Latest / Financial Planner Life Podcast / How to triple your turnover as a financial planner, the private client experience & the benefits of a partnership.

Transcript

How to triple your turnover as a financial planner, the private client experience & the benefits of a partnership. · Financial Planner Life Podcast

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, and welcome to the Financial Planner Life Podcast, where we talk to professionals at varying stages in their career about what it's like working in the wonderful world of financial planning and financial advice.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: This podcast is proudly sponsored by Recruit UK, a recruitment consultancy specifically focused on the financial services.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: They have a niche specialism, recruiting, within the financial planning industry, so check out their website for the latest job opportunities, hints and tips, and blog articles.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: And today's guest is James Roberts.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: He is the owner and one of the founders of Partners Wealth Management in the City of London.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: Today James shares how he took this business to 2.5 billion under management and over 100 staff.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: We talk about the difference between being self-employed, say under a network, and what it's like to be a partner and what financial planners will get from a solid partnership.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: One thing for sure is that at the heart of partners' wealth proposition is an exceptional client experience.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: And James delves deep into that as to why there needs to be a great client experience, the benefit that then has to the partners of partners' wealth, especially around turnover, how you can take yours all the way up to one million pounds.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: We talk about things like mental health within financial planning also and lots of other things.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: It was a great podcast, great guy.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: I hope you enjoy.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: Fabulous.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's good news.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_02: When you say where we are, what do you mean?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: Has it affected you at all, COVID or anything?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, where we are, you know, we're we're 10th, 11th of February.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's on it's a lot, we you know, we've been locked down six weeks.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's a hundred people within the firm, and I I feel really responsible for all of them keeping the the energy up, different people in different spaces, but actually, generally, given where we are, I couldn't be in a better place.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: Fantastic, fantastic.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I suppose coming to the end of the tax year as well, busy time for you guys.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's good.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because what do you want in lockdown?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: You want to be busy, you want to be mentally occupied because it stops you drifting away to the uh, you know, to keep going stir crazy.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: Well, to be fair, I have not had anybody on the podcast who has a hundred people that work in their financial planning firm.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: The kind of people I've spoken to so far have been small to medium enterprises, really.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I wouldn't class a hundred man, you know, a hundred-person financial planning firm was really a small firm.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: So that must have been a bit of a shocker to you, being a London-based firm, predominantly city, where I mean, you're seeing your clients on a face-to-face basis.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: That must have been a proper shock to the system, having to send everybody home and work from home.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: How did you bounce back from that?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we were we we were a little bit of luck, tiny bit of planning.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we we've got people who have been working for you know a couple of two, three hours away from London, come into London a bit.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: So everything is cloud-based, everything was remote beforehand if it needed to be.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: So so technology-wise, we could adjust really easily.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing that was lucky is we just partnered with 7.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: And literally, as lockdown started, they went completely digital application, completely digital reporting.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: So that was the skill bit was that we knew we needed that one day.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: The luck bit was we got it just as we needed it.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's not easy.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you're used to having 80 colleagues in a room to bounce around with, it's more of a dislocation than if you're used to being a planner from home and you're still working from home but not touching out colleagues.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Our guys have gone from yeah, 80 and banter to remote, but I think they've been brilliant.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not just saying that sample attitude, genuinely think people have been brilliant.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Gives the lie to the fact that the next generation aren't robust, you know, mentally strong, just puts a drives a coach and horses through all that rubbish.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, good.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: That's good to hear.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: I felt exactly the same way, actually.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, especially with my recruitment business, you know, it's a fen, it's very much one of those roles where you kind of need people in the office because you feel like you need to have that environment, you need that buzz and everything.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: And there's an element of trust there as a business owner.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: And you're thinking, God, if people are at home working at home, are they working?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: And um, no, I'm I've been blown away by the guy separates the the workers from the non-workers.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: The ones that didn't are no longer with us, and the ones that did are here working hard and still doing well.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so yeah, for me, it's been a real eye-opener.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: I've enjoyed it, to be honest with you.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: I haven't found it as terrible as lockdown has been, as terrible as COVID has been, it's totally changed the way I think.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it's totally changed the way that I manage.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it's relieved a lot of stress and pressure around things like control that I wasn't aware I had.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it really allowed me just to step back and let go, really, and allow me to try new things.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: I think, you know, you know, stepping into things like podcasting, way more video stuff.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I didn't get out as much as I as I should when I was a recruitment consultant and when I was going out and doing my BD, for example.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: But jumping on videos, love it.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I can have two or three a day, and I've met some amazing people during lockdown that I wouldn't have done if it wasn't for lockdown.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: So every cloud in all that kind of um all that kind of jazz, really.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the best businesses, you know, yourself included defin in in recruitment, are stepping back and thinking strategically about this.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: If it just in our own business, we're not thinking for one minute, if there was a hundred percent vaccine tomorrow and this uh the whistle for all clear blue, yeah, we would not put all our staff back together in the office, you know, even without healthcare concern in the world.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: They are enjoying the flexibility.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely, there's a productivity gain of what we're calling best of both, home partly, um, integrate, you know, bouncing ideas off and stuff partly.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then you have you've got the multiplier effect of how you reach out, how you market differently.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're you know, we're looking at videos and many different things that are now really coming together.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: And one thing to sort of follow up on that that we've noticed is um companies that were struggling to hire previously um are allowed to, well, they're able to now spread their nets wider because there are good quality candidates perhaps in the region which wouldn't have traveled into the office every single day.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um and what we're finding with some of these firms where they're kind of saying, look, you know, you can work from home two, two, three, four days a week.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't matter, you don't have to be in the office.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: I've just placed somebody into a North Wales firm who lives in the city of London, you know, and it's it's it's bizarre.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of movement, nets have been widened, and um, I think certain firms are going to really reap the benefits of that if they just think a little bit more outside of the box of their hiring strategies, power planners and stuff, you know, there's an absolute shortage of power planners.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: Then do you need a power planner in the office all the time?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: And some people say no.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I tell you who is doing well, the outsourced power planning companies, they're doing really well.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Verve Group, I know uh Kathy Harrison, who runs the Verve Group, Parasols, and all that, that she said she's so busy, she's never been never been so busy.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: So doing quite doing quite well.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: Great stuff.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, James, you know, I've got you on the podcast today because I wanted to bring somebody on that's built a business from scratch.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and um, you're certainly one of those people that has done that.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, like you said, you've just said you've got a hundred people working for uh for you.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I speak to financial planners on a daily basis.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: Some of those people really want to start their own businesses, and I don't think they can really fathom the ability to run a business with a hundred people in it.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I want to pick your brain around that, really.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: And it's partners wealth.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: You've been running that now for nearly 16 years, I believe.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: Is that right?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's right.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: Crack in.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: Could you just give us an overview of how you set, you know, where you know how partners wealth came about, why why you decided to set up partners wealth?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: I will do, but let me just preface that with two things.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um three things, right?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: One is we I don't have a hundred people working for me.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely the mindset is 100 people working with me because it's a partnership.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and secondly, we definitely didn't set out to have a hundred-person firm.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't just me.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: The the story was there were uh four of us.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: We we worked for um a small independent sort of financial advisor boutique that actually got bought bought by UBS in 2004 when they're marching to take over the world.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: The four of us just looked at each other, we'd been ex-equitable life, ex-coots, and we just went, no, let's go and do our own thing with two principles in mind.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the first was we wanted to be free to represent our clients, we didn't want to sell the products of a bank on behalf of the bank, that's not client-centric.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the second was we actually wanted to be free from micromanagement.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: So those two traits run through the business from 2004 to today, and they're really, really important.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: And we added a third, we were just lucky the right way to set up at the time was a partnership, and then we came it became very clear to us just before RDR that we wanted to set the business up as a formal partnership so that people who were experienced, they knew what they were doing, they could join PWM and a lot and and grow into partnership with the business.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that's that's absolutely fundamental because it gives you a different mindset.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: So when something like you know, a COVID happens, or you are all in it together.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um much perhaps this look, there's some there's some limited companies with really good employer employee culture, you know, it doesn't have to be that, but there is something about partnership that there is a culture that you do all care together.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, advisors stand on their own feet, obvious, obviously, but that helps, I think, and I think it helps with the clients as well.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Clients understand partnership is different to limited company and being looked after by an employee of a limited company.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: So that's really helped us.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't know if it's useful if I give you sort of a couple of the steps on the journey as well.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that would be that would be really useful.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I want to come back to that partnership thing as well at some point because um it it it sort of got my mind thinking away.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: I'm always keen to learn a little bit more when someone brings something up and my mind starts ticking.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: So we'll come back to that in a bit.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, please do sort of tell me about some of the steps you went through to get this off the ground.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, when a business fails, the first question is is it going to be successful?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you've got to have the the you know the successful initial drivers.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: But after you've got that, it's it's how do you build in your momentum?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: And and we quickly did it by just attracting further like-minded individuals.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that all happened very ad hoc.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this is something that business owners then have to do quite quickly once they've had their first flash of success.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: You have to understand you're going to hit a ceiling of complexity.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: What worked for you when you're small won't work as you're big, and you've got to get rhythms and processes set down.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we were very lucky, RDR paper got published, end of commission, start of fees, and we looked at it, we thought, well, that's what we do for clients anyway.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: So we were able to build a process to say, let's get written down our process.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: We had some fabulous input.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: That would be my first top tip.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Get input from an industry consultant.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Ours was Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach and Brett Davidson uh from FP Advance.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they're different programs.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, Brett's more industry-specific, gold dust for PWM.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: But what it meant was we we got down, yeah, everybody recognizes this now, your process.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: But we had ours just before everybody else, before RDR, by about six months.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And all that meant was around RDR, when there was all that dislocation in the industry, we looked like a good home to come to.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: So we suddenly had this step change in size, and that then gives you the next level and then the next level.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then the next tier for us was trying to find a way to crack what I call the independence conundrum.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Independence has got to be the best thing for the client, but independence is about being free to invest as you need to for that client to look after their needs, but good business management is about systems and processes and custody.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: So this our industry has got this implicit conflict between losing lots of platforms and lots of product and order.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't truly be great for clients in a technology age if you're trying to use different clients for different bits of technology, and that's where we got very lucky, and we've deepened this now with with our relationship with 7im.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: We can use absolutely any investment manager that came up with this brilliant ARC-based independent investment process, but a unified custody methodology, or an ability to, you know, some advisors still like to go out to the discretionary managers.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got to build in process consciously while staying true to your principles.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: So that's yeah, that's how we built over time.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: That's how you did it.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: So when you started, then did you say there were four of you?
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, cool.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: So you started as a part, so as four of you in there, we said, right, we're gonna build did you have an idea in your head that you were going, because you said at the beginning you didn't think it would get to a hundred people.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: So you didn't have a plan in your head that you were gonna get to a hundred people.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: You just found three other like-minded people who wanted to deliver a higher level of financial planning, fee-based pre-RD pre-RDR, and to do it the right way.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you'd obviously move from some of the private banks.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I assume you'd already been working within a level of client, high net worth client, perhaps ultra high net worth client.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: So you you were aware of the service perhaps that they were getting, but possibly more aware of the service that they weren't getting, or perhaps what there was lacking.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: So you decided, right, okay, let's all come together, let's all set this business up and we'll do it as a partnership together.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: That's a like almost a kind of I spoke to somebody today, and he was like, the worst thing I ever did was have a partnership.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there should be one manager and that's it.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: And that was his mentality.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm really intrigued around that partnership model and how you've managed to grow it so well because it to me it feels like there's too many people making decisions within your business, or have I got the wrong idea of how a partnership is set.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: So so you are absolutely right.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: This industry is littered with not good businesses run by good people who ultimately clash with each other and fall out.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's you know, classically, you fall out over control, um, direction, uh, or money.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's often just because one person wants to move faster than than than the others.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um I was lucky enough, you know, the principal four partners um, you know, in the business from an early stage were sort of David Stoll, um X Scott Goman Equitable Life Scott Gominharis and UBS, Tim Davies, yeah, uh sim Similar and John Sutton.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: And we're very different people and we understand that.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, there's just a little bit of tolerance, you know, all having the same basic desires to grow something good.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Those founding principles of it's about the clients, it's about the clients, it's about the clients.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: That is really important.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've got that founding principle and a desire to grow, then you can reach accommodation.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: We actually then did some psychological profiling that I would or or cognitive profiling that I would urge to anyone.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's called Colby.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Colby, yeah.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: It looks at your aptitude for detail process or speed at which you like to change.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And some of the other partners are very slow change, and I I like to drive change.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: So understanding that, that it's not that I'm an arse who wants to drive too quickly and drive the bus over a cliff, and and I understand that they're not deliberately being an anchor.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: When you've got that profiled numerically, you speak to each other in a different language so that you understand for someone who wants to change slowly, I need to give my partners a lot of evidence when I want them to come with me on something.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: And they need to understand that I am going to push and challenge to drive forward, and they've got to see that as a good thing.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: And once you've got that ability, you've got a chance of not falling out with each other.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: So when you did when you so we did something similar in our business, it was called 16 Personalities.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and um, very, very good, you know, you do it and it gives you an analysis of who you are, but also I could read my other business partners what what what he was and some of my directors and leaders and things in the business.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I found it very, very, very useful.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: So, what did you do?
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: So you got that Colby analysis done.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: Did you have a coach that came in and then sat you all down and then sort of picked apart each other's personalities, strengths, and weaknesses, and how you should, or did you just come together and do it yourselves naturally?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: So Colby came from strategic coach.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that that actually uh, yeah, Tim and David, uh Tim and uh John went on beforehand and then I I joined.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: But actually it was clear I could implement it bet faster than them because they were very good at detail, but less at quick start.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: So we just agreed I would go on that, but we were all because we'd all started on it, the ideas came from that, we understood it, and now we embed it for every single employee.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um how do you monitor how do you monitor that?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: So they do a Colby test when they come in every single employee.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: Do you does that then get fed into like a database?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then you within your database you can see like the actual kind of I don't know, personality typical across your business, or so I've done your I've done the 16 PF that you you did as well.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: And and Colby is different because it's definitely not your personality.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: You can be um you can be a high-detail extrovert or high detail introvert, it doesn't matter.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's your hardwired action, methodology preferences for action.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, we we absolutely we we put it into a system.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: So when we're putting a team together for any project or anything, we actually will put the Colbys together and tell people the areas they're going to clash and how to work through that.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um we also look use it in hiring, you know, a power planner or an administrator, it is a we're in a regulated industry, it is something that requires a reasonable attention to detail and a reasonable desire to work in process.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: So if someone has an absolute abhorrence of process, they're not going to enjoy that job.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: So so it's part of you know our screening.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's just and it's helped build harmony ultimately because you understand people.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the thing is, you've done that and and and and fair play, because you've obviously got the evidence to prove that.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you've if you've implemented that from the very beginning and it's something you still implement now, then obviously it works for you.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: So that's a great bit of advice for anybody that's starting out to grow a business.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: Implement Colby as early as possible.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I also we talk about here as well, when you came together and you had an idea to push, you know, to create a business.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: When you say you put a framework in place in the very beginning, will you, and this is some of the things, and I'll be honest, this is some of the areas that I've struggled.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: The reason why I'm asking these questions, because I'm always interested in people that built their businesses, is that the area that I struggled with the most, because I came in and acquired 50% of this business, yeah, I always felt like a bit of an intruder, I guess.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: And then I'm a bit like you, I push things forward, whereas my business partner was very um was more risk-adverse.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um so we've had to learn to get to understand each other's way of working.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: The one thing we always lacked was a clear direction, a clear path of where we want to go.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: And most recently, I've now outsourced to a finance director who's been a finance director for multiple recruitment companies, and he's now my external finance director.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: So instead of me turning to my business partner or something, expecting the figures and the things that I want based on his how he interprets it, it wasn't good enough for me.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_02: So now I get to turn a turn to a finance director who has no part of my business apart from to tell me what's working and what's not.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's like this weight that weight was off weight's been lifted from my shoulders.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: I really, really like it.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so excited by doing it because I put my hand up and I think a lot of people out there run businesses.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of almost like um you're just kind of going, aren't you?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: You're just moving, and before you know it, 10 years goes by and you haven't really you've gone so far just on will, basically, but there hasn't actually been a plan.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: There hasn't been anything put into place.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: And now I'm building that plan.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: I'm really excited about it.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: But did you say you built that plan from the get-go before you even no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, absolutely.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: No, we we certainly didn't, you know, the business was founded just amongst four people who wanted to be out of not taken over by UBS.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, nothing wrong with UBS, we still still work with them, but it just was wasn't for us.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: So there was no plan other than survive.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right, okay.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, the case was the the four people in the business, you know.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: I I I I speak from a personal point of view, I was lucky enough to be in business with three brilliant people who had enough tolerance between the the the the four others to accommodate each other and and and and and similar ambition.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, although we couldn't have articulated our vision, you do see a lot of IFA practices where they fall out because one's not pulling.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Their weight.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: You could never have said that about any of the founders of Partners Wealth Management.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at BlackRock, you know, biggest investment manager in the world now, trillions, they were founded by six partners.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as it happens, all six of them today, you know, multi-billionaires that they're there, or billionaires at least that they all are, you know, one of them went off and headed personnel and HR, you know, one of them trade.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: They've all got different areas, but they all absolutely focused on extreme ambition.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I wouldn't say we were extremely ambitious, but we were growing.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then the idea came a lot of it from Strategic Coach that taught me how to set goals, think about your vision.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I still remember this day, just around RDR, I came back, I think we had 340 million of assets under management by 2012.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: So begin eight years, and that's good.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: But I did this presentation of strategic coach.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: I said, guys, we're going to have a billion by 2018.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: And the only reason I came up with the numbers was because I've been told to set a big scary goal, and it'll change your thinking because you won't think linear, you'll think discontinuity.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I stood up and I presented that and I came up with some numbers as to how we get there and what we need to do and change.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw them all looking at me like he's crazy.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: And and and I didn't believe it.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: But we came to this conclusion that actually we were gonna try, and we weren't gonna be afraid to make the big changes.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that would be my next thing.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid in business to to set yourself a really big goal because it will change your thinking.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: And our thinking became we're gonna emancipate some of the advisors in the business so they become partners in the business, everyone's got a stake in the game.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna actively now get a brand, get people going out there, um, etc.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: etc., so people can be attracted in.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it just changed our mindset, and you become more professional because when there's other people coming into your business, other advisors, the worst thing that you ever hear when you interview someone is, oh, they promised me this, this, and this, and they didn't deliver it.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: So we got really clear on what we would do for people and what we couldn't do.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: So we would only hire people, and we still to this day have this concept of no surprises.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, we in the now we have a bit of a lead generation system which can help, but we still only hire people who have experience and have their own transferable book or their belief in it.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: But back in the day, so many people said, Oh, well, if you could just give us a few leads from your way, and we just went, we don't do that.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it would have been so easy to be, oh, we'll scramble up something for you and give them disappointments.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's a sign of desperation, also saying that you can deliver, you can provide something to someone just to get them into your business on the hope that they join you.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think that your the shift of expectation becomes far greater.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: It comes onto you as an employer to be able to deliver to them, otherwise, they are unhappy.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I like what you've done.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: You're making it very, very clear as to what you can and can't offer.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: And it seems to me what you're doing is you're building a proposition that revolves around the client.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: So the client has the most amazing experience possible, which means the advisor feels comfortable and happy that if they're going out and talking to their clients, that they're going to be able to bring them in and keep them happy and keep them there.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: So your emphasis is more on supporting the financial planner as opposed to feeding the financial planner.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: Did you say that's right?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, uh there's always this conflict.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: Who are actually my clients?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, there's an end client, but I I still like us to have the mentality.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Our partners are the businesses' clients.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's not meaning we're a network where we're, I think, very actively the network sells to the advisors and the advisors and the advisors of the clients that that that's that's not in this case, people are partners, they're within the business.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, you what the duty of partners wealth is, is to give each advisor, and this is actually our this is actually the number one thing of our purpose.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: We want to have the best proposition in the UK for clients and advisors.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: So when an advisor goes out there with everything, it doesn't matter whether it's a cash flow tool or our tax optimization strategy or the the the genuinely independent research proposition.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's a private office so they can pull in deposits and wills and everything around that, or just the reporting, which is stunning and ordering.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: That whole linear journey, it's got to be the best.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we're striving to do.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then you give advisors who are good a platform to succeed.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of the people who join us they come out of the nationals, they come out from employed IFA or employed in a bank or a private private banker, and they need that platform because they've got a fight on their hands to say after covenants to those clients, I've joined something better.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and this is all the things I can do for you.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that's why we have a lot of success with people who are ready to make that jump to a bit more self-determination, but don't, you know, can't do it from their own bedroom because they've got they know they've got a proposition to sell against for their clients.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it's gotta look good.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's not happened by accident, that's happened with a lot of conscious thought.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so you need those advisors that are buying into what level of so the financial planners, sorry, that are buying into the level of support that they're getting.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: Not only buying into it, they need it because their clients need that that level of service.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: So it has to be the best service for their clients because their clients are used to that high level of service.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_02: You've come from a private bank, you've come from Coots.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I've worked with quite a few candidates in the past.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: I've never worked with any of the private banks hiring in, but I've certainly taken a few people out.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I know how valuable their relationships are when they're in those positions.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you're going, it's not like you're moving a financial advisor from a network who's got 10 million under management and the average investable assets is 70,000 and he might have a couple of biggies in there or whatever.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you're talking to people who have got like nearly 100 million sometimes, more, way more than that, that potentially could follow them after restricted covenants.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: Now, they do need that higher level of service.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and that's exactly what it sounds like that that you're offering.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: But also, as well, they they they don't fit into the traditional networks anyway.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: So if they've got a burning ambition, let's say, to be a bit entrepreneurial, that's probably why they're looking to move on from the bank.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: There's only so far you can go in the bank, you know, it's like a hierarchy, isn't it?
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's a you're you're at the beck and call of what the the pay structure is.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: So what you've done is you've created a hybrid, haven't you, between allowing the person to be in control of what they can earn, but at the same time having like the feeling or the security, if you like, that you've got a proposition wrapped around you that is looking after your clients and looking after you.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a value add completely for everybody that's involved, yeah.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what we consciously in this case set out to create.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I can I can understand why, you know, you haven't, I can understand why you wouldn't have a million and one advisors knocking on your door.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_02: Or if you did have a million and one advisors, why they'd be cap in hand saying, what are you going to give me?
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: But it's just not that proposition.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: Your aim is to really sort of, you're still in for gold, aren't you?
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: Throughout that year, you might get five to ten, or you know, if you're lucky, really, really good quality financial planners that have got an entrepreneurial itch.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: They know that they can bring some clients with them.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_02: They'd love to be part of a bigger picture, but more boutique offering.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I think also, as well, it's quite sexy, isn't it?
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: That kind of boutique-y feel for a client.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: I know that's a probably a word you might not use within financial planning, but it feels quite um the word boutique and the offering feels quite special.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: A private bank feels to me, and and I'm maybe I'm I'm wrong, but you you correct me, feels a bit stuffy.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm at Coots, I've got the pen, I've got the cash card, I've got the credit card.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: Say it's my mates around the corner.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: But what are Coots actually offering outside of banking that you guys are obviously enhancing for them?
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's that's just it.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day, money is personal, it's everybody's personal money.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: So there's usually with banks various different discontinuities, turnover of advisor and that sort of thing that people fall out of love with the banks.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: And what's happened in the last since RDR, there's there's been the trend for what a bank can offer the clients to go from broad and and everything to incredibly commoditized.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: So so naturally, really good advisors with really deep relationships suddenly realize that they can't do what they used to do.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times the clients stay with them because of them as loyalty, but they suddenly realize there comes a point they've got to get out, whether it's a redundancy program, whether it's just they've absolutely had enough.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of the time it's a remuneration shift, the model changes, and you think, oh god.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: Or the clients are taken away from them and thinking, I've enjoyed this man and his family since his kids were born.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: For 14 years I've seen them grown up, and now because they've only got 1.2 million pounds, that's not enough.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: They're taken off me, given to the client farm.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: I've got to go and find more.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's not what people sign up for.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, that's really bad, isn't it?
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: So we're seeing that a lot in the industry, and also to be honest, we're seeing it in a lot of the national IFA firms.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: So employed IFAs finding that the proposition's gone from broad and really client-centric to you will sell these four commoditized models ranked by risk.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's no choice, you know.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, and and advisors don't like that because they want to be free.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: If I come back to our founding principle, to represent their client as they best see fit.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's that's simple.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: No, I like it.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: I like I like it.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: I've never spoken to you before, actually.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I obviously heard of I've heard of private wealth for some time.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: I never because I never really did a great deal in London, and also I've been doing more marketing, I suppose, these days.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: But um, I know Tom in the office bumps into you, and and Dan bumps into you in the office, but you know, they said you were very enthusiastic about it.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I've spoken to Angie as well.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: But it's always been one of those tricky ones.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: I always think like they always said, Oh, we find it difficult to find candidates for partners wealth, which I can understand why now that actually is.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um so tip, let's let's talk about because obviously you want to grow your business still, don't you?
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: Are you in growth mode or are you are you a yeah, it's it's or are you getting on against the one billion under management for a start?
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, yeah.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's a very gent, that's a lovely half, Oli.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um we're we're two and a half billion now, 2025.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's it.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: When you change your mindset and your methodology, I think we got there by 2016, 2017, and and it's just continued from there.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's it's it's it's been good.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that is why, to go back to your point, we we we reject a lot of people who come because we're we're the right person, and a lot of people reject us.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of IFAs in firms that are struggling, but they're paid a very high percentage of their books.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: They our average client size is over a million.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I I know that our partners earn way more than the IFA average.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: Way, way more.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: But until people can get their head around the idea that what we're gonna help them do is take their book size up um just because of the branding, the position, the clients, the centers of influence, and how we help them work.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the the office is literally opposite Goldman Sachs.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you if you turn left out of our entrance on the road, you walk into Goldman Sachs, and right you walk into us, and next to us is Deloitte.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: So by definition, it helps people, you know, to take their book level up.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: But it's the hardest thing for an IFA to see.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if your average client size is 200,000, you think, well, I'll get a few more clients at 200,000 at a 10% more revenue, rather than thinking, wow, if over five years I could transfer, transform that to 600,000 and then 10% less, I'm 180% better off.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: My maths might not be right there, but you know, broadly.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: You're not a financial advisor, are you?
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, they don't let me anywhere near the math.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what okay, so let's talk about that then.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: How do you how do you how do you get somebody from 200,000 pounds up to 600,000 pounds if, say, for example, because let's say the average, their average um investable assets of clients is 200,000, right?
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_02: As you just said a minute ago.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: How how would you get somebody of that type of financial planner up to one million?
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_02: Now, being positioned just in the city next to Goldman Sachs, that can't just be the only reason why.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: What else are you guys doing to wrap around these advisors to get them up there?
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's it well, it's it's it's it's it's it's a number of things, essentially.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: The first is just the mindset.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: So you you start to approach your best clients, and we just get people to take them out now because you want the referrals in the highest space the entire time.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: Then we teach people the confidence, the tricks, how to how to articulate and present yourself at that higher level.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because someone who's capable of saving over their lifetime a million pounds, two million pounds of wealth has an expectation of the man or woman that they're going to work alongside being able to be of that way.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: So it's shifting that mindset.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, you give people a proposition that isn't just, oh, you know, I've got some funds on, you know, Aegon co-funds or whatever it is, and I'll pick this for you.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's the full planning package, and you teach people how to deliver that package so that it attracts people at the higher end.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: Then we tell help people open doors into centers of influence so that they're getting relationships with the private client lawyers, the private client accountants.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps this is where size starts to have its advantage because we've got an entertainment suite on the top floor of our building.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you bring people into that, and your average accountant install, instead of thinking of you as some small IFA, knows that when they refer their client into that, they're going to have a wonderful experience.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not something you can't just decide in January and have transformed your client by December.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're in your 30s and you're thinking, how am I going to run 50 or 100 million by my mid-40s?
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is the pathway to do it.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: So we've had some advisors who've been very successful like that and built themselves up.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then about so that's about a third of the people who've joined us.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then two-thirds have come from, as I say, the bank or the national with you know, with their book over time, and then built from them, just surprised themselves at how many clients have followed.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_02: There was something that you said then that takes me back to when I used to work for Aviva and um we did a lot of work around the customer experience.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_02: You said the client experience.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, how important is the client experience when it comes to financial planning?
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's everything.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's absolutely everything.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think we spend a lot of time as planners, or you see a lot of conferences from uh live companies talking about really clever angles where certain someone sold out his bond then with his marginal income.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that is amazing planning, but it only happens once in a life to a certain number of clients.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: The experience happens to every client.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, as well as knitting together the planning, the tax, and the investment and the reporting, we've created a private office, which is just a very neat concept that has got it's got a deposit service, an FX service, a mortgage service, wills service, uh, it's got uh a general insurance service, it's got an art advisory service, and just experts in every area.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's got a cross-generational wealth to help your family work with a psychologist who will talk to you and your family about different nuances between different generations.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: That experience that's what helps people in a higher net worth.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: If an advisor's here and they're talking to a client here, when they can talk to a client about something like that, it's suddenly aspirational for the client.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I mean by the client experience and giving client advisors a proposition that makes clients go, wow.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_02: So you can't just do that at home from your back bedroom, really, can you?
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's not something that that can be done.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's like taking somebody on a journey, isn't it?
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: Is that and and actually, I mean, I've got to say here, this is yeah, the the disagree, there's disadvantages sometimes to partnership, but this was the idea entirely of Tim Davies, who it was his idea to found PWM, and he had this amazing idea at the private office.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I I remember I remember arguing with him, I was wrong.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I remember saying, Tim, no, no, no, we're we're planners, we put stuff on platform, we do the funds, we do a bit of planning, we're great, we've got hundreds of class sites.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: He said, No, no, no, James, we need this to go here, and that's what's helped us grow over the years.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the advantage of vision because you then get different perspectives, different ideas, and Tim is very responsible for dragging the quality of the proposition up from low hundreds of thousands now to, although our average is above a million, our average win is now nearly two million.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_02: And does that mean that so you can charge more for the service or you can justify the fee, I guess, that you are charging?
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what your charging structure is, by the way.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: No, I I don't I don't I I I I don't I don't like the industry term justify your fee.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: For us, we we have a fee, it is a published fee, we're we're charging one percent, and obviously it then tears down depending on client size.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: For that, we provide a service.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if I go to buy something at Harrods, they don't justify their price.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: I have a choice as a consumer whether or not I wish to buy it from Harrods, or I can buy my toothbrush from Poundland.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, I haven't got a Harrods toothbrush.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh but um it's it's it's just a consumer choice.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and all you're doing is catering for a different set of consumers who accent things.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: We're catering for partners of major law firms, entrepreneurs, bankers, and executives in the main, and and people have retired from that, and and and and also actually a number of divorcees.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: But those are our main business groups.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: These people are incredibly busy or you know, and and time poor, and they value the service of organizing everything brilliantly for them and making them think differently about their wealths and their their life.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: So so that that that is why you're that's what a boutique really is.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: You're adding something concierge service, isn't it?
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_02: To for concierge service to financial planning, you know, it's not just like walk into a bank, sit down, and someone sticks a couple of applications in front of you and fill it, you fill it out and off you pop.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's a it's a full experience.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I guess as well, from a client doing that from start to finish, when they come out the other side and they're like, wow, that was a lovely experience.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_02: The first thing they're going to do is tell all their friends, aren't they?
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_02: Anybody else that they know about the experience.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_02: And does do you find that happens?
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_02: Do you, as a company, collectively generate more referrals from clients um because of that concierge service?
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: We until um until really 18 months ago, we we never really had any particular direct client acquisition strategy.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: We we just worked from word of mouth from clients and professional introducers.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: So so uh yeah, really straightforward.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um that that that that that's how it works.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: And clients absolutely actively refer it is by far in a way how our business was built.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um fabulous.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: We ask and we try to then host events so that they will meet and mingle and get to know each other.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: That that's that that that that that's that's part and parcel um of how you grow a great business.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: It has to be done.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: Cool, excellent.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that sounds really good.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's good, a definite clearer picture for me.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_02: I can see a picture in my head now of what you're offering, and it sounds fantastic.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_02: I can see also as well now why really you the target market for you, and correct me if I'm wrong again, but you know, the target market for you in respect of new financial planners coming to your business over the next five to ten years is filtering down from those private banks, perhaps.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_02: Would that be right?
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think and I think nationals and employed advisors trapped in medium sized firms.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, then the name doesn't matter, but we're just bringing in a couple of people from relatively small firms who just, you know, they've been promised equity, they've been promised, they've been promised, they're just no.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then others who come in, yeah, they've been perhaps in employed firms and the firms have been taken over.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, so uh so those are the those are the bits.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: That tend to those are the three strands that that people join from.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_02: So can you explain to me then?
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_02: So on a I'm a I'm a financial planner for one of the national firms that you just described there.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I sit down in front of you.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_02: Just describe to me the benefit of obviously you've you've you've obviously talked about the the service that Partners Wealth offer to the client, the overall service, how it that's going to up my up my game as such.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_02: But when we talk about the partnership side of it, um excuse me, I probably don't understand partnerships as well as you, but what does it mean to be a partner financially?
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so what do I what's the benefit to me to becoming a partner and say not setting up as an appointed representative or being a registered individual?
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think I think there's three different benefits.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: The first is straightforward, as a partner, you earn a percentage of your own revenue and you earn a profit share on top the top of that as well.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: And you're building a capital value for yourself toward a defined goal or a retirement goal.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you set up by yourself, that capital value can and will be greater, but obviously what you're doing is you're bringing in far more risk.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: So what the partnership is giving is the infrastructure, the proposition, and the brand that will mean your book will take one look at what you've stepped out of and gone, oh my god, look at that.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: Sam's joined there, Sam can do so much more for me.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: So so you will preserve a tremendous amount of your book.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then, sorry, Sam, secondly, all of the, you know, the different groups do this well or worse, but all of the noise of setting up the infrastructure, the hassle, the hiring your own people, that is all removed.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's there, brilliant system, very clear support ratios, named dedicated support.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that drives people, I rate and I hear it in interviews time again is oh my support, we're a pool of people.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: It went into the pool.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't had the report back for four weeks.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's lunacy.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: Private, yeah.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: Our clients, they need to know if they can't get hold of James, they're gonna get hold of James number two, James number three.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: So that and and who their name is and where they get that that that's huge.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: That helps a bit, yeah.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things that and you're so right to say that because I've worked with some of the national networks, and you know, they'll say, Oh, we offer power planning and administration services, for example, as part of their part of their offering.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_02: And now I'm not going to name anybody, but recently I spoke to a financial planner and she was promised this, and it was waiting weeks and weeks and weeks for any power planning to do.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_02: It turns out they had two power planners for nearly 250 advisors.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, an advisor will turn around there and say, Oh, I can get X percentage, and you're you know, it's it's very hard because the advisor is just looking at that.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, it's if you want to stay at the level you're at and you're a small-time advisor, I would take the highest percentage.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: You want to work from home.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you've got aspirations to be earning and having a broader developed career working with creme developing clients, then you need to do something different.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so, so that's not to decry the network in and this thing.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: It works, it's just if you also want to go toe-to-toe and look after clients of a net worth of one to ten million pounds, you need a proposition that's going to go toe-to-toe with private banks, etc.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: etc., to win those clients.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, that different businesses.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_02: Because you're all partners as well, you're all in control of what you you personally can earn based on the percentage as a partner that you're allowed to take of the fee, I assume, or your turnover of business.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_02: Is that right?
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_02: So if I wanted, if I if I did a rough calculation in my head and I knew I wanted to earn 150,000, I'd know what I'd need to write to earn 150,000 pounds from that income.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_02: But as you said there as well, becoming a partner of the business means that you're working towards a potential uh cash payout in the future, um, a certain event, perhaps a sale of the business.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_02: Is that right?
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_02: Am I part of that also or not?
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, absolutely.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_00: So that's exactly it.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's very clearly defined that you're building a defined capital value.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_02: So when you say it's very clearly defined that capital value, in what way is it clearly defined?
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_02: So if I was to join you, I knew I could do 400 grand worth of business, let's say.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_02: Not to put you on the spot here, James, but hopefully you might be able to answer this.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_02: I could do 400,000 pounds worth of business.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_02: I've got a lovely, I think to myself, this place is fantastic.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna look after my clients.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_02: I know I'm comfortable that based on the split, I'm getting what I need to do on that side.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_02: I can live my life the way I want to live it.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_02: But I want to know also what I'm gonna get at the end.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_02: So do I have a but but I'm let's say I'm 50 years old, let's say, maybe 45, and let's say I'm gonna I want to work, I've got an idea in my head, I want to work for 15 years or 10 years or whatever.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_02: Does that mean that I get a cash buyout based upon what I've personally got under management at a date that I choose to exit, or is it based on the date that you choose to sell the business?
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_02: Or how does that work?
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: Cutting straight to the nub of it.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: So let's let's take you with 400,000, um, you know, recurring income.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: People get 100% of their recurring income as their capital value.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you can take that in in one of two ways.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_00: If it's your own retirement, then you're retiring out of the industry, then we pay that out as an income, a nuatized income over five years.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, rather than starting your pension, uh, you're 80,000 a year in that example for for five years.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: Alternatively, you know, we we've got our backers, they're a corporate partner alongside the other partners in the business in 7im.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, when they exit, then everybody's capital value at that moment is is then crystallized.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: So there's two different timings.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_00: So very their their earning, their owners are very long-term well-known published investment trust called Caledonia.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: So uh they have a very long-term horizon.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the the family has been uh around and building a business now for five generations.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, the Caledonia Investment Trust has been since the 1960s, so very long-term timescales.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: But it's it's in the advisor's control, but there is also uh you know a business point.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_02: So that's how it's done.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I suppose then the other element of what you suggested there was um that they get is not suggested, sorry, said they get is the profit share.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a profit share on a yearly basis, or how does that work?
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_00: Again, the profit share is just um an element of above what your normal um uh advisor percentage is when you're a partner, you just get a percentage uh higher 10% of your own revenue as you're doing more.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_02: So 10% of your own revenue if you're doing more.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so it's not a profit share of the business as a whole, then.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, it's it's it's based on the news interest.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's one of the things individually that that incidentally that really avoids conflict within the business.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_00: We hear so many stories of people coming out of banks where bonuses are personality-led, they're discretionary, you've got no clarity on what's going on.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: And and because everybody who comes into PWM is successful, we we haven't brought in anyone in 16 years who has failed.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and that's that's something phenomenal that we're so delighted by, and we we really work to preserve by getting the right people.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: And ever if anyone ever has a tough time, there was one guy who joined from an accountancy firm and they put a really good person onto his clients and they kept a lot of them.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_00: So we really rolled our sleeves up to help him succeed.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and and that that means so much to us, but because everybody is intrinsically successful, it's a really collaborative environment.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_00: There's no sort of um jealousy in and around clients or ideas, it just works really well.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's another element I should have said earlier that that's that is that in most employed roles these days, you know, as an IFA, you've got a target, you're being driven, you know, it's the banks and the nationals, they're terrible for this.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_00: We've got people who are hugely driven and they want to do more, and we've got other people who say, I've achieved that, you know, you alluded to 150,000.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_00: I've achieved that 150,000, it's paying for everything I want.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh therefore, you know, when it's sunny and windy, I'm gonna be down on the south coast kite surfing.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's absolutely fine.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_00: No one has a target.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because how can you have a target when it's truly your own freedom?
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: I've actually really at the start of the podcast, I should have said something else as well.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_02: Go on in.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_00: I should have talked to you about this concept we have called financial freedom.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_00: We don't work with clients who are looking to retire.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_00: We're looking to clients who are trying to achieve freedom of money to empower them to have freedom, financial freedom, which then allows them to work for their own freedom of purpose, where can you know, or or have more freedom of time.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_00: Very few of our clients work till 60 and retire.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_00: They take portfolio careers, they do charity, they they work even harder the more successful entrepreneurially they get, because that's their passion.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_00: They they're top lawyers and they go on to work for government quangos.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's nothing to do with money.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly the same for our advisors.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: Our advisors join them because in the banks and the nationals they don't have freedom of money because their earning structure can be taken away, or you only get a bonus for what you start again the next year.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_00: Your time is not your own because it's a boss wants to see so many meetings of a week.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_00: Your purpose isn't your own because you're told what to sell.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_00: So that financial freedom and freedom of the individual, that's really the essence of what partnership means.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_00: You are free to self-determine your life.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_00: And normally you can get cushion get that from a network, but you don't get the brand that can leverage you with the types of clients.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_02: So that's that's that's yeah, you don't get you don't get the support, that's for sure.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_02: You don't get the, you know, you guys are obviously heavily invested in building the support and the experience for the clients, the introducers, the, you know, you've got the private banks, you know, the private office side.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you don't get that with any of those nationals.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_02: You just really don't.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_02: So you are really left on your own.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_02: You're just more of a lifestyle financial planning and that kind of thing.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_02: I think your lifestyle business type thing.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, whereas yours, I can see that in building intrinsic value for your future.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_02: Each year on year, you're building something more.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_02: You guys, they're re-investing in you.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_02: You guys are investing in the business to make it a far greater, better experience each year.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_02: So everybody's winning.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_02: So everything is gradually getting better.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I like that, you know, and the freeing up of um the financial freedom to be able to do what you like as well.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I love the idea.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_02: I'd love to be working with clients who who are that super intelligent as well, that they're out there, they've done really well.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_02: And there's this common misconception, I suppose, with some people that those people are just, oh, the rich get richer and all of that.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_02: But actually, they're out there doing some amazing, amazingly interesting stuff outside of what they've done as a career.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I suppose that financial, as you said, that freedom that that pure financial planning has allowed them the freedom to be able to do that.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_02: Can I ask you a question around mental, um, not so much mental health, but well-being?
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um and because my the more I speak to financial planners, and I sat down recently with a financial planner myself who went through some finances with me.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I found that I was anxious around money, and I found that I was quite fearful and I had certain beliefs around that, I suppose, that that that were ingrained in me from a young age.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm doing a lot of work and uncovering who I am anyway.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_02: And one of those things was finance, and I was very anxious about it.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I sat with him, it's very calming.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I've always said as I talk to people, especially the certain type of financial planner, that financial planning is a well-being proposition.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it it it can solve so many people's problems.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_02: Now, not problems asn't I haven't got enough money, or you know, money's gonna buy me happiness.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_02: If I only got that house, if I only had a million quid in the bank, I'd be happy.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_02: That's bollocks, isn't it?
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_02: It actually kind of unlocks people's thought processes around what money is to them, yeah, and it frees up those, I don't know, worries and concerns so they can live the life that they need to live without the fear of money in the background.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think yeah, I think there's three things on mental health that I bring with it.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_00: The first thing, we we have a thing called a lifetime wealth model.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's a piece of software that graphically shows people where they're going to go with life.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, a lot of our clients have a fear that they're gonna get tapped on the shoulder sometime between 52 and 60, and their frontline career is over because it's a dog eat dog world in the law firms, the accountancy firms, the the banks.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of our divorcees and our retired clients, you know, they've got a capital sum of money and they want to know is it going to last?
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_00: What's it going to look like?
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_00: And and it just gives people confidence.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_00: The advisor's job is to give people confidence in their financial framework and journey.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_00: Very few people consciously go out and overspend and resent their absence of money because they overspend.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, you can't really work with people like that.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you you can occasionally bring some order back to their life, and it's very satisfying.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_00: So planning is about, exactly as you say, help helping people mentally with their money.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the funny thing is, long-term clients know that, but they don't come to you ever for that reason.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_00: The reason it's very reasonable, people don't come to you, go, I need I need to cash flow modeling.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_00: So they come for another stimulus, go through that, and then they're like road to Damascus converts.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's it's it's it's fantastic.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_00: So so that's point point one with it.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_00: Point two is actually ours is a is is a tricky industry for for mental health as well.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_00: You see seeing it in lockdown that you know if you work from home and you are isolated because you are in a network or this, that, or the other, or you've got targets from an organization that's pushing you hard on targets, it's not an easy thing to do, especially when you add in that a lot of the time rejection is implicit in what we do, particularly if you're trying to grow and you're putting yourself out there, asking for new people, trying to prospect new people, you're going to get rejected no matter how well you're good, partly because people will be happy with what they got, or they're just not in a zone to sort out their finances.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_00: So you see a lot of advisors going up, down the whole time.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_00: And just this last year, one of the things that I I've enjoyed is just how our people, you know, call each other a a lot.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_00: And just where are you?
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, seeing you've had a good month, this, that, and the the other.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just you know, I think that that helps being part of something bigger, so you've got colleagues, but not having targets.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_02: So keeping, yeah, that keeping that camaraderie and community that you have within a within a within being part of an like almost being part of a business, you know, like a like you're like you're an employee as such, but you're obviously you're a partner, you're not an employee, but you are part of that community and you lay yourself the banks off of each other.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things I've come up against, speaking to financial planners, especially the ones that have stepped out into self-employment, you know, and they've chased the the higher fee splits, et cetera.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_02: So on that case, that they've limited the amount of support that they get.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_02: And all of a sudden they're like, eh, I'm in the deep end here.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_02: I don't quite know what it is I'm actually having to do.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_02: So they're spending so much time like on social media trying to get their personal brand out there working well, which obviously is part of a good strategy and it will be moving forward.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_02: But as you are only one person, you are spinning a lot of plates for your 70 to 80%.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you really are.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_02: And one thing I've noticed, not just in lockdown, it was always before that, the pressure builds up on these people.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they don't ever really break past the 150 barrier if they're lucky, you know, they and they spend a lot of their time in stress and a lot of their time very anxious, and they don't have someone to turn to who actually understands what it is they're doing because it's a very lonely, insular job being a self-employed financial planner.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I've come across that a lot recently.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_02: And that recent study with PFS around, I think, 30% of people suffering from depression during lockdown, you can kind of understand why.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, one guy I was talking to, and and I understand this as well, I can relate to it.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_02: He couldn't even really turn around and talk to his wife because his wife doesn't understand what he's going through.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_02: And it saddened me a little bit, actually.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, as a as a business owner, your guys are obviously talking to each other and you encourage that support.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_02: What else do you guys do to ensure that the well-being of those partners is looked after?
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, absolutely.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_00: So so there's several things.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, as we went into lockdown specifically at the moment, um, we um we just made the decision we weren't furloughing uh at all.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think I think initially we furloughed our receptionist, um, but actually very quickly she was saying to us, and she's brilliant.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we you know, she was saying, Do you know what?
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_00: Can I can I retrain as an administrator?
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I I don't want to be paid at home to be doing nothing, I want to be back part part of it all.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, no furlough, no redundancy, message of calm.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_00: And we started sharing more, you know, just how the business is doing, so that people just knew that was our intention and that we had the ability to go and do it.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I think I think that was very reassuring.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_00: Then we've worked with um now uh Vitality, who doing our healthcare and their mental health programs.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um so we've had some employees who've chosen to just to go, they can go work with that anonymously um and and and just just engage and have conversations in in that.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's just really important.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's just about the practical things, isn't it?
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's just about taking the pressure off.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's about I remember saying in a meeting, do you know what?
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_00: I had a really bad week last week.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, apologies of anyone I snapped at.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I took a couple days off, did a lot of cycling, I'm gonna drink less, that's me.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_00: And once someone, yeah, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't like to say I've got a drinking problem, it was just it was just, you know, it would it varies the lot of time in lockdown and go.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_00: But once the person at the top is saying, I'm not okay 100% of the time, you've taken the pressure off everybody to go around.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's just what you've got to do.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I I wouldn't say I was depressed anyway, I just didn't have a gate for a couple of days.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I shared it.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's about, yeah, I think it's about, yeah, it's about identifying, isn't it?
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_02: That even the people who are at the top, you know, they're not sitting on their you know their ivory tower, sort of sitting back and laughing.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, it affects everybody.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's the same for us, you know, and it was good to see that you've got vitality cover and everything in place.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's the same thing that we do.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_02: So a number of staff have vitality cover, uh, another staff have have have Health Shield.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, they absolutely benefited from using um the free counselling that we provided.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it's something that um I suppose I've seen it a lot lately because I've been talking about it and looking into it myself a bit more, but you don't see a lot of well-being focused within the financial planning profession.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and you don't see as an as a recruiter, many firms actually have benefits packages for their financial planners.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas in recruitment, for all its bad side, okay, they look after their staff incredibly well.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like the benefits of working in recruitment are incredible.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_02: I just never see it or it's never advertised as much within financial planning.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I just really wonder why that is.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_00: The one thing to be clear on is self-employed financial advisors can't have that because you can't have benefits provided for you, you're not self-employed.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, our partners can have that because they're part of partnership, which they qualify for by community capital, and our employees can have it.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_00: So it is slightly different in self-employed.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's it's a drawback.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's why you know you you get different rates of national insurance because you've got to overcome that for yourself.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_00: Let's hope the government don't destroy that.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_02: So your guy, so so just sorry, you said self-employed and partners, then you're all your guys are partners, aren't they?
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_00: So everyone takes the title partner um when when they come in, but actually, you know, you spend a a year or so taking a look at us.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_00: We we take a look at how you qualify for that that that part partnership rather than bringing people in and uh you know asking them to commit capital straight away.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_00: No one's no one's uh you know not made it, um, and you know, but uh but it's just a natural first step to do.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_00: But to what we treat everybody like a partner on the way in, but actually in that first year or so you couldn't you know have the vitality benefit because you are self employed.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_02: At what age do you think or what yeah, it's difficult to say the age, I guess, but I suppose at what stage perhaps you can bring age into this is up to you, uh, in somebody's career, do you think they are ready to become a partner at a partner's wealth?
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_00: So um I don't I don't think there is an age, but there is a reality that what you have to do is you have to know who you are as an individual, who the clients you look after and and and are bonded in, and your methodology to those clients.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have the client base that you've spent the time with, that you know that these people bond into you, then you're not gonna have the client base to come and build through with partners wealth.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_00: So there's so I think the youngest chap was chapter with Nathan Pryor.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_00: He graduated with a first class degree, did 10 years at Merrill Lynch that then became Julius Baer.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that discontinuity of Julius Baer just wasn't good for him and his clients.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_00: And he stepped out of, you know, I forget it was 30, 31, 32.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so because of a discontinuity.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_00: So you can do it quite young, but he's had a 10-year run with some of the people he knew, and even then, you know, he's he's phenomenally successful now, very driven man.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_00: But um even he probably he probably lifted the lowest percentage of his clients of anyone who's joined us, um, because it was uh yeah, tougher.
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't stall his growth, he found other great things to do.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_02: But some of the things you some of the things you've been saying now as well, and this is something that comes up quite often around the employed route to self-employed, so employed to self-employed, you know, we're talking about attracting clients, we're talking about lifting clients, you know, and obviously what comes up, and I'm experiencing this at the moment because someone's threatening to sue me around one of the guys who's joined me, you know, restricted covenants, you know.
• 1:07:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um how do you position that with a new partner?
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_02: They're working for, for example, one of the top banks, you know, they've been doing that for 15 years, got some amazing relationships.
• 1:07:59
  SPEAKER_02: What's the how do you position moving clients?
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so so the the the straightforward thing is we're really clear, people need to respect their covenants, you know.
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_00: That that bank has invested n years in building up that individual and giving the brand an opportunity, they've got a right, uh, not just a legal right, a moral right as well, to uh to to to protect their their investment.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, most most people before they move it, if they've got the depth of relationship with their clients, then they will have had conversations with their clients about their future and their careers.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you're saying to someone, I'm your trusted advisor over a 20, 30 year period, and you're not prepared to share with them your hopes and experience, your your hopes and aspirations, then um then you you really can't uh you can't expect them to ever want to follow you.
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_00: By the same token, we're very clear to people that you can't act against the interests of your employer while you're still an employee.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, so it never, you know, you know, it's like if you hear someone slagging something off, it's never an attractive thing on that person anyway.
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, so you know, people we encourage people to to be open and upfront with their clients about why they're moving on and just say, you know, I'm afraid I've got a period of covenants I've got to respect.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not then a barrier.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been good enough and you've told them that you're off and that you will resurface, they can then make a fair choice.
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_00: And we just find if you've got the right proposition, enough people do.
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_02: Great stuff.
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_02: And before we sort of wrap this up, because I've taken up a lot of your time already and it's been really interesting.
• 1:09:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm really intrigued to understand what you think about the advice gap that we have at the moment.
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_02: So the the gap between the wealthy getting financial planning, getting some superior financial planning by the likes of partners wealth who've got an amazing proposition, and then a huge proportion of the general public that don't have access to things that perhaps would enhance their lives.
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, they don't have the money to invest as such, and perhaps the tools don't work the same type of kind of way.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_02: But I think the time, energy, the psychological profiling, all that kind of stuff that you do around money to make people feel comfortable, what do you think we can actually do to help support a load of people out there that just don't get access to financial advice as much as, say, the wealthy do?
• 1:10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's a there's there's a there's a there's a there's a couple of implicit conundrums in in our industry.
• 1:10:34
  SPEAKER_00: The first is actually, you know, if you think of financial planning like a a motor car, a motor car is intrinsically an expensive piece of transport.
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now you can buy a cheaper car, but you've still got to insure it, run it, and have an MOT.
• 1:10:48
  SPEAKER_00: It is a function of wealth that you have a motor car.
• 1:10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Even in Britain Britain today, it's a choice with your disposable.
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Planning is like that.
• 1:10:57
  SPEAKER_00: A motor car cannot be produced cheaply.
• 1:11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Planning takes time cheaply.
• 1:11:04
  SPEAKER_00: The FCA are looking at this, and I'm lucky enough to be on an investment association committee who just had a conversation with them, and they've got some really good ideas about how you can use technology to close this gap and the the fundamental belief and feedback I've got is you have to remove the liability to advice and guidance.
• 1:11:26
  SPEAKER_00: This idea that when you start to deliver advice remotely by a computer, that host company can still be sued for those poor outcomes, is what stops us engaging in it more.
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if I could go online, I could go, I could save an ICE like that, and if I did that, and a company could take me through all those steps, and they tell me, you know, doing an ICE and saving some money for your future is a good thing.
• 1:11:50
  SPEAKER_00: But if their automated system hasn't checked that I've got credit card debt, then actually they've just created a lot of a liability for themselves.
• 1:11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I just I just think we have to trust the public more, get rid of the liability, and say, actually, if someone is out there searching for, you know, how do I save some money, they they have to take responsibility for deciding that they've got a credit card cost in them 18% and an ISO that's gonna make them five, they've got to take responsibility for themselves there.
• 1:12:20
  SPEAKER_00: So sadly, I think you it's not about encouraging people to more, you've got to create the environment to it.
• 1:12:27
  SPEAKER_00: I would absolutely get rid of the no win, no fee ambulance chasing.
• 1:12:32
  SPEAKER_00: On LBC at the moment is an advert that says, Have you been missold an investment by a bank, financial advisor, or anything else?
• 1:12:41
  SPEAKER_00: If so, you're entitled to compensation.
• 1:12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what does that mean?
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_00: If my ICE are now the reason they're running these ads is because the stock market has just gone down.
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm taking out my ICEs for 25 years, so I haven't been missold something if the stock market goes down for a year.
• 1:12:59
  SPEAKER_00: But yet we're creating this entire cadre of fear that the industry is out there to rip you off.
• 1:13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I've met hundreds of people in this industry.
• 1:13:11
  SPEAKER_00: They might work for good companies, bad companies we perceive to be bad ones in the industry, but every single one of them cares about building up the assets for their client.
• 1:13:22
  SPEAKER_00: They all do.
• 1:13:23
  SPEAKER_00: No one survives in this industry setting out to achieve bad incomes.
• 1:13:27
  SPEAKER_00: So remove some of this liability, some of this bad news, and you will have the advice gap small because actually the cost of advice would come down.
• 1:13:37
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not just about encouragement, you've got to look at the fundamentals.
• 1:13:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, actually, there's a company Claro, I don't know if you've heard of them, Claro Money.
• 1:13:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, they're like a tech company.
• 1:13:50
  SPEAKER_02: So they're creating a um an app where the consumer can go in.
• 1:13:54
  SPEAKER_02: There's they've got an investment, you know, someone inside that's picking all the investment solutions or the funds.
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_02: So the it's completely non-advice.
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_02: They download the app within the app is coaching.
• 1:14:03
  SPEAKER_02: So they're the ones kind of really trying to bring coaching to the market.
• 1:14:06
  SPEAKER_02: So the coach will, you know, the the consumer can log into the app, they can go through the coaching process.
• 1:14:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's all completely non-advice, it's purely coaching.
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then come to the decision as to how they where they want to put their money based on what investment solutions have been selected in on an in-house basis.
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and obviously it's a lot cheaper for them to do it.
• 1:14:25
  SPEAKER_02: So they're kind of getting essentially the coat, we're calling it coaching.
• 1:14:29
  SPEAKER_02: I guess the risk involved in that is that the coaches aren't qualified and they don't know what they're talking about, but then they're not giving advice anyway.
• 1:14:36
  SPEAKER_02: The idea is to be information education based and allowing them to make the right decision themselves.
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_00: The risk at the moment is that there's all too easily a retrospective liability that that coaching became advice.
• 1:14:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's very gray, isn't it?
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if I go skiing with you and I tell you to lean slightly more on your turns, am I coaching you or am I advising you that's the better way to ski?
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_00: When you hit a bump and you say, Well, I was leaning over because he told me to, that's that's the liability.
• 1:15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in skiing terms, it'd be absurd.
• 1:15:09
  SPEAKER_00: You've just fallen over.
• 1:15:10
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not absurd in financial services industry.
• 1:15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And whilst not trying to strip away, expose consumers to the old Wild West of product sale, if you want to solve that gap, you have to attest the implicit conundrum of liability in our industry.
• 1:15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, long answer to a short question, but as you can tell, it's it's something I think it would help our entire nation if we could solve.
• 1:15:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, I agree.
• 1:15:39
  SPEAKER_02: That sounds really great.
• 1:15:40
  SPEAKER_02: James, I really appreciate your time today.
• 1:15:42
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for sharing your thoughts around financial planning and your career and of course partners' wealth.
• 1:15:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's helped me understand your business more.
• 1:15:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I think anybody listening to this podcast will have a good understanding of you as a as a business leader as well, um, but also what the proposition of partners wealth is all about.
• 1:16:00
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you so much for your time today, James, and um I hope you have an amazing weekend.
• 1:16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Can I just say it's been an absolute pleasure for me, really insightful.
• 1:16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, very much enjoyed it.
• 1:16:09
  SPEAKER_00: So thank thank you very much indeed.
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you're welcome, James.
• 1:16:12
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for joining us.