We built Leenane Templeton a complete funnel for booking more qualified appointments.

First up, thank you for booking your retirement income consultation. It's a real step, and it usually means you've reached the point where you want a proper picture of how your super and your assets turn into the retirement you actually want, rather than a rough hope that it'll all work out.

The call itself is calmer than you might be picturing. It's a conversation with one of our advisers about where you're heading, and the one question that pulls most people in: do you have a real plan to turn what you've built into reliable retirement income, and does a self managed super fund actually belong in your structure or not. You won't have a plan thrown at you and there's nothing to sign. If we can genuinely help, your adviser will tell you what that looks like. And if a self managed fund isn't right for you, they'll tell you that just as plainly, before anyone sells you one, because we'd rather point you in the right direction than talk you into something that doesn't fit.

You should already have a confirmation with your time and the details, so keep an eye out for that. Over the next few days we'll also send you a couple of short emails. They cover the questions that come up on nearly every one of these calls, so nothing catches you off guard when you actually speak with us.

Before then, the most useful thing you can do is sitting right below this video. There are a few short clips on the questions people ask us most, things like whether the advice is genuinely worth the fee, whether you've got enough to make it worthwhile, and whether you'd really be sold a self managed fund. Have a look through the ones that matter to you. That way we're not spending the call on the basics, and your adviser can put the whole conversation into your situation instead.

Watch a few of those, and one of our advisers will take it from there. We're glad you're here.

This is the question almost everyone is turning over and not many say out loud, so I'll give you the plain version of it.

Good advice has to earn its keep, otherwise there's no point paying for it. For most people it pays off through the dull, important things rather than some clever investment tip: how your situation is structured, how the tax gets handled, and the costly decisions you don't get wrong because someone who does this every day was in your corner. When you should draw down and from which pot, how your super and any property and your investments sit together at tax time, what happens to your partner if something happens to you. Those are the choices that make or cost you real money over a retirement, and getting them right is most of the job.

What we won't do is dress it up. Nobody credible can promise you a market return, and we won't pretend to. What you're paying for is advice that's worth more than it costs you, through better strategy and the mistakes you avoid.

On the cost itself, we're straight with you. We give you an upfront quote for the work wherever we can, because you should be able to expect reasonable certainty with no nasty surprises. The consultation you've booked is free and there's no obligation at the end of it. If you go further from there, you'll see what the work costs before you commit to anything, not after.

Whether it's worth it for you specifically is exactly what the call is for. Your adviser will be straight with you about whether the value's really there in your situation, because we'd rather you walked away than paid us for advice that wouldn't have earned its keep.

This is a fair thing to be wary about, and clearly, you should be. A lot of the industry earned that wariness. So let me be plain about how we work, because it's the opposite of it.

The thing we're genuinely against is being sold a structure instead of being given a plan. There are operators who'll set you up with a self managed super fund, or leave you sitting in a default fund, without ever working out whether it serves the retirement you actually want. The product is where their money comes from, so the product is the answer before they've understood your life. Our whole approach runs the other way around. We look at where you're heading and what you want your money to do, model the plan, and only then work out the right structure to deliver it. For some people that turns out to be a self managed fund, and for plenty of others it doesn't, and we'll tell you so either way.

That's why the self managed fund question is the front door for these calls rather than the sales pitch. It's a genuine suitability decision, made by people who do this every day. Our team includes accredited self managed super fund specialists, and the founder, Andrew, won the National SMSF Best Practice Award back in 2013. So when we tell you a fund does or doesn't fit you, that's a real opinion from people who know the structure inside out, not a nudge toward a sale.

Come a bit sceptical to the call. Nobody's going to pitch you a fund on it. It's a conversation to understand your situation and give you a straight answer. We'd rather earn the trust than ask for it.

We hear this one a lot, and it's worth pulling apart, because it stops people from getting help right when help would do the most good.

The idea that you need to be wealthy for this gets it backwards. If you've already got far more than you'll ever need, frankly you can afford to make a few mistakes with it. The people who get the most out of real advice are usually the ones for whom the decisions actually matter. You've worked hard, you've built something over a career, and there isn't an enormous buffer for getting the next decade wrong. In that spot, having the right structure and a proper income plan changes how the rest of your life looks.

We don't publish a minimum and we're not sizing you up by your balance. What we care about is whether we can genuinely add value for you, and whether you've reached the point where the choices in front of you really matter. For most people thinking seriously about the next 10 or 20 years, they are.

The consultation costs you nothing and there's no obligation at the end of it. If we're not the right fit for you, your adviser will tell you clearly. So forget whether you've got enough to feel wealthy. The real question is whether the decisions ahead of you have become worth a proper conversation. For most people sitting where you are, they have.

Plenty of people who book these calls are sharp with money already. They run their own super, they read up, they've got a good accountant. So this is a fair thing to weigh up, and we'll give you the plain version of it.

You can absolutely do a lot of it yourself, and some people do it well. Where it tends to come unstuck is that retirement planning isn't one decision, it's dozens of them stitched together over years, and the tricky part is how they interact. When to start a pension and from where, how your super and investments and any property play together come tax time, how your structure holds up if the rules change or if something happens to one of you. Most people can handle any one of those on a good day. Holding the whole picture, and keeping it current as your life and the rules shift, is the hard part, and it's where the costly misses hide.

Your accountant is a different thing again, and a good one is worth their weight. But an accountant generally looks backward, at the year that's been and the return that's due. They're not usually set up to look 20 years forward and build the income plan that gets you there, and to make the clear call on whether a self managed fund still serves you. The best outcomes happen when your accountant and your adviser work together, and we're very used to doing exactly that.

So you don't have to hand everything over. Bring what you're already doing well to the call. Your adviser will tell you where you're in good shape and where a second set of eyes is genuinely worth the fee. If you're already across it all, they'll say that too.

It's a sensible thing to check before you hand anyone your retirement, so let me put the track record on the table and you can judge for yourself.

The firm's been advising Australians since 2000, and the current team carries over 100 years of combined experience between them. That's not a brand-new outfit finding its feet on your super. The founder, Andrew Frith, was named one of Australia's top 50 financial planners in the Financial Review Smart Investor Masterclass, and he holds Gold adviser status on Adviser Ratings, which is the public register where you can look any adviser up. On the structure side specifically, he won the National SMSF Best Practice Award in 2013, which matters here because the whole point of these calls is an clear read on whether a self managed fund fits you.

None of that's the reason to work with us, mind you. What matters is whether we can genuinely help your situation, and that's what the call's for. But you shouldn't have to take a stranger's word on the internet for any of it. Andrew's adviser record, the awards, the firm's history, they're all public, so go and check them before you get on the call if you'd like to.

Then come along, talk it through, and see if we're the right team for you. One of our advisers will take it from there.

You don't need to prepare much for this one, so don't let gathering paperwork become the reason you put it off. It's a first conversation, not an audit.

That said, a few things make it more useful if they're easy to lay your hands on. The big one is a rough sense of your super. Whatever you've got, including those old accounts from previous jobs that most people have half forgotten about, and your partner's too if you're planning this as a couple. You don't need exact figures down to the dollar, a ballpark is plenty for a first chat. If you've already got a self managed fund, or someone's suggested one, that's worth mentioning too, because it's often the heart of the conversation.

Beyond that, it just helps if you've had a think about the softer side before you get on. Roughly when you'd like to stop working, or at least ease off. Whether there's still a mortgage ticking along. And the thing that's actually been nagging at you about retirement, the worry that made you book this call in the first place. That's the part your adviser most wants to hear, because the numbers only mean something once they know what you're aiming for.

So bring a rough picture and an clear answer to what you want the next chapter to look like. That's genuinely enough for a great first conversation.

Subject: Your call with leenane templeton is locked in
Send: Day 0, 5 minutes after booking

Thanks for booking. The calendar invite should already be sitting in your inbox.

If it hasn't turned up, have a quick look in your spam folder, and if it's not there either, reply to this and I'll send it through again.

A quick word on what the call is, because I'd rather set the expectation now than have you wondering later. It's a relaxed first conversation about where you're heading toward retirement, not a pitch. We use it to understand where you stand today and where you want to get to, and to give you a straight read on two things. Whether you've got a proper plan to turn your super and assets into the income you'll actually live on, and whether a self-managed fund belongs anywhere in your structure. Some people come away knowing we're a good fit and we keep going from there. Others find their situation is simpler than they feared and they don't need much from us yet, and we'll tell them so. Either way you'll finish the call clearer than you started it, with no obligation attached.

Over the next few days I'll send you a handful of short notes on the things people tend to turn over between booking and the call. Whether you've got enough behind you to make this worthwhile, whether we're just going to sell you an SMSF, what running your own fund actually involves, and where your accountant stops and a planner starts. Read them or skip them, whatever's useful to you.

We've been doing this work in Newcastle since 2000, so chances are we've sat across from someone in a spot a lot like yours.

Speak soon,

Andrew Frith
Founder, Leenane Templeton

Subject: Why people actually book this call
Send: Day 1, morning

A quick follow-up to your confirmation.

The people who book a call with us tend to look fairly similar. Often somewhere between 50 and retirement, a decent super balance built up over a working life, frequently a business owner or an established professional, and usually thinking about it alongside a partner.

What's worth noting is why they get in touch, because it's rarely "I'd like a financial plan." It usually sounds more like this. They've done well and they've got assets sitting in a few different places, and they're no longer sure they've got a real plan for turning all of it into a retirement income they can count on. Somewhere along the way they've half-looked at a self-managed fund for the control it promises, without ever finding someone they trust to tell them straight whether it actually suits them. So they sit there knowing they should probably sort it out, and keep putting it off.

If that's roughly where you're at, you're in exactly the right place for this call.

The way we see it, a goal without a plan is just a wish. So the work is getting clear on the life you want in retirement first, then organising your super and your investments to fund it, and only then deciding what structure delivers it best. That's the lens we'll bring to your situation when we speak.

Tomorrow I'll send a note on the question almost everyone weighs up at this stage, which is whether they've even got enough behind them to make this worth doing.

Andrew Frith
Founder, Leenane Templeton

Subject: Do you have enough to make advice worthwhile
Send: Day 1, evening

Following on from this morning.

One of the most common things people wonder before they speak to us is whether they've got enough behind them to make advice, or a self-managed fund, genuinely worth it. It's a fair question, and I'd rather you heard a straight answer than a sales one.

The plain version is that there's no magic number, and anyone who throws a single figure at you without knowing your situation is guessing. Whether full advice earns its keep, and whether an SMSF stacks up inside it, depends on what you've built, yes, but also on what you actually want the money to do, whether you're planning as a couple or on your own, and how layered your wider picture is. A clean, simple setup and one that holds direct property or a borrowing arrangement inside super are genuinely different propositions. We work all of that out together against your real numbers, rather than reaching for a rule of thumb.

What I can tell you plainly is this. If your situation is simple enough that you're better off leaving things much as they are, we'll say so on the call. We'd rather tell you that than take you down a path that costs more than it gives back.

So the real question isn't "do I have enough." It's "given everything I've got and where I want to end up, does this structure earn its place." That's exactly what we work through when we speak.

If you can, have a rough idea of your current super balance in your head before the call, and your partner's too if they'd be part of the picture. Nothing formal needed.

Andrew Frith
Founder, Leenane Templeton

Subject: A straight answer on whether we sell you something
Send: Day 2, morning

This is the one a lot of people are too polite to say out loud, so I'll say it for you. "Aren't you just going to talk me into an SMSF, or some product?"

After everything that came out of the Royal Commission, that suspicion is completely reasonable. Plenty of advisers really were tied to selling whatever sat on a parent company's approved list, and a fair few of the people we speak to have been burnt by exactly that.

It's worth being clear about how we work, because that answers the question more clearly than any reassurance could. We start with you and your retirement income rather than with a product. The plan comes first, and the structure is whatever delivers that plan best for your situation, whether that's your existing super, a self-managed fund, or some combination. Where the SMSF question comes up, we answer it clearly inside your plan rather than treating it as a product to move. Sometimes the right answer involves no structural change at all, and that's a perfectly fine outcome for us.

The reason we can work that way is that we built the firm around it. Andrew won the National SMSF Best Practice Award back in 2013 precisely for advice that puts the client's situation ahead of the sale, and we've kept advising the same way since. One of our long-standing clients put it better than I could when they said they'd recommend us to anyone looking for advisers who aren't afraid to give an opinion. Giving you a real one is most of what you're paying us for.

Tomorrow, the time-and-effort question, because "I haven't got the hours to run my own super fund" is the next thing most people raise.

Andrew Frith
Founder, Leenane Templeton

Subject: The time and effort of actually running an smsf
Send: Day 2, evening

A common worry, and a sensible one. "A self-managed fund sounds good, but I haven't got the time or energy to run my own super."

It's worth pulling apart, because the fear and the reality aren't quite the same thing.

Running an SMSF does carry real responsibilities. You're a trustee, there's an investment strategy to set and review, contributions and pensions to keep on top of, an annual audit, and reporting to the tax office underneath it all. None of that's trivial, and anyone who tells you a fund is set and forget is doing you a disservice.

What people miss is how much of that load sits with your advisers rather than on your kitchen table. Compliance, audit coordination and the technical strategy work, that's the job we and the right accountant do alongside you. What stays in your hands are the decisions about your money and your direction, made with someone in your corner who actually knows your situation. One couple we set a fund up for years ago still tell us the thing they value most is that it runs with very little input from them, which leaves them free to get on with enjoying their retirement.

So the real question isn't "have I got time to run a fund." It's "do I want more say over how my retirement savings are invested, with the right people handling the heavy lifting so it doesn't take over my life." For a lot of the people we work with, that trade is exactly what they were after. If the running of it's the bit putting you off, raise it on the call. It's usually a smaller burden than people picture once they see how the support around it works.

Andrew Frith
Founder, Leenane Templeton

Subject: Where your accountant stops and a planner starts
Send: Day 3, morning

One more that comes up a lot. "Can't I just sort this myself, or let my accountant handle it?"

For some people the clear answer is yes. If your situation is simple and you enjoy staying across it, you may not need a great deal from us, and we'll happily tell you that on the call. For most people who book with us, though, there's a gap they hadn't quite seen.

A good accountant is essential, and most of our clients keep theirs. What an accountant typically handles on a self-managed fund is the compliance and admin. The annual financial statements, coordinating the audit, lodging the tax return, looking after the reporting to the tax office. That's their lane and they do it well, and plenty of them will tell you straight that the strategy isn't their job.

The strategy is the part that decides how you turn your assets into a reliable, tax-effective retirement income, what the fund should actually hold, how it knits into your wider wealth and your tax position, whether something like direct property fits, how contributions and pensions are timed, and how the whole thing lines up with your estate planning. That's a different discipline, and it's the one our planning side specialises in, with SMSF Association accredited specialists who do this work every day. We work alongside accountants all the time, and we're happy to work alongside yours.

Doing the lot yourself is possible too, but it's worth being direct that the rules keep shifting, the decisions compound over decades, and the expensive mistakes tend to hide in the moves you only make once or twice in a fund's life. We'll talk through where you genuinely need a hand and where you don't when we speak. There's no interest here in selling you help you don't need.

Andrew Frith
Founder, Leenane Templeton

Subject: Why we start with the plan not the product
Send: Day 3, midday

One more bit of context before we speak, because it sits underneath everything else.

A few of the people on this call have sat with a bank-aligned or dealer-group adviser at some point, and they want to know how we're any different. It's a fair thing to want answered. However good and well-meaning a bank-tied adviser is, the institution behind them is built to sell its own product. The shelf is limited, the incentives line up with the bank's own funds and lending, and a proper, independent read on whether a self-managed fund suits you isn't something most of them will lead with, because there's little in it for the bank.

We built Leenane Templeton the other way around. The firm has been running since 2000, the planning is led under our own licence, and the team carries over 100 years of combined experience across accounting and advice. That track record is the reason we can start every conversation with your plan rather than a product. We model where your retirement income comes from first, and the structure follows from that.

I raise all this because an advice relationship lives or dies on trust. If you can't trust that the advice is genuinely in your corner, the strategy barely matters. We've built the firm around exactly that for 25 years, and the call is where you get to test whether it rings true.

Andrew Frith
Founder, Leenane Templeton

Subject: A few practical notes for our call
Send: Day 3, evening (or 3 hours before the call)

Looking forward to speaking with you soon.

A few practical notes so we make the time count. If you can, have a rough idea of your current super balance to hand, plus a sense of your partner's if they'd be part of the picture. If you've got an accountant who handles your tax, it helps to know roughly how that arrangement runs. And if there's something specific driving this for you, a property you've thought about holding in super, a business premises, a sale or an inheritance on the horizon, just have it in mind. No documents required, a rough sense of where things sit is plenty.

On the call itself, we'll talk through where you're at, what's prompted you to look at this now, and whether we're the right people to help. You'll come away with a clearer view of your options either way, and if we're not the right fit for you, you'll know that too.

If something comes up and you need to move the time, reply to this and we'll find another slot.

Talk soon,

Andrew Frith
Founder, Leenane Templeton

Subject: The first question we ask before we talk money

CTA: None

When someone sits down with us for the first time, the question we open with tends to surprise people. Rather than asking how much you've got or what you earn, we start with what you actually want this money to do for you in retirement.

It sounds soft, and yet it turns out to be the most practical question in the whole process.

Most retirement plans go sideways not because the maths was wrong, but because the plan was built around a goal nobody ever named out loud. People save hard for thirty years toward a retirement they've never really pictured, then arrive and feel oddly flat once they get there. The balance was met, but the life behind the balance was never defined in the first place.

Real planning works the other way around. You get clear on the life first, the things you want time and freedom for and the people you want to look after, then the strategy gets built to fund that, rather than chasing a bigger number for its own sake. Whether a self-managed fund belongs in the mix, how your super is invested, when you switch from building to drawing an income, all of it follows from the life you're aiming at, not the other way round.

The dollars are the means and the life is the point, and when you keep those in the right order almost every decision downstream gets easier, because you've finally got something real to measure it against.

If you take one thing from this, it's worth asking yourself the question we'd ask you. Not how much do I want, but what do I want it for. The answer tends to reshape everything that comes after it.

Andrew Frith
Founder, Leenane Templeton

Subject: The part of an smsf people get backwards

CTA: Embedded

For a long time the common wisdom on self-managed super was that more control simply meant more work, and unless you loved spreadsheets it wasn't worth the bother. A lot of people still carry that belief, and it keeps them parked in a fund they don't really understand.

The reframe worth sitting with is that control and workload aren't the same axis.

A self-managed fund gives you genuine say over how your retirement savings are invested, the ability to hold things an industry fund simply can't offer, like direct property or business premises, and a structure you can tie into the rest of your wealth and your estate planning. That's the control side, and for the right person it's the whole point.

The workload side is a different question, and it's the one most people get wrong. A well-run fund leans on advisers and an accountant for compliance, the audit, the technical strategy work and the reporting. What stays in your hands are the decisions that genuinely should, the ones about your money and your direction. You get more say without having to become a part-time fund administrator.

If you've ever wondered whether a self-managed fund actually fits your situation, that's exactly the kind of thing we work through on a no-obligation retirement income call.

The plain caveat is that an SMSF isn't right for everyone. If your situation is simple and you're happy with a low-cost fund, the structure can be more trouble than it returns, and a good adviser will tell you so plainly. The point of the exercise is to work out whether the control you'd gain is worth more to you than the simplicity you'd give up. For some people the answer is clearly yes, for others it's clearly no, and the only way to know is to look at your actual picture rather than a rule of thumb.

Andrew Frith
Founder, Leenane Templeton

Subject: The set and forget advice that costs people

CTA: Soft

"Just pick a high-growth option and forget about it." You've probably heard some version of that, usually from someone who means well.

It's not terrible advice for a 25-year-old with decades of runway and nothing complicated going on. For most people who've built up real assets and are getting within sight of retirement, it falls apart the moment their situation gets even slightly more layered.

The reason is simple. Set and forget assumes nothing about your life changes, that your income stays flat, that you never sell a business or a property, that your appetite for risk at 60 matches the one you had at 35, that tax rules sit still. None of that holds. The transfer balance cap, contribution rules, the treatment of larger balances, all of it shifts, and a setting you chose years ago and never revisited can drift well out of step with where you actually are.

A few questions tend to expose the gap. When did you last check whether your investment mix still matches your timeframe and your goals. Do you know how your super interacts with your tax position, or your partner's. Is there a plan for the year your circumstances change, a sale, an inheritance, the move from building wealth to drawing an income from it. If the clear answer to most of those is "no idea," then forget about it has been costing you out of sight.

None of this calls for obsessive tinkering, which does its own damage. What works better is a deliberate review on a sensible rhythm, where someone who knows your situation checks that the strategy still fits the life it's meant to serve, and adjusts with a clear head rather than in a panic. If it's been a few years since anyone properly looked at yours, that's usually a sign it's worth a conversation. No pressure to do anything off the back of it.

Andrew Frith
Founder, Leenane Templeton

Subject: The time we told a couple to do less with us

CTA: Soft

One of the conversations I remember most clearly was one where we talked a couple out of the more complicated path.

They'd come in convinced they needed a full self-managed fund. A friend had one, it sounded sophisticated, and they figured people in their position were meant to have one. On paper they could afford it. The thing is, when we worked through what they actually wanted from retirement, the answer didn't need a fund.

Their goals were straightforward. Retire in their early sixties, help two kids with a deposit each, travel a fair bit, and not have to think about it all too hard. Nothing in that picture called for the complexity, the trustee duties, or the ongoing cost of running their own fund. A simpler structure did everything they needed and left them with far less to manage.

We told them so, and we watched the relief land, because they'd assumed good advice meant being steered toward the more elaborate thing.

A few principles sit underneath that, and they shape how we work. The right advice is the advice that fits your life, even when it's the smaller recommendation. Complexity is a cost rather than a status symbol, and you only take it on when it genuinely earns its place. And an adviser who's willing to tell you that you don't need something is usually the one worth trusting when they tell you that you do.

If you've been wondering whether you ought to be doing something more elaborate with your money, sometimes the most valuable conversation is the one that tells you that you don't. That's a perfectly good outcome of a retirement income call too.

Andrew Frith
Founder, Leenane Templeton

Subject: The question people ask when they think it's too late

CTA: Soft

Someone asked me recently, with a bit of embarrassment in their voice, whether it was too late for advice to be worth getting. They were in their late fifties and felt they'd missed the window where any of this could really help.

I hear a version of that more often than you'd think, and it's almost always wrong.

The trope is that financial planning is something you set up young, and that all the value sits in the early decades of compounding. There's a grain of truth in it, starting early helps, but the conclusion people draw tends to be the wrong one. The years right before and into retirement are when the decisions get bigger and the mistakes get more expensive. How you turn assets into income, how you manage tax through the transition, when you switch a pension on, how you protect a partner, whether a self-managed fund still suits the stage you've reached. None of that's early-career stuff. It's exactly the work that matters most when you're closer to the finish line.

So if part of you has been thinking you've left your run too late, take this as your permission to drop that story. You haven't missed the useful window. In a lot of ways you've only just arrived at it.

It costs nothing to find out where you actually stand, and most people walk away from that conversation wishing they'd had it sooner rather than feeling they had it too late.

Andrew Frith
Founder, Leenane Templeton

Subject: The phrase that costs people the most

CTA: None

"I'll sort it out once things settle down." If you've ever caught yourself saying that about your finances, you're in very good company. It's probably the most common sentence we hear, and it makes complete sense.

Life is busy, the super statement gets filed unread, and the whole question of whether you're on track for the retirement you want feels like something you can deal with when there's a quieter month. The trouble is the quieter month rarely arrives, and the cost of waiting stays invisible while it builds.

So it helps to look hard at what "settling down" actually means here. People picture a future point where everything is calm and they'll calmly attend to it. In practice the things that make your situation worth getting right, a growing balance, a business, a property, a partner, an inheritance on the horizon, are the very things keeping life busy in the first place. The complexity and the busyness arrive together, so waiting for one to disappear before you handle the other is a trap.

What helps is a small shift. Rather than sorting your finances out once life is calm, you sort them out so that life feels calmer, because the nagging "am I actually on track" question finally has an answer.

That's the real cost of "once things settle down." Not a missed return or a clever strategy you skipped, but the years spent carrying a low background hum of uncertainty you never needed to carry. The fix is usually one proper conversation, had a good deal earlier than most people think to have it.

Andrew Frith
Founder, Leenane Templeton