Custom Marketing Strategy

02The work

Everything we built for you, on this page.

Every piece is finished, written in your voice, and yours to keep regardless of whether we work together. Summary first, then the full text of each piece further down.

Video Ad Scripts

Platform-ready variations across angles and audiences

Funnel Pages

Landing page and confirmation page for your funnel

Long-Form Explainer Video Script

Full video sales letter, written in your brand voice

Confirmation Page Video Scripts

Breakout content for education and trust

Pre-Appointment Email Sequence

Confirmation-to-appointment nurture sequence

General Email Marketing Sequence

New patient onboarding and retention sequence

Funnel Architecture

End-to-end acquisition flow

Read the full text · tap any row to expand

Video Ad Scripts 6 variations

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Ad 1: "If your super balance has a three in front of it" →

Hook, 0-5s

Screen: Meg to camera, mid-shot, plain Heffron-teal wall behind. No lower-third yet.

If your super balance has a three in front of it, the Government wants a word.

Body, 5-22s

Screen: cut to a single line of legislation on screen, the words 'earnings' highlighted, then back to Meg.

The new Division 296 tax catches anyone over three million in super. The draft has been through two revisions and there are still a few stings in the tail (especially around what happens when a member dies, which the lawyers will love).

Screen: Meg back to camera.

We have spent eighteen months reading every version of this thing so our clients don't have to.

Cta, 22-30s

Screen: Meg to camera. End card fades up on right: HEFFRON logo, "complimentary consultation", phone icon.

Book a complimentary call with our team. We will tell you, in plain English, whether Division 296 hits your fund and what the cleanest fix looks like.

Ad 2: "Your accountant probably isn't an SMSF specialist" →

Hook, 0-6s

Screen: Meg to camera, slight smile. Lower third: "Meg Heffron, Managing Director, Heffron".

Here is something most trustees don't realise. Your accountant is probably very good at tax, but they are almost certainly not an SMSF specialist.

Body, 6-48s

Screen: Meg continues to camera.

There are about six hundred and ten thousand SMSFs in Australia and roughly twenty thousand accounting firms. Do the maths. Most firms only see a handful of funds, so the technical depth simply isn't there for the harder questions (and they're always the questions that matter).

Screen: brief cut to a real Heffron client testimonial frame, name on screen, line reading: "It's those PERSONAL phone calls with our Fund Managers that make all the difference." Then back to Meg.

We have been doing only SMSFs since 1998. Our team includes actuaries, we consult to the ATO and Treasury on draft legislation, and I write the SMSF column for Firstlinks and the AFR. None of that is to brag (a bit). It is to say that if your fund holds property, has a pension running, or is anywhere near the three million Division 296 threshold, the questions get hard quickly.

Screen: pricing card animates on, reading: "Three tiers from $3,170 to $4,320 incl. GST per fund per year. Audit and a named relationship manager included." Then back to Meg.

Our fees are fixed and published on the website. The audit is included and you get a named person who knows your fund by name.

Cta, 48-60s

Screen: end card with phone number and Heffron logo, Meg to camera as voiceover.

Book a complimentary consultation. Bring last year's annual return and your two biggest questions. We will give you straight answers.

Ad 3: "The SMSF firm the regulators call" →

Hook, 0-8s

Screen: Meg to camera, slightly warmer setup, softer key light with books on a shelf behind.

When we started doing SMSF work back in 1998, the funds were still called 'excluded funds' and there were fewer than two hundred thousand of them in the country (can you imagine?).

Body, 8-78s

Screen: black-and-white historical b-roll of old Australian tax legislation, then back to Meg.

There are now over six hundred thousand SMSFs and roughly a trillion dollars sitting inside them. That growth has brought a lot of new firms into the space. Most of them are software-led or offshore-processed, which is fine for simple funds (the cash-and-listed-shares variety). It is not fine for what we do.

Screen: Meg continues.

We are independent. We are not owned by a software company or a bank. Our team includes qualified actuaries, our technical people are quoted in the AFR and The Australian, and the regulators ring us when they're drafting legislation, not the other way around.

Screen: testimonials-style cut, a single Dale S. quote sits on screen for a beat: "It is those PERSONAL phone calls with our Fund Managers that make all the difference, in a reassuring way."

Screen: Meg to camera, holding a printed annual report.

Practically, that means a named relationship manager who knows your fund, an annual fee that is published on our website (no surprise invoices), and the audit included in the price. And when something like Division 296 lands, you get a team that has already read every draft of the legislation and can tell you, in plain English, whether it touches your fund.

Cta, 78-90s

Screen: end card with phone, web, complimentary consultation badge. Meg voiceover.

If your SMSF balance is over a million dollars and you would like a second set of expert eyes on it, book a complimentary consultation with our team. The first call is free and we will give you a straight answer either way.

Ad 4: "Is your SMSF caught by Division 296?" →

Headline
Is your SMSF caught by Division 296?

Body
$3m+ super balance? The new tax has a few stings in the tail and we have read every draft.

CTA
Book a complimentary consultation

Ad 5: "A specialist second opinion on your SMSF (no charge)" →

Headline
A specialist second opinion on your SMSF (no charge)

Body
Most accountants only see a handful of SMSFs a year. We have done only SMSFs since 1998. Our team includes actuaries, we consult to Treasury on draft legislation, and our fees are fixed and published on the website. Book a complimentary consultation and bring your two biggest questions.

CTA
Book a 20-minute call with our team

Ad 6: "The SMSF firm the regulators call" →

Headline
The SMSF firm the regulators call

Body
When we started Heffron in 1998, there were fewer than two hundred thousand SMSFs in Australia and they were still called 'excluded funds'. There are now over six hundred thousand of them and a lot has changed (Division 296 is just the latest example).

What hasn't changed is what we do. We work only on SMSFs. Our team includes qualified actuaries, our technical people consult to the ATO and Treasury on draft legislation, and Meg writes the SMSF column for the AFR and Firstlinks.

Practically, that means a named relationship manager who knows your fund, a fixed annual fee that is published on our website, and the audit included in the price. If your fund holds a pension, owns property, or is anywhere near the $3m Division 296 threshold, book a complimentary consultation with our team. We will give you a straight answer on whether your structure still works.

CTA
Book a complimentary consultation

Funnel Pages 2 custom pages

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View Landing Page↗

View Confirmation Page↗

Long-Form Explainer Video Script 1 complete script

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title: Heffron VSL, Division 296 and SMSF Administration (Trustees Direct)
length: ~10 minutes spoken
audience: Australian SMSF trustees, 55-75, with $1m+ super balances
hook: Division 296 (the new $3m super tax) and the quiet ATO scrutiny that comes with it

Hook
If you run your own SMSF and your balance is anywhere north of a million dollars, there's a piece of legislation that has spent the last six months quietly rewriting the rules for people exactly like you. It's called Division 296. And by the time Parliament finishes with it (which the current sitting calendar puts somewhere between now and the back end of this year), it will reshape how the ATO looks at your fund, how earnings are calculated, what happens when a member dies, and whether the children you'd quite like to leave something to actually receive it.

I'm Meg Heffron. I run Heffron, and we've been doing nothing but SMSFs since 1998. My team and I administer funds for trustees across every Australian state, we consult to Treasury and the ATO on this very legislation, and I write about Division 296 most months in the Australian Financial Review, The Australian, and Firstlinks. If you're a trustee with a meaningful balance and you've felt the ground shifting under your fund this past year, you're not imagining it. The ground is shifting. And in the next ten minutes I'd like to walk you through what we're actually seeing, what we're doing about it for our trustee clients, and how to decide whether your fund is in the right hands for what's coming.

Body

Screen: Heffron logo lockup, then cut to Meg piece-to-camera in office

Let me start with the version of Division 296 that's now in front of Parliament. The original draft, the one most people heard about first, was the proposal to tax unrealised capital gains on super balances above three million dollars, and that bit has now been dropped. Good news (a bit). Less encouraging is the fact that the bill actually moving through Parliament has a few stings in the tail that have had very little public airtime, and they matter most for the people most likely to be watching this video.

Here are the mechanics, briefly. From 1 July 2025, if your total super balance crosses three million dollars at year-end, the proportion above three million gets hit with an extra fifteen percent tax on what the legislation calls your 'earnings' for the year. Sounds tidy. The catch is the way 'earnings' is defined. It looks at the movement in your total super balance across the year, with some adjustments for contributions and withdrawals, which means in any year your fund has a strong investment return, the calculation can produce a number that bears very little resemblance to what most people would call profit. If markets are flat or down for the year you can carry a loss forward, which helps. When markets run hard, though, you'll be writing a cheque.

Screen: Side-by-side comparison graphic, old proposal versus the revised bill

The piece almost nobody is talking about is what happens when an SMSF member dies. The revised legislation tries to capture, in its own words, the last skerrick of tax from high-balance members in the year of their death. It does this through a calculation that runs all the way to the point benefits are paid out. So if a death benefit takes a while to administer (and many do, for very ordinary reasons), the Division 296 bill keeps growing in the background. The ATO has already signalled it will be watching the requirement to pay benefits 'as soon as practicable' much more closely than it ever has. That phrase used to be a soft expectation. From mid-2026 it has a revenue impact attached to it, and revenue impact is what changes ATO behaviour.

If you're sitting on a balance over three million, or a fund where two members combined are above six, or even just a fund that might tip over in the next few years with normal growth, this is the period where decisions get made. Strategic ones. The timing of your drawdowns. Whether to start a pension, or whether the spouse with the smaller balance should be receiving contributions instead, and whether your binding death benefit nomination needs to be redrafted to reflect what Division 296 now does to estate planning. None of these decisions are dramatic on their own. They become expensive when they're missed or done late.

Screen: Cut to Meg at desk, casual

Here's the part I want to be honest about. Most SMSFs in this country are administered by people who are doing their best on software that was designed for a simpler version of the rules. The legislation has outrun the tooling. We're seeing funds where the trustees have done absolutely nothing wrong and the administrator simply hasn't flagged a Division 296 exposure because the system isn't asking the question yet. There are also plenty of funds where the original accountant has retired or stepped back from SMSF work entirely, and the trustees have been quietly shuffled to a generalist team who handles their compliance the way an outer-suburbs panel beater would handle a Ferrari. Sounds like a design that will be loved by the lawyers (eventually).

So, a quick word on who we are and why we might be the right home for your fund.

Screen: Heffron team photo, then a still of the awards block from heffron.com.au

Heffron has been operating exclusively in SMSFs since 1998. Twenty-seven years, only ever this. We've been named SMSF Adviser 'Administrator of the Year' five years running, and we've taken out the Core Data and SelfManagedSuper SMSF Administrator Award five times as well. Our team educates the rest of the industry, which is to say other administrators, accountants and advisers buy our courses to learn how to handle the law I'm describing to you right now. We sit on the panels where the ATO and Treasury work through how new legislation will actually be applied. That's why when something like Division 296 lands, we're not reading about it for the first time the same week you are.

Here's what working with us actually looks like. You get a named relationship manager. A real person at our team in Maitland or Brisbane whose direct line you have, whose email you have, and who knows your fund the way your GP knows your blood pressure. They handle accounting, tax, compliance, audit coordination, and the annual minutes, and they keep an eye on the things that change year to year (contribution caps, pension minimums, indexation thresholds, and now Division 296). If you have a question, you ring them. You don't go through a portal queue and you don't get bounced to whoever's free that afternoon.

Our administration sits in three tiers depending on the complexity of the fund. The Streamlined service runs at $3,170 a year including GST and covers funds with cash, listed shares, and the more straightforward wrap accounts. From there it steps up to the Standard service at $3,745 a year, which covers about eighty percent of the funds we look after, including property and crypto and the institutional accounts that need a bit more handling. At the top end is the Advanced service at $4,320 a year, which covers funds with collectables, foreign assets, private trusts, or multiple investment properties. Audit is included in all three. The fee is fixed. You get one invoice a year, you know what it is in advance, and there are no surprises in May when everyone else is doing the inevitable mad rush around year-end.

If your accountant currently looks after your fund and you're wondering whether we'd be stepping on their toes, we work alongside accountants all the time. Often the accountant is delighted to hand the SMSF administration over to a specialist team and keep the advice relationship intact. We've moved hundreds of funds across from other providers and the transition is something we organise, not something you have to project-manage. Mid-year switches are routine for us.

Body, objections
A few things people tend to ask at this point.

The first is whether the fee is steep. Compared to a discount provider it's higher. Set it against what one bad Division 296 decision can cost a fund with a three or four million dollar balance and it looks roughly like the cost of a sensible insurance premium. The trustees who choose us are the ones who've worked out that the cheap option isn't cheap once the ATO starts paying attention, which it is about to.

A second question is whether you really need an administration firm at all if your accountant has been handling things informally. The honest answer is that you might not, if your accountant is one of the very small number who specialise in SMSFs full-time and keeps current on legislation like the bill in front of Parliament right now. If they don't, the risk you're carrying is quiet but real, and it tends to surface at the worst possible moment.

The third is the worry about switching. Trustees ring us anxious that moving providers will be a nightmare. It is not a nightmare. Our team has a checklist that runs the changeover. You sign two forms and we do the rest.

The fourth is the question of whether the firm is too big or too small. We sit deliberately in the middle. The technical team includes qualified actuaries and SMSF specialists who consult to the regulators, and at the same time you'll always know the name of the person looking after your fund. With offices in Maitland and Brisbane and clients in every state, almost all of our work runs over the phone, by email, and in scheduled video calls.

Body, who it's for

Screen: Cut back to Meg piece-to-camera

This is going to be a fit if you have a balance somewhere north of a million dollars, you take your fund seriously, you want a named person on the other end of the line, and you'd rather pay a sensible fixed fee for proper specialist work than the lowest possible figure for a service that treats your fund like a row in a spreadsheet. We work especially well with trustees who are in pension phase or about to enter it, trustees whose balance is heading toward the three million threshold, and trustees who have inherited an SMSF after a spouse has passed away and want a steady pair of hands while they take stock.

It's not going to be a fit if your fund is very small and very simple and the cost of professional administration would be disproportionate. eSuperfund or a software-only setup will probably serve you better, and we'll say so on the call rather than pretend otherwise.

CTA

Screen: Cut to Meg piece-to-camera, slight push-in

If any of what I've just walked through is sitting in the back of your mind already, the next step is a complimentary phone or video consultation with our team. You bring whatever information you have on your fund (or don't; we'll work from a clean slate if that's easier) and we'll talk through your specific situation, where Division 296 might land for you, and whether moving across to us makes sense. It's a conversation, not a sales call. If it isn't a fit we'll tell you so, and if there's something you can do yourself today that doesn't require us at all, we'll tell you that too.

Click the button beneath this video to book your complimentary consultation. You'll see a calendar with available times, you can choose phone or video, and you'll be speaking with someone on our team who knows SMSFs cold.

Division 296 is moving. Parliament returns to it this sitting, the ATO is already adjusting how it scrutinises high-balance funds, and trustees who get organised this year will have considerably more room to manoeuvre than trustees who wait. Click the button beneath this video, pick a time that suits, and we'll have a proper conversation about your fund.

Twenty-seven years of doing nothing but this. We'd be very glad to look at yours.

Confirmation Page Video Scripts 6 scripts

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Video 1: What actually happens on this call? →

Length: 90 seconds

(Meg to camera, soft Heffron-teal background, mid-shot. Heffron logo lower-third for first 3 seconds then fade.)

Right. You've booked a call with us. The very reasonable next question is probably: what is actually going to happen on it? Because if you're anything like the trustees I usually meet, you've probably sat on a few calls in your life that turned out to be a thinly disguised sales pitch with a countdown timer at the end. This isn't one of those. [pause]

Here is what the next 30 minutes look like. We start by asking you to tell us about your fund. How long you've had it, roughly what is in it, who is in it with you (often a spouse), whether you're in accumulation phase or already drawing a pension, and what you currently do for the accounting and the audit. We are listening for the bits of your situation that are genuinely tricky and the bits that are completely standard. Most funds are a mix of both. [pause]

Then we tell you, in plain English, what we think. If we believe we can make your life easier and your fund cleaner from an ATO point of view, we will say so and we will show you exactly what that would look like, what it would cost, and what would change for you. If we think you are already well looked after where you are, we will tell you that too. [pause]

There is no slide deck. There is no "limited time offer". The person on the call with you is from our team, not a separate sales department who then hands you over later. Whatever you decide at the end of the call, you walk away with a clearer picture of where your fund stands. [pause]

So please bring your questions. The harder ones are genuinely the most fun for us.

(Cutaway: B-roll of a Heffron team member on a Zoom call mid-conversation; cut back to Meg for the final line.)

Video 2: Is Heffron actually the right fit for my fund? →

Length: 120 seconds

(Meg to camera, with a brief cutaway around the 30-second mark to a screen-share of the three pricing tiers on heffron.com.au, then back to Meg.)

A fair question. We are not the right home for every SMSF in Australia and I would rather you find that out now than three months in. [pause]

Heffron tends to be the right fit if your fund has any of the following going on. A balance of around a million dollars or more (which puts you in the top quartile of self-managed funds in this country). Investments beyond cash and listed shares, so property, an unlisted trust, crypto, a collectable, a foreign asset, anything along those lines. You are at or near retirement, which means pensions, minimum drawdowns, and possibly Division 296 are now on your radar. Or your current accountant has retired, sold the practice, or simply stopped doing SMSFs (which is happening a lot at the moment, by the way). [pause]

We are probably not the right fit if your fund is small, sits entirely in cash and a couple of ETFs, and you are happy paying a few hundred dollars a year to a discount admin shop. There is nothing wrong with that setup. It just isn't where our team adds enough value to justify what we charge. [pause]

The other group we are a strong fit for, candidly, is trustees who have been burnt once. People who had their fund with a low-touch provider, hit a moment where the answer really mattered (an audit query, a death in the family, a contribution that went sideways), and discovered nobody knew their name when they rang up. If that sounds (a bit) like you, this is exactly the kind of conversation we are good at. [pause]

On the call we will tell you honestly which camp you sit in. If we are not the right fit, you will know within the first ten minutes and we will point you in a more sensible direction.

(Cutaway: a quick view of the Heffron homepage awards block, then back to Meg for the close.)

Video 3: What if I am already happy with my current accountant? →

Length: 120 seconds

(Meg to camera, warm tone, slight smile on the opening line.)

Good. I mean that. If your current accountant is doing a careful job of your fund, knows your name, returns your calls, and is across the law as it currently stands, then please keep them. The SMSF world is hard enough without changing things that work. [pause]

The reason a fair few of our trustee clients still ended up with us, though, is worth knowing about. There are a few common stories. One is that the accountant is excellent at general tax and business work but quietly hates SMSFs (they tend to be a small minority of the practice and the rules keep moving). Another is that the accountant is brilliant but happens to be the only person in the firm who actually understands your fund, and they are five years from retirement with no succession in place. A third version is that the relationship is great but the firm has recently outsourced the SMSF processing offshore and you have stopped recognising the work coming back. [pause]

A model that works well is to keep your accountant for everything else and bring us in just for the SMSF. We handle accounting, the tax return, audit coordination, and the technical questions on the fund. Your accountant handles you. Most trustees in this setup say their accountant is actually relieved, because the SMSF was the part of the file that was keeping them up at night. [pause]

You do not have to choose between us. And nothing about a 30-minute call commits you to changing anything. If after we talk you decide to stay exactly where you are, you have lost half an hour and gained a clearer view of how your fund compares. That seems like a reasonable trade.

(On-screen lower-third graphic: "Heffron plus your accountant: a common setup.")

Video 4: Why are we more expensive than the cheap SMSF providers? →

Length: 150 seconds

(Meg to camera, calm and direct, no defensive energy.)

I want to answer this one straight because it comes up on most of our first calls. Our trustee pricing starts at $3,170 including GST per year for a Streamlined fund, $3,745 for a Standard fund, and $4,320 for an Advanced fund. Those numbers are on our website. We do not hide them and we have not raised them quietly behind anyone's back. [pause]

You can absolutely pay less. There are providers in the market charging well under two thousand dollars a year for SMSF administration. The way they do that is real and worth understanding. Most of them process funds at scale, often offshore, with a software-led workflow and minimal human involvement. For a vanilla fund (a couple in accumulation, cash and listed shares, nothing complicated) that model works perfectly well most of the year. [pause]

Where it tends to fall over is the year something happens. A property purchase inside the fund. A move from accumulation to pension phase. A binding death benefit nomination that needs to actually work when it is needed. A contribution near the cap that has to be unwound. A Division 296 calculation. An ATO query about an in-house asset. In those moments you discover whether the person on the other end of the phone knows your fund or is simply opening it for the first time today. [pause]

What you pay us for is named relationship managers who know your file, qualified actuaries on staff for the technical calls, and a team that other SMSF firms ring up when they get stuck. Whether that is worth the difference depends entirely on what your fund is doing and what your tolerance for getting an ATO letter is. On the call we will help you work out, honestly, which side of that line your fund sits on.

(Screen-share showing the three-tier pricing table from heffron.com.au, hold for 6 seconds, then back to Meg.)

Video 5: What does Division 296 actually mean for me? →

Length: 150 seconds

(Meg to camera. Tone is matter-of-fact, mild eye-roll at the drafting.)

Division 296 is the new tax on people with more than three million dollars in super. It is the most-talked-about super change in a decade and depending on whose draft of the legislation you are reading on the day, it is either workable or (crazy?) properly silly. [pause]

Here is what you actually need to know. Firstly, the threshold is three million dollars across all of your super, not per fund. Secondly, the tax is on earnings (and Treasury defines 'earnings' in a specific way that is worth understanding rather than guessing about). The current draft no longer taxes unrealised capital gains, which was the worst feature of the original version. But there are still some genuine stings in the tail, particularly around what happens when a member dies, and the rules for working out the percentage that gets taxed are fiddlier than they look. [pause]

If your total super balance is well under three million and likely to stay there, Division 296 is essentially noise for you. We will say so on the call and not waste your time. [pause]

If you are anywhere near or above the threshold, the conversation gets more useful. There are decisions to make now. Whether to draw a pension you weren't going to draw, whether to wait on selling certain assets, whether to look at withdrawing from super and holding outside, whether to do nothing because the legislation might still change again. None of those answers are universal. They depend on your numbers, your spouse's numbers, your assets, and your plans. [pause]

Heffron writes most of the public commentary on this regulation (I do, on behalf of our team, in the AFR and Firstlinks). It is genuinely our specialist subject right now. If Division 296 is part of why you booked, please bring it up early in the call.

(Brief cutaway to one of Meg's published Firstlinks bylines on Div 296, then back to Meg for the close.)

Video 6: What should I have handy when we jump on the call? →

Length: 90 seconds

(Meg to camera, light tone, this is the easy one.)

Nothing fancy. You do not need to dig through filing cabinets or print anything out. The call is genuinely a conversation, not an audit. [pause]

If you can put your hands on three things before we speak, the call will be more useful for you. Roughly what is in the fund (so cash, listed shares, the wrap or platform name if you use one, any property, anything unusual). A rough figure for the total balance (within fifty thousand dollars is plenty). And the name of who currently does the work, whether that is an accountant, an administration firm, or yourself with software. [pause]

It is also useful if you happen to remember your most recent annual fee, because we can quickly tell you whether what you are paying is roughly in line with the market or sitting noticeably above or below it.

You do not need your TFN, you do not need the trust deed, and the most recent financial statements are not required either. If any of those become relevant later we will ask. The call runs for half an hour. Our aim is to understand your fund well enough to tell you something useful at the end of it. [pause]

Oh, and a glass of water. Half an hour goes faster than people expect.

(Quick on-screen text recap of the three useful items, then back to Meg's smile on the final line.)

Pre-Appointment Email Sequence 8 emails

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Email 1: A quick note before we chat →

Subject: A quick note before we chat
Preview: what to expect on the call, who we are, and one thing worth reading first.

SEND TIMING: Day 0, 1 hour after booking

Hi {{first_name}},

I'm Meg, Managing Director at Heffron. We're locked in for {{call_day}} at {{call_time}}, and one of our team will phone you on the number you gave us.

A few things before then so you're not walking into a cold conversation.

First, what the call actually is. It's a chat, not a pitch. We'll ask about your fund (assets, balance, where it sits now, what's worrying you about Division 296 if anything is), and we'll tell you honestly whether we're the right home for it. Sometimes we aren't. If we think your accountant is doing a perfectly good job and the move would cost more than it's worth, we'll say so on the call.

Second, who we are in 30 seconds. We've been doing SMSF administration since 1998, back when there were fewer than 200,000 funds in Australia and they were regulated by APRA (can you imagine?). Our team has won SMSF Adviser's 'Administrator of the Year' five years running, and we consult to the ATO and Treasury when they're drafting the law. I personally write about SMSFs for the AFR, The Australian, and Firstlinks. None of which is the same as being cheap, because we aren't. Heffron is the firm other firms phone when the rules get murky.

Third, if you've got 4 minutes between now and the call, the most useful thing you can read is our Division 296 trustee guide at landing.heffron.com.au/division-296-news-and-resources. The guide explains how the tax actually works, who it bites, and what to do if you're over (or close to) the $3m threshold.

That's it. Talk soon.

Meg
Meg Heffron, Managing Director
Heffron

Email 2: The $3,170 question →

Subject: The $3,170 question
Preview: why we charge what we do and when the cheap option is genuinely fine.

SEND TIMING: Day 1, 8:30am

Hi {{first_name}},

Probably the question you're sitting on but haven't asked yet, so I'll ask it for you. Why does Heffron charge $3,170 (Streamlined) to $4,320 (Advanced) per year, when eSuperfund will do it for under $1,000, and your current accountant might be doing it as part of a bundle?

Fair question, and worth an honest answer.

The cheap end of the market is software-led. Your fund goes into a queue, gets processed by whoever picks up the next file, and the work is often done offshore. For a simple fund with one bank account and a parcel of listed shares, that model works fine. It's also genuinely useful that it exists.

What you're paying us for is different. You get a named relationship manager who knows your fund by name, a phone number that rings at our office in Maitland (not a chatbot), and a team of qualified actuaries and SMSF specialists reviewing the work. Those are the same people the ATO phones when they're writing rulings. And you get an opinion when the rules are uncertain, which they often are at the moment.

Division 296 is a good example. Its draft has changed twice in twelve months, and some of the death-benefit provisions are, in the technical phrasing of one of our senior staff, 'a design that will be loved by the lawyers'. If your fund is anywhere near the $3m line, the question is not 'is the admin cheap'. It's whether the person doing your admin is paying attention to the legislation that's about to bite. That's the trade-off the $3,170 buys.

If your fund is simple, low-balance, and the rules aren't keeping you up, the cheap option is genuinely fine. Tell us that on the call and we'll likely agree. We don't want clients we can't add value to.

Meg

Email 3: A story about a death benefit →

Subject: A story about a death benefit
Preview: an anonymised case from the past 18 months that shows what 'technical depth' actually means.

SEND TIMING: Day 1, 4:00pm

Hi {{first_name}},

A real (anonymised) example from the past 18 months, because it explains better than I can what 'technical depth' actually means in practice.

A trustee couple in their late 60s, around $3.4m in the fund between them. He passed away in late 2024. The fund structure had been set up years earlier by a perfectly competent local accountant: corporate trustee, the two of them as directors and members, super to be paid to the surviving spouse on first death, non-super estate assets to the kids from his first marriage.

It made sense at the time. Then Division 296 was drafted.

Under the new rules, the longer the surviving spouse takes to pay out the death benefit, the bigger the Division 296 tax bill becomes. And under the original draft, that bill could fall on the estate, which would have meant the kids (whom she had a frosty relationship with) effectively funding her tax via a smaller inheritance. The ATO is also signalling it'll watch hard for delays in paying benefits 'as soon as practicable'.

By the time the family came to us, the death benefit had been sitting in the fund for nine months. There was no deliberate delay involved, only the normal pace of grief and admin. We restructured the payment, documented the timing carefully, and worked through the actuarial implications with our in-house team. The family avoided a tax outcome that, on a back-of-envelope, would have cost them somewhere north of $40,000.

I'm telling you this for two reasons. First, if your fund is over (or near) $3m, the death-benefit provisions matter as much as the headline rate. Second, this is the kind of question we end up advising on every week. Cheap admin won't catch it. Your accountant might, if SMSFs are their specialty, though most general practice accountants won't.

If you'd rather watch than read, there's a 6-minute explainer of the Division 296 death-benefit rules here: landing.heffron.com.au/division-296-news-and-resources. Lyn Formica from our technical team walks through it.

Meg

Email 4: What it costs over 10 years →

Subject: What it costs over 10 years
Preview: the maths on the fee difference, and the cost of a single mistake.

SEND TIMING: Day 2, 9:00am

Hi {{first_name}},

People sometimes ask whether the higher Heffron fee is worth it 'over the long run'. Honest answer: it depends on your fund. Here's the maths so you can run it yourself.

Take a fund with $2.5m in a Standard-tier set-up. Heffron Standard is $3,745 per year. A cheap competitor is roughly $1,100 per year. Difference is $2,645 per year, or about $26,450 over a decade (ignoring inflation, which would push both numbers up roughly equally).

Now the other side of the ledger. The cost of a single Division 296 mistake on a $2.5m balance, where (say) the percentage calculation was set up wrong because the start-of-year and end-of-year balances weren't tracked properly, sits somewhere between $5,000 and $40,000 depending on the year. A contribution-cap breach, fully assessed, will set you back $10,000 to $20,000. One TBAR lodgement missed in a way that triggers an ATO review costs you lost weeks of your life and occasionally penalty interest. A pension-phase actuarial certificate handled incorrectly so the fund loses its tax exemption on a portion of earnings: thousands per year, ongoing.

So the question isn't 'is $26,450 a lot of money over a decade'. It is. The question is 'what's the probability of one of the above happening to my fund in that decade, and what does the expected cost look like'.

For a simple fund well under $3m, the probability is genuinely low. The cheap option is probably the right answer and I'll tell you that on the call.

For a fund near or over $3m, with property, with a pension already running, with non-arm's-length issues to think about, or with a death-benefit plan in place, the probability isn't low. It's roughly certain that at least one of those things will need careful handling in the next ten years.

The fee difference is small money relative to the risk. That's the only honest case I can make for paying more.

Meg

Email 5: Useful even if we never speak →

Subject: Useful even if we never speak
Preview: a 12-question trustee self-review checklist you can work through with a pen.

SEND TIMING: Day 2, 3:30pm

Hi {{first_name}},

Regardless of what happens on our call, this is the most useful single document I can put in your hands today.

It's a checklist we built for trustees who are reviewing their fund ahead of Division 296 commencing. Twelve questions, no jargon, takes about 20 minutes to work through with your latest member statement in front of you.

The checklist is at landing.heffron.com.au/division-296-news-and-resources (look for 'Trustee Self-Review Checklist'). Print it, work through it with a pen, bring the answers to our call if you want to. Or don't. It's yours to use either way.

The questions that catch people out most:
- Question 4 (whether your contribution mix in the last 24 months has created a TSB problem you haven't noticed yet)
- Question 8 (whether your binding death benefit nomination is still valid, or quietly expired)
- Question 11 (whether your pension-phase split is documented in a way that survives ATO review)

If those mean nothing to you, the checklist will explain each one in plain English. If they all mean something to you, you're probably already in good shape.

Meg

Email 6: My accountant already does this →

Subject: My accountant already does this
Preview: when staying with your accountant is right, and when a co-existence model makes more sense.

SEND TIMING: Day 3, 8:00am

Hi {{first_name}},

The second-most-common reason people don't move their fund: 'my accountant already does the admin and I trust them.'

This is often the right reason to stay. I want to say that clearly before I write anything else. A good SMSF-specialist accountant who knows your fund and reads Treasury drafts in their downtime is a perfectly fine home for the work. Some of the smartest SMSF practitioners in the country are sole-practice accountants, and we send our hardest technical questions to a handful of them.

But two patterns we see repeatedly are worth flagging.

The first pattern is the accountant who does maybe a dozen SMSFs as a small part of a broader practice. Conscientious people, generally, who are not SMSF specialists. They do the work in software, lodge what needs to be lodged, and don't have time to read every Treasury draft. With Division 296 on the table, NALI rules tightening, and ATO interpretation moving constantly, that's a difficult position to be in. The issue isn't capability. SMSFs have simply become too technical to do at quarter-time.

The second pattern is the long-standing accountant who's approaching retirement. Their succession plan may not include the SMSF work. We get calls from new trustees almost every week whose previous accountant has retired or sold the practice, and the receiving firm doesn't really want the SMSF book. Better to have a conversation about it before that happens than after.

If your accountant is an SMSF specialist, has under 50 funds across their book, attends SMSF Association events, and is under 60: they are likely the right home and we will tell you so on the call.

If any of those four don't apply, we should at least talk about a co-existence model. We do the admin, your accountant keeps the tax-return signature and the client relationship. That's how most of our adviser-channel work runs.

Meg

Email 7: Why this year matters →

Subject: Why this year matters
Preview: genuine context on the Division 296 timeline, not fake urgency.

SEND TIMING: Day 3, 12:00pm

Hi {{first_name}},

I want to be careful here, because I detest fake urgency in marketing emails. So this is genuine context, not a 'spots filling fast' line.

The Division 296 legislation will commence on 1 July 2026 (assuming the bill passes in roughly its current form, which is the working assumption across the industry). That gives anyone with a balance over (or near) $3m around 14 months to think about the structure of their fund before the new tax starts biting. Things that are worth examining before commencement, not after:
- Whether the contribution mix you've been running needs to change
- Whether assets that are likely to realise large gains are best held inside or outside super
- How the pension-phase split is set up between members in a couple's fund
- What the binding death benefit nomination says, and whether the timing implications under the new rules have been thought through

None of these are emergencies. None of them require rushed decisions. But they all get harder, and in some cases more expensive, if they're addressed after 1 July 2026 rather than before.

That's the only reason I'd suggest the conversation matters this year rather than next year. Both the legislation and the commencement date are real, and so is the cost of leaving adjustments until afterwards.

If your fund is well under $3m and likely to stay there, none of this applies to you and our call will be shorter and easier. Tell us that upfront.

Meg

Email 8: Tomorrow morning →

Subject: Tomorrow morning
Preview: what I'll ask you, what I'll tell you, and how to reschedule if you need to.

SEND TIMING: Day 3, 5:30pm

Hi {{first_name}},

Quick note before we speak tomorrow at {{call_time}}.

What I'll ask you on the call (so you can have it in front of you if you want):
- Approximate current balance, and whether it's spread across members
- Asset mix at a high level (cash, shares, property, anything else)
- Whether you're in accumulation, pension phase, or both
- Who currently handles the admin, and what's prompted you to look around
- The thing keeping you up, if anything is

What I'll tell you on the call:
- Whether we think your fund needs us, your current setup, or something cheaper
- If us, which tier (Streamlined, Standard, or Advanced) and why
- What the move actually involves (it is genuinely straightforward, the previous accountant hands over a file, we re-establish the fund on our side, audit picks up from where it was)
- What the first 90 days look like in plain English

The call is 30 minutes. If we run over, that's because there's a real question to work through, and we don't charge for the time.

If something has come up and you need to push the call, the calendar link in your booking confirmation lets you reschedule directly. No need to email.

Otherwise, we'll phone you on {{phone_number}} at {{call_time}} tomorrow.

Meg
Meg Heffron, Managing Director
Heffron

General Email Marketing Sequence 10 emails

↓

Email 1: Welcome to Heffron →

Subject: Welcome to Heffron
Preview: a quick personal hello before the formal onboarding email lands tomorrow.

SEND TIMING: Day 1

Hi {{first_name}},

Welcome. Your fund is officially with us as of today, and I wanted to send a quick personal hello before the formal onboarding email lands in your inbox tomorrow.

A few things to know up front. Your relationship manager is {{rm_name}}, and they will be the human attached to your fund from here on. You will see their name on your statements, in your emails, and on the other end of the phone when you call 1300 433 376. If you want to put a face to the name, their photo and direct line are in the welcome pack {{rm_name}} will send through tomorrow.

The first thing we are doing on your fund is the takeover work, which is mostly invisible to you. We pull the prior year's records across, reconcile the opening balances, line up the audit trail, and make sure nothing has been left hanging from your previous arrangement. It is the unglamorous half of SMSF admin and the half we like to get exactly right before anything else happens.

You do not need to do anything this week. If we need a signature or a document, {{rm_name}} will ask for it specifically. We will never send you a vague "please action" email and expect you to guess what we mean.

If you have questions in the meantime, just reply to this email. It comes to me.

Meg
Meg Heffron
Managing Director, Heffron

Email 2: Meet your relationship manager →

Subject: Meet {{rm_name}}
Preview: how the day-to-day works, and what {{rm_name}} will be doing for you.

SEND TIMING: Day 2

Hi {{first_name}},

{{rm_name}} here. I am the relationship manager for your fund, which means I am the person you talk to about anything fund-related from now on.

A bit about how this works in practice. Most of our trustee clients call or email me directly when something comes up, rather than going through a general line. My direct number is {{rm_phone}} and my email is {{rm_email}}. I am in the office Monday to Friday and I will get back to you the same day if you reach me before about 3pm, and the next morning if you reach me after.

What I will be doing for you on an ongoing basis:

The annual cycle, which is the accounting, tax return, member statements, audit coordination, and trustee minutes. You will see most of this happen between October and February each year, depending on when your data is in.

Strategy conversations. If you are thinking about starting a pension, making a contribution, changing your investment mix, or something has happened personally that might affect the fund (a sale, an inheritance, a death in the family), I would much rather hear from you before than after. A five minute phone call before you do something is worth a great deal more than untangling it afterwards.

Compliance watch. There is a lot happening in super at the moment. Division 296, the contribution caps moving, the ATO sharpening its focus on payment of benefits. If something changes that affects your fund specifically, I will tell you. For everything else that affects the whole sector, Meg writes about it in the monthly newsletter so you hear it from us before you hear it from the AFR.

If anything is unclear in the welcome pack you received yesterday, just reply to this email.

{{rm_name}}
Relationship Manager, Heffron

Email 3: What we actually do →

Subject: What we actually do
Preview: a short note on what your annual fee buys you, headline work and the technical work behind it.

SEND TIMING: Day 4

Hi {{first_name}},

A short note on what your annual fee buys you, because in this category it is often less clear than it should be.

Headline things we do. All the accounting (which means reconciling every transaction in your fund through the year), preparation of financial statements and the annual tax return, trustee minutes and member statements, plus independent audit coordination including chasing the auditor when they take their sweet time. Then lodgement with the ATO at the end of it. If the ATO writes to your fund about anything, that letter lands on our desk and we deal with it before it lands on yours.

There is also the strategic work that the cheaper end of the market does not do. When your numbers come in for the year, your fund is reviewed by a qualified accountant who looks at whether your contributions are within caps, whether your pension drawdown is on track, whether you have any TBAR events to report, and whether anything in the year flags as a compliance risk. That review is the actual product, and the accounting is just the prerequisite.

What costs us money, and what most admin firms do not include, is the technical work in the background. When Treasury releases a draft like Division 296, our technical team reads it on day one, works out what it means for funds like yours, and updates our advice. You do not see that work happen, but it is the reason you can call {{rm_name}} with a Division 296 question and get a real answer the same day rather than a "let me check and come back to you".

That is the deal. If anything in there is not what you thought you were buying, please reply and tell me. I would rather find out now.

{{rm_name}}
Relationship Manager, Heffron

Email 4: The Div 296 thing →

Subject: The Div 296 thing
Preview: a short take on Division 296 and what (if anything) you need to do about it.

SEND TIMING: Day 8

Hi {{first_name}},

Meg here. I want to flag something that is probably already on your radar, because if you are a Heffron trustee client there is a reasonable chance you are within a few zeros of being affected.

Division 296, the proposed extra tax on super balances above $3 million, has been bouncing around for two years now. Treasury released revised draft legislation just before Christmas, and Parliament is expected to debate it after it returns on 2 March. The good news is the worst version (taxing unrealised capital gains) has been dropped. Less good news is that there are some stings in the tail, particularly around what happens when a member dies.

I have written about this on Firstlinks and in the AFR if you want my full take. Short version for you, if your balance is anywhere near $3 million or heading there:

You probably do not need to do anything right now. Nothing is law yet, and the rules will only apply from 1 July 2026 at the earliest.

You will want a plan ready for the first 'earnings' calculation, because the way it is being measured (taking both the start and end of year balances into account) creates some headaches that are worth thinking about in advance, not in the middle of June.

If a member dies with a balance over $3 million, the new rules are going to make things complicated for the estate. We will write to you specifically if this applies to your fund.

If you would like to walk through how Division 296 would actually hit your fund, {{rm_name}} can model it for you. Just reply and ask.

For everyone else (most of you), this is mostly noise for now and we will tell you when it stops being noise.

Meg

Email 5: The monthly newsletter →

Subject: The monthly newsletter
Preview: what's in Heffron Highlights and the bits trustees should not miss.

SEND TIMING: Day 12

Hi {{first_name}},

Every month we send Heffron Highlights, which is the closest thing we have to a house newsletter. It goes out to about {{newsletter_count}} accountants, advisers, auditors and trustees across the country.

You have been opted in as part of your client onboarding, but I wanted to flag it properly because the bits that are most useful to you as a trustee are easy to miss.

What you will see in it:

Meg's Musings, the monthly column where Meg writes about whatever is going on in super that month. Sometimes it is technical (Division 296, contribution caps, pension changes), sometimes it is what came out of Budget night, sometimes it is just an observation about the industry. Conversational rather than formal.

Technical updates from our team. These tend to be more for the accountant and adviser readers, but the headline of each one tells you whether it is relevant to a trustee.

Webinar invitations. We run a Quarterly Technical Webinar (next one is on {{next_webinar_date}}) which is open to clients and free to attend. Topics rotate, but Division 296 has been on the agenda every quarter for the last year and probably will be for another year yet.

If at any point you find the newsletter is more than you want in your inbox, there is an unsubscribe link at the bottom and we will not be offended. If you want it less often, reply and tell me and we will move you to the quarterly summary instead.

{{rm_name}}
Relationship Manager, Heffron

Email 6: Super Companion →

Subject: Super Companion
Preview: a plain-English library of how SMSFs actually work, free for Heffron admin clients.

SEND TIMING: Day 16

Hi {{first_name}},

One more thing in the onboarding inbox and then I will leave you alone for a few weeks.

We have a trustee-facing knowledge product called Super Companion. It is a plain-English library of how SMSFs actually work in practice, written by our technical team for people who run their own fund. Topics covered are the things trustees actually call us about: how the contribution caps work, what counts as a pension and what does not, how the death benefit rules play out, what happens at audit, what the ATO does and does not see, and so on.

Access is free for Heffron admin clients. Your login is your email address ({{client_email}}) and the reset link is here: {{super_companion_login}}.

Why I am sending it now rather than on day one is that most clients do not look at it until something specific comes up. First time you find yourself asking "is my drawdown enough this year?" or "can I bring a property into the fund?" or "what happens if my spouse predeceases me?", that is the moment to use it. An article will give you the lay of the land in five minutes, and then if you want to talk through your particular situation, you call me.

There is also a search bar at the top, which is genuinely useful. Type the thing you are wondering about and it will pull up the relevant articles.

Have a look when you have ten minutes. No homework attached.

{{rm_name}}
Relationship Manager, Heffron

Email 7: What's coming for EOFY →

Subject: What's coming for EOFY
Preview: the few things that may need attention before 30 June, in plain English.

SEND TIMING: Day 20

Hi {{first_name}},

Meg here. June 30 is the part of the year where SMSF compliance gets most active, so I wanted to give you a heads up on the few things that may need attention before then.

If you are in pension phase, your minimum drawdown for the year needs to be paid out by 30 June. We track this for you and {{rm_name}} will write to you specifically if you are at risk of falling short. If you have already met your minimum, ignore this paragraph.

If you are planning a contribution to the fund for this financial year (concessional or non-concessional), the money needs to actually land in the fund's bank account by 30 June. Not initiated by 30 June. Landed. Banks take their time around the end of the financial year, so we recommend getting it across by 25 June at the latest.

If you have a pension you have been thinking about commencing, or a contribution strategy that involves bring-forward rules or carry-forward concessional contributions, this is the month to call {{rm_name}}. Once 30 June passes there is no undoing the year.

If none of the above applies to you, there is nothing for you to do. We will collect the year's data from your bank, broker and any property managers in the usual way from late July onwards, and your annual work will start moving in August.

The inevitable mad rush comes in the last fortnight of June. If you can call us in the first half of the month rather than the last week, both of us will sleep better.

Meg

Email 8: The quarterly webinar →

Subject: The quarterly webinar
Preview: trustees welcome, 75 minutes, replay available if the time doesn't suit.

SEND TIMING: Day 24

Hi {{first_name}},

Our next Quarterly Technical Webinar is on {{next_webinar_date}} at {{webinar_time}} AEST, running about 75 minutes. The topic this round is {{webinar_topic}}.

It is technically aimed at the accountants and advisers who use us, but a meaningful portion of the audience is trustees like you who want the depth without having to wait for it to filter down through their accountant. You are welcome to join.

How it works: one of our technical team runs through the topic with worked examples, then about 20 minutes of live Q&A at the end where you can put a question in the chat and we will answer it on air. Trustee questions tend to be the best ones, because they cut through the theory and ask the things that actually come up in real funds.

Register here: {{webinar_registration_url}}. The replay is sent to all registrants the next day, so if the time does not suit, sign up anyway and watch it when you have a spare hour.

If you are not sure whether the topic applies to your fund, ask {{rm_name}} before you sign up. Sometimes the answer is "this one is mostly for accountants, the next one will be more relevant for you", and that is a perfectly reasonable answer.

{{rm_name}}
Relationship Manager, Heffron

Email 9: A quick question for you →

Subject: A quick question for you
Preview: how has the first month gone, and what do you wish you knew about your fund right now?

SEND TIMING: Day 28

Hi {{first_name}},

You have been a Heffron client for about a month now, which is the right point to ask how it is going.

Specifically I would like to know two things.

First, has anything about the onboarding been confusing, slower than you expected, or different to what you signed up for? If yes, I want to know. We use this feedback to fix the next person's experience, and the only way we hear about the bumps is if our new clients tell us in the first month, before they have got used to working around them.

Second, is there anything you wish you knew about your fund right now that you do not? Often the answer is something we already cover (Super Companion, the newsletter, the webinar) and we just need to point you to it. Other times a five minute call with {{rm_name}} fixes it. Occasionally the question reveals something we should be doing for all our trustee clients and are not, in which case it is doubly useful that you raised it.

You can reply to this email directly. It comes to me, and I read every one.

Meg

Email 10: If you know someone →

Subject: If you know someone
Preview: about 60% of new trustee clients come through word of mouth - the last note in the welcome series.

SEND TIMING: Day 30

Hi {{first_name}},

Last one in the welcome series. Thank you for being patient with the volume of email in the first month. From here on you will hear from us monthly through the newsletter, and from {{rm_name}} whenever something specific to your fund needs your attention.

One last thing, and I promise it is the only time I will mention it.

About 60% of our new trustee clients come to us because another Heffron client suggested it. Word of mouth has carried this business since 1998 and it remains the way we grow. If you have a family member, a friend, or a former colleague who runs an SMSF and has been wondering whether they are with the right people, you are welcome to send them my way. {{rm_name}} can run an obligation-free fund review for them and tell them honestly whether moving to us would actually improve their situation. Sometimes the answer is no, and we tell them that too.

The easiest way to do it is to forward this email to them with a sentence about your experience, or to send their details to {{rm_name}} and we will reach out properly.

Either way, thank you for trusting us with your fund. It is not a small thing to move SMSF administrators and we appreciate that you did.

Meg
Meg Heffron
Managing Director, Heffron

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