Latest / Financial Planner Life Podcast / 39% of people don't trust financial planners, take 'Adviser Advantage' test for free! | Chris Larkin, BigRock

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39% of people don't trust financial planners, take 'Adviser Advantage' test for free! | Chris Larkin, BigRock · Financial Planner Life Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Only 39% of UK adults trust financial services firms.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: So what are financial planners doing wrong?
0:07
SPEAKER_00: Today I'm joined by Chris Larkin of Big Rock, and he explains why firms that prioritize trust, conversation quality, and behavioural understanding are outperforming those relying solely on technical capability.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: Drawing on over two decades of working with advisory firms, he shares evidence of how improvement in client experience directly impacts referrals, conversion rates, and profitability.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: The discussion is grounded in industry data and real case examples, including significant increases in eBit DAR, share of wallet, and client engagement.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: It also addresses a critical gap.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: Despite trust being the foundation of financial advice, most firms still underinvest in the human skills required to build it.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: And stick around to the end where we introduce a diagnostics tool for financial advisors, and you can see exactly how you benchmark up against the industry.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: This episode is all about the client experience, and with AI firmly in sight, that's what it's all going to be about in the future.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: Chris, thank you so much for joining me today on the Financial Planner Life.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: Pleasure.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: Great to be here.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: Wow, you're welcome.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: You're welcome.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: Um so Chris, tell us a little bit about who you are and why you're here today.
1:20
SPEAKER_01: Okay, um, absolutely.
1:21
SPEAKER_01: So I'm Chris Larkin.
1:22
SPEAKER_01: I'm the founder and MD of Big Rock.
1:24
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and Big Rock is a consultancy that for the last 22 years has specialized in helping people in the advice industry interact better with their clients.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: That's at the absolute heart of what we do.
1:37
SPEAKER_01: It's that kind of client experience piece that we really try and drive to the best levels.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: So that's us.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: So technical expertise versus client experience.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: Why is the client experience do you think so important then?
1:49
SPEAKER_01: Well, if you think about what's happened in our industry over recent years, you know, the drive for professionalization, improving technical expertise has been really impressive.
1:57
SPEAKER_01: You know, we've achieved a lot there and sort of made massive strides.
2:02
SPEAKER_01: But I think the one thing that has maybe not gone forward in the same way is that softer skill, you know, the way that people do interact with their clients, the way that they drive CX, that client experience.
2:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:14
SPEAKER_01: You know, there's a lot of evidence, Sam, that that's underinvested in within our industry.
2:19
SPEAKER_01: So that's one thing we're passionate about.
2:20
SPEAKER_01: You know, we really believe that when you get that right, um, the end result of that from a client perspective, from a commercial perspective, from every angle, you know, from a compliance perspective, you can improve all of those outcomes.
2:33
SPEAKER_01: So that's what we're really, really focused on and kind of love working with.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: No, I love it.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: Why do you think trust is such a big deal within financial services?
2:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean, 39% of people say they don't trust financial services.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: So why is that such a big deal?
2:45
SPEAKER_00: And why have we got to that ridiculous stat?
2:47
SPEAKER_01: Well, well, first of all, isn't that a frightening, terrifying stat?
2:49
SPEAKER_01: It is.
2:50
SPEAKER_01: Right?
2:50
SPEAKER_01: 39%, you know.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: Um, so so there's a real deficit of trust in our industry.
2:55
SPEAKER_01: And I think one of the reasons for that, of course, is that the way that people perceive they're going to be treated.
3:01
SPEAKER_01: You know, some people feel that when they do interact with advisors, you know, the advisors are, at least to some degree, out for their own interests.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: And it's fascinating.
3:10
SPEAKER_01: When you look at trust and the components of trust, there's a lot of different people who've done work on it.
3:15
SPEAKER_01: Rachel Botsman at Oxford University, uh, the trusted advisor book, of course, a lot of people have read.
3:21
SPEAKER_01: And one of the key components of trust is not being driven by self-interest.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: And another key component is actually what the trusted advisor book called intimacy.
3:33
SPEAKER_01: Actually, what they meant there is that ability for if I'm your advisor, me to be locked on to you, interested in you, trying to understand you, your family, your goals, you know, and getting you to open up to me.
3:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
3:46
SPEAKER_01: And I think that is the bit that doesn't always work well in our industry.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: You know, when you stand back or actually get involved as we do and observe people in their interactions, too often it's a process, right?
3:58
SPEAKER_01: And that process leads to a product rather than that being a deep discussion and exploration locked onto you and what you're trying to achieve.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: Do you think this is a hangover of the old financial profession, the whole the old financial planning profession, like the pre-RDR, very product commission-based selling?
4:17
SPEAKER_00: Do you think it's a a sort of hangover from that era?
4:21
SPEAKER_01: It could be, but actually, if you look back to the industry, I mean, I started the industry pre-R-RDR.
4:26
SPEAKER_01: You know, I began as an advisor in 1997, which feels like an incredibly long time ago now.
4:31
SPEAKER_01: Um, and at that time, you know, we know that there were some really variable behaviors going on in the industry, and not all of them were good, right?
4:40
SPEAKER_01: But also there was a reality back then that actually some of the better firms did invest incredibly heavily in training, development of their people.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: The big life firms, you know, would invest a lot in that.
4:52
SPEAKER_01: And it's quite interesting.
4:53
SPEAKER_01: When you talk to people in the industry now, some of them still use training that they were given back in the late 90s, early, early noughties as the foundation for what they do and how they do it.
5:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:05
SPEAKER_01: And actually, we've seen that that you know, some people who've come in subsequent to that have been given nothing like that level of introduction to how to run a meeting, you know, from a client's perspective, how to really get in to understanding them.
5:19
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, I mean, uh I was I was talking to a CEO recently who was saying that, you know, we've got some of the most well-qualified people now in our industry, many of whom can't have a really good client conversation, right?
5:32
SPEAKER_01: So there's this deficit, not everywhere.
5:34
SPEAKER_01: You know, we have some brilliance in our industry, but there's a genuine deficit of people who are well qualified, but actually not driven by that same deep, deep client understanding.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: Where does that breakdown typically happen in the advice journey then?
5:48
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I mean, the the the breakdown can happen right from the get-go.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: It's interesting actually.
5:54
SPEAKER_01: When we when we work, uh often what we will do is begin with a period of discovery if we're working with a new client.
6:01
SPEAKER_01: So we'll ask to interview advisors, we'll ask to observe advisors, we'll ask to talk to clients, you know, we'll ask to do all sorts of things to understand what is going on at the moment.
6:12
SPEAKER_01: And and do you know what, Sam?
6:13
SPEAKER_01: I think that sometimes it begins before the meeting even begins.
6:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
6:18
SPEAKER_01: You you think about it.
6:19
SPEAKER_01: Anyone who's exceptionally adept in what they do, there's a danger that they just roll into another version of it, right?
6:27
SPEAKER_01: It's Tuesday morning, I've got two meetings today, get into the first one and away they go.
6:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
6:33
SPEAKER_01: The best don't do that.
6:34
SPEAKER_01: You know, the best are really fascinating to watch because they gear up for each one with a separate focus bit of preparation, mental planning, getting themselves really ready for that.
6:47
SPEAKER_01: And they are so locked onto that client and deeply interested in them that they approach it differently.
6:54
SPEAKER_01: So, so points of breakdown, sometimes it's before you even begin.
6:57
SPEAKER_01: It's how are you considering this meeting?
6:59
SPEAKER_01: How are you preparing for this meeting?
7:01
SPEAKER_01: How are you preparing the client for the meeting?
7:03
SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot will just rock up to a meeting with a client, but of course, the best are sending them maybe an agenda.
7:10
SPEAKER_01: You know, perhaps days in advance going, Hey, I'm looking forward to our meeting next week, Sam, right?
7:14
SPEAKER_01: Here's what I think we need to cover.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: Here's a proposed agenda.
7:18
SPEAKER_01: You know, does that do everything for you?
7:19
SPEAKER_01: Is there anything you want to add?
7:20
SPEAKER_01: And even those simple steps can elevate that meeting.
7:23
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's fascinating how relatively small things can make quite a shift in the experience.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: It's really interesting what you said.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: It happens before the meeting.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: So that's like the preparation from an advisor perspective, or anybody really that's trying to um deliver some a fantastic experience for somebody and change their life, right?
7:41
SPEAKER_00: It takes time to prepare for that meeting.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: What are some of the most effective things?
7:46
SPEAKER_00: You can reel a few of them off there, but what are some of the most effective things people can actually do pre-meetings to um ensure that they are kind of moving themselves out of the way and making it all about the client experience?
7:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
8:00
SPEAKER_01: So I think that's a really good question.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: There's one little t technique really that we talk to our clients about and their advisors about, and we call it bookending.
8:08
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and it's really easy to do, um, but of course it's a discipline.
8:12
SPEAKER_01: Like all of these things, you know, adopting it is one thing, sticking with it is another.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: Um, but we've seen some incredible changes in performance just by adopting this one thing.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying it's the only thing we want people to adopt.
8:24
SPEAKER_01: But bookending, Sam, is a really simple principle of saying, look, before every single client meeting I have, somewhere in my diary, right, there's going to be a slot, a bit of time that I'm going to bookend before and after for specific purposes.
8:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:40
SPEAKER_01: And the and the bit before is really important because in that, what you're doing is you are preparing yourself for that client meeting as everyone would, you know, gathering the relevant information, looking at what they have to hand, but preparing mentally for it.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: And within that, we have a nice little technique that we we talk to people about that we call ODO.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
9:01
SPEAKER_01: And ODO stands for optimum desired outcome.
9:05
SPEAKER_01: And the point of that is what are you truly trying to achieve here?
9:09
SPEAKER_01: You know, what what is good going to look like by the end of that meeting?
9:12
SPEAKER_01: If it's a client you've never met before, you know, a great test is what do you want them thinking and saying about you when they finish the meeting and either left your office or finished that team's meeting?
9:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:24
SPEAKER_01: You know, what would they be saying to someone else about you as a consequence of that meeting?
9:29
SPEAKER_01: And if you want to achieve certain things there, then of course you can set your meeting structure up.
9:35
SPEAKER_01: You can reverse engineer from that desired outcome to make sure you hit those objectives.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: So in that kind of pre-phase, you'll see people preparing themselves in that way, but also, as I mentioned, preparing the client.
9:48
SPEAKER_01: You know, here's what we're going to be covering off issuing agendas, sending things out in advance.
9:52
SPEAKER_01: So there's a huge bit about preparation.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: And what I love about that kind of ODO technique, even if you've only got a minute or two, you can do that mental planning, can't you?
10:02
SPEAKER_01: Before I go into this interaction, you know, what do I want to achieve?
10:05
SPEAKER_01: What do I want the others thinking and saying about me?
10:07
SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of part one.
10:08
SPEAKER_01: And the part two bit, Sam, is really when when you have completed that interaction, the best advisors don't just move on, right?
10:18
SPEAKER_01: They reflect.
10:19
SPEAKER_01: They take a bit of time to go, how did I do that?
10:23
SPEAKER_01: Did I achieve my objectives?
10:25
SPEAKER_01: Did I delight that client, right?
10:27
SPEAKER_01: Did I serve up an experience that I'm proud of?
10:30
SPEAKER_01: So there's a bit of self-reflection in terms of development and how well they're doing, but also simple stuff like the follow-up, right?
10:39
SPEAKER_01: Sending something to their paraplanner, confirming a note back to the client.
10:42
SPEAKER_01: And suddenly they're not only super on it and focused, but they're also a rapid responder.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: And those two things can make huge changes.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: I I'm I'm a massive fan of the experience from start to finish.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: So I, you know, as you know, I put content out there.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: I think a big part of the experience that someone goes through on the financial plan of life to become a guest is that they have to buy into me first.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: They have to see what it is that I'm doing.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: I ensure that I'm always raising other people up.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: It's very, very rare that I'm the one on you know LinkedIn or YouTube talking about me.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: It's very, very rare.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: You know, I did it at the weekend, recorded something and didn't post it.
11:17
SPEAKER_01: Right.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: You know, because it's very rare that I do.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: I often like to push, you know, raise people up around me.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: I often think that that beginning of the experience starts there because someone might watch that and see that's aspirational.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: And then want to reach out to me.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: Or if I do reach out, or if Kerry reaches out to them, they go, Yes, I know who financial planner life are.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: They like to promote the profession and raise people up and raise the standard.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: And the experience that I go through as well is once I've had that and I've made that contact, then there's always like a 15-minute hello, how are you doing type call if somebody's interested.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: And when somebody is actually interested in coming through my experience of becoming a financial planner life guest, we then go through the process of booking them in.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: And when we go through the process of booking them in, we sit down, we have a pre-podcast chat.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: I always find that in that pre-podcast chat, it's my favourite part.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: Right.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: Because I really do get to know who that individual is, what it is they're doing.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: And I get to ask questions that perhaps they don't ask themselves.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: We're never usually put on the spot by somebody for an hour being interrogated about their business.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: And what I find on that is I find that we uncover and discover opportunities that that individual might not have seen, and I'm able to use my knowledge of the profession and other people around me right to steer the conversation or the journey in a way that I feel is going to resonate with an audience that I've built a relationship with, which is the same audience that you want to build a relationship, right?
12:38
SPEAKER_00: And you work with.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: So I love that part.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: And I always feel like there's so much work that can be done for me before the day we actually sit down and film.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: But if it's done correctly, the trust element is there.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: And I've built the connection and I feel comfortable with that individual.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: And I know also what the boundaries are to what we should be talking about and maybe not talking about.
12:58
SPEAKER_01: And therefore it's a totally different outcome.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it?
13:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:02
SPEAKER_01: And I I love what you're saying, and I think there's a real synergy there to what we do and what we really focus on because you know, one thing that we uh are passionate about is in our industry people being consultative with their clients, right?
13:15
SPEAKER_01: And that's exactly what you do with your guests.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
13:18
SPEAKER_01: The process you've just described is the opposite of a transactional process.
13:22
SPEAKER_01: Huge.
13:22
SPEAKER_01: So if it was transactional, it would be right, book your slot on the podcast, rock up, in you come, okay, be interviewed, leave.
13:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:29
SPEAKER_01: But what you're doing is you're consulting and engaging and seeking to understand.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: And most important, when you were talking earlier, you were saying, you know, it's not about self-promotion.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: Right.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: Your interest is in the topics and the industry, right, and the elevation of the way that we advance our whole whole industry.
13:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:49
SPEAKER_01: Right.
13:50
SPEAKER_01: And I think that for me is one of the key components of establishing core trust.
13:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:54
SPEAKER_01: Because it is not my self-interest I'm driving, it is, it is me trying to advance something else.
14:00
SPEAKER_01: In this instance, a client or in your instance, a guest.
14:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:03
SPEAKER_01: And you're so on the money there, Sam, because transactional experiences are rarely satisfying unless all you want to do is go and buy something from a shop and then leave.
14:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:17
SPEAKER_01: Right.
14:17
SPEAKER_01: But even then, you want some service wrapped around it, don't you?
14:20
SPEAKER_01: You want to be smiled at or looked after.
14:22
SPEAKER_01: And it's how do we take that to the extreme in our industry to deliver great CX?
14:27
SPEAKER_00: I think there's a really like when you say like, you know, let's say, for example, I want to buy a television, right?
14:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: The experience of me buying a television now, I I very rarely go into the shop and want to speak to a um a salesperson or anything like that.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: I only ever go into the shop once I've made my mind up on what TVs I would like to buy.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: Right.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: But in my first experience, my experience personally as a customer is I want to go to like a page on YouTube and I want to watch somebody review that talking about it.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, the good, the bad, the ugly, and you know, a really independent view.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: And then from there, that part of the experience makes me then go, okay, I like that TV for these reasons, therefore I'm going to go to a shop and I'm going to actually look at it.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I might not go to the shop, I might just buy it there and then.
15:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: But I do feel like, and and and obviously the world that I live in is video content, right?
15:14
SPEAKER_00: And social media.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: I do feel like the journey, the story, the um the customer experience can begin before you even sat down and met anybody.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: And I I kind of push it back on you now.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: Like in your journey of helping financial planning businesses with more different shapes and sizes, how much are they thinking about the before the meeting?
15:37
SPEAKER_00: How much are they thinking about the marketing, video, online presence?
15:42
SPEAKER_00: Essentially social proof.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: Is that coming into conversations?
15:45
SPEAKER_00: Are they asking more about that?
15:46
SPEAKER_00: Are you yourself seeing that as an opportunity to create even a deeper level of customer experience?
15:52
SPEAKER_01: So I think to answer your last question first, I mean, it's absolutely an opportunity to create a deeper level of customer and client experience, isn't it?
15:59
SPEAKER_01: You know, no two ways about it.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: If if you think about a good advisor relationship, it should last a lifetime, shouldn't it?
16:05
SPEAKER_01: You know, and and ultimately it should be an individualistic relationship.
16:09
SPEAKER_01: I shouldn't need to have multiple advisors, and yet some of the wealthiest in our industry or in our society will rarely choose to put everything with one advisor.
16:18
SPEAKER_01: And when you look at the reasons behind all of this, it's fascinating, you know.
16:22
SPEAKER_01: And I think one of the reasons is that there is this sense of, you know, am I going to get everything I need from that one individual?
16:29
SPEAKER_01: And I also do think, actually, Sam, to a large degree, that there's there's a little bit of laziness in some parts of our industry.
16:37
SPEAKER_01: And I hope I don't disenfranchise, you know, any of our audience by saying that.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: But if you really get into it and sit down with an advisor that's been doing what they do for any period of time, they're typically very honest at saying, I have just got into a comfortable groove, right?
16:54
SPEAKER_01: And we've actually just got towards the end of completing a pretty big project with a new client of ours.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: And um, in fact, earlier last week, I was I was there finishing that off, the first phase of that off with the first cohort.
17:07
SPEAKER_01: Within the room was their very biggest producer, right?
17:10
SPEAKER_01: And this is a this is a large firm, and this is a super successful individual, and he's been doing what he does for a long time, right?
17:17
SPEAKER_01: And we learned some great stuff from him.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: But do you know what?
17:21
SPEAKER_01: He took almost more from what we had gone through as a program than almost anyone else, because he was looking at everything, going, actually, now is the time to think, could I be doing it better?
17:33
SPEAKER_01: And and I think that's one thing that sets the highest performers apart, right?
17:37
SPEAKER_01: They're not complacent.
17:38
SPEAKER_01: We actually have a term for it.
17:40
SPEAKER_01: We call it divine discontent, right?
17:43
SPEAKER_01: And what we mean by that is they just don't settle, right?
17:46
SPEAKER_01: So whether they meet you or me or someone else, they're looking for something they can do differently.
17:52
SPEAKER_01: And if I can offer a criticism of our industry as a whole, I think we've been really good at getting better on technical.
17:59
SPEAKER_01: I think we've gone a bit complacent on what we're doing around that client experience and the softer skills, as some people call them, you know, of truly understanding clients and digging into need.
18:11
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SPEAKER_00: So to book a free demo, get yourself to redmilladvance.com and they'll do the rest.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: So why do such technically strong advisors and advice firms struggle to grow their businesses?
19:23
SPEAKER_01: Well, some don't.
19:24
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so some some some, you know, so there's no kind of like because you're technically strong, you're not going to be good at organically growing your business.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: You know, some are going to be phenomenal.
19:32
SPEAKER_01: And I uh one thing I do want to say is the other benefit of us doing what we've done for 22 years, we have seen brilliance, right?
19:40
SPEAKER_01: We've seen some people who are fundamentally fabulous at what they do, the kind of people you go, yeah, you can advise my mum, you know, I would trust you with that.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: Um, but also we've seen mediocrity.
19:53
SPEAKER_01: And I think that one of the things that that can happen is that clients are actually educated now to say, look, is this advisor chartered?
20:01
SPEAKER_01: You know, how qualified are they?
20:02
SPEAKER_01: And look for that.
20:05
SPEAKER_01: I'm not aware of, unless you are, any equivalent benchmark for the kind of client experience side.
20:11
SPEAKER_01: You know, is this advisor going to serve up an experience to you that delights you, challenges you, informs you, guides you, coaches you, are they going to do all of those things?
20:22
SPEAKER_01: Because my big concern, I mean, you know, as an industry, we're we're always tuned into new things.
20:27
SPEAKER_01: You know, AI is coming in everywhere and it's already making some massive advancements in our industry.
20:33
SPEAKER_01: If you're not differentiating what you do experientially, people will increasingly get the advice they need through AI.
20:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah?
20:43
SPEAKER_01: And then back to your TV example, it becomes, well, actually, it's cheaper by this many BIPs to do it via that route than it is via that route.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: So what am I getting from that advice?
20:54
SPEAKER_01: And guess what else?
20:55
SPEAKER_01: As an industry, our charging structure means that often the more people have, the more they're paying for that ongoing advice.
21:03
SPEAKER_01: And actually, therefore, in their heads, that value equation is even bigger.
21:07
SPEAKER_01: You know, am I genuinely getting value from that advisor?
21:10
SPEAKER_01: And they question it and they'll look for alternative routes.
21:13
SPEAKER_01: So I think that there's a real responsibility on ourselves to keep testing and advancing and not be satisfied that having good technical backing and underpins is enough because it's not.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: Do you think, right?
21:27
SPEAKER_00: Genuine question, right?
21:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: You've been working around humans in financial planning, teaching them to build better experiences human to human.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: Do you think AI can replicate an experience for a client, consumer, customer that could outperform a human connection?
21:49
SPEAKER_01: So that's a brilliant question.
21:50
SPEAKER_01: And do you know what's a question I asked AI a little while ago as well, actually?
21:54
SPEAKER_01: And and AI's response to that was, of course, no.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: You know, humans are better at empathy, understanding.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: You know, the the the challenge, the the reactivity in the moment, you know, whereas AI can be brilliant at everything else, right?
22:07
SPEAKER_01: Almost everything else.
22:09
SPEAKER_01: AI is moving so fast.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: I I think that, you know, this is one of those moments where if we are in the slightest bit complacent about it, we'll get eaten up and taken out and disenfranchised and disintermediated almost from the industry.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: Because I'll be entirely frank with you, you know, that there's an awful lot of advisors that we will watch and observe that that you do question are they providing that value for money?
22:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:37
SPEAKER_01: Has there been a significant difference between what they've served up and what you could get through half an hour with ChatGPT?
22:44
SPEAKER_01: Right?
22:45
SPEAKER_01: And often the answer is the difference isn't big enough.
22:47
SPEAKER_01: The difference isn't worth the cost.
22:49
SPEAKER_01: And and that's the bit where I think people uh need to get really tuned in to what they they really have to look at doing differently.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: To that level of emotional intelligence that's clear.
23:00
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: Um in your experience of working um with multiple financial planning firms, financial planners over the last 22 years, yeah.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: What is the state of emotional intelligence during the client journey?
23:11
SPEAKER_01: So again, you know, I I really need to sort of position almost like a disclaimer that there is some excellence out there.
23:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: So there are some people for whom, you know, that they almost become a life coach to their clients.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: You know, they're that deep in terms of understanding them, their goals, their aspirations, you know, but a lot of a lot of them will actually get into a fact find, you know, or or in fact, at its most common, Sam, what we see is reactivity that becomes effectively order taking.
23:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:42
SPEAKER_01: Someone comes on to you as as a potential new advisor for them.
23:45
SPEAKER_01: I've been recommended by my friend who already is a client of yours.
23:49
SPEAKER_01: I meet you, I want to review my pensions, and guess what?
23:53
SPEAKER_01: You review my pensions, right?
23:54
SPEAKER_01: And guess what the conclusion is?
23:56
SPEAKER_01: You need to put a bit more into pensions.
23:57
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
23:59
SPEAKER_01: We had a terrifying but not um unique story recently.
24:03
SPEAKER_01: We were working with a a client and you know, as a big national firm, and and one of the advisors there that we were talking to in our discovery phase said, Do you know?
24:12
SPEAKER_01: I haven't actually recommended any protection in the last nine years since I've been here.
24:17
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
24:17
SPEAKER_01: And you think that cannot be right.
24:21
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
24:21
SPEAKER_01: You know, that is an example of someone responding and reacting and order taking rather than going, hey, look, based on where you're at, your lifestyle, the people that rely upon you, we've got to talk about protection.
24:33
SPEAKER_01: You know, I know you came in about pension, but I'm not doing my job properly unless we get into that.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, that that's not even, you know, the emotional intelligence side of this.
24:41
SPEAKER_01: That's actually just opening conversations up.
24:44
SPEAKER_01: Um, but but of course, when you do it, there can be all sorts of benefits commercially, there can be benefits from a client point of view.
24:51
SPEAKER_01: So it's it's a massive open goal that some are not kicking the ball into.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: I think you know, if you're opening up conversations about the risk to your life and income, your family, yeah, it opens you up emotionally.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: Oh, totally.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: To to to to to be vulnerable, yeah.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: To think about what could happen if I didn't have this in place.
25:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: And therefore the guard comes down, and then the most important thing is security, safety, health, yes, uh, my family, all the things that you know money can replace, unfortunately.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: So to miss that out of an advice process, the fundamental foundations of financial planning, and it's like it's slightly scary that there are financial advisors out there who haven't sold financial advice for nine years or even positioned it as a as the fundamental foundation for the advice process, surely.
25:37
SPEAKER_01: Well, you you use the word they're positioned.
25:39
SPEAKER_01: And I think that, you know, one of the things that we see, of course, is that, you know, you you've talked already uh this morning about trust.
25:45
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
25:45
SPEAKER_01: You know, trust comes from somewhere, trust has to be built, you know, trust has to be earned, and it's not established simply by meeting someone for the first time, right?
25:54
SPEAKER_01: So they're looking at your credibility, you know, is this person able, qualified, you know, in in a way that they can help me?
26:01
SPEAKER_01: You know, your reliability and dependability also really, really matter.
26:04
SPEAKER_01: But these things are proven over time.
26:06
SPEAKER_01: And and we also uh see the best advisors be very good at talking not just about kind of what they do and how they do it, but why they do it.
26:16
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's a classic sort of Simet Cynic stuff.
26:19
SPEAKER_01: Start with why.
26:20
SPEAKER_01: And some of the best have got a phenomenal personal story that they share about why I love, why I'm drawn to, why I, you know, I'm passionate about being an advisor to people just like you.
26:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
26:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
26:34
SPEAKER_01: And when they share a bit of themselves, that of course starts deepening that level of connectivity and it starts getting the other person to open up.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: And then when I ask you questions about your family, you know, your your your lifestyle, your plans, your goals, your aspirations, the sharing gets deeper.
26:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
26:52
SPEAKER_01: And that that becomes the genesis of all of this.
26:54
SPEAKER_01: Identification.
26:55
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
26:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
26:56
SPEAKER_01: But but here's the other thing that we've seen a lot, Sam is that that too many advisors may begin that open conversation.
27:03
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we have a tool we call a life plan, right?
27:05
SPEAKER_01: It's not unique.
27:06
SPEAKER_01: People do kind of life planning conversations in our industry, but it is a genuine holistic exploration of you, your family, and where you're going, right?
27:16
SPEAKER_01: What you're trying to achieve by when, what's important, why is it important?
27:20
SPEAKER_01: A mistake some make is as soon as an angle arises, an opportunity, they're on it.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:26
SPEAKER_01: Right.
27:27
SPEAKER_01: And and guess what?
27:28
SPEAKER_01: As a consequence, the client thinks, hang on a minute, this is really just an opportunity for you to find something other than pension to sell to me.
27:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:38
SPEAKER_01: So they lock back down and it goes back into a transactional kind of relationship.
27:42
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
27:43
SPEAKER_01: But but the best don't do that.
27:44
SPEAKER_01: You know, they they expand the conversation.
27:46
SPEAKER_01: It may take an hour to get it all out, and then they start exploring need areas.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: Do you think the experience is um secondary to having to write business?
27:57
SPEAKER_00: So are people under too much pressure?
27:59
SPEAKER_00: Do they have too many clients?
28:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, is there too much laborious work to do around the client journey that you don't really have time to spend an hour extra with each and every client?
28:09
SPEAKER_00: There can be.
28:09
SPEAKER_01: There absolutely can be.
28:10
SPEAKER_01: I think I think firms need to look at themselves in terms of the KPIs that they're setting and what they're trying to drive through that, right?
28:16
SPEAKER_01: Because actually, if you if you put something in place that says you need to see this many clients every single week, then guess what?
28:22
SPEAKER_01: People will try and say that many clients every single week.
28:25
SPEAKER_01: Um, I think also one of the other things is that in a drive to be compliant, in a drive to be um, you know, the right side of the regulator in the right way, when you look at some even suitability letters in our industry, some of them have a degree of detail that makes them actually opaque.
28:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
28:43
SPEAKER_01: And actually, if you're trying to really take out of that what is the recommendation, you know, it's not always as clear and strong as it should be.
28:50
SPEAKER_01: So I think you're absolutely right.
28:51
SPEAKER_01: You know, firms themselves need to be really lasered in on what are we measuring and what is that actually driving behaviorally as a consequence of that?
29:01
SPEAKER_00: On that note, can we talk about how you measure that?
29:04
SPEAKER_00: So, how do you measure the experience, the customer experience and improving emotional intelligence within your business to deliver that deeper level of service away from just purely technical, technical, right?
29:17
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about here being building trust essentially, right?
29:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: How how do we measure that?
29:21
SPEAKER_00: So, like, for example, if you go in and you and you turn around to a company and you say, look, I think, you know, from my audit, right?
29:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: And we can talk about an audit, we've got one, got one that people can download on the you're going in there, you're doing an audit.
29:33
SPEAKER_00: And from our audit, these are these are our findings.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
29:37
SPEAKER_00: Are you doing that?
29:38
SPEAKER_00: Can you can you evidence that it actually the work that you do improves the client experience in the airport, improves the profitability of the business?
29:45
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah?
29:46
SPEAKER_01: Tell us a little bit about that then.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: Well, the the there's there's multiple examples.
29:49
SPEAKER_01: We've got loads of case studies, you know, there's case studies on our websites and case studies building all the time.
29:53
SPEAKER_01: You know, we we we still do the predominance of our work in regulated financial advice.
29:58
SPEAKER_01: Okay, we also work um uh in commercial real estate is another area for us, um, not just advisory stuff, we also work with corporate and commercial banks.
30:08
SPEAKER_01: So we work across a range of sectors and also private equity, private debt clients.
30:13
SPEAKER_01: So we work in lots and lots of different areas, but our process remains pretty common because it works across those different sort of sectors, Sam.
30:22
SPEAKER_01: So we would always we we can't preach or talk, let alone train consultative skills if we don't live what we preach, right?
30:31
SPEAKER_01: So we would always begin with let us get in and really understand.
30:36
SPEAKER_01: And and to your point there, there is effectively a diagnostic.
30:38
SPEAKER_01: We're looking across a range of measures.
30:40
SPEAKER_01: You know, for instance, there are 10 things that we know that if people do these 10 things well and and broadly in sequence, it will drive a better meeting with better outcomes.
30:52
SPEAKER_01: And to your point about proof around, you know, uplift, the the results can be fantastic because if you just think about what can happen, you know, your your immediate conversion ratios can go up.
31:04
SPEAKER_01: Because you're not the the mistake we see often is that people make a logical recommendation to their clients, right?
31:11
SPEAKER_01: There's a shortfall in your pension planning, put more in.
31:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:14
SPEAKER_01: And that makes sense.
31:16
SPEAKER_01: That's logical.
31:17
SPEAKER_01: What are enough don't do well enough is bring in the emotion alongside the logic, right?
31:24
SPEAKER_01: Because if I'm then saying to you, look, we've talked about this, Sam, you've told me how crucial it is that you and the family can retire to Portugal, you know, at that stage.
31:33
SPEAKER_01: And for you, it's not going to be retirement because you're still going to be doing these things, but you want this in place financially at that phase to enable everything you and the family want to do to happen.
31:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:45
SPEAKER_01: Now that that's a different story.
31:47
SPEAKER_01: And when I'm talking to that, suddenly your propensity to act goes up.
31:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:53
SPEAKER_01: So one thing we see in the industry is people with big pipelines of potential opportunities with clients that aren't always landing.
32:01
SPEAKER_01: And one of the reasons for that, when you dig into it, is they've just effectively said, here's what you ought to do.
32:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:07
SPEAKER_01: I'll leave it with you.
32:09
SPEAKER_01: But what they haven't done is said, we've discussed this, Sam.
32:12
SPEAKER_01: We've got into what you want to achieve, and this is the pathway that's going to get you there.
32:16
SPEAKER_01: Should we put that in place?
32:18
SPEAKER_01: So you can see conversion ratios go up, you can see share of wallet go up, you can see profitability go up, you can see duration to serve coming down because actually people are more effective in a shorter uh timeframe and a more refined cycle.
32:34
SPEAKER_01: So it can drive all sorts of positive results.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: In our pre-chat, we talked about the profitability going up somewhere somewhere around 90%.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: It can do, yeah.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: For some of the firms that you've worked with.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what are they doing to make sure that that profit profitability comes in?
32:51
SPEAKER_00: So what actually are they doing differently?
32:53
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so so here's one thing that I have to be entirely frank and candid about, right?
32:57
SPEAKER_01: There is not a quick, easy fix that, you know, you take this pill and everything changes overnight.
33:03
SPEAKER_01: And and therefore, what the firms that drive really transformational results are doing is treating it as an organizational transformation, yeah, rather than saying, here's a bunch of advisors of ours, make them all better.
33:18
SPEAKER_01: Because actually, one thing that is abundantly clear is that for this to be sticky and to last, it has to be cultural.
33:27
SPEAKER_01: It has to be embedded within the organization, it has to be driven by the KPIs you referred to earlier.
33:33
SPEAKER_01: You know, the CEO has to buy into it, you know, all the way down, the the management or the you know, the supervisors or whoever is observing advisors needs to shift from just going, were you compliant, to are you doing those things we've agreed around CX?
33:49
SPEAKER_01: Right.
33:50
SPEAKER_01: And it also needs to be living and organic and not become static.
33:54
SPEAKER_01: So a way in which we're saying, well, did everyone see what Sam did last week?
33:58
SPEAKER_01: You know, he he had a new angle on this, which which we love.
34:00
SPEAKER_01: You know, let's spin that around the business and share it.
34:03
SPEAKER_01: So we've seen some transformational results, but to get those results, you know, in anything other than a short blip, you need to embed it.
34:13
SPEAKER_01: And and and what it's really all about is driving new habits that are permanent within the organization.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: How do you embed them though?
34:20
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you go into a firm, you've worked with some fantastic firms in financial patent, you've had some incredible feedback because I've heard some great stuff.
34:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: But how do you embed it?
34:28
SPEAKER_00: So you so you said you go in there, do you sit down with the CEO and say, right, this is what you guys need to do, and we're gonna, I'm gonna work with you, and we're gonna we're gonna um we're going to push that message out across the business, but it's gonna come from you, Mr.
34:43
SPEAKER_00: CEO, or do you go straight into advisors and then start talking to the advisors and then go up?
34:48
SPEAKER_00: So which which methodology is it?
34:50
SPEAKER_00: Start from the top or start from the bottom of the chain, if you like?
34:53
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so so to to give a good couple of recent examples, you know, one with a a corporate and commercial bank, you know, one with a a large regional advice firm, in both of those instances, the moment I knew that the project was going to be a success is when I first sat down with a CEO about it, right?
35:11
SPEAKER_01: Because when that CEO was looking me in the eye and telling me how passionate they were about client experience and how it maybe isn't as good as it was a few years ago, in their view, and how there are people that have maybe got a little complacent or comfortable and could be doing it differently.
35:28
SPEAKER_01: And then when I'm challenging them back and going, well, that's cool, right?
35:31
SPEAKER_01: But we need you to do some stuff to drive this.
35:34
SPEAKER_01: This is not a you know, big rock on the side and you over here.
35:38
SPEAKER_01: We need to partner up.
35:39
SPEAKER_01: And the moment they're going, we will do what you need us to do, I know that project's going to be a success.
35:45
SPEAKER_01: Because to give you specific examples, you know, I've talked already about the discovery phase and doing both digital diagnostics, observed meetings, interviews with advisors.
35:55
SPEAKER_01: When we have that baseline and that data and that evidence, we we know therefore what we need to provide to upskill people.
36:01
SPEAKER_01: But often the best programs are kicked off with what we'll we'll often call like a mission ignition call, right?
36:08
SPEAKER_01: So we get the CEO and us on a call going, guess what we're doing?
36:12
SPEAKER_01: Right?
36:12
SPEAKER_01: We're getting into this.
36:13
SPEAKER_01: You've all fed back, you've all told us that you're actually up for this because you haven't had much soft skills training for years.
36:20
SPEAKER_01: You know, you've said that there's an appetite for it.
36:22
SPEAKER_01: We've partnered with Big Rock, they understand this and the industry.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: You know, we have co-created a bespoke program that you're now gonna go through.
36:31
SPEAKER_01: And the CEO is saying, but here's my expectation of you, right?
36:35
SPEAKER_01: Even if you've been in our firm 25 years, I don't want you coming along thinking I know it all, right?
36:40
SPEAKER_01: I want you coming along thinking, how can I contribute and share?
36:43
SPEAKER_01: So that you know, that then kickoff and us then saying, and here's specifically what we're gonna do and how that's gonna work, that is when you know these programs are gonna go well.
36:53
SPEAKER_01: But it but it only begins there, Sam.
36:55
SPEAKER_01: You know, the embedding becomes as important.
36:57
SPEAKER_01: The training's often a catalyst.
36:59
SPEAKER_01: You know, often the real work is done by the firm when we are sort of moving out almost, saying we're now gonna make that just a part of our normal uh our norms within this business.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: I think implementation and integ integration of a good idea, whether it's a product, uh, you know, AI, for example, yeah, everyone can have the best CRM, but unless it's integrated correctly and in the right way and trained out, it's just worthless, right?
37:29
SPEAKER_00: So what do you do to kind of reassure that those firms that work with you that that it's going to be integrated correctly?
37:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:36
SPEAKER_00: And you talked about it not it's not an overnight thing, it's not a red pill, take the red pill, you've you've you've sussed it.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: But like set some expectations, like you know, how how do you work alongside them?
37:47
SPEAKER_00: How long for?
37:48
SPEAKER_00: And how long do you until these firms start actually start seeing results?
37:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
37:53
SPEAKER_01: So so the the results can start coming really fast.
37:56
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
37:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:57
SPEAKER_01: What what we tend to see is that advisors um will usually adopt the I I mentioned earlier about kind of 10 key things that we we know and and you know truly have seen drive change, yeah.
38:09
SPEAKER_01: Um, and and best results.
38:11
SPEAKER_01: Often advisors will come at this and and kind of maybe pick up one or two of those 10.
38:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
38:18
SPEAKER_01: And at the beginning, they're going, I like that.
38:20
SPEAKER_01: That makes sense to me.
38:21
SPEAKER_01: I can see myself doing it.
38:22
SPEAKER_01: I talked about bookending earlier.
38:24
SPEAKER_01: That's a regular adoptive thing.
38:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I can carve out time in my diary before and afterwards, and so they do it.
38:30
SPEAKER_01: So, so often what we design our programs to do, Sam, is they will be programmatic in a deliberate way to drive lasting change.
38:38
SPEAKER_01: There's a thing you may have heard of called the forgetting curve, right?
38:41
SPEAKER_01: And it basically was defined 120 years ago or whatever.
38:44
SPEAKER_01: It's how our brains dump information and we forget things super, super quickly.
38:50
SPEAKER_01: So we try and counteract that with regular interactions.
38:53
SPEAKER_01: And often we may have like four elements to the training we're doing, you know, a kind of a kickoff, then some application of all of that, skill drills, demonstrations that we will do, role plays.
39:04
SPEAKER_01: You know, people say they hate them, but actually, once they've been through it, they actually go.
39:08
SPEAKER_00: I love a role play.
39:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, people learn a lot.
39:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love a roleplay.
39:11
SPEAKER_01: And most of all, they learn a lot from their colleagues because you know, you and I may not be in the same office, but I'm suddenly watching you thinking, I love the way you phrase that.
39:20
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna, I'm gonna steal that for myself.
39:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna adopt it, I'm gonna make it my own.
39:25
SPEAKER_01: So they learn from their colleagues in that.
39:28
SPEAKER_01: But then, of course, people hit barriers of this feels clunky, it feels unnatural, I'm gonna go back to what I used to do.
39:33
SPEAKER_01: So we'll often bring them back for a barrier breakthrough session.
39:37
SPEAKER_01: You know, we know you're feeling like this is sometimes a bit clunky, but what bits are going well and why, you know, and how do you keep going?
39:43
SPEAKER_01: How do you elevate?
39:44
SPEAKER_01: And then also we'll often finish with like a review and a celebrate and a share your stories.
39:49
SPEAKER_01: What have you done?
39:50
SPEAKER_01: And doing again one of those last week.
39:53
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes the stories are just phenomenal.
39:55
SPEAKER_01: You know, you get people coming in going, do you know what?
39:57
SPEAKER_01: I I have approached this complex piece of planning with this client in this way, and I've nailed it.
40:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
40:05
SPEAKER_01: And I don't think in the past I would have been confident enough to do that, or I wouldn't have been successful to get the totality of it.
40:12
SPEAKER_01: I'd have gone for the low-hanging fruit.
40:15
SPEAKER_01: So a whole program there.
40:17
SPEAKER_01: But also to really answer your question from the get-go, you know, we're not a consultancy that says you need to have Big Rock hanging around for the next 10 years.
40:25
SPEAKER_01: That's bonkers, you know, people can't pay for that.
40:29
SPEAKER_01: We need to talk about handover.
40:30
SPEAKER_01: You know, we need to talk about integration into your firm so we can upskill the people in your business to make this lasting and ongoing.
40:39
SPEAKER_01: And of course, we're sometimes brought back for a refresher or whatever or an elevation, but it's that handover to them to own it and run it.
40:45
SPEAKER_00: So, like the client experience um blueprint that you have to kind of tick.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: So, any training, any development, any new advisor, anybody that's really coming into the business needs to understand that the client experience is such a fundamental part of who we are as a company, what we do, how we do it.
41:02
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: And then it's caked into each of the training modules, if you like, or career progression plans for anybody within the business, right?
41:09
SPEAKER_01: Exactly that.
41:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
41:10
SPEAKER_01: I mean, of course, firms are going to have their own, you know, version of this is our advice process and these are our mandatories within to be compliant.
41:18
SPEAKER_01: You know, but what what we're doing often is elevating the process around the client interaction side of it.
41:25
SPEAKER_01: Now, actually, what that does is it just makes it even more compliant.
41:28
SPEAKER_01: Because if you talk to the regulator about this stuff, you know, they they want everything we do to be driven by deep understanding, right?
41:36
SPEAKER_01: And that's totally aligned with everything we're doing.
41:38
SPEAKER_01: You know, they also want firms to do this not because they have a bunch of checklists saying you must do these things in this order, but because culturally we're locked on to you know the client first and doing the right things.
41:51
SPEAKER_01: So it's totally attuned to what the regulator quite rightly wants, but it drives it in a way that just feels brilliant from a client point of view rather than you're going through a checklist to make sure you've advised me correctly.
42:04
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
42:05
SPEAKER_00: Also, if we go back to AI, look, AI is going to take away the need for you to be sitting there and typing away whilst you're talking to somebody and you know, even to the point where I had advisory AI on a couple of weeks ago, advisory AI, really fantastic AI company.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, and they've got the process lit from you know the the meeting notes all the way to going to compliance.
42:23
SPEAKER_00: So as long as you've had that contact with that client and you've run through your fact find and absolutely everything, yeah, it's going to compliment it's going through the process of note-taker, you know, admin if you like, streak straight through to PowerPlanner and straight through to compliance and straight back again.
42:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
42:39
SPEAKER_00: And it's going to tell you whether or not you're compliant.
42:41
SPEAKER_00: And within that 15 minutes, that person can have a follow-up to the actual conversation that they had.
42:45
SPEAKER_00: So the experience itself is fantastic.
42:47
SPEAKER_00: The experience to the advisor is fantastic.
42:49
SPEAKER_00: Less time worrying and thinking about the things that they shouldn't be thinking about.
42:53
SPEAKER_00: Compliance is going to pick that up rapidly.
42:55
SPEAKER_00: Precisely.
42:56
SPEAKER_00: And then you can focus your energy and attention on the actual experience you're giving that person, how sticky you're going to make it, how good do they feel, how much trust is being built, how much they like you, how much they like the plan that you proposed.
43:07
SPEAKER_01: Precisely.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: You know, and that's just super important.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: And the ones that don't really lean into that training around it, they really are going to get left behind.
43:13
SPEAKER_00: I think we're entering a whole new level of human interaction.
43:16
SPEAKER_00: We've relied on email, text, all these things for so long.
43:19
SPEAKER_00: And I think um, I don't know about you, mate, but I'm getting fatigued by it.
43:22
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
43:22
SPEAKER_00: You know, I can sit in front of a computer, it's draining the hell out of me.
43:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:25
SPEAKER_00: And now we've got AI, and you can build AI agents, and you can have 10 AI agents working off of one computer.
43:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:30
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to do that.
43:31
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm a people person.
43:33
SPEAKER_00: I thrive off of conversation.
43:35
SPEAKER_00: Get an energy from that.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: I get it.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
43:37
SPEAKER_00: I just want people to feel good and have a good experience with me.
43:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:40
SPEAKER_00: I I really do.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
43:42
SPEAKER_00: You should be an advisor then.
43:43
SPEAKER_00: Well, this is well, look, things are happening in behind the scenes, which I'll be announcing very soon.
43:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, brilliant.
43:48
SPEAKER_00: You know, I am going to enter into the financial planning profession.
43:50
SPEAKER_00: Like, am I going to be a financial advisor?
43:52
SPEAKER_00: I don't think so.
43:53
SPEAKER_00: But do I want to improve the financial planning experience for clients?
43:57
SPEAKER_00: 100%.
43:58
SPEAKER_00: Right.
43:58
SPEAKER_00: Do I want to improve it for people that work?
44:00
SPEAKER_00: For me, 100%.
44:01
SPEAKER_00: Do I want to bring the human to the forefront of absolutely everything and have the tech in the background doing all the stuff that we don't want to do?
44:06
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
44:07
SPEAKER_00: And I want to do that from day one.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: So it's super important for me that these conversations that I'm having right now are reinforcing exactly what I'm seeing that's missing, which is good quality advisors, having good quality conversations and building good quality experiences so people keep coming back because there's more, because as you rightfully said, it's not going to be long until someone can just do this themselves on some form of app.
44:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:29
SPEAKER_00: Where's the human required in that process?
44:31
SPEAKER_00: Especially when video is so convincing now.
44:35
SPEAKER_00: I got a friend of mine who I'm trying to get him in to work for me actually.
44:38
SPEAKER_00: Well, actually, I'm trying to get him to come in and actually be an equity shareholder because he's that important.
44:42
SPEAKER_00: He he knows so much about AI, but he's building all these agents out.
44:46
SPEAKER_00: But he comes from a video background as well.
44:48
SPEAKER_00: And he's showing me this content that he's creating off the back of just like a 15-second snippet of me.
44:54
SPEAKER_00: Really.
44:54
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, And I bet it's terrifying eye sound.
44:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, how good it can be.
44:58
SPEAKER_00: And that's where it is now.
44:59
SPEAKER_00: So I don't believe for a second that we can't recreate the experience through AI video content and all of that.
45:05
SPEAKER_00: I think we can really enhance it.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: But when you end up sitting down with somebody face to face and having a conversation, then it's a different level of experience.
45:12
SPEAKER_00: Yes, it is.
45:13
SPEAKER_00: Because you can't fake oxytocin, you can't face that huge, you know, fake the feeling we feel when we look someone in the eyes, or we shake their hand, or we give them a hug, or we see that you know emotion come out when we talk about their family, their journey, their story, which goes back to your protection advice.
45:27
SPEAKER_00: A great guy called Guy Skinner, City Gate Financial, and he is such an advocate of financial insurance, right?
45:34
SPEAKER_00: Life cover.
45:35
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
45:35
SPEAKER_00: Everything is about life cover.
45:36
SPEAKER_00: That's where it starts.
45:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:37
SPEAKER_00: Because he has a personal story and journey around his own father who died young and how it left his mum and all of that, and his family experience.
45:44
SPEAKER_00: So he brings that into every single meeting.
45:47
SPEAKER_00: And it's the emotional stories that I think connect well.
45:50
SPEAKER_00: And going back to that as well, like just covered podcast, we do it for legal in general, we produce it, and it's all about stories about life protection.
45:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:58
SPEAKER_00: You know, just covered.
46:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
46:00
SPEAKER_00: And it's just such a fundamental part.
46:02
SPEAKER_00: And I've got two girls, one's coming today, one I filmed a couple of weeks back who's at SJP.
46:08
SPEAKER_00: Now, the girl at SJP is within the top 0.05% of protection advisors within St.
46:16
SPEAKER_00: James's place, and she's 22 years old.
46:19
SPEAKER_00: That's impressive.
46:20
SPEAKER_00: The firm at the moment is worth 450 million already.
46:23
SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
46:24
SPEAKER_00: Right.
46:24
SPEAKER_00: Now she focused on protection advice.
46:28
SPEAKER_00: Did she?
46:28
SPEAKER_00: Protection advice was the thing that she felt that she could do to build that strength and trust with clients.
46:35
SPEAKER_00: And then from there she's developed other business.
46:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
46:38
SPEAKER_00: And there's a girl today that's come in and is exactly the same thing.
46:41
SPEAKER_00: Right.
46:42
SPEAKER_00: Always focused on protection.
46:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
46:43
SPEAKER_00: So you see what you're seeing is a lot of younger advisors kind of a bit nervous about how to get into profession, how to do what they've got to do.
46:50
SPEAKER_00: But if they focus on protection, it's such a great way into the client, great way to build trust, and they come back and want to use your services around anything else.
46:59
SPEAKER_01: Totally, totally agree.
47:00
SPEAKER_01: A couple of things to say in response to that.
47:02
SPEAKER_01: One is I love your story about how AI can be used and is being used.
47:05
SPEAKER_01: I've got a great story for you because working with another advisory firm and they have um there's one guy there that sticks in my mind, he's 69, still advising, still loving it, right?
47:16
SPEAKER_01: Um and and he came back to me recently and said, Do you know what?
47:20
SPEAKER_01: We we're using an AI agent, right, to capture our notes from our client interactions.
47:26
SPEAKER_01: He said, What that has done is that has freed me up to really genuinely do the bit that Big Rock was talking to me about, Chris, right?
47:34
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm now just having a brilliant conversation with my clients about their life, their goals, their aspirations.
47:40
SPEAKER_01: And I'm genuinely doing that because I'm not even having to think about capturing it, right?
47:45
SPEAKER_01: So it's been captured for me, summarized for me, played back to me and my client in a way that, you know, just couldn't have been imagined a few years ago.
47:53
SPEAKER_01: So he's, you know, towards the other end of his career, but loving that technological innovation and what it's freed him up to do.
47:59
SPEAKER_01: So I think that's absolutely true.
48:01
SPEAKER_01: But but your point about protection and those, you know, individuals being so successful with their businesses, you know, I began advising in my mid-20s, and there's always this danger that you're sometimes having to challenge people older than you, maybe more successful than you, you know, and actually there can be this element of do I have the confidence to actually really ping you on this, even though I know you're exposed.
48:25
SPEAKER_01: And I bet you, those two women that you're talking about, have that confidence.
48:28
SPEAKER_01: You know, whether it's through a personal story, a personal foundation, that means they say, no, I've got to ask you this stuff, right?
48:36
SPEAKER_01: Because if I don't, I'm not doing my job.
48:37
SPEAKER_01: 100%.
48:38
SPEAKER_01: You know, if I let you walk out that door without having a proper conversation about protection, I can't sleep tonight.
48:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
48:44
SPEAKER_01: Right.
48:44
SPEAKER_01: So let's get into it.
48:45
SPEAKER_00: And that's what a lot of financial planners that I know who love protection say.
48:49
SPEAKER_00: They like it literally keeps them awake at night to think that their clients aren't covered.
48:52
SPEAKER_01: Because they're genuine about it.
48:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
48:53
SPEAKER_00: They care about it.
48:54
SPEAKER_00: And that goes back to our trust bit.
48:55
SPEAKER_00: It's not about them, it is about their view of their client.
48:58
SPEAKER_00: And it's I mean, it it it hits on our instincts.
49:00
SPEAKER_00: It's it's life or death, you know, as simple as that.
49:03
SPEAKER_00: And if you are alive and you're ill, what are you gonna do?
49:05
SPEAKER_00: There's so many, there's so many variables within it.
49:07
SPEAKER_00: And I, yeah, life protection for me, like having my own financial planning business, it'd be such a huge emphasis on life protection.
49:13
SPEAKER_00: It should be huge, huge emphasis.
49:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, it's the first area that we should look at as advisors.
49:17
SPEAKER_00: And I like stories, and there's so many stories wrapped up in it.
49:19
SPEAKER_00: Stories of like sadness, yeah.
49:21
SPEAKER_00: But stories of of like thanks to survival and God we had it.
49:25
SPEAKER_00: Precisely.
49:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, precisely.
49:27
SPEAKER_00: What do top performing planners do then?
49:29
SPEAKER_00: Because you must see the different top performing financial planners out there, some underperforming financial planners, but what's the kind of behaviours that top performing financial planners often display?
49:39
SPEAKER_01: Well, do you know what?
49:40
SPEAKER_01: There was something that struck me recently that was a lovely story.
49:42
SPEAKER_01: We were doing some work with one of our clients and we're talking about referrals.
49:45
SPEAKER_01: And you know, every organization is always thinking about organic growth.
49:49
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
49:49
SPEAKER_01: The more and more that PE money comes into our industry, the more that organic growth becomes materially important, not just from a business success point of view, but from a valuation point of view as well.
50:00
SPEAKER_01: So we're doing some work around, you know, organically growing your business.
50:04
SPEAKER_01: And and there was there were a couple of things that were fascinating.
50:07
SPEAKER_01: One of the most successful people there at doing that was saying, you know, I don't ask for referrals, right?
50:14
SPEAKER_01: What I what I begin by doing is if I'm working with introducers like accountancy firms or solicitors or whatever, the first thing I do is say, please come and see me work with one of my clients.
50:27
SPEAKER_01: Right.
50:27
SPEAKER_01: Right.
50:27
SPEAKER_01: Now, what a lot of people in our industry might do is say, look, when you have someone in your firm that you think might need some financial advice, let me come along and we'll have a joint meeting.
50:36
SPEAKER_01: And he's like, No, no, no, that's not the point.
50:38
SPEAKER_01: I want you to see me doing what I do in its purest form.
50:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
50:43
SPEAKER_01: And of course, guess what?
50:44
SPEAKER_01: That that accountant then comes along to that meeting, observes what happens, and thinks, wow, right.
50:51
SPEAKER_01: You know, you're challenging this client, you're adding value to this client, you're interacting with them in a way that I could stand behind and put my name to.
51:01
SPEAKER_01: And on that day, Sam, in the same room, we had two advisors, similar duration in the industry.
51:06
SPEAKER_01: One going, I just don't know why I'm not getting referrals, right?
51:09
SPEAKER_01: I've put them to this law firm, I'm not getting them back, I'm asking, they're not coming.
51:14
SPEAKER_01: And the other ones learned to us all, if you like, was you know, you lead by example here, you demonstrate your worth, they have to feel your worth, and then you have the right to kind of explore and ask.
51:27
SPEAKER_01: And there's a lady called Carla Harris.
51:29
SPEAKER_01: She um she was the chairman of wealth at Morgan Stanley, right?
51:32
SPEAKER_01: She still works at Morgan Stanley, and she she's done, uh she's a hugely capable woman.
51:37
SPEAKER_01: She's also a gospel singer, she's also written books, she's also, you know, done public speaking.
51:42
SPEAKER_01: She's she's just sounds amazing.
51:44
SPEAKER_01: You should try and get her on, right?
51:45
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if she would be able to fly over for for this.
51:47
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure when you go to the States more, maybe you should look her up, right?
51:50
SPEAKER_01: I will.
51:51
SPEAKER_01: But she talks with such passion and conviction.
51:53
SPEAKER_01: She she has a lovely story about this.
51:55
SPEAKER_01: She said, if you want anyone to sponsor you or recommend you, you need two forms of currency at play, right?
52:01
SPEAKER_01: And she said, number one is performance currency.
52:04
SPEAKER_01: She said, and what I mean by that is if you're on Wall Street and a firm says we're going to do 20 cents growth and they do 40, suddenly they've got more performance currency, right?
52:13
SPEAKER_01: You know, we we backed that firm, we believe in that firm.
52:16
SPEAKER_01: So her point number one was you can't just be average, right?
52:20
SPEAKER_01: Do not expect to be average and get referral business flooding through your door, right?
52:25
SPEAKER_01: Because you're just average.
52:27
SPEAKER_01: So you've got to be exceeding expectations.
52:30
SPEAKER_01: Point number one.
52:31
SPEAKER_01: Point number two was about relationship currency.
52:34
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
52:35
SPEAKER_01: And her point there was once you are above average and people see that and feel that and experience it, like that advisor was saying, then you have to also invest in the relationship.
52:45
SPEAKER_01: You know, then you also have to invest in the people you're interacting with or the people you want to refer to you.
52:52
SPEAKER_01: And and and those lessons kind of really landed with this person who was struggling a bit with organic growth in their business because guess what?
53:01
SPEAKER_01: They weren't above average.
53:02
SPEAKER_01: Point number one.
53:04
SPEAKER_01: So, really, why would someone start directing loads of referrals to them?
53:08
SPEAKER_01: And secondly, they weren't investing in the relationship other than giving referrals the other way.
53:13
SPEAKER_01: Now, that could be seen as an investment, right?
53:15
SPEAKER_01: But they they weren't investing in the interpersonal relationship.
53:18
SPEAKER_01: It had let sat at that transactional level.
53:21
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, big rock goes into a business.
53:24
SPEAKER_00: It's not just it's it's it's not just about looking at the process they're going through at the moment.
53:29
SPEAKER_00: It's also looking, as in with if a client was on board, but you're also looking at the clients that are out there that aren't you using you or your business yet.
53:37
SPEAKER_00: So, what sort of things do you see outside of what you just explained there around referrals through introducers?
53:44
SPEAKER_00: What else are like top performers do you think doing that we could pass on to some, you know, some hints and tips or some knowledge to our listeners right now who might be struggling just off their own back to get out there and find clients, right?
53:55
SPEAKER_00: I think it's one of the toughest parts of becoming a financial planner, and I think one of the most terrifying parts for a lot of people that come into it.
54:01
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't think people naturally come into it always, you know, you know, 10 years behind them in sales or sales psychology or all those typical types of things.
54:10
SPEAKER_00: So, what do you think can be done and what have you seen that works really well just to kind of nudge somebody in the right direction when it comes to prospecting?
54:18
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
54:19
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
54:19
SPEAKER_01: Well, well, well, maybe, you know, if you think about, you know, even beyond the prospecting into the whole sort of landing business with the client thing, you know, what one of the aspects we've already talked about, we've talked about that kind of bookending and the importance of mental preparation beforehand.
54:33
SPEAKER_01: We've talked about ODO as a way of working out what your real desired outcomes are.
54:38
SPEAKER_01: We've talked about agendas, Sam, and sometimes actually just the preparation that is evidenced by me producing and sharing an agenda with you in Vance, saying, look, is this what you want to cover?
54:49
SPEAKER_01: This is my plan to our approach.
54:51
SPEAKER_01: That can have a huge impact.
54:52
SPEAKER_01: Another thing is articulating your own value proposition.
54:56
SPEAKER_01: We've already talked this morning, haven't we, about, you know, are you more valuable than AI?
55:01
SPEAKER_01: Right?
55:01
SPEAKER_01: Are you genuinely adding more to me than I could get through interacting online?
55:06
SPEAKER_01: And the best advisors are practiced and regularly will interact with new clients and even remind existing about here's why I do what I do, right?
55:17
SPEAKER_01: This is what drives me.
55:19
SPEAKER_01: You know, this is this is how I therefore seek to interact with my clients.
55:23
SPEAKER_01: And this is what that means in practice, you know, what we'll do.
55:26
SPEAKER_01: And and and this is what you'll get as a result, right?
55:29
SPEAKER_01: This is how the whole thing works.
55:31
SPEAKER_01: And back to your bit about stories, some of them in within that are just sharing great stories.
55:35
SPEAKER_01: You know, there was one uh young, young lady advisor that we were working with.
55:39
SPEAKER_01: She had a story that almost, you know, sort of brought a tear to your eye because she was saying that when she was younger, her dad walked out on her mum.
55:47
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
55:48
SPEAKER_01: And it was a kind of an old school relationship where dad did everything, all the finances, all the investments, the lot, and he just left no more contact.
55:57
SPEAKER_01: It was kind of a brutal separation.
55:59
SPEAKER_01: And her mum was in bits emotionally, but also didn't know where to turn financially.
56:03
SPEAKER_01: Right?
56:04
SPEAKER_01: And and she she shared the story that actually uh, you know, a lady and financial advisor kind of came in and literally rescued her mum, you know, turned her around, put her back on her feet, was a was a a friend and a confidant almost as well as an advisor, understood her, understood how how kind of almost uh, you know, psychologically broken she was by not knowing what to do or where to turn.
56:29
SPEAKER_01: And and and this this person was like 15 at the time, and she said she watched that.
56:33
SPEAKER_01: And she saw her mum go from being a little bit in bits to being more confident and building again and going forward again.
56:41
SPEAKER_01: And she said, That's what I'm gonna do as a living, right?
56:44
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be that advisor.
56:46
SPEAKER_01: And that that became her why.
56:48
SPEAKER_01: And guess what?
56:48
SPEAKER_01: She now only works with women who've been through a divorce, yeah, and and that's her mission.
56:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so many financial planners that are out there that follow the same path, things happen to them in their own lives, and they've gone out there and become financial planners to help others.
56:59
SPEAKER_00: And I think there is a big altruistic kind of um role in financial planning.
57:04
SPEAKER_00: There is this feeling of going out and helping people and and and reducing financial stress for people because there are some insane like periods in your life that you go through that can cause you some serious anxiety.
57:16
SPEAKER_00: I, you know, the more I speak to people that have sold their businesses and I've gone through the same the same problem.
57:20
SPEAKER_00: Like, if you haven't got the right person next to you who understands how to sell a business and what emotionally you're going to go through with it, you could find yourself in a real depression off the back of it.
57:30
SPEAKER_00: And I think there are so many points in life you mentioned divorce.
57:32
SPEAKER_00: Divorce is such a huge area.
57:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, I know financial planners that focus on divorce.
57:36
SPEAKER_00: I know a woman who focus on um only advising women who are divorcing multimillionaire CEOs.
57:41
SPEAKER_00: Oh, really?
57:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's very neat.
57:43
SPEAKER_00: There's very you know, some regain stuff in there.
57:45
SPEAKER_00: But what I'm getting from it is look, you know, if you're gonna look at your value proposition, you know, stats tell, stories sell.
57:51
SPEAKER_00: So can you pull out of what you've done in your life the the things that the problems that you are solving?
57:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
57:57
SPEAKER_00: And can you start to categorize those those those those um stories?
58:03
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
58:03
SPEAKER_00: And how are you articulating them?
58:05
SPEAKER_00: And how are they hitting the mark emotionally with somebody enough for that sort of some to land for them to turn around and go, okay, I get it now.
58:13
SPEAKER_00: That's why I need your services.
58:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
58:15
SPEAKER_00: So like pulling out a piece of paper, like, and you said you had half an hour, Sam, to build your value proposition.
58:20
SPEAKER_00: What what how would how would I how would I start?
58:22
SPEAKER_01: Well, we I I I referenced earlier that kind of Simon Cynic bit about start with why.
58:26
SPEAKER_01: We think that's a really great way of doing this.
58:28
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
58:29
SPEAKER_01: And in fact, we'll often use a little video clip of one of his TED talks because he describes it so powerfully, you know, the difference between just kind of describing what you do, and everyone may do that, versus actually being driven from that core why.
58:42
SPEAKER_01: And what we use those kind of concentric circles that he talks about, Sam, and just kind of say, look, you know, there's a real powerful message in this.
58:49
SPEAKER_01: What is your why?
58:50
SPEAKER_01: What is your purpose?
58:51
SPEAKER_01: What drives you?
58:52
SPEAKER_01: You know, how does that then get brought to life?
58:54
SPEAKER_01: And then what do you do?
58:55
SPEAKER_01: But but you know what?
58:56
SPEAKER_01: I think you know, that's only ever a one or two minute element of a conversation.
59:02
SPEAKER_01: I think what what it also is is a promise.
59:05
SPEAKER_01: Because if I've told you that's why I do what I do, how it works, what you get as a as a consequence, I better fulfill on that promise.
59:15
SPEAKER_01: Everything that happens thereafter better match up to what I have just set as an expectation in your mind.
59:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
59:22
SPEAKER_01: And I think to continue your point about what the best advisors do, that's what the best then do.
59:27
SPEAKER_01: That that that becomes just a kind of a key to play, you know, a kind of a okay, I'm interested, tell me more.
59:34
SPEAKER_01: But then what happens after that is they'll then get into an exploration of the person, you know, the lifestyle, the goals, the career, the challenges, the opportunities, the worries, the threats, all of those things.
59:46
SPEAKER_01: And they'll they'll get a level of understanding that then enables them to specifically drill into need areas.
59:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
59:52
SPEAKER_01: And one other thing we we do is always, Sam, is it we'll bring a process to that need exploration.
1:00:00
SPEAKER_01: Because too many people will kind of go, you're short in your pension funding, you need to fund more, I'll I'll do some cash flow planning for you and we'll work out, you know, what that needs to look like.
1:00:10
SPEAKER_01: Not enough to bring the emotion into that, as I referenced earlier.
1:00:13
SPEAKER_01: So it has to be logic and emotion.
1:00:14
SPEAKER_00: And also don't just say, like, you know, if I sit I sat with a counselant recently, and you know, it does freak me out, all that stuff, like attacks and everything.
1:00:23
SPEAKER_00: It does kind of stress me out a little bit because of the way I'm the way I'm you know, I'm very open with how I am.
1:00:29
SPEAKER_00: Like I have ADHD, my brain goes off in a million wonder directions.
1:00:32
SPEAKER_00: So if I have a negative thought, I could have 15 things going on in my brain at any one time, and I can't get them out of my head.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_00: When I sat down with this accountant, it was like that, it was like a transactional thing, as if I if as if he was just assuming that I had the same level of knowledge as him and was really nonchalant about it.
1:00:50
SPEAKER_01: That's a real problem, yeah.
1:00:51
SPEAKER_00: And I would just sit around and say, like, you know, it's like if I sit down with you, you know, some people will come onto a podcast and they might be terrified, but they know they've got something that they want to say, but they don't know what to expect about the experience.
1:01:00
SPEAKER_00: Can I just run through what to expect on the day and really just how best to prepare for that?
1:01:06
SPEAKER_00: Just so you're 100%.
1:01:07
SPEAKER_00: Is that okay?
1:01:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_00: I do something, you know, stuff like that, but you know it's you're setting them up for success, aren't you?
1:01:11
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
1:01:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:01:12
SPEAKER_01: And you're and you're tailoring it to them and their needs because you're listening and you're tuned in and you understand them rather than going another person, another slot, another podcast.
1:01:21
SPEAKER_01: You know, that would be a transaction.
1:01:23
SPEAKER_01: You you wouldn't have been as successful as you've been if you'd taken that approach.
1:01:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, tailoring.
1:01:29
SPEAKER_00: I think it's a great, great word.
1:01:30
SPEAKER_00: You know, every every conversation you have should be should be um individual to that person.
1:01:36
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you know, and every podcast that I do do, I'm completely honest with you, is that way.
1:01:40
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:01:41
SPEAKER_00: We spoke earlier about the the kind of transactional approach that I took when I was, you know, in Hoxton in Dubai, and I would interview eight people, you know, and it did often feel transactional, like it was like a numbers game.
1:01:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:01:52
SPEAKER_00: And actually, do you know what?
1:01:53
SPEAKER_00: Funny enough, that came from the top.
1:01:55
SPEAKER_00: More, more, more, more, more.
1:01:56
SPEAKER_00: I want you to do this many a day.
1:01:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:01:58
SPEAKER_00: Whereas like mine was like, well, cricket, that's quite a lot.
1:02:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:02:01
SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't know whether I'm not going to be able to do it.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_00: I would do it because I'm I'm that type of person.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm a people pleaser in essence.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_01: But I bet the quality wasn't quite what you'd have been most proud of.
1:02:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:02:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it diminished.
1:02:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:02:11
SPEAKER_00: It definitely diminished.
1:02:12
SPEAKER_00: And from my my perspective as well, it was it became boring.
1:02:15
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:02:15
SPEAKER_00: Because I wasn't having enough time with these people to be able to deliver a story that I felt was relevant and going to help people.
1:02:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:02:22
SPEAKER_00: Like, and it wasn't personal enough, it was transactional.
1:02:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:02:25
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I'm um a firm believer in that side.
1:02:28
SPEAKER_00: Okay, perfect.
1:02:29
SPEAKER_00: Is there any real examples that you can give?
1:02:31
SPEAKER_00: So somebody that you somebody that you've been working with, give us a real example of where your work's had massive value.
1:02:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, the the one thing I'm not gonna do is name names, obviously, you know, as you as you would appreciate, client confidential and all of that, but there there's there's so many examples.
1:02:46
SPEAKER_01: I think, you know, one one of the the very real and very kind of current examples um is is one that I referenced with you earlier, where the CEO was from the get-go, kind of locked on to this.
1:02:57
SPEAKER_01: Um, and and you could absolutely see that this was going to be successful.
1:03:01
SPEAKER_01: It was interesting actually, because after the the discovery piece that we would always do, Sam, what we did is I referenced co-creation.
1:03:08
SPEAKER_01: We genuinely co-created this, right?
1:03:10
SPEAKER_01: I went down to their offices when we had built the training, and we use kind of um bespoke websites with all of our clients.
1:03:16
SPEAKER_01: We call them IWJs, right?
1:03:18
SPEAKER_01: Which is interactive web journeys, because of course, our our consultants who, by the way, all of us in in Big Rock, there's only four consultants, but all of us were advisors, okay.
1:03:29
SPEAKER_01: And we all ran advice firms or were directors of, or you know, kind of everyone there has been successful as an advisor.
1:03:35
SPEAKER_01: And I think that really makes a difference, you know, rather than someone who's coming in from not our industry and trying to tell you what to do.
1:03:42
SPEAKER_01: Um, but the co-creation bit, after we built that interactive web journey, we went down to their office and we're like, right, let's get into it.
1:03:49
SPEAKER_01: Every element, you know, is that the right phraseology?
1:03:52
SPEAKER_01: Is that the right word?
1:03:52
SPEAKER_01: Is that the right way that this is going to land with your people?
1:03:55
SPEAKER_01: Give us some examples that can make this really truly bespoke to you.
1:04:00
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so you're therefore getting something that by the end of it, it's not like big rocks training, it's co-owned, right?
1:04:08
SPEAKER_01: And and then guess what?
1:04:09
SPEAKER_01: You know, the CEO and his, you know, regional sales directors and all the RSMs would come along and go through the training as well, you know, and have dinner with people in the evening and talk about why it mattered and why it was something that organizationally they were passionate about.
1:04:23
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then we did all the things I talked about earlier.
1:04:26
SPEAKER_01: So we had the ignition event, you know, we had the first exploration of the content, the ideas, and then we would get into the practical application with demonstrations, role plays, skill drills, people coming away with learning.
1:04:40
SPEAKER_01: And I think you you need to think about the individual person within all of this.
1:04:45
SPEAKER_01: You know, you've got someone who maybe is doing what they do and already successful, right?
1:04:50
SPEAKER_01: And yet we're saying think about changing stuff.
1:04:54
SPEAKER_01: Now, one thing you must know from the work you do is that people can have brilliant ideas, but change is hard, right?
1:05:01
SPEAKER_01: It's much easier to get up today and do a version of what I did yesterday.
1:05:05
SPEAKER_01: So we have to think about how do we kind of break that convention and get people to really punch through the discomfort to do things differently.
1:05:14
SPEAKER_01: And and and that has worked brilliantly in that firm, not least because they're taking this as a whole organizational approach.
1:05:20
SPEAKER_00: Are you working with any academies?
1:05:22
SPEAKER_00: No, we're not.
1:05:23
SPEAKER_00: No, we're not strange.
1:05:25
SPEAKER_00: That's a perfect place to put this.
1:05:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think it absolutely is.
1:05:28
SPEAKER_01: I think you know, some of the academies obviously feel they have their version of this, you know, which which may be, you know, as good, better, or wherever, you know.
1:05:34
SPEAKER_01: So I'm sure a lot of them will do a lot of what we're talking about.
1:05:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:05:37
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
1:05:38
SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's a funny old industry, you know.
1:05:40
SPEAKER_01: So often what we do is through those recommendations and introductions and referrals, you often end up with someone who's who's worked with us in firm A, then going to firm B and going, Hey big rock guys, can you and girls, can you kind of come back and help us again?
1:05:55
SPEAKER_00: What I'm taking from this, like you know, I'm step if I step into the world of financial planning to build a financial planning business.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_00: I want this to be part of the foundations of that business.
1:06:04
SPEAKER_00: Do you offer anything like that?
1:06:05
SPEAKER_00: Do you offer anything which is like, okay, we're not going to come in and work with your existing advisors, but what we can do is set you up for success.
1:06:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:06:13
SPEAKER_00: That for me sounds really, really interesting.
1:06:15
SPEAKER_00: Because if I'm going to put my foot forward and say I want to build the best experience for a client, then I damn well need to go and speak to the people that understand what the best experience is for those clients, because I don't know what the best experience of those clients is.
1:06:27
SPEAKER_00: I can go off the back of what I would consider to be a good experience.
1:06:31
SPEAKER_00: Is that something that you can offer?
1:06:33
SPEAKER_01: Oh, totally.
1:06:34
SPEAKER_01: I think, you know, if anything, it's an incredible opportunity to build what we would, you know, sort of off the back of all of our years of experience, what we would see as being the most effective skill sets into your organizational process.
1:06:48
SPEAKER_01: A few years ago we did a piece of work um with Northampton Saints Rugby Club, and they actually put us in touch with the New Zealand All Blacks.
1:06:55
SPEAKER_01: And obviously, you know, whether you love rugby or hate rugby, it doesn't matter.
1:06:59
SPEAKER_01: You probably know the New Zealand All Blacks are quite good at rugby.
1:07:02
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:07:03
SPEAKER_01: And when we were talking to them, it was fascinating.
1:07:05
SPEAKER_01: They got a guy there called Gilbert Anoka, who is like their mental skills coach.
1:07:10
SPEAKER_01: And fundamentally, he boiled it down for us, Sam, and he said, look, there's three things that matter here if you're trying to drive success, right?
1:07:18
SPEAKER_01: You know, number one is skills, okay, and we focus on skills because fundamentally it's about catching, passing, tackling, simple stuff, right?
1:07:26
SPEAKER_01: But we try and be well-best, brilliant at those skills, those core skills.
1:07:31
SPEAKER_01: Second bit is process, yeah.
1:07:33
SPEAKER_01: And by that, we don't just mean our plays within a game.
1:07:36
SPEAKER_01: We mean we are an entity, and everyone, whether they drive the bus, lay out the kit, right, or they're the first 15 captain, everyone knows their role, what's expected of them, what they can expect of others, and how the whole thing hangs together.
1:07:52
SPEAKER_01: And then he said, but at the top of the triangle here, we've got a we got a piece here which is about mindset, right?
1:07:58
SPEAKER_01: And fundamentally, every other team we play are also good at rugby, right?
1:08:03
SPEAKER_01: Usually what gives us our win percentage is is the difference in our mindset, the difference in the mentality when it really comes down to it.
1:08:11
SPEAKER_01: And do you know what we've applied that into advice firms and just kind of said, look, let's get these three things right.
1:08:18
SPEAKER_01: Let's get the right skills, the right process, but with the right mindset, and you will drive success.
1:08:24
SPEAKER_01: And and you know, doing what you're doing, that's got to be your foundation.
1:08:28
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
1:08:28
SPEAKER_00: Right, I'm definitely gonna lean into you on that.
1:08:30
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever spoken to Titan Wealth?
1:08:32
SPEAKER_00: No.
1:08:33
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna introduce you to James Cabery, he's one of the he's a co-founder.
1:08:36
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:08:37
SPEAKER_00: Um everything you're saying is exactly how he thinks.
1:08:39
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:08:40
SPEAKER_00: I think it would be genuinely interested to have a conversation with you just uh thank you, just a benchmark it, I guess, as well, and just to see are they doing the right things?
1:08:47
SPEAKER_00: That'd be great because they're a serious business that's growing and want to be around for a long time.
1:08:51
SPEAKER_00: And in the buy and build model, what can often happen, I suppose, especially through integration of acquisitions, is you can lose the continuity of experience.
1:08:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, not just also with the clients, but also with advisors, right?
1:09:03
SPEAKER_00: You've got a culture there, a culture there, a culture there, all coming together.
1:09:06
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
1:09:07
SPEAKER_00: And you're trying to build that, build that in.
1:09:08
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's another area.
1:09:09
SPEAKER_00: Do you do that with firms?
1:09:10
SPEAKER_00: Do you talk?
1:09:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, do you do you work on the culture of the business?
1:09:13
SPEAKER_01: We totally do, yeah.
1:09:14
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, obviously our genesis was around the consultative sales skills, even if we can call it that.
1:09:19
SPEAKER_01: But what we have become is really focused on how do you drive cultural change, right?
1:09:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and what is great leadership and what is great management within our industry as well, and then all sorts of other things around, you know, how to pitch, how to negotiate.
1:09:34
SPEAKER_01: So those are at the very, very heart of what Big Rock does.
1:09:37
SPEAKER_00: Love that.
1:09:37
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:09:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm definitely going to introduce these because there's so much going on there at so many different levels.
1:09:41
SPEAKER_00: They've got their academy coming out as well, which is doing great things, they've got the Sports Academy there as well.
1:09:45
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:09:45
SPEAKER_00: Um, so there's tons of good stuff.
1:09:46
SPEAKER_00: So I'm definitely going to make an introduction for you there.
1:09:49
SPEAKER_00: Um, look, if people are listening to this right now and are thinking, where do they actually stand in the financial planning profession as a business when it comes to this type of conversation, the client experience?
1:10:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:10:02
SPEAKER_01: What can they do?
1:10:03
SPEAKER_01: Well, do you know what?
1:10:03
SPEAKER_01: One thing we've done over the years, which has been really valuable, of course, is kept these benchmarking data, you know, sort of anonymized, of course.
1:10:11
SPEAKER_01: But you know, we we have a digital diagnostic that we call advisor advantage.
1:10:16
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:10:16
SPEAKER_01: And I think this is pretty interesting, Sam, because what that basically does is it enables an individual advisor or a person on behalf of an advice firm to kind of interact with it.
1:10:27
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't take long to do, 15 minutes or so, 10 to 15, and answer a bunch of questions about actually what do you think current practice truly is within your firm?
1:10:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:10:38
SPEAKER_01: And it goes over these kind of 10 areas of excellence that we've been touching on today.
1:10:43
SPEAKER_01: And it asks them, you know, what happens at the moment, you know, particular elements of those areas.
1:10:49
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then it will give them a bit of benchmarking.
1:10:51
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:10:52
SPEAKER_01: It'll give them a bit about, you know, well, actually, across our experience of the industry, this is where actually uh a lot of advisors or advice firms would sit in those areas.
1:11:02
SPEAKER_01: And also, Sam, it will give them a bit of, but but here's where you could be getting to.
1:11:07
SPEAKER_01: And here's what, you know, some of the firms who've invested more heavily.
1:11:10
SPEAKER_01: Here's a frightening stat.
1:11:11
SPEAKER_01: You know, I was reading the other day, 10 times more is spent in our industry on technical training than kind of skills, soft skills, advice, client experience training, the sort of stuff we do.
1:11:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:11:23
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:11:24
SPEAKER_01: Now, that's not about our market, but it is about is that balance right?
1:11:28
SPEAKER_01: You know, is technical 10 times more important, you know, or are we just underinvesting?
1:11:33
SPEAKER_01: So that that diagnostic would give them maybe a sense of where are we weak, where are we strong, but also maybe more than that, opportunistically, what could we gain if we filled in some of those gaps and did something a little bit different?
1:11:50
SPEAKER_00: I think the emotional intelligence score is just gonna go up way higher within financial planning due to technology coming in and reducing the need for such technical training.
1:11:58
SPEAKER_00: Because the technical comes from a fear, doesn't it?
1:12:00
SPEAKER_00: A fear of doing something wrong.
1:12:01
SPEAKER_00: Correct.
1:12:02
SPEAKER_00: Whereas if you have the safety net in place such as AI, which will go in compliance check everything before anything goes anywhere, yeah, it's not gonna be wrong, right?
1:12:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:12:08
SPEAKER_00: So therefore you can spend your time on the things that matter, which is that which is that client client experience.
1:12:14
SPEAKER_00: So this advisor advantage vantage diagnostic tool, yeah.
1:12:18
SPEAKER_00: Okay, people can download that from our show notes.
1:12:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
1:12:22
SPEAKER_01: And there'll be a link there, they can go to that link, click on, go there, complete the diagnostic, and it'll give them some playback at the end of all of that.
1:12:30
SPEAKER_01: And I think, of course, one thing you and I can then do when we meet again is maybe talk to that.
1:12:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, maybe get into, you know, if you have got this kind of profile in your business, what does that mean?
1:12:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, what could you do about it?
1:12:42
SPEAKER_01: So I think that that would potentially be quite interesting for people.
1:12:45
SPEAKER_00: Well, look, I love the sound of that.
1:12:47
SPEAKER_00: So let's do this.
1:12:48
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:12:48
SPEAKER_00: Let's have part two.
1:12:50
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:12:50
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:12:50
SPEAKER_00: So you've come here today, really enjoyed this conversation.
1:12:53
SPEAKER_00: And I think if we get this we get this um advisor advantage um diagnostics tool out to as many of our listeners as possible.
1:13:01
SPEAKER_00: So if you're listening right now, going down it, download it, you're gonna get some real fantastic insight anyway as to where you sit within the profession around client experience, things you can improve on as well.
1:13:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, once we've got that, we can then Well, you can look at look at all the data that you've collected.
1:13:16
SPEAKER_00: Put it up against the data you've got as well.
1:13:18
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
1:13:19
SPEAKER_00: And then we can talk about some of those findings on the next episode.
1:13:22
SPEAKER_00: That'll be brilliant.
1:13:23
SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
1:13:23
SPEAKER_00: That'd be really good.
1:13:24
SPEAKER_00: And anybody that downloads that, do they get anything back instantly?
1:13:27
SPEAKER_00: Will they get given something?
1:13:29
SPEAKER_00: Is there anything that they get for their time for filling that information out?
1:13:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so so the conclusion of that, what they're there for will get is they'll get that sense of benchmarking as to where they are, you know, across the industry and compared to others.
1:13:41
SPEAKER_01: You know, we won't be naming any firms within all of that, but they'll be able to see where they stand relative to that, and then we can talk to those gaps.
1:13:48
SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
1:13:48
SPEAKER_01: And can they see where they stand dependent upon like the size of the business?
1:13:52
SPEAKER_01: I think I think the you know, in terms of the size of the business, that's gonna be a harder thing to do in this this version of it, because of course what that then needs to do is separate out all the different levels.
1:14:00
SPEAKER_01: So I think if we begin with talking to people about where they are across the industry as a whole, um then that would probably be a good starting point.
1:14:07
SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
1:14:07
SPEAKER_00: So if you listen to this right now, go and download that diagnostics tool, the advisor advantage.
1:14:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:14:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna push that out on LinkedIn as well because I want to bring you back and I want to dive deeper into it and just hear what our listeners are actually saying as well.
1:14:19
SPEAKER_00: And I think that'd be creates a very interactive episode for us.
1:14:23
SPEAKER_00: That'd be fine.
1:14:24
SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
1:14:24
SPEAKER_00: Look, Chris, I could talk to you all day.
1:14:26
SPEAKER_00: It's been an absolute pleasure.
1:14:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm really looking forward to um referring you into some of the clients that I work with as well.
1:14:31
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Sam.
1:14:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I also want to learn a lot from you.
1:14:34
SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much.
1:14:35
SPEAKER_00: It's been brilliant.
1:14:36
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your time.
1:14:37
SPEAKER_00: Cheers.
1:14:37
SPEAKER_00: Cheers