Predictable appointments for Pekada - full funnel already built below.

First up, thanks for booking your Discovery Chat. It's a real step, and it usually means something's prompted you to finally get a proper handle on your money, your super, or where the whole plan is actually heading.

What happens on the chat is probably calmer than you're picturing. It's an informal first conversation, nothing more. One of our advisers gets on the phone or a video call with you for a little while, they ask where you're at, what's brought you here now, and what you'd actually want your money doing for you. There's no pitch and there's nothing to sign. By the end you'll both have a sense of whether Pekada's the right fit for you, and if it isn't, they'll tell you honestly. We hold our own financial services licence, so nobody at this firm gets paid to push you into a product. The whole point is to understand you first.

You should already have a confirmation sitting in your inbox 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 chats, 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 advice is genuinely worth the fee, whether they've got enough for an SMSF to make sense, or what makes an independent firm different from the bank. Have a look through the ones that matter to you. That way the chat 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.

The cost question is the one people are most hesitant to ask out loud, so let me put the real numbers on the table, because we publish them openly on our site.

The Discovery Chat itself is free. If you decide to go further, the next step is a Values and Goals session, and that's a flat fee of $440. From there, if you want a full strategy and a written Statement of Advice, it ranges from $3,300 to $7,425 for singles, and $4,400 to $9,900 for couples, depending on how involved your situation is. Where some people choose an ongoing advice relationship after that, it starts from $5,500 a year, or it's worked out as a percentage of what we're advising on, up to 1.1%. You'll know every figure that applies to you before you commit to anything. No surprises, ever, because the fee is agreed with you up front.

Now, whether that's worth paying for is a fair thing to weigh up. A lot of people who book in tell us they've been carrying the same money decisions around in the back of their mind for years, putting them off because there's no clear plan and too many options. Good advice is what turns that into an actual decision, and it's the difference between guessing at your super and retirement and knowing the strategy's been built properly for what you want your life to look like.

The honest answer is it isn't right for everyone, and at the Discovery Chat your adviser will give you a straight read on whether the value's there for your situation. If it isn't, they'll say so. We'd rather tell you that early than take a fee that doesn't earn its keep.

This is the question we hear constantly, and it's a sensible one to ask before you spend a cent.

The honest part is there's no single magic number where advice suddenly switches on, and we're wary of anyone who tells you there is. A self-managed fund is about whether the structure genuinely suits your goals, how hands-on you want to be, and whether the control it gives you is worth the responsibility that comes with it. For plenty of people that's an easy yes. Plenty of others are already in a fund that's doing a perfectly good job, and the right advice is to leave it be.

What your adviser actually does on this is look at your situation properly. Where your super sits today, what you're trying to build toward, whether you want more say over how it's invested, and whether an SMSF earns its place in that picture or whether something simpler gets you there. Our team includes members of the SMSF Association and an accredited SMSF Specialist Adviser, so when the answer is yes, the advice behind it comes from genuine specialists rather than someone dabbling.

The Discovery Chat is exactly where this gets answered for you specifically. Bring a rough sense of where your super's at, and your adviser will tell you straight whether there's enough here to make advice or an SMSF worth your while. If there isn't yet, you'll hear that too.

This is the one a lot of people are too polite to say out loud, and honestly it's the right instinct to have. After everything that came out of the Royal Commission, plenty of so-called advice turned out to be a product sale wearing a nicer suit. So the scepticism is fair, and we'd rather meet it head on.

What makes Pekada structurally different comes down to our licence. We hold our own Australian Financial Services Licence. That sounds like paperwork, but it matters enormously, because a lot of advisers operate under a bank or a big dealer group, and that parent decides which products sit on the approved list they're allowed to recommend. Running our own licence means there's no parent steering us toward anything, so the advice can genuinely be about you and what's in your best interest rather than about feeding a product shelf.

The other piece is how we think about money in the first place. Our process starts with your goals and your values rather than a product, because it's about what those dollars can actually do for your life, and you can't sell that off a shelf. That only works if someone takes the time to understand you properly.

You'll feel that on the Discovery Chat itself. Nobody's going to pitch you anything. Your adviser is there to understand your situation and work out whether we're the right fit, and that's genuinely the whole agenda for that first conversation.

This worry comes up a lot, and it's a smart thing to raise early, because running a self-managed fund does carry real responsibility, and pretending otherwise would do you a disservice.

So let me be straight about what's actually involved. As a trustee you're responsible for the fund itself, for its investment strategy, and for keeping it all on the right side of the rules. That's the part that puts people off, and fair enough. But the day-to-day heavy lifting isn't something you're meant to shoulder alone. Building the strategy, structuring it properly, running the ongoing reviews, and handling the technical side of compliance, that's the work an adviser and the right support team carry alongside you. Your job is the decisions that matter and the direction you want to head. Most of the grind sits with the people you've engaged to handle it.

What that means in practice is the question isn't really do you have time to run a fund single-handed, because almost nobody does that. It's whether the control and the flexibility an SMSF gives you make it worth having a proper team behind it. For plenty of people that's a clear yes. Others find the time and attention it asks for genuinely isn't worth it, and a simpler setup is the honest answer.

Your adviser will walk through exactly what would land on your plate versus theirs at the Discovery Chat, so you can weigh it up with the full picture in front of you rather than a vague sense of dread about admin.

This is a really common one, and it deserves a clear answer, because a good accountant is genuinely valuable and we work alongside plenty of them.

The thing worth understanding is that an accountant and a financial adviser are doing two different jobs. An accountant typically sets up the SMSF structure and looks after the compliance side, lodging the annual return, organising the audit, and keeping the fund on the right side of the ATO. That's important work and it has to be done well. What it usually doesn't cover is the strategy. Whether an SMSF was even the right move for you in the first place, what the fund should actually be invested in, how it fits with your retirement plan, your insurance, your estate planning, and the life you're trying to build. That's the advice piece, and it's a separate discipline.

A lot of people who come to us have a fund their accountant set up years ago, and they've never had anyone step back and ask whether the strategy inside it still serves them. The structure's fine, but nobody's been steering the actual plan.

That's the gap our advisers fill, and we're very happy to work in with your existing accountant rather than replace them. At the Discovery Chat, your adviser can take a look at where things sit and tell you honestly whether there's a strategy gap worth closing, or whether you're already in good shape.

Fair question, and we won't bury you under a wall of credentials here. Let me point to the two things that genuinely shape what working with us is like.

The first is the independence, and for us that's structural rather than a marketing word. We hold our own financial services licence, which means we're not tied to a bank or a parent group telling us what we're allowed to recommend. The advice starts with you and stays about you. Alongside that we've got genuine SMSF depth, because the team includes SMSF Association members and an accredited SMSF Specialist Adviser, so the specialist work is handled by actual specialists.

The second is how we treat the relationship. This isn't transactional for us. We're not here to sell you something and move on, which is why the whole process opens with your goals and your values rather than a product. One of our long-standing clients put it plainly, that across almost 13 years he's found the firm honest and transparent, taking the time to understand both his commercial and personal needs. That's the kind of relationship we're actually set up to build, and it's the opposite of advice that ends the moment the paperwork's signed.

Bring your hardest questions to the Discovery Chat. Your adviser would rather earn your trust on the substance than on a pitch.

Subject: Your discovery chat with pekada is confirmed
Send: Day 0, 5 minutes after booking

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

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

A quick word on what the chat involves, because I'd rather set the expectation now than have you wondering later.

It's an informal first conversation, not a pitch. We use it to understand where you're at, what's prompted you to look at advice now, and whether we're genuinely the right fit for each other. Some of the people we speak to walk away knowing we're a good match and we keep going from there. Others realise their situation is simpler than they thought and they don't need us yet, and we'll tell them so. Either way you'll leave with a clearer read than you came in with, and there's no obligation attached to any of it.

Over the next few days I'll send you a handful of short notes on the things people tend to sit on between booking and the chat. What an SMSF actually involves to run, whether you've got enough to make full advice worthwhile, why our advice isn't tied to selling you a product, and where your accountant stops and a planner starts. Read them or skip them, whatever's useful to you.

Speak soon,

Rhiannon Kanoniuk
Co-founder & Principal Adviser, Pekada

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

Quick follow-up to your confirmation.

The people who book a discovery chat with us tend to look fairly similar. Often in their 40s or 50s, a meaningful super balance built up over a working life, frequently a business owner or established professional, and usually planning alongside a partner.

What's interesting is why they get in touch, because it's almost never "I want a financial plan."

It usually sounds more like this. They've done well, they've got assets in a few different places, and they don't love how little say they have over how their super is actually invested. Their industry fund tells them next to nothing about what they're holding. They've half-looked at an SMSF for years without ever finding someone they trust to give them a straight read on whether it's right for 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 chat.

We've built Pekada around real financial planning, which to us means aligning your money with the life you actually want rather than flogging you a product and moving on. The dollars matter because of what they let you build, the security and the choices and the life behind them. That's the lens we'll bring to your situation when we speak.

Tomorrow I'll send a note on the question almost everyone is turning over, which is whether they've even got enough to make this worthwhile.

Rhiannon Kanoniuk
Co-founder & Principal Adviser, Pekada

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

Following on from this morning's note.

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 an SMSF, genuinely worth it. It's a fair question, and I'd rather you heard a straight answer than a sales one.

The honest version is that there's no magic number, and anyone who throws a single figure at you without knowing your situation is guessing.

Whether an SMSF stacks up depends on your balance, yes, but also on what you actually want to do with it, whether you're planning as a couple or on your own, and how complex 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 staying right where you are, we'll say so on the chat. We'd rather tell you that than take you down a path that costs you more than it gives back.

So the question isn't really "do I have enough." It's "given everything I've got and where I want to end up, is this structure earning 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 chat, and your partner's too if they'd be part of the picture. Nothing formal needed.

Rhiannon Kanoniuk
Co-founder & Principal Adviser, Pekada

Subject: A straight answer on whether we're selling 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 financial advisers all just trying to sell me a product?"

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

Worth being clear about how we're built, because it answers the question more honestly than any reassurance could.

Pekada holds its own Australian Financial Services Licence. We're not a branch of a bank or an arm of a product company with a shelf we're paid to clear. That structural independence is the whole reason we set the firm up the way we did, because it lets us focus on advice that's genuinely in your interest rather than advice shaped by what someone upstream needs us to sell.

In practice it means the conversation starts with you, not with a product. We use a values-based process that begins with what actually matters to you, then builds the strategy around that. Sometimes the right answer involves no product change at all. We're set up so that's a perfectly fine outcome for us.

This isn't transactional. We're not here to sell you something and move on. It's a relationship, and the chat is simply where we work out whether it's one worth starting.

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

Rhiannon Kanoniuk
Co-founder & Principal Adviser, Pekada

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

A common worry, and a sensible one. "An SMSF sounds good, but I don't have the time or energy to manage my own super fund."

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 ATO reporting underneath it all. None of that's trivial, and anyone who tells you an SMSF 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 and admin, audit coordination, the technical strategy work, that's the job we and the right accountant do alongside you. What stays with you is the decisions that should stay with you, the ones about your money and your direction, made with someone in your corner who actually knows your situation.

So the real question isn't "do I have time to run a fund." It's "do I want more control 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 managing it all yourself is the bit putting you off, bring it up on the chat. It's usually a smaller burden than people picture once they see how the support around it works.

Rhiannon Kanoniuk
Co-founder & Principal Adviser, Pekada

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 honest answer is yes. If your situation is simple and you enjoy staying across it, you may not need much from us at all, and we'll happily tell you that on the chat.

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 does on an SMSF is the compliance and admin work. They handle the annual financial statements, coordinate the audit, lodge the tax return, and look after the ATO reporting. 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 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 we specialise in. Our team includes SMSF Association members and an accredited SMSF Specialist Advisor, and we work alongside accountants across the country all the time.

Doing it entirely yourself is possible too, but it's worth being honest that the rules shift, 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. No interest in selling you help you don't need.

Rhiannon Kanoniuk
Co-founder & Principal Adviser, Pekada

Subject: A quick note on what independent advice means
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 chat have already 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 constrained, the incentives line up with the bank's funds and lending, and SMSF advice in particular is something most of them won't lead with, because there's little in it for the bank.

We built Pekada as the opposite of that. Our own licence, advice given in your best interest, no product company sitting behind us shaping the answer. I've been advising since 2006, and the reason I help lead the strategy and compliance side of the firm is that I care more about the advice holding up than about moving product.

I raise all of 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, and the chat is where you get to test whether it rings true.

Rhiannon Kanoniuk
Co-founder & Principal Adviser, Pekada

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

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

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

Talk soon,

Rhiannon Kanoniuk
Co-founder & Principal Adviser, Pekada

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 surprises a lot of people. Rather than asking how much you've got or what you earn, we start with what you actually want your money to do.

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

Most financial decisions 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 actually pictured, then arrive and feel oddly flat about it once they get there. The number was met, but the life behind the number was never defined in the first place.

Real financial planning works the other way around. You get clear on the life first, the things you want time and freedom for, the people you want to look after, the work you'd keep doing even if you didn't have to. Then the strategy gets built to serve that, rather than chasing a bigger figure for its own sake.

The dollars are the means and the life is the point. When you keep those in the right order, almost every decision downstream gets easier, because you've 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.

Rhiannon Kanoniuk
Co-founder & Principal Adviser, Pekada

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.

An SMSF gives you genuine choice 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 SMSF leans on advisers and an accountant for compliance, audit, the technical strategy work and the reporting. What stays with you is the decisions that genuinely should, made with people who know your situation. You get more say without having to become a part-time fund administrator.

If you've ever wondered whether an SMSF fits your situation, that's exactly the kind of thing we work through on a discovery chat, no obligation either way.

The honest 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. 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.

Rhiannon Kanoniuk
Co-founder & Principal Adviser, Pekada

Subject: The set-and-forget advice that costs people more than they think

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, 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 risk appetite at 55 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 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 into retirement. If the honest answer to most of those is "no idea," 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.

Rhiannon Kanoniuk
Co-founder & Principal Adviser, Pekada

Subject: The time we told a client to spend less with us

CTA: Soft

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

They'd come in convinced they needed a full SMSF setup. 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, 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 well-chosen, simpler structure did everything they needed and left them with less to manage.

We told them so, and we watched the relief land. They'd assumed good advice meant being sold the more elaborate thing.

A few principles sit underneath that, and they shape how we work. 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 say you do.

If you've been wondering whether you need 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 discovery chat too.

Rhiannon Kanoniuk
Co-founder & Principal Adviser, Pekada

Subject: The question people ask when they think they've left it 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 the value all sits in the early decades of compounding. There's a grain of truth in it, starting early helps, but the conclusion people draw from it 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 things on, how you protect a partner. 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, consider this your permission to drop that story. You haven't missed the useful window. In many ways you've 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.

Rhiannon Kanoniuk
Co-founder & Principal Adviser, Pekada

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 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 isn't visible while it's happening.

Worth reframing 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, property, a partner, kids, an inheritance on the horizon, are the very things keeping life busy in the first place. The complexity and the busyness arrive together. Waiting for one to disappear before you handle the other is a trap.

The shift that helps is small. 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 honest conversation earlier than you think.

Rhiannon Kanoniuk
Co-founder & Principal Adviser, Pekada