With all the dramas over regulatory reviews, parliamentary inquiries, association politics and their edicts over remuneration and now superannuation "charters", you could be forgiven for forgetting that we are fundamentally an investment industry.
Risk profiling and tax management are of course important ingredients, but without strong and reliable investment outcomes there are no returns, no investment income cheques to divvy up and no wealth being accumulated.
It's no coincidence therefore that when returns are good investors are happy and when returns are down investors are nervous, regulators edgy and governments start threatening re-regulation as if that's a magic cure-all for why the investments were down in the first place.
Indeed if it wasn't for the returns there wouldn't be anything to regulate in the first place, which is a good way to view the real status of compliance in our organisations.
Yes it's crucial we all follow the rules and ensure our investors are fully protected with the bets governance possible, but you can't eat compliance and investors can't use it to pay their bills.
So how do we return the conversation to what is this industry's life blood? By actually talking about it again, discussing what the opportunities are and what needs to be done to seize them. And how to differentiate between the good ideas and the silly ones.
Markets approaching bottom and seeming to be showing the first glimpses of recovery also make this conversation incredibly timely, meaning there are likely to be more than a few investors wondering what they should now be doing especially given what they are probably hearing from the institutional world.
Adding to the complexity is the AUD breaking the 80 cents mark, interest rates starting to rise as they are pushed up by world government demand for credit, the realignment in commodity markets due to BHP and Rio Tinto's recent moves, and realisation that the direct property market may not be about to experience the market crash some were hoping for.
Smart investors knowing that markets recover usually 18 month before their sister economies do just drives this sense of urgency.
Of course , the advice industry can ignore its investment mission and continue to wallow in self pitying naval gazing as it awaits the inquiry onslaught. But it risks encouraging its investors to begin looking elsewhere for the support they need. We will have no one to blame but ourselves.
For advisers, investments should always come first. It's time to restart that conversation.
