Latest / Financial Planner Life Podcast / How a Financial Advice Podcast Beat £1 Million in Google Ads for recruitment | New Leaf Distribution

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How a Financial Advice Podcast Beat £1 Million in Google Ads for recruitment | New Leaf Distribution · Financial Planner Life Podcast

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, and welcome to the Financial Panel Life podcast.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Today's a very special episode.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: We've got Dan and Mark Hobbs from New Leaf.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: They come again to talk about the New Leaf podcast, season one and season two.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is a podcast that we've produced here in the Financial Panel Life.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: And Mark, in the very, very beginning, and in the mix of the episode, was very skeptical about podcasts.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Lucky and convincing, because it's been one of the best returns on investments that they've had at New Leaf in attracting self-employed financial planners.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: We also get deep into their academy, we also look at the community that they're building in New Leaf, and we look at things like exiting the profession and what they're doing for financial advisors to exit smoothly.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna absolutely love this episode if you're interested in self-employed careers within the financial planning profession and thinking about podcasts.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, Dan, Mark, father and son, New Leaf Distribution, back in the house at the Financial Planner Life Podcast.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: How are you both?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we're good.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Nice to meet you.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Nice to see you as well.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we we we we were in the launch pad together, weren't we, in January.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: You invited me along to talk about podcasting to your members.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: 150 members there.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: I had to get up and I had to speak about podcasting and why I think they're so special.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: I had a fantastic introduction though from Mark saying he spent nearly a million quid on Google Ads in the past, but you've had a better return on investment on podcasting.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's true.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: So that was phenomenal for me to hear, and my confidence went through the roof.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: So when I got up, I think I delivered the best presentation I ever did.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you very much for that, Mark.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate it.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely pleasure.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Brilliant.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: What's going on then at New Leaf?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: So you're back on the podcast.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us a little bit about what's been going on over the last say six to twelve months and where you're heading in the next year.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: So we started with our season one in 25 with you guys helping us with that.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: And it was uh it was an amazing experience to film and to talk to advisors, hear their stories.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it was quite funny, really, because ultimately when we pitched the idea to Mark, and we we met him in Steward Directors.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: I think I know what's coming.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: Mark Mark met us both, and I thought I've got to get him on side for this uh about this podcast thing.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: I think it could be a good idea to do to hear some stories, and he was not happy about it, was he?
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Mark, why it's what did you think of podcasting before when Dan said dad, we've got to do a podcast?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Ridiculous.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was a gimmick to be honest.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Did you?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, total gimmick, and I actually thought it was um basically vanity thing.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Watching people on them was kind of a vanity thing, but uh what I've realized uh it's just been incredible.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: The results we've had.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I've never seen anything like it in marketing history for New Leaf.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: Incredible.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, from the perspective of the quality of the people that respond, I think the truth that's found within podcasting, because you can't hide.
• 2:47
  unknown: No.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: And and after I don't know how long this one is, but 40 minutes or of filming, the real person has to come out.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that comes across that genuine nature of New Leaf.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh comes across the honesty, the longevity, the history, and people see it and they trust it more than if I were to tell them the story.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: They hear it from 15, 20 other people, a consistent positive message about New Leaf.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's just phenomenal.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: And you're right, we did spend, I spent a million pounds in four years on Google Ads, predominantly for CMAP, and our return was about four times investment, to be fair.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, very, very good.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: But since we've been doing the podcasts, um, it's been unbelievable.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's too much.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: The the returns are it's too busy.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm too busy.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: I can't I can't handle it.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: So we decided to come back for season two.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's great.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'm really sort of why uh it no, the quality of the person has gone exponentially through the roof.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: As in the applicants that are coming into your business.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah, yeah.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: High-level corporate people who um probably would never have spoken to us.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think what goes with that, without blowing my own trumpet, but when you use like a video production company like us, because I've built such a strong audience within financial planning already, my whole model is to help you build your brand, your employer brand, through the people that work within your business.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: In your case, you're a financial planning network, so the members within that business, right?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: But it's also to uh elevate you on my platform.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's like almost look at the financial planner life as the top of the funnel.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: We get you out there, we get you talking, we built a great podcast, you and me, around why you should become a self-employed IFA.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: That in its own right, if you look at that on Google and you type self-employed IFA, it's top, it's top of the top of the list.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's incredible.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that that episode we put out on our Academy website as well, and that gets a lot of hits, obviously.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: But the thing with with the podcast, doing the podcast with you, especially, was I was looking at who do we do this with.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: And that and when you say we have a bit of leverage with your audience, that definitely helped.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I wanted to, you know, when I went to do this, I didn't want to do it with a random podcast person or just an online thing, it had to be done properly.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I think that's made a big difference.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, by getting you in, who, to be fair, is the the main man to do it.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love it.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, I really, really appreciate we do Financial Planner Life XLRB as well.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got Luke and a team that produce some fantastic content.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: I do the consulting, and we work together strategically to bring the stories to life, and that's what it's all about, and that's what people want to hear is the true authenticity of what it's like to work within a business or be part of that business.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do it right, yeah, people either like you or they don't like you, and that's equally as good.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not about how many subscribers you get, it's not about the views necessarily, because you know, we're a new podcast still, we haven't got thousands of thousands of subscribers, we are in a very niche environment.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: But I can see from all the data now that about four hours to five hours a day, someone is listening or watching a podcast every day per day.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's phenomenal though, when you think about it.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: So that's that's happening every day.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, all around the world as well.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's getting bigger, and it will just continue to grow.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: The more content that you put out, the more you repurpose that content and put it out, the better it becomes.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you might not be taking into consideration as well the content that's on LinkedIn.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: So when you start to look at the actual posts you're putting out on LinkedIn, you've got massive networks of mortgage advisors, financial advisors, those say minute-long videos are also being watched continually as well.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just phenomenal.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the social proof element.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: And we talked about that, didn't we?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: That getting people out there, tagging you and your company up on it.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: So if someone ever searches for it, they find something of relevance, and somebody talking about what they're doing, why they like working with you, why they're a member within your business, and it's only going to build that level of trust and strategy.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: We know what we do really well, and we know that, and we want to get that out there.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: And this has been a great way to help people understand what we can do to help them, and that's why we're getting these amazing people in because ultimately it is actually attracting our ideal advisor that we're looking for.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us who your ideal advisor is.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good point.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's very difficult to say.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: We uh the avatar is probably someone who is corporate life, um, who is looking to start fresh and um wants to change their life for the better, and come into an environment where they're really cared for and where they're taken extremely seriously, the risks are addressed, there's a long-term care and attention, uh, there's a two-year mentoring program.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Those are the sort of people we're now seeing because of the podcasts, and that would have always been our avatar.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: The second one is someone who's in the DA business, directly authorised business, who's being treated really badly and they don't even know it.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: So they're on a really poor deal, uh, they're in they're tied into something that's not working for them.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: If we meet those people, they love us, they absolutely love us.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: So that will be the second type of person, and I guess the third type of person is someone who wants to grow and develop their business from where they are to the next level through coaching and development.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what's happening there.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: But on the podcast thing, just going back to you, what you've created is a friendship as well.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: So we do it with our advisors, we create a very close friendship and real love for people, and that comes out when we've looked after people who have died in our business.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: We've got 400 people now, so someone's dying, someone's ill, someone's got a challenge, someone's really successful.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to address all of that from a pastoring perspective.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, I think we're really, really good at that.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think what Dan's really good at is the innovation, change management, new direction, leadership.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think what I'm probably good at is the old school putting an arm around people and training and developing them and helping them get through the difficulties and challenges.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, together, it's a really good relationship because I would have said no to this podcast thing, and I'd have lost I would have lost so we would have lost so many quality people through that bad decision.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so Dan's great at that, seeing the vision, looking ahead, um, you know, a young mentality, 37 years old, a young mentality, but with dad around, it's quite nice for the advisors who've got that experience to look after them, hold their hand, and really care for them.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: So it's all it's a good balance.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, definitely.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you what you've created is really great with Luke, that kind of friendship.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: We come in here, it's like mates, you know, hugging, seeing each other.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's very natural.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's very natural.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: And you I I guess that's what we've got, which is special with you guys.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what we want to create as well with the financial plan of life.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: We say it all the time, uh, myself and Luke, it's an experience.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: We want people to enjoy it.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a big part of what I do as well is is without people knowing it, I'm training them.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm coaching them.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm media training you.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm supporting you, I'm you know, teaching you how to structure episodes, how to how to release that content, how to distribute it, how to ask the right questions, how to be confident in front of camera.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because once there's two or three cameras and lights on you, when you first see it, it's quite overwhelming, right?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: It can be quite nerve-wracking, yeah.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: It can be quite nerve-wracking.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Dan, what would you think you've obviously hosted a lot of the episodes.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: What would you tell somebody who's thinking about doing podcasting for their business?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: What would you say to them about what to expect and how best probably to prepare?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's a good question.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: I think with preparing for it, if you you need to know what what is you've got to think about what the target is first.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: So you definitely to think, what am I trying to get from this?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: Don't just do a podcast for vanity reasons because you think it everyone else is doing it now, so I want to do it too.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't have a target in mind for the podcast, then you're gonna really struggle to get any traction.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: And you'll become the same as everyone else.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's a sheet podcast, it's all the same old stuff.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: Everyone's regurgitating the same old.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll give you an example with us.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't want us to be creating stuff like how do we help first-time buyers?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I didn't want to be that sort of thing.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's done a million times already.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: So what wasn't being done?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well, no one was telling saying about becoming an advisor on how hard it is.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: No one's talking about, you know, when you're up, you know, you do your qualification, that's great.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then you go the next day and you get a license.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: No one's saying, well, no one's calling you.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: What do you do next?
• 10:43
  unknown: Yeah.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: So we're bringing in people who can help these business.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: There's no nothing out there for advisors looking to get in apart from what you're doing.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: There's nothing out there from networks generally about what it is to run a business, that entrepreneurial spirit you need, that resilience you need.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: You can't just do a qualification and think that's it.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: Because most people, it's not right for them.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And the ri it's the real stories, it's the challenges, it's the ups and downs of building your own business within a network.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's never always going to be easy.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I like about the authenticity.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: As we enter into this AI world where everyone's trying to create the perfect look of their business or sound of their business, people are bored of that.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they want that in real life experience.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: So they might be going to an event or they're going to be listening into a podcast.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: They want to hear those non-perfect conversations.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's so, so important because as human beings, that's how we connect.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: We recognize those things that they're saying, how they're saying it, the language that they use, the emotion that they show, that oxytocin that we release that builds that deep connection, whether that's with a brand or a presenter or the person you sit down and meet.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you know, you must know that.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when you sit with somebody, you have a deep, meaningful conversation.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: You were a pastor, right?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And when you get on that level and you can feel those levels of oxytocin running, you know, running through your body, it almost feels like a card spiritual experience, right?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's because you're having a deep, meaningful connection.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: You're solving a problem or you're listening.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: I can literally tell who's going to be successful literally within a minute of meeting them.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've met thousands of people over 40 years of in this business.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: And you can literally tell by their tone, their eye contact, and their way.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um this is very doable.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: You can become very wealthy in this industry, especially now.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's doable.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um but you've got to be willing to sacrifice.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that sacrifice has got to be negotiated with your family.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I say to people, look, are you willing to pay that price?
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's an old school saying, but it's a fact.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Are you willing to pay the price that's necessary?
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: And part of that is have you got enough savings to start because you're going to need a year behind you, and not to have a year income, a year expenses, and you're going to need to be very, very committed.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't something that you do so you can take your kids to school every day.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't something you do so that you can go to the Christmas, you know, thing at the school.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: This is something you do because you want to be rich and you want to be wealthy and you want to make a difference and you want to save some lives.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we had Sarah Drakkard and she was talking about how many clients have claimed and the work she's done there.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's so what we do is important and and it's interesting for people, but they've got to be willing to negotiate with their families as to the cost at the time.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's the key thing.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think people assume it's quite easy.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think it is easy, but it's a lot of time, a lot of effort, and a lot of craft.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to be willing to get out there and see introducers, network, do podcasts, do whatever is necessary to get in front of people.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: And you know the one thing they don't do, they don't talk to the people they know.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: They got to talk to their family and friends about what they do and tell them what they do.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: They got to ask people for their help.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: So if you ask someone for their help, it's an old school mesh uh method, but if you just say to anyone, I need your help, what's the immediate response?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: How can I help you?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: The normal response from a normal human being who's not a psychopath is, How can I help you?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: And you tell them how you can help them.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm building a business, I'm I'm looking for clients, I'm looking to build meetings, have first meetings, have a practice, have a role play.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: And people suddenly will fall in line.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: Introducers will come, it will start to happen, networking will work.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: But the most intense way of getting in front of people is your message on a podcast.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's no doubt about it.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: At the moment, I don't know how long that will last.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it's a trend that's gonna go in the future.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Podcast is just long form content, it's the fastest growing content.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Podcast is a fast growing market, right?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: So year on year, more people are listening to podcasts more than the content which is like short form content.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, people who want to understand something will tune into a podcast.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: That one of the fastest fastest growing demographic graphics, which I find really interesting actually for financial planning companies, is age 55 plus.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: So age 55 plus is the fastest growing demographic on YouTube.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: So they're watching YouTube.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but they're what I tell you what they're searching for though.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: They're searching for right retirement planning, they're searching for finance and they are searching for it.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is they're watching on TVs more than anything.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: So they're not watching on mobile, so watching on TV.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: So things like production value needs to be up.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: So if they're flicking over from iPlayer to uh YouTube on their TV, they want to see something that looks uh beautiful and presentable and interesting.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot, there's a lot of people trying to convince older people to retire.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's not necessarily the right thing to do.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: We're seeing people join us at 70.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: We're seeing people start new businesses with new leaf at 70 years old, and that is incredible, and that makes people grow and get younger.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: As new financial planners, brand new.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so this is where the corporate guys come in.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot and the girls, they come in on the basis that they're actually going to start something new and fresh, and um that's working really well for the older people.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: When you say corporate, what when you say corporate backgrounds?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Are they coming from like um employed roles within banks or financial planning companies?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: What are they where are they coming from?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: They're coming from all over, so they're coming from investment houses.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: We've we've had a plethora come from investment houses in the last three to six months.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, Matthew Abzaeid is one of those.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: He was on the podcast of us and um Manit as well, with him now as well, and she's on the podcast as well.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, they'd 15 years plus with Vanguard um coming to us, you know.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: That that was a big that was a big win for Nuife, really.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's a win for them, yeah, as well.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: How's Matthew doing?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: He's he's good.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: He's doing really well.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: He's doing well, isn't he?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: He's good with his metrics and he's on his way, he's loving life.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, brilliant.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because obviously I I interviewed him on your podcast.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's right, that's right.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it went out quite recently.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll put that in the show notes.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: If anyone's listening to this and wants to hear about his story, then uh I'll put the I'll put the link in the show notes and you can watch that episode.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: What he did so well was he he researched the market for networks, so he went and spoke to 10 or so networks, you know, and um he chose New Leaf.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: And some people may have been surprised by that potentially.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, not in a bad way, but just because you know he could have gone anywhere, right?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: He was being given golden handshakes to join me and others.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: I never forget what he said when he chose us.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what he said.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: You're my tribe.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: You're my tribe.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's exactly what he said.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: It was in the Rayleigh office around the boardroom table.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, I've been everywhere, I've been to all these networks.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: All I want to know is how much I'm gonna write, all I want to know is the business plan, the numbers, what's gonna, what's the turnover gonna be.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: And you just said, How can we help you?
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, You're my tribe, like that.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, Great.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: We want to be your tribe.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we did.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's positive.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's so positive.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: You have got a strong community there, because I met a lot of people at the the the the launch the launch pad event, yeah, and they were so sort of positive, weren't they?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, one of the things we get a lot of feedback obviously from stakeholders, and I'm out seeing lots of different stakeholders, providers, and so on.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that they tell us is, oh, it's such a breath of fresh air when it comes to one of your events, Dan.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, what do you mean by that?
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's like everyone's so nice, the advisors are so nice, they're nice to each other, they they all seem friendly with each other, um, you know, they're engaged in the events.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: I think generally the community we've built, and it is actually the word community, so important because we're called a network, but I way prefer the word community.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: I like community.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: We're a community of like-minded entrepreneurial people who are just you know, the the one common theme of all of them is they use newly for their support.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, we're there to give them that foundation, that rock to to work from.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but they're they're all so so lovely, and I think part of it is the way we recruit as well.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, Mark is doing all the recruitment now, and we always you know, part of it isn't about oh, what numbers that you said, but Matt was uh saying that's all the other networks care about.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, we could care about numbers.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: But actually, we we think about well, if we put this person in a room with our people, would they disrupt it?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: Would they be, you know, do they come across as really arrogant?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: Are they swearing a lot when you take them out for dinner?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: Is it that sort of character?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember a story one time where we had a guy who was about 300, 400 grand turnover, big, big, relatively big player.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: He came out, the meeting went well.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: We had took him out for dinner that night, he got a bit drunk, and he was really loud, he was obnoxious, he was swearing, and we were sitting there and we were embarrassed.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: We walked out of that that that dinner, and Mark turned to me and goes, I'm not taking him on.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then he was shocked when you turn him down next day.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was really disappointing at all.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we want the right people here.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: Culture is that, and and you know, people that join us want to be surrounded by like-minded people.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's a family, it's a community, but it's also a family, and we don't want that disrupted.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: No, one of the things we've done to really encourage that looking at tech now as well.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: We've we've launched a New Leaf app.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: So it's powerful.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: You can go on the App Store, you can download it.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's called New Leaf Hub on the App Store, on Google or Apple.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and yeah, it's uh it's basically like a Facebook for New Leaf.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: You go on that app and you log in it daily, you can chat to anyone on there, you can see who's online, I can see who's near me, who lives near me, I can put profiles on there.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: We put all our live events on it, we put our webinars on it.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: Nice, there's forums there, so everyone, and it's been amazing, like seeing interaction and between the membership.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's just a really brilliant tool.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: And it it again, as we get some people say, like, oh, you if you're getting bigger, how are you going to maintain the culture, the network that knows your name?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, the bigger you get, the harder it is to remember everyone's name, of course, it will be.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: But things like the app and building that around the business, it just helps keep the community feel in place.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Also, you'll find that by building out the stories of your members and elevating them on podcasts also builds connection as well.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, I'm working with Titan Wealth at the moment, they're a P-backed business.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they listen to my story.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: They don't compete with that.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well at your league.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're in Dubai.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's good.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Not in Australia yet.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um actually they are in Australia, to a lie.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, really?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, they are.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but they're also a pay-back business.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: They've got like 1,400 people, but they're growing very, very rapidly.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they want to get to like 3,000 people.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the things when you do that and you're buying business is left, right, and centre.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: You don't, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand's doing.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: So all new people come in, but people don't know who they are.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: So by creating that content, it does bring the business closer.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: So what I found when I've done podcasts, I did it for Hoxton.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: When I built that podcast for them, Hoxton Life, the pride within that business was like through the roof.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone wanted to share their story, everyone wanted to saw people come up to me.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Go, I didn't know that about him, I didn't know that about him.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: So every or her, everybody, everybody kind of got behind it and they feel a sense of pride.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I noticed that when they're coming on the New Leaf Distribution Podcast.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and what are they saying to you, Dan?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: So they're coming on, yeah, you're sharing their stories, raising their brand up.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: You tell me one national IFA that's willing to invest in their businesses underneath them to raise them up and create content to the level that we're doing it for.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody's doing that.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: No one is, and I don't think I don't think they probably will because it takes long term planning to get it right, and you have to be a long term visioner on vision person to do this.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you're I don't know, I'm not saying sweeping generalization here, but if you're a corporate guy in a network, you don't really care much for longer than next year.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, so a bonus coming in, and then you're on to next place to speak.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Not everyone's like that.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: So don't hold us a lot of change.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: What's been great for the guys is we make sure that when they come on our podcast, it's not just about New Leaf being amazing.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: Now that's a nice one they say, and we don't prep them on this.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: But it's a byproduct that we've got.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: They say nice things about us, but actually you don't want to push that.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: That shouldn't be a narrative.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: The narrative is that what a story this is, what an amazing person this is.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, they're with New Leaf.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: Great, let's find out more about them.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what's working well.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: I want the guests to get something out of it as well.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: Because actually, for them, their clients are just getting to find out who they are.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's on their website, can't we?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's on their website, and no one's doing that sort of content about well, what is your business about?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: What is your person you want to work with?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: You know, give me a great example of someone that you've helped that was really complicated.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like the Sarah story, where she had someone who had cancer 10 years before, had a payout, and then unfortunately died 10 years later, got a second payout.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, brilliant story.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: The will writing client who was terminally ill, she did the free will for her, put it on social media, got 300 inquiries.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like that wasn't even the intention of the post she put on, but still brilliant story for her uh to tell.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: And a decade with New Leaf.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly, 13 years at that point.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: She's a real New Leaf family member.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: That sort of story is a hidden all the time.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: No, yeah, the guys don't talk about these things.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: Nope.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: And the clients don't know what they can do.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: So when they're talking about their actual businesses, it gives the client a unique view into their business they wouldn't have given them any otherwise.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, we're getting lots of advisors now asking to be on the podcast.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, okay, well, we're planning ahead, we've got 20 episodes to shoot for the 26.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that's not that many episodes, you consider how many people we have and who want to be on it.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but um, but yeah, so it's becoming a real privilege to be on the podcast.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: But the people like Kelsey, who was the first one we did, she texted me the other day.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: She said, Dan, I just want to give you some feedback.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like the podcast video has been amazing.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: I've had loads of leads from it.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: People coming to me, they want to talk to me about the development finance.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, I haven't put it on the website yet.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'm really sorry.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: I want to put it on a website, but I'm scared of how many leads I'm gonna get.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's insane feedback.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: I know that's brilliant to hear.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it's actually inspired me.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: When I was when I was creating the content with you guys through um both the Financial Planner Life uh and the New Leaf podcast, it did get me thinking because where I invite people onto my podcast, um, the Financial Plan of Life, and they might be like um, you know, a one-man band, right?
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: I was always interested in their career story.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: But now I'm carving it into half and half.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it's tell me about your business.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you helping?
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: How are you helping them?
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: What's different from so I give them content and then I carve that out, and then they've got content about their own business that they can put out.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: So if a client sees it, it's gonna, they're gonna go, okay.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: So John sounds like a great guy.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: He's phoned me up.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: I've actually found him and now he's talking about the problems that I'm experiencing.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's important that we raise the brand, raise their brands and raise their companies out as well as as well as their own personal journey.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the byproduct of sharing the personal journey is also it humanizes the advisor.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: So there's so many people that I know who have had clients come through off the back of career podcasts, just quite simply because it was like an insight into who their advisor was.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: They never heard that story.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_02: No, and that's that may be more it may be more important than anything else, is people want to buy from people still.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but even when you talk about this sort of stuff as well, another another byproduct that is now with AI coming in, yeah.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: AI is looking for this sort of content as well.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: It is.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: So if someone's searching for I want, you know, uh retirement advisor in Wimbledon, well, if you happen to have done a podcast talking about that, is looking at all these metrics, it sees the high value production, and it goes, right, that guy's the best.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_02: He must be good, he knows who's talking about, and it will just it will revert it refer people to you.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and and that's a massive one.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: I've been I've been watching quite a few po uh few sort of YouTube videos about uh building personal brands recently.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things I haven't done enough of is I haven't gone on to other people's podcasts enough.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: I focused on my own.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's the big now.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: A quick way to uh generate social proof is to uh do some research, find podcasts where you can go on and add value, reach out to them and say, This is what I do, this is how I do it, this is my story.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to come onto your podcast and share it because I think your audience is going to be loving it.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you can get on five to ten podcasts, you're absolutely right.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: AI will be turning around looking for people that have featured in popular podcasts and they will rank you a lot higher when it comes to AE search.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the the key the key thing is that this this is all true, um, but the key thing is the financial services industry is not trusted.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: No, so from the client perspective, they don't trust financial advisors.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: Financial advisors don't trust networks, and the FCA don't trust advisors or networks.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: So what this starts to do is to unravel that nonsense.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because actually, there are a few out there that can be trusted.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: And we are one of those, and we've proved that for 20 plus years.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that longevity, getting through COVID, getting through the crash, being here still, never borrowing any money.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: Newleaf has never borrowed any money.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: We turn over just over 30 million a year, we've given over a million to charity, we've got nearly 400 advisors, and it all comes from us.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: There's no external investors, there's no shareholders that are not part of the family, so the family team.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: So we can prove that, and we can't prove it by not having exposure.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: And uh for us it's quite easy because we always tell the truth.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I think if you go on a podcast, someone's gonna come on there and say, That guy didn't tell me the truth once.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: So you're actually uh risking exposure by going on to a podcast because over 20 plus years they're gonna say, I remember that bloke, and uh he let me down once.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be on the comments.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: I hope it doesn't appear on this one.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um but the reality reality is that exposure is positive, it uh and it exposes those that are weak or have disappointed people in the past.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, what New Leaf, I'm gonna have to say this, what New Leafs stand for is honesty.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that is so important uh to our future and for those people that are joining us.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: And the other thing is they don't meet a recruitment director or a recruitment manager, the recruit the recruitment person is me.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: Now that that might be good or bad, I don't know.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm good at it, I think I'm okay at it.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: But the reality is you're gonna get the story of New Leaf.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm trying to recruit someone for a bonus.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to recruit them because they're right for us and we're right for them.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: And lots of people aren't right for us, and for lots of people we're not right for them, and there's lots of reasons for that.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't really thought about that.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: The founder of New Leaf is the first person they meet when it comes to the.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, books and sisters.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: She books and she's she's wonderful with people, um, and because she's so literal, you know, she everything has to be spot on.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's well organized from the start.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: So then they that we meet, and generally now we're not doing meetings on teams.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's too many tire kickers, uh, we waste a lot of time.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: Last year I was running about eight, nine meetings a day, literally every day.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: How are you qualifying though before you meet?
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because you should be putting basically.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: And also we run a webinar every month for main for the new people.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: So most advisors come in as a webinar twice and twice a month now and mark runs, which is a catch-all session, gives them the overview of the industry, tells them what's going on.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: Does that work quite well?
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it does.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we get 20, 30 people every two weeks.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: But the thing is, if you meet people on Teams nowadays, it you can get a lot of time wasters and you can waste a lot of people's time because it's 30 minutes on teams, like a phone call.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: So now what I do is I use Teams as a phone call and actually 15 minutes just to get people right, and then I want to meet you either in London and we're just opening our London office uh in St.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: James's that'll be open within a week.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Is it?
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, because we we realise it's a confidentiality issue.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm meeting people at the IOD and they're with other networks, or they're in different positions with DA firms, they need confidentiality when they meet me.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: So we're opening that office, it's only a small office in St.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: James's, but it's gonna be a place where people can come and be safe.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: So if nothing happens from the meeting, it's okay.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: And they're not gonna be found out by anyone.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: Total confidentiality, it's something Dan and I spoke about we want to fix.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: So that will hopefully make people feel more confident.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: More Chatham House, if that makes sense.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Could you could you not turn it into a studio stroke interview space?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: So you all of a sudden you've got your new leaf podcast studio there.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think we'd rather do this with you in these environments.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: Of course you would.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: We talked about to be honest, we did talk about having our own space and doing it ourselves.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but for the investment, it's not worth it.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this is a quality outfit.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: We want to be with the quality outfit.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's quite funny, actually.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: I um when I was in Dubai, not putting my salary on top of it because it would be exponential.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, of course, we know that, right?
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's not cheap, is it?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: The cost, which is negotiated.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: You get a good deal with me.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um but in respect of what we set up over in Dubai when I was at Hoxton, it was easily a hundred and fiftyk investment for the year outside of what they paid me as well.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: I left them with a team and everything, but it's expensive.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: Running a podcast can be really, really expensive.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it does, it's it's a situation where you can do it yourself.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's time, it absolutely kills your time.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to learn.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: Venue, equipment.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's not worth it.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's not worth it.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: People behind the scenes here today, you know, in this room with us right now.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: They just look rough manpower.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: If you do it yourself, it's just look amateurish.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: I agree.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: And with this, it's it it does come out extremely well, very professional.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, a couple of couple of things in the profession that um people talk about a lot um and are issues.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: One is um at the beginning of the sausage machine, we're not getting enough people coming into the profession, and when they do come into the profession, there isn't the most um it's a cottage industry.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's difficult to get people trained up, competent advisor status, um, educated enough to know how to actually build a business within 12 to 24 months, how much money needed, etc.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got the academy space there, you've got new people coming in.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: I know that you're very interested in that space and you're doing really good things in that space.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the other end is when someone exits.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the average age of an advisor now, I think, is 57 years old.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of people looking to exit the profession.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: So let's just start with what you are doing, how are you getting on with new people coming to the profession?
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Forget if they're young or not, right?
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: We just want new people, they can be 70 years old, like you said, right?
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: We talked about this before, didn't we?
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so let's just talk about that.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: What's going on with the new people that are coming into the profession?
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing to support them?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start there.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Dan, start with that.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, first of all, you're right, it's not about the age.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a big thing at the moment in industry about young people, not enough young people coming in.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: And that's all fair enough, but actually, in reality, new advisors I I mean, I have to be honest with you, I think they're new IFAs are better if they're a little bit older.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_02: I think because you need a bit of experience.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: Women are better.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, but you need I think you need a bit of experience anyway in life.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: Because you're gonna be because let's be honest, the clients are older generally as well.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: So that tends to be why the average age of IFAs is 576 because it tends to be the clients you're seeing are the ones who've got the assets then to invest as well at that time in life.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_02: Now, it doesn't mean young people can't do it, and absolutely we have some really good young in their 20s advisors across the board, yeah.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_02: But um, and I'm and and we're sponsoring future financial advice as well now, uh, which is uh which is a great initiative, and that's going to help young people get into industry.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: But there's definitely roles for young people around research, investment, power planning, all these sort of places, things they can do to learn and gain experience that way, and that's what we do really well internally.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_02: So going back to the person that we're helping, the big USP for New Leaf and why it works so well for uh for them joining us is that we do all of their administration for them.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_02: So that power planning piece is really important.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: We've got an amazing team back in the Rayleigh head office.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's our biggest team across our network, isn't it?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: And that's growing even now.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_02: We've got another two or three joining at the moment.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: We've got 125 IFAs currently.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like we're doing operational every basically every piece of paperwork for them.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_02: So from letter of authority, you're gathering information on existing products to you know writing a report, doing the research, getting that case put on the system properly.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_02: Mark said it before, an advisor shouldn't be doing administration.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I think most advisors will probably agree they don't want to be doing it either.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of them will um pay for external power planning support.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what 300 to 400 pounds a case?
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: Or a bit more.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_02: So the best the value for an advisor with their client is being with the client, is giving that face-to-face advice.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's where they earn their keep.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's not spending hours looking at re research reports.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_02: So that's where our team come in and really hold them up because let's be fair, the reason they are the advisor is because they're the ones getting the clients in.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: And in terms of the value chain, that's the most important part.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_02: But then we've got the mentorship, haven't we, as well, for new business.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean there's there's two points to your question, I think, from our perspective, and that is that older people coming in, it's okay because they bring their kids.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: So what we're finding is that that 70-year-old might bring his daughter or his son, who is 35, and that changes the perspective.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: So we're seeing that happen, aren't we?
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: We're seeing parents with us bringing in their kids.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: So that's brilliant.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: And secondly, we're seeing a conversion of mortgage brokers to IFA, and that's our biggest thing, really.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're seeing a real success.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: Kerry Weaver, who's the mentor with his team of 20 people working in power planning, all the coaches.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: What we're seeing is that conversion from mortgage broker to IFA, and you and I have talked about this before.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: The future of a mortgage broker is in jeopardy.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, the complex mortgage broker, no, but the straightforward mortgage broker on regulated first-time buyer, etc., they're in real jeopardy from the transformation that AI is going to bring down the line.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to be so transformational, it's going to be incredible.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: And not even that.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_02: Tug to the vice rules from FCA mean lenders can just do what they want with clients.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's all it's all against brokers' case.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: You're right, Dan.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: Once lenders get on board with AI, um, it's real trouble for the standard broker.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, the complex broker uh is gonna be fine.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: The equity release advisor, the commercial broker, the development finance broker, I think they're gonna be fine.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: They need to be good, but they're gonna be fine.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: But those that aren't in that genre, and there's only so much business there, don't forget, that's a very small market.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's a niche market in the mortgage market, the specialist.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: So, how many brokers does that need?
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the question.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: So become an IFA.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: So that's our mantra.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: Move from mortgage broker to IFA, we'll make it happen for you.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: And we're really good at it, and we've had massive success.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason they're successful, they've already got cash flow.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: The mortgage broker's always got already got a business.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: They've normally got two or three advisors.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: And as long as they do the right thing and hand their business over to somebody and then focus totally on wealth, they'll do really well.
• 36:33
  unknown: Yeah.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: With New Leaf, they'll do really well.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's Pride and Tassie got the blueprint already.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: You've got the biggest.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's working.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: We need uh we got we got another coach coming on board to help with the first two-year program.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we got that 15, 20 people behind them.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's an incredible business.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: But I have to say, the mortgage business has been the reason for that success because that's the cash cow that has helped us build our IFA business.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: Without the mortgage business, we do about four, four and a half billion of lending a year.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: Without that business, we wouldn't have the IFA business.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: And still it's the case.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: The mortgage business is still our largest profit center.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: So, but I see within 10 years, we're an IFA, we're an IFA network.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: We are a pure, almost a pure IFA network.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, there'll be brokers everywhere in the practices, there'll be specialisms going on.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: We're the we're the first network to do specialist net lending, direct to lender.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: We've got 200 lenders direct, not through packages, ever.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, this network never uses packages.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna say that again.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: We never use packages.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: You lose half your commission.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm sorry to all those packages out there, but you lose half the commission, guys, and you also lose control of the client.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: So for us, our our target market is mortgage broker to IFA.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's the big one for you at the moment.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a big one for us forever.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: All right, cool.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_02: I've really I've been noticing on those recruitment um forms that come in as well.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like pretty much now 90% of them are I want to be an IFA.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, from broker.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: Which is what, which is the whole thing about the ideal customer, right?
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_02: That we're looking for.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_02: And that's naturally been happening.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_02: And they're younger.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_02: This is the interesting younger too.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: They're all in their 30s.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_02: Because they're brokers.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: I know, and I wasn't trying to put young people off doing it.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: Because absolutely, if you're entrepreneurial and you've got that spirit, you can do it.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_02: You've got a 28-year-old IFA in there.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: What you were trying to say is that experience matters.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody's got experience, it doesn't matter how old you are, it's just the experience matters, doesn't it?
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_02: There's nothing wrong with getting a role to learn the industry as well.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_02: There's nothing wrong with that.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_02: You could become a wheel writer if you're early doors, you can be a wheel writer.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_02: That gives you fantastic experience.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: Well, exactly.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: Lots and lots of people.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well, wheelwriting, actually, to be fair, like the instruction form on a wheel writing case, is probably the best fact find you could actually ever do.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, massive discovery.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it covers everything.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: So you can't go wrong with that.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_02: We're so good for wheel writing.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: We've got a hundred wheel writers now, haven't we?
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that if you want to start anywhere, say you're in a job, you don't want to lose your job, you don't want to give up, risk your job.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: Come as a wheel writer, learn your trade, start working with people because wheelwriting is really easy.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: Just say, Have you got a will?
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes or no?
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'll do it for you.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, when was it reviewed?
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: If it hasn't been reviewed for the last few years, let me review it for you free of charge.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: Suddenly you've got a very easy way in to people.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: So if you can do wheelwriting, guess what?
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: You can do protection.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: Guess what?
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: If you can do protect, you should do mortgages.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: If you do mortgages, you can do IFA.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of our wheelwriters won't go to mortgage.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: They'll go wheelwriting, protection, wealth.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's just such a good segue because you've got either the protection side where you're talking about children, what happens to them if you die, if you both die.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_02: Oh well, Brother David will be the guardian.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, well, how's he gonna afford it?
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_02: How's he gonna afford paying for the private school fees you wanted to go to?
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_02: We better speak to him.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_02: How's he gonna afford uh pay for that?
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_02: Well, don't worry, it's a family income benefit we can put in place.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's New Leaf Wheel Writers Federation, just for the record.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it's got a good website.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then of course, yeah, better than the New Leaf distribution website.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_02: Which is being updated by the time this comes out, it'll be the nice one.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think the podcast has actually done that serious?
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: Is it got you looking at your brand a little bit?
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_02: Massively.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_02: Oh no, 100%.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's a few things I've done since the podcast launched, even the logo I've changed.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I did it under the radar, really, but we've got a new icon, new logo, just fresher, smoother.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: My analogy of a podcast is you know, once we've done these podcasts, the analogy is it's like painting it, decorating a room in your house.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: You go into that room and go, Oh, isn't it lovely?
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: And you look around thinking, everything else is really crap.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what the podcast has done to us.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: We're looking around going, nothing else is in sync with this quality in terms of the way we market ourselves.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, we're very lucky we get, or should I say, blessed, but we we're in a sense that we get referred all the time.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: So we're constantly referred.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: So we get away with having a bad website.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: But we are we are referred literally constantly by our members.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it tells me this members, right?
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't a massive fan of the website.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: I told you that at the start, you know, and I'd give you my feedback on it.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I know it's a a website from a friend of yours who made it, right?
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's yeah, we've had a year.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's three odd years, it's the same one, it's not really changing.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: But doesn't it just show you what you can do just by turning up and following clear-cut instructions and a roadmap, how quickly you can change your employer brand.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_02: The worry I have is with the website upgrade coming, is that we've got such we hate we get so many hits on the website already because we have this journey of someone coming.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_02: Our LinkedIn presence is pretty good as well.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_02: The way we do LinkedIn is definitely it works well.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_02: But then you go from say, people go for the LinkedIn journey, they they go for the podcast journey, high quality, high production, loving it, get to the website, messaging's just not right on it at the moment.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, it's not great.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: We get like 18,000 hits a month.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's not bad.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, which is which is amazing.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow, you can convert those into it.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: So now now we're getting pretty we're putting pretty good number of forms still come in, but that person's very engaged to deal with us at that point.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_02: They really want to talk to us.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: We're very busy now.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: When the website is at the same level as the journey, I mean I worry for him.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_02: You need to worry for me now if you say.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this is where what we're doing with financial planner life is with financial planner life, you think about it, it's end-to-end recruitment.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: I can go into a firm, I can put a podcast in there, we can build that out as talent attraction assets that the company actually keeps, builds, employ a brand.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: The next stage is what I did before.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because I've been in I've been a restricted covenant for two years, I can't do it.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: But now I can.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: I can build end-to-end recruitment from start to finish, just slot it into a company and go boom really quickly.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I know it works.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because I've done it inside a business and it attracted nearly three quarters of a billion in a year.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's it.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_02: Advisors, if they're doing it the same thing, like a similar thing, they just need to think about that client journey into them, like make sure it looks good.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's not that difficult to make your website look good, really.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: I love all this stuff as well.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's fun, it's engaging podcasts and fun.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: You get to know people, you get to meet people, it's brilliant, you know, and you get to hear the great stories.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I mean exciting.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_02: The stories we've heard on the podcasts for New Leaf from last season, yeah.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_02: Some of the and it it's been amazing.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like the difference is what about Mark and Marta when uh Mark said, Oh yeah, I thought about leaving New Leaf, and Marta said, What?
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: It was like husband and wife.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: Do you remember that?
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I did.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's just so funny.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Oh, you think about leaving this, Mark?
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: He goes, Well, you've got to think about it from time to time.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: And she was like telling him off on the podcast.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: I just say something about um uh people joining the industry quickly though, while it's on my mind, because I'm really old and I have to remember things.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't if I don't say them, I won't remember them.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: I have to put them in my notebook.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um don't overthink it, get on with it.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: If you're in a position where you hate your job, you're in corporate life, and you're being bullied, and you're not happy, and it's affecting your family, get out and go for it.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and do it.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'll help, I'll help you budget it, I'll help you put it together, I'll coach you.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: Our team will then take you on.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: But part of the interview process that I do is coaching.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll I'll tell them whether they should or shouldn't do it.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: So just come and see us, I'll help you.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, love it.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: We will we will get we'll tell you the truth as to whether you should do it or not.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but don't overthink it and get on with your life.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, don't be miserable.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: Get some advice.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: Life's too short, man.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: Go out and enjoy your life and do what you want to do because there's nothing like freedom.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: You love it.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when you've got your own business and you become successful, and you become wealthy, and you become rich, and you help other people become wealthy.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Unreal, and you can give to charity and you can give to things that you believe in.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: I know Matt Abu Zaid again was talking about.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: I saw him last week, and he was talking about this community center that he's a trustee of.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: You find this with people who are successful, they love to give more than they love to receive.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what happens when you become successful.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: Not only are you giving great advice, you know, you're building trust in a community, you're, you know, you're helping other people become wealthy through being a great advisor, putting them on the plan and taking their families to a different place.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: You're also developing people in your business who you employ and changing their lives for the better.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a positive vibe.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_01: So all I'm gonna say to you out there who are listening to this Financial Planner Life podcast right now is don't be upset and sit on the fence and be bullied and put off by these employers and really held under the thumb.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: Get out there, come and join New Leaf, come and speak to us, and we'll hope you change your lives for the better.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't, you know, I'm not important.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: It is important.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: And when you are, I put a post out on the on the weekend about my operating system, like how I live my life and how I've worked in the past and how over the last six months Well, you don't drink anymore, which is massive.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't I haven't drunk for nearly six and a half years.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: But that changed your life for the better, didn't it?
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's huge.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's one of the biggest things you can ever do to change your life is give up drinking.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: You never meet so many happy people who have given it up and beaten it.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's so bad for you.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is bad.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: I I have the very odd drink where I'm very fortunate I can control it.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: There are periods in my life where I was drinking way too heavily.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_01: And you're carrying around this cloud every day.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: All the time.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: You're not even sharp.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to be sharp in business.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: And also, if you're an entrepreneurial, um, energetic person, right?
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: As I was, I have ADHD.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: If I drank, it was like putting petrol on a fire.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: So for two weeks afterwards, I was I was my anxiety was through the roof.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't shift it, and the depression would come, and then I'd lift, and then I'd feel good, and I'd go and do it again.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was just pointless.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's the biggest hack in life.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: I've said it to everybody if you want to change, give up boozing.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: I agree.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um unless and smoking, of course.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: And smoking, yeah.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: But I was at an event last week and I didn't go to events, and I was invited by someone who I like, so I went to this thing and it was Circus de Soleil, and it was awesome.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: But everyone got drunk, and it was right interesting to see the change in the mentality.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, I I think it's a massive thing uh to give up alcohol if you can, or or at least limit it and just enjoy.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I really enjoy?
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoy having a glass and nursing it, you know, and having a nice glass of wine with it.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: Why give it up completely if you can control your mentality?
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: Just control it.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: Don't think it's drunk.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoy it, enjoy one or two.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: I always say drinking is a problem if it's a problem to your life or to others.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: If your drinking impacts others, if your drinking is a problem to your life and you can't hold down a job, or you know, you're not going to work, or you're not the best version of yourself that you can actually be, then it's a problem, right?
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_01: I used to find that um when I was drinking heavily that you would plan out the transport first.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_01: So you get an event and you go, right, how am I gonna get or how am I gonna get back?
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that shows you you're in the wrong place.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: So it's in it's an interesting thing.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: I used to just jumble home at like four in the morning.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, there's some lovely things about being drunk, let's be honest.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but it's great.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: I've had some of the best times of my life, but this isn't selling it well, is it?
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: No, uh, but no, from a business perspective, it's fabulous not to drink.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: Love it.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: Just on the final note before we exit this conversation, is a conversation of exit.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: Just, you know, there are members within your business, uh, within the network, um, and they are wanting to exit the industry.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: Do you support them?
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, yes.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we're here to we're here for that.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's a bit that's a very important part as well of talking with an IFA is having an exit plan ready or having exit plans for them at the right time.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_02: And we've had experience of that.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we've been very far, we've been quite fortunate over the last 10 years that a lot of the IFAs we've worked with have been younger in the sense of a bit further out from retirement, maybe 10 plus years still.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: But we're 10 years in now, we have had in the last few years especially people who've reached the end of of what they're getting to the end of their career, want to find a way out.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: And we've had different you know, different exits now that we've managed.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we personally manage at the moment quite poignant this question.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_01: We have a we have an advisor right now who's um on end of life, right?
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I took a phone call from his daughter yesterday to say he's left your name to sort this out.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, wow, this is you you totally trust us with this situation.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: And we've had it before him.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: We we've had advisor died in a deathbed sale to a fantastic advisor in New Leaf.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: Won't name any names, but he stepped up, we didn't have a contract, we did the did the deal as it were on a deathbed deal, and it was just phenomenal to see these people.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that guy even shoveled some earth onto his coffin at his funeral, the advisor that bought the business.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's powerful, it's really powerful.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, we've done it time and time again.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want it to go to an MA who's just gonna flog the clients on.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: We want it to stay within the newly found.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and we want it to be as well, maybe different to other places as we're not buying it.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_02: So we don't want to be competing with our own advisors by having a and that's what maybe other corporates will say, well, the asset is building is you take it on yourself and you build your own assets, then which you can sell on later.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_02: The whole thing becomes a merry-ground of selling the clients on and on and on never ends.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um we want to facilitate growth within our network, which is where we're positioning ourselves as compliance thought leaders within the within the network space.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_02: Why we then take on our own clients?
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't make any sense to our culture and our ethos.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_02: So we can manage AR to AR buyouts, we can in we can mediate that, we can leverage it, we have all the data in one place.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_02: There's no BS.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you're setting you're buying what you know is there, we have the income coming in.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_02: So it's really easy.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_02: And there's people in the network who want to do this, who want to buy and want to grow their businesses.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's really important.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: There are people in your network now ready to buy businesses.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're thinking about exiting, it's that three, five, maybe two-year thought in your head.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to start thinking about it.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_00: Are you in the right place to be able to exit your business with the best value in the right hands?
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's time to shift, get into a network where there are buyers.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and we we can help fund it.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know, but at the end of the day, it's it's um the wealth that you can for people who are wondering how it works, the wealth you can earn from selling a business on is it's just so different to a mortgage company.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_02: And uh as an example here, one of the guys he actually went the other way.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_02: He became an IFA, he started building it, but he was still very mortgage advisor mentality.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_02: He couldn't get out of mortgages, and he decided that he loved mortgages too much.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_02: But he had about nine clients on the IFA side, he had about a million and a half under management, you know, there's a little bit there, but he didn't really get beyond that.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_02: He went back to being a mortgage advisor with us and he sold the clients.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_02: Now he sold nine clients for 30,000 pounds, which is just ridiculous when you think about it.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that is mad.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: What's really good about New Leaf is this this young man here and his team.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_01: So you look at the other networks, and I'm not being you know disrespectful to anyone, but they're all corporates.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, apart from uh maybe one, the right mortgage network, who are a family business, and there's another one, Rosemount, who are a family business.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, nice guys like them, yeah.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: We like we like we like we like them all, actually.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: There's no one we dislike in the industry.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: I quite I quite like them at the time.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's a small is a small industry.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah um but we're the youngest executive team.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_01: Now I say we can I say he's the youngest executive team.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_01: So his team that run a business day to day are all in their 30s.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's powerful.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think there's any other network like that.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_01: So not only are we going to look after you as an advisor if you want to exit, we're gonna be here a long time, God willing.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, as long as the FCA things stay the same and PI is the same.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: There's always there's always change to come down the road.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_01: AI doesn't take us out, AI doesn't take us out, AI doesn't ruin us uh all and kill us all and turn on us and create wars.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_01: But no, the reality is we are the youngest uh executive team in the UK, and that is powerful because it means the journey continues.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_01: And we're not for sale, we're never gonna sell.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: We can say it out loud here.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, a lot of people say to me, Are you gonna sell?
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's one of the first questions.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_01: And we're never gonna sell.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I've said this before, it's God's business, it's not for sale.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_01: And the reality is, Dan wants to take this business on.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I'll support him.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's my that's my job to support him and his team in in the best way possible.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: But that I think is an important message.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_01: You're a young team, aren't you?
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, we meet every week, go through all the things that are happening, F J rules, you know, sort out things with brokers, advisors, you know, we're there to help and support, and we've got a great team.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_02: Sam, Brad, Josh, uh, Joe, Lucy, you know, all putting their weight, you know, and it is you've got to pull your weight.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_02: You've got to pull your weight.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_02: You have to.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_00: And also, as well, it's it's it's about having new ideas, modern ideas as well.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and when I was at the Launchpad event with you guys in January, you were talking a lot about the future of the business and how you're gonna support advisors.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want to get into it now, but it's very, very exciting.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're gonna tackle, try to tackle the lead generation side, which offering.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_02: Without sort of talking about it too too much depth, but there's definitely an opportunity for networks to do more for their advisors, other than just being compliant support, which is just, you know, on the face of it, that's what we're here for.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_02: But you have to do more than that.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_02: We've been around 20 odd years, we've got loads of resources we can leverage, and lead generation is one of those angles that I'm working on, which I think we can help.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then why not?
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_02: Why not?
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_02: If we can do it, why not?
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna be launching it in a Steve Jobs uh style.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh on the summer conference in July.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, Dan will be launching all the new the new stuff that's coming out, and there's some really amazing stuff.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we've got some.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really understand it.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we're we're really looking forward to it because we're coming to film the event.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, really?
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: What's that gonna cost?
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna cost you a few quid, mate.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: I run the BL, so I'll be I'll be checking that out.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_01: Let's not worry about that.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_01: I run the board.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'll talk about that BLC.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_01: You and me will talk about that, Dan.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you and me will talk about that.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_00: All right, chaps.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, listen, thank you so much for joining me again on the Financial Panel Live podcast.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_00: We are absolutely pumped to be working with you.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: Season two, New Leaf podcast, recording it this week, starting it this year.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad you've had some amazing um leads come off the back of it.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's really helped your employee brand.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_00: We love working with you, and just thanks for being authentic and sharing your true honest self because that's what the most important thing is here.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_00: We're not trying to we we want to attract the right people to the profession, and honesty is super, super important.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the one thing that you guys are is honest.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for very kind.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Sam.