20 SMSF-suitable retirement planning appointments in 60 days. Funnel already built below.

First up, thanks for booking your first meeting. It's a real step, and usually it means something's finally prompted you to get a proper handle on your super and where your retirement is actually heading.

What happens on the call is probably calmer than you're picturing. It's a first conversation, nothing more. One of our advisers gets on the phone or a video call with you, asks where you're at, what's brought you here now, and what you'd want your money doing for you by the time you stop working. There's no pitch and there's nothing to sign. By the end you'll both have a sense of whether a self-managed fund is genuinely worth it for you, and if it isn't, they'll tell you that plainly. We've been a family-run firm since 1982, and the reason people stay with us for thirty and forty years has never been about selling them something.

You should already have a confirmation sitting in your inbox with the time and the details to join, so keep an eye out for that. Over the next few days we'll also send you a couple of short emails. They answer the questions that come up on nearly every one of these calls, so nothing feels unfamiliar when you actually speak with the team.

Before then, the most useful thing you can do is right below this video. There are a few short clips on the things people ask us most, like whether they've got enough super to make an SMSF worth it, how the compliance side actually gets handled, and what the advice ends up costing. Have a look through whichever ones apply to you. That way the call isn't spent 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.

Cost is the question people are most hesitant to ask out loud, so let me deal with it straight, because it's worth having settled before you spend a Saturday thinking about it.

We don't put a single figure on the screen here, and there's a plain reason for that. What SMSF advice costs genuinely depends on what you need. Setting up a fund from scratch and building the strategy is a different piece of work to reviewing one you already run, and pricing it as though everyone's situation is identical would only mislead you. So what we do instead is this. The first meeting is free, and there's no obligation attached to it. If it looks like we can help, your adviser lays out exactly what the work involves and exactly what it costs, in plain numbers, before a single thing goes ahead. Nothing gets started until you've seen that and it makes sense to you.

That upfront, no-surprises approach is the same one the firm has run for decades, and it's deliberate. A lot of people carrying money worries around have been putting off getting advice partly because they're afraid of an open-ended bill they can't see the edges of. There isn't one here. You'll know the cost before you commit, and you decide from there.

Whether it's worth paying for is the other half of the question, and it's worth weighing properly. What good advice buys you is the difference between guessing at your super and knowing the structure under it has been built properly for the retirement you actually want. On the call, your adviser will give you a straight read on whether that value is there for your situation. If it isn't, they'll say so, and you'll have lost nothing but the conversation.

This is the worry that stops most people, and it's a sensible one, because on your own a self-managed fund genuinely is a lot to carry.

Let me lay out the real shape of it. An SMSF hands you real control. You decide the investment strategy, you can hold property in it, and you're not one account number among millions in a fund that treats everyone the same. The catch is that the control comes with real responsibilities. There are ATO rules to meet, the compliance is ongoing, and getting the structure wrong early is expensive to unwind later. Every bit of that's true, and anyone who waves it away isn't being straight with you.

What changes the picture is who's carrying that load. People run into trouble almost always because they tried to handle the compliance and the admin and the strategy alone. With us managing that side, keeping the fund compliant with the ATO, handling the administration, and reviewing it with you as your life changes, the responsibility that scares people off becomes the part we take on rather than the part you lie awake about. You keep the control and the say over where your money goes. We keep the fund on the right side of the rules.

So when your adviser talks this through on the call, the real question is whether a self-managed fund suits your goals, with our team handling the parts that would otherwise make it feel like a second job. For a lot of people, that's exactly what tips it from a good idea into a workable one.

This is the one people ask before they'll spend a cent, and it's the right question to lead with, so let me talk you through the real guide we use.

As a rough rule, a self-managed fund tends to become cost-effective once your combined super sits around $200,000, and somewhere between $200,000 and $300,000 is usually where it starts to earn its keep. Below that, the running costs and the responsibility tend to outweigh what you get back, and we'll generally tell you it's not worth the complexity yet. We tell people that most weeks, plainly, even though it means talking someone out of the very thing they booked in about. The meeting is a genuine look at your situation, and giving you the straight answer is the whole job of it.

Treat that number as a guide rather than a hard line. Two people with a similar balance can land on opposite answers depending on what they want their money doing, how hands-on they want to be, and whether the control an SMSF gives them is worth the extra structure. So what your adviser actually does is look at where your super sits today, what you're trying to build toward, and whether a self-managed fund genuinely gets you there faster or whether you're better off where you are.

Bring a rough sense of your combined super balance to the call. Your adviser will tell you straight whether there's enough here to make an SMSF worth your while, and if there isn't yet, you'll hear that too.

This is the one people are often too polite to say out loud, and it's the right instinct to bring. You're about to hand someone the thing that pretty much decides how the rest of your life looks, so wanting to know whose side they're on first is exactly the question to ask.

The clearest answer we can give is the history rather than a slogan. This is a family-run firm that's looked after the same families since 1982. Some of the people we manage super for now, we've been looking after for the better part of forty years, through the market drops and the good runs and the retirements. Nobody stays with an adviser for thirty and forty years if they felt like they were being sold to the whole time. One of our longer-standing clients put it better than we could. He said his adviser had gone against options that would have lined her own pocket and focused on making sure he had the best option for his situation, and that when it comes to financial advice, she's as trustworthy as it gets for him. That standard is what the whole firm is trying to hold.

The way that shows up in practice is that the first meeting is a look at your whole situation, not a product demonstration. Your adviser is there to understand where you're at and work out whether we can genuinely help, and if a self-managed fund isn't right for you, telling you so is part of the job, not a failure of it.

Short answer, yes, and it's worth clearing up early because a fair few people assume they've booked something they can't actually get to.

You don't have to be in Sydney, or anywhere near us. We look after clients right across the country by video, and it works exactly the same as sitting across the desk. You'll see your adviser, they'll walk through your situation with you on screen, and the ongoing relationship after that runs the same way, by phone and video and email, whenever it suits you. Plenty of the people we manage super for we don't see in person from one year to the next, and it makes no difference to the quality of the advice or how well we know their situation.

So when you booked, you picked phone or video for a reason, and either one is genuinely the whole experience, not a lesser version of it. When you get on the call, your adviser will already have your details in front of them, and you can go from wherever you are.

Preview: What happens next, and what it isn't.

Subject A: Your review is booked
Subject B: About your SMSF review

Hi there,

Your review is booked, and we're glad you put it in the diary.

A quick note on what it is, since most people who book have never sat down with an adviser before. It's a conversation. One of our senior advisers will ask about your super, where you're up to, and what you're actually trying to get to. You talk, we listen, and by the end you'll have a clearer read on whether an SMSF makes sense for your situation or whether it doesn't.

What it isn't: a pressure session. If we don't think an SMSF is right for you, we'll say so on the call and you'll have lost nothing but the time. We've been doing this as a family firm since 1982, and that's held up for a reason.

Between now and then we'll send you a few short emails. They cover the questions people usually save up for the call, so we can spend the call on you rather than the basics. Nothing you need to read for homework.

If something changes and you need a different time, just reply to this email and we'll move it.

Talk soon,
The team at Leading Advice

Rather watch than read? There's a short video on the confirmation page that walks through what the review covers.

Preview: The number most people get wrong about.

Subject A: The $200,000 question
Subject B: Do you have enough for an SMSF

Hi there,

The question we field more than any other: "Do I actually have enough super to make an SMSF worth it?"

Worth settling before the call, so we'll keep it plain. As a general guide, an SMSF starts to become cost-effective at around $200,000 in combined super. It tends to make the most sense somewhere between $200,000 and $300,000 combined and up. Below that, the running costs can eat into what you're trying to protect, and we'll tell you that rather than set one up anyway.

Two things worth knowing before you do the sum in your head:

- It's combined. A couple pooling their super often clears the threshold when neither balance would on its own.
- The number is only a starting point. Whether an SMSF is right for you also depends on what you want to do with it, which we work through together on the call.

So if you've been assuming you're not there yet, it's worth checking the combined figure before you decide. We'll go through where you actually stand on the call.

The team at Leading Advice

Preview: It wasn't the return that changed things.

Subject A: The couple who thought they'd left it too late
Subject B: Starting an SMSF closer to retirement

Hi there,

A common worry we hear from people in their late fifties and sixties: "Haven't I left this too late?"

We think about a couple who came to us feeling exactly that. Their super sat in a large fund, they couldn't see what it was invested in, and they'd half-decided it was too close to retirement to change anything.

The lesson from how it went isn't a return figure, and we'd be wary of any adviser who led with one. What changed things for them was control and clarity. For the first time they could see what they held, understood why, and had a strategy built around their own retirement. The decisions got calmer because they weren't guessing.

We'd rather you take that with you. An SMSF is about understanding and steering your own retirement savings, with someone alongside you who does this every day. We've done it for over 890 clients across 35+ years, and the pattern holds: the value people name later is usually the clarity.

The team at Leading Advice

Rather watch than read? Our welcome video covers how we walk a first-time SMSF client through this.

Preview: The part we actually take off your plate.

Subject A: "Isn't an SMSF a lot of work?"
Subject B: The compliance side of an SMSF

Hi there,

The second question we get, usually right after the first: "Isn't running an SMSF a lot of work, and won't I get the compliance wrong?"

Yes, an SMSF comes with real responsibilities, and the ATO does hold trustees to them. That's precisely why doing it with an adviser is different from doing it alone.

What sits with us rather than you:

- Setting the fund up correctly from the start, so there's nothing to unwind later.
- Ongoing compliance and administration that keeps it in good standing.
- An investment strategy that gets reviewed as your circumstances change, rather than set once and forgotten.
- The paperwork and lodgement rhythm that trips people up when they try to self-run.

You keep the control and the decisions. We carry the machinery. The people who find an SMSF stressful are almost always the ones running it without support, and we're built to prevent exactly that.

We'll map out exactly what your involvement would look like on the call, so there are no surprises.

The team at Leading Advice

Preview: Twelve mistakes, from people who made them.

Subject A: Read this before we talk
Subject B: Twelve SMSF mistakes worth avoiding

Hi there,

One thing to read before the call, only if you feel like it.

We put together a short guide, "Top 12 SMSF Mistakes." It's the errors we see most often, drawn from real funds people brought to us to fix, along with what to do instead. Things like getting the structure wrong at setup, tripping the in-house asset limits, or letting the investment strategy drift out of date.

It's genuinely useful whether or not you ever become a client. If you read it and decide an SMSF isn't for you, that's a good outcome too, and you'll have saved yourself the mistakes.

Ask us for the guide when we speak, or grab it from the resources on our site.

The team at Leading Advice

Preview: Why we talk people out of SMSFs.

Subject A: The advice that cost us a sale
Subject B: When we tell people not to do it

Hi there,

The quiet worry behind a lot of first calls: "Will this adviser act in my interest, or just sell me what pays them?"

You should ask it. Our answer is to show you the times we say no.

We regularly tell people an SMSF isn't right for them. Sometimes the balance doesn't justify it yet. In other cases what they want is simpler than the structure they were about to take on. Saying so costs us the engagement, and we say it anyway, because a client we set up wrong is a problem we both live with for years.

A family firm since 1982 trades on exactly that. Our clients have been with us for decades, some for eight years and more, because the advice held up. One of our senior advisers was named Risk Adviser of the Year at the Beyond Wealth Adviser Congress in 2025, and awards are nice, but the tenure is the real tell. People don't stay that long with someone selling them things.

So bring the scepticism to the call. It's the right instinct, and we'd rather earn past it than have you park it.

The team at Leading Advice

Preview: Not a sales reason. A structural one.

Subject A: Why more people are asking about this
Subject B: What's driving the SMSF questions

Hi there,

Worth naming why SMSF questions have picked up, since it's not a marketing line.

More Australians are looking to take control of their own retirement savings rather than leave them in a fund they can't see into. As super balances grow across the country, the gap between a hands-off default and a strategy built around your own life gets wider, and people feel it. That's a structural shift in how people hold their super, and it's why we field more of these conversations every year.

None of that means an SMSF is right for you specifically. That's still an individual question, and it's the one your review answers. But if part of what's pulled you toward booking is wanting more say over where your retirement money sits and why, you're reading the moment correctly, and it's a good reason to have the conversation now rather than in five years.

We'll pick it up on the call.

The team at Leading Advice

Preview: What to have handy, nothing to prepare.

Subject A: For our call
Subject B: Before we speak

Hi there,

Your review is coming up, so a short note to set you up for it.

Nothing to prepare. It helps to have a rough idea of your combined super balance and what you'd like retirement to look like, but if you don't have exact figures, we'll work with what you've got. The call is a relaxed conversation, and you won't be quizzed.

If it's easier by phone or by video, we can do either, wherever you are. Advisers here work with clients right across the country, so being outside Sydney changes nothing.

If you need a different time, just reply to this email and we'll find another. Otherwise we'll speak then, and we're looking forward to it.

The team at Leading Advice

Subject: Where your super really goes

Most people can tell you roughly how much is in their super. Very few can tell you where it's actually invested.

That's not carelessness. Super was designed to run in the background while you got on with your life, and for decades that suited everyone. The money went in, a fund you never chose decided what to do with it, and you got a statement once a year that raised more questions than it answered. So the whole thing sits in a kind of fog while it shapes what your retirement will look like, and you never really see inside it.

An SMSF is one way people lift that fog and take the wheel back. You get to see, and to decide, how your retirement savings are actually put to work. It isn't the right move for everyone, and it isn't the only way to get more control, but for a lot of people the appeal starts there. Not with the paperwork. With finally being able to see what's yours.

Leading Advice

Subject: Enough for an smsf

The question we hear most often about self-managed super is a simple one, and it comes well before any talk of compliance or admin. Have I even got enough to make one worthwhile?

It's the right thing to ask first, because the answer decides everything after it. As a rough guide, an SMSF generally starts to make sense once your combined super sits somewhere between $200,000 and $300,000. Below that, the costs of running your own fund can outweigh what you gain from the control, and you'd often be better served leaving your super where it sits for now. Above it, the structure has room to earn its keep.

Treat that as a guide rather than a verdict on your own situation. Your balance is only one part of it, alongside what you want your retirement to look like and how hands-on you want to be. Where you actually sit, we'll tell you plainly, including when the answer is that an SMSF isn't worth it yet. Better to hear that now than to set one up you didn't need.

Leading Advice

Subject: Too much work

When people tell us an SMSF sounds like too much work, they usually mean one specific thing. They're worried about getting the compliance wrong.

It's a reasonable worry. A self-managed fund does come with real responsibilities, and the ATO takes them seriously. Investment rules, annual audits, records that have to be kept a particular way, contribution caps that shift. Left to manage alone, that's genuinely a lot to hold in your head, and the fear of a costly mistake is exactly why some people talk themselves out of the idea entirely.

The responsibilities don't disappear when you work with an adviser. What changes is that you're no longer carrying them by yourself. We handle the structuring, the compliance and the ongoing administration alongside you, so the fund stays on the right side of the rules while you keep the part you actually wanted, which is a real say in how your money is invested. Control over your super is what people are really after when they look at an SMSF. The paperwork was only ever the reason they got scared off it.

Leading Advice

Subject: Whose side is the adviser on

For years, a lot of what passed for financial advice in this country was really product distribution with a friendlier face on it. The person across the desk was paid for what they sold you, so the advice tended to point wherever the commission did.

That history is why so many people approach an adviser with their guard up, and we don't blame them for it. It's also why we've built the firm the way we have. We start with your whole situation, your family, your goals, what you want the next twenty years to look like, and we work out the strategy from there. Any recommendation has to earn its place in that plan or it doesn't get made.

We've been doing it this way as a family-run business since 1982, and over 890 clients have stayed with us across that time, many of them for decades. Nobody keeps clients that long by selling them things they didn't need. They stay because we're the ones they call before every big financial decision, trusting the answer they'll get.

Leading Advice

Subject: Control over your retirement

Strip away the structure and the admin, and an SMSF comes down to a single idea. Do you want a genuine say in how your retirement savings are invested, or are you content to leave that to a fund you never chose?

There's no wrong answer to that. Plenty of people are perfectly happy leaving super on autopilot, and for them an SMSF would just be extra responsibility for no real gain. But if you've ever looked at your statement and felt like a passenger in your own retirement, that feeling is worth taking seriously. It usually means you want more visibility and more control than your current setup was ever built to give you.

An SMSF can offer that. So can a few other approaches, depending on where you're starting from. The useful conversation skips over forms and fund structures and starts with what you actually want your retirement to feel like, then works backwards to whether a self-managed fund is the way to get there for you. We look at your whole position rather than just your super balance, because the two are never really separate.

Leading Advice

Subject: A look at your super

If any of these have landed close to home, the sensible next step is smaller than you'd expect. A conversation.

We offer a free review where one of our senior advisers looks at where your super sits today and tells you plainly whether an SMSF, or something else, would actually leave you better off. No preparation needed at your end, and no pressure to go further afterwards. If the answer is that your current setup is fine as it is, we'll tell you that too, and you'll have lost nothing but half an hour.

Most people put a conversation like this off for years, telling themselves they'll sort their super out eventually. Eventually has a way of arriving later than planned. If you'd like a clear read on where you stand and what your options are, book a time that suits you and we'll take it from there.

Leading Advice