Mark Stringer, Local Finance Expert

Business Matters Magazine spends five minutes with local finance expert Mark Stringer from Infocus Money Management, Sunshine Coast.

Mark Stringer has worked in the finance industry for 21 years.  He was born and raised in Bundaberg where he first started in the industry with a firm called RetireInvest. He then worked for a boutique financial planning firm before being head hunted by Westpac. Mark left Bundaberg to hit the big smoke of Maroochydore where he stayed with Westpac for 18 months.   

After leaving Westpac Mark started his own business in January 2001. It was only three months before the NASDAQ tech wreck, so was not the best time to start a business.  He became one of the youngest ever share holders in Wilson HTM.  Mark says that they helped to set up their financial planning arm for Australia.  In 2008 Infocus merged with Mark’s then business Olympus Financial Services to become Infocus Money Management, Sunshine Coast.

Infocus Sunshine Coast is currently situated in Ocean Street, Maroochydore while they await the completion of the redevelopment of their site on the corner of Maroochydore and Evans Roads. This is where the Sunshine Coast franchise and head office will be located.

We asked Mark what Infocus offers that other financial solutions companies might not.

He said, “Basically Infocus offers an holistic approach to financial services.  The only thing that we don’t do is general insurance. We do have a real point of difference in that we have real specialists in different areas of financial planning, advice, wealth creation and investment, debt reduction,  retirement income,  estate planning, superannuation, wealth accumulation, life, trauma and income protection insurance, mortgage and finance.” They also have a full time accountant.

Mark says, “Generally [if you are] under 50 we deem you to be a wealth accumulator.  We basically split down the middle and have real specialists that can assist people in the area they need assistance. We have three advisors that specialise in just wealth accumulation.  We have another three who only do retirement planning.  We don’t try to specialise in everything, we make sure that the advisor who you see lives and breathes [specialises in] the type of advice you are after.” 

With a current team that has over one hundred years of experience in the field, they certainly seem to know what they are doing.

We asked Mark what he looks for when hiring a new team member.

Mark says that the most important issue that he looks at when employing someone is attitude. “You really can teach everyone everything else, provided they have the right attitude.

Our business is all about relationships, so the people we hire have to have the right attitude and be people people.  If two people come to us with exactly the same skill level, we will always look at that of course, but the person that gets the job will be the one with the better people skills and attitude.”

Something about Mark Stringer that most people might not know.

Mark was a hairdresser and makeup artist for 13 years. He and his wife flew all around the country doing hair shows. Mark says that he learnt all about customer service during that time. 

Mark’s advice to local Sunshine Coast people about the current economy. Mark says that in down times cash flow is king.  “The key thing that will see you through any downturn is cash flow.  No matter how amazing the business is, if you can’t afford to service the debt, if you don’t have the cash flow to service your core costs, then the business won’t survive.  In the good times it doesn’t matter because cash just comes in.  But my advice to businesses is to make sure you have someone from outside the business check over your finances at least once a year to make sure you are on track.”