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

First up, thank you for booking. It's a real step, and it tells us you've started wondering whether your super and your retirement are set up the way they should be, rather than just left to drift.

What happens on the call is probably calmer than you're bracing for. We start by listening. One of our advisers sits down with you, on a video call or in the Subiaco office if that's easier, and spends the time understanding where you're at, what you've built, and what you actually want the next stretch of your life to look like. From there they'll give you a straight read on whether a self-managed fund suits you, and whether your broader retirement picture is on track. If an SMSF isn't right for you, they'll say so plainly. We're not aligned with any product provider, so there's nothing to sell you into.

You should already have a confirmation with your 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 cover the questions that come up on nearly every one of these conversations, so nothing catches you off guard when you speak with the team.

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 your balance is at the point where an SMSF makes sense, or whether it's too late for advice to matter. Have a look through the ones that speak to your situation. That way the call isn't spent on the basics, and your adviser can put the whole conversation into your situation.

Watch a few of those, and one of our advisers will take it from there.

There are a few things worth having in front of you when you get on the call, mostly so the first ten minutes aren't spent hunting for numbers.

The main one is your super. Whatever you've got, including those older fund accounts most people have half forgotten about, and your partner's too if you're looking at this together. The easiest thing is to log into the portals beforehand so your adviser can see the real balances rather than work off rough guesses.

If an accountant already set up an SMSF for you and you're not sure the strategy behind it holds up, dig out the trust deed and the most recent annual return, and have a rough sense of what's actually invested in there today.

Property fits in the same way. For anything you own, inside super or out, your adviser will want the rough value, whether there's a loan against it, and whether it's your home, an investment, or premises your own business works from. And if you run a business or hold a senior role, they don't need the full financials, just a sense of how it's structured. Come with those few things and the conversation can get straight into what a plan would actually look like for you.

This is the question people are most nervous to ask out loud, so you'll get a plain answer here rather than a runaround.

There's a rough guide the industry works to. As a couple pooling your super together, a self-managed fund tends to start making sense somewhere around $200,000 in combined balance. On your own, it's closer to $300,000. Below that, the running costs can eat into what you'd gain from the control, and we'd usually tell you to keep things simpler for now. Those are guides, not lines in the sand, and they're not fees we charge. They're just the point where the maths tends to turn in your favour.

But balance is only half of it. An SMSF earns its keep when you actually want to do something with the control it gives you, whether that's holding property, running a particular investment approach, or structuring things around a business. If your balance clears the guide but you don't want the extra involvement, it might still not be for you. And sometimes the balance is a touch under but a contribution strategy over the next year or two changes the picture entirely.

That's exactly the kind of thing your adviser will work through with you on the call, on your real numbers, not a rule of thumb. And if a self-managed fund doesn't leave you better off, they'll tell you, because we only set one up when it genuinely does.

It's the worry a lot of people carry into any conversation with a financial firm, especially one they found through an ad, so let's be plain about how we're built.

We're not incentivised by, nor aligned with, any financial institution or product provider. That's not a slogan on a wall, it's the structure of the business. There's no bank behind us setting quotas, and no product shelf we're rewarded for filling. When an adviser here recommends something, it's because it sits in your best interest, and when something isn't right for you, they'll say so even though saying so earns us nothing.

That independence is the reason clients stay with us for eight, ten, twelve years and longer. A relationship like that only holds because the advice keeps turning out to be right, year after year, and because your adviser will always talk you through the complicated parts until you genuinely follow what's happening with your own money.

So the call is a conversation about your situation, with a team whose only job is to get it right for you. Come with your real questions, including the ones you've felt talked down to about elsewhere.

A lot of people booking these calls carry a quiet worry that they should have sorted this out years ago, and that it's somehow too late now. It very rarely is.

Whether retirement is three years away or thirty, there's almost always meaningful ground to make up. We've had clients come to us feeling behind and stuck living pay to pay, and within a few years their debt was down, their overheads were lower, and their super was projecting toward an earlier retirement than they thought possible. That happened because someone finally looked at the whole picture at once, super and tax and structure and timing together, instead of leaving it in fragments.

As retirement gets closer, the sequencing starts to count for more, how and when you move things, how contributions are timed, how income gets drawn later. Those are the years where good advice tends to pay for itself several times over. So leaving it late is rarely the problem people fear. The real cost is leaving it undone.

Bring where you're truly at to the call, even if it feels further behind than you'd like. Your adviser has almost certainly seen a version of it before, and there's usually more room to move than you'd expect.

You've got no shortage of options in Perth, so let me point to the two things that genuinely set the work here apart, without walking you through a wall of credentials.

The first is the whole-team model. At a lot of firms you're really buying one adviser, and your plan lives or dies on how much time that one person can spare in a given month. Here, every client's plan is worked on collaboratively. The self-managed side is led by a Certified Financial Planner with nearly 20 years' experience and a genuine SMSF specialty, so it's handled by someone who does this work deeply, not occasionally. And one of our advisers was voted one of the 50 Most Influential Advisers in Australia. You're getting the bench, not a single point of failure.

The second is the independence, and it runs through everything. We've been privately owned since 2011, not aligned to any institution or product provider, which means the advice you get is shaped around your life rather than around what someone upstream needs sold this quarter. That's why the relationships here tend to compound over many years, often more than a decade.

Bring your hardest questions to the call. The team would rather earn your trust on the work than on any pitch.

Preview: super is likely your largest asset outside your home

Subject B: your biggest asset, on autopilot

Most people can tell you what their house is worth to the dollar and have no idea what their super is invested in.

That's an odd gap, because super is likely your largest asset outside your home, and for a lot of pre-retirees it's the thing that will actually fund the next thirty years. Yet it sits on a default option someone else chose years ago, and nobody looks under the bonnet until retirement is close enough to worry about.

The fix is modest. One clear look at what you're holding, why, and whether it lines up with the retirement you have in mind. Often the answer is that things are fine and you can stop worrying. Occasionally a few structural decisions, made now, change the shape of your retirement considerably.

If you want that look, we run a complimentary discovery meeting, by video or in our Subiaco office. No obligation, and you'll leave with a straight read either way.

Book a time here: [landing page]

Preview: control is the point, and it comes with a catch

Subject B: the SMSF question worth getting right

A self-managed super fund is really a trade. You get control, and in return you take on cost and responsibility.

Below a certain balance that trade doesn't pay off, because the running costs of the fund outweigh what the control buys you. Above it, and with the right reasons, an SMSF can put you in charge of decisions your default fund would never let you make: how your money is invested, whether property sits inside your super, how the whole thing is structured for tax and for the people who come after you.

The mistake goes both ways. Some people set up an SMSF who shouldn't have, chasing control they didn't need. Others who'd genuinely benefit never look, because they assume it's only for the very wealthy or too complicated to bother with.

Which camp you're in comes down to your actual numbers and goals, not a rule of thumb. That's the sort of thing a first conversation sorts out quickly.

Book a discovery meeting here: [landing page]

Preview: a small question that changes everything you're told

Subject B: who your adviser really answers to

There's one question that shapes every piece of financial advice you've ever received, whether you've noticed it or not: who does the person advising you actually answer to?

For years in Australia, a lot of advice came from firms owned by the same institutions whose products were being recommended. The advice was often fine. But the incentive sat in the wrong place, and the Royal Commission spent a long time showing where that leads. Since then, a lot of people have gone looking for advisers who stand entirely outside the product world.

That's the whole basis of how we work. We're privately owned and independent, free of alignment to any financial institution or product provider. When we recommend something, it's because it fits your situation, full stop.

It's a small thing to check and a large thing to get wrong. If you want advice with the incentive pointed the right way, that's the conversation to have.

Book here: [landing page]

Preview: the answer surprises most people

Subject B: three years out, or thirty

A quiet worry sits behind a lot of first meetings: has the moment to plan already passed?

The people who ask it are usually a few years from retirement and feel like they should have sorted this out a decade ago. What tends to happen instead runs the other way. One couple came to us living close to pay-to-pay, carrying more debt and overheads than they wanted, with retirement looking like a compromise. In their words: "Since engaging Ultimum to manage our finances, the quality of life we can afford has increased, our debt and monthly overheads have decreased, and our superannuation projections are set to facilitate early retirement."

None of that required starting twenty years earlier. It required starting, and structuring what was already there properly. Whether retirement is three years away or thirty, the useful moment to look is the one you're in.

If that's where you are, book a discovery meeting: [landing page]

Preview: what to expect if you've been bracing for a pitch

Subject B: what our first conversation is like

If you've been putting off getting advice because you're bracing for a sales pitch, this one's for you.

A first meeting with us is a conversation. We ask about your circumstances, your super, and what you want retirement to look like, and we spend most of it listening. There's nothing to prepare and nothing to buy. By the end you'll have a straight read on whether we can help, and if an SMSF or a different structure suits you, we'll show you the reasoning rather than ask you to trust it.

We've worked this way with Perth families since 2011, and a lot of our clients have stayed eight, ten, twelve years and more. That kind of tenure only happens when the first meeting was worth their time and every one after it earned the next.

If you've been meaning to sort your super out, this is the low-stakes way to start.

Book a complimentary discovery meeting here: [landing page]