Latest / Financial Planner Life Podcast / How Much Will a Trainee Financial Planner Be Paid in 2026? | Insight Associates

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How Much Will a Trainee Financial Planner Be Paid in 2026? | Insight Associates · Financial Planner Life Podcast

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: And today on the Financial Planner Life podcast, we've got two guests for you.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: We've got Jason Hamlet and we've got Greg Roman from Insight.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: They are a business that's been going for 20 years, and I'll tell you what, they've got the most exceptional training financial planner proposition.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: We talk about why their financial planners that are coming from different professions deserve a basic salary.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: We also talk about the training and development and mentorship mindset that they create for these financial planners, which make them stay and last in the business.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: We talk about the importance of segmenting clients and passing them down to the next generation of financial planners within your business to create a sustainable growing business.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: And they are on the grow.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: They're looking for a hundred advisors by 2028.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: If you're somebody seriously considering changing company or entering the financial planning profession, you've got to watch this episode and keep Insight top of your list.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, gentlemen, welcome to the Financial Planner Live podcast from Insights.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Great to have you on.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Sam.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Jason, why don't you introduce yourself first of all and tell us who you are?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm Jason, and um I founded the business in um 2001.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh the journey's been a lot of fun since then.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: I I apologize at the start of today for the hoarse voice.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's because we had a good time at the weekend at the cricket and we were cheering on too much.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love it.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Was that personal or was that uh business?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, we took we took we took um uh advisors away for the weekend.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, fantastic.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Advisors away for the weekend and I did a bit of a jollying.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: What did you get up to?
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Just had a good time.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Just had a good time.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, Greg, tell us a little bit about yourself.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I've um only known Jason and Insight for less than five years.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um so prior to that I had my own business, my own practice.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um prior to that coming into the profession, I I worked in management communications.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um so uh having sold my business in 2019, um, I was very interested in the development of people.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: I was always interested in uh why was it that some some advisors can be very highly qualified and others less so.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um but that didn't always correlate with their performance and their success.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I got very interested in in that the human aspects of what it what it means to be be an advisor.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love it.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: So not a background in financial planning.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, I was uh th I'm 40 years in now.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: So started as a started as an advisor back in the mid-80s.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um but prior to that I'd had some experience in in in the communication sector back in the days when it's video training, if you remember that.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: Gotcha.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, fantastic.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Jason, 20 years then you've been going.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Nearly 20 years.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um I've not heard much from you.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I placed a person in your business.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna save it for the podcast.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: A guy called Barry Nunn.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Do you remember Barry Nunn?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Barry Nunn is now living in France.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Is he?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh good on him.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Is he still playing the guitar?
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Barry does everything, he plays of everything, I think.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he's having a great time in France, yeah.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, Barry Barry was a great uh appointment.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: That was in you that would have been in the uh 2000s.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you're right, we've been going now as Insight uh for 22 years.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh pre previously before that it was a little business, partnership business that I joined called Lifestyle.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and prior to that, just to give a little bit of uh context, um, I started in financial planning in 89 when it was definitely Wolf on Wall Street, whereby the interview process was very, very elongated.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it would be write down all the names of the people that you know, and then you're told to leave the room, and you've got to write down another list.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And at this point, I was thinking of all the uncles in the world that I knew, and uh uh essentially what they were doing was giving you your client base.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Training program was really extensive, at least four hours.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and then you would be told to go and buy yourself a very good suit.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I remember back in 89 I spent more than 300 pounds on the suit.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, I loved it, I lived in it, I'd go to clubs in it, I would sleep in it.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was the most prized possession, but it taught you some very, you know, it was it was an incredible era, 300,000 financial planners apparently.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and today we're down to what is it, 20,000, 25,000?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Just on the 30s, I think it is.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: 30,000.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the the the mass is great then.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Not it hasn't been decimated, it's been nine-mated.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: 90% has gone.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and back then was everybody was doing financial planning when there was no need, like today.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Margaret Thatcher had just done the contracting hour SERPS.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: So you're walking around the streets trying to get people to contract out.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And but but but the problem with that experience was it was commission only.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, most of the stuff you would write would come off the books a few months later, so you'd have lapses.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: You'd be called into an office at eight o'clock in the morning, you were told sleeping is cheating.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And the the reality was you'd become very ill.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I became very ill, ended up in hospital, and um it was tough.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't come back to the industry until 95 with the prudential, which was absolutely the opposite.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: In fairness to the prudential back then, how blessed were we to have an organization that would put you on a six-week training course?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you were you were you were put up, you were trained on everything, the training was first class, and then you were given real protection in your development.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I th I think the PRU for me gets um you know, gets a the man from the Prue, it wasn't that, it was it was high quality training.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um the reality was though their pay scale was wrong.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: So if you were in the PU and you were performing really well, if you didn't have longevity in your organization, you were paid probably 30% of what the person with longevity was getting, which I thought was fundamentally unfair.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: So then I joined General Accident, and and I'm gonna mention all these brands because we were we were from a period when the the the sector was full of insurance companies and they were trying to get you to distribute their products, but the prew was all about something called um annual premium.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: So you were very much emphasized to look for a£500 a month premium in a PEP, all right?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: But but uh GA General Accident was on Lautro, so and then you learned how to sell protection, so the currencies were different.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: So we found that all very, very fascinating.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I was very fortunate at my time at General Accident to probably have uh one of the greatest mentors I ever had, a guy called Amy McKay, and uh he and this is why Greg is partly here today, and he taught me about the power of the mind and the belief that they gave you.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh from there, though, I then um wanted to go alone because because I made the biggest mistake in my career, believe I wanted to go into management.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: So they put me as a performance manager, so I used to travel from Norfolk down to London to run a team, and it was the most scary thing you ever do.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: You you realize how the lack of competency of other people that you run.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: So something that I would find very easy, they would find very difficult, and then my recommendations most of the time to the leadership of GA would be I really think this person should change career because they were in the wrong job.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And at this point, I thought I'm not gonna do it for these organizations, I'm gonna go alone.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And in 2001, I made the brave move of going alone with no financial backing.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'd also gone into management, which meant client base was no longer available.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is the most vulnerable position you're in.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I went to three people and said, if I go on my own, will you follow three clients?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And they said yes.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought this would give me the ability to bring in some money.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then the amusing thing is the firm I joined, my very first paycheck, which was quite significant.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: I thought it would get my family at the time, which was just about to be three children and a mortgage, would get us through a few months.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: It bounced on me.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: In a time, by the way, checks were in existence.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe some people on this podcaster do not understand what a bouncing check is.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: So you present it to the bank you think is going to clear, and it doesn't clear.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And this probably was the clue that this organization that I joined was in financial difficulties.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And um, funny enough, one of the people, one of the directors in the business today, a guy called Daniel Appleton, uh, was there at the time, and it it it turned out to be that the guy that I joined turned out to be a crook.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: A genuine crook, a really good one, actually.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: He um he was a very nice human being, as most crooks are.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and um, I don't think he intended to steal money apart from once he got too deep, he couldn't get out, and he successfully took 1.7 million off the public.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a tough day when when it became aware uh fraud squad comes in the office.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I had lovely black hair at the time.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I could show you all pictures.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Quite a handsome young guy, apparently, after the event.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: But then I went very great quickly.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: The stress of um dealing with a fraud squad, dealing with 1.7 million, visiting the clients to make them aware that the things that they'd bought wasn't real, was actually really tough meetings.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: So when financial planners today, and I don't think they've had tough meetings for a while because uh stock market crashes haven't really lasted for a long period of time.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the COVID crisis was only about six to nine months.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but 2008-9 was a real crisis.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: But the real crisis you have isn't when it's um it's not systemic like across the board, but it's focused on you through this, and it's the worst thing any financial planner could go through.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: And uh thankfully at that time in Norwich there were two cases at the same time.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: So Norwich must be full of uh um dodgy financial planners because there was a bigger case at the same time which went through for the same amount, and the only thing they both had in common is both both gentlemen concerned uh got seven years in prison.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: And we had to at that particular time, because one of the questions you might have is why is insight not known today?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Sam, all you do at that moment is you you you think about the people's jobs in the business, yeah, you think about the staff, and you think about the clients.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: So the only things we really cared about was we put the staff together and said, Look, this is big this will come out in the news.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: You have one or two choices.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: You either stay, and I promise you, this will be the greatest organization, or if you leave, it's okay, I get it.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and in fairness to the staff at the time, no one left.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the other thing I learned at that moment as well is whatever you think the worst thing you're gonna face is, it isn't as bad as what you think it will be.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: So where I thought the phones would stop ringing when it was in the press and on BBC News, only one client rang in.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, it's bizarre.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: So what you think is really, really bad didn't turn out to be really, really bad.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: And the proudest thing I can say that we did in that time period, it took me a number of years, but we paid everybody back, and we did it through hard work, and we didn't do it through um a PI insurance because it wouldn't cover this sort of thing.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: So that's probably why you haven't heard about us because all we had to do was get our head down and decide to grow and create culture and create a really strong business.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I I suppose it's through adversity that these things happen, and it's a bit like what Lance Armstrong said prior to him doing the drugs, but the the cancer was the thing that actually made him a Tour de France champion because his body changed that became light and he was too muscly before.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: The reality is I don't think would be the organization we are today without going through those experiences because they are really tough lessons that you have no choice but to learn.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Listen, I thank you very much for being so honest.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's a lot of people that might avoid something like that when they're coming on to talk about their business and the great things they're doing, and they don't talk about the tough times and how hard it can actually be and what you can learn from that.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: So look, it's really, really good that you are open and honest about that, I think.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: And if anybody had a a question or a thought or a you know a feeling or a viewpoint on your business, you know, you've handled that.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I love it.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: So 20 years though, that's that's a long time to be running a financial planning business.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: Can I just ask you, sort of, you know, where are you in the journey at the moment?
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: Where where is insight?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I suppose it's really hard to it depends on what the journey is.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the notion that we've come up with, and I and uh I I didn't I didn't invent this, but one of my private clients is head of a US bank and it's a privately owned US bank, and he talks about the hundred-year plan.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And all their focus on every day is that today, at the end of the day, are we still on goal for the hundred-year plan?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And insight is very much in the thinking of uh 100 years from now, not today.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and we're very much um continuously thinking about the future, and and the and the reason why I I I find that so important is if you're taking on people that are more than 30 years my junior, the reality is I say to them, there's a high probability I might be dead where your career is actually going to grow.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: And if you accept that and it's not about you and it's not about your personal gain, but it's about the collective good, uh, that journey will just carry on.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned there 30 years your junior.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us a little bit about the average age of a financial planner within your business.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: How many of them are there?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: Are you geared towards the younger, middle-aged?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Are you suffering the same that everybody is with the average age?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Apparently being 56, although that is wrong, is the average age is 48, so it's a little bit lower.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm glad you told me that because I kept going on Google and it said 58 and I used that one recently.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's 48.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's 48.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the average is 48.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Can you update the internet, please?
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: We Yeah.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: There is actually, it's in it, it's an article because Tom Heggerty um did did it, did some research um which went out um from the um I think it's a Consumer Duty Alliance, I think it was.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Sam got so I'm really annoyed because when it was 58, I thought I had another three years.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think the average you just told me now when I'll get it.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for that.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Cheers.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: So just tell us a little bit about your business then.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: Who's in it?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: What's the average age?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, how many advisors have you got, that kind of thing.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think the the number of advisors we got would be in the 60s.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um though that would be predominantly the employed advisors, but we do have a number of you know trading styles.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the reason why they're involved is because they might be near the end and there will be a natural buyout for the employed advisors.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: But if you took the employed advisors, I think, well, 37% of the advisory business is below the age of 30.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, if you looked at the employed part, it's probably more like 50%.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: This does not mean, by the way, that we're ageist, that we don't believe in experience and age.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Far from it.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: What we do believe in though is that if you I mean, it's a it's a it's a sporting adage.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you're young enough, you know, if you're good enough, you're old enough.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: So you you for me, age should not be a reason why they don't do this profession.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um please don't believe that the grey population don't want to deal with the youth.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's rubbish, absolute rubbish.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Some of our you know, greatest uh advisors are dealing with clients who would be their grandparents.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: But the expertise um i i is huge, and all we have to do teach these people is how to communicate with people and how to connect with them and how to be aware of what the important issues in their lives are, which is very hard for a young person to do initially, because what the young person is really thinking about is how do I formulate my career, not think about how do I pay for the care fees, what's it like to be in a care home, what's it like to be thinking about inheritance tax?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: But the reality is that they're great.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: So the age thing is not an issue either way, either scale.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I I think it's essential that the but the young are brought through because who are going to be the financial planners of the future.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: When you think about the young coming through, are you looking at younger individuals um um that are coming from other industries or professions?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Or are you looking at, say, younger individuals that are in other firms working as financial advisors or power planners looking to you know step into the role of being a financial planner?
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Are you sort of homegrown talent or are you taking people along when they're often on the journey?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: But certainly, certainly um the homegrown talent has been a success.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think I think that creating the right environment for somebody to grow, understand the business, understand what it what what are the what are the common behaviors that advisors have that make them successful.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: So as well as uh understanding the technical process and and they can get to grips with that very young.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: And in fact, they're very good at adopting the processes.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um what we're helping them with is um our belief that actually the best the best advisors are the best human beings in the sense that they uh understand how to communicate, they uh they uh they they're curious, they ask the right questions.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I think if they can be uh coached and developed and guided in that way through our mentorship programme that we that that's uh been very, very successful.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: I think that they develop those skills without creating any bad habits.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: The bad habits that a lot of advisors get that see us when I do a lot of recruiting and and you can already see in their interactions that they developed a lot of bad habits.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: And um one of the fun things about the youngsters coming through is that they're open to learning, particularly if they're the right people.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then watching them on their journey is uh absolute joy.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: Absolute joy.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: But but but regardless of if they've come from somewhere else or not, it still is homegrown talent.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: The the harder thing when they come from somewhere else is we just have to undo what they've already learned, um, which might mean it slows down the process.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the things that we find most fascinating is when we So we've acquired 33 businesses, and sometimes there may be a power planner who wants to come through, though unfortunately the previous organization just didn't have the process to do so.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: The tough bit is just to teach them about what we're about.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it's all homegrown.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it's it's it's quite common for a for a power planner or a support qualified, um keen to progress to an advisor status to be held back in in firms.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: I've seen that quite a lot because they're actually far more useful in the business, particularly when we're talking about the older demographic and they're thinking about their exit and and and and what have we done as a profession to you know bring up bring up the new the new talent.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_02: And when the reason we you know we talk about that hundred-year plan is that it makes you think about today very, very closely, but it also makes you th relax about the future.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's about it's about getting the right processes in place and structure.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: There's a couple of things that always um look, I've been in financial planning recruitment for years, I had a recruitment business for years, I've done this now for six years.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: I've talked to so many financial planning businesses and individuals that are also trying to get into the profession, so wide audience.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: One of the biggest barriers to entry is the employed route.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: There isn't a great deal of employed routes for anybody to get into the profession.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's very much geared towards the self-employed route, which means second careerists that maybe got a few quid in the bank, 12 to 24 months is usually the period of time it takes to actually see um a return, basically.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Really realistically, I know I work very closely with the St.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: James's Place Academy, and it's you know, is realistically 12 to 24 months, you know, on a self-employed route.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's gonna put anybody off if you haven't got those financials, if you're not used to running your own business, it's a big, big, big risk to expect somebody to come from another profession and set up you know on their own.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: Some people can do it.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's about finding the right people.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: But what are you doing to be able to counter that and help individuals go on a journey of you know training and developing to become financial planners without the financial um, I suppose, stress that can make them unhappy in the job that they're doing?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's absolutely true.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: So the over the years we we used to have a self-employed organization because you can't afford to do the employed bit.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: The cash isn't there.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: However, even when they were self-employed, we give them some financial guarantees.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think this fundamentally goes down to Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Why on earth are you going to expect somebody to be worried about paying their bills, their rent, you know, their food?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: How can this be then you expect them to go and do some proper planning with the client?
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Who, by the way, has got the same worries.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it's just it's just ridiculous that we would expect them to be in pain and we're using the notion that you know they're going to sell more if they if if they're starving.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, where's this all about?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: We want we want great financial planners.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: So so for me, it's um responsibility for us that the people don't go through the pain that the industry created.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: The reason why there were 300,000 and now only 30,000 is because most of those were not on solid foundations.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: So for us, the foundation is key.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean, by the way, that you can afford as an organization to have loads of people on salaries who produce nothing in the end.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because this would be commercial suicide.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: What it does mean though is please, please, please develop yourself, put the biggest effort you can in, but don't worry about the hygiene factors.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: We must cover the hygiene factors.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: So the hygiene factors?
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the it's it's so I'm quite I'm quite in motivation theory.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: I've just shown everybody that I did study once in my life.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and and Hertzberg had um the the the hygiene factors, and the hygiene factors are you need these things in life to grow.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't have them, then you have a problem.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: So money doesn't motivate you, but not having it can really, really unmotivate you.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: And therefore the the money doesn't motivate a financial planner, but not having it can actually unmotivate them to do it.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it's as simple as that.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, cool.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us a little bit about the part that you play in that, then all the things that he's talking about there.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: How are you instilling that um?
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think I think I think the employed model is is is a is a perfect one and and the way the way that we do it in in as much as that that psychological safety.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: I think that relates to the the financial safety.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um they can focus on their their growth.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it's and it's interesting because we we don't we don't chase growth.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_02: We we we engineer a structure that that that means that success is inevitable.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I think we we we're building that so they know that and they can trust the process.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: So we're very we're very keen on ensuring that every stage from the t their technical competence right the way through to their their um communication skills and and and and those areas which allow them to to really thrive are are addressed.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: So we're very strong on uh observations.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: I've I've been a great I I must have seen thousands of observations over my career.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: And um one of the one of the easiest ways to help an advisor is in that 15 minutes post the the actual client meeting, live client meeting when Their emotions are up, they're they're focused on what they're doing, they'll they'll they absorb that feedback in a way that you can't do in the classroom.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I find that incredibly powerful.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: And it's old school, it used to happen.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: I think it we we we stopped that.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it will allow them to understand the implication of their communication and what they're doing.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: So they can either they can the law of attraction, they can either be pushing people away with certain things they say that they don't know that they're saying, the habits they've got into, or they can attract or they can attract them by by um certain communication skills that allow them to be a a great listener, a profound listener actually.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I think one of the interesting things that that Jason touched on there with the younger cohort coming through is that they may not necessarily have those skills, but we don't expect them to have them.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: We we we work on a principle of of the SCAR model, which uh a lot a lot of your listeners will will will know.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, skills and knowledge um are important.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: We can we can teach that.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: We don't expect them necessarily to have that when they start.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: But what we do expect them to have is the right attitude, open to learning, um very good at taking feedback is in is a demonstration of that.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: And then they demonstrate their alignment with the business by how active they are, how busy they get, how much they want it, how much they go beyond the obvious in terms of lead generation and creating a busy diary.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: So they align themselves with the the business in that way, and then our role is to ensure that the disciplines are in place to to allow them to develop and grow in a in with that psychological safety we talk about of understanding it's okay to fail.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: That's where the mentor program comes in.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: We've we've been very pleased with the way our existing advisors, some of whom are very experienced, some less so, have adopted the role of mentor.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_02: I love I love the mentor programme.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: I think the wisdom and guidance that somebody who's been through what they're about to go through but gently guiding them in a safe environment.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um we're seeing real dividends with that.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: And the dividends are not just the development of the advisor, but it's actually quite striking how the mentors become better advisors through the role.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: So we've now got them queuing up to want to be mentors.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's fascinating.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_02: We've been we've been through a process of interviewing some of our advisors.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: Again, some of them only been advising two to three years, wanting to become mentors.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: So we have an advisor-to-mentor program that we've developed.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Craig, let's be clear.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's no pay increase.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: No, they're doing it because that was a question I asked, actually, some of the guys.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: There is no there's no pay increase for the uh the mentor program, but there will be yeah, a fulfillment.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um where we might help is you see, there's no direct pay increase, but every what we're trying to teach them all is uh the quality of client that they see over time uh will determine their revenues.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: So what we do is we we help build books, um, but there is no direct pay increase for that role.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been done on purpose because we want them to do it because they really want to develop others and mentor others, not think this is a promotion.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's bigger than a promotion.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: I can relate to that because in my life I did a 12-step program about seven years ago.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: I gave up drinking, struggled to give up drinking, so I went into a 12-step program.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: Part of the 12-step program is you take on a mentor, that mentor takes you through the steps.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: But one of the final steps is you have to take other people through the other people through the steps.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it's usually at that stage that you start to really kind of see how far you've gone.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then all the pitfalls that you've seen along the way, so you can start to see that in the person that you're helping.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: And as you take that person through the steps and you see the success that they have as well, my God, the empowerment that you have within you and the feeling you have within you is huge and it motivates you to do more.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: And because it's an altruistic program, you know, it's a spiritual altruistic program, no money is taken, it changes the concept because you you're turning up for you and you're turning up for others.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I can understand that.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: And within the workplace, I think there needs to be more of that.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: There shouldn't be monetary gain on absolutely everything you do because it when does that stop?
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, well, I want a bit more.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's taking up a bit more of my time.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: I want a bit more, it creates a bad culture, I think.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you you just said the word, I mean, I've I've seen some of your podcasts, and the word culture is is mentioned a lot.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Culture is determined by some of the things we're just mentioning now.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: When when when people are doing things for the love of it rather than for the money of it, you are training to cult tru true culture.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: And and everybody wins in the end.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: What stage does somebody become a mentor in your business?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: And what stage would they receive mentorship?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: Or mentorship straight away.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um so they they as soon as they join us, they they they go under a program of their their development, firstly to get them to competent status, obviously.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um and there's a mentor who guides them, guides them through that.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: We've I've got um I have an amazing colleague, Isabel Howard, who who actually is a coach herself, um, and and she has an understanding of the business at a deep at a deep level.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: And she does create that that psychological safety, I would describe it as for these guys in the first first few months.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um understanding it's okay to fail.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: But it's not okay not to try.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: And um the growth that they that they then when we realise they're they're safe in the business, we will then uh allocate them a mentor who's an actual advisor.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then they'll join a team of probably three, possibly four.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: We don't want big teams, the mentor teams should be small.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: They're creating that that team environment.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um and the men the mentors will will then help them with regard to not just the technical aspect of of the role.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: So, for example, building solutions.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: They're they're trained and we're developing them to challenge their thinking.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: So um again, the best the best lessons are always when you've found out yourself as opposed to being taught something in the classroom.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: So it doesn't happen in the classroom, it ha it happens in real time.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so an advisor, for example, maybe doing discovery calls and they're they're they're coming back with all this information, they've they've established some objectives and they understand what an under beginning to build an understanding of what the financial plan might look like, a really good mentor will will challenge the advisor.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: And if we go back to the history of the mentor, why it's been adopted, without a mentor program, you can't do the growth.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: So the reality was um Anthony, who founded a business with my my brother, we were the mentors.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because to grow this business, the worst thing you can do is believe that you're the big time Charlie doing the business.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's the worst thing you can do.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: You will you will alienate the whole business.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: What we've always done is creating a very close culture.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: The danger is as you start to grow, that this gets lost.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: So we decided a couple of years ago to develop this mentor program, and that was three to four per group.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: The first time we did it was traditionally when you go into sales teams, you'd be six to eight.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: We think this is far too big, and it now becomes a sales management role.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want sales management.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: Sales management is something from the past that I don't think works.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: A mentor program is far bigger, but the the the most you could ever do is three to four, any more than that.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds like a full-time job.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: But anybody can ring up three people each day that they get to know really well and just say, How are you doing?
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me about your day, how's it going?
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so for us, it's essential for this to really, really develop to grow.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and it has to be done under the right reasons, and that is the the the cultural side of things.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: Isabel mentioned something called Bass.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, all right.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, right, so it was something that I said to us.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: So everybody talks about CAS, don't they?
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Competent advisor status.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: And too many of the our terminologies are based by a regulator.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: So the regulator wants to know that somebody's competent.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: Competency is something which is a given, surely.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: So what we decreated was something called Bass.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a business advisor status.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's when you get past the competency and you actually start understanding your role in the business, and actually that you are so so what I love about what we do is we're all a businesswinner business.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we should give them the autonomy and the freedom to be creative, but you still need to understand you are a business winner business.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what the the the bass is.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: That entrepreneur.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: So you still subscribe to that.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to be able to do it?
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: You've got it right.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly right.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's the because once you've got that, people feel free.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the sense of freedom.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's not freedom.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: None of us are free.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: If we believe we're free, you you try running down the street naked, you're not going to get away with it, right?
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: You're not free.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: You're not a hippie.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: But the sense of freedom is the most important point for us all to get to.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: I understand the law of the country, but the sense of freedom where you wake up and life feels easy because you feel free.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that will be by creating what say that word again.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: Exact exactly that.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: And the the the the the discipline of doing the right behaviours every day is what creates that sense of freedom.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: It does it can't come without that.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think one of the things we've learned and we've incorporated into our development is that too many coaches, guides, whatever, will be helping people chase motivation.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_02: So they're always searching for motivation.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: And what I've seen in in the financial advisory community is the the overwhelm that can hit advisors quite quickly with the ups and downs of the emotional roller coaster that is being an advisor, particularly in those early periods.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: And you create their confidence and the sense of freedom and creative thinking by that psychological safety one, but also the structures within the business and the and the testing of that through the mentorship.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: And they're not sales managers, they're mentors, but they're testing what are the things you're doing every day.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: Craig, it's all I've just reinforced what you're saying there, because uh I just kept thinking the word the word of the year that you put forward was discipline.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: And when you said it, discipline is uh a word that can have two notions.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there's very it's a very big diff difference discipline being forced upon you.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is punishment.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: This doesn't feel good.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: All right, but self-discipline is one of the most wonderful things that I've come across.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that you are in control tomorrow morning, that you get up at six.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: The reason why you get up at six is you want to do this, you want to do that.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end of the day, if you did a great day of self-discipline, no one's telling you what to do.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: You've been taught the lessons, you do them yourself.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my word, do you feel free and empowered?
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: So discipline is a fascinating word.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: It needs the self in front of it, otherwise it's a bad thing.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_02: I just but it came, it came, and this is what really interested me is um it came to me after uh we all know the heavyweight champion Alexander Isik, who's unbeaten, and the interviewer asked after a title defense asked him the question, um, which I thought was fascinating.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: How do you keep finding the motivation to keep doing this at nearly 40 years of age?
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, No, no, no, no, no.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um discipline is good.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: And motivation is good, discipline is better.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'd like to do that again.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like to do that again.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: No, Greg, don't worry.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: The further No, it's it sounds more authentic now, but it's crack on.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: The consistency as well, right?
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to be consistent.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of the things I learned when people say to me, like, how did you build a podcast?
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: How did you monetize your podcast and build an agency?
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: Because I was consistent.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: Every single week, I kept doing it.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: But it's searching for motivation.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: And as he said, no, motivation is good, discipline is better, 100%.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that that was something I learned that he he he he did the same thing every day and he stuck to his discipline.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: He didn't chase motivation.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I think advisors will have uh, and a lot of people, in particular in in sales, will have will have reaction to how they're feeling in the moment as to how well things are going.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: And how other people's perception of them are is.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that I've learned is that discipline of doing what are the behaviors that successful people do, and what are the things they do every day?
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: And what are the things that if you do them every day for a day for 90 days, that if you imagine doing them for a whole year, where will you be?
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_02: Work create.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so we created a 90-day program of development based around that.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_02: What are the disciplines that each individual needs to adopt, the things that they do every day without thinking about it, without having to go up into that, I need to find motivation to do this.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_02: They just, it's a discipline of what they do.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why that's why the the younger people coming through are actually fast tracking because they are understanding that and we're guiding them through that with a mentor program.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: And then they look back after a year and think, gosh, look how far I've come.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: That 90-day program, does that happen straight away?
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_02: No, no.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_02: They they earn the right to go on that to a certain extent.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_02: One, they've got to be safe within the business.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: Two, they need to have demonstrated the right behaviors.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: In other words, have they been able to align themselves with the direction of travel for the business?
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_02: How do they demonstrate that?
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_02: They demonstrate that, as I said, through their activity, through the ability to take feedback and grow and be vulnerable and be very open within our business.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things that struck me very, very strongly when I first joined the business is not just that family feel that the business has, both literally, because it is a family business, but metaphorically in the sense that we all feel like we're part of a family.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_02: That's a very strong part of Insight.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I think that that sense that that they are open to learning and listening to people who've been there and done it.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_02: And um that's why the mentorship program is is is so successful because we've fostered that that environment that allows people to grow safely.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: And also confidence to be able to give feedback, you know?
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like we need to change.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: The only way you can change is to provide feedback on where you feel uncomfortable, where something worked, where something didn't work, if you were worried about something, if you're resentful at something within the business or people or a situation, the quicker you can knit those in the bud and you can look at it and get the mirror out, have a good look at yourself, self-reflect, which is a lot of what I'm picking up here.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: You're a business that reflects, you know, looks at yourselves, looks at each other, and encourage people to do that to be able to progress.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's the growth mindset, right?
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a business built around self-reflection, growth mindset, which creates freedom.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: Which mind creates freedom.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_02: And creative thinking.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_02: With that freedom comes the clarity of thought that then creates the the ability to think more creatively about solutions for your clients, for example.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, looking outside the box at helping people build financial plans that are going to allow their clients to do everything that they want to do in their lives without the fear of running out of money and being creative about how you do that.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it's also their own personal development.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_02: When so we we talk about goals a lot and and we and we and we we work with them about their own life goals and what they want to achieve.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_02: But actually, we don't just accept what they say.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_02: We drill, we drill, we drill down.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_02: We really we really need to understand what's important to them and their families.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_02: Because we're advisors, right?
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_02: We're we're you know that's been our our lives, and so we we do that in our day to day.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: Why don't we why don't we, in terms of a leadership group, do that with our people?
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_02: 100%.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: Personal development.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: The personal development plan has kind of got lost, isn't it?
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think as well within financial planning, it's always really been individuals working from their back bedrooms underneath a network.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it's quite an isolated colour.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the problem with that, Sam, if you if if you just look, this is why I think this is a very exciting time.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: So if you go back to what I said in the 1990s, it was predicated by very big life insurance companies and sales forces.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: They then went through a cost-cutting exercise, which basically meant they got rid of everybody, and then everybody went to their bedrooms.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody worked from home, everybody created their own little business.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: The problem with that is everybody stops learning.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: All the best ideas are lost.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they're earning more money, but actually they're desperately unhappy in the end because they feel isolated.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why I'm so excited.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: What's happening now is you're starting to see, you know, I can see it on your podcast, some of the people that you interview who I know, you what you are creating now is is bigger organizations again, where they've got to look back to how things used to be.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's exciting.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and everyone's saying the same things.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: And also we're creating a bigger community at the moment.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: That was one of the biggest things I want to do with Financial Planner Life is just to bring people in to openly have conversations and discuss what it's like to work within the profession.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: Not only to attract new people, which we desperately need, there were so many people.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: The byproduct of that was there were so many people in the profession that were like, oh my god, like it's hearing other people struggling like I have.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: And the amount of people that I get reach out to me that are, you know, running businesses.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_02: But it's really interesting because I think it's wonderful what what you've done.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the the the fact that there are a lot of qualified people out there, professionals, who may be thinking about pivoting in their careers for whatever reason.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that we're all talking about AI, aren't we, and what that's going to mean.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_02: But I think it may create a a lot an environment where a lot of people are thinking about where they're gonna how how many of them think about how what a brilliant career being a financial advisor is?
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_02: I don't I genuinely I genuinely believe that.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_02: And and um and and the ability to grow for the individual as well as the people they care about and helping.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_02: I you know, I'm interviewing all the time, and they if I hear one more time somebody say to me, I just want to help people.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_02: I just want to help people.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_02: Tell me about that.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think?
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_02: But it's a well-being proposition, but it isn't.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_02: But what a yeah, uh, but it's it's a combination.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_02: How how can you help people unless you unless you're developing yourself?
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_02: Correct.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_02: Helping yourself.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_02: So it's that know thyself.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_02: Know thyself.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now, one of the biggest sort of elephants in the room, again, when anybody comes and they want to work for a financial planning company, is like, how am I going to be remunerated?
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: But also, where am I going to get clients from?
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because they've never gone out on experience building client bases themselves.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: Possibly they may have done if they've come from a different profession, but certainly not within financial planning.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: So that was one of the biggest kind of risks to anybody growing their business and attracting younger financial planners or inexperienced financial planners, right?
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: So, what are you doing to be able to help support those individuals to make sure one, they do have that money which takes care of their, you know, their security instincts, but two, that they're actually getting out there, sitting in front of clients, building client books without it being 100% on door knocking.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, well, the numbers are simple.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: You've you've created the environment.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: The numbers are simple.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um this is why it's so exciting.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm not sure what the final number of clients someone can have is with AI coming up now, but let's just pick on 150.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: So we say, let's say you can look after 150 people really well, and then let's times it by 30,000.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: That'll probably get you to 4.5 million.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the UK population, yes, there'll be children in there, is about north of 70 million.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: So what we're saying out loud, and by the way, every single one of those people will at some point in their life need to talk to a financial planner when they're an adult in some form.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: So what we're really saying is you can look after 4.5 million, but there's about the best part of say 65 million that won't get served.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: So there is no shortage of clients, and every every client base is in that business already.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that part's easy.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: So once you understand that maths, you you you get excited.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's no scarcity, the world is abundant, the abundance is huge.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: So all we've got to do is financially make sure that they're okay, teach them the role really well, and train them with the right clients to begin with.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: But then one of the best things we do as an organization is is you've got to give up to grow.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: So from myself down, we will constantly give clients to other people that is no longer the sort of client that we have the time for.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now that sounds horrible.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds like you know, you know, people often say, Well, how do you give up that client and don't feel bad about it?
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, you've loved that relationship you create with the client.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: But if you trust your organization, you know the next one coming in will be better than you anyway.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: So if that notion is really brought in and really believed by the organization, and every advisor doesn't mind giving up to grow, and I often call it the Obi-Wan Kenobi effect.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: So uh a lot a lot of this audience might not know what I'm on about here, but please watch Star Wars and in and in epit in the first Star Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi made sure he lost to Darth Vader in the saber fight because he knew it would be the good.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: So the more we give up to give others, the more this thing grows.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what excites me.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I often I talk to Greg, I say, I what gets me is the people who've been around for a while who don't give up, they're telling me they're frightened to be prospecting, they're fright frightened to find the new people.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: And if we were all understanding the value in prospecting with no risk, and we spent more time learning it, then we would all become better financial planners.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because in the end, we all want to deal in a certain marketplace.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to spend time in that marketplace and understand that marketplace.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: So the key is just keep giving up.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's enough, there's enough there for all of them.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: Is that the kind of ecosystem where, like, for example, it starts with you and goes down to the next advisor?
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: As that advisor grows their book, they would start to give up clients and pass it down to the next person.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: Is that the kind of is that the plan then the contingency?
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's what's happening.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: That is what happens.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's what's happening.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: And what excites me is when, you know, this this week um I've got meetings and the the uh remember everybody gets paid by the value of their book, including the ongoing fees.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: So when an advisor gives up six grand a year fee to somebody else, that person just had a pay rise.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: So if we're all sharing the money around and we're all growing each other's books, that is what has to happen.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you now, it doesn't happen, Sam, in organizations, because people think, well, if I start giving up, I'm not gonna be top of the leader.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: But if you can create this culture, you know, the abundance culture, you've got to, you know, got to give up to grow and uh it's working.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: Cultural change takes time.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, how long have you been how long has that model been running within your business and have it seen year on year?
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's been what I've done all my life.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: You've always done it, yeah.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: I will I would always give a client to somebody else because if I can feed them, all right, I'm getting closer to my freedom.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because the reality is what do I want to do?
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: See a thousand people and hold on to them?
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: I have to give up.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because that will free up my time to think about how do I get more creative with the business, how do I find them more clients?
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: How do I use my time?
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: You keep saying too freedom and creativity are my two values, like within my business.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: And freedom does create create freedom allows me to be creative.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm being creative, I am growing.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I love it.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: It because recently I've just taken on the managing director who's absolutely phenomenal and he's freed me up.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's weird because in the past, when it was on my own, I would just fill that up straight away.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: Fill it up straight away.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: Fill it up straight away.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: Because he's kind of keeping me accountable and he's he's checking in with me all the time because he cares about my mental well-being and I take on too much.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm now giving myself that 20-30% buffer, that area where I can be free to be creative and I can test ideas and I can go back and get some feedback on those ideas.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's the space that I love the most.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it is freedom to be creative.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_00: And and and we didn't really touch on it.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: We were talking about mentoring new starters, but we've just gone through the exercise where I will sit on the mentors' meetings and I love challenging people that are on very good money.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: I love challenging people that all of all of their things have been met already because the the real test is how do how do we teach them to be more?
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: How do we teach the organization to be an organization of leaders?
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you if you look at sport, I love sport.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the greatest teams had 11 leaders on a pitch if it was football.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: 11 leaders on a pitch.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: Don't look for one leader, look for 11 leaders.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: And if we can create an organization where everybody's leading, everybody's doing it from the front, it's easy.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, life becomes easy, it becomes inevitable.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_02: It becomes inevitable, and that's what we talk about.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_02: Success is inevitable.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_02: You have the right strategy.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_00: I've got to say, Sam, I just told them it was a question I put around the office recently, and they gave me 2029.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: I said, no, it's 1st Jan 2028.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, You're all being ridiculous here.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_00: Why is it not a thousand?
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: Why is it so boring as a hundred?
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_00: All right, because the reality is the need in this country is huge.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: We just have to gear ourselves up for that.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: So the so sorry, I'm not letting you finish the question, but it is a hundred by um January 2028.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_01: So a hundred by 2028.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_01: You're doing that, you're growing by a hundred by 2028.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: Retention is such a massive part of any business as well.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: There's no point in just going new, new, new, new, new if you're not doing the great stuff that you are doing in respect of mentorship, teaching, um, being able to introduce clients, providing salary packages, benefits packages that keep people in place.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: But we come back to this word culture and the types of people you've got in the business, they're growing families, they're having kids, etc.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: What are you doing to be able to support those people, whether they're guys or girls?
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it's life.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's life.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_00: We want them to have it.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: We want them to the financial planning journey.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say 25-year-old, who we want to be in the business for 100 years, they can live to 125, but they might be there till not I'm not picking on 65 as the old state retirement age, but let's say they want to enjoy their life fully.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: We have to expect on that life journey that they will have family breaks.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_00: They might have they might not have a family, but they might have a travel break.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, for me, they should be able to live the life they want to live, and we should support that by having the right infrastructure.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: So that it happens.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: So so we've had a number of uh the the young female advisors have children.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: I celebrate it.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's the most wonderful thing.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: Go and be a mum.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: And if you look after them, they come back and they want to they I mean, I I don't know how many mothers on this podcast, but you you know, it's really important for the mother once they've you know to find their identity and have their career back.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_00: Same for the father, right?
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: The father doesn't the father needs to have time at home, you know, because like we've had a number of the guys at the moment.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's life-changing.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm telling you now, they become far greater financial planners when they have the unconditional love of a child, the responsibility of a child, all of the all of the things we talk to the public about, they better make sure it's done.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_02: They develop a laser focus.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_02: They develop a laser focus.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the most, it's the most listen, I'm not saying on this podcast that people should have children or not have children.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: What I can tell you is once people have children, they are really thinking about they are really thinking about generational planning and not themselves.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the most wonderful thing.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: So we encourage it.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_02: But that's to get just on the on that point.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's one of the keys to the success is that that with you said it, that they're not thinking about themselves anymore.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_02: They're thinking about others.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I think one of the important areas with regard to the talking about the mentors and the development is the fact that that um that there's the hero and the guide, right?
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_02: We all know the hero's journey, and um well many of many many of your listeners may know about that.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_02: Advisors often think of themselves as the hero in the piece, and they'll be they'll be it's all about them.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of self-employed, I think it links back to that self-employed employed thing.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_02: They're the hero of the piece.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_02: They become a mentor, we start talking to them about they're now the guide.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_02: And they start looking at things slightly differently, thinking like thinking differently.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_02: And that different thinking then goes into their advisor role.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_02: That's why they become better advisors, not just the technical competence they develop when they sort of revisit protection, for example, that they might not have looked at for a number of years because they're dealing with a younger advisor.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually they've stopped thinking about themselves in the as as the hero of the piece and they're now thinking themselves as the guide.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_02: And actually we should be guides to our clients.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's what we are.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_02: The the client is the hero.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_02: And and too many advisors think of themselves as the bit of an ego.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: And and and and and parenting is guiding.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what so we we have to accept that that is part of life.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: On another note, and I ran a recruitment business, and in recruitment, it was like you wanted these we had an office, we people would come into the office, you'd expect to be in there at certain times and be as productive, and there's KPIs and all of that kind of stuff.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: I personally hated that.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: When I was in that environment, it made me feel really uncomfortable.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um I like to work the way I want to work, right?
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like I and I genuinely think that comes down to freedom and creativity element.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_01: Do you empower employed advisors to find a system and a rhythm that works for them, or do you expect them to tow the line in respective Sam?
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's really simple.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's and and this is where it's easier to it's probably easier to develop an advisor on this front than it is actually support staff.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I I want to touch on support in a moment, but but um I was lucky enough to um strategic coaches used in the industry, Dan Sullivan, yeah, great coach.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_00: But he took the the some of the things he he teaches are wonderful, but the entrepreneurial time system is fantastic.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's only three days in your life, and they are the two Fs and the B.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: So the B is a buffer day, it's a day when you deal with mess.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, get your mess out of the way.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I've never been a human being that wants to spend much time dealing with mess because for me, mess is not productive.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think with the development of AI and good support, hopefully you don't need to deal with mess.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: The other two are fantastic days.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_00: So they are either a free day.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked about freedom enough on this here today, but that's 24 hours of your life where you don't think about work and you just think about freedom.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then a focus day.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_00: The focus day buys you the free days, and that's 24 hours where you focus on making money.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_00: And if we start teaching people there's only three days in your life, it's not Monday to Sunday, it's free days and focus days.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then I often speak to people and say, How many free days do you want a year?
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really fascinating when you ask the question to somebody, how many free days do you want a year?
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_00: But we encourage them to have 150 free days out of 365.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that sounds really nice, doesn't it?
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: But it's but the reality is you've got 104 at the weekend.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_00: You've got, what is it, nine or thirteen?
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if we won the World Cup, it'd be more bank holidays.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_00: It takes you takes you to maybe about, I think if it's nine or eleven, it's 113.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then if you have you know six weeks off a year, do what you want, another 30, 143.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't mind how much time you have off.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_00: As long as you're focused when you're focused.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: Do not make the job fit the hours.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_00: Make the hours fit your life.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's gonna say and and and then I want to try and bring that in all aspects of what we do because if we can get that freedom right for the advisors, we can try and get that freedom right in the organization.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think it, you know, we talk about productivity in the Western world.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: Productivity in this country has not gone up for generations.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's not gone up.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_00: So so productivity is about being really, you know, in that moment being really, really strong.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_00: So let me stress 100% for any employed advisor out there, you're employed by definition of security, not by us checking up on you.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_00: The last thing I want to do is spend my free time checking up on people.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_01: And putting pressure on them.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's not very, you know, it doesn't constitute a very good uh culture, essentially.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_01: No, there'll be enough pressure put on themselves.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean they I think you should be working with people to work out how best their brains operate to help them plan their days when they're the most productive.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the most laser focused in the morning.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: So if I'm in the morning, I need to do deep work.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_01: In the afternoon, I just love talking to people because I don't have to worry about deep work, I just can have a chill, you know, great conversation, sales calls or partnership calls or creative calls, love it.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: In the morning, though, if I've got to do some work and write, I need to be hyper-focused, and that's the point I can do it, which is the first four hours of the day for me.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the reality of this, I mean, this is the bit that advisors won't want to hear.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_00: But when we look at the SCAR principles, and I'm not sure, Greg, if it's across the whole board, but but we start creating them as a training notion: skills, knowledge, attitude, activity.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_00: We brought in SCARD, D for discipline.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_00: That activity one is one which everybody should be really laser focused on.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_00: Was I active or not in the things that matter, and that's client meetings.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: You can decide to do them two days a week.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_00: You can decide to do three days a week to not make the drift.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that is one of the things that, you know, on the mentor program, the old world always focused on activity.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: There was a reason why.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_00: What we want to teach people is for them to understand why this is important.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now I know it sounds really simple, but every day, Sam, you will have key activities that are absolutely pressing for you to get done.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_00: No different in the financial planning role.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: But we are trying to teach them that in the early years because believe me, that they don't recognise that in the early years.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_00: They that they think the financial planning role is a technical role, but it's actually a very disciplined role with some of the soft things like the activities.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, it's it's it's it's it's key that people understand that they've got the freedom.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: I've spoken to a few people within your business.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_01: I was kindly introduced to uh a few of the advisors, and they've all got incredibly positive things to say about the culture of the business and the success they've had.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think some of them have been there for good seven or eight years, like you know, straight out of um you know, straight into financial planning, doing I think it was a personal, like a PA type role, isn't it?
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_01: They start out on, then go through the journey of becoming a financial planner.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what we're doing there is we're putting them in a support role because they haven't got the exams.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_00: So effectively what we're doing is supporting the examination program and getting them to understand what the role looks like uh to support a financial planner.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_00: The truth is they're still not learning about the role.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_00: They're we're just delaying the time, they're getting to know us, and when the role starts, they all go through.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's really deeply emotional.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and um, but yeah, we we we um yeah, I mean you you spoke to Johnny.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Johnny came straight from university.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, what I recognise in Johnny, and I hope you listen to this, Johnny, today, is somebody who could be a potential superstar, but he needed to go through a few things.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the things I said to Johnny is you're not ready yet.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_00: Go and travel around the world with your with your with your with your girlfriend and come back when you're ready, because you're not ready yet.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes you have to let them go for a bit.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_00: You have to let them go and just you know, go and do the travel bit, go and do these things.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you do commit to this role, it it will absolutely grab you, it will take control of your life, not because we're asking you to, but you would just be immersed in it.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_00: And Johnny's a great example.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_00: He's um he's now uh 28 years of age, been with us for nearly eight years, a real journey for him, but he's now about to become a mentor.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_00: He will be doing this year more than half a million pounds of production.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_00: His his revenue will be good, but you know, Sam a half million production, it's big production.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I mean, the the the guy can go as far as whatever he wants to go, he should be doing more than a million pounds a year in the next couple of years.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_00: And he's finding referrals that are coming to him for all over people that just want him to.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_00: And he's incredibly giving.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because he wants to be part of something, but he doesn't realise he might play a really big part in the future.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_00: He's 28.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_01: He's got it all ahead of him.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so people are listening to this story now and they want to follow in Johnny's footsteps.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_01: What can they what can they do?
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_01: Do they have to be local to you?
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_01: Are you a national firm?
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_01: How do they apply for a job?
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I have no idea whether they apply for a job.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_02: Look us up and get in touch with us.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um recruitment company stuff.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just trying to bring in some recruitment in it.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_02: No, well we I mean, obviously recruiters are one of the one of the one of the routes, but I think uh we're also opening up other other pathways for the for the guy state.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_00: But from a location point of view, um obviously, you know, we spoke before and you said Norwich is lovely, Alan Partridge.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_00: We also get called Alan Partridge.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_00: So we're not a Norwich firm.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um we happen to have a head office in Norwich because that's where we come from.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_00: But the it really the the the strong geographical would be Norwich across the Birmingham down to the south coast.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_00: So there are offices in um in uh Westrum, in in North London.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um so anybody in that sort of remit, fine.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, listen, I I hope to hear more stories of insights.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um I really want to bring some of your employees onto the Financial Power Life podcast.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_01: I always do really feel that it's the stories of those that work within the business that really are the strongest talent attraction tool you could ever have, which saves you a few quid on the recruitment fees as well.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_01: And people can see themselves and the people that work within your business and resonate with their stories and the values of their and the evidence they've got they're successful.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_01: It definitely 100% encourages people to get involved in the business because they feel connected to it.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's really, really important.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_01: So listen, I'm gonna put some hyperlinks into the comments section.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully that will drive some new inquiries into your business.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_01: But it's been really interesting hearing about Insight.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_01: I love the culture angle, I love everything you're doing for the younger financial planner.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_01: I love the fact that you've got the employed option and the mentorship and clients.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's like the magic potion within financial planning right now.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I think Insight should be screaming that from the from the rooftops as loud as they can.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I promise you this you will have no problem in attracting talent to your business.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's for sure.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Sam.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Sam.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks very much for your time.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.