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CRMs in Financial Planning with Wealth Dynamix and Plannr · Financial Planner Life Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: And today's guests on the Financial Planner Life podcast is Robert Haradine from Ammonite, Gareth Thompson from Planner, and Robert Room from Wealth Dynamics.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: And today it's all about the Financial Planner Life FinTech, because we're talking about CRM systems for financial planners.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: And we take a deep dive into wealth dynamics and planner to take a look at what the differences are.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: One specifically for retail financial planners, the other more for wealth management.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's a super interesting topic and something that we're going to delve into more deeply over the coming months.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: I hope you enjoy.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: Guys, thank you so much for joining me today on the Financial Planner Life podcast.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: And today we're going to focus on FinTech.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: Myself and Robert Haradine from Ammonite, who was an ex-IFA and is now in the FinTech space, have come together to create a community called the Financial Planner Life FinTech.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: And our aim, Rob, isn't it, is to bring the FinTech together that really is going to revolutionize and change the financial planning profession.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: Look a little bit under the bonnet and start introducing our audience to the movers and shakers within the profession.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely, Sam.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is a really topical area of FinTech now in the entire industry, really.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, well, you know, I think with your audience and myself having been a financial advisor, built up a business and sold it, I really wanted to move into building technology to try and help in that space.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: So within the ecosystem of software businesses and fintech, I'm meeting lots of leaders, uh, movers and shakers in that space.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, I think it's a great idea to bring uh those sorts of people onto this podcast.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um we've got some cracking guests today.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Rob, why don't you just introduce our guests for us?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we've got Gareth Thompson.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um Gareth is CEO uh of and uh do you wear the CTO hat?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure, Gareth, of of Planner.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: One of many, yes.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: One of many, okay.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: So Planner is a fast evolving CRM business uh within wealth management and the IFA uh space.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: And Gareth is uh is is a coder by trade, I believe.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we'll do intros in a in a second.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'll leave that for you to uh to to do an intro in a sec.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then we've got Robert Room uh from Wealth Dynamics, who is chief strategy officer and has been within the profession for for many, many years, and uh and and lit spearheading the all of the innovation within um within wealth dynamics, which is another CRM CLM business.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, we're really lucky to have these guys on the on the show today.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: Fantastic.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: Gareth, why don't you kick things off then yourself?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: Do you want to have a quick sort of intro to who you are?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: I know Rob's just given a be a brief one, but let's hear it from yourself, first of all.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm co-director here at Planner.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh on a day-to-day basis, I get involved in shaping technology and the features that the team are developing on a regular basis.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, as Rob said, I am a developer as well by heart.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: So that helps to understand and create the bridge between what our clients are asking for and actual uh building the end product.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we've got a nice team here and and constantly churning out features.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: So uh it's always busy.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Gareth, I met you at the Verve Evolution Awards last week, of which I didn't win, unbelievably, for talent attraction.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: We won't talk about that though.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: I'm definitely not Pisser.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: But I did get the opportunity to sit down and talk to you in detail about uh planner and about the CRM, and I got to view it firsthand.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I must admit, it was a really interesting piece of technology.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, yourself and the team were so enthusiastic about it.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: And one thing that I picked up straight away was just how easy and quick it is to use and just how revolutionary it does look and all the little add-ons and the bolt-ons and all the future things that were coming.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it was really, really exciting to learn about.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you so much about that.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: And we're gonna be pleased and really sort of interested to learn more about that.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you for that.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, great stuff.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: Rob, who's next?
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: So, Robert, um gonna be a bit confusing with all the Robs on this show.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um so uh so so yeah, if you'd like to give a bit of an intro, Robert, to to yourself, that'd be brilliant.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_03: No, of course.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Rob.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_03: I'll I'll I'll go for Robert for for for the rest of the thing.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_03: And if you go for Rob, it probably makes it a bit easier to uh to figure out which one, which Rob we're talking about.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_03: But uh, but no, thank you very much for the introductions and thank you for having me on what I think is going to be a really interesting discussion today.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_03: I'm the chief strategy officer at Wealth Dynamics, and Wealth Dynamics is a CRM and CLM provider.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_03: So we provide CRM solutions, but more holistically what we call client lifecycle management solutions to wealth management firms, investment management firms, discretionary firms, private banks, and we'll cover that a little bit later as we go through.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_03: In total, our business is actually about 120 people, uh both in the UK but in Europe, uh, and more globally, actually across offices in Asia and North America as well.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_03: So we get a good insight into how some of the trends are shaping globally, not just here within the UK as well.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_03: And we're actually part of the Credit Agricole Group.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so they took a majority stake in our business earlier this year.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_03: And that's a little bit of kind of feeds into what I do.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_03: So I've been in the industry now for about 20 years, which just makes me feel very old.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but a mixture of working inside wealth management firms such as Barclays Wealth, working in consultancies, so working in management consultancies such as Cap Gemini and Psionic, and now working with Wealth Tech such as Wealth Dynamics and others.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_03: And my kind of day to day is filled with working with our clients, working with our prospects, working with our owners actually, uh, working with consultants in the industry, looking at how we can better support our clients and the broader industry in supporting their clients, because at the end of the day, that's what this is about.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's about the the end investors, the end individuals who are looking for people to help support their wealth and help support how they invest their money and how they hit their goals and how we can support the firms support them.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_03: So that's really a little bit about kind of what I do.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um a little bit like Bareth, I think I'm probably much rustier on the technical side, Gareth, but I did start my career as a developer, um, which definitely does help.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_03: And I do dabble a little bit on the side here and there.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but my my kind of background is a little bit development into kind of analysis change, change management, and a little bit of a little bit of everything actually across uh across the spectrum.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: Great stuff.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: Robert, your CRM is obviously slightly different from Planner's CRM.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: You're both targeting perhaps different types of customers.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: Robert, just start off with you.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: What's the type of customer that you are targeting with this CRM?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: Who are your uh who is your CRM for?
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_03: No, I I think that's a great question, Sam.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_03: And we we started out the business around 11 years ago, very much in the kind of discretionary fund management space.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, the the kind of traditional kind of discretionary fund managers, the old stockbrokers, if you like, within the UK markets, um, and really focusing on that area.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_03: That was the kind of genesis of our firm very much.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: And over the years, we broadened that out to focus on not just those DFM businesses and investment managers, but also to look at private banks and to look at more holistic wealth managers as well.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_03: And we work with firms, everything from kind of 10-person firms, um, particularly in the in the DFM space and the small investment management space, all the way up to international and multinational kind of global private banks.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_03: So it's a little bit across the spectrum in terms of if in terms of the kind of the segments we service.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_03: And inside those firms, we cover a lot more than just what you might think traditional CRM is.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm sure this is a topic Gareth will feel strongly as well, is people talk about CRM, but you know, CRM means very different things to very different people.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_03: I think you know, when we were talking earlier, Sam, you mentioned Salesforce, you know, Salesforce is the CRM, it's the it's the ticker, you know, is CRM the stock ticker.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_03: But what Salesforce means by CRM isn't what planner means by CRM, which is probably subtly different to what we mean by CRM.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_03: And so there's actually a whole kind of series of things that I think people mean when they say CRM that are a lot more than just my contact book.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and that's traditionally what people have associated CRM with.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_03: So on our side, and that and that's almost why we we talk about CLM with what we do client lifecycle management.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_03: CRM is part of that.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_03: It's managing your interactions, it's having your client file, it's doing your prospecting, it's managing your pipeline, it's understanding, you know, where you are with your clients, but it's also doing regulated straight-through onboarding.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_03: It's managing your regulated fact finds, it's looking at clients' goals, wants, and needs and how those tie back to your objectives.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_03: It's having a single workstation and a single view where you can see everything that's going on across both your clients, but the investments you're managing.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_03: So there's a whole series of things that kind of pull into what we call CLS, CRM and CLM.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_03: And that tends to be focused on the front and the middle office, giving them the tools they need to have one place to go to manage their clients and supporting them with tools that orchestrate and automate that into the middle and back office and out to platforms.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_03: And that's really where we kind of focus what we mean by CRM and CLM and the sector really we help service.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: Fantastic.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for that overview.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: Very informative.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: So, Gareth, Planner then.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: Just tell us a little bit about who your target client, you know, your target customer actually is.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: Who would use planner?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I think similar uh to your uh listeners, really.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: So financial advisors, financial planners, uh, those that are eager to embrace newer technologies and to streamline businesses.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: So certainly the businesses we've been dealing with have been anything from one man uh bands up to 50, 60 advisor firms, international firms as well, um, but predominantly UK uh businesses uh at the moment.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but yeah, they all seem to be those that have their eye on technology, uh have their finger on the pulse around where the pain points are in their business and what they and certainly looking proactively for tools to uh to alleviate those problems, really.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: Cool.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: Gareth, what would you say are the major pain points in firms at the moment, especially when you're looking at the sort of UK um financial planning IFA market?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Great question.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I would say at the moment, the majority of issues that firms are having are around uh attempting to uh cost cut and to streamline businesses uh generally.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: So whether that's a standard process of of um how they can digitalize a client onboarding uh experience for their for their business, whether it's uh shaving 20% off the average uh review process, it's it's it's trying to whittle down uh perhaps the tech solutions that they're already using uh to a uh a rounded-off process that may include one or two bits of kit rather than five or six.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and certainly I think as Robert touched on, uh, and perhaps we'll talk about a bit later, maximizing the software that they're already using.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: So not necessarily chucking everything out, uh, but actually using uh the tools that they have uh uh more fully and actually um learning how to get the most out of them.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I would say most of the conversations we're having are around automation efficiencies, as well as improving the client experience generally.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that I think is is a key uh concern in most advice firms is how can I create a a process or a journey for my clients that is memorable in the right for the right reasons, um, and pulls clients closer to uh their business and their firm.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: So it's almost harder for them to kind of leave if they ever wanted to.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: Sort of integrating those clients within the CRM.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: So it's no longer like an address book of just a sales address book.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: What we're using it for is sales, and that's what I suppose historically a CRM was really all about.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: And then they started bolting on marketing support onto those CRMs and made it a sales and marketing CRM.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: What you're trying to do here is to kind of make it a one-stop job for the advice firm or the wealth management firm to use it and to bring the client lifecycle, as you mentioned.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: The C is it the CLM?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: CLM, yeah.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, bringing this, bringing this.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: What does the CLM mean again?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_03: Client lifecycle management.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_03: So it's around that idea of managing the whole journey from that kind of first referral when you get an introduction with a client through the onboarding into managing that relationship, the ongoing review, and then eventually that kind of transitional wealth to the next generation.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_03: So the whole, the whole, whole, the whole kit and caboodle.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: And can I just ask?
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: So uh do you see that as a like a there's almost like a digital footprint from the very start of the interaction with a financial planner or advisor now, because we live in this digital age?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: Do you see that's like the natural incarnation of where CRM's going because you're collecting the data on the on the customer?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and that's why CRM is expanding to very much thinking about the customer experience.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: You want to take that one first, Robert?
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, I can I can I can I can I can start with that one.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_03: I I think you know, as Gareth said, there's there's almost two competing competing pieces here that firms are trying to juggle with.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_03: One one is that cost to serve, how much, how much do you have to spend operationally to actually provide a client with a compliance service?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_03: And as we know with consumer duty, the amount of compliance is increasing quite radically, you know, so you've got pressures on what actually a minimum level of service looks like.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: And then the flip side of that is is very changing and rapidly changing expectations around what clients expect on digital.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_03: And what I would say is is expectations around a frictionless service.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I would use that kind of word frictionless because clients want to engage on the channels they want to engage on, not the channels you want to engage on.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that that's where the digital piece kind of starts to flow in a little bit here and combines actually quite nicely with the cost to serve, is if you've got a kind of a more elderly client who really wants to work on paper, broadly speaking, that that's something that many firms will continue to do, you know, and they'll continue to work that way with those clients, often valued clients, and you're looking for how you can drive internal digitization in your business.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_03: So, how do you remove retyping forms and how do you automate account setup or you know, how do you automate the LOA process, all those kind of things, that's what we're looking at.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_03: But if you've got clients who are slightly more willing to embrace technology, and I don't always think that's just younger clients, actually, it's it's I think that's a bit of a misnomer sometimes.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_03: But if you've got clients who are willing to embrace digital technology, it makes sense to bring that in earlier in the journey because it gives you both a chance to differentiate yourself a little bit, your service.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_03: It gives you a chance to um to kind of engage on their terms and not necessarily just your terms, for example, collecting information maybe in a slightly gamified way before your first meetings with the clients.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_03: But it also helps with that cost to serve because it means you're not busy retyping a PDF or retyping a paper form.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_03: Everything's flowed automatically from your CRM into your well, from your digital forms into your CRM, and you've knocked out a whole piece of that administrative burden while you're at it.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_03: So I see absolutely that digital piece as having a role to play.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_03: It's not the only kind of role to play.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_03: You need to support different journeys for different clients, but it's it's a tool that ticks both boxes, and that's what firms are kind of concerned about, or what we see firms concerned about that we work with.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: I have a friend who is a financial planner, chartered fellow, works with some very high net worth, well, I would say ultra high net worth clients, sort of minimum investable assets of it's around 15 million, all the way up to 50 million, some really, really wealthy families.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: Traditionally, he's a financial planner.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he has fed back to me that technology is something that his clients want to see more of in that high, in that ultra high net worth space.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the problems that he's sort of encountering is that there isn't any kind of, he's almost developing a family office for those types of clients, that family office service.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: Is that something that you you you chaps think about?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: Is that the you know, private banking space?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_02: I guess it is yourself, isn't it, Robert?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: That private banking space, you know, it's wide open at the moment from a technology perspective and adaptation adaptation really into financial planning.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: Are you looking at the family office fill for financial planning, if you like, um, for those ultra-high net worth type clients and helping support planners to actually sort of develop technology within that space?
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: Does your currency RM support that?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: Are you thinking about that?
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_03: No, and I I think we we we're not maybe as as kind of broad-ranging as planner is and some of the the financial planning capabilities, but we very much work with some of our private banks and wealth managers on their kind of holistic wealth management offerings for estate planning and some of those other areas out to their and high net worth clients.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_03: And I think, as you said, that there's an assumption sometimes that digital doesn't play a part in that.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_03: And that that isn't entirely true.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_03: You know, firstly, actually, ultra high net worth clients, particularly on the top end, are often working with a team of people, they have accounts, they have advisors, and sometimes those people expect digital, even if necessarily the end clients don't.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but if you take something like onboarding, you know, if you've got uh a kind of an ultra high net worth client, and um I can't name the firm, but I'm thinking of a recent example.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_03: With one of our clients, we managed to onboard a kind of a new VIP client they had in three hours.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_03: Now, that is the expectation that those clients have nowadays, and you can't do that without digital.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_03: So I think the firms we work with want to use digital, and it's not necessarily a means, uh, an end, a means to it's not necessarily kind of an endpoint on its own, but it's a means to an end, which is better customer service and better, better kind of satisfaction.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_03: And that ties into expectations.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_03: You know, if everyone has, you know, an iPhone or an Android phone in their pocket, you know, they've got um their kind of their their retail bank or a revolute or someone on their phone, expectations around how quickly things in financial services work have very much been reset by the kind of the day-to-day tools we all use.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_03: And so the idea of actually, no, you're gonna have to wait three days for me to send some paperwork out in the post, or actually I can't show you something interactively on my iPad.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna print out some PDF documents and we're gonna talk through them to go through your kind of estate planning situation.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_03: Those don't tick the boxes anymore with a lot of a lot of those kind of higher net worth clients.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_03: They they expect more, and so firms are having to to up their game to deliver against that.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: Gareth, are you are do you are you finding this as well?
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: Are you are you looking at that space, that high net worth, ultra high net worth space?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: Is this the sort of thing your clients are feeding back with to you as well when it comes to uh making changes to planner?
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think um to to kind of go alongside what Robert said, I think we could all blame that that big horrible C-word, COVID, for almost uh speeding up the adoption rate of technology uh by consumers generally.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: So ignore industries, but you know, the for many they turned to uh digital um systems for for seeing doctors through COVID.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: And uh any any interaction you had with people were through Zoom or uh rather than face to face.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I think what that's um what that's impacted is firms have had to suddenly adapt to the to kind of the new way of working, shall we say.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it has highlighted that some of the bits of kit that they were using are perhaps a bit lackluster, you know, they're not as consumer-friendly, they're not as highly polished as we're used to with Revolute or you know, Stalin Monzo, the other kind of modern breed of of banks.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: And to answer your question around uh dealing with family uh family units, that's something that I think certainly we've seen as a growing demand of existing back office and CRM solutions is not dealing with an individual record, but dealing with that group uh entity and being able to provide uh advice and planning to that group entity.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's something that um to roll back a bit, Planner was completely specced out by a group of advisors, and it was something that was never quite included in that initial stage of um mapping out uh what they would want from a modern CRM, but it is absolutely something we're looking at, and I think there are great opportunities there to produce something that is uh more forward-thinking around dealing with the family units and entities.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it is something very much on our roadmap at the moment.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's such a big area, isn't it?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: That great transition of wealth, the money that's being passed down intergenerationally over the next 30 years.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I met you know before this, and I'm not gonna bring it on the podcast, but I met a couple of lads who are creating a bit of technology around how to implement family into the process.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I just think it's I think it's such a wide open space.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: And how can you, if you're gonna be advising the client who's got, say, the money, let's say, what about their family?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: What about you know, giving them the ability to use cash flow forecasting tools to start to plan, even if it was if they were going off to university?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: Have they got enough money for university?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know, can they can they manage their own finances?
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_02: Is there technology available to do that?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: Can you make open banking accessible so the family, uh the parents, etc., who might be giving some money to their children to go off to university, can they actually see whether or not their children are using it wisely and are following some kind of financial plan?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's really sort of why.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Open and it kind of gets rid of the whole leaky bucket thing as well, doesn't it?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: So if anything ever happens to the individuals, then you're not sort of thinking, hang on, I haven't spoken to them for a while, and you're the last to hear about it.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: And by then they've just gone and bought a Ferrari Testerosa or something like that if they're still making them.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, very, very interesting, great stuff.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: Lovely.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: So you both you both mentioned that um you have global customers in both your very two different CRMs that are servicing two very different areas of wealth management and financial planning.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: Just out of interest, what's the UK adoption?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: Are are the UK leading in the way in integrating new technology into financial planning and wealth management?
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: Are you seeing other countries in the world leading the way?
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: Really interested to hear what your thoughts are on it.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: Gareth, first of all, let's go for you.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: So um, I would say from from what we've seen of firms that have approached us and uh the likes of Michael, I think it's Kips's, uh, over in America.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: I would say the US seem to be leading the charge in adopting newer technology around helping streamline uh planning businesses.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: And there are a plethora of kind of new um tech systems over there that seem to have exploded in popularity.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the UK is catching up.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'd say it's a few years behind in terms of where uh how readily uh available newer technology and newer systems are that can compete against the the incumbents.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh from our experience, I think there's other uh locations around the world, so South Africa and Australia are also pushing for greater adoption of uh newer systems that can join up and integrate nicely with uh the existing platforms and technologies that firms are using.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: So we're not leading the way, I wouldn't say, but we're not far behind those that are.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's great to see because uh I certainly over the last uh decade or two or two, we've not, as an industry, we've not been best regarded for adoption of technology.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: We have uh lagged behind other industries, but it's great to see that it is uh speeding up and again, most likely down to COVID and attitude changes, really.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think the average age of the financial planner in the UK has a part to play in that?
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it probably does because not blaming anyone as a technophobe, but I think generally those that have been in the industry a while will have a uh well-trodden process that's worked well for them and their clients.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing wrong with that.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I do think that with the newer breed of technology of um advisors and planners coming in, they have grown up with technology more so than than other generations.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, look at the adoption rate of Instagram and TikTok and everything else.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so naturally the uh the appetite for technology is going to increase and uh and more so looking inwards rather than outwards, so uh improving the processes internally rather than necessarily improving anything client-facing or consumer-facing.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's really interesting because I speak to so many of the younger financial planners that are coming through, and also the power planners, the ones that are sitting there, you know, using CRMs probably more than anybody.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: And um, technology is one of the things they want to see more of.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_02: They want to see this joined up technology, they want to see it being really simple to use, really easy to use.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and they want to see it within the financial planning profession, and often they come up against brick brick walls in respect to of um integration, bringing it into the businesses and actually doing it.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Robert, have you got anything to add on that?
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: Have you, you know, from your perspective?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_03: I I no, I I think it's a really good point on integration, you know, and and what we we often see, both at my time at Wealth Dynamics and actually in in one of my previous roles, is you often end up, particularly in in some of the mid-tier wealth managers, but also in the smaller ones with almost teams of people or individuals whose almost entire job is retyping information from that spreadsheet or that system to this other spreadsheet and this other system, you know, and and to a certain extent, the market structure in the UK, you know, we're we're quite heavily kind of platform-led.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_03: You have a lot of IFAs who are using multiple platforms, and that's slightly different from the structure in some other markets, but it's almost led to the platforms almost outsourcing integration and administration into the wealth managers and the IFAs.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_03: So instead of the platform sorting out how can we provide data and how can we join everything together and how can we make everything speak really nicely, you know, and the automation you talked about, Sam, they've kind of gone, well, that's quite difficult.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_03: And they've kind of left the problem up to the wealth managers and the IFAs.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_03: And so you can't get that integrated view.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_03: Everything's very disconnected.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_03: It's and if you want that really good single CRM view, you have to, you have to put a lot of effort in to get it because you've got to essentially do a lot of that work, a lot of that retyping yourself.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think that's very much something we see is that kind of that level of disconnectivity between platforms, between some of the back office providers, even into some of the CRMs.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we we've done some work recently with uh a particular platform in the UK, uh Third Financials TFS, to kind of build a real, really strong kind of two-way integration to Gareth's point of view, to Gareth's point earlier, that is not lightweight.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_03: It kind of everything flows between the two.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but but it to be honest, that's not that trivial.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you need and you need platforms that are willing to work with you on that as well.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_03: So I'd say that disconnectivity in businesses is is a serious contributor to that administrative overhead.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_03: And actually, it it's going to take everyone from the platforms to to the fintech providers to work together to kind of help solve that problem a little bit.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_03: And I think allow IFAs and wealth managers to focus on clients and not data re-entry.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think, Robert, just have interest on that, that there will be tight collaboration and almost partnerships of certain platforms with certain CRMs?
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: I think you know, you you see that a little bit.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_03: You you've got, I think, you know, SSNC's announcement recently with with Intelliflow, you know, about their kind of tie-up.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_03: So I think I think I I I hope from from my perspective, maybe slightly self-centeredly, that you won't see everyone pairing up um and we'll we'll stay a more open, a more open world.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but I think you will see firms increasingly kind of uh building deeper integrations in the absence of of a kind of single standard um for kind of communicating between fintechs and platforms.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because you could start to get a bit of a monopoly really, or not oligopoly of of platforms partnering up, and and then you know, where does that where does that leave choice essentially?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's really important that that that that that choice that people can fit people can fit pick what fits best for them and and those things should talk nicely and play nicely together.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: Robert, who is your competitors in your space?
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm I'm always tempted to answer that question, Sam, with saying no one, but but that would be slightly disingenuous of me.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, so I I think um you know, you mentioned Salesforce before, you know, that they're pretty ubiquitous in the CRM space.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_03: What what I would say, and I suspect Gareth would would probably have a similar positioning, is is what they mean by CRM isn't what we mean by CRM.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think that that's where we would see, I suppose, our unique selling point um against, say, a kind of Salesforce.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_03: You've also got firms such as kind of IRA's X Plan in the market uh and and others such as, you know, Intelliflow is is pretty ubiquitous, although they tend to be the smaller end, uh, smaller end of the market as well.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_03: So firms like Salesforce, firms like X-Plan, though those are the kind of firms, you know, that we see in kind of peer clients and peer firms to those that we're working with.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_03: I think our kind of USP against those really is that we we've really put a lot of effort into making sure that we have both the right kind of proposition, this kind of holistic CLM that we are working on the integrations that we talked about, and that we've got the right kind of product.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_03: And we we've actually recently rebuilt kind of our product for the smaller end of the market so it can be more agile, more mobile, um quicker to deploy, so that we've got something specifically for those smaller firms.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_03: And then I think the people as well, it's making sure that your business has expertise around deployment and you're not just a tech-only provider.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_03: So we've got a lot of people X industry, we've got a lot of X uh private bankers and wealth managers in our business as well.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_03: Fantastic.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, companies want to either make money or save money.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: How does your CRM do that?
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_03: So I'd I'd like to think it does a little bit of both, but I think we we went back to the kind of cost to serve and the customer experience before.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_03: And so those are kind of the two things we're looking at.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_03: So the first is let's say um cost to serve.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_03: One of the big costs is onboarding a new client.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_03: And so for us, we look to automate that as far as possible to get that down to the same day.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_03: So you're getting the assets on onboarded more quickly and you're therefore generating your fees more quickly.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_03: You know, so we we look to bring down a 14, 28-day plus average down to one day or a couple of days if possible, um, if we can do on fair winds.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um so I think from that perspective, we're looking at how we can automate processes and free up the administrative burden.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_03: And then I think when it comes to growing business, we put a lot of focus on our prospecting tools, how we help firms manage kind of their prospecting pipelines, how we help them do and kind of focus their efforts and the digital experience that Rob talks about as well, so that they're more attractive to that new generation of clients and they can more heavily prioritize and segment and focus their efforts as well.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: Fantastic.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_02: What about planner?
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_02: You know, who would you say are your competitors?
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: If someone's listening to this and they're thinking about planner, but they're using a different type of CRM software, who would you say would be the main competitors over there for yourself?
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'd borrow Robert's answer, to be fair.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it it all boils down to uh the the tool and the the purpose of uh of someone's CRM and back office.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: So we deliberately chose the term CRM as opposed to a more well-trodden term of back office that's used in the financial uh advice and planning world.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that was quite deliberate because whilst we have all the functionality that you would expect of a back office, it's more uh focused around that client experience and the interaction with the client as opposed to just a um a bucket of data uh that you know you go and hold the client record and occasionally update it maybe once a year.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um that that's completely the opposite approach of what we've taken with Planner.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: So the the names and brands already mentioned uh by Robert, um XPAN and teleflow, um, Time for Advice, all of those are uh companies that we're often compared against, but I think we have a different mindset uh around what we're trying to help advice firms uh achieve through technology.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: So a good example is we're in uh the process with an integration where you could uh go from a brand new prospect to a client to placing them on a platform and uh opening a uh an account, so it could be an ICER or whatever it might be, and that process could be as quick as half an hour.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and it those it's the little wins in places that that mount up.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: And when you compare that to the paper-led processes, um, it all starts to uh you start to see the value in in having a piece of kit that's well connected um and actually streamlines uh everything, but by small increments rather than just having that one big feature that just saves uh a ton of time, it's it's trying to chisel time off that entire process um and take the wins where you can get them.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_02: Some of the things that one of the things that's coming on, I'm gonna ask a question actually, because it's interesting because people listen to this podcast who are in operational type roles.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_02: They might be in administration, operation management, they could be power planners.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_02: People fear technology that it's going to take over the human role.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know, advisors were really worried about robo advice for quite some time, and then we've realized that actually technology needs to work in unison with financial planners.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: And we're talking about hybrid now, aren't we?
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: More so than uh technology coming in and replacing the financial planner.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_02: And some of the firms that have come through that focus purely on technology, purely on robo advice, aren't really here anymore.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: We see them come and go, and it's the human really that seems to be winning at the moment.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: What about administration and power planner?
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think they should be worried about this type of technology or they should be welcoming this technology?
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: Do you mind if I jump in there then, Sam?
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: So so on on that, um, big advocate of the of the hybrid approach.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think in relation to power planners being worried about uh automation of processes.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, power planners are very, very busy people.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: And if there's an element of their workload that can be automated, um they'll they'll take it, you know, because it just frees up their time to then do other jobs.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I think they can just see themselves as being more efficient in in the job that they do with technology.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, some of the the one of the problems that has been in financial planning is the rekeying of data, you know.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: So as we have this digital engagement from outset, it's capturing that data and and the the winners in the CRM space uh will essentially have a process for clients where there is no rekeying at all.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I don't think para planners have anything to to to fear from from uh automation.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and actually a lot of the power planners, some of them want to have a more client-facing role as well.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure, Sam, you probably with the conversations you have, some of them want to make the step to become advisors.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: So by automating some of the perhaps, you know, data entry or or those types of reaking, punching in for information again, it can free them up to start to improve their soft skills and start to sort of take that step towards becoming an advisor as as well.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I I think the the technology, it's it's jump on board the train, don't sort of try and stand in front of it.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_02: I think the client journey, the client experience, becoming part of the CRM system also reduces the amount of time wasted, isn't it, by administrators and power planners having to chase product providers, chase clients up for information.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: If a lot of that information could be done by the client directly straight into your CRM, happy days.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_02: They're going to be seeing more people, they're going to be sitting down with clients, they're going to be upskilling themselves more, um, and they're going to be doing exactly what their skill set is.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's doing that deep level research and improving the client experience and ensuring that the client fully understands exactly what it is they're actually getting in respect of an investment proposition.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, I like that's the way I can see it actually, is it's freeing up because it's bloody frustration.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's you know, chasing doing admin keying information is a bore.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_02: I, you know, that is like not what you're supposed to be doing when you're a chartered fellow power planner, for instance.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: The advisors, the advisors don't don't, that's not what they want to spend their time in.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually not where their biggest amount of value comes in the process of their role, you know, it's to actually engage with clients.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so they they don't want to be doing all of all of the admin and and also the actual the MDs and the CEOs of these wealth management businesses want the uh administrative team to be as efficient as possible and to leave their advisors to offer those elements of uh presenting the advice or offering reassurance uh on the advice that they've read and actually then transacting on the advice.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: So, so yeah, you know, there's um I think it's it's only good the the technology that's going to move move the move the industry forwards.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: If we look at the CRMs that are out there at the moment, what are your biggest frustrations about them at the moment?
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: Or what are your customers or clients feeding back to you are the biggest frustrations about the CRMs in the marketplace at the moment?
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_02: Gareth, you fire away with that one.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um I would happen to say integrations and the the quality of them.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I I think what's happened in the past, and this is the feedback we've had from firms that are coming on board, is that a lot of the existing integrations are thin veneers of integrations.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: They are quick wins, low-hanging fruit, um, that they can sort of tack on and go, yes, we've got that other integration, fab, we'll jump onto the next one.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think what's become apparent is that there is a a growing desire from both providers, which is the the shocker, providers and uh advisors and businesses that they the the level of integration that they want is deeper and richer.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they're not as easily uh placated with that thin veneer.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: They want something that is a lot more um uh data rich and uh things like full account opening processes.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, let's let's get rid of the dead trees that we post uh all left, right, and center.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: Let's actually fully embrace uh going from a non-existing client on a platform to a fully fledged invested client in as quick a process as we can go.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: So um a lot of the uh issues I think that firms are experiencing around the fact that they just can't get to the data that they want, things like transaction history from providers.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's we're not talking rock and rocket science, it's just having access to that information.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it's surprising how many just simply haven't tapped in to what is available.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I do want to point out that often providers get the the kind of wrap on the knuckles in the industry about not having the uh appetite to integrate or only providing certain uh buckets of information and not opening up the rest.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: We certainly haven't found that.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, providers are more than keen to actually open up the doors to push data and lots of data back and forth.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's more a case of um the newer solutions coming in and embracing uh the amount of data and and the quality of integration that can be built.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: So the integration with the product providers, instead of like the administrator or power planner or financial advisor having to sit on a telephone and wait for that information, you're sort of designing integration with the product providers to be able to find the relevant to provide they've got the they've got the data.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's just can you get it into the CRM?
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the problems that you're solving.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_02: And that in its own right is saving time and energy for firms to be able to then use that data in the right way for their clients and provide an optimal higher level of service, right?
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I like the sound of that.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_02: That sounds really interesting.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's really interesting that the product providers are, yeah, they do get wrapped on the knuckles a lot, don't know.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: They get a lot of stick from financial planners.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_02: They're always sort of bashing product providers.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not a financial planner, but I hear it, you know.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_02: So um, but maybe it's just the time it takes to get the information.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_02: I used to work for Aviva.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: I used to run a customer service team um with a joint venture with the Royal Bank of Scotland, and the amount of time that IFAs used to spend on the phone and how long it took to obtain that that information was just crazy.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_02: So I could understand, like feel their pain, because time's money when you're in the world of um, you know, financial planning.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's um it's important you get that data quickly.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_02: And the issue is, I guess, you know, every other, everywhere else you look, and when you look at the Challenger banks, etc., you can get information really quickly now, can't you?
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: Why can't you do it in financial planning?
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_02: And this is what you guys are obviously looking to to solve.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I get that, I get that integration piece now.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_02: That makes total sense.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_02: Is that the same then?
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: Is it um Rob in the in in in the wealth management world?
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's a little bit, I suppose in in a lot of the wealth managers we deal with, they'll often either be running their own back office systems, they're essentially their own platform, or they'll they'll be using kind of a smaller number of kind of providers to do that.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so it's it's a slightly different problem we have.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's not necessarily connecting to large numbers of um of individual platforms.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_03: What firms want is very deep integration because there's a higher volume essentially.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_03: And so what they're looking to do is really drive the automation.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_03: So Gareth mentioned, you know, account opening, what we want, and and Rob's mentioned the idea of kind of capturing data once.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_03: We have a concept called capture once use many, which is that we never want a piece of information to ever have to be retyped.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_03: And that applies right from the first time you you someone puts a referral on your website through to the point that you actually open the account and you fund the accounts.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_03: So for us, that's that's kind of a really big focus area is the the depth of integration as well as the breadth.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_03: But you do get that focus, particularly on the digital side, actually, and back into the hybrid of how do we give people a wealth portal that isn't just the assets that they have with us?
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_03: How do we give people a wealth portal and a client view that includes holistically their net wealth and their net worth?
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_03: And so that's where you start tying into open banking and some of the providers in the market.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and that's actually where you get a little bit back into the problem Gareth was talking about, which is which how do you get the broader set of kind of providers that people have?
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_03: Because banks are inherently covered by open banking because they need to be providing the information out.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_03: But actually, what we need is open finance, which is everyone providing pensions, you know, under the pensions dashboard and providing investment products, all providing that data out so that you can produce that kind of holistic, holistic view that the clients are looking for.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the perfect world then.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_02: So how far away are we how far away are we from that?
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know, is that something that you you think we're going to see in the near future?
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_02: What's your estimated time of arrival?
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_03: I I I don't, I think we're closer than some people realise if you if you take kind of a few of the open banking providers.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: And you combine that with a really good CRM and a digital portal, and you're not a million miles away, actually.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_03: And what we have seen is actually that the adoption of open banking in particular is pretty low in the wealth sector.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_03: You know, there's quite a few um kind of providers in in the retail sector that have got open banking done quite well on apps on their phones, but in wealth, even with providers that have implemented it, the adoption is quite low because it's it's not being pushed by the firms themselves to their clients.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_03: So I think it's actually closer than many people realize, but it isn't necessarily that the wealth management industry is pushing their clients to adopt it.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that that ties back to this idea of kind of adoption of some of these technologies is not just a problem on whether the clients want it, it's a problem on it's a problem of getting your your advisors and to kind of sell that to clients and to get clients to embrace that as well.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_03: Both sides need to embrace both the clients but also the advisors as well.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because you'd have all that technology in place, but the client doesn't want to use it.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: They literally want to simply phone them up and go through a piece of paper with them.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I've been there myself with a wheel writing company chasing me constantly for information, and their sort of ethos was that it was meant to be simplified, but I'm probably not a simple customer because I'm, you know, I've got ADHD, I'll be here, there, and everywhere looking at everything else apart from what they've actually got to put in front of me, which apparently is simplifying my life.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_02: But I find it really difficult to pay attention to it.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know what one of the things I think technology does for the financial planning profession as well, wealth management as well, right?
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_02: There's a shortage, isn't there?
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_02: There's a talent shortage.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_02: I'm aware of that.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's my area of expertise.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the firms that are adopting technology and making it simple for the advisors, power planners, administrators, wealth managers to do their jobs, and making it simple for the customers to be able to log in and use it and obtain data, I think they're the ones that are going to win in the in the race for talent.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the the less advisors that are out there, if you can turn around and say, do you know um the amount of clients you see on a weekly basis?
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, we could double that for you and we'll show you how to do it.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_02: What technology have you got in your current business at the moment?
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's an easy sell, isn't it?
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if you've got some old school kind of dusty old CRM that does absolutely fuck all, and then you've got sorry for my language, and then you've got um, you know, a brand new one like Planner, for example, that's delivering something that, you know, will take something which takes six to eight hours to do down into 30 minutes, people are going to be blown away by that.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I think from a talent attraction perspective from firms that want to grow, technology is there to be a shining beacon, a shining light, a USP as to why someone should join that firm.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think also, Sam, like technology and that customer engagement piece at the start is I can see it as um actually creating new roles within the business.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, for example, you know, there's this uh stream of financial coaching coming about um and financial education and you know that next generation and then their quest to understand and actually from the industry's perspective, we we actually we really want to convey the value of financial planning onto the mass market.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_01: So but that that in terms of the roles within the business, you know, having um you know, financial coaches essentially they can be with their laptop having with a great user experience, is actually what we've what we've been um conceiving at Amanite is is to have a nice UX experience journey where you're prospecting, offering lots of financial within it.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that could be a new role for somebody to sit with their laptop and have five Zoom calls a day um talking to prospects.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you know, I I think there's the the the technology that's going to evolve could definitely bring about new roles, but also perhaps get rid of some of the roles of the administration and and allow those people within those businesses to focus on other areas and upskill and move within a business.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: So um the technology is gonna disrupt for sure.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's wide open.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_02: You uh I we had this great conversation last week.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: You and me met up in London, didn't we, and met one of the co-founders of Monzo Bank, which is really interesting.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_02: And we were talking about that 95% of the population that just can't afford financial planning.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_02: And the only way you can really ever service those individuals is to bring some technology in, is to simplify the advice process and hand it over to them and then bring in the financial coaches, you know, and that's such an exciting area.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_02: There's 95% of the population that cannot afford the current uh, you know, charging structure that financial planners have in place.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_02: And um, it's wide open to be disruptive, and technology has to kind of lead that, but it has to work, doesn't it?
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it has to integrate, it has to work, and they're and it's complex, you know.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's got to have a beautiful UX, CX experience.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's got to be simple, um, and and it's and it and it can't go on forever.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, in terms of that whole hybrid piece, um, which we were going to come on to as a bit of a topic, actually, in this podcast, um, you know, the the the hybrid bit is for for me essentially it's it's we've we've robo was supposed to be the next big thing.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we always felt ammonite that you the hybrid is an and is the essence of having the human alongside the technology.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um so the you know, the the the hybrid advice and the servicing moving forwards can really help in terms of offering um within that omnichannel of of ways in which you reach your customers.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, referencing back to the the advice gap or the financial planning gap, as I actually like to call it, um the the the forms of why do why do you have to be in a room with somebody?
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: Why does the advisor have to go out to that person's home?
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: Why does the customer have to, and there's a lot of apathy from people, the general public, to actually get involved in this stuff.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: So so by having online digital remote engagement with people, it's it's it is a new way of doing things.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: And the pandemic very much pushed that forward.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't see business, uh, new business go down during the pandemic.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: If anything, it went up.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, people have more time to actually think about financial planning and getting their their finances in order.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_01: So so I think from the from the the mass market, financial coaching, the different roles evolving within businesses, segmentation of the of the of the client bank or who you're going after.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: I do feel that there's different technologies, providers, um, and and and and UXCX within those segments that will play out over time.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think we're there now ready to create this kind of perfect hybrid model?
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_02: Because there was a company called Claro Money that came out, and they were all about exactly that this hybrid model.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you can go on it through an app.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_02: And if you want to lean into a financial coach, you could lean into a financial coach.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_02: And to me, that's like brilliant.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that would that to me sounded like the perfect model.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_02: If I wanted to build a financial planning business, I that's how I would want to do it.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'd want that.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, actually, I'll tell you what I would do, right?
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_02: The top end, I'd have financial education, I'd have an online platform for people to get financial education, right?
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_02: Get their finances in order.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_02: That could be a subscription-based model.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_02: They come in, they deal with the financial education, they get their budgeting in place, debt management in place, all those typical types of things.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_02: The next phase would be once they've got some money, then maybe not enough to actually go in and actually sit down with a financial planner who only sees 250k and charges 1%.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_02: They come into this, you know, online portal where it's a bit DIY.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_02: They can play around with some cash flow forecasting, they can answer some risk-based questions, and then from the end of it, they can invest some money in an ICE, or they might be able to set up a pension, or they might buy some protection.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like 0.25% charging structure.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_02: But if they want to lean into those financial coaches, they can.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_02: And also, hopefully, from the community they've been in before, they would have already built that confidence to lean into on-demand, you know, on-demand video explanations of videos, et cetera, or leaning into the financial coaches.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, you know, hopefully, those individuals also, if you think about it, more than likely are going to be those that are going to be inheriting large sums of money.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_02: So already they're in your, they're you're they're already in your ecosystem.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_02: So as soon as they're ready to drop down into the wealth management side where they can deliver full financial planning.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_02: Well, actually, they can get financial planning at any stage throughout their journey because you don't have to be regulated to give a full financial plan, do you?
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_02: But in reality, they probably get it when they're getting the wealth management side.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_02: But they're filtered down into the wealth management side where product sales can actually happen, right?
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_02: You've got the regulated financial planner in there that can actually uh start talking about that investment piece and maybe they've just inherited some money or whatever it might well be.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I like that three-tiered process structure, and I see like the hybrid bit being like the real USP, the real puller.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_02: But I think, you know, how many people are out there that don't have money to invest, that are actually struggling with money?
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_02: And you look at someone like Pete Matthew at Meaningful Money, his financial academy is doing over six figures just purely on financial education.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_02: And off the back of that financial education, he is inundated with leads into his wealth management business.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_02: But it's the gap in between, it's the do-it-yourself bit in between.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_02: That's the bit that needs to be fixed.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, we just talked about Claro money.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_02: They they went under, didn't they, Rob?
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so so I mean, I think it's that piece where the margins within financial guidance and coaching are extremely low.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_01: So you need a incredibly scalable business with tremendous marketing budget um to make that work.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a tough gig to make that to make a success of that.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, I think what the the that's why you need the advice element.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's where the the money is essentially, in terms of the better margins.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_01: So it's marrying the two together.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so so so yeah, you know, the but there's absolutely no doubt in terms of uh a marketing strategy and coming back to sort of CRM discussion, Robert, you were talking about you know, prospecting and the digital and both Gareth and Robert's CRM, CLM systems are improving that end customer experience.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's something we've if you think about the Salesforces or um you know the other CRMs out there from 10 years ago, there wasn't too much about customers, you know, it was about the the user of the CRM and the tools and functionality within it for the user.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_01: But there's definitely more of an emphasis now around the customer experience, the data gathered from the customer, and then the the customer having a nice digital experience.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then you start to think about that, and you're thinking, well, actually, there's a huge market out there that's untapped.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_01: So, how can we make the user experience within those CRMs or the integrations they're doing with perhaps companies like Aminoite to make that user experience uh so much better?
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_01: And they and then these people want to engage in financial planning because a lot of people are scared of it, don't feel they merit it, confused by the jargon.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, for all sorts of different reasons, they they they don't get involved.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, it's it's uh it's it's an interesting topic.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_02: So adoptation, you know, this is the way, okay.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_02: So when you look at your CRMs now and the way you're talking about it, it's not like you're trying to fix a massive problem in the UK, right, around the advice gap.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's not really about that, it's about improving the current financial planning and wealth management firms out there, not only the experience for their staff, the people who use the CRM, but the user experience for the client.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_02: And that's something that the existing dusty old CRMs are kind of struggling with.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_02: And you guys are coming in to fix that, to improve that experience, the overall customer experience, you know, and that's something which is wide open.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_02: So if you've got a business, financial planning is doing really well, it's wide open.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_02: There's a huge amount of opportunity in a traditional sense of financial planning or wealth management.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_02: But what can be improved?
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, speed, accuracy, data, and customer experience.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_02: And that's exactly what you guys are actually working on, right?
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where the opportunity actually is.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_02: Don't try and create something that's gonna fix the problem for the whole gener a whole generation of people in the UK.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_02: If you're a business, you're a financial planning company, you want to make more money, you want to speed up your processes, you need to start looking at a better CRM with guys like yourselves that are actually constantly evolving it and integrating it with other areas that are going to speed up the process, both the planners, poppers, and the customer, right?
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_01: And and just to throw out there, Robert, have you got any views on hybrid?
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, uh there's um hype, the word hybrid is banded about.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh, how do you define hybrid and and what what's uh what's wealth dynamics doing in that space?
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I think there's a lot of there's a lot of different views on what the word hybrid means.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_03: It's the kind of thing you can use a little bit like CRM as we talked about earlier, and different people will take away different definitions.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_03: But for us, it's about being able to offer a blend of the traditional and the digital.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_03: So kind of self-service combined with that human touch.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_03: But the key thing that we're focusing on, and and I think Garrett talked about it a little bit earlier as well, is this idea that you what you want to do is give firms a toolkit that allows them to dial up or dial down the amount of digital human kind of interaction they're providing.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_03: So if you've got a younger client, you know, slightly lower AUM, no real complex needs, you want to dial up the digital side, dial down the kind of the trust and the human bit a little bit, and that lets you offer a better cost, a more cost-effective service that gets them in the door, you know, and gives them something valuable.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_03: Conversely, when you've got someone kind of coming up, you know, within five years of retirement and they're planning their retirement, they've got a couple of different pensions, you know, they want to start in caching offshore bonds, they want to go into drawdown.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_03: Actually, realistically, you know, is someone going to want to go through that journey purely on a on a digital app?
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_03: Probably not.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_03: And that's where you want to be able to dial up the amount of human interaction and dial down slightly the digital.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_03: And I think a little bit, that's what we've seen.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_03: If you look back with some of the rogue advisors in the market that a lot of the wealth managers and banks launched, is they were very siloed.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_03: They were almost their own business.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_03: And there was no real overlap between the two parts of the business, the human and the and the digital.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_03: And so, you know, people who were on the human side who might want a little bit more automation, you know, and trade off a little bit more for lower fees for that, couldn't couldn't tap into that.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_03: And conversely, people on the digital side couldn't tap into advice.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so for us, being able to offer that blend of both, that's that's what hybrid is for us.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_03: It's being able to offer the right level and the right balance of digital and human interaction for clients based on their needs.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's understanding the the the customer essentially, you know, and that's and and and then turning the volume dial up on the on how much digital exposure they get.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's uh and within that is that segmentation of the of the client bank, you know, ultimately by by the wealth management or IFA practice.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um Gareth, what about you?
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_01: And uh how do you define the term hybrid and and how are you employing it within within Planner?
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think I'm gonna repeat a lot of what Robert said to be off fair on that one.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_00: So hybrid um does get bounded about a fair bit.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I think what it should mean is that uh the option of the the tailored uh advice process.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_00: So whether 10% of it is is digitally produced or digitally led, and 90% is face-to-face, or or whether it's a a blend anywhere between, I think that's the way it has to go because ultimately people by people, um, you know, it's and talking about money is still a difficult conversation for many people.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's not something that's as natural as talking about what mobile phone they're buying or you know, the car they're going to go and purchase.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's um it's still something where the rapport that you build with that advisor often makes the journey of getting uh the financial advice or or plan more enjoyable.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think if you fully extract away the human touch, it it almost lowers the value and the benefit that I think the end consumer gets from that advice process, you know, the the comfort that they're doing the right thing, you know, the fact that they can go and spend all their life savings because actually they're good.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that whole hybrid approach is um it has to be something that's tailored on a per client basis.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you've got to listen to the needs of uh the the clients that you're attracting as a business, and uh and it can't, and I'd agree, that's where the the robo advice um options have failed because they just pigeonholed everyone.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they just uh it was a very black or white, no, you know, a hundred different shades of uh of in-between.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_00: It was just simply um, you're going down this route or you're going down that route.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I I'm excited by what hybrid advice will bring because I think it it's essentially an era of advice firms realizing the technology is there to support them where it can uh improve the the process with clients, but not necessarily replacing them.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think it ever will.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think people will always prefer to talk to someone about these sorts of topics.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_00: So so yeah, I think it's more an it's uh an era of better tech adoption to just drive the efficiencies where they can, but um allow and that could be you know using Zoom instead of face-to-face, but it's still bringing the advisor into that process where they're needed.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_02: Are you seeing a correlation between firms that uh are adopting the technology enthusiastically with those firms also that are uh investing in marketing and social media, maybe providing content on YouTube that's coaching element, you know, a coaching element, you know, putting information out there to the public.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_02: Do you find that the firms that are doing that are also embracing technology more than the firms you are?
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_02: Is there a correlation between the two?
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_00: I would say yes, there probably is.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think there are a bunch of firms that don't need to market.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I mean, you you mentioned with the the likes of Pete Matthew, uh, he has put in a huge amount of work over the last decade to produce this kind of evergreen constant trickle of uh business.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you could argue that he could stop tomorrow and it would still positively benefit his business for you know 20, 30 years, most likely, because the library of content he's put out there is so vast and so rich that um it will have a long-lasting effect.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I think marketing is a tricky one for advice businesses because it's not a case of just building a website, it's not a case of you know just some glossy uh Instagram posts.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's more to it, it's it's a the selling the um the benefits, and and I think for most firms it still is referral uh heavily more so than actual organic marketing.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, I think those that are adopting marketing um are most likely looking at tech uh options as well, because you know, look at the the rise of things like HubSpot, where you can automate your, you know, the marketing process generally, it doesn't matter what industry you're in.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think they're then as as was discussed earlier, they're looking at the other tools that exist in financial uh advice and and planning and going, well, why isn't that a slick?
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, why why can't that bit of software join and talk to that other bit of software?
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I think there is a link between the two, but I do also think there's there are a significant number of firms out there that aren't necessarily marketing, but are looking at improving the tech almost as a precursor to marketing.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they want to make sure that their processes are ready for more clients and and uh more inquiries rather than sort of driving a funnel of people towards a leaky ship, you know.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so I think yeah, there's there's a mix of everyone at the moment.
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's a really good explanation.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I think a great way that technology, I love that, driving people towards a leaky ship because yeah, you've got to be careful, haven't you?
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_02: If you turn on the lead gen tap and all of a sudden they're coming in, can you actually deliver the service that you're hoping to be able to provide?
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_02: And on the other hand, as well, technology is again saving you time to be able to focus on creating content with purpose and meaning.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, some of those advisors that are really passionate about financial education, for example, and simplification of financial planning as a whole, you know, they haven't got the time to be able to really create the content they want to create, but technology will be able to free them up to do that.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, I love it.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of goes hand in hand, really.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'm interested in the marketing element side of it because you know, there's a lot of there's a lot of the younger advisors that are coming through that are really throwing themselves into like social media, YouTube, etc.
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_02: And um it's a slog, it's an absolute slog.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm wondering whether or not there's a simpler way for these guys.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think that that's possibly a piece around you know, younger, younger advisors coming in need to create their own book, you know.
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah that that that there is that organic need to create interest.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so but then you know, again, it's looking at a at a at a at a level at which, you know, if you which firm are you talking to?
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_01: Are you talking to a firm that's very comfortable and it's happy with its 100 quite well on?
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: Off clients per advisor?
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_01: Or are you talking to a business which has, you know, um perhaps quite a lot of um younger advisors in it that need a sit needs a CRM system that's that got that has all the HubSpot type functionality within it, that does marketing, that can do, you know, um videos and all of those sorts of things.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_01: So again, I think it sort of depends on the every every uh advice firm is different.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_01: We know that.
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_01: I know that from working within the industry.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think it's a question of being able to have the choice of which CRM system works for your organization.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_01: There's definitely like a flavor associated to whichever type of firm you are and what audience you're going after.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_03: What we do tend to see a little bit on our side is actually a lot of firms do focus on the marketing, and some firms, particularly on the financial education side, but they're targeting their existing client base rather than necessarily seeing that as a lead gen to they see marketing as a way of making those existing clients more sticky and deepening the relationship.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_03: Now, I think I saw stat recently that about 50% of clients only get contacted, you know, uh uh every six months within within the advice industry.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_03: And actually, marketing gives you a way to outreach more frequently uh and kind of more consistently with some of those clients who maybe are not as engaged on a on a broad basis.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_03: You need to be slightly careful because clients also want personalization, right?
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_03: They don't want super generic content.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_03: And so you you need to be able to segment your clients and deliver the right type of content to the right type of clients so that you're you're kind of you're not sending them stuff that doesn't feel like you know who they are, which will just turn them off and lead to them unsubscribing.
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_03: But I think firms that are doing it well are segmenting their existing client book, working out what kind of content is is relevant and then delivering that to those existing clients as a way of deepening the relationship.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_03: So actually, that's as big a part of marketing as as lead gen.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_02: No, appreciate your feedback on that.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's really interesting.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_01: Rob, where are you with this?
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_01: No, so I was just going to say also around consumer duty as well, you know, in terms of actually going back into the existing client bank that you have and evidencing that you're offering value to every single client.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's something that a CRM needs to needs to cater for and and to be able to actually cross-sell and looking looking for revenue opportunities within your existing book, you know.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_01: So um that's something I'm sure that that planner and um and wealth dynamics uh um uh offer and and have considered um within within the functionality within their systems.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_02: Squeezing as much lemon juice out of the lemon as you possibly can with your existing clients.
• 1:08:41
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 1:08:41
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 1:08:42
  SPEAKER_02: Well, listen, thank you so much for coming on today and and and sharing um everything about your both both of your both of your plat uh both of your CRMs, mixing up the platforms of CRMs there, but both sharing, you know, about your CRMs and the differences between the two and your thoughts and your visions and your your insight into it.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you so much for joining us today on the Financial Planner Life podcast.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_02: Is there anything more to add, Rob?
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think it'll be really nice just to get a 60-second um major USP of each business and just really why you get out of bed in the morning.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_01: Why did you create planner Gareth, Robert?
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_01: Why um why are you chief strategy officer?
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, just one thing that you think defines your business would be would be nice to finish on.
• 1:09:32
  SPEAKER_00: Go on, Gareth.
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, for me, getting out of bed every day, first thing I think of is right, okay, what integration can we be building at the moment that streamlines and shapes time off uh a part of an advisor's uh day-to-day life?
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think I I'm also uh a massive lover of the community that we've built around Plant.
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_00: So actually, every day is kind of uh jumping into the community to see what brilliant ideas they've come up with.
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And um, it's a really inspiring uh way to produce a solution.
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, I get a lot of um a lot of kickback, a lot of enjoyment of actually working closely with the the firms that we're trying to build a solution for, um, rather than just making assumptions around what they want.
• 1:10:27
  SPEAKER_00: I love the fact that we have this amazing little team behind us uh and community that um are working with us.
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's just lovely.
• 1:10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Community is is everything.
• 1:10:39
  SPEAKER_01: And and uh having got to know you, Gareth, I uh that's really from the heart because um we feel like we're in that community a bit with with with you guys, and you really do want the feedback and you want to create something that is is needed and wanted.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you're not in an ivory tower, you're you're you're very much in the nitty-gritty and in the weeds with everybody.
• 1:11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, 100%.
• 1:11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 1:11:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um Robert, what about what about you?
• 1:11:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, what what uh uh same question?
• 1:11:09
  SPEAKER_03: No, I I think I I don't want to sound a little bit like I'm repeating what Gara said there, actually, but I think you know, for for me it's working with with the clients, it's working with with the broader industry and people we know, both prospective clients, people who may never be clients, you know, consultants, looking at how we can improve the industry, how we can make kind of wealth managers less focused on administrative tasks and more focused on adding value to clients.
• 1:11:32
  SPEAKER_03: And um, I think that's a real obsession of myself and a lot of people in my business, you know, down to the point that we will obsessively count clicks.
• 1:11:39
  SPEAKER_03: You know, me and my colleagues are forever counting how many clicks does it to take to do this action or how many buttons do we have to do, how many screens does it take um to complete a suitability review, how many clicks does it take to open an account?
• 1:11:50
  SPEAKER_03: Because what we want to do is actually get people out of our system.
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I know that sounds a little bit odd, but we don't want people in the CRM necessarily.
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_03: We want them out with their clients or on the phone or engaging.
• 1:12:00
  SPEAKER_03: You know, what you don't want to be doing is actually in a tool busy retyping lots of information, you know, and and taking up time that could be better spent elsewhere.
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_03: So I think from us, it's and what gets me up is that slight kind of focus and obsession of me and my colleagues and my clients uh and our clients and our prospects on how do we actually get people out the tool and servicing clients rather than spending all their time in in kind of this this database with a screen, which is kind of what a lot of uh traditional CRM tools have really been.
• 1:12:27
  SPEAKER_03: They're a they're a data entry bucket, they're not a they're not something to help you do your job better.
• 1:12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Great answers.
• 1:12:35
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much for your time.
• 1:12:37
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, everybody.
• 1:12:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you.
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
• 1:12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 1:12:42
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.