Latest / Financial Planner Life Podcast / New Business Opportunities In Corporate Financial Advice

Transcript

New Business Opportunities In Corporate Financial Advice · Financial Planner Life Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody, Sam Oakst here from the Financial Planner Live podcast, and today I've got an awesome guest.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's Oliver MacDonald from Engaged Wealth Management.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we dig deep into corporate financial advice and why financial advisors aren't really in that space, but what are the opportunities and why you should get in there.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: He even shares his process of how to do it and some hints and tips around who to partner with to get the best results.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Spoiler alert, he now gets about 90% of his business on an inbound basis.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: So Oliver knows exactly what he's talking about.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Check out the podcast and get out there in the corporate advice world.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oliver, thank you so much for joining me today on the Financial Planner Life podcast.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: How are you?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Very good, Sam.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Very pleased to be here.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for inviting me on.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: All good.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: No, but listen, thank you so much for coming on at such short notice.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: I've been a bit naughty.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have any podcasts lined up, and I've had a bit of a break.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: I've been off for half-term looking after my daughter, celebrating her seventh birthday.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I've not had any podcasts lined up.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: So last minute, you came to the uh came to the rescue.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much for that.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Here I am.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Here I am, no problems.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, we've had a bit of a chat anyway, pre-pre-podcast, and I was really keen to get you on because of your journey into IFA.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: So you've come from an employee background, banking background.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And when I very first started in recruitment, I did a lot around bank assurance when there was an abundance of financial advisors and all the banks were hiring.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then you moved from that environment, then into the IFA background on an employee basis and finally ending up running your own directly authorised business.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a lovely journey, I think, that people will um love to learn about.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: So let's just kick things off, Oliver.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Just tell us a little bit about how you actually got into the profession.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so my my journey is I guess a little bit different to the class that lots of people sort of fall into this profession.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um whereas I was actually one of those strange people that wanted to do it.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: And um, but I got to the age, didn't go to university, uh, got to sort of 2021, decided I need to do something with my life.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was out in the French Alps and uh having a great time and decided I think accounting's my thing, pretty good at numbers.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, talked to the accountant there and he said, Why don't you look at financial planning?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's more you're actually talking to people, not sat so much behind the screen.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: So got back.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: I actually at that time was the level three diploma that I did, um, got a job at Barclays Bank.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: And this is, you know, not uh high-level banking, this is a cashier on minimum wage back then.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um and worked hard, worked my way up there up to doing sort of dealing with sort of premier level clients, and then did my exams uh there as well, carried on the sort of level four exams, got a job at Lloyd's Bank, which is more um, I think with with Lloyd's, if if you if you really want to learn how to how to sell, try and try and sell uh life insurance and income protection in a bank because nobody goes to banks and nobody goes there definitely for life insurance.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: So if you if you want to learn to sell that, that's uh that's a great way to sort of uh to to get into it.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I yeah, at that point, um I still wanted to be a financial planner, very difficult to get into the industry being young.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: I was 25, 26 at that time, uh, which I imagine a lot of your listeners maybe are at that stage and they're thinking about how and there are barriers still that it's it's an age thing, um, it's still there, it's very much.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I ended up applying to companies.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't go through, sorry, I didn't go through a recruiter sound.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um I decided to email uh and I sent, I remember sending 52 emails to 52 different companies all around the southeast of England, and I got three replies.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, two of them said uh we're we're small family company, and one said you come in for a coffee.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that was the rest of this history.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that was a local firm in in Hove, uh went in for coffee, eventually went in as a trainee financial advisor.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I think if you're trying to get into the industry, having that protection background is a great way to start.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I went in as a trainee financial advisor.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I didn't do the admin, didn't do the power planning thing.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: If I was going to do it again, I probably would go through those routes because it wasn't until I started my own company I realized how just how much power planners do and just how important admin the admins are.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, spent a long time there, worked my way up to a director level at that company, and then got to uh two and a two and a bit years ago where I decided I think I can do this myself.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's a product of lockdown, like a lot of people.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um you're generating generating all my own business.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of thinking, well, why am I doing this for somebody else?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, why not do it for my for myself?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that was then the decision to what do I do?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: Do I go self-employed somewhere else?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Do we go under a network?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: Do we go directly authorized?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: I ended up setting up yeah, limited company and going directly authorized with the SCA.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: Incredibly tough journey to go through.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's even tougher now.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: It takes, I think, about a year to get authorized now.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: Took us five months, but there's lots of applications and things before that.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then yeah, we we uh we got authorized in May 2021.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: So we've just sorry, yeah, May 2021.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: So we've just just hit two years.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we're still here, which is which is good.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's 80% of businesses fail in the first two years.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: So we're uh we're still here, we're not we're part of the 20%.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh yeah, things are going pretty well.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's my journey so far.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's fantastic.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, a great clear overview, and there's just quite a lot in there to pick apart.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And as you said a few things that resonate with me and what I tell other people.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it is difficult to get into the financial planning profession, and over the last few years it's been really tough.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And although there's a shortage of financial planners out there and we're crying out for new people to join the profession, it still can be very tough to get in.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there is a reluctance sometimes for firms to pay recruitment fees for individuals that perhaps haven't got experience within the financial planning profession.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's interesting that you went straight in at trainee level, and I wonder how much, well I don't wonder, I know this is beneficial, just how much having that experience going through the banking face-to-face experience, so from cashier into selling life protection, all the different, it was a sales job in banking, isn't it?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you know, when you're on that sales floor, I used to do a lot of work with um all the major banks, putting personal bankers in it.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now I used to take I I used to I used to headhunt people from like phones for you and then say, Do you want to come and do you want to come and be a personal banker?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was probably personally responsible for uh the financial crash then.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: But like but we, you know, we used to bring people in from mobile phone backgrounds, even people that were working um in a state uh in estate agents or if they were working in travel agents, because they had that cross-selling client, customer-facing USP type sales background, and it worked really, really well.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: I always tell people, look, you know, you need to go out there and you need to market yourself.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't have the experience, but you want to become a financial planner or you want to get into the profession, go and knock on a few doors.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: I love what you did.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: I love that you went out.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: You made a list, it's nice and simple.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: You make a list, go onto Google, search for local businesses, make a list, put them on a spreadsheet, go on their website, find the names of people, go on to LinkedIn, you can do that now.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: You probably didn't do it back then, but you go on LinkedIn, follow those companies, um, connect with somebody who's a director or decision maker within that business, start liking their content, perhaps start commenting on their content, and reach out with a mail.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you're gonna send 52 messages, 52 emails, or make 52 phone calls, I guarantee you you're gonna get a job at the end of it.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: What's really interesting, what you said, was three opportunities came up of 52 emails, right?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Those three those three opportunities came up, but they came up and they're there, and they are there, the opportunities.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you rely too much on a recruiter, unfortunately, when you don't have experience, you're gonna fall flat on your face.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: You have to be proactive in your approach to getting a new job opportunity.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's you know, yeah, those it those opportunities didn't come out of nowhere, as you can see there.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: It was and that's the approach I've taken throughout my career is that if you're if you're short of clients, you you're gonna have to do some things maybe not proud of, but you're gonna have to scrape around and and try and find them, and you're gonna have to do stuff that's um that that that it is hard work, uh believe it or not.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, it's funny you said the uh the uh phone background.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, when I actually came back from French outside, I went and work for 02 for uh for a year.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: So um yeah, I went promoting.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean to me, I think that's the the big message with um uh it this our industry, our profession, I should say, is is changing, it's it's it's going the right direction, and we're doing more fight, there is more professional financial planning around.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: But don't get don't kid yourself.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is sales.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: You need to know, even if you're you're selling a fixed fee structure that's that's independent financial planning and you're you're running index funds, that's fantastic, but you still have to sell that as an idea, as a concept.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's where and that was probably the wake-up call for me when I went to the bank.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: I I thought I'm just gonna be sitting there selling, you know, doing cashier and stuff.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: And they were like, no, no, you've got to sell ISIS and you've got to sell, and then put the personal banking was a very hard sales, um, sales profession, and that got, yeah, that kind of the crisis.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was there just just kind of after that as well, which was which is all good fun.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, I don't think it if you're looking for experience or looking for the um yeah, to get into the profession, like you say, you've got to market yourself.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: And if you haven't got that sales background, that's what a lot of financial planning firms will be looking for, um, because it that's what it is at the end of the day.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: But there are very nice parts of our job, but eventually you don't need to sell.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: People come to me now, which is great, but you you don't uh it is a sales profession at the end of the day.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: What's really interesting as well is something that you said that you now run your own business.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: You started out as a trainee advisor on an employee basis when you did your door knocking to find a job opportunity.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: So it took you on straight as a trainee advisor.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't do the administration and power planner group.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: However, you now run your own directly authorised firm and you look back and you think, well, actually, administration power planning experience might well have been incredibly beneficial to you because you didn't realise just how much work goes into the administration power planning, perhaps the operational side of a business as well.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're stuck in the role of just being that financial planner, we think, well, you know, it can't be that difficult.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: I can spin those plates, I can do those things within the first couple of years and support myself.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, it probably was quite tiring and exhausting when you ended up running your own business.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: But my question on that point would be looking back, Oliver, would you have gone down the administrator power planner route over the trainee advisor route with sales experience?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: Good question.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Good question.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think probably, well, probably I would have.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: I did tell there was one firm that came to me and they say, I mean, their advice was to stop my diploma studies and join them as an admin.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, well, no, I'll just carry on the diploma and then went in as trainee financial advisor.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think you need to.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's just the having that, just having that knowledge of what they do.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I I've always been a very respectable person, so I I kind of uh got that the power planner is the person that's going to be.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: We worked in pods like a lot of companies do.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um the power planner kind of bosses that because although you're the one bringing in the clients, they're bringing in, they're bossing that sort of client journey.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then the admin, there's a lot of yes, phoning and chasing, and that's not a job that I would want to do.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I think just understanding those jobs is is very, very important.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: But when I went to start my when I started my own company, it's those things that, yes, you can do the jobs, you can do the admin, you can do the power planning, but it just takes you away from what you're great at, what what what I like doing.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, when I started my own company, I was writing my own report.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: But it would be like, right, taking on a client, I need to now take two days off to do all the admin and write a report, and it was just taking me forever.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I've now got somebody that comes in, she's the sort of operations manager, so takes care of the operations side, the power planning, and we share some of the admin, but we're looking at yeah, probably taking somebody on for that now as well.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I don't think uh yeah, sorry, going back to your question, which I uh would I've gone down the admin power planning.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um probably not, no.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: I I but you need to just get a very good grasp of what that role does involve.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, we're gonna dig a little bit deeper onto this now.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: You run your own business now, okay, and there will be people listening to this that are thinking about getting into the financial planning profession and they are considering the administration power planner advisor route.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or they're thinking about becoming a trainee planner, or they might even be thinking about joining one of the many academies that are out there to go and fast track themselves to being a financial planner.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Running a business, and I know it's you've just started as a smaller business.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: But if you had in front of you somebody that was a level four qualified power planner, been doing it for two years and was looking for a trainee advisor position, or you had somebody say that spent five years in a sales role, relationship role, and had really solid sales experience, which one would you choose?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: It depends also on the power planners' experience, if they've got the sales experience.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think the power planning is a profession in itself now, um, and it certainly can be.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: And you can go further than just just power planning.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: My my the the lady that's joined me, she's our operations manager, she will become a shelter director looking after compliance.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: So that there's there's that route to go.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're thinking about whether you want to, what side you want to go, think very clearfully what about what side you enjoy.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: If I had those two in front of me for an advisor role, I would probably go with the person with the sales experience.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because it's just huge.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's the technical, the technical side of our business, you do need to know it.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: But the amount of times I've gone into client meetings and I've just it was it was strange at first, it wasn't intentional ever.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: I but I mentioned, you know, well, oh, we're we're engaged, we're having our first child, and then you spend half an hour talking about that, or you talk about cycling, or you talk about oh, yeah, we worked in the French Alps, and that just the conversation then goes on for half an hour.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's what clients want to talk about.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: They don't really care too much, too much.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: They see you still need to talk about it, but asset allocations and efficient frontiers, they that that's not what excites clients, so and and that's not what finds common ground and and builds rapport with clients.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: So uh yeah, it depends on the person.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I I think power planners can certainly go into the advisor role, but just having the technical knowledge is is that's half of the job, really.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Would you advise, say, a power planner to seek some soft skills training around relationship building, perhaps understanding sales tech techniques, for example?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think they're that's good additional training for a power planner that has the drive and ambition to want to be an advisor, or do you think they should sit in client meetings more in the firm that they're in?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Would you look at that if you were to have a power planner in front of you that was thinking about being a training advisor?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: I sitting in the client meetings, that's huge.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: So definitely just to understand what that journey looks like.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um that you're not talking about the technical side of it for the vast majority of those meetings.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you're normally talking about the client, what they enjoy, what they want out of life.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, the soft skills training, if you've if if you've got power planners listening to this that are looking to go into that yeah, trainee role, financial advisor role, then yeah, just getting some wider experience um outside of the technical side.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: So uh but I think yeah, attending client meetings, just understanding the culture of your company, how advisors work, um, that's absolutely huge.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: But Oliver, do you you know I'm gonna stick on this this area at the moment, and this is just your opinion, by the way.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're not sort of speaking on behalf of the profession.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is your own personal experience and your own personal opinion.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um but there are lots of power planners.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: There's lots of people that want to want to get into the profession, and they are they they have two choices.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: One is like administration power planner, become an advisor, the other is go down an academy, go self-employed and become an advisor.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Or hopefully knock on a few doors and somebody takes you on because they like you, they like your background, they like your experience, and you become you become that that that advisor.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's a tricky one, isn't it?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it's and and I'm you know, people often ask me, should I do should I be admin, should I be powerplan, should I be then be power planner, or can I go in straight as a advisor?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: And and the thing for me is like what you've just said, and I'm going to echo it.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think if you've got a background and experience of relationship building, and perhaps even if you have strength in your network, so let's say somebody's like a second careerist.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: So if someone's a second careerist, they might be like, let's say 25-year-old plus, right?
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: They're 25 years plus.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they spent five years doing something.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they go to university, maybe they spent four years being a marketing account manager.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: So they're used to managing large marketing accounts, dealing with individuals with a corporate background, building relationships, giving feedback, selling the services, all of those typical types of things.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think somebody when they've got that transferable skill set of a proven background, that's quite attractive then to go into the financial advice side.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: And even going down those academy routes, if you've got financial backing behind you to go down, say a self-employed route and set your own business up.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you are somebody that spent how long did you spend employed within a financial planning practice?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Seven and a half years.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Seven and a half years.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, going back that seven and a half years, if there was an SJP academy in the form it's like in now, or equivalent, not just SJP, do you think you'd have taken the plunge into an academy on a self-employed basis knowing what you know after spending seven years employed?
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, good question.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: I that just depends on personal circumstances massively, I think.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um funny you should say that is that I when I left Lloyd's, there were two guys uh they were also doing the exact same role as me.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: We all got made redundant at the same time.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: Luckily, I'd already found my new home.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um my personal circumstances meant I needed to be employed.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have the financial backing to go self-employed at that point.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: The two guys that went elsewhere, they both took the plunge into SJP and they said, I've got six months worth of outgoings, I'm gonna try it for six months and see what happens.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that I'm not sure if they went through the academy because they'd already got uh I think they've gone level four, they might have gone through the academy at that point.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: So this is 2013, 2014.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they went through that process and they've become very successful in that route.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: What works for individuals is going to be it comes down to personal circumstances and is the same when I started my company, which we talk about, but it's um again, your personal situation is going to influence what you do in terms of how how you set up, where you're self-employed, where you set up your own company or you go employed.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: I went the safer route of employed because I was um start relationship.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: We're looking at buying it, we're looking at getting a property um and had a set also at that point.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, employed was an absolute no-brainer.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: Two guys that went self-employed, no dependents, no uh very low outgoings, so they could afford to take that take that risk.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we've all done pretty well long term.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know whether it's self-employed versus employed, it's probably more have you got the drive and you've got the determination and you you're ready to put in the hard work because all of us didn't none of us have got successful through through luck.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's all been each of the I know they're hard workers and they've done very well down that route.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I've worked my ass off to get to where I am.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: But essentially it is a gamble, isn't it, when you go down that route of like some of these academies, because you you you you don't know what to expect.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: You've never worked in the profession before.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: You don't know what you need to do as a financial advisor.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: You might be told a few things in the safety of a training and development program, but you don't know the realities of the job, how long it takes to get paid on it, on you know, how long, how many no's to get to a yes, you know, how how quickly you can convert a client.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I think going into something where perhaps financially you're a bit nervous, maybe you don't have, you know, the and I'm saying to people like make sure you've got six to twelve months of income like in your bank to cover you.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, when I yeah, when I would I would go higher.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um depend it depends again how how you set up.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I when I set up my own firm, it was we set up limited company directly authorized, um, and there's certain financial things you have to have aside.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: So this is where it comes into where I'm now my business partners.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I've been approached by companies before saying, you know, we want a financial advice arm to our business from that was from a county firm, from uh from a mortgage broker firm.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: I said that's great.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: There's two things you need to provide then because I've got plenty of commitments.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: One of them is going to be a lump sum of cash, and one of them some clients.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: And even could really sort of explain where they're going to get clients from, how they're going to introduce solid clients to the business if I set up my own my own firm and even wanted to put in cash.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: So we said, that's not what we'll do.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: So the my now business partners are an employee benefits firm.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's kind of how we started.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: We put some sorts of money aside for, yeah, I.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Did 12 months if I start in again?
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: I would say 18 months uh as as at least.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um just again depends on your circumstances.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: My outgoings are pretty high.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: We've got yeah, mortgage, kids, dog.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh my wife works part-time.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: So it again depends on your personal circumstances uh on what you do there.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: But 12 to 18 months is is yeah, certainly I'd say 18 months minimum if you want, so that you've got time to build the business in the way you want to build it.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh if you're going down, you know, the the full-on set setting up your own business kind of thing.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: If you're going self-employed and there's some sort of lead generation through another through a company, perhaps you don't need that much.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I I would just say on the the sort of you mentioned there how long it gets to take to get paid and things like that.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: I yeah, I've heard some this is partly why we went directly authorised.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry if I'm jumping ahead, but if this is partly why I went directly authorised rather than um through a network or or self-employed, but yeah.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um is because uh I've I heard some horror stories of networks taking forever for payments to be made, and you're doing that first case, and they want you to submit all the paperwork, and a month later they come back to you and then you're you're okay to go ahead with the case.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um we set up in May 2021.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: I got my first payment in July, so less than six weeks later.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that was from a setting up a pension scheme.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: It was the strangest feeling because I sat there and said, it's how much it costs.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: And they said, Shall I send it to your bank account now?
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Oh, yeah, okay.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: So let's uh here's the invoice and uh check my bank account as soon as I left the meeting and there was there was money in there and into the uh the business account.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we did I did some insurance and things at the beginning and we got paid pretty quickly.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that whole there's been some horror stories I've heard on podcasts before people waiting nine months, ten months before they even got any money into the business.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think that's if you're going through a network or I don't know how you end up in that position, but if you're starting your own company, you're gonna need to start thinking about where your clients are way before you start.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, way what what clients are you gonna bring on straight away?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, have you got contacts already?
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: Have you got family that you're gonna do even just a bit of life insurance for?
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think that was one of my first clients, was what one of my brothers, and we ended up doing his uh topping up his life insurance.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got to think about those things, but way before you start.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um but that's one of the reasons we went directly authorized was the yes, some of that, along with other stories we heard from networks, we decided to go down the more painful route of directly authorized initially, but now allows us to run our business um in the best way for our clients.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Lovely.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll get onto that in a minute, actually.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to go back to when you were working on an employee basis because you started as a trainee.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: You had you had a lot of success in that business, right?
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: You you you went from a trainee, became a financial planner.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: And did you say you ended up one of the directors?
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: Is that right?
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: Or associate director, I think they called me.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh more of a more of a name thing, but yeah, uh, ended up um, you know, I don't mind talking as yeah, as a trainee, and you you're starting on pretty low earnings, and you you've got to prove yourself.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it it's I've never been a natural salesperson.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: So don't work this, I've just said earlier this is a sales profession, but um I'm not a natural salesperson.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: I I just the what I learned early on is it is stick stick to your word.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: If you get say you're gonna do something, do it, um, and work incredibly hard.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's it's as simple as that, really.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I learn from other advisors, and then I would probably work in a way that other other advisors weren't weren't weren't happy to.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think if you if you've got that that hard work, it's uh said it a few times now, but that's that's massive just to get ahead of it in any in any profession.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, worked up to so then yeah, became a sort of financial advisor.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: After a while, I was dealing a few advisors left, took over some of their clients, so ended up with a ridiculous amount of clients.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think I had 250 clients when I left, individuals, uh, plus 30 companies that I was looking after.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: It was uh yeah, it was carnage, but um that that's where where I got to in that position.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that's just just through hard work doing doing the doing the work day in, day out.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then yeah, got up to the position of associate director, which was um, yeah, it wasn't luck.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't that I did something massively different to what anybody else would do.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I could have stayed there, could have stayed there for you know 10 years and been very, very comfortable.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: But I thought at the age of when I was then 30, 34, thought uh I can do something better for clients and I think I can do this better myself.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: So um she was incredibly arrogant, but hey ho, that's that's where maybe that's the trait you need.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's arrogant.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think um I think naturally everybody gets to that point where you either consider employment or you you think you can do this yourself.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: And when you start looking at the facts and the figures and you think, wow, I could make some serious money out of this, but also I could live the lifestyle that I want to live and I can do things how I want to do it, I can have the brand how I want it, I can position things the way I want it.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: When you're employed, you are at the beck and call of the owners of the business.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: And if they don't have the same driver enthusiasm as you do, or they don't have the same value or culture, then it can be very, very different, difficult because if your intrinsic values aren't aligned to an to that employed role, then you often feel as if you're living a false life when it comes to work.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's that's the part where when you are looking at job opportunities and you are looking at companies to work for, be sure to dig deep around what their culture and values are actually like.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you're going to spend a lot of time there, you want to make sure that you are aligned to that business.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: When you made that decision then and you said to yourself, right, I'm gonna move on, and you you know, you'd done a really good job.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: You were probably earning really good money.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: You you know, you'd fallen on a fair few clients there, client banks.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's like the dream job for some people who are thinking about becoming advisors.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: I expect the dream job for some advisors that are in companies where they're struggling a little bit to find clients, right?
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: So you had it probably a quite comfortable, would I say?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Were you comfortable?
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, very comfortable.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um very comfortable.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: So what about that feeling of, right, if I'm gonna go and set up on my own, and not only did you go and set up on your own, but you set up directly authorised, so you do need a lump sum for capital adequacy and everything like that, right?
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that was that 50 50k.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: To start with, yeah.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: Just need to be accessible, so instantly accessible at any time, yeah.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: So you needed that money to draw on yourself.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: But what about that feeling of where am I going to get my clients from?
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because obviously people have restricted covenants in place.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: When you're employed, there's do's and don'ts, you know, non-solicitation clauses, etc.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: etc.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they aren't with held.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: It takes about six months before one passes, I think, legally, dependent upon what's written in your contract.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Don't take my word for it, you're not tanked on the law when you do something like that.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: But did you consider that at all?
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because you built relationships with clients under a firm, under a different company name.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: Did you consider those relationships?
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: Did you think about them following you?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Did you try to target them afterwards?
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what was your strategy around client development setting up your very first business?
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: No, so I, yeah, you have the restricts covenants, and you you need to abide by those.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, well, it's up to you whether you do, but um, yeah, I did.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a case of we're starting afresh, we need to generate leads and we need to generate them pretty quickly.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: But that's why you have that 12 to 18 month buffer of income so that you can spend that time building relationships, it's starting again.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: But having that background, the financial advice background, the sales background, that's what something I've done plenty of before.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that's why I also partnered with an employee benefits company, which we can come on to.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's was the idea behind that was that we we generate leads from there.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: And initially that was a struggle.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh getting, you know, what we didn't hit the ground running, but that's started, um, that's gone bananas now, which is which is great, but that's something we've developed over time.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we yeah, I very much started out with right, where where can I go?
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: So you can go, there's the local networking.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was quite active on LinkedIn, started just posting lots on LinkedIn educational posts, got some clients contact me through there who are now my clients.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it was just yeah, lots of different marketing routes to go down.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: Vouched for, which I've never used before.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, that's our, you know, probably one of our best lead generators now.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because that's where our clients leave leave reviews, and that's where people, when they're Googling, they find you on there.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, SEO didn't know anything about it, still don't really.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: I just uh someone said put out loads of content, and somehow we now come up and in Brighton and and Hove, we we come up pretty high on as the financial advice uh as companies, up against a lot of the bigger companies.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, there's a lot to learn when you when you leave there.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: What was your original question?
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: Just around client action.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's fine.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you answered the question, really, is that you didn't, you know, look at your existing relationships.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: There were probably some that you would class as advocate relationships that you know that would follow you at some point.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: You obviously stuck to the restricted covenants that were in place and didn't sort of break those clauses, which is great, and that's obviously advisable because people do get sued.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that was a you know good, solid bit of advice there.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: But the advice you then gave around client development and putting yourself out there, so you were reaching out to people on LinkedIn, which I think is really interesting because not many financial advisors actually do that.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: But also, it sounds like vouched for is a really good opportunity for you to win new client opportunities.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: So if someone's kind of listened to this and thinking, I want to, you know, I need to start off fresh, I need to kind of get myself out there, you know, getting yourself out on LinkedIn, putting content out there, reaching out and networking with people on LinkedIn, vouched for was a good option.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you started putting content out on your website, and you know, the black magic of and black art of SEO worked for you and you managed to get yourself, you know, up the rankings.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Did you spend much money on lead generation at all?
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing on proper, well, I guess well, they're the you know, the guys that inbox you every day about lead generation.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um I we did unbiased.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um I would just say for yeah, anyone if you're starting your own thing, um unbiased is is it it's a lot of advisors slip down their nose at it and because you don't get normally you don't get real quality in your niche clients, perhaps.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you want to you want to work with tech execs that earn three to five hundred K a year uh that are in their last five years of employment, you're not gonna find them through unbiased.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: There no one goes to unbiased that of the uh the at that level.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we used it for the first year, and I don't mind talking through the figures.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: We I think we spent 3,300 in our first year, um, and we generate and I generated from that 39 grand of of business.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: So a 10x return on your money is okay, I'd say, uh, in most professions.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: But you're gonna get those those kind of clients, depends what you're doing, what you're what you're setting up your business for.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: If you're setting up for down a very specific niche, unbiased is not for you.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: And you've got a way into that niche, then fine.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're starting afresh and it's kind of like that, we will take on most clients initially.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: We're now at the point where we we're pretty much binned off uh unbiased.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: But I've had some huge clients come through there.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, really, really strange, just couples that are in their mid-50s that have both got built up their own pension pots over time, uh, and they just don't know a financial advisor.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: So through their friends or family, so they've come through unbiased, we've met with them, um, and they're some some really great clients now.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I wouldn't uh knock it too much.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: The prices on unbiased have gone up massively.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so the return on investment isn't as great now, but we still keep it going because I probably accept about one lead every every couple of months on there now.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um so it's it's okay, but yeah, vouch for will take time.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: Unbiased is one of those things that you can get a return on your money pretty quickly because the leads come through start coming through straight away, and you'll learn which ones to to to click on and ones to accept.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and there'll be a lot of ones where you you accept it, you never get into contact with them, or they speak to you once, you never see them again.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of that, unfortunately.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: But that's like any marketing, any media gen.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: If you're going, if you're on uh you're putting content out on LinkedIn, you might get one or two views, but if you start putting it out consistently, you'll get people, there'll be people watching, and you get inboxes from people that you've never really thought about before.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: And they said, I've been watching your content for the last six months.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, You've never liked or commented on anything before.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: But and then they're saying, Well, I've got this money, I need to do this.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, oh, fantastic.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: So um, I would definitely try new things if you're starting out the lead gen for the new clients, you've just got to try a lot of new stuff, and you've got to try stuff that you're not comfortable with.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I started doing videos uh on on LinkedIn uh on my commute.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: Used to cycle over the South Downs to Brighton uh and do do little videos, and plenty of people sort of inboxed me on that.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, I saw your videos.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, Yeah, you never never like it, they're only commenting on any of them, but people are watching um and they are listening to you.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: So um a hundred percent.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um I am a massive advocate of putting video out.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's why I do the podcast.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: I yeah, you know, I put up you know videos out, videos out.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um I've got a videography company now trying to do it for financial planning companies.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: We're working with the likes in legal in general, for instance.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: We were out there yesterday filming some claims videos for them.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I think what you just said there about people not commenting or liking, it's really important because when you're in a niche and you're talking about something that is like is that is super niche, people tend to watch it.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: They don't like it or comment.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a kitten falling out of a tree or something like that.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's an informative bit of information.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: They tend to watch it, listen and move on.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: But LinkedIn's algorithm will recognise that they've watched it past a certain point and start recommending that to other people that are similar.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not to be disheartened if someone doesn't like or comment on your post on LinkedIn.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it does help with the reach, but it's also how much people watch.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: So if you look at the video and you look at the analytics and you bring the creator mode up, it will tell you how how long your video's been watched for.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I've put out videos like I think there's one I put out for St.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: James's Place where I stuck on a VR headset talking about the training.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I had like 25,000 views of this video, right?
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: Which is huge.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: On LinkedIn, that's like the equivalent of like a hundred thousand views on on Instagram, right?
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I did that and I looked at the time.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: And there is like a this is like a minute clip, right?
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: Minute, like about a minute clip.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I had something like, I don't know, 50 hours of views, of time it was viewed for.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: So when you start adding that up and looking at it, it's incredible.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it's the eyes on it, and I've had people reach out to me exactly the same as you.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking, well, what have you ever liked or commented on anything that I've done?
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: But they haven't, they've just been watching you.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: So as long as you're putting regular content out, you're being seen and it goes past that point where the algorithm goes, hang on, people are quite interested in this, it's engaging.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: Then you're doing a good job.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, don't get disheartened by the not the lack of likes and comments.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people that watch it, a lot of people don't like to like and comment.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: You can imagine in my world of recruitment sales, and people don't want to be liking my content too much because they don't want their boss to know that they're liking a recruiter's content.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, there's there's lots of reasons why, but they will follow you.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: And LinkedIn is about followers as well.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you put content out and they will follow you.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: If they're following you, within that first couple of weeks that they follow you and connect with you, they will see your content a lot.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: So making sure you're connecting, make sure you're following.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and nobody's comfortable uh, you know, doing doing content and video, especially video, uh, or even just putting out a LinkedIn post.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody's uh natural at that, I don't think.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I always put it out and just put my own spin on it.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: And um, but yeah, like you say with the followers, yeah.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: I've had other other advisors from other firms follow me, but of course they don't like or comment on anything because yeah, they're bot their boss is watching.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a good thing, you know, you getting see you getting seen by other financial advisors within your area is fantastic for the growth of your business as well.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you need your personality to come across, you need your culture to come across.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to be honest and authentically, you and those around you within your environment will start to think, you know, he sounds like a really great person to work for.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'll follow him, I'll keep him in mind when I'm looking for a new job opportunity.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: So when it comes to the growth of your business, you, as the leader of your business, getting out there and being seen and heard is going to help your business grow, not only from client, you know, client new client deals and client acquisitions, but from advisors, power planners, administrators.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: People will be listening to this podcast.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast podcast will probably get 500 uh listens and views within the first seven days.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that's very niche.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, that's top 10% globally, believe it or not.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you put a podcast out and you get over 420 within the first seven days, that's top 10% globally across all podcast platforms.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, which is pretty, which is pretty, I'm I'm pretty proud of that.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: Seeing it's such a niche subject matter.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why podcasting, podcasting, I believe, is such a fantastic way to market because A, and this is we're gonna get onto this now, you're in the corporate world, aren't you?
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: So you're not traditional kind of private client advisor.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: You give corporate advice.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: You've even you've even partnered with an employee benefits company, right?
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I do the traditional, just so sorry, just touched on that.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I do the traditional, yeah, full fat, full fat financial planning.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, we're very heavily involved.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think Nick Lincoln came up with that.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'll better credit him on that.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh if if he's if he ever listens to that.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, full fat financial planning, which is you know, yeah, yeah, you're kind of um using cash flow modeling, actually building plans for clients, and that's why we invest, we don't just invest clients for for the sake of making money.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, we I have my my private client book, which it which is growing over time, but yes, we're heavily involved in in the corporate space.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about that then, because it's an area that not all financial advisors either feel comfortable going into, which is the corporate world, um, or just don't, or just don't think about it because they're chasing those private clients more so.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: So just tell us a little bit about it.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: Why did you how did you get into the corporate world?
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: Also, when you set your business up, you I think quite uh smartly chose to partner with an employee benefits company.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, did that help you?
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about that.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about the corporate world.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: Why did you choose to get yeah?
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us a little bit about that.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so my my previous um obviously anyone listens to well hopefully knows that auto enrollment was introduced at companies.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: So every company has to set up a pension scheme.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: Started in 2012 and it went started with big firms and went down.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: My previous company, we got involved in that a lot, and not many other financial advisors did.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: They said it's not profitable, what are you doing?
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's madness.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: But we would go into the companies and there'd be a hundred staff there.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: We'd do a presentation to them saying, right, yeah, there's these new rules coming in, it's coming in in three months.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: You have to have a pension scheme.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: This is how it works, this is who it's with, this is how the contributions work.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: And you'll get, well, back then it would be if you did 100 um staff, especially if we went into that's all, you know, always face to face back then.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you would get 10, 15 of those, say, oh yeah, I've got 50 grand, 100 grand at another pension.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: Can I consolidate those?
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: And do you do some more the the retirement planning side of things?
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: And you just pick up clients like that, and you get a few of those firms on board.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: And that was very much my my old company, they had those connections locally, normally around Sussex, but we did a bit of marketing and we had firm random companies come to us.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um we're now in that second phase, and I think that's where a lot of financial advisors have neglected this area because, well, also enrollment's done, it's set up, it's running.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: Where I got I've got involved in this and we've developed a service with yeah, my employee benefits uh firm, which is my my business partner's company.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: They're growing, they've grown very quickly.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: They wanted the financial advice armed, they had individual stuff come to them, but they also said we have these workplace pension stuff where it's either brand new companies that are set up and they need to set up a pension scheme, or what we do a lot of is that second phase where you've had a company, they've set up with uh a basic pension option, something like NES, that's all normally always the route, and they're now at 50 staff, 100 staff, 200 staff, and they're recruit, they're they're they're recruiting, and people are saying, well, hold on, why have you got a NES pension?
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: So staff are becoming more aware of what the options are.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: They know that the leaders in this industry are the likes of Aviva and Royal London.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: So we thought, well, why not why not get involved in this a bit more?
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: And we've developed, it's taken a long time, you know.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: Don't be wrong, we didn't start day one thinking, yeah, we've got this great presentation that we go out to and we're gonna market this.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: But what I've done now is developed a process where we take uh companies through that journey of going from something like NES or or People's Pension if they want to look at upgrading their scheme, getting better charging structures, implementing salary sacrifice.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we'll take the company through that journey and we charge the company to do that.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's a it's a process that we're still developing.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we've got it to a pretty good level now, and we've got consistent clients coming in, probably one every few days now on the workplace pension stuff.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's it's yeah, it's an area where we've become a little bit of a go to place.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: I've had lots of financial advisors reach out to me because I've put comments on on uh Facebook groups and and uh even group emails and things.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: And they've reached out to me and said, Yeah, look, this is an area we're sort of involved in.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: Where do how do we develop it from here?
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um And we're now getting obviously referrals as well from lots of other areas.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, we've developed a service where we take them through that journey.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, people might be listening to this thinking, well, why do you want to get involved in that?
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't see it's it's not as fulfilling.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, you know, if I'm being perfectly honest, it's not as fulfilling as dealing when you're sitting in front of a couple of 55-year-olds and you do their cash flow modeling and you do their financial plan and you sit in front of them and say, Hey guys, you're going to be okay.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: You've got enough money for the rest of your life.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's incredibly satisfying, and that's a really rewarding part of the job.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: Corporate pensions is not like that.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's nice to sit in front of uh, you know, group of staff and say, Hey, we're doing a better pension for you.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then you'll get the odd 25-year-old say, How do I, what do I do here?
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: Is this a good idea?
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: And you can say, Yeah, that's okay.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: You should here's some information on that.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: But you will pick up the, well, I do, we pick up clients from this.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: We pick up uh normally it's the more senior staff um or the business owners a lot of the time.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and they say, Well, yeah, hold on.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm I am that sort of 50-year-old that's uh I I've developed this business, I've got pensions elsewhere, I've got investments elsewhere.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_01: Do you help with the individual stuff?
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and as long as you position it that way, uh I always position it that when I'm talking to new potential companies, is that yes, we do workplace pensions, but we do full full fat retirement planning.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: We don't call it that in our brochures, but full full retirement planning, we do investment advice and we do we do insurance as well.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: So we've yeah, got involved in that area.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I guess gone down a bit of a rabbit hole, but the the opportunity there is massive now.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we we deal a lot of uh we've just naturally got involved in the tech space.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: So we've got a lot of tech companies where often it'll be, yeah, we've got 200 staff across Europe, but the senior managers are all in London and they're all there's 20 of them and they're all on 100-150 grand minimums.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: So you're going to pick up clients that way if if you carry on.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you don't, we charge enough to the companies to to cover our costs and deliver a fantastic service.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it's yeah, for me, it was a bit of a no-brainer to go down that route, but it's not for everyone.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate that.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: In uh it's not your traditional financial advice.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, though, and I thank you very much for explaining that.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_00: That was really that was really um a good a really, really good overview.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um I always think if I was in financial planning and I'm considering partnering with somebody to start a financial planning business, corporate is the way that I would go down personally.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: One is because I'm a business owner and I know what other business owners are like.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: They tend not to think about their own finances as much because they're so head down doing the job that they're doing and they're trying to build wealth within their business.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there are probably lots of very anxious business owners thinking about the future and not sure if their business is going to take off, or when's their exit gonna be, or how much money they're gonna have, or the value of their business.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we often kind of don't earn as much in the beginning as well.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_00: So there is that kind of concern, and you always you know, having somebody who's gone through the process and you can really put a financial plan in place is a real benefit within the corporate world.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I think also as well, and you're just winning that winning the hearts and minds of the staff, because if there's 200 people within there and you're helping them with a pension plan, for example, right, there's plenty of opportunity there around then additional contributions.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: But also as well, there's the opportunity for life protection, right?
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's the opportunity um for whether or not they're young.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: So they might be on the journey to inheriting some money at some point with this great transition to wealth that's happening.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're going into those businesses and you're being considered the go-to person when it comes to financial planning, financial advice, there's 200 people, then, like you said, within that business that might well refer you on to one of their partners or friends.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: You don't know what their partners might be earning a shitload of money, or their friends might be earning a load of money or whatever, or they might be at an age, or their parents, or whatever.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: So it's about getting in front of people, either face to face or over Zoom, but as many people as you can.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a marketing tool within its own right.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how often do you get to sit in front of that many people?
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: Not that often.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: And businesses give you that direct route in.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_00: So when you go into those businesses, I'm just really keen to help people.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: So they're thinking about going into the corporate world.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_00: What's your kind of sales strategy or marketing strategy for getting those clients, sitting in front of those clients, convincing them to pay a fee to come in and talk about the pension planning, um, but also then converting them into clients.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us a little bit about the early stage process.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_01: So the I mean, we're at a stage now where I imagine some of the uh some of the more experienced financial advisors are at, where they have clients come to them and it's very much hold on to I want you as a as a client.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that, again, it may sound arrogant, but that's where we're at with the workplace pension stuff.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's now, okay, you want our advice.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: I've got limited time unless I recruit a load of people now.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it it's very much look, here's our process and and here's how much it costs.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: But when you're starting that journey, it's um, yeah, sorry, let's yeah, to touch on the marketing and the pricing.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: So the marketing, um, my old my old company, we used to do the old school marketing, going around business parks.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_01: If you're working on a business park, go around and speak to them.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if you want to get into this area, our route into corporate advice may not be for everyone, but our route in is right, who's your pension scheme with at the moment?
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: If it's with someone basic, do you want to look at upgrading it, offering a better benefit to your staff?
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: Most forward-thinking companies want to do that.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: They want to provide good employee benefits to their staff.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: We do it as well a little bit on the financial education piece.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, you've got you've got private medical insurance in place for their physical health.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_01: You've got maybe some mental health well-being stuff where people come in.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: What about the financial well-being, the financial education piece?
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we we go on that angle quite a lot.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, even if they're with a great provider already, one of the market leaders, why not bring us in and we'll be your kind of go-to person for everything pension related?
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: So you it takes the burden off your HR team, off your off your payroll.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the the marketing kind of thing.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: It depends on your company.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: If you're if I'm starting afresh and I didn't work with employee benefits company, I'll probably go and find an employee benefits company to work with.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, simple as that, really.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_01: So find one that's not, you know, not my business partners, if anyone's listening to this.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um but uh go and find and say, look, look, what do you what do you do on the sort of yeah, on the pension piece?
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because they will have those inquiries.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my business partners had those inquiries a lot.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was like, right, you do our private medical, our group life insurance, all of this.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: Do you do anything in pensions?
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that we that's how we we sort of started, or go old school and just go go message businesses, your local businesses, go around business parks, um, find those companies that have got 20 to 50 staff, that's a good place to start.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and go in with that that angle of potentially changing their pension scheme.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_01: You need to learn about workplace pensions a bit more.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's another subject.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, you can um yeah, the marketing again, you can do do the sort of online stuff.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: I've not had much come through uh directly from like LinkedIn or anything, but we've got our website set up, we've got a web page uh around workplace pensions, and we just yeah, we do a bit of marketing on that, a bit of uh we've done some Google ads on that, not really generating much, but that that's a route you can go.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um in terms of the what was the other thing, the pricing.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, it it's how you actually sell that, sell that service is is uh we we've developed again, each person will develop their own their own process, their own style.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: What I've done, I eventually went out to a graphic designer and I said, look, I need presentations here, because we're gonna do we we don't want about four people with PowerPoint presentations, but I'm getting on to Zoom calls.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_01: I've normally got 20 minutes with an HR manager um of a company that's very she's very, very busy, he's very, very busy.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, what do we do?
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_01: So we've got a PowerPoint presentation together.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_01: It looks really great, and we just worked out a system of what we would do from starting going out to the market with their pension scheme, what we would do, presentations to their staff, one-to-one meetings with their staff, and go through a whole process, uh, and we can then send that over to those companies.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um in conversion rates in terms of the workplace pension stuff, we're probably at over 90% there.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_01: Companies that which are is probably we're gonna think about changing our charging structure.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think if someone said someone said to me, if everyone's saying yes to your prices, then uh you're probably not charging enough.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: But we charge enough to to cover our costs.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_01: But we yeah, the only ever time we get a pushback is um companies that are just not ready to to go through the process at this point.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's rarely down to to finance.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_01: Companies have this money ready to spend on their employees.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_01: If you you market it as an employee benefit and it's you doing something nice for your employees, most business owners are aware that they need to be doing that uh nowadays, especially if you're speaking to an HR department, it's uh very easy sell normally.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: Excellent advice there.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_00: I actually agree with you.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_00: And if if people are buying it left, right, and centre, you probably are in need of putting your price up, I would say, without a shadow of a doubt.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_00: And when you go into the corporate when you go into the corporate world as well, you you you you know you're absolutely spot on.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_00: They have got money aside for these types of things.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_00: The bigger the company as well, even like I've got 20-odd staff out there, you know, we've we we spend money on employee benefits.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_00: We spend money on employee benefits, we have people coming out and giving uh advice around pensions.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's important to us.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I looked into some statistics.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: I can't remember exactly what the stats are, but I'm sure people can look it up.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_00: One of the great USPs and sales pitches is if your staff within your business are financially aware and comfortable and aren't in fear of lack of money and worry and debt and all those typical types of things, it has a positive impact on the bottom line of the business.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: The business becomes more profitable the more financially educated the staff are.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_00: So if you spend money and time and energy on the financial well-being of your staff, it will have a direct impact on your business.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, we know we're in a situation where there's a recession looming, cost of living crisis, anything businesses can do where they can bring on some form of education to support their staff, they're under pressure to do so, and they have a duty of care to do so.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_00: So right now is the best time to do it.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you can wrap it up as well-being because it is well-being.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's financial education, it's financial well-being.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, these are the things that often people don't talk about, push aside.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_00: And companies are becoming more um not responsible, but you know, we give people counselling sessions, we give people private medical care, life cover, um days off now, you know, we're we've gone we've we've gone to the nine-day work week.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, loads of loads of benefits that we give our staff from a well-being perspective.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_00: So companies are right on it.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, financial well-being is such an easy way into these companies.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: So when you look at the do you do you go directly to like a direct do you go directly to like the owner of the business or the director of the business?
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_00: What and you know, uh you talked about sort of targeting companies say of 50 staff plus, right?
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_00: And LinkedIn is really good for that.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you use sales navigator, you can make a list of companies based on company size, uh turnover, how long they've been around for, you can pinpoint directly who the decision makers are within the business.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not a you don't have to go walking around business parts, it's not like knocking on doors.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's a re there's a very simple way of doing it.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and sales navigator is really, really good for that.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_00: But what I'm interested in is, and the same with in my world, you know, I I I will attack somebody, attack, I will go into a company and I'd look at the marketing department, for example, and start talking to marketing.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of what I do has a positive impact on their marketing.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_00: If I go in and talk to somebody about recruitment in HR, I'm just another recruitment company.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas if I go in and I talk to marketing and I express what I'm doing around the podcast and the network that I'm building and the influence I have, I'm then influencing those guys to then speak to HR in a completely different angle.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_00: And an internal referral is often far better for you.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_00: So what's your approach?
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_00: Who do you directly target, first of all?
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, now it's it's all inbound, um, which is a nice place to be.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but and it's normally, yeah, you'll you'll speak into HR, and then they'll say, Oh, actually, I need to get my finance director on.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's I'm like, brilliant, get the finance director on, and I'll show them the sort of benefit of this and even like how salary sacrifice can save the company a bit of money, things like that.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we can do the calculations of what this is going to cost the business if they put their contributions up to six percent, eight percent, what's that gonna cost?
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_01: So that's fine.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if you're if I'm starting afresh now, yeah, absolutely.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like you said, going out to LinkedIn, finding those those companies and messaging uh a blanket kind of uh you know to 100 people, that that's fine.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the only thing I'd say with um anyone that's all thinking about going into this is we've had the most success with uh local companies normally.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um so when we're actually seeing seeing companies face to face, or I don't know why, it's just sort of the the businesses that we we're attracting online are very much you've got it'll be tech companies or very fast growing companies and you're doing everything online, you've got an you've got a 45-minute presentation with all those staff, you've got to be very good at at driving making an impact on those on those people during that very short space of time when you're just on a screen.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so if you can go into a local business, you know, professional services businesses, into a law firm, an accounting firm, and or engineers, you can and you can do a presentation to them about what you're doing, what if you're changing something about their pensions, or doing a financial education piece, um, you're gonna have more of an impact face to face.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's my experience.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the experience we've had on the on the on the yeah, we do a lot of a lot of tech firms, it's just naturally we've got involved in that.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we still pick up the odd client from there, but it'll be if we present to 50 people, it'll be one or two rather than five or ten people contacting us.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, that that's the only advice we've there.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_01: But like you said, yeah, you don't need to go around knocking on uh doors in in uh industrial parks, but the face-to-face stuff does generally produce better results in this, just from our experience.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um but yeah, the if if you're whoever you're speaking to, it's yeah, it's HR that you need to speak to.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_01: We we've just taken on a firm um which there's 1,500 employees, um, and we're just about to go and do a lot of work with them.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um on the call, there was we we had HR director, we had the uh payroll director and the finance director.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it was great to speak to you all of them because the payroll guys were having a bit of a nightmare speaking to the pension company.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_01: We said, well, we can do that on your behalf.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_01: We're not gonna get involved in payroll, but you get a real issue, we'll we'll kick kick their kick their ass.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm allowed to swear on your isn't it?
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_01: Ah, swear on your own.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_01: You're indeed, yeah.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_01: You are um we'll we'll we'll give them a kick up the ass if we need to.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_01: From an HR perspective, it was very much look, we're here to educate the staff.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, this is what we're going to be doing, this is how we'll structure that.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then from a finance director, it's like, yeah, this is how much it's gonna cost.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_01: Is it in your budget?
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_01: And that's all the finance director wants to know is how much is it gonna cost, and they'll either have the budget or not.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why it's quite nice to deal with corporates sometimes because it's not the individual stuff where it's like, oh, I don't know if we we we trust you, I don't know if we want to do this, we're gonna put it off six months.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_01: Businesses, it's either in their budget or not.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they're either wanting to do this or not.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_01: So it's normally quite a straightforward conversation.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, who you're speaking to in the business is really important.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and if you're going in on the financial education piece and the well-being, that's the HR guys you want to speak to because they um they will then sell it internally, just like you said with with your marketing thing.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_00: So you mentioned there that you're in an the luxury position that the business now comes to you.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_00: You tend to get clients that come to you, and you can be quite picky and choosy about who you who you actually work with.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what was the tipping point then of creating that inbound process as opposed to majority being outbound?
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_00: What was the thing that really got you to that stage?
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's okay, so you know, we we a lot of our business comes from my partners at the employee uh employee benefits company.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, but it's not a simple journey there.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um that was very much like how do we generate this?
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_01: And for the first six months, nobody was was doing anything, and their staff didn't really know what I did.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um so we we had to develop that.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I that was a bit of an education piece with their staff.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're going to look at partnering with an employee benefits company, you need to go and speak to them first and explain what you do, what the benefit is to clients, and and what you yeah, how how much it costs.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um that was our our sort of tipping point.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_01: I did that with their staff, did a few education pieces, started driving that a bit more.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_01: Now we started becoming a bit of a name in a couple of local HR companies.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_01: So where people, the companies outsource their HR to these firms.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they are now referring clients to me.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh again, that was with them just doing a bit of an education piece with them about what we do, how it works, and how much it costs.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you've just got to keep developing that service.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, whereas the tipping point is probably, yeah, we get a lot from my employee benefits company.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_01: If you're not working with an employee benefits firm, you're gonna have to develop your own thing.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_01: Do I have some advice for that?
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_01: Probably what we've already discussed.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's not gonna be an easy journey.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_01: So, but neither was it with my my yeah, my my business partners.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's only last six months when it's really the the the inbound stuff has just gone uh just rocketed.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_01: So um before that it was starting to come through, and you'll just need to play around with things.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_01: I I remember our first, our very first company we looked at.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_01: My business partner's director at employee benefits firm.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_01: So look, we've got this company, they want to look at the pension thing, they're with Ness, they want to upgrade.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Well, how much how much do we charge?
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they strangely enough, they only had 20 staff, but they'd gone out to three different firms that do what we're doing, which is upgrading the scheme.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I came up with a price what I thought was uh okay, and we thought it was reasonable.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_01: And um, they said, Yeah, we really it was our feedback afterwards was yeah, we really like you, we wanted to get ahead with you, but you were so much cheaper than the other two.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_01: We just thought there must be something that you're not doing that they are, and there wasn't.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_01: We're doing these in a very similar service, um, so it's just the chart.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_01: So from that point, we said, okay, we need to double that price.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we're probably now at a point where we probably need to increase them even further.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_01: So you just need to play around with these things, and it's not like anyone hits the ground running with this this type of business.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the corporate space is very much it, not many financial advisors work in it.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, there isn't much CPD, there isn't much training in this area.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so you need to develop your own thing and you need to do your own research.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_01: And if it's an area you want to get into, then yeah, that that's how you're going to do it.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for that.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think the key takeaway is that partnering again, isn't it?
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's partnering with those other experts that are delivering a service to the clients that you want to work with.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_00: So partnering with an employee benefits company is such a smart move.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's very smart because there aren't a great deal of financial planning companies out there anyway within the corporate space.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that employee benefits company to see you as an expert and as a benefit.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you are going in, you have to do a bit of work and you have to educate their staff of how to position what your proposition actually is, which might be tricky to do if you're not a business partner, if there isn't some financial interest going back and forth.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, does that mean that the chap, a lady or a guy who runs the employee benefits?
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_00: A guy, company, yeah, guy.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_00: So are you two business partners in the sense of shareholders within each other's business?
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_00: How does that, you know?
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just trying to think, you know, if I was a financial planner and I'm thinking, right, do you know what?
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go out and start speaking to some employee benefits companies.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_00: Should I be giving up equity in my business?
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how do I how because otherwise you're kind of like they've got a business to run and they might not be even thinking about pensions.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you get them interested in partnering with you?
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so yeah, I did give up equity, uh, which is which is fine.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we we took that, I took that punt that this would be, this would work.
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_01: And you're gonna have to make it work yourself if you're going to.
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're going out to a new employee benefits firm and you don't want to give up equity, then think about referrals, referral fees.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh referral fees aren't dirty.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's it's something that is part of business.
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of financial planners go, they'll never pay an accountant or a solicitor to refer me someone.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're gonna be going down this route, the employee benefits space is kind of where financial planning was in in terms of regulation, probably 15 years ago.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's all very much commission-based, it's all very salesy, uh, which is not a bad thing.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think lots of people sort of frown at that.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, sales, I can't go near those.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_01: But that's where it is.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_01: So if you go in and say, look, we we offer this pension service, um, we'll we'll give up you, you know, if you if you want to refer clients to us, we'll we'll pay you a referral fee.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um I now pay the the the staff of my business partner's um company.
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_01: So they are staff that have just come in, we pay them a small referral fee for for for sending stuff over, which is which is okay.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um what were the other points you said?
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_01: So um yeah, it's a it it it's you know when you potentially yeah, sorry, potentially what you need to do.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um there is so I just wanted to yeah, uh touch on another uh point as well.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_01: This is um you know, this is this is lead ultimately, this is lead generation.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_01: When we I started my financial planning business, I thought, right, I'm just gonna deal with Uh couples that are in their 50s that are within 10 years of retirement, just nice people.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that's generally my personal individual client book, is that um, but you've got to adapt, you've got to develop, you've got to get those leads from somewhere.
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_01: Ours often comes from the corporate stuff, but then we also got the other voucher for and LinkedIn and everything as well.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and obviously we do get website inquiries and phone calls, which is fine, but the corporate space helps us get those those clients as well.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you've got to just adapt as well.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's a company we've started working with who wanted somebody to do their key person insurances, which is again an area I've got experience in.
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought not many financial advisors get involved in this space.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_01: Not something that most people love.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's insurance, it can be a bit of a pain.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_01: But just yesterday, I was on a call with a a tech exec in in London, and she's uh been given something like 20, 30 million, uh, and they need uh from venture capital trust, uh or some of the URVCs and yeah, private equity.
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_01: And we've uh we're setting up key personal insurance for them, mentioned during Octo.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I do wealth management, financial planning, and that just pricked her ears up and said, Oh, I need that.
• 1:07:13
  SPEAKER_01: And she's uh early 50s, ideal client, and we've now looking at setting up a meeting for that.
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_01: So it's um yeah, it's one of those things, like you said earlier, just get him in front of people.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_01: You mention those other things you do.
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_01: You might speak to 50 people and nobody comes and contacts you, but you will get those employees or those business owners that come to you and say, Ah, yeah, actually, I need you for for this for this other area.
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oliver, you know, you have to be in it to win it, right?
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to be in it to win it.
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to be reaching out to people, you've got to be consistently reaching out to people.
• 1:07:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, your niche then, do you do you specialise in tech companies?
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_00: Is that kind of your area of expertise?
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_00: Do you tend to focus on that?
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_00: Oh really over anything.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_01: Only because I think it's like most people's niche niches, their niche often comes to them, I think.
• 1:07:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um we had, yeah, it wasn't intentional.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I guess there's a bit of rapport there because often the tech guys we're speaking to are in their 30s, uh, which is where I am, and they've been given a load of funding.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then they're looking at improving their employee benefits, and then we're also looking at insurance policies and things, which is which is great.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, as individual clients, I don't take many of them on, but the tech space is not full of 20 and 30 year olds.
• 1:08:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually, you know, it's plenty of clients I've I've spoken to and have taken on that are in uh not not just tech, but fast growing companies that often have been given some funding.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, that they'll still be, you know, some of the the the senior managers and the the execs there will be um your ideal financial planning clients, which are traditionally the kind of age 50 plus looking at stopping work in the next next 10 years.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, naturally that's become a bit of our niche, uh, but not necessarily.
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_01: We we still work with yeah, quite a broad range of of companies.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic, great stuff.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_00: There's another thing you mentioned I just want to ask you a question on actually, is outsourced HR companies.
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_00: So did you partner with because that's actually a really good, a really good link, because obviously they outsourced HR companies, do HR for companies.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_00: So they've probably got 50 clients, 40 clients, or however many clients.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_00: So they'll know whether and it's a great way for them to again offer additional services.
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_00: So partnering with an outsourced HR company is a really good partnership, right?
• 1:09:26
  SPEAKER_00: For a financial planner looking to the corporate space.
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it can be, yeah.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_01: They're generally not working with massive companies, but um they are, yeah, their clients are all business owners.
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, if you're just thinking about that kind of route, think about think about who you're partnering with.
• 1:09:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, my my employee benefits partner, business partners, all of their clients are running businesses.
• 1:09:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it was like, well, why don't we set up a pension service where we're targeting businesses?
• 1:09:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, if you go to an HR department, all their clients are business owners.
• 1:09:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um if you're going to an accountancy, you want to try to try and partner with an accountancy firm, most of their their um clients are going to be either self-employed or business owners.
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_01: So if that the corporate space where you want to be, you just got to think about yeah, who you're you're targeting, not necessarily going directly to the uh the the source, um, but going to the people that are going because I've got the HR departments that sort of refer to us, they've already spoken for us, they've already sold our service, um, and then said that Oliver's the expert in this area, go and go and speak to engage wealth management.
• 1:10:33
  SPEAKER_01: So um it's a pretty easy uh sell from that point onwards.
• 1:10:38
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's HR department, HR outsourced HR is not uh not something to um to give amiss.
• 1:10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Oliver, you know, you've really shared quite deeply today around your career and definitely around the corporate side.
• 1:10:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I've learned lots today, and I think people who are listening to this podcast, it should put their ears up a little bit and get them thinking about working in that corporate space.
• 1:11:01
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for sharing so honestly and so deeply about that.
• 1:11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think that will inspire people to perhaps look at areas that they can move into to develop new client banks and new client relationships.
• 1:11:11
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much for that.
• 1:11:12
  SPEAKER_00: On a sort of final note, what would you say would make a what makes a great financial planner, do you think?
• 1:11:19
  SPEAKER_01: What makes a great financial planner?
• 1:11:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I I think what we referred to it earlier.
• 1:11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Don't don't ever forget that this is a sales industry.
• 1:11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I think uh it you it's not, yes, it's not phone sales or car, secondhand car sales, but you've got to have that rapport, you've got to have that personality.
• 1:11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think that often trumps the technical side of it.
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_01: You're always gonna have somebody that's there that has the technical capability that can that can assist you.
• 1:11:51
  SPEAKER_01: But if you want to be a financial planner, financial advisor, you've got to have that kind of rapport and that bit of life experience.
• 1:11:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think you mentioned earlier about a graduate coming straight into the profession.
• 1:12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, what what have you done before that?
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_01: What what stories have you got to tell?
• 1:12:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because you you need to have some life experience before coming into this industry.
• 1:12:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's my my personal view, but perhaps not.
• 1:12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think you've got to be adaptable as well.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um there are lots of financial advisors I know that that started started their companies and they said, okay, I need these clients and I need this much money to live my lifestyle, which is a great way, great position to be in.
• 1:12:30
  SPEAKER_01: But if that's not your position, it wasn't mine.
• 1:12:32
  SPEAKER_01: It was I needed to bring on quite a lot.
• 1:12:34
  SPEAKER_01: I need got a mortgage to pay, I've got children, um, young children, and uh my my wife works part-time.
• 1:12:42
  SPEAKER_01: So we needed to bring in so some some some pretty hefty amounts to to kind of keep our business running and to keep growing the business as well.
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got to be adaptable, and that's what we've done.
• 1:12:53
  SPEAKER_01: I I never set out setting up my company thinking I'm gonna be the workplace pensions go-to expert.
• 1:12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and now I'm we're moving as well into a lot of the business insurance side, and we're becoming quite known for that as well.
• 1:13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, didn't really want to set it up like that, but that's where we've gone, and we generate a lot of individual clients from that.
• 1:13:13
  SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, hopefully that's that's that gives you an idea.
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think a great financial planner can be uh it can be a lot of things.
• 1:13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I I yeah, I it's you just got to think very carefully about it if this is the industry you want to go into.
• 1:13:29
  SPEAKER_01: You are gonna be in front of people, you are gonna be you've got to be comfortable with that.
• 1:13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um if that's not the route and you prefer the technical stuff and you like the spreadsheets and the reports and the and the compliance side of things, I think power planning and compliance is absolutely a massive career opportunity now.
• 1:13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um financial planning is not for everybody, but uh it's it's it is very nice and it's very rewarding uh once you get to a point uh where where you're very comfortable.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Brilliant.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oliver, thank you so much for your time today.
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh really, really, really appreciate it.
• 1:14:04
  SPEAKER_00: That was a fantastic answer.
• 1:14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you've covered some really great topics for us today.
• 1:14:07
  SPEAKER_00: So really, really appreciate all your honesty and all your experience.
• 1:14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we wish you the best of luck at Engage.
• 1:14:12
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks very much, Sam.
• 1:14:13
  SPEAKER_01: Take care.
• 1:14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Cheers.