Meg Heffron, talks about the decision to base Australia’s leading Self-Managed Super Fund Administrator in regional New South Wales.
Catherine Robson
October 5, 2017
What’s the best investment you have ever made?
For super fund expert and businesswoman Meg Heffron, it’s involved moving to the country.
“Initially I resisted strongly, I wanted to stay in the city, I was still in my twenties I was having a great time. I’d lived in the country before, I thought been there, done that and so I resisted, but I would never leave now.”
Heffron is co-founder of Australia’s leading Self-Managed Super Fund Administrator, and in this interview with The Constant Investor, Meg talks to us about the conscious decision to base the thriving business in a regional New South Wales, her personally, and the consequences for her eponymous business.
“It’s a double-edged sword being regional when it comes to employing staff, on the one hand you are choosing from a smaller pool, on the other hand we are the place to work if you want to specialise in super and live in the Hunter Valley.”
“We have people approaching us, quite senior people saying the next step in my career is to specialise in super. Let me know when you have a job opening. On balance, I don’t think it’s a big positive for us.”
Starting her own business was a decision Meg swore she would not take, having seen how hard it was for her small business owning parents.
She tells us how it came about and the opportunistic nature of early stage businesses.
“I can’t say we went into our business expecting to look exactly like this, in fact we were going to be financial planners and were no good at that. What we found when we tried to drum up business by visiting all the local accounting firms was they’ve seen a million financial planners, and they didn’t trust them”.
“But they did have a bunch of Self-Managed Super Funds, that they needed compliance help with. And we’d come from corporate superannuation, we both knew a lot about superannuation law already, so we said look, you push on a lot of doors when you are starting a business, go through the door that actually opens.”
Meg talks about growing her business, her successful wrestle with outsourcing, and the unexpected difficulty in ‘re-stumping’ the technological foundations of the company.
Meg’s lifelong passion for superannuation has meant that she has devoted significant energy to education in the sector.
She is even comfortable educating their competitors in the name of making Self-Managed Super Funds clearer, simpler and easier for people to manage.
“We do a lot of training that includes not only our clients but also our competitors. I think philosophically our view comes back to how important the superannuation system is in Australia, so many people are involved in this industry, I’m passionate about us collectively getting it right”.
“Heffron is never going to be able to influence the retirements of every single Australian, but we want to best outcomes for those we can reach. So that’s where the passion for education and raising standards comes from.”
