Latest / Financial Planner Life Podcast / Luiza Todd - How to Pass you Cii Diploma in Financial Planning first time with Bespoke Training Solutions

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Luiza Todd - How to Pass you Cii Diploma in Financial Planning first time with Bespoke Training Solutions · 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.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: And today's guest is Louisa Todd from Be Spoke Training Solutions.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: What Louisa doesn't know about passing RO exams isn't worth mentioning.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_02: Be Spoke Training Solutions and Louisa have helped tens of thousands of candidates pass their exams and become level four qualified.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: And today she shares her journey, loads of hints and tips about how you can ensure that you pass on a first-time basis.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: And we talk about qualifications as a whole, the CII, where it's going, and what to expect from the future.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: I hope you enjoy the podcast.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: Louisa, thanks so much for joining me today on the Financial Planner Life podcast.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: How are you doing?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm doing good.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much, Sam, for inviting me on.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let's hope you don't regret it later.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: No, I well, I hope not.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: I've got some amazing recommendations.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um and that's what I love that.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: Start like that, exactly.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: I hope I don't I like that a lot, you know.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want any cardboard cutouts from financial services or financial planning on the podcast.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: I do enjoy it when somebody shows a bit of personality and yeah, natural.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's all about personality.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: 100%.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: But it has to be in financial planning because it's it's not the most personality-rich profession, is it?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say sorry in advance to anybody that we might offend.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's probably a good caveat to start with, isn't it?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: I apologize in advance, yeah, everybody that knows me.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: I think if you and I were sat together in school, we'd be a naughty ones, wouldn't we?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: We'd be at the back.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: I can sense like there's an energy like coming from you that's making me naughty.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: We definitely wouldn't be at the front and we wouldn't be teacher's pet.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: That is a hundred percent guaranteed.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's very interesting because I tell you what, you are, Louisa, and obviously I've done an introduction before, so people know who you are, but your background is financial planning training.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: So the very fact being you certainly wouldn't be sat at the front taking notes in the school, you'd be at the back because that's where I would be.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: And funny enough, I used to be a financial services trainer as well.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: So, what does that say about financial services?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: It attracts the retrobates from school to become but to become trainers.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it but but it actually says, I think, that you need somebody with a bit of character, with a bit of pizzazz to actually bring it to life.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because there's nothing more boring than somebody standing up yeah in front of you, obviously in the olden days pre-COVID, or on Zoom that literally just reads off of a script.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: You've got you've got to have that bit of flair, that bit of excitement about you.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: And you've also got to know your subject because if you don't know your subject, you can't give it that pizzazz.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: So, Louisa, let's start with you just giving us an overview of what you currently do at the moment, a little bit about your business, be spoke bespoke training solutions.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, uh, bespoke training solutions has been going for 16 years, yeah.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I can't actually quite believe it's been that long.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: But when I look in the mirror, I think, yes, Louisa, it has been that long.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we started um in 2003, two directors, and we basically decided in that youthful we can do it better than anybody else, that we would start up our own learning and development company, and we made a conscious decision to support uh the CII RO exams.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: So that is where we are specialists in.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and we developed uh a step approach to support those exams.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um we work with individuals, we work with companies, and have we've trained tens of thousands of candidates through the RO exams.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: And the funny thing is, Sam, that because you're their focus, they always remember your name.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I can meet people in an airport or at a railway station and say, Hi Louisa, how are you?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I stood there smiling, thinking, I can't actually remember your name.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: I can absolutely remember training you and supporting you, what your name is.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: Nope.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you you've got me there.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we we set up bespoke training solutions, yeah, as a learning and development consultancy to predominantly support regulated exams.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I suppose over the years it's involved, it's evolved into us being specialists on the diploma in regulated financial planning.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and that's what we do in a nutshell.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: Perfect.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: Great stuff.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: So you chose to do the CII route, what, 16 years ago, I assume.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: Not a great deal of competition back then.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um was they were the FPCs, were they part of the CII or were they not?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: I can't remember.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean the FPCs, I mean, that's going down memory lane.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: Anybody listening to this podcast that's of a similar generation as me will absolutely remember FPC one, two, and three because they were the first real attempt at not professionalizing, but um, well, giving us professional qualifications.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I remember training FP1, two, and three to my peers and to the people that absolutely knew, I didn't know any more than they did.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember my knees shaking, training them.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: So FP1, two, and three absolutely were the first, yeah, real uh qualifications, and they were were from the CII.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: So looking as far back as 16 years ago, then pre-RDR, obviously, now there was a conception, preconception around the financial planning and well, but the financial advice industry and financial services as a whole that being full of ex-washing machine salespeople, you know, ex uh car car salespeople.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: And that was the kind of image that people were going out, flogging mortgage endowment plans, flogging bonds, and making their commission from all the product providers.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: Now, from your experience, looking back on that, do you think that the type of candidate that you have now within your training, are they vastly different to what they were when you very first started out?
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think they're massively different.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: I just think how they feel about joining the industry is different.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: So going back to training FP1, two, and three, uh, I can't remember who who I was doing that for.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we were training down in London, and two of our candidates, two ladies, went out on the town.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: It was a two-day workshop, went out in the evening, met a couple of lovely chaps.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and when asked what they did, they actually said they were air hostesses rather than trainee financial advisors.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Did they really?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because, yeah, because back in the day, I don't think our industry was something that was viewed as a good step for somebody.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't something you went out and said, Oh, I'm a financial advisor.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think now, yeah, that's changed massively, and people are making a conscious decision that actually they want to join the financial services industry and they don't pretend they're an air hostess.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: Perhaps those girls just wanted to pull a couple of absolute stunning lads.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: So now that begs a different question, doesn't it?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, are lads that shallow, yeah, that an air hostess would appeal, yeah, greater than a financial advisor.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they should have they should have they should have introduced themselves as financial advisors and found out.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, so so I I'm I'm not sure that the candidates have changed, no, because we've always seen a big variety of sort of like ages, experience, but I think the industry itself and how it's viewed has come a long way with professional qualifications, yeah, with trying to get established, yeah, as as a profession.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a massive thing, yeah, yeah, a m massive change.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: So people's kind of so people are so when people come in to get their training and well the types of candidates you're seeing now are going into a profession with a different mindset.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: They are they're not they're not looking at it as a a sales role, yes, they're looking at it as a profession, as a way to help people.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: So their kind of approach to how they're looking at their career is is different.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: They're approaching it as a profession and actually it they're making a positive choice, you know, rather than well, I can't get any other job.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll give this a go for a little bit, which as I say, I think is is wonderful for our profession.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: And we're seeing lots and lots of different candidate types from your real, yeah, and apologies, everybody being a bit youngsters, yeah, coming in, and and actually it's their first job.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: But the other extreme to that is seeing second careerists come in, yeah.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: That have actually already had a successful career somewhere else, making a conscious choice to join the financial services industry, which again I think is amazing.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's true.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: Those are the two sort of areas really for I think for growth, because it's very obvious that the financial planning profession and the businesses within it are struggling to attract talent.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's one of the biggest attract problems that they have.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: And with an aging population of financial advisors, they need to be looking elsewhere about how they're going to grow their financial planning businesses.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: Now, there's two options, isn't there?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: There's attracting somebody that's coming from a different profession who's perhaps built some amazing skills and experience, and take that, transfer them across to financial planning.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: So they go, here's the qualifications, let's get you up to level four because you've obviously got the experience, you're more than capable of doing it, and you've probably got some amazing connections that you can bring to the table and start instantly going out and adding value.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the other side of that is you've got people that are coming straight out of university, for example, perhaps in their early 20s, who are who are looking for a career now.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: They're looking for a profession and they're stumbling across financial planning.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: I think most people are stumbling across financial planning, but they're kind of coming into the profession.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: They are full of beans, really eager, want to get stuck in, but yet they're having to come in and start perhaps more lower down.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: Or I say lower down, but starting down in an IFA administrator position, moving into power planning and sort of progressing through what I would consider to be a personal development plan up to the point of level four qualifications and then becoming a financial planner.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: So those are the two types of people out there at the moment, aren't they?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I guess you know, you're seeing them come through your training.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you're seeing those different personality types come through your training.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, what I would love to know is what who's picking it up easier?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: Who's picking up the qualifications and the and the study and passing those qualifications?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: Who's doing it better?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: Fresh out of uni type type grads, younger guys and girls, or transferring from another profession into financial planning?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's a really good question.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, it's one that's pretty difficult to answer.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: So thanks for asking me that.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: I I think people that are straight out of university are still in the study habit.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and they will take what you give them and they will just absorb it, and generally they won't question it, but they have no real or not no little real life experience.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas your average second careerist, yeah, ha is a bit longer in the tooth.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: They've got real life experience, yeah, they've built a successful career elsewhere, and they won't necessarily just accept, yeah, that knowledge as it is.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: They're more likely to say, but actually, yeah, I think it works like this or it works like that.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: So that they are they're very different, but both have got advantages, yeah, and both have got disadvantages.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: So you would tend to find that the second careerists tend to challenge the status quo, tend to challenge what's going on because of their because of their experience of what they're doing.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: And saying from a grad perspective, kind of just takes it as gospel and thinks right off the process.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly right because they know no different.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: I think it raises a really good point there around financial planning and becoming a financial planner, is that you've got the technical skills that run a run along that you have to attain.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: So you have to be technically sound in what you're doing, and you have to pass your qualifications to understand what the hell it is you are talking about.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: And on the other hand, you've got the practical skills.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the practical skills to me are like the interpersonal relationship skills, the ability to build relationships, all those kind of stuff.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: So you've got these two sort of elements here, haven't you?
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: And um, it's about marrying the two together.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: And your skills and expertise is getting people through those qualifications because if you can't do the qualifications, you can't give financial advice.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's as simple as that.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: You've got to be level four qualified.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: So what I'd love to understand from you then, really, like I'm somebody sat in front of you.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: I've I've I've got really a little bit of experience of what financial planning is.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: I've done my, I've sat with my careers counsellor, and the career careers counsellors told me you should be a financial planner.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm thinking to myself, fantastic, I'm gonna be a financial planner.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: Now just talk me through the route via the CII.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: Why should I go down the CII route?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, and just talk to me about each stage to getting me to level four qualification.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so the CII route is the diploma in regulated financial planning, and that consists of six papers.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and each of those six papers are challenging in a slightly different way.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're covering different subject areas within financial planning.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, five of them are multiple choice, the sixth is uh a written exam.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: What you're saying is is is something we see all the time.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we see different clients having different models to get their new financial advisors up to level four.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: And some do it very quickly, some do it over a three-month period, and that's a tough ask, yeah, to to literally study and within two or three months get through those six exams, yeah.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Then they within their uh academies, they teach them about their own company products, about their advice process, yeah, etc.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then they're out with live clients, yeah.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I think dependent on whether you're new and fresh to the market or you're a second careerist, either one of them, I think, potentially finds that quite difficult because you learn all the theory from level four, and this is something we often say to candidates what we're teaching you to get that badge isn't necessarily exactly how you're gonna be using it in real life.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: So we can get you that lovely shiny level four qualification, which is not easy and needs an awful lot of legwork, yep.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but when you then come out doing the actual job, yeah, is probably gonna be very different to what we've taught you.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so your your six qualifications absolutely get you that that lovely badge.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: They don't teach you to be a financial advisor, yeah.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's so many, yeah, other different skills.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: We can get you to the level four, yeah, yeah, but then it's down to the company and their program, yeah, yeah, to get you just as importantly, yeah, the right skills, yeah, the right approach to make you yeah, do a good job with clients.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: Perfect.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I expect you see that all the time.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: So, do you do you tend to get people come into your training and they've never worked for a financial planning firm before?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: So they might not be working.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so they're just thinking, I'm gonna do my qualifications, I'm gonna become a financial planner.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: And do they, you know, what what's what's the difference between that's that's interesting because what's the difference between somebody who's not working within financial planning, not got any experience, but doing the qualifications up against somebody who perhaps is an IFA administrator or power planner, so holds a full-time job, you know, in the financial planning profession.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: Do you see a difference though between the two?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Is there absolutely yeah?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody coming in new, yeah, and I don't mean this rudely, has got no common sense when it comes to some of the knowledge and some of the exam questions that they're gonna get because they've got no experience of it in real life, yeah.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now, with hard work and with the right support, they can pass the first five.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: So R01 to R05, no experience is less of a problem.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, but when you get to R to R06, which is the written paper, yeah, it's there, I think having some real life experience helps you massively because R06, you're demonstrating everything that you learn in the first five papers, but in a written exam, and you actually, yeah, fact finding, yeah, you're uh analyzing, you are giving advice, but within the format of that R06 exam.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I think somebody new, yeah, has got a disadvantage there to somebody that that is yeah, currently working, perhaps as an administrator, as a power planner, they've got a bit more real real life experience and actually a bit more common sense.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: So from doing the job on, yeah, and I had somebody, Hannah Hunt, who was on the podcast and I've released Extension.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: So her background was IFA administration.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: So she had no experience working in a financial planning firm.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: She she worked for like um a lead generation company for financial planners.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: So she had a little bit of an idea of what the industry was and what the profession was.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: Got herself up to London, got in front of Radcliffe and Newlands, and sold herself and said, Look, I really want to do this job.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: I've done some research.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: This is what I've done, this is what I found out, and I really want to be a financial planner.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: And they said, Look, there's a lot of work that needs to be done, a lot of training, and a lot of qualifications you have to pass.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: So she was like, bang, I'm all for that.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: Now it's taken her probably three years to pass a level four qualification, right?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: And she's dumbfounded and baffled at how people can do it within seven months.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: And now you just mentioned somebody did it in three months.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: Why are people passing it in three to seven months and some people taking three years?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: What's the difference?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, one of the biggest differences, yeah, is that the ones that are doing it in three, four months full-time students, and the ones doing it, yeah, in two to three years also have generally a full-time job.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: And hats off to those people that are actually doing those qualifications as well as working, because that is a massive ask.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for somebody to pass the qualifications so quickly, that's got to be their primary focus.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, they've got no chance.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: But that that's how they're doing it.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: They are full-time students, and there are lots of providers out there that offer an academy, yeah, where that is solely what they do, and they can achieve those qualifications in those time frames.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: Now, again, we come back to the argument, yeah.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: Does that really prepare you for being a quality financial planner?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: No, that gives you a badge to be able to do it, yeah.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's after that that the really hard work starts, and where without the right support, that person can actually end up leaving the industry.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what I love about the you know, you've got quilter, you've got open work, and obviously St.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: James's Place.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: And when I say that, I hear rings of boos around me for St.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: James's Place, but I don't really understand why.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really understand.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I think, you know, is it a UK thing that we don't celebrate success?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they have got an amazing model, they've got an amazing um setup.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: So you won't you won't hear me booing.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you've got to look at these organizations and think, wow, yeah, yeah, there's stuff that you do I don't like, but actually that bit that's amazing.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: You are bringing in so many new people into the industry.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: Is that not what we want?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: No, and I've spoken to some fantastic people that have gone through their advisor academy and also who haven't gone through their advisor academy and perhaps just joined a partner practice, and they've had some amazing support and it's got them up to level four qualification.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: I think the negativity around St.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: James's Place definitely comes from um jealousy.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: I think it comes from jealousy, and I come it comes from complete um oh, what's the word?
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of yeah, it comes from jealousy.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when you read like money marketing and you and you know, when like you read the comment section, whenever there's a St.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_02: James's Place article come up, there's always some bloody keyboard warrior just selecting them.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I don't know the ins and outs of how business is run and how the business is set up and the charging structures and all of that kind of stuff, but this seems to be something that comes up quite a lot around them, is that they're very expensive.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: From a recruitment perspective, I've always experienced that if somebody wants to leave St.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: James's Place, it can be quite difficult to take clients with you.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: So that's one of the things I've heard, and that's what I hear anyway.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: But otherwise, in the other flip side of it, and this is what we're talking about today, which is training and development and attracting new people to the profession, they're doing an amazing job with the academy, as our open work and as our quilter.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: And what's beautiful about them is that they are part of.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, a network.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, open work have got two plan, you know, you can set up your own.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: You can you can be an AR under two plan or an RI under two plan.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: You can you can do all of that.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: And open work have got loads of firms underneath them.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: So once they've got them through the advisor academy, then someone can mentor them in a in a role.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: And that's exactly the same for St.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: James's place, and that's exactly the same as Quilter.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so that's really, really great.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: And and but it limits the the choice, I think, that someone can go down.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I want to see more of these advisor academies open where it's a bit more sort of okay, well, you're passing your level four qualification, but here's some advice.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: Here's some advice on where you can now go and what you can do.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have to go down these these these three, but fair play.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: Someone's got to start the process, and they're they're the ones doing it.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it is funny though, because out of those three, the only one that BTS hasn't supported is Quilter.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: I really because they do the uh DIP Financial Advisor.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, whereas the Academy and Open Work do DIP PFS, which is the Diploma and Regulated Financial Planning.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, open work, BTS, uh, oh gosh, when RDR came in, we trained all of their advisors up to level four.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: The the academy uses our study guides, yeah, it uses our app.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, St.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: James's Place, BTS have worked with for the last 12 years.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: So um, I could probably most of the people that have been through the Academy, yeah.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, not most of them, a lot of them, yeah, will have had me train them for R04 pensions.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: So they they are amazing organizations, but I think you're right, you know, and and I don't know the ins and outs, I don't look at charging structures, yeah.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: BTS looks at the job that they're brought in to do, yeah, yeah, which is to get those people to level four, yeah, ideally on a first-time exam, sitting, yeah.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's what we come in and do.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: Fantastic.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: Well, let's talk about what you do then, because you know, um, certainly in the current climate, the uh classroom-based training has died over the last six to nine months, obviously.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so let's talk about what you do then as a company, how you get people through those qualifications and why someone should use B Stoke, B Spoke Training Solutions to pass their level four diploma through the CII.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: The first thing that I would say is we make what we do look quite easy.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the things that how can I put this politely annoys me slightly, yeah, is where you get entrants to our market that have got very, very little experience in the exams, yeah, uh yet are professing to be experts.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Now we do call ourselves RO experts, and the reason we do that is because we've got so many years supporting the exams.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: We sit the exams, yeah, every year.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: So our developers sit R01 through to R06.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: So the approach we use is very, very simple, yeah.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: What I would say to everybody is don't assume you have to buy the examining body's material, yeah, because you don't, yeah.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: You can sit R01 to R05 standalone.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: Now anybody that's ever picked up, yeah, one of the examining body's study guides, yeah, will see that it's not a learner's guide, it's a technician's guide.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it gives you all the technical stuff, yeah, but it might start in the middle, then it might go down, then it might go up.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a learner guide, it's a technician's guide.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: So, crumbs, about five years ago, I think it was, we designed our own versions of the CII study guides.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we just basically said, right, we want something that's learner-centric.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: Here's something really controversial.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: We'll put pictures in it.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I know, hey.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we'll start at the bottom and we'll basically, yeah, um, take the learner on a journey with us.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: And do you know what, Sam?
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: There's humor in them.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's it's not just it's you've got to bring the subject to life for people to learn, it's got to be interesting.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: So we get um our learners to start with the BTS study guides, yeah.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: So they don't use the examining body.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: So start with the guides, yeah.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: From there, yeah, they've got two choices.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: They can either um do uh a remote workshop, yeah, or they can use our e-learning, yeah.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: And either will do pretty much the same job, and there is nothing that replaces, yeah, somebody with you, somebody that you can ask questions to, somebody that can use an electronic flip chart, yeah.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: And we do that, whether it is on a remote workshop or whether it's through e-learning, it's all very visual.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then the last thing is practice.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta gotta practice exam style questions.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: Now I was talking to a chap yesterday, yeah, and he said to me, and we were laughing about it, he said, so many of the questions out there aren't exam style.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: So you get into the exam and you've been getting 80, 90 percent on the questions that you've bought.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: And you get into the exam and you think, what the heck is this?
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and R01, um, regulation and uh financial services regulation and compliance, classic example.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so a lot of the questions out there way too easy.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: There's not enough words in them, Sam.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: There's not enough tables in them, not complicated enough.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: You get into the exam, and the first question you think, I'm in the wrong exam.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: Hands up, could I have the right exam over here, please?
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: Could you give me the wrong one?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: So we have an app called RO Study Buddy, yeah, where the questions are as exam style as we can make them.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: And you download the app, you buy uh volumes of questions, and you practice them electronically, like you do the exam.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: So you practice them on a smartphone, on a tablet.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: We explain all the answers.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know it's not rocket science?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: Developing a program to help RO students is not rocket science if you've got the experience and if you've got a learning and development background.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: I really love that.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: And and the fact that I so let's say, for example, I'm off to my work, you know, off to my job, IFA administrative, I could be going anywhere.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't really matter, does it?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: If I've made a decision that I'm going to do R01 to R05, which are exam-based questions, yeah, I can instead of because instead of buying the study book, the book from the CII, which is massively complicated, I've picked up one of those.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's you know, it it's it's written to cover their backs.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, it's a technician's guide.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's a technician's guide.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: You then have taken that technician's guide, repurposed it into something that's far more digestible, and said, I'll tell you what, what you need to really do as well is is is practice the exam questions.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: Here's our app.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: Download the app.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_02: So when you're sat on the tube or you're sat on the train or you're having a coffee or whatever, I'll do five questions.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, absolutely, and that that's the feedback that we get.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I was on the bus, yeah, I did a couple of questions, yeah, or or I was on the tube, yeah.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I did half of a sample exam.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and one of the key things for me, yeah.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: Explain your answers, don't just tell them it's A or it's B or it's C or it's D.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: Why is it?
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: What's your rationale?
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: How did you get there?
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's something again that flows through all of our materials.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's also got all of our experience in it, and we train the ROs week in, week out, yeah, and we have done, yeah, ever since they've been in existence.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I would challenge any company out there to offer RO support, yeah, to say that they have the same depth of experience, wealth of experience, and just the frequency of training candidates.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: You're flat out doing it because you because you know, yes, you've been there for 17, no, nearly 16 years you've ran this company, 17 years nearly.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: Now, you haven't been sat there in your ivory tower dictating to or hiring in trainers that you've got no experience of ever meeting or anything.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you're living and breathing.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: This is what you're saying.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you are doing it day in, day out.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: We are doing it day in, day in, day out, and you're always looking for ways to develop how can I make this easier for the candidate to digest and understand?
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_02: Not only so when they walk into a client meeting, eventually they do know what they're talking about.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: It and also I suppose you're thinking about certain psycholinguistics, how to how to ensure that the communicate how to communicate something that's in a if you if you can communicate it simply to somebody to learn it, then that's only going to knock on to that person when they sit down with a client and they're gonna give a they're gonna deliver far greater experience of knowledge and practice, you know, the the the the the actual um technical skills.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I really like that.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know that about that, you know.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: And that to me, because I I'm somebody, right?
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_02: And you might come across this, and this maybe you can give some advice on this, but I'm somebody that when I was in school, I didn't do exams very well.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I was too good looking for exams.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not supposed to laugh.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: I was I thought I was gonna be a football player or some meet some people, meet some like really like wealthy women or some women or something like that.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: But do you know?
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: I well, I always thought that I would meet somebody and I'd be a lady that lunches, but isn't it funny?
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, how life works out.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_02: It is funny how life works out.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think I'd be bored, yeah.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you would be bored.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: I'd be bored.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, depends.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: Depends how much money she'd have a go, wouldn't it?
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_02: And it would be nice if you decide whether we were bored.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I was never very good at exams.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so I'm not, and and also there's a psych, there's a confidence within me when it comes to exams.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't know, I worry or I feel already, I've got this ingrained belief that I'm not gonna be able to pass it.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: So if you said to me, Sam, I want you to be a financial planner, I'm gonna put my hands up, but I'm gonna be anxious about it.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: The study involved and also the passing of the qualifications.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_02: So, what advice would you give to somebody like me who has this ingrained belief that perhaps they're not very good at exams?
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen it a lot, yeah, and I can spot it in a candidate a mile off.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, what gives confidence is passing your first exam.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: When we we generally set people off on R01 first, and R01 is a horrible exam.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the most yeah, it's not the most scintillating of subjects, it's a very broad syllabus.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Using our approach, they get into the exam and they're better prepared for the sorts of questions they're gonna get.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: And when they pass that, you then get that belief that you can do it.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: The num number of people I've spoken to where their confidence has taken a massive hit.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it isn't, Sam, that they haven't bought lots of materials, they've spent a lot of money.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: They've also done the work, they've absolutely worked their socks off, but then they've got into the R01 exam and had that experience, which is well, this is nothing like the stuff that I was studying.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then they come to us and say, I'm really struggling with my R01.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we say, Well, do you know what?
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: Try this, use the app.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: When you get one, you then get a bit of that belief back that you can actually do it.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then the other thing we say is do R01 first and then do R05.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: Because R05, yeah, is actually a level three exam.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not saying it's easy, yeah, yeah, but it's not quite as as horrid as tax investments, pensions.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: So do your R05 next, because with that past, you actually get even more confidence because you are one third of the way there to getting your level four.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but but we uh we see that a lot.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so good advice that is don't eat the whole cake.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: Don't think about you have to eat the whole cake in one.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_02: But I'll tell you what, we're gonna give you a nice big slice, first of all, okay, but you're gonna get it down you.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: I know it's not gonna be too much for you to eat.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: You're gonna get it down you, but once you've eaten it, you're gonna feel absolutely fantastic, okay?
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: King of the world, king of the world, because it's tough.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's gonna give you some great confidence.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um what we're gonna do after that, we're gonna give you another one that's a bit of a toughie, yeah, and we're gonna get you through that.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_02: But you're gonna be a you know, one third of the way through.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: Is it is it one third, yeah, one third of the way through?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that to me is great advice for anybody who's listening.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_02: Now, definitely, I I think now I know from talking to you, I if I was sat there thinking, like, well, how am I gonna do my qualifications then?
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: I would naturally go to the CII, wouldn't I?
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_02: Or I go to the L IBF, or I go to the CISI, and I would grab their study material like back in the day when I attempted FPC one.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_02: I had this book like this.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's so boring.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then someone came in to me at the Viva and he was he was like regurgitating it from the book, and then I was like, I can't do this.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_02: And then they gave me a um a box of tapes, and the tapes were just listening to them talk through the book, and they weren't even explaining anything, it was just the book, the the the document in and I was just blown away by it.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm ignoring Sam.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I'm sitting here now thinking, well, actually, it's my learning style.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: I need I need someone to articulate something to me that I understand.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_02: Do you do any research into learning styles?
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um well, both the directors of BTS are CPD, CPD, is it CPD?
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh certificate in training practice, C oh don't we've got uh training qualifications, yeah, yeah.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: So anything that that we produce and we offer does consider that, absolutely, yeah, yeah.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean I'm I'm laughing, yeah, because we we have I think 10 to 15 BTS associates that use BTS material and work work with our clients, yeah, supporting their different academies.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: And if any one of them stood up and just read through, yeah, the slides, yeah, it's just like hello, yeah.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then that there are probably gosh 3,000 minimum uh individuals out there that are capable of training the ROs, and we've got 15 of them, yeah.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_02: How many 20?
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_02: How many of them out there?
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: 50.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, 3,000.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's loads of of financial services trainers.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, are there a lot that BTS would use?
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely not.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: No, yeah, because you need different skills, you need to really know your subject, but but you need to bring it to life, you need to have a passion.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, people that are listening to me that have been trained by me will know I've got a passion for pensions, yeah, yeah.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I know, I know, no laughing, and but but you need that passion, you need that interest to bring it, bring it to life.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it's you can't just read it out, you can't just give them them words.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: No, you need to give them and you what did you learn?
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: You were learning it parrot fashion.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't it's like that's never gonna pass you anything because the CII don't test that, they test your application.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_02: I struggled, I struggled with remembering things.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: That was my problem as well.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's like trying to remember all the different tax things and all it was so difficult for me to try and and different dates in time that it's like, well, why do I have to remember this for an exam?
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_02: Why do I have to remember this?
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_02: Why is that valuable?
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_02: Why can't I just know it, have it in a document, and then refer to it later on down the line?
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_02: Why do why do I have to go into exam and regurgitate something?
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's it it alienates certain people's learning styles, it does.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's what like sort of negs me out a little bit about it, is is is that sort of there's an argument there, yeah, to actually go back to the likes of the CII, the CISI, uh Libf, and say, actually, are you testing the right things in your qualifications?
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because as you quite rightly say, in real life, if you want to look up, yeah, the relevant date for that, you just go and do it.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: Just see what what does it actually prove that you're able to remember it?
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: So so that there is an argument to go back and say, are you testing the right sort of things?
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: As I said to you, it's purely a badge.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and not everybody's got the ability to remember things like an elephant, you know.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_02: Not actually physically remember the elephant, but the memory of an elephant.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: I I I I I absolutely know what you do.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: I can remember what you mean.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I like pictures, yeah, and I like silly stuff.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, silly stuff, yeah.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: I had one student that I trained, funnily enough, on pensions, and she went on to do all the advanced pension qualifications.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: And uh she called me the other day and she said, I always remember you, Louisa, yeah, because I remember escalation, because you said, think about an old person needing an escalator.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and she said that and I trained her 12 years ago.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: She would have always remembered that.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually use it, use it with clients.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it doesn't matter how silly it is, if it's understandable, it helps you remember it.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: Who cares?
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I used to be a I told you before I did use to do training for Aviva.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_02: So when I was um sort of mid-20s, yeah, I worked for Aviva and they had a joint venture with the Royal Bank of Scotland, and they had some bonds, investments, and things they were selling through the banks of Nat West Life, for example.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_02: And um, so I used to have to train guys that come like straight from college, university, to work on the telephones as customer service agents and provide um valuations and things to financial advisors and to the actual clients themselves, so people who've taken out the investments.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I always kind of quite admired the trainers for how they would are you know, how they would train us and prepare us for the actual job.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_02: However, when I went from the training room after two weeks and sat on the phone, it was completely irrelevant.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember thinking to myself, like what you've taught me, I've probably remembered about five percent.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_02: And um, so I I got the opportunity.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_02: I I I got the I went off traveling for like years, came back and they took me back on again and they said, come in as a trainer.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I came in as a trainer, and then I was writing and building training, training programs for these customer service guys that are coming through, you know, and I had to sort of um I remember one like A-Day, for example, when A Day came out, and I had to sort of articulate what A Day was and all the different changes to pensions throughout the years and all the different things that would happen.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_02: I bet you thoroughly enjoyed it, didn't you, Sam?
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_02: Interestingly, and interestingly enough, I I found it really hard, but there was something in it that I enjoyed, I enjoyed the digging to find the information and how that I could then myself remember it.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_02: Because if I can remember it, then the guys that I'm training could remember it.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I used to just be very interactive.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_02: So I used to use the whiteboard all the time, bringing them up and sort of write, I want you to write everything you know about A Day there, and then you'd have teams of different teams against each other.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_02: And by the end of it, they'd have all written the information that was relevant to what they should be remembering, but they'd have all done it themselves, they'd have all done different parts of it, and then we bring it all together, and then from there they would write it down and they would then again come back and role-play it, for example.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I found that interactive style work really, really well.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I did enjoy it.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I the struggle that I had was going off to technical department and and saying, look, I want to talk about this, and this is how I'm gonna talk about it.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, back come the red pen, you can't say that, you can't say this.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_02: It was just like, why have I got to why have I got to read it like a like a like a robot from a book?
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: Why can't I articulate it?
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_02: I said, what I'm saying is right though, isn't it?
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_02: And then there's so many battles, and in the end, I got on with them quite well in the end, because I get what their job is.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: Their job is to say, Sam, don't take the piss because we're a massive company here.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_02: And if you say something the wrong way, then we're don't expose us to any risk.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_02: I totally got it, but at the same time, it was like, yeah, I'm gonna tell them that, and here it here's the book side, smart side of it, but this is the bit for them to understand.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely makes sense, and I also think having done the job when you went then went back in to train them, yeah, yeah, that gives you a real advantage, yeah, because you know how you were trained before, what was useful, what wasn't useful, yeah.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: So you could use all that experience writing your actual programs and then you know fighting with compliance to get them through, yeah.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: But doing it, sitting the exams.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I sat R06, yeah, which is um the holistic financial planning, yeah, typed uh paper now.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: Not because I need it, but because I wanted to see what the uh computer system was like and what actually was the experience like.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: If you can't put yourselves in the shoes of a student on a regular basis, yeah, you should you shouldn't be offering learning and development services.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you've got to be doing it yourself constantly, seeing how things work, yeah, to to be able to guide people that come to you and say, Well, what's the system like, Louisa?
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, it was okay for two hours and 40 minutes, and then I lost everything.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: So up to that point, it was fantastic.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it's yeah, I I have a passion for what we do, but I also, yeah, uh, have a lot of I look at some things that are available and I think it's not exam style, you've not been doing it for long enough, yeah.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: How can you be charging that for it?
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_02: When someone goes to the CII, right, and applies directly, they get their book and they've got to do it themselves, right?
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_02: So if they come through you, what you're saying is you've just taken that book and rewritten it.
• 43:59
  unknown: Yeah.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, you don't have to go to the CIA and do it at all.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_02: But we've got this book.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: It means exactly the same things because we're going to get you passing your exams and coursework at the end.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_02: And that's it.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_02: Now, how does that differ massively in price?
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: So now that's a difficult question to answer because you cannot buy the CII study guide standalone anymore.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because they sell packages.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I I would have absolutely no idea because we can't actually compare it.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'd imagine ours are going to be more expensive, yeah, uh, than the package including the exam.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: But what I would say to everybody is if you're not going to pass the exam first time around and you have to pay an extra 150 quid to resit it, but not only that, the effect that it's going to have on your confidence, yeah, on how you uh approach your next exam, it's not all about the cost, is it?
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I know if I buy a pair of beautiful, expensive shoes, fingers crossed, yeah, my feet are gonna look gorgeous and they're gonna last for a long time.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas if I go into, you know, a store and buy a pair of shoes for five quid, yeah, I'm not expecting them to last longer than a season.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: No, yeah.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: So it's you pay for what you get.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a great believer in that.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: Do you find there is a lot of people that come to you after going down the CII route, for example, thinking they can do it themselves, and they're just like uh sort of beaten into submission, really.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_02: They're like, I need some help.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, because a lot of people start with R01 and they absolutely have that experience.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_01: They buy, yeah, examining body guide, they buy the audio tapes, they buy the little fact sheets, they go for revision, mate.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: So they absolutely, Sam, spend a fortune.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: And they also do all the study hours, so they do 60, 70 study hours.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: These aren't people that want a shortcut or aren't willing to spend something, spend, spend a decent amount of money.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: But what they want are materials that are fit for purpose, materials that actually, when they get into the exam, it won't be a, oh, could I have the right exam here?
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because this isn't like anything I've been practicing on.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the big frustration for a lot of people.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I think what you something you've we're touching on here as well is motivation.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_02: Because to pass your level four qualifications, you do need some motivation, don't you?
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness, don't you?
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's a load of hard work.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's a load of hard work, isn't it?
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I guess what you're doing there then is like if I'm going to the CII and I'm down in all my guides, my I can do this myself, self-will.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'm, you know, I'm I'm more than capable of doing this.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not paying a trainer to help me.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_02: My motivation would just go as soon as I get stuck on something, or I'm a bit like, well, look, my motivation would go down.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_02: What I like about using like an external trainer or the idea of using an external trainer is that there's a timeline, isn't there, to completing something?
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know, now it could be now could you base that on the time you you actually put into it?
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_02: So is it like, how do I work out, how do I know that I'm on if I was to come to you and you said to me, Sam, I'm gonna do R01, right?
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_02: This is what we're gonna do.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_02: This is how we're gonna do it.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_02: Here's a here's an app, here's this, that, and the other.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_02: What do you do to help me stay motivated and for me to know that I'm on track to passing it?
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's a good, it's a good question, yeah.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: And and that depends on again, are you a full-time student?
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, are you coming through an academy?
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: Are you doing it yeah, on your own?
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, academy students, yeah, we have forums that they can come on, yeah, and and ask ask us questions.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_01: You have to have some sort of focus, yeah.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: You have to have some sort of timeline, otherwise it's really easy to drift, yeah, yeah, and and actually think, oh, R01's really boring.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: So we say to people, look, yeah, if you're studying full-time, it's going to take this amount of time.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_01: If you're studying with a full-time job, less likely to take this amount of time.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: But get an exam sitting booked, have something to aim for, yeah.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that you're not sat there at home thinking, hmm, shall I study R01 or should I watch I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here?
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, well, do you know what?
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think the latter has won.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: You got to have some sort of focus to do it.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: But it is tough.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's a lot of work, it's not cheap, yeah, but then it shouldn't be.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_02: What I've also found, whenever I've studied something or I've committed to something, I always find that when I put a date in my diary, a time, and I'm accountable for it, not just a date and a time, but I'm accountable to others.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_02: So if I know that I so if I want to do something every week, like if you look playing football for a football team, let's say, right?
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_02: If you are accountable for what you've got to do, you know that you've got to turn up on a certain day and you've got to be there, not just because you want to get better yourself, but you're part of a you're accountable to others as well.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_02: I like the idea of that when in in studying.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's like I've kind of like a study group, like I'm part of a study group and I'm accountable, and that my help being there is going to help somebody else and they're going to help me.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_02: Does that do do you do these guys log into anything like that at all?
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_02: Are they can I can I get can I log in once a week and be part of something?
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_02: Does that if does that does that happen through BTS?
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, generally they form their own WhatsApp groups, okay, yeah, and they all support each other, yeah.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then they've got us, yeah, to come to at any point to say, oh, I'm struggling with that, I'm struggling struggling with with this.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to control that a little bit though, Sam, because if you could imagine, yeah, with we we support so many candidates, it would actually be a full-time job, yeah, if if we um if they had that available, yeah, seven days a week.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'd be answer answering questions on a on a Sunday.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_02: You'd be yeah, so what you're kind of almost looking for there is so what I'm sort of leading to alluding to here is really is these communities that are popping up, you know.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_02: So your training company would have also, hey, come and join the community.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_02: When you're in the community, you can ask questions.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so you'd have like a community manager that's in there, but also as well, I suppose that what you're sort of empowering here is the ability for people to help people.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_02: So if someone's done their R01 or R02, then they can then become choose, because not everyone wants to do it, they can choose to become a mentor.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then perhaps they might mentor be there for the people who are doing their R01 and answer some questions.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_02: But at the same time, it's not difficult to now create question banks.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_02: So if there are typical questions that always get asked, which there always bloody is probably, and you've already got the questions through and the answers, if you like, through tests and all that kind of stuff, you can build a bot that will answer regularly regularly asked questions.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_02: It does it for you.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I kind of I think there is a gap in the whole financial planning training side for something of a community basis.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_02: So one where you're pulling people in to do the qualifications, and then once they're in, they're in a community.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, they've got the app, they've got the study book, they've got perhaps um a webinar once a week or whatever to kind of on whatever it might well be, and obviously the training that they pay for and the solutions of how they can do it.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_02: But at the same time, the community is a self-sufficient community which looks after themselves because you haven't got anybody in there regulating it.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_02: You might have a few uh what they call it, moderators or something like that.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_02: But then you you want it off of Facebook, you want it off of LinkedIn, you want your own community, and obviously, there's the ability then to them, once they're in that community, you can then add other training.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_02: Perhaps you've got somebody who's an amazing trainer around personal development skills that could then perhaps pitch in there and do some training within the community as well.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_02: I like that idea, and that's a kind of brain, that's a kind of something that's floating around my head at the moment.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_02: Am I just like on a should I stop it or should I sort of keep it?
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, do you think that might be a generational thing as well?
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_01: That the generation, yeah, a lot of the financial or potential financial planners we're seeing, yeah, coming forward, yeah, actually that approach I think would work incredibly well for them.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_01: We've tried something similar historically, and actually, um, a lot of the second careerists didn't actually want to go on.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and we didn't have much of a take up.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, as I say, now today, yeah, I think that could absolutely work.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_02: Especially if it's on like a subscription-based model.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_02: So absolutely, you know, you've put them on subscriptions, they're then signing up for like so many months.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_02: You and and and you're kind of and it's easier for them because it's cheaper because it's subscription.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_02: But what's the value add?
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the value add is yeah, you're getting some amazing content for passing your exams.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_02: But what what else is the value add?
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'll tell you what, we've got some amazing speakers and other trainers that will that are gonna come in and talk to you about personal branding, how to win clients, how to better use LinkedIn as a financial planner, and all of a sudden, mentor community that is more than just I'm gonna pass the exams because you've got this amazing community, you've got this amazing reputation, and then it's like bam, take it out, and all of a sudden you've got recruitment on the side of it, you've got linking into companies.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I've got this guy who's now past his qualifications, but he's got nowhere to go.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_02: Where can we put him?
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and you've got companies that are involved in saying, Well, we'll have them, you know, and I really like all of that.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, yeah, I think you'll be amazed, yeah, at how some people would absolutely use it.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, some people would sort of like go in, go in occasionally, and you'd get a few people that would actually hammer that community, yeah, and squeeze every last.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_01: So, so there would definitely be a variety of different users.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um and without offering that exactly, we see that ourselves.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_01: We get some candidates that are literally, yeah, on the phone or via email to us, yeah, weekly if not daily, whereas others we hardly ever hear from.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_01: So again, like learning styles, it's it's personal preferences, isn't it?
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_02: And that's how the model works quite well, is because 80% of people probably won't, they will just they'll just be what they call them, they sit on the outside observing, and then you've got the ones in it actually talking and communicating.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you've got your activists, your theorists, yeah.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, and your reflectors, that's it.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_02: That was um, yeah, that was I didn't learn all that activist theorist, reflector.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, pragmatist.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_02: Pragmatist, yeah.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_02: All right, listen.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, what's going on?
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_02: What's what's next in what's next in the world of the CII qualifications?
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_02: What should people be expecting?
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think is going to happen in the next couple of years or months?
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you hear all this talk about people should be level, you know, should be level six qualified as a minimum to be given financial planning.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, everyone's banging that drum.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_02: Most of the people you've got level six qualification, fair play.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_02: But what do you think?
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_02: What's next in the world of of qualifications and CII and all that kind of thing?
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't think financial advice is all about being the best technician going.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_01: No, yeah.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_01: I I think that it uses so many other skills, yeah, other than your technical knowledge.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_01: My own view, do we all need to be level six?
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think if you've got level six, great, yeah.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_01: But then I've got level six.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_01: There's stuff I need to look up, yeah, because you can't retain all of that knowledge in your head because you don't use it all the time.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so and I hear people banging that drum, absolutely, yeah.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_01: Do I think the regulator should turn around and say, like they did with level four and RDR, well, everybody's now got to be level six.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think that would be a mistake.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because I think you can have somebody that will never get a level four qualification.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_01: They'll they'll never get there, yeah, because they are so much more technical than level four.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_01: Does that make them a bad advisor?
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_01: No, yeah, it just doesn't make them, yeah, they don't have all of those uh exam technician skills.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_01: As I say, they can be a fantastic advisor, yeah, with level four.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think it would be a mistake for our industry, is my personal view.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_01: But I'll probably get hounded for that comment.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think so.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think anybody who's got a bit of sense can see that because I think some people kind of hold a qualification.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's the thing, isn't it?
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_02: I some people will hold their qualifications in such high esteem that that makes them who they are, because they're an educated, uh, qualified person.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas somebody else could have level four qualification and be telling over two million quid.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_02: Why?
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_02: Because they're brilliant at the job, because they're amazing at building relationships.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_01: My clients trust them, absolutely.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_01: They're trustworthy, yeah.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_01: I have met some of the best technicians that are absolutely dire at building relationships, yeah, and building trust.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you've got all of that knowledge in your head.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_01: So let's go get a client, let's give them all that knowledge, yeah.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: And watch that client give them you the face, which is the lights are on, but there's nobody at home because I've got no idea what you're talking about.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, I completely agree with you.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's the the job is so much more than that.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, so much more than that.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um if anybody's listening, so if anybody's listening to this and they're thinking, oh my god, I've got to retain all this information through my qualifications, I've got to get level six and all of that kind of stuff, you know, that I think again, it's just to reassure people that this is part of the journey of becoming a financial planner.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_02: Now, you can pass these qualifications, you get people through varying learning styles to passing their level four qualification and being qualified to give financial advice.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_02: And as you've rightfully said, and you've experienced yourself by being level six qualification, just because you hold the qualifications doesn't make you a financial planner.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_02: There's a hell of a lot more you've got to learn on the job.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_02: So that's worth bearing in mind.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_02: My my my final question to you then what why you're level six qualified, you've gone over those qualifications over and over and over and over.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_02: Why aren't you working in financial planning as a financial planner?
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't know.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I suppose it's because I fell into learning and development and I love it.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I love what we do.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_01: I love, yeah, 99.9% of the candidates that that that we work with, I think what what we do is actually to a degree, you get the same feeling from giving financial advice because ultimately I'm doing something I love, getting earning a decent living, and I'm helping people.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm helping people, yeah, go up the steps and enabling them to give yeah, better advice.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I get a real it's a real privilege to do that, yeah.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_01: And because I get such a great amount of personal satisfaction, I've never thought, oh, do you know what?
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'll go and and be a financial advisor, go and do specialists.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's something that's never appealed to me, yeah.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's because I love what I do.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_01: I love the fact that I run BTS, yeah, with with Jeff.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_01: I love the fact that we work with so many different companies, so many different people.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_01: And and as I say, we get a lot of joy out of it.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_01: I know that sounds corny, but absolutely, yeah, we love what we do.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_02: No, I love the sound of that, and that's what it's all about.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_02: And whenever I come across somebody and they're unhappy in their role, whether even it's final financial planning or power planning or anything, and it's I question them.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_02: I say, Well, are you unhappy with your job?
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_02: Are you are you you need to be happy doing what you're doing?
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I love the fact that you are happy in doing what you're doing, and and and and and and that's your answer, and that's that's why you're doing it.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_02: You're not saying, Oh, because it I earn loads of money and all of that, it's just you're doing it because you you enjoy it, yes, and and you spend so much of your life, yeah.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of us spend so much of our lives working.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_01: Why do you want to do something you don't actually enjoy?
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_01: No, yeah.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_01: Oh blind, I'm also far too old to be doing any of that.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, the the financial advice profession is amazing, yeah.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_01: And and ultimately you can make a brilliant living whilst helping people and building the relationships that actually, as human beings, we all need.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_01: We need that, yeah.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and one of the reasons why the lockdown and COVID-19 has been such a horrible year, yeah, because we can do less of that.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm dying to go.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna hug a stranger when everybody's been vaccinated.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be hugging everybody I go past infinite street.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because I've really missed that.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that human touch.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_02: I know what you mean.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like instead of like, well, but my daughter's four years old, right?
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_02: And she's kind of like the a year of her life nearly is having to kind of think there's some bug that's gonna affect her or affect everybody else, and we're all walking around in masks.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I've I've got to, I need to get her out there and yeah, don't get her hugging anybody yet, though.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_02: No, yeah, don't go hugging random, random people.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want to encourage that behavior in a four-year-old, no.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_01: Very good.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_02: With businesses, one more question, okay.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna ask you another one.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_02: With so you've got the direct candidate who comes to you who's interested in doing their qualifications, so they could be no experienced or partly experienced, okay.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_02: Are you finding those partly experienced ones that come and see you?
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, my first question, are you finding those partly experienced ones that come and see you?
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_02: Are they paying for it themselves or are their companies paying for it?
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_01: A bit of both, yeah.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_01: So we get individuals that actually, yeah, it's it's not their company making them do the qualifications, actually their own self-development.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, so we we we get a bit of both.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_02: And thirdly, then, are you seeing a rise in firms?
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_02: Because obviously across the UK, there's a hell of a lot more small to medium-sized financial planning firms than there are large national firms that have got a bit of cash in the bank.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_02: So, are you starting to see smaller boutique firms actually coming to you and saying, Look, we want to use you for the training of our newbies coming through IIA administrators?
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know, are you seeing that they're building personal development plans and including trainers within it?
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, some are, some aren't.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think this last year has been such a challenge to so many businesses.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_01: I probably get, yeah, a better idea of that when COVID is is hopefully a dim and distant pass um in our in our past.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think the apprenticeships, yep, and um networks such as the New Model Business Academy.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um we're seeing more and more, yep, uh smaller firms, yep, actually put their um candidates through things like apprenticeship firms.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um we work with a university down in in the southwest where a big IFA, yeah, using the apprenticeship levy is putting their candidates through the university with BTS actually doing the RO support.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_01: So you're seeing different models develop.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's that's fascinating.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_02: Well, so they so they're using the apprenticeship levy.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_01: But they're outsourcing the training to you.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, or some of the training.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_01: So who's paying for that training?
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_01: The the firm or the well, it it's actually yeah, because once you've got gross turnover over a certain amount, you have to pay an apprenticeship levy.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have any choice.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's then then being claimed back by the university to fund that training.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's a conversation for another day.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_02: Can I we'll we'll take some time maybe and you can explain that to me because I think that's something that I would be really interesting to understand a little bit more because of my dealings with firms and and um you know their their want to grow, but you know, not being able to afford like recruitment fees and stuff like that.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, there are I can think of at least two, and not just the university, but there are at least two or three very large companies that specialize in that, yeah, that actually are apprenticeship providers themselves.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not just about the qualifications, it's about the soft skills, yeah, etc.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and they're the conduit for quite a few smaller firms where it's very expensive for them to yeah, do the training uh in-house, yeah, and also that they don't have the experience, so they actually are using firms like that and and getting back, or the firm is using the levy that they've had to pay in the first place.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, fair play.
• 1:04:41
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'll be interested to hear a bit more about that because that'll kind of educate me anyway into that side of it.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_02: But there's definitely some kind of well, I recently put an article out, didn't I?
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_02: About I I amalgamated all the qualifications.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_01: You did, which I thought, damn it.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_01: I should have thought of that.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so what did you think that was a good obviously you thought it was quite good?
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_01: Really good, yeah.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, what we try and do that through our LinkedIn blog.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we try and post articles about, you know, what problems are we seeing with remote exams?
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_01: What are candidates um finding?
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I had one of my RO6 students when she passed, she said to me, Louisa, I don't know where I go, yeah.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_01: When do I get my certificate?
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_01: What letters can I use?
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_01: So actually, we did an article on that, because with the the greatest respect, the actual website of the CII, there's no one place that you can go and it'll say, This is how that works.
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I I thought it was a great idea, as I say, darn it.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I thought of it myself.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but stuff like that, we need stuff like that, Sam.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_02: Well, this is the thing.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think sometimes it's I run a recruitment agency, and I think recruitments sometimes get a bad get can get a bad name.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_02: My whole aim, really, at the moment, is to build a good relationship with the financial planning profession, whether that's people looking For jobs with people looking to hire.
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_02: I think the only way that I can really do that is by adding content that's valuable to both sides.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_02: So this podcast, for example, where we talk about the career of a financial planner, and I ask questions from a recruiter perspective, not from a financial advisor perspective, you know, because financial advisors can be biased.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_02: So my whole point is to sort of raise sort of awareness of the profession, dig a little bit deeper, maybe ask questions that other people don't ask, but also then provide some content that's going to be helpful to anybody out there who's on their journey.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_02: Because I'll tell you what, I empathize and I really feel sorry for some of these guys.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_02: They just want to be financial planners, right?
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_02: They hear about the profession is losing financial planners, yet there's no good, clear content out there about how to become a financial appliancer, let alone firms aren't willing to take people on because they don't have transferable assets or they have to train them and all of that.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I think, God, in this day and age, but at the same time, that's because some of these people running these firms are thinking about their exit.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_02: Why the hell do they care about the next generation or developing um training and onboarding and all of that?
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_02: Because they're thinking I'm gonna check it out soon.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_02: So it is over to these larger firms that are now started doing it at the academies and everything.
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_02: So it's definitely working, it's there, it's definitely going in the right direction.
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_02: Anything I can do to contribute, I want to contribute.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_02: And talking to people like yourself is is fabulous because it gives me a great understanding, gives my team a great understanding, and also gives the candidates and clients out there a good answer.
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_01: And there is such a there's not many places you can go.
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, how does a candidate know which order to do the exams?
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, if no, yeah.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_01: So they'd just do one one through to six, or yeah, where do you go to get the this this sort of information?
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_01: We try and do as much of that, yeah, as we can through our blogging.
• 1:07:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't do much on Facebook, I have to admit, and Twitter chemistry.
• 1:07:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but LinkedIn as a professional yeah art network, we post loads of stuff, just information as well.
• 1:07:59
  SPEAKER_01: How does that work?
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what's what's that about?
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so the more we can give them, the better.
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_02: I might do a guide then about um so helping financial planning firms, how they can hire more staff through things like the the apprenticeship levy and stuff like that, and then sort of amalgamating some of those firms that are out there, trainers and stuff like that as well.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_02: So putting you into it and saying, look, here's a definitive guide about how you can build a personal development plan, but also how you can hire the next generation.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_02: So don't be put off by somebody who's coming straight out of university because they could be your next absolute superstar.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_02: Instead, look at this, and this will tell you the options that are available to you to potentially bring that person in and really the pitfalls that you might need to think about.
• 1:08:41
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you are going to hire, say, two people straight from university, there are going to be pitfalls because I know that because I hire people from university, you know, they're not going to be the polished article.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_02: So you have to have a personal development plan in place.
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_02: You have to be able to also protect that they aren't going to leave once they've got their qualifications.
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, and that's a that's a massive thing because I mean we we've worked with clients and we've developed 20 people, yeah, up to level four.
• 1:09:06
  SPEAKER_01: And because their contractual, yeah, um uh parameters aren't strong enough, they've literally then left.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so the company spent well, I don't know, 20 grand, yeah, but per person.
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_01: They've got level four, they're nice, bright, and shiny.
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I'll go go get another job, yeah, that that pays me double the amount.
• 1:09:26
  SPEAKER_01: But lots of our clients develop from within.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_01: So so they actually get youngsters in, yeah, yeah, get them working and experiencing the financial services market, and then they start to develop them themselves internally using us.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love it.
• 1:09:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's which is that's the way forward.
• 1:09:48
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the thing, it's just it's it's connecting the dots, isn't it?
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's having the ability to talk to multiple financial planning firms, expressing, okay, these are the pitfalls you get.
• 1:09:56
  SPEAKER_02: You want to grow, of course you do.
• 1:09:57
  SPEAKER_02: You want to hire, course you do.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_02: But these are the things you've got to think about.
• 1:09:59
  SPEAKER_02: This is where training fits into it.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_02: This is where some of the funding would come in, this is where recruitment comes in.
• 1:10:05
  SPEAKER_02: Now you've got to think about how you retain that staff.
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_02: So this is a personal development plan.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_02: What should be at the end of a personal development plan?
• 1:10:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know, should there be some sort of share safe scheme in place that, you know, things that are going to add value?
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_02: I think so many financial planning companies, right?
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I and I I'm baffled by this because they they're financial planning firms, right?
• 1:10:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then you've got employee benefits.
• 1:10:26
  SPEAKER_02: They kind of they're part and parcel, really.
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_02: There's a financial services benefits packages, a lot of these, and none of them have got them in place.
• 1:10:33
  SPEAKER_02: Not so many firms have very minimal like employee benefits in place.
• 1:10:37
  SPEAKER_02: And you think to yourself, Crikey, that's you should know this stuff, you know.
• 1:10:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's where they'll stay because they've got this and that in place.
• 1:10:43
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm looking at these enterprise, you know, like the enterprise share share schemes.
• 1:10:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, there's loads of things out there that you can do to incentivize your staff.
• 1:10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, completely completely agree.
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_01: So, but it's it's it's about accessibility, isn't it?
• 1:11:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's about knowing what's available, yeah, how it works, and making an informed decision.
• 1:11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:11:06
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things I hate is cartels or monopolies.
• 1:11:10
  SPEAKER_01: I am a great believer in free market competition, and I would fight to protect that.
• 1:11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah.
• 1:11:16
  SPEAKER_01: So we need to tell them what they've got available, and then it's their choice.
• 1:11:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:11:21
  SPEAKER_01: We've never got any problem with somebody saying, Do you know what, Louisa?
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the CII guide suits my learning style better.
• 1:11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 1:11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but at least you've got a choice, don't just think you've got one route to go down.
• 1:11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there is market choice out there, not just BTS, yeah.
• 1:11:39
  SPEAKER_01: There's a decent amount of market choice.
• 1:11:42
  SPEAKER_01: We're obviously the best, but then I would be slightly biased.
• 1:11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_01: But we've got to tell them about it.
• 1:11:47
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't tell people, they automatically assume they've got no choice.
• 1:11:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if you don't tell them what order should I sit the exams in, then they're not gonna know.
• 1:11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if you don't tell them what options are out there, such as CISI, yeah, such as L I BF, they're not gonna know.
• 1:12:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's there's just so much information out there and no real conduit for all of it.
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this is what the financial plan of life might well be, and this is where and it sounds like it, yeah, that's exactly what it's looking to be.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's where I'm going with it.
• 1:12:19
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I'm thinking, is this ability to bring it all together because I do truly believe that recruitment and training um go hand in hand.
• 1:12:27
  SPEAKER_02: So they're you know, we're gonna hire somebody, you need to you need to think, well, what am I gonna put in place to to to train them or develop them?
• 1:12:34
  SPEAKER_02: And more often than not, that's why people leave companies, is because there's no plan in place for them, you know, and it's not just you know, if someone starts and they want to be a uh level four qualified financial planner, right?
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_02: You should say to them, right, well, look, some people do it in a year, people get their level four qualification in a year, but this is what this is you've got to start as an IFA admin, you've got to put go be a power planner, we move across there.
• 1:12:52
  SPEAKER_02: Hopefully, by then you've got your couple of barrows under your belt.
• 1:12:55
  SPEAKER_02: By the end of that, hopefully within two years, you'll be a financial planner.
• 1:12:58
  SPEAKER_02: And this is what we do when you're a financial planner.
• 1:12:59
  SPEAKER_02: When you have somebody going through that process, and then that person can advocate that process, people are gonna go, wow, because that's what people want.
• 1:13:07
  SPEAKER_02: I find that I built a PDP for my recruitment company, right?
• 1:13:10
  SPEAKER_02: Because sometimes they come in here and they're like, Well, they haven't.
• 1:13:12
  SPEAKER_02: I talked to them about what two years looks like, what three years looks like, what they're gonna earn and what they're gonna experience and all of that.
• 1:13:18
  SPEAKER_02: And they just they buy into the journey.
• 1:13:21
  SPEAKER_02: That's all people want is to know that there's something at the end of the pot, that they're not just kind of like and that it's being reviewed and they are living up to what they say they're doing, you know.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_02: So we work with BTS and BTS do this, and da da da da.
• 1:13:33
  SPEAKER_02: And we're gonna get you through your qualifications this way.
• 1:13:35
  SPEAKER_02: There's no need to hire internally trainers and all this sort of stuff, it's so much outsourced.
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely not.
• 1:13:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you've then got to pay the trainers' salaries, how do they keep up to date?
• 1:13:44
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to update your materials, it's just yeah, no, there's so much better way to do it and have real experts providing your support.
• 1:13:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, amazing.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, listen, thank you so much for your time today.
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_02: I really appreciate it.
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, lots, I think, for people to learn.
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I've learned a lot today.
• 1:14:04
  SPEAKER_02: So you've got a really um simplistic, I'm not saying you're simple, but I've got you've got a you've got a really simplistic way of of um of putting things across.
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I I I certainly, without a shadow of doubt, anybody comes to me asking about training or anything, I'll be putting them in your direction.
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because I could imagine it's absolutely spot on.
• 1:14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think we're gonna get trolled a lot for some of our conversation?
• 1:14:27
  SPEAKER_02: Probably.
• 1:14:29
  SPEAKER_01: Hey ho, bring it on.
• 1:14:31
  SPEAKER_02: Bring it on.
• 1:14:33
  SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
• 1:14:34
  SPEAKER_01: Really enjoyed it.
• 1:14:34
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Sam.
• 1:14:35
  SPEAKER_02: No worries.
• 1:14:36
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, thanks for coming on and um have an amazing weekend.
• 1:14:39
  SPEAKER_01: You too.
• 1:14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks very much, Sam.
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_02: Cheers, Lisa.
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_02: Bye.
• 1:14:43
  SPEAKER_02: Cool, that's all good.
• 1:14:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I was just about to leave there.
• 1:14:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, brilliant.
• 1:14:48
  SPEAKER_01: How uh do you really it's time goes really quickly, doesn't it, when you're naturing?
• 1:14:53
  SPEAKER_01: It does, and you think, how are you gonna fill all that time?
• 1:14:56
  SPEAKER_01: But actually, because you what do you do if you get somebody on?