Latest / Financial Planner Life Podcast / Financial Coaching vs. Financial Planning: Insights from Money Coach Alina Burlacu

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Financial Coaching vs. Financial Planning: Insights from Money Coach Alina Burlacu · Financial Planner Life Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: And today's guest on the Financial Planner Live podcast is Alina.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: She is a money coach and she is a co-host on the Wealth and Women podcast from the Personal Finance Society, and today we talk about the importance of financial coaching, the correlation and the connection between coaching and financial planning.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: We go quite deep as to where we think it fits within the profession and how she currently works with financial planners, the type of people that need financial coaching, how she charges for it and why she's chosen this path as a career over being a financial planner.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: You're going to love this episode if you're looking to perhaps bring a coach into your business sidestep, into being a coach, or instead take the path of being a financial coach over being a financial planner.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Alina, how are you doing?
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining me today on the Financial Planner Life podcast's life life is good, uh sam uh, life is very good.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: How is, how's your life?
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, you have the sun and uh yeah uh-huh, which is, uh, not something that we have over here well, this is the bit I would say the biggest.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: The biggest positive about living in dubai is the fact that I don't have to worry about the weather, and you realize just how much you do worry about the weather or think about the weather.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: So when people take a look at me you see it on TV, english people talking about the weather it's like, yeah, we do.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: You know, out here I don't think about it because I just know, oh, it's another sunny day and I'm happy.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: I sit on my balcony in the morning and I do my little meditation.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: I do every morning when the sun rises up over the marina.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: So I've got a lovely view and I think hmm, it could be worse.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Sounds amazing.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: It's still a very good conversation point.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: What do we do without the weather?
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Small talk.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Well, this is it.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: We certainly wouldn't talk about money, would we?
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: No, no, definitely not more talk.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Well, this is it.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: We certainly wouldn't talk about money, would we?
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: No, no, definitely.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Which?
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: That would be a day.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: You're a coach, you're a financial coach, so you talk about and you get people to first off.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Right for people who don't know.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Some of our listeners are just getting into the profession or they are interested in joining and they might see financial coaches and they might see financial planners.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: So why don't we fire things off first of all, when you just give us an explanation of what financial coach is and what you do?
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: that's a great, great question.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: I have this question from even from people who are thinking um, actively thinking and obviously researching financial coaching, because it's such a new thing.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Um, I think financial planning is an established profession.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: People know about it, it's easily, um, it's so easy to research.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: But I think the main thing about financial coaching um is this ability sorry, my lap was tied um this job that I have to empower people to make decisions.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Usually, financial planners take this onto themselves.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: They are the experts in the room.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: They engage with people, they try to prompt all these conversations and, by the end of the conversation, to come up with a plan with the client.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: My job is to help people access those best ideas.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: I think what we do goes really well hand in hand as a complimentary thing, because often my clients would leave the conversations with better questions and so if they do ask better questions, they get better answers.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: So when they're in front of a financial planner, financial advisor, they're like the perfect partners in planning because they armed with good questions, good ideas, they're already in touch with those best ideas that drive their motivation and their excitement around money, personal finances.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: So I think my role there is quite a privileged role to educate, but also to get them to develop that strength they need, the resilience they need to make more informed decisions.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Very interesting and a good explanation.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: You're almost prepping theer for full financial plan through financial education and addressing the conversation of money and feelings associated with it.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Right, so they understand what perhaps later on down the line they're getting themselves into if they want to invest their money or take out pension any other financial planning need.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, interesting.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: So who would be your typical type of client?
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Who are you dealing with?
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: It's a wide range, although I find that the best conversations I have with people kind of are sort of midway in their journey, in their wealth creation journey, where they have enough complexity to actually start thinking strategically about you know the.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: You know that they have children.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: If they are Thinking buying a home or they're upgrading the home, they're earning enough.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: I think they're at that point where they're earning enough to start thinking about tax out you know retirement planning about.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: So there's various levels of complexity but it doesn't mean that I don't have huge amount of.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: I have quite a significant amount of clients in the kind of early stages of the journey where they think about, you know, debt repayment and credit card spending and debt, and it's quite a range one.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: And more recently, I think through the nature of my collaborations, I got to meet quite a few people in their kind of pre-retirement stage where they think about all the sort of the pension, sort of the retirement checklist, the retirement checklist what is it that I need to do to position myself very well for those implementation conversations?
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: So when they're in front of a financial advisor they feel like they maximize the value of that conversation.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: So let's say you sit down with somebody and they want to have a conversation.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: They want to have a conversation about their retirement.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: You might educate them on what that looks like, how it works, what vehicles they might need to actually get them to that place.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: The education piece right, this is what needs to be done and this is how you do it, not the actual.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go out there and pick and select the investments that are before you, because, of course, you're not fully.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: That's not what you do.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: You educate them and coach them so they feel comfortable with the journey that they're going on, or the journey that they have to go on, and you're an educator at that point.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: So do you then pass it on to a financial plan?
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Do you refer on to financial plans?
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: What do you say?
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: There you to a financial plan, do you?
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Do you refer on to what?
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Would you say there you go, there's your education, see you later.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Are you with them during the journey, for example, when they're actually speaking to a financial?
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Do you step back?
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: How does that operation work?
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: so I'm a thinking partner for my clients.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Um, we are trying to understand what is it that really works with their current circumstances, but we're trying to clarify their evolving aspirations, priorities, circumstances Usually the people who are going through change or planning towards change and so we are, you're absolutely right.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: We're taking a look at the practical elements of financial planning, but also their emotions around this change, because that drives, you know, drives a lot of thinking and feeling about the, the, the events ahead.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: And often, when we're in that space where pretty much everything is lined up and they have clarity in what's next and there is an opportunity for implementation in terms of financial advice, I often refer them to a financial advisor to continue that conversation and the implementation of the plan.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: But sometimes they just simply need to DIY it.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Sometimes they just simply need to DIY it.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: So, open an ISA, maybe talk to their mortgage advisor.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Things, incremental changes that can mean a lot, can contribute to a lot of improvements.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: So, firstly, they save a lot of time, energy and money by not exploring too much and too wide that's overwhelming and also by taking timely action.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: So, as soon as we clarify what needs to be done, sometimes nothing needs to be done and they walk away with this sense of relief.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: You know I'm doing the right thing, away with this sense of relief, you know I'm doing the right thing.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: But sometimes there are little actions that they need to take.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: That makes a huge amount of difference in moving towards where they need to be.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: So for me, it's a combination of education, helping them understand what good looks like from a financial setup point of view, kind of firmly aligned behind their version of what good looks like in terms of what's important, edge and beneficial to them, and then there's an element of coaching and mentoring.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: So education I think education alone won't cut it for a lot of people, because that's something that they can easily read.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: In fact, a lot of my clients come in with a good understanding of what an ISA is and how pension works, because they they get this bits of education from like workplaces and the media and friends and family.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: The knowledge is no longer um, just something that is um delivered through financial advisors or financial education.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: So I think a lot of people open their minds to it.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: But how, how, the?
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: What is the role of that?
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: How does that knowledge really fit in?
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: You know the so what moments?
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: I know all this, but how does that, what does that mean for myself?
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Now, that's the bit that I am there to translate for them.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: So once they, once I understand their focus points, their wants, their needs, their desires, their aspirations, priorities as they evolve, I'm then able to say look, these elements really work.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: We look at risks, how they're able to, or unable to, mitigate risk, and then we talk about opportunities and challenges that they may be facing along the way, and with that they go ahead and they may have really, really specific conversations with financial advisors, with mortgage advisors, with the bank, with the finance department, to understand how they can evolve their pension contribution situation and so on, their pension contribution situation and so on.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: So I think this I mean numerous occasions when people left the conversation saying to me I feel so much better just being able to articulate what I had in mind.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: A gentleman the other day on paper he looks amazing, everything, but he has this deep feeling of failure because he's not very happy with his spending habits.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: And so we talked about spending habits and what triggers those spending habits.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: And he is a grown man, super successful professionally, super successful at home, beautiful family and everything, but he feels vulnerable on an ongoing basis because of this reactive way to manage his money.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: We have ongoing conversations about that and we come up with a plan on how to manage the triggers and how to create the environment to nurture good habits and gradually get rid of the bad ones.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: So it's more complex.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: How deep does it go then?
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: Well, I wouldn't say my role is as a therapist, but I did have conversations where people said, oh gosh, it felt like therapy Because we dive into.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: We dive into especially, you know, a lot of people walk into coaching conversations saying I'm terrible with money, I'm rubbish at this, I'm, you know, only with the lens of what doesn't work and the fact that I'm there to actually pinpoint what actually works, what they're good at, it's a massive, massive difference for them because they walk away with feeling like I actually, I actually am able to manage my money.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Yes, there may be some opportunities to do better, but I'm not a blank canvas, I don't start from zero, and that can make a huge amount of difference.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: Huge amount of difference because Huge amount of difference?
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Because, if you think about some, when we are at school, we need to pass exams with certain grades to be successful.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: When we are in performance reviews at work, you know, measure the gain against KPIs.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: So people tend to just look at things that don't work, like where do I fail?
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: What is it that doesn't really work?
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: So for me to be in in like the, the removed party in that narrative and kind of observe and then go back and and then pinpoint what they're good at, what works, and and kind of put things in the context of what's important, urgent and beneficial to to them.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: That is potentially life-changing for a lot of people and that is a privilege, I have to say.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Sam.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: I like it.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: So these money that people might have.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: They've got this perception, this idea that they're not very good at managing money or they're crap with money, and that's a belief that drives decision-making as well, and also it's the story we tell ourselves and maybe it affects our self-worth and our self-esteem around money and earning money.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Do you think it's because, also, that they're not talking about it, so it's not a conversation that's had across the table with your friends.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: We don't really sit around and talk about, talk about our money.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Therefore, we've got nothing to kind of let no um benchmark against on a level.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: We would usually be vulnerable, like someone we might be.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: We might be vulnerable enough to talk about our mental, but when the subject comes from mental health, I feel anxious, and this, that and the other because of my money.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: It drives another layer of anxiety, not just to the person who's listening but to the person who's talking.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: It's kind of what you've created a safe space where someone can get proper vulnerable, how they're feeling.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: So I wonder how deep sometimes we actually go.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Do you know what the funny thing is?
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: I was really stressing I had this one my recruitment business and I was selling my recruitment business.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: I was going through a real tough time and it really affected me, my mental health.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: I was petrified, almost like really fearful.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be working nothing wrong with working at mcdonald's but in my head I was like I'm I'm going to be like working in some fast food restaurant.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: I'm never gonna be able to work again my life's over, I'm gonna lose my house total catastrophe, total catastrophe.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: And I even found it difficult with my network of financial planning professionals to even talk to them about what I was going through, for fear of their judgment of me that I was fake and that's a big one that I've got.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: I have to work on my the story that I tell myself a lot.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: It's like I constantly and it's not just, it's in every part of my life.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm always kind of beating myself up a little.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: I'm not good at it.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: And when it comes to money it's a tricky one because I don't feel like I have an amazing relationship with money.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: But then at the same time I'm not a massive saver, for instance, but I do save, but I don't have like oodles of money all stored away, and that causes me a bit of anxiety and a worry about the future.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: And then I think, well, go and do something about it, and then I don't.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: It's like, well, why don't I do something about it?
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Why don't I sit with someone, build a plan and then put a process in place?
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: And it's because I'm kind of almost, like, paralyzed by the idea that I have to, I have to get vulnerable about money, which is odd because of the environment that I've been in.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: So it's happening to me.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: It must happen to so many other people yeah, you're right.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, I remember we were talking, like in the past, about, um, this conundrum that high performers have, you know, this idea of not being quite good enough, because it's always, I mean, for high performers, they look outside, on the outside, and they look for clues for success, and they usually look at people who are one or two or three steps ahead of them and that becomes the measure of success.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: You know that story looks and feels in a certain way, they try to kind of mirror that.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: Nothing wrong with that, I mean, you know, for a lot of people that is inspiring and that drives a huge amount of really good behavior and really good set of actions and decisions and so on.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: But more often than not that is disempowering because that, by pursuing something that that is on the outside as as a, as a, something that is validated public, publicly, as the recipe for success, a lot of people forget to give themselves permissions to define this success for themselves.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: What does that look like?
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: And again, I often say to my clients it has to be in line with what's important, urgent and beneficial to you and yours.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: And we seem to forget that because that is not celebrated, and you're right, because we don't articulate it.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: But we don't articulate it in a way that is forward-looking.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: We don't do financial planning.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: We are reactive to worries and issues.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: How many families around the dinner table will sit down and talk about the future with a sense of possibility?
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: We talk about what needs to be done, what hasn't gone quite well, what, what needs to be done, what hasn't gone quite well, what we need to pay for.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: How will that affect us?
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: It's always with that gap mentality.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: It's like looking in the gap, trying to plug gaps along the way.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: But what if we flipped it?
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: And this financial planning conversation would be part of how we approach things, because planning requires intention, it requires vision, requires being inspired by something that is strong enough to shape you in the person that you want to become.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: So because we don't practice that enough, then we default to what doesn't work, what we're not good at, this fearful approach around money as a, as a source of a feeling of scarcity.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: You know, it's not quite good enough.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: We, we don't have quite enough to do whatever we think we should be doing.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: One of the things that shows up, uh, over and over again.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: Um, it's funny that you said I'm a savior, I'm, I don quite save enough, but that is again relative to what.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: Enough to what?
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: Because yesterday I had this wonderful, lovely lady and she admitted.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: She said, alina, I had this service through my workplace for ages and she said it took me a year and a half to book this call.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Year and a half to book this call.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: And this is crazy.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Because I want to know how to invest, I want to know how to plan.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: Just what is it?
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: And I said, well, simply, it wasn't the right time and you have to settle on that.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: It's not the right time, but it's never the right time because we we feel shame and a sense of she felt like, just to your point, she feared that I'm going to judge her based on some set standards of what financial wellness looks like I'm going to say no, you're failing here and you're failing here.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: That kpi, the kpi model, yeah, and she walked away feeling so relieved.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: She was like, oh my god, I feel so pumped, which is which is amazing.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: She was like I feel so pumped, which is amazing.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: She was like I feel so pumped, I'm going to just go and do this and this and this.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: And she gave me three action points.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: She's going to jump right on and that is her game, because she wasn't looking back, she wasn't knee deep in that sense of failure and shame and fear of being judged.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: She was looking forward with a sense of and she was able to articulate and she said I've never had myself talk about these things because it's not the environment that triggers those conversations.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: So, having a coach, having a financial advisor, a planner, in the room with you, it's not just about the practical.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: It's like, okay, save this, invest this budget like this, and pension, you know, contribute towards your pension, like this.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: But it's just finding those ideas, those elements, the values because we talk about value-driven planning lately Just finding those values that you anchor your emotions and your actions into, make those clear, put them at the forefront of your money conversations, and that's when the magic truly happens.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: Those financial planning conversations, a lot of financial advisors that I talk to, they said how do you find?
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: Because it's painful, it's painful to sit somebody down and you ask them about assets and this.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: I don't find it hard because I start with emotions.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: I start with what good looks like, what is it that you are driven by?
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: And it's not like big hairy stuff, it's like the day-to-day, the one thing, the 1% change that will make you feel better about yourself, about your finances.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: So because of that, people say, well, how can I help you plug, you know, find those elements?
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: It's like a jigsaw we play with and it's lots of pieces that we have fun with, like, oh, have you thought about this?
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: No, have you thought about this?
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: How does that fit next to this one?
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's exciting.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: All of a sudden, this planning conversation is not just about the numbers, it's not about knowing thy numbers, it's about knowing thyself which is fun.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is fun.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: It is fun.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it's uncover and discover, isn't it?
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: I enjoy going inwards when I've got the awareness to go inwards.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: I learn a lot from going inwards and it's an enjoyable experience.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: I often like to do that with others as well.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: I like to take part in other people and help them go inwards and explore themselves, know thyself.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: It's the real philosophy that I live by as well.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: It's helped me in the past go over some serious issues in my life and problems and our emotions and what we anchor them to.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: So what about?
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: You mentioned about high performers, right?
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Do you deal a lot with?
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Like entrepreneurs and business owners, do they tend to be the types of people that might forego?
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: their financial education for chasing building a business and they put their energy and their effort and their value into building a business before kind of looking at shares and savings and pensions and investments and that type of thing.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: More often than not I deal with employees, but they're employees at different stages, so people associate financial coaching with people at the beginning of the journey, and it's not true.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: I mean serve people of all levels of wealth and I think the excitement in our conversations is the high performers can be leaders, can develop that entrepreneurial mindset at any level of the career path and I think that truly, truly.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: I often point out to people the moment you start investing and getting used to getting comfortable with the uncomfortable and getting comfortable with the idea of uncertainty, that not not only helps you develop that financial resilience, but it's like emotional resilience.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: Nothing can really detract you once you've got used to seeing your money that you work so hard for, you're so invested in.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: You go up and down.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: That is a path to success itself.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: So for a lot of people who are involved in planning conversations, they find that they are better performing at work.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: Um, I do tend to deal with um.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: So for a lot, of, a lot of times and I think it's it's quite common you have families, households, where the person that I spoke, I speak with with, is an employee, because they need that safety, they need the nine to fiver to support the dreamer, the aspirational, the entrepreneur.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: So more often than not I find that one of the people in the family is employed and the other one goes and pursues their dreams and set up a business and can navigate those uncertainties and it's going to be ups and downs and crazy moments, but you need the nine-to-five to support that dream.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: So I do point out that you know in these conversations you need to celebrate the teamwork, because a nine-to-five love is not necessarily happier, but it's a must when it comes to the financial stability of people.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: So in a way and I think that's the beauty of the work I do I don't have to talk to a person and I know that it's just that one individual I influence or I empower is the whole network around them.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: It's just ripple effect of people that are dependent, codependent, uh of of that person and that's exciting I like it great, so you won an award with the pfs, didn't you?
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: it's the financial education champion of the year, and recently you'd be one of the co-hosts for Wealth and Women podcast, the PFS, which we got involved with, and we filmed that.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: I had the luxury of sitting and just listening to a podcast live, which then inspired me to create my own podcast live, so that's in the making at the moment.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Oh fantastic yeah.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: First off, just give our listeners a little insight into what that podcast is actually so it started.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: I think the idea started when um.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: I met hazel and emma and tracy through the, these awards events, and we uh noticed that they are.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: There are increasingly women winning these awards, but yet we don't see enough women in financial planning.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: So we were thinking, well, why is that?
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: Clearly great science, clearly it's very positive that we see women emerging in financial planning roles and financial coaching, but not enough.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: So what can we do about this?
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: So we said, well, actually, you know, pfs have been really good in um uh, giving us platform to express our opinions and have a voice, but how do you make that more impactful?
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: So that's how the podcast came about.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: We just got together in a serious cause and we said, well, we have all these ideas, we have our own stories, we have our own perspectives.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: It's a, it's a true reaching richness of of experiences and stories.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: How do you, how do you put them out there to inspire more women to join the, to join the industry?
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: And so that's how the it came about.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: And we didn't have any agenda per se, it was just themes that emerged, like the most common themes.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, you were there, it wasn't anything script, we just went and then it just happened.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: I saw it and it was great.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: It was fantastic.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Anyone wants to listen to it.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: They can go and listen to the miniseries, which hopefully might be recorded somewhere.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: So I hope you guys do, with or Without Me.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: I think it's fantastic.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, give it a PFS.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: You can listen to it on YouTube as well, can't you?
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: And you can listen to it on all the big hits Spotify, apple, et cetera.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: So get out there and give it a listen.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Now it was yourself and three financial planners.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: So you work with financial planners, you inquire, you're coaching in with financial planning.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Is that something you always did or did you ever feel like a cider to it?
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: How did you start working with financial planners and is it a good mutual relationship that commercially helps you as well?
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: yeah, so actually I I qualified as financial planner not long ago.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: It was through 2018, um, before that, I was working for an asset management firm.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: I was managing a business coaching program for financial advisors and for many years I I mean mean, it was an incredibly important time when we were.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: It was post-RDR, transitioning from commission-based to feed-based, and then all those transformative conversations and how you can navigate towards course-based.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: It was just fun, fun.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: We were having fun.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: And then, every single time I was in these workshops and then coaching financial advice uh, company of firms to transform the way they did the planning piece, with the client at the center.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Um, financial advisors would nudge me like, okay, you're doing all this, you want to be great as a financial advisor.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: We don't have women.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: We have a huge amount of women coming into wealth.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: They, they, they're not comfortable.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: And it was still the times when you had to show up in person to service someone.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: So they said you know, there are lots, lots women with wealth.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: They're not comfortable opening the door to a financial advisor male after seven o'clock in the evening.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: You would be perfect for this.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: And so and I think I got to the point where I felt like I was reaching a plateau in my development and I then started paying attention to these narratives.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: But I remember having my second child and being at the school gates for the first time, really having conversations with parents mainly moms and then tremendously talented, clever people, totally bamboozled about finances, because you talk about school holidays and uniforms and clubs and stuff and money would come up.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: And I think after I had my second child I realized how all this spending is just like.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: Just it becomes this thing that you battle, battle with every day.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: It felt like it was expanding and expanding some more and I was earning not quite much because I was on my maternity leave and all of a sudden, the pressures of you know making things work and I kept being being more aware that I wasn't actually alone in this, and so I thought how lucky I am to be in an environment where I talk to financial advisors and they tell me about stuff, but things that I wouldn't necessarily ask questions about because I wasn't a financial advisor.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: I didn't understand what I should be asking questions about.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: And then, obviously, these people that I was dealing with were people who wouldn't normally afford a financial advisor, and then that kind of triggered me to go and qualify as a financial advisor and then in the back of my head wondering how can I service these people?
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: Clearly it's not the kind of people that would typically land in front of a financial advisor.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: How do I make, make this more affordable?
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: So after I qualified as a financial planner, I worked with a couple of financial advice firms.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: I really enjoyed that, but it was wealthy people with their own problems.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: In the back of my head I had these people at the school gates kind of asking for like in my mind.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: I made it my mission to kind of find a way to service these people.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: And one day I went to this conference and Simone Nessen was on the stage, a woman financial coach.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: Wow, my mind just exploded thinking wow, is it actually a thing where you can combine coaching, which is something I've always been passionate about, with financial skills?
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: Amazing.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: So then I qualified as a financial coach and I never look back.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: It's unregulated, I don't have to have the pressure of recommending product, but I am as effective as a financial planner in early stages, helping people reconnect with those best ideas and kind of get going, you know, get in that creative mindset where they can start taking actions and make decisions.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: So it was absolutely, completely transformative for me, sam.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't have thought that you know, fast forward many years I would be in a financial coach shoes, but it felt like a gradual evolution towards a vision and a mission that I've always had.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Brilliant.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: That's a great explanation.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you found something that is aligned with your values and purpose as well.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: That's an important thing.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: I really like that.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: What qualification was it you did?
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: So I did the level 4, so the financial planning diploma, through CII PFS.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: So normally it would take you about 18 months to get from A to Z, but I made the decision to quit my job whilst setting up my own business and then I did that in like eight months the whole lot, and when did you take the qualification for coaching, and which one was that?
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: And then I think it was two years later, so I think it was in 2020 that I did the certification with Simone the Wise Monkey certification.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: Wow, okay.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Talk to us about, because I think there are people that would love to be a financial coach, but they don't quite know how to get into being a financial coach.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: They don't quite know how to make money as being a financial coach, because not everyone's advertising jobs for financial coaches.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: There isn't an abundance of financial coaching jobs as far as I can see.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: So if someone's listening to this now and they're interested in how to become a financial coach and they don't have to have some YouTube channel with 100,000 followers.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: What can they do?
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: Firstly, the certification is useful because it gives you a more structured way to look at the world.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: It gives you the coaching models, so you develop an awareness around coaching models.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: You get to role play a few times with the team, so there's some academical immersion there, but also the practical element.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: What I find, though, just like with everything else, the certification is a small piece in the whole development.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: You need that time with your clients.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: You need the practice.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: You need to have the first calls and then write down what works, what doesn't work, and find your rhythm, find your method, how you go about this.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: Usually, increasingly, you see players like Octopus Money and Bipit that do recruit financial coaches.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: In both cases, I think actually I don't know.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: I think octopus money don't require you to be a financial planner, but BIPIT do so.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: Bipit do hold you to higher standards in terms of financial qualifications, financial planning qualifications, but you can put yourself out there.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: There are quite a few, I think, employee benefit firms that have the financial advice arm and they develop the financial coaching arm.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: I think I developed a network with financial advisors whereby they know of me, they know of my skill set and they send clients my way, especially clients who are either in the onboarding phase, so clients who have landed in front of a financial advisor because as a result of bereavement, for example, they have an inheritance or they have divorce.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: They have like really defining moments, I think, or what may be seen as defining moments in their financial journey.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: But because of this element of, like heavy lifting in terms of um, uh, the, the, the mindset piece, the decision making, the, their ability to actually participate in financial planning, they send them my way to reset them, to put them kind of in that advice-ready mindset, and then I send them back and they're ready to make informed decisions.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: So that's one way to do it Establishing a relationship with a financial advisor that see the value in financial coaches, coaching and partner like this just on that note do you charge the, the financial advisor, does the client.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Does it become part of the whole overall package that the, the client, gets for the service?
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: And you're part of it?
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: How does that?
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: How do you?
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: Is it like a brochure operation?
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: Does that have interest?
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: usually the financial advisor picks up the bill, okay, yeah, because they make it part and parcel of their package.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: So they explain to the client that this is a must for you to make the best decisions, to be truly a partner in this financial planning conversation.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: I need you to to feel empowered.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: I need you to feel empowered.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: I need you to feel 100% like you're doing.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: You know you can participate in this conversation, and so they make it part of their service.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: It's not this, you know it's and actually, because I'm there, actually the way we paid, the fees that we charge are much, much, much lower than a financial advisor would charge, and that makes it profitable for the financial advisor Because, instead of them spending hours unpacking that client's visions and worries and fears and so on, they can actually delegate that to someone like me.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: I do the heavy lifting in terms of the emotional and practical and so on.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: I do the educational piece for the client to understand why we're talking about the things that we talk about.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: Why would a financial advisor approach all of the key elements of financial planning in the way they would approach it?
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: So I get them familiar with the process.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: A lot of people feel really, really fearful in front of a financial advisor.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately, we're still transitioning approach it.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: So I get them familiar with the the process.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: A lot of people feel really really fearful in front of financial advisor.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately, we still we're still transitioning these times when people feel like they're going to be sold something you know, and it's not necessarily true.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: In some cases it may be the case, but it's not necessarily true.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: So to have someone like me who is seen as a partner but someone who's kind of removed from the whole advice piece somewhat, to kind of paint a picture for the client, to get them familiar with the unfamiliar, is really really beneficial.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: So the client walks in feeling confident, feeling like they're going to be treated like true partners and those conversations actually are more valuable because they don't feel like they're wasting each other's time.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: They know exactly what they're in for.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: I like it.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: I like it a lot.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: It's amazing how many financial planning companies don't have financial coaches within their business yet.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: I always thought it was coming, it's coming, it's always.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: You know, I've been doing this podcast for like four years.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: Katherine morgan, for example, came with it and we were talking about it back then.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: Though you are coaches definitely gonna be part.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: I see the future being coaches and financial planners together.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: No one's really taken that kind of leap yet, and actually I'm at hoxton and I'm I'm having the conversation about it and I am talking to quite a popular financial coach at the moment um, about co-creating content, for example, that we can then use that instead of pushing, instead of someone turning away because there's maybe not, they don't feel comfortable, we can direct them to a coaching series so they can watch on demand or through our app, so someone might come into the app because they're interested in managing their international assets or doing a cash flow forecast through um wealth flow, which is our like cash flow forecast.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: But there's a piece before that isn't.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: There is a piece in there like well, kind of a don't really know what and b I don't know if I'm ready for this and you can just kind of like how are you, are you ready for financial advice?
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: You know, and, um, how do you feel about money?
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: What are you doing for your future?
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: You know these, these boys are pension, you know, like just real simple educational videos with a, with a coach, I think is really good.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: And the ability to then book in with the coach.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: If you want to just have a coaching session, you know it could be a coaching session for an hour a week.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: You know, ongoing, like, yeah, why not offer, why not create that and build that into your financial planning business?
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: Because it's kind of like you're building a deeper relationship with someone that potentially will be a client and they're going to be ready then to take on the next step, which means, from a duty of care, consumer duty, perspective, it's bang on the money, right, it's bang on the money that you're doing the best you can for those clients, making sure you're not turning people away.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: You're also offering a service that's potentially life-changing for somebody that might not be able to afford the time with a financial planner, but also you're freeing up financial planners time absolutely so they're not begrudgingly having to go.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: I really want to help this person if you're like shit because I can't, because I need to spend my time and energy on these types of clients and I know that's a big problem.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: So in a business, if you're able to build in coaching, what a wonderful thing that will do for the business as a morale and what a wonderful thing we're doing anyway for the well-being of those that might not be returnable.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: So we're offering a solution to somebody that can't afford the traditional route or identify with the traditional route.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: You were talking about the women at the school gate.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: Now I wonder whether or not they didn't go and see a financial planner.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: Maybe they didn't associate with a financial planner, maybe they didn't connect with a financial planner.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: But when you say financial coach and yourself and you said you were talking to predominantly women there's a less of a barrier to entry to getting the problem solved.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: There's a less of a barrier to entry to getting the problem solved.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: There's a less of a barrier entry to to working on your money question.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: That keeps you up and I like it at the school.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: There's something about the school gate in there to me.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: Get my creative money at the school gate.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: You know that kind of conversations at the school gate and I think you know, people, that's traditionally what people do.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: They share.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: They share their concerns and their worries.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: And with the other mums, at a time when they're rushing them out, and all that, people and it's, it's nice.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: And I think someone like yourself, which is a coach, which is the least barrier to entry, there, isn't this big right.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: It's gonna cost me a load of money.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: As soon as someone you say financial players, like it's gonna cost me a load of, whereas like well, it doesn't have to.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: And even people with money, you know, you know they put it off Because they think, whereas like, get a coach in there, bring him in, give him something back as well, like maybe you go through a coaching program and you get I don't know.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: At the end it's like a financial health check, isn't it?
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: You know like a score, people love that.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: Perhaps you know, like, what's my IQ?
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Well, what is your IQ, what's your EQ?
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: But what's your financial health?
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: You know what is it, and people kind of like it.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: They're like, well, there's areas I can work on.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: And then you kind of gamify and then you say have you checked out this part?
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Have you checked out this part?
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, have you checked out the budget side of it.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: Are you struggling with budgeting?
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: With this one Meaningful Money Academy, he's done it really really well and I've had the luxury of kind of talking to Pete on the podcast, and I hope he doesn't mind me saying this, but I would copy his model because it clearly works.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: He's got the bit at the front which is the podcast.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: He's got the free content, the podcast.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: He's got the YouTube channel.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: He's got all that content out there.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: He calls people in to listen to it, those that are then getting something for free.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: So then, if they're serious about it, they enter into the Meaningful Money Academy where there is an on-demand process that they can go through a financial sort of health check, if you like.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: They can dip in and out of that.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: They can dip in and out of that, they can dip in and out of the podcast and they can ask questions in the community, which Pete then answers, and then, when they're ready, they're filtering into his financial planning business checks and it works.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: It does work.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: And he's you know, a six-figure company like Meaningful Money Academy on its own not in the financial advisor sense and he gets leads every single day from it.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: So it's that the entrepreneurial coach in my eyes would be the coach who is connecting with financial planners and thinking how can I commercialize and scale the ability to for you to send your clients to me so I can send them back to you fully prepared, but it's actually going to cost you to send them to me, but it's in a menu of services and there's a value add which no other financial planning company is offering.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: And I think it's a really good commercial decision as well, sam, because it's kind of unchanged since I was doing business coaching all these years ago.
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: We were looking at profitability and one of the main detractors from profitability is the dead time, the unproductive time.
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: Back to the hours that you spend fact-finding someone, them going away.
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: You're producing a ton of paperwork as a financial plan and then sitting on that decision for ages, sometimes not becoming a client at all.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: Because they're afraid.
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: But if you were to re-engineer this process, like in my case, people walk in without the fear of being sold anything.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: We have really really honest, authentic conversations where they show up, they tell me things that they didn't think they would share with anyone, because they see the point.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: They see that this conversation is helping them clarify their thinking.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: It helps them validate their approach.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: It helps them pinpoint areas of improvement, opportunities to improve potential challenges they need to look out for.
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: They think, ok, this is valuable, this is about me, me only.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: It's not about someone else's product.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: We're having an honest conversation, meet.
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: Only it's not about someone else's product.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: We're having an honest conversation as they start thinking like understanding how these pieces fit together.
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: They volunteer, they ask me.
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: Do you want me to send you anything?
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: Do you want me to send you?
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: They walk away, put together assets, liability, all these things that advisors notoriously struggle with.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: It's like pulling teeth and then, when we start unpacking various areas of concern, they ask me now, what, who do I talk to to implement this?
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: Now, this is the implementation piece.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: This is when this person becomes your client Easy implementation piece this is when this person becomes your client easy.
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: And so this, this discussion alone, this, this portion of financial planning, can save people huge amount of time and energy yeah can save financial advisors this huge time when they have to do and redo and redo, update the financial plan, because the circumstances have changed in the past 6 to 12 to 18 months since that first conversation with the client.
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: Like, if you imagine, if you were to imagine what would my business look like if I started allocating resources strategically, if I used a coach for this, if I used a plan for this, if I used and, by the the way, there may be an overlap, seemingly, between what we see as a financial planner and a financial coach.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: In fact, the financial coach can be a really good financial planner in the mix and then you have the financial advisor, the technical minded person that can really help translate all those stories, all those stories, all those aspirations, priorities, circumstances into a sound financial plan that will be then implemented.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: Do you know what A lot of financial planners struggle with marketing?
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: They struggle to tell stories, they struggle to put themselves out in a way that emotionally connects with the audience, to be able to draw in needs.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: Business and there's kind of heavily regulated around it.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: Financial coaches talk about all the fun stuff.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Why we consider the fun stuff.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: So all of a sudden you have a marketing wheel for your business.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: It's a marketing wheel that actually makes money, a bit like my financial plan of life with my recruitment company.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: It's a marketing wheel that actually makes money, a bit like my financial plan of life in my recruitment company.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: It's a marketing wheel that made me money.
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: So I did my recruitment business at the time, which I've now started, but it marketed my recruitment business, but I also made money out of it.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: So I partnered with people in sponsorship and all of that, and it's an interesting way for a financial planner to go.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: What are we going to do around marketing?
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: Well, hire a bloody financial coach, get them on Instagram, get them on TikTok, get them on YouTube, get them creating content, pushing it out there alongside a marketer right, and get them also going through the database.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: Hi, how are you doing?
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: You were somebody that showed an interest in our business.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: Now we're offering financial coaching.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: Would you be interested in having some financial coaching?
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: So all of a sudden, you have a different string to your bow.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: Instead of someone picking up the phone saying you want financial planning, you want to find, you got someone saying do you want financial coaching?
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: and this is what it's a different type of conversation it's even kind of financial coach could almost be a trainee financial advisor, so you could actually become a financial coach to then become a financial planner but it works the other way and you've done it.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: You know, I know financial planners who are like fill up a financial plan.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: I want to be a coach because they like that.
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: That's the bit that they enjoy yeah, yeah, and that's when I I think we're still in a kind of a fight and it may be controversial, but a lot of financial advisors say they do financial planning because they're like oh we, we do some of the fluffy stuff.
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: Well, I think for a lot of people they underestimate the value of the fluffy stuff in that initial phase of financial planning.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: Where the fluffy stuff is is so rich with that person story, so rich with that sense of self when they put it all out there and for you to decipher which bit of this requires time, money and planning.
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: That is invaluable.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: But again, sorry, sam, I did notice the difference back to what you're saying, the difference between, like a webinar, like a workshop organized by financial coaches, versus the technicians.
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: So I've been told in the past oh no, you know, your training is different because it's not so technical and it can be seen as not quite good enough because it's not quite technical enough, because it's not quite technical enough.
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: And I keep say, repeating to people that people, normal people, do not wish a phd level type of training on how the pensions work.
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: They need to understand how these pensions are designed to serve them and set them off for success in later life, and that requires to filter it through how normal people work, how they think, what's important to them, and that you have a coach who all they do is this understand the people in front of them and try to find ways to empower these people to be the best they can be at home, at work, professionally, personally and financially too.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: I always think how many financial planners are doing this for free.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: So a lot of people who've got like they genuinely want to help people, they're probably doing it for free and it almost becomes a bit resentful, whereas you can monetize this process right and you're're doing it.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: It's monetize it and it's your business.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: It's a.
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: It's a useful tool.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: I've got to bring this podcast to an end because we're running out of time and it's been wonderful talking to you.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: I want to talk to you further about the coaching side of it, because I need to learn more um, because I really, really want to add it into Arxton and I want to work out ways to do it.
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: I'd love to Sam.
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: It's amazing.
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: Fantastic, that'd be amazing to do that Brilliant.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your time today.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: Really, really appreciate it, and good luck with the rest of your year.
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: Thank you, sam, really appreciate it.
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: You're welcome.