview: The flat-fee maths, with nothing hidden behind it.

Day 1, PM
Pillar: Lesson-based case study
Subject A: what 8 years of advice actually looks like
Subject B: a client story, and the part that mattered
Preview: One client, one decision, the bit people miss.

Day 2, AM
Pillar: Math / financial model (flat fee vs asset-based)
Subject A: the fee that grows with your balance
Subject B: flat fee vs a percentage, the real difference
Preview: Two structures, same balance, different outcome.

Day 2, PM
Pillar: Actionable asset (DIY)
Subject A: tell if your adviser is actually independent
Subject B: four questions to ask any adviser
Preview: Use this even if we never speak again.

Day 3, AM
Pillar: Hard objection #2 + transparency
Subject A: do i even have enough for an smsf
Subject B: the honest answer on whether smsf suits you
Preview: The question we get no benefit from pushing either way.

Day 3, midday
Pillar: Macro urgency (real market shift)
Subject A: why fewer than 100 advisers can say this
Subject B: what changed after the royal commission
Preview: The window, and why it sits open now.

Day 3, evening (or Day 4 AM if the meeting is in the morning)
Pillar: Final prep
Subject A: how to get the most from our meeting
Subject B: a short note before we speak
Preview: What to bring, nothing to buy.

Structure: Contrarian Call-Out, Dismantle, Alternative Framework
CTA level: none
Subject A: the smsf answer your fund will never give you
Subject B: who decides if an smsf is right for you
Preview: The person answering usually has a reason to lean one way.

"Should I set up an SMSF before I retire?"

It's one of the most common questions we get from people in their fifties and sixties. It's also one of the hardest to get a straight answer to, and the reason comes down to who you tend to ask.

Your super fund knows an SMSF means money leaving them. An accountant who sets them up sees a new client. An adviser paid a percentage of what they manage tends to find the structure that holds the most assets looks most appealing. None of those people are villains. They're just answering a question that happens to have a right answer for them as well as for you.

We sit in an unusual spot. Allied Wealth holds no products, takes no commissions, and our fee doesn't move with your balance. So whether an SMSF is right for you or wrong for you, our answer costs us nothing either way. That's the only condition under which the answer is actually about you.

The frame we use instead of a yes or a no is this. An SMSF is a structure, not a goal. The goal is the retirement income you want and the control and tax position that get you there. Sometimes an SMSF is the cleanest way to that. Often a rollover, a consolidation, or a well-built managed structure does the same job with less for you to run. The structure should be chosen last, after the goal is clear, not first because someone benefits from it.

So before you decide on the vehicle, get honest about the destination. Name the income you'll actually need, the things you want control over, the things you'd happily never think about again, and who inherits and how cleanly. Answer those, and the right structure tends to pick itself.

We'll come back to that decision over the next few weeks, one piece at a time.

Structure: Concept, Framework, Takeaway
CTA level: none
Subject A: fewer than 100 in the whole country
Subject B: the word "independent" has a legal meaning
Preview: Most advice that calls itself independent legally isn't.

There are roughly 16,000 financial advisers in Australia. Fewer than 100 are legally allowed to call themselves independent.

That gap surprises most people, because the word gets used loosely. So it's worth knowing what it actually means, because it changes how you should read any advice you're given.

Under the Corporations Act, independent has a strict definition. To use the word, an adviser must take no commissions, charge no fees based on a percentage of your assets, and hold no ties to any product issuer or restricted list of products they're nudged to recommend. Fail any one of those, and you can't legally claim it. That's why the number is so small.

Why it matters comes down to three pressures most clients never see:

- A commission means a product pays the adviser when you buy it. The recommendation and the payment point the same way.
- A percentage-of-assets fee means the adviser earns more as your balance grows, which favours structures that gather more assets under their management.
- A restricted product list means the answer to "what should I invest in" is bounded before your situation is even discussed.

None of those make an adviser dishonest. They just mean the advice has a thumb on the scale, and you rarely get to see which way it presses.

The takeaway is simple. When you ask whether an SMSF, a rollover, or a managed portfolio is right for you, the question that matters most is whether the person giving the answer earns anything different depending on what you choose. If they do, the advice is still worth having, but read it knowing the thumb is there. If they don't, you're getting the rarest thing in this industry: an answer that's only about you.

Structure: Common Phrase, Reframe, Core Insight
CTA level: none
Subject A: "i'll sort the structure out closer to retirement"
Subject B: the decision that gets harder every year you wait
Preview: Deferring this one feels safe. It rarely is.

"I'll sort all this out closer to retirement."

If you've caught yourself thinking that about your super structure, you're in good company. Almost everyone with a real balance has parked the big decisions for a calmer day. Trouble is, those decisions don't sit still while you wait.

In the years just before you stop working, the structural choices carry the most weight and the least room to undo. How your super is held, whether it moves into pension phase, how and when you draw it down, what an SMSF would and wouldn't give you: these compound. Get the structure right at fifty-five and the next decade works for you. Reach for it at sixty-four and some of the best options have already closed.

So reframe it. "Closer to retirement" isn't a safer time to decide. It's a more expensive one. The version of you with the most options is the one looking at this five to ten years out, not the one a few months from a finish line, trying to reverse decisions that have already set.

This is the part people get wrong about caution. Deferring a decision feels like the careful choice, but it's still a choice, and it's usually the one that costs the most.

Doing nothing is doing something. So decide early, and decide once.

Structure: Misconception, Reframe, Teach, Embedded CTA, Keep Teaching
CTA level: embedded (soft)
Subject A: the fee that doesn't grow when your balance does
Subject B: what a percentage really costs over twenty years
Preview: A small percentage on a large balance adds up fast.

For a long time, the industry standard was to charge a percentage of what you have. It sounds reasonable on the surface, and it's also the reason a lot of retirement advice costs far more than it should.

The maths people skip is this. A "small" 1% on a balance that climbs through retirement isn't a flat cost. It scales with the very number you spent decades building, and it keeps scaling whether the work that year was substantial or barely changed. You can pay tens of thousands a year for advice that, in plain terms, didn't get more complex just because your balance grew.

We do it differently, and not as a gimmick. Our fee is fixed, agreed upfront, and starts from $800 a month including GST, varying with how complex your situation actually is rather than how large it is. It's generally tax deductible, with no separate fee for the advice document and no minimum investment required to work with us. The advice is priced on the work, not on your wealth.

That structure is why the SMSF question can be answered honestly here. We earn the same fixed fee whether you set one up or never do, so nothing pulls the answer one way. If you've been weighing the structure and want it looked at by someone with no product to sell, that's exactly what the introductory meeting is for. It's free, there's no obligation, and you leave with a clearer view either way.

What a flat fee really changes is whose interest the advice serves. When the fee is fixed, the adviser has no reason to favour the structure that holds the most assets, recommend more product, or keep you in something that suits them more than you. The incentive to do right by you and the incentive to get paid finally point in the same direction. For most people, that alignment is worth more than any single recommendation we'll ever make.

Structure: Client Story, Coaching Moment, Principles
CTA level: soft
Subject A: he came in certain he needed an smsf
Subject B: the meeting that changed the question
Preview: Sometimes the right answer is the structure you don't set up.

A client came to us a few years back convinced he needed to set up an SMSF before he retired. He'd read enough to feel behind, a friend had done it, and he wanted control. The first thing we told him was that we might end up advising against it. He looked genuinely surprised.

We spent the meeting not on the SMSF but on what he was actually trying to do: a reliable income from sixty, the ability to help his kids without derailing his own plan, and an estate that passed on without a fight. Only once those were clear did we look at structures. For his situation, a consolidation and a tax-effective managed structure did the job with far less for him to run, and an SMSF would have added cost and admin for control he didn't really want to exercise.

He left without the thing he came in for, and told us months later it was the most useful advice he'd been given in years. The coaching moment wasn't about super at all. It was that he'd been shopping for a vehicle before he'd named the destination.

A few principles sit underneath that:

- Start with the life, not the product. The structure is the last decision, not the first.
- Control has a price. Sometimes it's worth paying, and often it's paid for nothing.
- The right advice is sometimes the recommendation not to do the thing you walked in wanting.

If you've been circling the SMSF decision and want it looked at by someone whose only job is to get your answer right, the introductory meeting is a free, no-obligation place to start. Worst case, you leave knowing the structure you've already got is the right one.

Structure: Concept, Framework, Takeaway
CTA level: soft
Subject A: five questions before you touch your super
Subject B: the checklist we run before any structure change
Preview: Run these before anyone moves your money anywhere.

Before you set up an SMSF, roll over a fund, or change how your super is held, there are five questions worth sitting with. They're the same ones we work through in a first meeting, and you can start on them on your own.

- What income do I actually need in retirement, and from what age? Most structure decisions get easier once this number is real rather than a guess.
- What do I genuinely want control over, and what would I happily hand off and never think about again? Control is the whole case for an SMSF, and only you can say how much you want.
- Who's recommending this change, and do they earn anything different depending on what I choose? If the answer is yes, the advice still has value, but read it knowing which way it leans.
- What does this cost me over ten or twenty years, not just this year? A percentage fee or an admin load looks small annually and large across a retirement.
- What happens to all of this when I'm gone? The cleanest structures are the ones that pass on without a mess.

If you can answer all five clearly, you're in a strong position to decide, and you may not need us at all. If two or three of them are fuzzy, that fuzziness is usually where the costly mistakes live, and it's exactly what a first conversation is for.

The introductory meeting is free and carries no obligation. You bring the questions, we bring the experience, and you leave with a clearer view of whether anything needs to change before you retire. Plan today, secure tomorrow, and let the structure match the life you want.