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How A Mortgage Adviser Built A Predictable Income As A Financial Planner | Natalie Cheesman · Financial Planner Life Podcast

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: What happens when you're a mortgage advisor, but you want more from your career?
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: Our guest, Natalie Cheeseman, did exactly that.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: She transitioned from mortgage advice into financial planning through the St.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: James's Place Academy.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: And today she talks about the resilience you need to become a financial planner.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: She goes deep on the transferable skills and how to generate clients within the first 18 months to make a massive impact.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: She is a fantastic guest.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: Her story will inspire you to become a financial planner.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: So, Natalie, thank you so much for joining me today on the Financial Planner Life Podcast.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: How are you?
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_03: Really good, really good, really good.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: Really excited about today.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: Perfect.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: Excellent.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_02: Well, today we're going to learn all about your journey in financial planning.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: What were you doing before?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: Why you came into the profession, how you did it.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: This is a St.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: James's Place partnership episode.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: So obviously St.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: James's Place will be prominent throughout this conversation.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: But first things first, what I really want to understand is what was your background before you became a financial planner?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: So just tell us a little bit about that.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_03: Well, years ago, I started off with I came out of university with a degree in law and tax.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_03: I then went to work for Baker Tilly on their graduate program, where I learned all about personal tax, corporate tax.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_03: Following on from there, I joined my father, who was running a mortgage and protection business.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I joined him, I took the CMAP mortgage exams and I ran the business with him for about 15 years whilst I was bringing up my two younger children.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_03: My dad retired a few years ago.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_03: And so I was left to kind of run the business by myself, which I absolutely loved.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_03: And over those 15 years, we built up a really strong client bank of about 1,200 clients.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so which is great.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I I learned so much because I was kind of building these relationships with clients that were coming back every couple of years when the mortgages needed renewing, or they'd recommend friends and family to us.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_03: So it was, yeah, I I I loved it.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um and then I think it just dawned on me the mortgages are so transactional.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_03: So, yes, that client would come back because their mortgage needed renewal, and so I'd I'd arranged it for them, and then I wouldn't see them for a couple of years or hear from them for five years sometimes.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um and I just felt I wanted so much more and I could do so much more.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and about literally two years ago, I went to see one of my mortgage clients who was actually um a St.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_03: James's Place partner.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I'd followed her journey over 10 years of arranging mortgages for her.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I went to see her, and her career was taking off.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_03: She was doing really, really well.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and we were just talking, and I asked about what she was doing, how she was helping her clients, and she talked about, you know, how she would look at their goals and was planning their their life and helping them, and I act as a bit of a mentor, really, kind of guiding them on their financial long-term plans.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: And I kind of thought to myself, oh, I could I could do this.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_03: I could really do this.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_03: Why don't why don't I do this?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_03: So I thought, well, mortgages, yes, I'm helping them anyway.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_03: I've got those relationships already built.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I just needed to kind of broaden the bigger picture, like talk to them about the bigger picture.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_03: So, how do I get into this?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_03: So that was my next step.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_03: And I thought to myself, okay, how do I get into this?
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_03: And at the time I was um, so I was just a mortgage advisor and I looked at the different avenues.
• 3:48
  unknown: St.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_03: James's Place Academy came up.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, she was a St.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_03: James's Place partner, she mentioned they have an academy.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_03: And so I went away and I did my own research.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I reached out to the recruitment team.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_03: A really lovely guy called Steve Mills, uh, helped me through the process, literally took me on board.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_03: And well, we're still in contact now.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_03: He's literally guided me and held my hand throughout the process, which was um quite a journey, should we say?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but yeah, that's kind of my story.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: Fantastic.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much for that.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: So when you were a mortgage advisor and you had that chance encounter by the Saints of it, was it a friend of yours, wasn't it?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_03: She was a client and become a friend because we'd known each other for quite some time.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: At that stage, though, in your career, were you looking for something else?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: Was something missing?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_03: I wouldn't say I was looking for something else, but I felt something was missing.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_03: I'd yeah, definitely.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: What did that feel like in a mortgage business?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um, see, with a mortgage business, you kind of um you don't necessarily know how much business you're gonna do in a certain month.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_03: You've you've got your client bank and you know that so-and-so is gonna have their mortgage coming up in the next six months.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_03: You also get recommendations.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_03: I was also working with estate agents locally who would give me leads and keeping in contact with them.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but yeah, you didn't know what life looked like, so to speak.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_03: I couldn't tell you like next year, hopefully, I'd make this much money or that money.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_03: You would you wouldn't know that.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: So for people listening now that maybe they're considering financial planning or they're considering becoming a mortgage advisor.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: So making money as a mortgage advisor is transactional.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: You're selling a mortgage, you take a commission or payment for that mortgage, and then that's it.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: You might see them again when they remortgage.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_03: Pretty much.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you're paid by the lender when that mortgage completes.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes for purchases, you charge, well, I would charge an upfront application fee because purchases can fall down and then you'd end up doing all the work and not getting paid.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so yes, it's very transactional.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes you'd, for example, um arrange a mortgage for someone in January, but they don't complete till May, and then you'd only be paid in June.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: Which means that you can't plan.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: So you were understanding there are other businesses within financial services where you can actually generate a level of uh predictability through recurring income, and that's what financial planning was to you was this ability to create recurring income, predictable income?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_03: That was part of it.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, personally, for my own family, I would really want I wanted that financial security, stability.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_03: That was really important.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but the other thing was I always felt like I could do so much more.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_03: Something was missing, you know.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_03: The the mortgage, I had that kind of um past history and tax and law, and I just felt like when I was speaking to someone, and it was just like looking at one aspect of their financial plans, there was so much more I could do, and I wasn't doing it.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: Love it.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: So when you spoke to that existing St.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: James's place advisor, the story that she told you about her career inspired you to then look at financial planning.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, it did.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_03: And she'd often, she'd mentioned in the past to me, oh, if you know someone that um needs advice for their pension, just let me know.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_03: However, I I feel now, and this is what I did with later on.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_03: I'll tell you about the mortgage introducer I I set up.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_03: I feel now if she'd had approached it differently and kind of said, Look, we can really work together here, these are all your clients that I could actually help and with their financial and you know, further needs, um, which is what I'm doing with my mortgage client.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, yeah.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_03: So in a sense, I'm pleased she didn't because now I have the whole client bank to myself.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we go.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_03: You know, but it um yeah, I don't know why more mortgage advisors are not doing it.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, great stuff.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: Tell me a little bit about the okay, so we understand the mortgage, we've been doing that for a good 15 years, running that business.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, something was missing.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: Chance encounter, had a conversation, got a bit deep, dug a bit deeper on it.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the opportunity that uh was presented to you was to look at your existing client bank and see what you could do with it.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: Because something was missing.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: You'd done the tax and everything in the past, but something was missing, and now financial planning was to fill that gap.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I love it.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: What opportunity did she miss then?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: And what have you created through mortgage introducers that uh help you generate clients or new client relationships in financial planning?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I mean, I'm not saying I'm financially driven, I'm not saying they're financially driven, I'm just saying I saw that if I was to put um a proposition across to a mortgage introduced, to a mortgage company that was open to, okay, we could do more business here, we could earn an additional source of income, and some very easy ways as to how they could just like put that question to their mortgage clients that would give them a bit of a hook of, oh yeah, I might be interested in some financial advice, then they would be enticed to do that.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_03: And it's a very easy way to do that with the existing mortgage clients.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_03: There's just really a few different questions you need to just ask um a prospective client to get them to think, oh, actually, yeah, I'd I'd be open to having a look at, or someone having a look at that for me.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_03: So what I did is I I rung around a few different mortgage advisors locally.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um, got several no's.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but then I came across someone that was open to sitting down having a coffee, let's have a talk, see how that could work, see what it looks like.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_03: They don't have a current agreement in place with any kind with any financial advisor.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, and so met with him, had a coffee, and we discussed setting up a so remuneration.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so I was offering um quite a generous upfront commission on anyone that did take up a any of my advice.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_03: And so we set up this introducer agreement um with St.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_03: James's Place and with their company, their network, and they happen to have seven other mortgage advisors within their company.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so they have been passing various leads.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: I've gone on to the into their uh company and given them some training over the type of questions to ask.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I go in and see them once a month just to keep that fresh.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_03: That's really important.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_03: And again, building trusted relationships take time.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_03: So, and it's about keeping engaged with them.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_03: So they get to know me, they get to, they get to trust me, and they get to feel comfortable, comfortable and confident that their clients are being looked after.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_03: So we go and see them at least once a month, go and have an evening meal or whatever that may look like.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_03: But it's just engaging with them.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um and that's what that's worked really well for both sides.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: Love it.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so that's a gener that's that's a way for you to generate new client opportunities and relationships by educating other people in the mortgage profession or telling mortgages to the opportunities that financial planning can give their clients, right?
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: So working with them and educating them on that front, brilliant.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna get into a little bit more of that a little bit later on in respect of how you've developed your business, I think.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um but what I want to get down to is that you're you're in a mortgage business, you've decided through a chance, through through a conversation that now you want to pursue financial planning.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: How did you end up at St.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: James's Place?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, well, I I did look at becoming independent.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, I looked at what that looks like.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_03: And the real tricky thing is to go into a financial advice place to be independent, you have to be um CAS signed off, so competent advisor stages, you need to have that.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um and I had no way of getting that just by myself because I was still running the mortgage company, I couldn't just step back away from that.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um so then I looked at St.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_03: James's place and I really looked into their offering of the academy.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um it just sounded amazing, really.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_03: Too good, well, really too good to be true.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_03: It was, it was, it did sound really, really good.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_03: Now the only tricky thing was um at first I I really had to kind of put my foot down s to say I can't step away from the current business at all.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: Because most people leave a previous leave their previous career and go all in with St.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: James's Place Academy.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's that's how it works.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: So you felt you couldn't do that.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 12:51
  unknown: Okay.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: So you kept one foot in mortgages and one foot in St.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: James's Place?
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so what I did is they said, right, you have to do your exams first then before coming to the academy for the training.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so to do the exams, oh my god, I think that was one of the hardest years of my life.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_03: I had to kind of go back to school after doing my degree years and years ago, um, and do those IFA exams in one year whilst running the mortgage business and having looking after three kids and being a mum and being a wife, and yes, that was tough.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: Did you have many employees as well to look after in your mortgage business?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_03: I had no one else.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: So you were doing that?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: So you were doing that, you were running your mortgage business, you were doing your qualifications.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: What qualification route did you take?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_03: The investment advice diploma.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, which isn't CII.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_03: No, it's a CISI.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: So why did you take that route when most people take the CII route, don't they, with Academy?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: Is that right?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is pretty much, yeah.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_03: Just because of the style of the exams, so I felt I would be better.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_03: These were multiple choice questions.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: And there were three huge textbooks, multiple choice questions, and I just felt that that would suit me best to do that.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_03: So I literally set myself a goal, right?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_03: It from January to March, I would do paper one, and then after that, hopefully, part touch would pass that, and then the next three months do the next one, and then I completed all of them by November of that year, before my birthday, which is great stuff.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: So you passed those qualifications.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: Did you then close the mortgage business and then start up at St.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: James's Place?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: What did you do?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_03: That was the other tricky thing.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_03: So ideally, that would have been the preferred option.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_03: However, I was so aware that these mortgage clients, I wanted to bring them over to St.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_03: James's place.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_03: You know, that that was my goal.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_03: I wanted to bring them over.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_03: However, and and so therefore I couldn't just say I'm closing up shop for six months plus until I'm transitioned.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_03: Because in that time, they might need me.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_03: And during that time I might lose them because I'm not there and they might go to someone else.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_03: So no, I didn't.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_03: I stayed running the mortgage business whilst I was in the three months of training of the financial of the St.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_03: James's Place Academy, which was also really tricky because I had to make sure I was always present for the training.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_03: And if that training was between nine and four, whatever that may be, I had to be there.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_03: So any mortgage work had to be done in the evenings or in the breaks.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_03: So that was a tough three months as well.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_03: And I remember in the March of that actual year, in the March, I submitted, I think it was 20 mortgage applications during and during that last month of the academy where we had our like business plan proposition, everything like that.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_03: So that that was a tough month.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: I could imagine.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: Tell me a little bit about that journey through the St.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: James's Place Academy because mortgages is your world.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: That's what you knew.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: A bit of tax when you were doing your qualifications and everything like that.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: KPN, who were you working for?
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: Baker Tilly.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: Baker Tilly, yeah.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so you've got a bit of that experience, you've got plenty of mortgage experience, and then you're in financial planning.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: But what did they teach you in the academy that you remember and that you feel was really valuable to you making that transition into financial planning?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, that's a really good question.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_03: So with the academy, they really taught you about kind of having those conversations with clients and looking at the life plan and the bigger picture.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_03: So it was really about the client interaction, um, using open-ended questions, trying to understand.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_03: It wasn't about necessarily about products, it was more or less understanding the client's goals and the reasoning.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_03: Because only once you know those goals and the intention can you there, therefore, decide on the right product.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_03: That was really important.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um, the other really interesting part was they did a um a language type um kind of experience where they had a specialist come in and talk about the skills for how you how you use your hands to speak, and literally um how you engage in client meetings, which was really important because generally with mortgage advice, especially through COVID, it was conducted remotely, so over the phones or via emails, and you didn't really have that one-to-one interaction and that in-person meeting, which was really important.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, at some times I felt like oh, I'm stepping out of my comfort zone again, because you've gone so used to having just in you know, emails and over the phone, it was just getting that face-to-face back in and how much you actually understand from a person when you talk when you meet them in person, it's so different.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_03: It really is.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: So things like body language, yeah.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, the responsibility of checking whether or not they're a vulnerable client.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: Things like that.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_03: That's really important as well.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: You've ever come across that when you've been talking to clients.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: Have you ever come across anybody and you thought they seem like a vulnerable client to me?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_03: A couple of times, a couple of older people.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_03: And it's not necessarily always the older people, but a couple of older people.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_03: And um, you know, and then it's asking, can we have someone else there in the meeting?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_03: It's not be afraid to kind of, you know, to make those conversations and to say, you know, I I feel we should have someone else with you.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: Do you feel that's a level of responsibility?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, totally.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, sorry for interrupting the Financial Planner Life podcast.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: I hope you're enjoying it.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: Now, if you think that you would like to be a guest on the podcast because you have a product, a service, or a business that you would like to promote, maybe you want to attract some new talent to your business, there is a link in the comments where you can actually apply to come on the Financial Planner Life podcast.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: You get that full end-to-end experience that you're so used to from the Financial Planner Life studios.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: And if you feel like you've got a podcast that you'd like to start, or maybe a video project, again, click the link in the comment section and book a meeting, and let's discuss that project and get it going in 2026.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: Now, back to the show.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: That's what financial planning brings, isn't it?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: Is a level of responsibility.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we're talking about people's futures, their money, their pensions, living longer.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh not living longer, sorry, living um to their means longer.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um Can you just tell me a little bit I the reason why I'm so happy about getting somebody on who's a mortgage advisor who's been a mortgage advisor moving into financial planning is because I don't my personal opinion around mortgage advice, I don't think there's a I think the retail mortgage isn't going to really be there.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's if if anything's prime for AI taking over and making and simplifying it, I think it's those mortgages.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: I think the complex like higher-end mortgages and commercial mortgages and all of that kind of stuff, I think um will remain will remain human.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: But I can see the the more the other mortgage element going.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: So I think there's tons of mortgage advisors out there that need to think about their job and need to think about what skills they actually have and how transferable they are to somewhere else.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: And that to me is financial planning.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_02: And we're seeing a lot of mortgage advisors step into that place.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: So it's about educating them how to do that successfully and what the realities are of it.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: So let's just go back to that kind of transition from mortgages into financial planning.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: And you talked about your client book, you talked about uh wanting to bring them over, continue service and continue using them.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, you had to maintain a specific level of income as well.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: That's another important factor.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: But did you go self-employed, run your own partner practice, or did you go into an existing partner practice?
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: That's another choice that you have to make as well.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: What did what did you do?
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_03: I went self-employed and started a limited company.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, fine.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: So you were a partner?
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: Straight into partnership.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: I've been self-employed for 15 years.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: But I may as well.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: Talk to me about that first year then.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: What was your approach within that first year that gave you success that you could educate a mortgage advisor that can considering making that transition into financial planning in perhaps St.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: James's place?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I would say the first six months, especially out of that first year, was uh learning all the systems and the processes.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_03: And because obviously I was so used to just doing the mortgages, now I had all these other areas of advice, okay, to look after clients with.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_03: And it was learning the meeting structure and and it was gaining the confidence to conduct those meetings.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_03: So it's just confidence in um the structure of a first meeting, making sure I was confident going through our terms of business and relaying that and looking at the life plan and answering, asking the client the right questions.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um, that was really important.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_03: Also, I felt as a business owner, I really needed to understand every area of the business.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_03: So I write all my own letters, do all my own compliance.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_03: I just make sure I understand the processes fully.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um, St.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_03: James's Place Academy were was amazing in the fact that when I came out of that training.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: When I was appointed, I was I got a business development manager to work with me and Zaki and she was amazing.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_03: She stayed in contact with me.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_03: We'd have probably about well, in some cases, we'd have a phone call every day.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_03: And we'd just talk through cases, anything on my mind, anything I wanted to chat through.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_03: If I'd had a meeting I felt didn't go so well, we'd talk through that.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um I was also watched on quite a few meetings.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um obviously to get that uh competent advisor status, I had to make sure I was um ticking all the right boxes, so to speak.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um I also got um a an ASM who was basically the administrative support specialist.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_03: Now she would help me submitting all the business because in the training part of the academy, we didn't really learn the train the systems, right, so to speak.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_03: So when I came out, I had business to submit literally from day one, which was amazing.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_03: But then obviously there's this whole new system.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_03: And the first six months was really about spending time, learning the systems, learning, making sure I was doing everything right, because that was so important from day one to make sure I wasn't making mistakes.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_03: And if I was, what were they?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_03: And let's correct them now.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_03: That was really important.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and also putting those foundations in place.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_03: So when I came out, St James's place was very um much the case of I had to have a really good business plan.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_03: And that's really important because even though I have lots of different ideas, it's putting a structure in place, okay.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_03: When are you going to implement this?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and kind of having that detailed on a plan, which is really great because obviously I'm talking to clients about what does their life plan look like, but I need to do that for myself with the business to have a business plan and to make sure I'm engaging with that plan is very, very important.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and it's making those foundations.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_03: So I would um get in touch with, I've got a couple of accountants I work really closely with, and it's um talking to them about what I do, um, solicitors, estate agents, a will writer.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_03: So literally going out, talking to them about what I do, meeting up with them for coffee, staying in regular contact.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_03: That's really important.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and reaching out to current clients, my client bank, um saying, you know, telling them this is amazing, this is what I do now.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_03: I can now help you with all of these other things, which is brilliant.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_03: New news for them, and and to kind of go through the the revised terms of business, these are all the areas I cover.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I haven't I went through my client bank straight away, literally reached out and I sent a mail short out to everyone to basically say, This is where I am now, this is my new address, this is what I'm doing.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and my idea was, and it has been, to literally do a personalised phone call to at least 10 to 20 every month and to see who would be interested in a new Fat Fire meeting and just going through everything.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um I I think I've got through about 100 of that client bank in the last 18 months because whilst I've been doing that, I've been so lucky in the sense of because I've been building these foundations with other introducers, I've had so many recommendations come in.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: Remind me of those introducers again.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_03: So I've got the mortgage introducer company.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I've also got a couple of accountants who I work really closely with who are fantastic introducers.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of people struggle with introducer relationships.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um what advice could you give somebody, say within their first 12 to 24 months, about how to build strong relationships with the Kangtons and what's the reality of those relationships?
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: What do they look like?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_02: How long does it take?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: What do you need to do to be trusted?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's about it's about finding the right relationship, if that makes sense.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_03: So for example, with the mortgage one, I called so many different mortgage advisors.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_03: You can kind of gauge from their tone whether they're interested or not.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and then you know, I met with quite a few of them for coffee, and some people want to uh open to take it further, and you can sense in that meeting, okay, they genuinely are interested.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, so I went through a lot of different advisors to find the right one.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um and pretty much the same with accountancy as well.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: Did you find that I think it's like it's it's trying to find those entrepreneurial type in people, right?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: They really struggle, I really struggle.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: If someone's got something really interesting, I really struggle.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: And lately I've been getting equity in businesses.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_02: Because I'm like, right, if I'm gonna introduce people to you, I want to be paid for it.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I want an income on a monthly basis, and I want some equity because you're gonna have my attention if that's the case.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I think when you find those entrepreneurial individuals, they are gonna wanna they wanna hear what it is, the opportunity that it is you're presenting.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, will it line their pockets is one.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: But I think what they want to be seen as well is a bit of an expert, a bit of a a person that can if I can't help you, I know someone who can.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: And some people really value that.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas other ones, other people just like to stay in their lane.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: They just don't want to get distracted because they just go, This is my process and this is my system, and I'm gonna stick to it.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it is turning over those stones and finding those people.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: And like you said, when you do that, you tend to know who they are because they start to ask you later questions.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: And they get excited about what it is you're saying.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: And they want to work out a way how to work with you.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: And that's just kissing frogs, isn't it?
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_02: Turning stones over and finding those individuals.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_03: You can't give up.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: No, you can't resilience.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_03: You just gotta keep going, keep making those phone calls.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_03: If it's meant to be, it will be.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, like with with the accountant, we we go for lunch once a month, at least.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_03: Once a month.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: When did you first see business come via an accountant?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_03: Pretty much.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_03: Well, my personal accountant, he's uh been working with me for years, and he was literally my first introducer.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_03: I was so lucky.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_03: Like, yeah.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well again, it starts with that, doesn't it?
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: If you've got an account if you've got a personal accountant and they know you, they're gonna listen to you, they're gonna be interested in what you're up to anyway, and therefore you're gonna build a strong relationship.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a really good starting point anyway, if you're self-employed already running a business and you've got an accountant, go straight to the accountant that you're dealing with.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: Totally.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: Love it.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: What type of business does he pass your way out of interest?
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, what you know, what is it is it high value, is it high net worth clients, is it business owners?
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like what who is it?
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_03: Business owners.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so not necessarily high net worth, but business owners.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_03: Small business owners for now.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: Time poor, yeah.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: Time poor.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: Invested heavily in their businesses and probably not looking after their personal finances.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly, exactly.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_03: Totally.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: You spoke about resilience when we had a chat.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: And just a second ago.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: How important is resilience uh in your life?
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um would you say you're a resilient person?
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: And how important is it to be resilient as a financial planner?
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, so I'm definitely a resilient person, definitely.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_03: I know on the Discovery chat, I mentioned years ago, uh, you know, time time flies when you have kids and everything, but I probably about 11 or so years ago, I was I say hit.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_03: Oh I was hit with ME and chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_03: And I say hit because it literally just struck me.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_03: I at that moment in time, I have to say, I was in my early 20s, in my opinion, probably the best shape of my life.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_03: I was working out several times a week.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I was really trying to drive the mortgage business at the time.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_03: I was writing articles for a local property magazine, I was doing going out and doing sales, two young kids, doing everything I could.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um but there was one area of my life that wasn't great.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_03: I was at the time I was in a very unhappy marriage, wasn't happy meant so my mental side wasn't great.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um and then was on a ski holiday, second day in, just couldn't move move, couldn't move my arms or legs very well.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_03: No accident, literally no accident, nothing.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um huge shock, what's happened to me, you know.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um saw a doctor that put me on lots of pills.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_03: I was I was burnt out.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_03: And luckily, luckily, I found an alternative.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_03: It's called the lightning process.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um but literally with three days in, I was cured.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_03: It was amazing, it was incredible, incredible.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but it is essentially a rewiring.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um and as soon as I three days later, I uh ended that marriage and and moved forward.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_03: Started again.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: Very interesting.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: I think the um fibromyalgia is linked to trauma a lot of the time, isn't it?
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_02: I know a lot about fibromyalgia because my wife's mother has fibromyalgia and she had very traumatic youth childhood uh relationships um and also through um abotched um surgery that created a huge amount of trauma for her.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: She's in severe pain all the time.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_02: So we're always looking and I'm always researching and trying to understand different ways of how she can relieve that pain, um, relieve that suffering that she has.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: Some things uh attached to it she can't, but can we can we do something about the fibromyalgia?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: Tell me about because if people are listening to this, they might want to know as well.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: And if if you feel like you've had you know, you were struck down with like ME and fibromyalgia, but in that three-day period, you did a programme it was called the lightning.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_03: The lightning process.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, literally this I had nine months of literally my parents would care for me because I was that bad.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_03: I was that bad.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_03: I literally couldn't couldn't walk, couldn't brain fog, everything.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_03: But liter but, you know, my parents were very persevering, they they wouldn't give up and they were looking at all these alternatives.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I hadn't had an accident or anything.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_03: So what had brought this on?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and it was so we found something called the my dad found something called the lightning process.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_03: And it is a it's a it's a very recognized technique.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_03: So please do do look it up if you're suffering with any of those kind of because it generally does affect the perfectionists, so to speak, the the very, very driven individuals.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_03: And it's a case of, I mean, now I've really learned so much that every area of your life is so intertwined.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_03: The financial wellness, the mental, the physical well-being, it's like becomes one.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_03: And if one aspect is not quite right, then please do step back and kind of think, okay, we need we need to address that that aspect before it falls down.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_03: That's so important.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: So that lived experience.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: I need to know more about it.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: So when in the lightning process, what what because it's it's also like you just said, it does tie into financial planning, essentially, right?
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: People have traumatic experiences around money, money trauma, and it can really affect their lives.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_02: I've definitely been that person where I've worried deeply about money to the point where it's made me ill and burnt out.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_02: I had a breakdown like before I went to Dubai, I had a complete breakdown, two like two months in bed, couldn't get out of it.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: I was horrendous.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that was to do with my relationship with money because I got rid of my business, sold my business, not in the way that I wanted to do it.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_02: All of a sudden, 16 years of all I ever knew was my business, to then having nothing.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_02: I did have loads of stuff.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_02: I had a huge opportunity of financial power life, but my brain couldn't deal with that because it was just running on fear constantly, which totally wiped me out, and then I was in that place, and it took me a long time to come back from it.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_02: And if I probably say about two years, it's taken me a long time.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_03: Tell me about this three days, what did you do?
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it was interesting because there was a group of five at a time.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, some people were going in their own wheelchairs, other people I was struggling to walk.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, and and so and again, some people had been in that situate, that state for different lengths of time.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_03: So I was actually nine, ten months.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_03: It was actually relatively short to be in that state.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I couldn't actually tell it was it was strange.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_03: They just asked various different questions.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_03: You're not allowed to say anything negative.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_03: So it's literally just focusing on remembering times in your past where you like enjoyed or or just and and they would teach you to kind of reaffirm your beliefs that you can do this.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_03: So it was a lot of kind of like getting to the subconscious.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_03: But there's um, I should have brought my book about it to give it to you.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, there there is a book on it and everything like that.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but very, very fascinating.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_03: On the third day, this lady had a swimming pool in the garden, and she said the third day, all of you are going to be swimming in my pool.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_03: And I thought, swimming in your pool, my god, I can barely walk.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_03: But literally, I was swimming in a pool, and it was just amazing.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_03: And you but you have to, when you go through an experience like that, you have to be willing, you have to be open to change, and that's something I was.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't want, I wanted to get better.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_03: I was desperate to get better.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_03: Anything I could, I'd get better, and I'd change going forward.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that was so important, like having that.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_03: I'd I'd never lost that drive.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for sharing that story, by the way, because it is tough.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like, hey, it's tough just life anyway, in general, right?
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_02: Relationships and whatnot, running businesses.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: To be struck down by something that actually affects your physical and mental health is is debilitating.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_02: So to hear you coming back from that, then it's weird.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_03: It's interesting because part of me, you know, part of me is that do I share?
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_03: Because, and this again with St.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_03: James's place is part of my um application process, my interview process.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_03: The question was about resilience.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, have do you feel resilient?
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_03: Have you ever come back from something?
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_03: And um, you know, there was part of myself that I thought, should I share this?
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_03: Because I don't want anyone to think that I'm I'm not a strong person, I can't do that job, or or what happens if pressure becomes too much?
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_03: Can she take it?
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_03: And I thought to myself, no, I will share this because I've come back from something that a lot of people don't come back from.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_03: And and I've learned so much from that.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_03: So hopefully, touch wood is the right thing to do.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's 100% the right thing to do.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: You should always be truly authentic and share your story because people relate to it.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, people who listen to this podcast now will know somebody or have somebody in their family who's going through the same thing.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_02: And you've probably just turned them on to something that can that might help them.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um and you know, the the question resilience isn't there just for a tick box exercise.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: I could imagine it is for some people, yeah.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's there to actually get a deep understanding of how somebody deals with really difficult situations and what do they do to get themselves out of it, or how to persevere when it's dark and hard, and and what techniques and how do they get over things, how they get over the obstacle.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_02: So it's really, really important.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and there are challenges in running a business, you know, and you have to have resilience because some days you want to throw the towel in.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_02: And it's usually the darkest before the dawn is one thing I would say around it having a business without a doubt.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: You're usually thinking, oh, done, and around the corner you've got to win.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_02: And you just gotta keep on going, haven't you?
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's it's one of the biggest things because I feel like the job as a financial advisor, it must be one of the hardest jobs in the world, seriously.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um you've got so much responsibility in doing the job that we do.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_03: Literally.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_03: You're you know, you're looking, you're understanding people's concerns and you're you're guiding them on the best way forward.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_03: And the the responsibility that comes with that is is immense.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_03: You're just you're making sure you have knowledge of the right tax, the right product, the right whatever that looks like.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um so it's incredibly important.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_02: I think the link between health and money um is massive as well.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_02: The whole health is wealth type thing, like people value their health now above anything else.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_02: I think next generation of people coming through do care about their health, you know, and you can see they're investing heavily in it, they're drinking less, they're working out, they're doing all these things.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: So people value health.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I think um if you can connect the uh the um impact that a good strong financial plan can have on how you feel, your sense of well-being and your um anxieties and worries about the future.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_02: I know that once you have a plan in place, it can make you feel good.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it can relax you and calm you down.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_02: You can control the controllables, you know, what's what's achievable or what's not achievable.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, I sat down with a financial planner recently and he was like, Um, well, how much do you want, Sam?
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_02: 10 million.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I thought, all right, why?
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_02: That's the best question he could ever ask me.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm sitting there going, like, I don't know what I actually, I don't even know how much 10 million they'll give me later on.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_02: He was like, Well, let's just work out how much you actually need.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_02: And it's interesting because it he built a plan for me that's linked to my business, and it's way less that I have to earn um to be able to put away the money that I need to be able to give me the future that I want and the retirement goal, yeah, right, because it could change that that I require.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_02: And when he did that and he put it sound in black and white, I realised, wow, man, like I'm totally pushing myself way too high, which is this perfectionism thing.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_02: You push yourself too high.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_02: I've why would I set the bar so high, lower the bar, lower the bar and jump over it?
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, but just work out a plan to get there.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_02: And that really, really helped me.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_02: And this is where, like, for me, the link between because I, you know, I'm very interested in setting up a financial planning business in the future, and the link between um mental health and money is huge for me.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I want to build a business around that and trauma and money trauma and the stories we tell ourselves of what we've learned and how we feel about money and how it shows up in our day-to-day life.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_02: And are we really living the the best life that we can actually live?
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, or are we just on a hamster wheel thinking we just gotta keep on gurning and earning and earning?
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and we you know, we we we earn ourselves into an early grave.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_03: That's the best thing though, isn't it?
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_03: When the for me, the most rewarding thing is when you see someone and they they've been saving all their or they're working all their lives, and they're like, Oh, I don't think I'll own, I don't think I'll be able to retire until I'm 75, 80.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_03: And then you show them the cash flow model.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_03: How much do you how much do you need, really need?
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_03: And they say, Oh, so and so much.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_03: And then you say, and then it's like, oh my god, can I do that when I'm 60?
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like you're giving them a gift, like that clarity, the reward of, and uh that's another thing.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's such a rewarding job profession, yeah, compared to to mortgage advice.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_02: You won the Mike Wilson Award.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, that that was a surprise.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_02: Tell me a little bit about that and why you won it.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I remember getting a call in December, and I was just sat in my little office in the garden, and you know, Mike Newman said, Oh, you've won this, you've won this award.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I was won an award.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_03: My goodness.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_03: Because for me, because I'm I'm literally, I'm well, the work is intense.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I get up really early, I go to bed really late, I I have to I sacrifice any social occasion event.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I don't meet many people because it's like my my work is clients and home life, and to get an award, and I think, oh my gosh, that's incredible.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_03: Like me, that's wow.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_03: And they said it was because of um the performance, um the organic growth, my story, um, my PQS score was the quality of the advice, which is marked by the business assurance.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_03: So they pick a handful of cases to to mark um the business generated in the last 18 months, which is fantastic.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, for me, I I knew I was busy.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_02: How did you get on in that 18 months then business?
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_02: Let's just give somebody some context.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_03: Um well, literally the first six months, because I was just building the foundations, I probably did about 40,000 funds under management, so very, very small amount.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_03: And I remember thinking to myself, yeah, if I could just do one pension a month, that'd be amazing.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_03: That would just be mortgages and one pension a month.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_03: And then and then somehow something clicked, and I was kind of owning the Fat Fire meeting and asking these questions and kind of you know, I I wasn't so narrowed narrow-mindedness to kind of say, no, I'm just gonna do the mortgage, that's all they want.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_03: I I was pushing them to these other areas, and then all of a sudden, in the the from six months onwards, the confidence grew.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_03: And I think it was just that it's being confident and being, I wasn't having that imposter syndrome so much, and I was kind of like, no, I am a financial advisor, I can do this.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_03: And with that confidence grew the momentum, and it was just growing, growing, and then I think now we're just over six million funds on management, which is fantastic because it's just organic growth.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and it's just it's just me, and I do have an admin girl, and my husband has helped with a bit of admin, a bit of marketing, so it is just me as the advisor.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but yeah, that's um it's been an amazing like 18 months.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, amazing.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: I love it, fantastic.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_02: What's the future hold for you?
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_03: I would love to well, we've literally bought an office on our village high street.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_03: Nice.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_03: Is that in a sip?
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_03: Which is uh very exciting.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: Well it will be.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_03: It will be when the pension's big enough.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but yes, it's on the village high street.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I say village, it's a quite a small village, but the goal is just to come out of being in um an office in the garden, becoming on the high street where where people will know to come for trusted financial advice, um, being easy to talk to.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_03: That's really important.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_03: And financial advice is like literally anyone needs financial advice.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_03: So it's a massive, you know, we've got a um really big opening there for for anyone, but it's making it approachable.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it's not just for the super rich, it's for everyone.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and ideally, I'd love to take on another financial advisor next year.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_03: Really love that to become part of our team.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um to so I've got someone to work with, and I I need someone else to help me with um, you know, because one thing, as a mortgage advisor, you can have 1200 clients, but you can't have 1200 clients as a financial advisor.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's the difference.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: My question to you is have you thought about putting a mortgage advisor in your business so you could be 100% on financial planning?
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, and actually they I've got someone who's lined up to come on board next May who does want to do mortgage advice.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_03: But the interesting thing is when I'm talking to a client, the actual mortgage advice part is relatively as a mortgage advisor, you have to source the product.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_03: You give the advice, you source the product, but actually an administrator could do all the rest.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_03: So when I'm talking to someone, if say, for example, you're my client and we're working on your whole financial goal, it's whether you're kind of happy to kind of go to someone else just for that part, or whether you feel more comfortable in me looking after everything.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_03: So it depends on the client, I feel.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_03: It really does depend on the client.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_03: If it's a client that actually, I just want the mortgage advice right now, I'll probably just say, yes, please speak to so and so.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's about the initial conversation, isn't it?
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's opening up the opportunity and then being able to put them in front of the right person.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: If you look at like a family office, it's like that, isn't it?
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you've got lots of different people doing different things, and firms these days are starting to build themselves out in a concierge service type way that has a family office structure where you've got the, you know, they wheel out all sorts of different people.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: This is your team of people that can look after you and what your needs are, not just for the elite family office.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_02: They can bring that vibe into financial planning.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's good to have the different people that you can bring in because it also feels like the client feels like they've got a team of people, and specialists in different things.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, which I think is really cool, which I really like.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_02: Listen, I love it.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_02: Really looking forward to you getting on the high street, becoming that hyper-local presence, which I think the high street desperately needs.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_02: We've got Nat West out there buying up Evelyn partners and whatnot, and the banks are starting to come back into it, and maybe that will start to stimulate those 19 million individuals that have got, I think it's a hundred thousand per household that aren't getting advice.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I think having that presence on the high street, being local and um welcoming and a great entry point for anybody is mortgages.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it makes total sense.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_02: But also, I think the opportunity lies within your business is when you bring somebody in through the mortgage side, they learn the mortgages, but then they also can learn, like you did, the opportunity to introduce financial planning gradually.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_02: So internally, not only can you lean into the St.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: James's Place Academy, but you've got an actual training uh ecosystem within your own business that's tried and tested.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know it works because you've done your 16, six million under management, you won the Mike Wilson Award.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: My advice to you is double down on what you've learned and smash it as a financial planner.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_02: Bring somebody else to fill the gap that you've left behind.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I bet once you do that, you're gonna flourish doing the thing you love doing.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_03: I hope so.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: You will.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sure.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_03: But it's been it's been absolutely amazing chatting with you.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_03: And perhaps we'll have to take this up in a in a couple of years' time and touch base, and yeah, that'd be brilliant.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's amazing.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_02: Listen, thank you so much for sharing your journey and thanks for being so open and honest, because I think a lot of people will get a lot from that.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_02: That, you know, regardless of where you are in your life and how hard it can actually be, you can change career, and you've shown that.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I know there's other things in your life as well you haven't spoken about, but you have shown resistance, uh resilience, and that's super important, not only to be a business owner, but in your own ability to push forward in life past the pain.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_02: And you've done that, so I salute you.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_02: Fair play, you've inspired me.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Sam.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks so much.