Client Stories

About Aspire Planning

Aspire Planning is a financial advisory firm based in Melbourne that empowers its clients by helping them define and reach their financial goals.

By challenging the conventional methods of financial advice, Aspire have successfully established themselves as one of Australia’s most forward thinking advisory firms.

The Challenge

Although an increase in demand for their services was welcomed by Aspire, it did cause a knock on effect in their business which had to be addressed.

As staff members began taking on more responsibility to cope with the growing workload, gaps started appearing in the firm’s administrative processes. An ever-increasing number of compliance hoops to jump through — combined with COVID lockdowns — meant resources were being stretched thin, causing Aspire to rethink how it conducted business.

The solution

Accepting that hiring remotely was the best way forward, Aspire Planning approached us to find two administrative experts that could quickly find their feet in a fast paced environment. We scoured our talent pool to identify the perfect candidates that not only had the necessary experience and skill set Aspire were looking for, but also the same shared values too.

The results

The two new Aspire team members settled in seamlessly, taking on their administrative roles with ease and enabling the onshore team to focus on higher-value tasks. As well as helping Aspire solve their talent shortage, we also helped them implement inhouse IT changes to improve their cybersecurity — something they needed assistance with now their team was growing.

Like all our partners, Aspire are excited to discover what the future holds now they have seen the positive impact our outsourcing solutions can bring.

About Callaghans

Callaghans is a Canberra-based accounting firm that has been helping businesses and individuals with their tax and advisory needs for the last 45 years.

Their team of 20+ financial experts focus heavily on building long-lasting relationships with their clients to deliver outstanding results that help them stay ahead of the curve.

The Challenge

Like many other Australian businesses, Callaghans was having a hard time identifying talent for certain positions.

Even when they found candidates they were happy with, the repetitive nature of the admin role they were hiring for caused a higher staff turnover than usual. Spending too much time hiring and training staff, only for them to leave prematurely, was starting to stunt business growth.

The team at Callaghans realised that something had to give, as they had tried a range of ways to recruit, with little success.

The solution

Upon deciding to give outsourcing a shot, Callaghans engaged our services, but they were unsure of what to expect. We went away and identified a candidate who we felt was the perfect fit for what Callaghans were looking for — and we were right.

The results

After initially being given small compliance-based tasks to complete, Callaghans’ new team member quickly progressed and was soon given responsibility for preparing ROAs and implementing advice and as is so often the case, Callaghans have already hired their second 5 ELK team member.

About FM Mahar Financial Planning 

The team at FM Mahar advice have a client-first approach in everything they do. They are an ambitious and successful team who partner with their clients over the long term, advising and supporting them through important life changes and transitions.

The Challenge

For FM Mahar, being based in a regional area means that the talent pool for Australian team members is limited.

Prior to working with us, they had several unsuccessful attempts at hiring university graduates to work in their back-office. But they found that the ‘impatience of youth’ was hurting them, with ambitious expectations of salary and career progression creating high turnover in their team. This consistent ‘chopping and changing’ of staff created a culture of “it’s just easier if I do it myself”. The result of this was a backlog of new business and paperwork, with advisers being forced to wear too many hats to keep the business moving. 

The team at FM Mahar were starting to feel burnout, and something needed to change.

The solution

We secured a great team member for FM Mahar, who replaced an onshore team member with 10 years of financial planning industry experience. This new team member was the perfect fit and within the first few months, they were handling their role in its entirety. The success of their first hire saw them hire a second offshore team member only six months later.

The results

Working with 5 ELK hasn’t just made FM Mahar more profitable, but it has brought more stability to their back-office and kept their Australian team ‘sane’ by not forcing them to wear so many hats. Their onshore team are now focused on what they do best, with full confidence that their 5 ELK team are doing their job well.