Latest / Financial Planner Life Podcast / Building a Financial Planning Business with Purpose | Nathan Waldrob & Ryan Nobbs

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Building a Financial Planning Business with Purpose | Nathan Waldrob & Ryan Nobbs · Financial Planner Life Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: And today's guest on the Financial Planner Life podcast is a double act.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_03: We've got Ryan and Nathan from Evergreen Financial Planning.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely love these two guys.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_03: They're both in separate areas of the UK, but they've come together to form a financial planning business.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_03: We talk about marketing, we talk about branding.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_03: We talk about the power of putting yourself out there to generate new clients and professional introducers.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: We also break down some of the things, if you're new to the profession, you should do when it comes to winning new introducer relationships.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_03: These guys have got everything ahead of them.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_03: I think you're going to see a lot more of them in the future.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_03: Enjoy.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_03: Ryan, Nate, thank you so much for joining me today on the Financial Planner Life Podcast, the careers-based podcast for the financial planning profession.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_03: So, how are you both doing?
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: Excellent track.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for um inviting us on, so I really appreciate it.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks again.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_03: No problem at all.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_03: Nathan, obviously, you reached out to me some time back, and we were hoping to do something like this for a while.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but lots of changes going on your end in your business.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm sure we're gonna sort of delve into that today.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_03: But where are you at the moment in the business?
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_03: How are you feeling out of 10?
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Out of 10, gosh, um putting it on a scale like that sounds pretty difficult in relation to how we're feeling internally or what me and Ryan are doing, stress levels, everything along those lines.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: From happiness and what we're going to achieve, I've got to say 10 because you know, forward thinking, I've got to say 10.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Internally, what we're doing, what we're going through, the growth and the responsibility, that's probably a different scale, you know.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll have to I'll have to pass that on to Ryan really because he's the one who's a bit more focused on all of those things.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think what what we're doing is gonna make a huge difference.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're looking at it to change how financial advice, financial planning is is given, is taught, and I feel our approach is going to be it's gonna be fundamental, genuinely.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Ryan, how about yourself?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm excited, um very excited about what we've got planned.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um Nathan is definitely the the ideas guy behind it on the I'd say the finances guy behind it, making sure it's and um we're not growing too quickly with uh the resources in place, but it it it works really well to be honest.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we we bounce off each other, and uh I think the overall goal, as Nathan said, is to change the perception of financial planning and how it's how it's given to clients and how we teach new advisors coming in the industry.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, no, very excited about what's what's going to be happening moving forward.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_03: Very yin-yang, that's fantastic.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I think when you do go into business with somebody, you've got to try and find somebody who's an expert or can add value in the area where perhaps you aren't an expert and can add value and coming together, forming a fantastic team.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_03: I've been in a partnership for 15 years, that's just come to an end.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um, my my fellow director is um resigned to go on to Pastures New.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but that fills me with a bit of excitement.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_03: So um I've been in a partnership and now I'm gonna be going alone.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_03: And there's elements of that I'm really, really excited about.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_03: But like you two, I'm entrepreneurial, I've got lots of creativity, I've got lots of things that I want to do and lots of ways I want to revolutionize the way that we, you know, have talent attraction, training and development.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_03: And guess what?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_03: I'm moving into the financial planning profession as well.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_03: So picking your brains today is what it's all about because I'm gonna learn from you about what I should and shouldn't do, perhaps, in my own financial advice business.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_03: So it's a huge opportunity in financial planning, isn't there, at the moment?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_03: It's wide open.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_03: What's the most exciting thing to you guys at the moment about financial planning as a profession?
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I'll start on this one.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: From from my side, I feel what the most exciting thing is is a change that we can bring for the generations to come as well.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: When you get this right and it's and it matches your needs and you understand it, it makes such a difference to your life, your children, your family, everything about it, your mental health, everything.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what gets me and us really excited around the future of financial planning, how good can we make that for people, and how accessible we can make it for people as well.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_03: How about yourself, Roy?
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, touching on what Nathan just said, I think if you think about when pension reform coming, 2015, I believe.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Beforehand it was very regimented.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: You have a pension, you took the tax-free cash, you bought an annuity.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now we've got all these new rules around pensions, and it's about using those new rules within pensions alongside helping clients build up other cash savings or investments, and then trying to teach a client and younger generations.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, if you do this from this age, when you get to this age, you're gonna pay less tax because we can use that this ISA and this withdrawal method from your pension.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, it's it's just about it's it nowadays, you have much more freedom with your money than you did, say, 30 years ago.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's not it's not regimented anymore.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot more flexibility around it.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think that's why financial planning now is so important because you can't just wait until you're going to retire.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: You need to look at it years in advance and plan accordingly.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: But that's the bit that's exciting to me.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I like problem solving and trying to piece together a plan for a client.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_03: And that's what a lot of people are thinking about, isn't it?
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_03: Especially that next generation, that not even the next generation, but the 95% of the population out there at the moment that just don't fit the pricing model of financial planning firms that are out there.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: And I think there's such a huge market to target, there's such a huge opportunity.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_03: But I think the way financial planning firms need to think is they need to revolutionize the way people access that advice.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_03: What kind of content are they consuming through your business?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_03: What education are you giving them?
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_03: How are you helping them through each of those stages?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_03: And how are you preparing them for when they do have wealth as well?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_03: Because it's, I think the client journey is often like, well, I'm gonna go out and find somebody who've got a minimum of£250,000 to invest.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_03: But actually it's like, well, what about the children who are gonna inherit that money when that great transition of wealth happens, that 5.5 trillion that's gonna get passed down over the next 10, 15, 20, 30 years?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_03: What can we do now to build a relationship with that audience so they also use our services in the years that they actually inherit that money and develop that wealth?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_03: I spoke to a really good guy this morning and he has a strategy for his.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_03: I think his average client's around 350k, but he's also got a flat fee app now that is about 995 pounds a month that's got cash flow forecasting in, investment opportunities, and he just charges 995, answers any questions that individuals have, but it's very basic.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_03: So he doesn't have to be to turn away the individual that wants to invest a smaller amount of money and just hyperfocusing on those 250k plus ones.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_03: And he's finding that really beneficial.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_03: And as technology gets better and quicker and the app becomes quicker and slicker, that then becomes a revenue in, you know, a revenue um option for his business, where he's not dismissing the that next generation.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_03: Are you guys thinking about that as well with your business?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_03: The next generation of um client as well as the ones that have got those fees, maybe they're pension ready, they're buying annuities, higher levels of investment, that kind of thing.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we've we've been definitely looking at the avenues to advice.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that's one of the things we massively spoke about.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's the fact that at this moment in time, and you've just touched on it there.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody's saying, Well, how much money have you got?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I've got, I haven't got anything at a minute.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, sorry, I can't help you.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then that's it.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Or how much money have you got?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I've got 250,000.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, fantastic.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's have a meeting.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: But how about you know we start helping people and giving them the opportunity to say, how how do you get to that 250?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: How do I grow grow that?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's about the education piece as well.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: So we are looking at an app, also, Sam.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um we can't mention the names currently at the minute because it's it's just in the transition of it.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: But we're looking at an app that can offer that avenue for people because everybody's different.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, sometimes I want to speak to someone all the time, the other times I might not want to speak to them.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: I might just want to check something on my phone.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: I don't need to have someone come out to me face to face, but I might just have a spare bit of cash that I just want to put in on it on a regular and and and see how I can do with that as well.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: So the avenues that we're opening agree, you know, the app is definitely coming, the understanding is that of that as well.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: But going back and then full circle on what you said there is if we can help people at the very start of their journey, and when I talk about the very start of their journey, I'm not talking about okay, when you're 55, 60, you know, coming up retirement.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm talking way younger, and you've got that family bond and everybody's involved in it.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: And you've got someone who's 12.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like I use my son's example, he's 13 and he's got his own pension, and he checks that and imagine that.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: So it that wouldn't, you wouldn't never be looking at that from there, but he's already focused on okay, he's 13.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: When he's 21, he's got to start into you know putting entry into work, into his work pension, and then he grows, and he can then move from put one point to another as well in our journey.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: So everybody's got advice throughout, but there's a nice clear direction for them, and it's a choice for the client rather than oh, I can't speak to you until you get 250,000.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_03: The I love that by the way, the bringing the family into the financial planning process is absolute gold.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_03: And there's lots of tech companies that I've been talking to.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_03: I mess up with a couple of lads in London who are building some technology around a CRM.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_03: So families who have kids that are going to university, for example, but the family are actually funding that kid's university.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_03: It's about having the open banking for that kid's bank account, where the obviously the mum and dad are paying for that child's education, but then the child can log into that open banking, they can log into the CRM and start to do cash flow forecasting and start planning the money that they're being given and how they're going to spend it.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_03: So the parent then also knows that they're spending the money um wisely, and you're not spending it on just beers down the, you know, the hall or whatever, um, that they're actually using the money wisely.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but building up to that as well is is bringing in those investment opportunities as well, the cash flow forecasting tools, all the different types of things that from a very young age, if you say, Did you say your son 12?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_03: He's using that.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so my son is 13 and he's got his pension and he looks at that, it looks at his projections.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: My daughter, she's got her pension, she's six.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: She does, I'm not gonna say, Oh, she does that, she doesn't, yeah, okay, she doesn't yet, but I can imagine, but in his mind, he's talking about finance already.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, someone who's 20 plus will be speaking, which is brilliant.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, from his perspective, when he goes to speak about in school around finance, he can talk about a pension, he understands what it is and he can see the vision.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what we're missing that that gap is if we can actually fill that vision and show people that growth over a period of time and what it looks like, they will grasp it and want to be a part of that.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the educational piece.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_03: It's funny.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, do you know Pete Matthew?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_03: Pete Matthew, no, I don't know.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_03: Pete Matthew.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um so uh Meaningful Money.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yeah.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_03: Pete Matthew gets like millions of listeners on his podcast, Pete Matthew, Meaningful Money.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and he also is the um owner of something called Jackson Wealth.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_03: So Jackson Wealth's is IFA, financial advice business, uh, down in Deepest, Darkest, Cornwall.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_03: But what he's also got at the top of the funnel is the financial education piece, the Meaningful Money Academy.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_03: Now, he's all top of the funnel, actually, he's got his podcast on YouTube, which has got phenomenal views, phenomenal listens, and watches and downloads, right?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_03: So they come in that way.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_03: They're seeking answers to questions, right?
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_03: How much money have I got to invest uh when I reach how how do I buy, you know, how does a pension work?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_03: How do I buy an annuity?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_03: All those typical types of things that he answers.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_03: And that's part of his uh video series or his podcast series.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but then what he also has for the individuals that are just looking to kind of like deal with money worries and stress, because he wanted to, he's quite a um he's got a man of faith and he wanted to be able to offer a solution to those people that can't afford to have financial advice, to be able to sit down in some front of somebody who can give them some form of financial advice because they haven't got the money to be able to pay for it, right?
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_03: For someone like you.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_03: So this meaningful money academy he's created is like a staged process where he coaches them through how to get their budgeting in order, um, how to think about investing when you've got enough money, debt management, all that kind of stuff.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_03: And he brings them into that meaningful money academy.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_03: And then from the meaningful money academy, once they've gone through it and at a stage of their life where they then might potentially have an investment opportunity, they would then move across into um Jackson's wealth, where he can actually deliver full financial advice.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_03: And at any stage of the process, if they wanted to buy a financial plan, for example, they can actually buy a financial plan.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_03: But that meaningful money academy part is like a six-figure turnover business and it's all automated.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_03: And from there also he creates not only leads, but he creates huge amounts of content opportunities because he's engaging with that audience.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_03: So that's like something that he's built and invested in with his time in respect of the content he created originally.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_03: But that model I love.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_03: I love that kind of that that model's fantastic.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_03: And because he's using the content that he creates off the back of meaningful money as marketing, he's driving new business into his business all the time, but he has a place where to put them.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_03: So if someone's seen the content and then it drives him straight into the wealth management side, fair enough.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_03: But if not, it's going into the Meaningful Money Academy.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_03: So he's not turning people away, and at the same time, like you're saying, adding value for that person who might not be able to get the answers to their questions and changing people's lives and having an impact, isn't it?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_03: About on those people who who mental health is being affected by and not understanding how finance works because we lack financial education, right?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, definitely.
• 14:02
  unknown: Definitely.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: I love I love those types of models.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I think is that like in your forefront of your mind, that's where you want to be, that's what you want to be doing, is is creating a solution to the advice gap.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_03: Is that something that you're really keen to do?
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, that's something that on the forefront of what we want to do and what we want to change.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: I feel what from our approach, and we understand, we see so many mistakes in our job, people have made mistakes, and it's all it all boils down to a genuine lack of understanding.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: So, is that really fair on these people that they just haven't had the opportunity to for somebody to give them an education, give them, show them how to do things, make or a place for them to actually go and find themselves, which is really clear and understandable.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we that that advice gap is is is a huge thing because everybody just just focused on all right, everybody's got money up on this side, but that advice gap there where people do need advice and and it's a mindset on the flip side of the client as well, Sam.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: So, what me and mine have uh have understood from clients is they need financial advice, but in their mind they'll be saying, Oh, I've got no money, I've got I don't want to speak to you yet.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: When I get when I get 10,000, when I get 20,000, they'll come and speak to you.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not about that.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: How about you still have that conversation?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: You can use one of these avenues and then we can change how your perception is to actually get you there a lot quicker, you know, and or to prevent you from getting into that or help you understand how these different elements of um finance work.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: And we we've done a lot of work and research to be looking at and and looking at ways to help people to do this.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel we can definitely we can start something which I feel everybody else would then soon have to follow.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think initially, I'll be completely honest, I don't think people will will do this because it's something that you're doing and it's not generating an income, which you know, people are running businesses, yeah.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: However, oh after a period of time, as you've just said there, you are still helping people, it's generating an income.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's that sense of goodness, isn't it, Sam?
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that you you're giving back um and you you're enabling people to have a better future.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and a byproduct of it is good doing good, right?
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, a business with purpose.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_03: I like that element of what we're doing here at the Financial Planet Life.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_03: We're a B Corp and the idea was to be build a business for planet, people, and purpose.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_03: And I think if you can do what you're doing and you love it and you're adding value at people, you know, and you're making money out of it, a byproduct of that is actually helping people.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's a beautiful way to look at it.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um, evergreen financial planning, then.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_03: Ryan, you guys have set this business up together.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_03: When when when did this start?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_03: How did it start?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_03: How did you get together and how did you end up running a business?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: So me and Nathan actually met each other in 2016.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: We we both went on to work for Prudential through their academy, and um, yeah, we just we just hit it off as like good minutes and things like that.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: But Nathan lives uh yeah, quite far away up in the north somewhere, and uh I think it's not that far away.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um so it was um he he had his his clients up there, my clients down here, and everyone always thought we what we had something together originally because we were kind of in inseparable in a strange way, but um no, but it was only at the beginning of the year we um had um some approaches from people about um purchasing uh client base because they wanted to retire.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we thought it'd be a good idea to to merge the business, um, expand, hire staff, and we we we we just really sat down and thought, where could this go?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: What what what's the vision of what we want to achieve?
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: And could could we work together?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, what things am I good at and what things is Nathan good at?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: And how do we build that into like a business plan as such?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it kind of just took off, and it was just uh we planned everything and it all got it all worked, and everything was signed off and yeah, started 1st of um October, and it's been great since it's it's it's it's obviously been very busy, but it's just been amazing that we bounce off each other.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, the creativity side is is mainly Nathan and me trying to um roaming in a bit and about how much things are costing and things like that.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: So um no but it's great, we've got a plan, and it it's we've got the same vision, which is which is great, and you know, we've got uh we have sensible heads on our shoulders in in fact that we spoke about things that well, what would happen if we fell out or if we had a different approach and what is the exit strategy and things like that.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: But at the moment things are great, and we don't really envisage anything changing in a negative way moving forward, so it's uh onwards and upwards, I would say.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's fantastic.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_03: And I think partnerships work really well when each person complements the other.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_03: But I think as well, you do have to define what the goal is, you know, understanding exactly what the goal of the business is and what your ambitions are, because one person might not have as much ambition as the other because financially they might not be in the same place as the other.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_03: Someone might be inheriting a large sum of money, for instance, and maybe they come from a bit of wealth and this is a bit of fun for them, but in the back of their mind, they know that they've got a trust fund waiting for them or something like that.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_03: So it's like it's difficult, isn't it, to kind of find the person to actually work with.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_03: And you have to be aligned, you have to have the common goal, and you have to agree on what level of ambition is required from both of you to achieve the figure in your head and also the culture of what you're looking to build.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_03: Because sometimes one person wants to be building a business that's micro, you know, niche or um uh boutique, whereas someone might want to build the next prudential, you know?
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: So these are the things you've got to come at come at with each other.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_03: And I think honesty and transparency in the very, very, very beginning is something that I would echo, like going through what I've gone through with my business.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_03: I would absolutely 100% the honesty is so, so important because there's nowhere to hide then, there is there, and also what you can then do as a partnership is support each other because you know you're both on the same path, you know you're both on the same goal.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes we have lofty ambitions, but maybe they don't come off.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_03: But what can we do to support each other, to pick each other back up and and do that?
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_03: The fact that you're in different parts of the country is interesting.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_03: How does that dynamic work?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_03: Because I suppose there's lots of people listening to this podcast now that would love to have a partnership, maybe don't have so many people locally to them, but they might have somebody across the country they could partner with and link up with, and that might help them elevate their business forward.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_03: Being in different parts of the country, you know, the dark of the north and the sunnyness of the south, you know, how does that actually work?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: For us, it's um like even before we drove, we'd speak every day.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: So it was like we were in partnership anyway.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: But Russ, we saw it as an advantage because for us in the middle, it it's not far to get to to meet up when we need to, but you know, we use Teens Telephone, but Nathan can operate where he is and around that area, so we can target more of the UK and reach more clients in that respect.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: And where I am, I can do exactly the same.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I I think for our point of view, it we see it as an advantage, not a disadvantage.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're we're we're we're more around the UK than we are if we were both living in the south, for example, or or in the Midlands or wherever it may be.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I like we spoke about it, we we saw it as a massive advantage for us, and if we ever have to meet, really it's it's not it's not long in a car or a train to to do so.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, we we like how it how we are uh local location wise.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_03: Have you employed anybody yet?
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we have uh two personal assistants, we have a para planner, and we've got two advisors, two financial advisors.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_03: And are they also remote, or do you have an office in one location, for example, where they work?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: So currently everyone's remote, um with no We spoke about having an office, and the the question is then where would we where would we put it?
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um in the UK and if we had an office would you have to open to immediately to make it fair?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I think that's something for the future for us to discuss.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I think from our point of view, especially from an advisory point of view, if you're a financial advisor, we've seen that majority of our clients want to be seen in the comfort of their home at a time and date that suits them.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um I've asked plenty of my clients before if they would prefer me to have an office on the high street.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: Would they come out and see me?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: And most of them say no, you can come out and see me.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: So um, yeah, so we'll we'll look into that in the future and see see how that goes.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: But at the moment, um, you know, everyone is currently remote at the moment.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_03: That in its own right is an interesting concept anyway, because it's a cost-saving mechanism here as well, isn't it?
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_03: You know, if you can build a business which is remote, there's a USP, there's a uniqueness to your business, but you're also opening yourself up to the opportunity of hiring across the UK.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_03: You know, if you can, if you can maintain that model and make it work, your candidate base of individuals that can come and work for you is far greater.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_03: Because what a lot of firms have had a problem with in growing, and especially pre-COVID, was the distinct lack of talent within those localized areas, power planning being one.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_03: And individual companies were so dead set on power planners, had to be in their business and in their office and chained to a desk, you know, that they wouldn't actually look outside of their location and think about even a remote power planner.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_03: That's changed massively because they've had to due to the absolute shortage of those types of candidates.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_03: So I like what you're doing, and I think it's one of those things, run with it, see how far you get with it, and deal with that problem if it becomes a problem.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_03: But otherwise, great cost saving, and you've just opened yourself up to the whole, the whole of the UK in respect of how you can build this business.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's really cool.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's definitely the way forward to go.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I think if you're capable of doing that and you're comfortable in doing it, what a USP, you know, what a USP.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_03: Can I ask you a little bit of some questions really about high performance?
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_03: Because I put a post out and you guys responded to my post about high performance within the financial planning profession.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_03: So we're going to focus a little bit on that.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_03: Nate, what do you think is a high performance strategy, or what high performance strategy do you have when it comes to attracting clients?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so with this, and it's always been fundamentally for what we've done from the very beginning, me personally, before we I met Ryan as well, it's that truth and transparency.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: So if you put yourself out there and you're delivering great advice and it's completely transparent and it's completely true, giving everybody that time and efficiency, sometimes you'll meet someone and there won't be any business there to do.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: However, that person will then refer you to someone who will have some business for you to do from that aspect.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: You have to be able to speak to and see a lot of people.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: This is my again personal opinion.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: I genuinely believe if the more the more people you see, the more, you know, the more output there will be.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, definitely.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: So the strategies for you know, quite basic, what I've used is transparency and truth, but then seeing and speaking to a lot of people as well.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes, you know, there are days, um, I'll I'll be honest where I've had a meeting and I thought probably didn't need to do that, but you know, because but it's a contact, you've gone out and done it.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think to myself, well, if if I've just thought that, that means not many people would have done that anyway.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: So that person said, gosh, he's the first person you've come out and saw me in four or five years, and then you're the you're the topic of conversation when somebody else is asking for advice.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what I would say.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'll keep it very basic and clear, but I do those fundamental blocks of uh trust, transparency, and and work ethic are huge, I would say.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_03: I love it.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_03: I think you've got to put out what you get in.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_03: So if you're gonna if you if you're gonna make a make a load of phone calls or you're gonna send a load of LinkedIn messages, you've got to put yourself out there to be able to book meetings.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_03: I think, do you think sometimes like in your early stage of your career, you need to put yourself out there?
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_03: You need to be talking to people, you need to be turning over stones because you never know what you might uncover.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: So that's one thing I we did that straight away, you know, and you're going to see people that were far in it.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's what you do at the very beginning because you need to cut your teeth, you need to grow, you need to get that network out there.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: When I I speak to a lot of people, and people say, Oh, how did you get to this point?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then I ask them the questions, or what are you doing now?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh god, I've joined a networking event, or but there's not anything else, Sam.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like you're absolutely right.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: You have to put yourself out there, you have to be vulnerable.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that you're you're going out and doing shows or pantombines and all this kind of stuff, but what I'm saying is you are like you know, you're posting, you're on socials, you you are calling people, you are offering to go to meetings, because if you don't do all of that stuff, and you you won't be able to push yourself at the very start as well and and grow.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: And also you've got to be able to understand that everything's all not going to happen straight away.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: And this is this is one thing where you know there's clients I've seen four or five years ago, and probably they'll start to do stuff in the next two to three years.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's a long period of time.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: But if you can just start understanding, well, actually, yes, this is a client for the future, this is a step for next year, or eventually, as time goes on, you've built everything on top.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then it makes the job.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: I don't like saying easier because it's ever easy, uh, but it gives you a bit more comfort knowing that you know you've got clients to see and revenue coming in as well.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_03: Ryan, do you think it's fair to say to somebody, maybe you set starting out their career, because we I've got the Financial Planner Life Academy, for example, and some people are gonna go through that academy and actually want to go straight into self-employment, right?
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_03: They want to run their own business.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_03: Now they might have a network.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, hopefully they've done their due diligence and they've got some money in the bank, and we're gonna be working with them to make sure that they make the right decision if they go self-employed, for example.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_03: We're talking about this trust, right, Ryan?
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_03: We're talking about trust, right?
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, well, we understand the more people you phone, the more people you call, uh, the more people you go out and meet face to face, the more posters you put out there on LinkedIn.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_03: That's activity.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_03: But what about trust?
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_03: What's a strategy for building trust with somebody to actually use your services when perhaps you're brand new to the profession?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to try and put the mindset of a client.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: So if you think about if you're a client or approaching retirement, you've not seen anyone for five, ten years, you've had you've heard all the stories um and seen the adverts about you know scams, the the guy in the jet ski with your money, you know, don't don't answer the phone to someone who's trying to talk to you about pensions and things like that.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: So already our industry trust as an overall is not probably the greatest as it as it could have been.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um you've got to put your mindset in as a client point of view if you if someone's coming out to see you as an advisor.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: So from my point of view, you can have, you know, you can educate the client about the FCA register.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you have to be you know financial uh foreign register to be able to be able to give financial advice, you know.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: You can set up for um feedback accounts like vouch for and things like that.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: So clients can do their own due diligence on you before you come and see them.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and as Nathan said, when you are going to miss meet a client, the most important thing is that you come across in a manner where they believe or they know that you're not there to try and just take that hundred grand pension and take the tax-free cash out, leave them alone, don't really support them.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's about understanding exactly what they want.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: You ask the client, what do you want from this meeting?
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: What is it that you want to discuss?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um and just let them take the lead on it.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: And and as long as you're honest throughout that whole meeting, and you know, you're not always gonna agree with what that client that client says, you know, like there might be something they want to do, which is a complete no-no, it's it's it's not gonna work in what they want to do, and you've got to be able to articulate why that isn't the right method, they should they should go down, but it's not always you're gonna have to be patient, it's always not always gonna be in agreement with you and that client.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I think you have to have the mindset of a client and assume that you haven't seen anyone for many, many years, and the the trust level of it of our industry is probably, like I said, not the not the greatest.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to take all those things into consideration and and see it from their point of view.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_03: How do you do that over the telephone or via a message to get the buy-in for them to at least meet you when they've never used your service?
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think you keep it very short and simple, very short and simple.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Just explain what you offer, put links to, like I said, the SCA register, uh, the vouch for link, your website, you know.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um like we love vouch for, we think it's great.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you can't stop who puts uh feedback on whether it's good or bad.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it is it's a great tool for someone to go and check.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Think about um check a trade, it's basically check a trade for financial advisors.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I've used checker trade a few times, and so far, so good, I've not had any problems.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: But why can't we have something like that in our industry that benefits clients?
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because they can just go and you know snoop on you and read through all your comments and and things like that.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: So it I think that's great.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's about keeping the message short and simple, explain what you do, put links so that you can be verified.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we always take ID with us when we go and see clients if they want to see our driving license and things like that.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's about that reassurance uh piece.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: But I think if you put that in a message or an email, but you keep it short on the the telephone, then you can say, Look, no pressure, I'll send you an email over, have a review of it, and get back to me.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be pushy on the phone, it's about letting them uh understand it, read it, research, and then get back to you.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_03: Fantastic.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_03: I see that you've Nate, you you've been putting a lot of content out recently on LinkedIn, social media.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_03: I guess as well, you know, and we forget this and don't forget it, I do all the bloody time.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_03: Building trust with people is about being seen.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_03: So if they type your name into Google, it's coming up with some positive things.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's coming up with helpful things, educational things.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_03: So someone's bound to respond well to you if you are presenting yourself online with something that's going to add value.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_03: So I would always think, you know, I'm a financial advisor.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_03: I'd phone somebody or I'd message them, hey, how are you doing?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_03: Look, I recognize that um you've been at such and such for 25 years.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_03: You might well be thinking about becoming um, you might be thinking about your retirement coming up.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_03: I've just put an um educational video together about what an annuity is and how to purchase it.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_03: Perhaps you might want to watch it.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, and by the way, here's a testimonial of somebody that I've helped with their pension quite recently.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_03: You can watch the video testimonial here.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_03: I think things like that is just quick, easy.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_03: Um you can rinse and repeat it, can't you?
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_03: When you create that content and it's value add and you've had the time and energy to put it in there, it's kind of it builds a different level of trust because again, then all of a sudden they see you actually talking, delivering something that's of benefit to them in the comfort of their own home.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_03: Or they might be listening to it on the on a podcast, for example, when they're driving.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_03: So, about how can I interact with that person?
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_03: How can I give them something that's gonna be really interactive, really interesting, super educational, uh consumable.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm working with a financial planner at the moment, one Financial Solutions.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_03: They're an AR under two plan and they want a complete rebrand.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm working with them on their rebrand.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_03: And um he's got his idea.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_03: I love Wayne, great guy, right?
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_03: You're gonna see more of him when we start working with him.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_03: But he's so like big heart, compassionate type guy, does loads for charity, so much stuff, supports like business, um, sporting people, like boxers and all of that.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_03: Anyway, he had an idea.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_03: He said, Sam, I bought a website called My Mate Down the Pub, right?
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_03: My mate down the pub, or my mate told me, I think it was.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_03: No, he said, My mate down the pub told me.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_03: Now, in financial advice, you can sit in a pub, don't you?
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_03: And someone will always go, look, tell you what, go and buy Dogecoin.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_03: You're gonna make an absolute fortune on Dogecoin, right?
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_03: Honestly, Elon Musk, he's nailing it.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_03: And then, oh, my mate, and they go see, they go and see him, and I'll say, Well, my mate down the pub told me that you charge me an absolute fortune when I could just stick all my money in Dogecoin.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_03: So, what we've developed with Wayne is we're gonna create a podcast called My Mate Told Me.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_03: And then each week it's my mate told me, and then the subject comes up, but it's gonna be a bite-sized bit of information of the classic thing that my mate told me I should do, and actually demystifying the bullshit and bringing in the reality of it, and then creating that as like a bite-sized podcast on video that you can then carve up into social content and put down every week.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_03: I think something like that where it's fun, playful, but also educational and demystifying the bullshit, I think that builds trust as well within financial planning.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_03: And no one's really doing anything like that.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_03: No one's playing.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_03: It's also serious, you know.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_03: But I think you can play within your marketing when it comes to financial planning, as long as it's within the confounds and the rules of the, you know, the FCA marketing rules and what you can and what you can't say.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm really um looking forward to do that.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_03: But I love what you're saying there, like driving them to the FCA register, because it is, in a fundamental terms, in a simplistic terms, is what you're all about, a simple way of building trust and hopefully then getting that that meeting um finally booked in with them.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um so what sort of key processes?
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_03: You're more of a process man yourself, aren't you?
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_03: So, which key processes do you think that you've put into your business that have added some serious value when it comes to saving time?
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um for me, it's delegating for sure.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: Having the trust to delegate some of your tasks to uh staff staff members that we've hired.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it allows Nathan and I to actually spend more of our valuable time sitting down with clients and picking up the phone and speaking to clients instead of doing the admin task or checking if if the cases have been completed, or you know, um if something's been delayed, we have to call a provider to see what's what's going on.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, do we want to be writing on reports?
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: Can we hire a power planner to to do that for us and complete it to the same standard?
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: We like it, it's it's it's it's definitely delegating is number one, and then looking at I'd say different types of systems and technologies to be able to give the client, as you said recently, uh, have been able to sit in their home, been able to take their time and do what they want to do.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: So we're currently looking at a system that will allow clients to access our diaries within parameters, obviously, not see what's in the diary, but there will be time slots in there where they can go, actually, uh, I know my review is coming up in December, so I'm actually going to book it in now.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, put it put in a diary for the 5th of December at 12 o'clock because there's a slot there for Ryan.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: So then that saves me and Nathan having to call, it saves our PAs having to make calls and things like that, and they can focus on on other tasks as well.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, making sure clients are set up so they can see their investments on their profiles and things like that.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they don't have to do anything on it, but it's just sometimes nice to be able to view it in case you know they've watched the watched the news or read something in the paper and they think oh the markets have crashed, and really it's it's you know just a bad day or whatever it might be.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, those are the types of things that we've looked at to um to try and uh try and help with the process of processing, but delegating for sure, the number one best thing we've ever done is is delegating for sure.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_03: Nate, you're a bit more of a um, you know, going based on what you both said, you got more of a creative brain, less of an analytical type focus on a task type brain.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna I like how you changed that because I was thinking, hang on a second, you say I don't like finance and I'm a financial advisor.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: This doesn't tie up.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: So, Sam, thank you very much.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for uh changing the approach on that.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, so from my side, what I what I genuinely want to do is have our brand where some people can look at it and interact with the brand.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: So, what I want what we want to do as as a company is almost make evergreen its own entity.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: And by that, what I mean is you'll see me well, you see us hashtagging asset evergreen and things like that.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes people feel uncomfortable asking a question directly to another person or something like that across those lines.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: However, how if we can open up Evergreen, and Evergreen could be something where people can ask a question into an inbox to evergreen financial planning rather than a financial advisor down the road or something, something there over there as well.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: I feel that we can again attract and help more people.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: So that's where from a social side, I'm trying to create something where we can our brand is out there and it's it's not just a business, Sam.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: So people look at it and go, oh, Evergreen, they that it speaks, not speaks, that'd be a bit crazy, but it developed it's putting out this great content.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: Did you see what Evergreen put out that week?
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it's almost it becomes almost like a person, and then people can interact and feel more comfortable.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's just I just we I'm trying to create, we're trying to create something different because at this moment you've just got you know your boring set stuff out there, or you know, have you thought about inheritance tax?
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, ISIS a season, did you know that?
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, it's the same stuff every year, people it's it's so boring, and it doesn't give anybody anything to anybody at all.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: But if we can create stuff, like you're saying, it's people have got somebody to something to speak to, somebody to speak to, they look at our posts and go, that's actually pretty fuddy, you know.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: That I'm gonna save that one.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's useful.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: Did you hear about what Evergreen said about the two different pots?
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what we want to create.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: And all and in the future, our brand is almost, I was gonna say, like a Dyson kind of thing.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's probably just that's for the next podcast when we're on there for the Dyson reach.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: But people are talking about our brand and they're using our examples and our videos and what we've done as examples as um fundamentals for what they're planning and what they're doing for the future.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_03: Starting to see how your dynamic works, because Ryan's probably in the background thinking, right, that's gonna take forever, and we've got to build a process for that.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_03: Nathan's like, right, I'm gonna build a fucking Dyson business, the Dyson of Financial Planning.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_03: And I honestly, that's exactly how like partnerships work.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_03: But you know, that's how it kind of works as well.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_03: Because if the other person's got the ability to drag that drag, pull that person back a little bit and manage expectations around how to do it, why can't you achieve the the things that you want to achieve?
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_03: And you have to have that kind of blue sky thinking, but you also have to have the person in the background even talking about the processes.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_03: And like, I understand like automation, like I'm automation and reminders and having a CRM and the client journey and the client experience.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_03: I struggle, I know all that's really, really important, and I know if I put it into place because I can see it, I can feel it, and I know it would work, but I couldn't, I'm just a nightmare at trying to get like attention, like to keep my attention on something, I'm a nightmare.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_03: So, like the ability to have two people that can partner together and have that kind of way of thinking is perfect.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_03: So I think like what you're both saying there around that is is is spot on.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_03: I like what you were saying.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I always think that about financial planning.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_03: Why can't you have that brand that's out there that's like, and you when you said like, oh, like answering questions, it's like, well, that's not a million miles away.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_03: Because with AI, you can absolutely 100%, even when you're saying about having a video response, you can have video response AI that is going to answer the question spot on, like spot on within the rules.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_03: You can do that.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_03: And that's not a million miles away to create that kind of interaction and with within your brand.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um, that's coming, you know, it's it's around the corner.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_03: So I love that.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_03: I suppose what we've got to make sure that we're doing is differentiating ourselves from the market.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_03: Why would someone want to come to you?
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_03: And it's about your personality, isn't it?
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's about what problems are you solving, but what persona and personality do you have?
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_03: Because some people think I'm a dickhead and some people really like me.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm okay with that, you know?
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not trying to be everyone's friend.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_03: I'm trying to build relationships with people who think and feel the same way that I do.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_03: And if they do, then they're gonna buy into me and I'm gonna do business with them.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I think we can kind of worry a little bit about trying to be friends with everybody and then forego authenticity of actually who we are and our personalities.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that can often, in the past, has damaged me massively by trying to like recruit UK was my recruitment business.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I mean like Christ a life.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_03: I'm trying to bloody recruit for the whole of the UK here.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_03: Financial planner alive.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, like the life cycle, the journey of a financial planner.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_03: There's so much I can do around that, you know, and I love that.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_03: And the brand becomes easier for me to sell and easier for me to interact with an audience, and I've just got to create the methods of doing that.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um marketing, then, right?
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_03: I've I've got a list of questions, but I'm going off piece.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_03: Marketing, what what what do you see the value in marketing?
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: Like you're younger guys, right?
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_03: Do you a lot of financial planners are kind of entering the end of their careers and they don't really care a great deal, A, about tech and marketing and social media.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_03: Are you invested in that?
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_03: Are you buying into it?
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_03: Is it something that you feel that you need to do as a business to be able to get out there and win clients, stand out, build a business?
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: Quick and short answer to that is yes, definitely.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: Marketing, how you're presented online, it's just it you wouldn't walk into somebody at somebody's house with your tracksuit bottoms on, or you'd be really short, you would just wouldn't do it.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: So your social appearance, how you how your business looks online, is so important.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: How many times have we googled someone or looked at something or something's come on that that doesn't look right?
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: I don't like that, but automatically you you've got an opinion, you've got to come across authentic, and it's also your how how you come across and how you're speaking.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so if people can relate to what you're saying, that's hugely important as well.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's all about the speaking as people, Sam.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: So again, you'll see some parts, some people don't do marketing.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, marketing is rubbish.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's not.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: Have you done have you done any?
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, there you go.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's the issue straight away there.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I I feel with our marketing, what we want to do is just just keep pushing it, see how far we can go, open up so when people look at it, they say, Okay, that's really cool.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: That they speak in a way that I understand.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: And if you look out, you just get some marketing now, you go and read one of these reports, give it to give it to someone and ask them to read it.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: Then what does this even mean?
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: What does it mean?
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so I what we want to do is make sure every we come across in a way that everybody can understand and grasp in a way that they get.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_01: And the language that you use, how you put yourself out there is is massively important.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_03: I saw a video of you both.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I think it was done by M and G.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, the bloopers one.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: Langing this up.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_03: For this very for the very for this very reason of what you just of what you just said.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_03: You know, when I watched that video, I I had the privilege of speak speaking to you both anyway.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_03: We had a lengthy conversation, you know, and it was great to get to know you on a personal level.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_03: And I do feel like I kind of get you both on a personal level.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_03: You've, you know, we had some great chats.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_03: But seeing that video and putting it out there, when I saw the bloopers, it's a it's a great, it's a it's a great way to see the authenticity.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_03: The person behind the financial planner, you know, and I think that's what often gets forgotten is like I've got to talk about financial planning.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_03: That's what I've got to talk about.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_03: I've got to talk about you know the complexity of it all and how difficult it is, and I can help them because it's so difficult.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like, why does why do you have to talk about that?
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_03: Why can't you be like really raw and really authentic and talk about the things that you care about and that you find funny and sides of your personality that you wouldn't normally see?
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_03: And the blooper did a brilliant job of that because I watched it and it made me smile, you know, and it made me think these guys are great and they're great together.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I think you've got a wonderful kind of um Anton Deck style kind of you know kind of relationship.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_03: And I think people want to see that, and that's what people fall in love with, and that's what makes people want to buy from you.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_03: So my point on this is create content that's relevant and fixes problems and educates, simplify complex information so people get it and then they learn something.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_03: Because when they learn something, they go, Oh my god, I get it.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_03: And if they get it, then they're gonna come back to you for more information, but they want to see the person behind the brand and you're the brand.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_03: So when you were on that video, we often put this logo on a pedestal or this company on a pedestal of what it is, but it's you two that are the brand.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_03: It's you two that are gonna attract people to come and work for you, you know, and that's what I think financial planning companies forget as well.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_03: It's like you're trying to grow a financial planning business.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_03: There's a rare as rocking horse shit to come across financial advisors at the moment, right?
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_03: It's hard, hard to find power planners, hard to find administrators.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_03: They buy into you and your vision and your personality and your culture.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_03: And it's about defining that online, and even more so in a business like yours where you don't have an office.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_03: And we used to think the office is where the culture was built.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_03: It's not.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_03: You're the culture, you're the you know who you two actually are, and all your weaknesses and all your strengths and all your funny little quirkiness.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_03: That's what people love.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_03: So that's what I think is lacking in financial planning.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_03: And if you can nail that and be confident and just unapologetically, you're just gonna stand out like you wouldn't believe.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_03: So I just wanted to say, like when I saw that video, I thought it was brilliant.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_03: So keep that sort of thing up.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_03: It's fun and don't be too serious about yourselves because people buy into you as individuals and your personalities.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_03: And I think keep that up.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_03: So I wanted to bring that up.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_03: Some of the areas where financial planners really do struggle when it comes to generating clients is actually working with professional introducers.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_03: Is there anything that you can share with our listeners today about some of the strategies that you have with working with financial introducers, how you've forged them, how you've built them, and has it been a positive approach to generating new client business?
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think from our end, it's definitely been positive, but you do have to put the effort in, I'd say, to make it work.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to understand the pro their processes because we understand financial advisory processes, how they work, what the overall outcome of that process is going to be.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're dealing with a mortgage advisor or a solicitor to talk about you know re-mortgages and further borrowing, wills, solicit uh wills, power of attorney, those kinds of things, we have to understand that at the heart of everything is the client.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: So we want that client to have an amazing service, um, stress-free and to be in good hands, whether that's within our business or we're passing it off to someone else.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_00: So if we understand the process and what say a solicitor needs to um to speak to a client about a will, what information do they want to have?
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: How long the meetings are gonna take?
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have a basic understanding of what the fees are for different types of wills?
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: We can then go back to the client.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_00: So if we work with this provider who's this solicitor, they will do X, Y, Z, it's going to take around this amount of time to get a will completed from start to finish, the pricing's around this model.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they can see face-to-face video and teams, how does that sound?
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_00: But it's just more of a streamlined approach, and we make sure that we put the time and effort in with the introducers, keep that relationship ongoing.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: Is there anything that we can improve on when we pass a client over?
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, has anything changed?
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_00: Have you got any new products?
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: Is there been any regulation or legislation change that we need to be made aware of when we speak to clients?
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's just maintaining that relationship so that everything goes back to the client in that streamlined approach and still maintains that high level of service to get the best outcome from it.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: That that's from our approach, what we've found.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_03: What I love about what I love about that as well is that you're you're referring in, you know, you're not just expecting something to be given to you.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_03: So I think when people think about referrals sometimes, it's like, you know, I'm gonna go and build a relationship with a solicitor so they can send me some clients and I can make some money.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_03: But what you're doing is you're turning it on his head and you're you're sort of saying, Well, what can I do for that corporation?
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_03: What can I do for that company?
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_03: What services are they offering that if I understand them, learn the processes, learn the time scales, the benefit of them using that solicitor, that it becomes an educational piece again where you're adding value to that client.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_03: Because if you didn't know that, you then won't be able to then bolt on your financial planning piece in that part of that individual's journey.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe they're selling a business, for example.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_03: You know, what part does a solicitor play in that?
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_03: What part does an accountant play in that?
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_03: Obviously, the accountant might have them before you actually give any financial planning.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_03: So the accountant needs to understand the power of financial planning to be able to then refer back into you.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_03: So it's forging the relationship.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_03: Have you found um uh uh is there a time scale attached to building good quality relationships with introducers?
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_03: Does it happen overnight?
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, definitely not.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_01: I feel what's really important is not to expect that straight away because it doesn't happen overnight.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: That even if you you've got the introducer, they have to trust to, in essence, give you their clients that they have their relationship with.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because imagine, you know, I say something to you.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, oh, I've got this great guy who can do this for you, and then he comes and does it, does it, and he's absolutely shocking.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's gonna be if you're a bit of an idiot, you are.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_01: You told me this guy was great, and it can ruin their relationship.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_01: So they're they're going to be tentative as well.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_01: Feel what's really important if you understand that and then also have that regular contact, go and see them, spend time with them, understand what they're doing, make that regular.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_01: Don't just speak to them on a referral basis.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I've got have you got a client for me, or oh, thanks for that client.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: Go and actually spend some time with them.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not just about, oh, okay, sit down, what's up?
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_01: Who have you seen this week?
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: None of that stuff, just actually get to understand them, how they do in their meetings, spending time and actually understanding what they do as well.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's really important for them.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_03: If, say, um, for example, I'm brand new to the profession and I'm trying to build and introduce a network up, um, what are some of the things I can do to initiate um a relationship?
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_03: So, what have you got any examples of value add that you give for free um to actually get your foot in the door and show that you are somebody they should build a relationship actually with and you add value?
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I mean, what what one of the things that was last year that I did, and you know, probably what we'll do at Evergreen as well is um created almost like a financial drop-in clinic.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: So speaking to an accountant, I he was mentioning that he's he he used to have an advisor, didn't really work.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_01: Then he kind of stopped the conversation.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_01: So then I offered, okay, well, how about you know, you speak to a few clients, I can come one evening, we're not gonna not gonna charge you half an hour, 40 minutes on pensions.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they can get some value, or we can do it on Teams.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: You're offering something that nobody else is going to be doing.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if you did that and it was on Teams or at their office or wherever it was, and they managed to get 10 people on that call, five people on that call.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_01: If you delivered something which was great, the accountant will be on there, whoever the introducer is, they'll be saying, This guy knows what he talked, he's talking about.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_01: But then most likely one of those clients will then say, actually, yeah, can I have another follow-up meeting with you at that point as well?
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_01: So it's you have to do things which are different, but you again, it's that you've got to make yourself vulnerable and put yourself out there.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_01: So if you do something and understand, gosh, this I'm not gonna make anything from this now, it's not gonna be um getting 500 leads tomorrow, but it puts me in a different position to then start, you know, getting some clients.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_01: And on the flip side, Sal, just quickly as well, it you can't go too far, can you?
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_01: So that it's a bit of sense, you gotta put a sensible head on in the fact that if you are doing that all the time and then you've got no referrals from this introducer, you've got to know when to say, okay, look, I've done all of this for you.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: I feel this isn't working now, and it's it should never get to that point.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_01: But again, you just you can't just keep doing stuff all the time.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to have your own cut-off.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_03: Really interesting point.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_03: And I think a lot of new financial planners run around like headless chickens, meeting people, greeting people, they know they've got to have activity, and that sooner or at some point something's gonna drop.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that happens very much in the early part of somebody's career because a part of that is learning experience as well, of like how to because you might go and see somebody, and you know, everyone knows what their first meeting is like.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_03: It's like a fluffer, isn't it?
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, oh god, this is rubbish.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like I wish I said that, I wish I said this, or they say something and you can't answer the question.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_03: So then you go away and you research what the the answer to the question was and you use that as a bit of a of a sales technique the next time you go in, like, oh hi Chris, like you, you know, have you thought about end-of-year tax terms and you know, and and what part financial planning plays in that?
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, you know, I have actually.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_03: So you learn through the process of failure, right?
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but at the same time, you don't want to waste too much time.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_03: And that's the kind of catch 22 a lot of people get in, and they get into that kind of productivity paralysis and they're quite not sure, you know, oh, I don't want to go, it's gonna waste, waste my time.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_03: Is there anything you can do to qualify people?
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_03: You know, is there a is uh so based on your experience of working with professional introducers, you know, and we can look at it on a client perspective as well if you if you don't want to talk about introducers, or you can talk about it from a client perspective because you can waste your time with clients as well, can't you?
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_03: Is there anything quick that you can do that can qualify somebody?
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_03: Is there any you know questions that you have in your backpack, right, that will be able to quickly qualify if somebody is actually going to be of help or of hindrance to you think for me, oh yeah, for me asking asking them directly what they want.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_00: And people sometimes are scared to do that.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_00: Is there's nothing wrong with asking if a client or an introducer goes, what would you actually want from me?
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_00: What is it you want me to help you with today?
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_00: And and where do where do you see that going?
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_00: So especially with an introducer, is it they want a financial advisor to be able to help a number of their clients because they've got issues with their clients not paying into pensions, you know, self-employed clients, limited company clients, the accountants saying, Well, we need to pay money to a pension to help reduce corporation tax, or you know, it's not predominantly about retirement planning, but that's going to reduce your corporation tax.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then they go, okay, and they go, Well, where do I go and open a pension?
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's sort of like uh well, I haven't got any money yet.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_00: So is it that they want us to maybe do with pensions, or is it when you speak to a client who's 50 and you know, like your friend down at the pub said at 55 I can take my money out of my page and we're gonna take it all out and we're gonna treat all the kids to a big holiday.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's sort of finding out well, what what do you want from this conversation?
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_00: What is it you want me to tell you?
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_00: What like how how about how do you want me to go about our relationship starting from now?
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_00: It it's just about understanding exactly what they want to have, what will they want to get from you?
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think there's nothing wrong with asking that.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it's worked well for Nathan and I, just asking directly what is it you want from us.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_03: Do you do you think also as well, when you like let's go back onto the process of like outreach, right?
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of people struggle with this, it's what we're talking about.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_03: You guys, you know, you talk to clients, you talk to introducers, you generate business, you're doing well.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_03: That's a good thing.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_03: You know, people want to know and understand that.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_03: And we've got a lot of new people coming to the profession that don't know how to do that, actually.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_03: You know, maybe they don't even come from a sales background.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_03: You know, they don't even understand the terminologies of features and benefits, USPs, open, closed questions.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_03: They don't get it, right?
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_03: So when you pick an you look at an accountant or you look at a solicitor, let's look at the classic introducers.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_03: They've got pain points, right?
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_03: You can identify what those pain points are, or they've got problems, or they've got clients that have specific types of needs.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_03: Do you sort of build a a pr a sort of um uh do you define exactly what the pain points are for that business that you're trying to work with?
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_03: Have you built like a a bank in your head of the problems that they experience with clients or the things that might be problems to them as a business to push forward with?
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_03: Have you identified what those are and do you drop them into conversations?
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_03: Do you do you lead with something that's a problem, for example, because you know in the background you've got a solution to come over the top with?
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_03: You know, is there a sort of strategy for building that again, trust and the ability to show straight away that you are value ad because you've pinpointed something that you know every uh a solicitor will have an issue with?
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, from I think this comes with experience though.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um I wouldn't have known this from when I first started out, but like I said, if you understand their business, their processes, so an accountant, tax year end, absolute night nightmare for them, or if they've got uh limited companies when they're coming up to their tax year end, and like I said, with pensions, this is one of the pain points for an accountant for accountants that I found is that the clients are not always as organized as they should be, they'll do their tax return and then say to the client, if you pay this to a pension, you're gonna save this.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_00: All right, we need to get this done in a week.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you know, financial advisors like me and like Nathan and I, and other advisors not potentially are going to be able to do that always within a week or so.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's paperwork, you know, signatures, etc.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_00: But if you explain, well, actually, if we start to if you start to do this say one month before, and you have these ongoing problems with people paying into pensions, then we understand how how that how we can help with that.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_00: So why don't we do this process and then you refer them to us, and then we can complete everything before their tax year entity because that's just one example.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_00: But pensions seem to be a big thing for accountants, and when uh businesses are being sold for retirement and what they do with that money, and it's about trying to get maybe see them a year before they want to do so.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know what one of the things that I I used to knock on doors?
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_03: I was like 18, right?
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_03: And I knocked on doors selling windows, uh, selling charities.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_03: I was like one of those annoying people.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_03: But it taught me a lot.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_03: You knock on a lot of doors, right?
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_03: And uh you get a lot of knockbacks.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_03: But if you knock on a hundred doors, you make a hundred quid.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_03: That was like the deal back in the day.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_03: It was all commission-based, it was horrendous in the rain.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_03: But you know, it taught me about resilience and it taught me about activity and productivity.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_03: One of the things it taught me is keeping up with the Joneses.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's one of those classic things that salespeople or anybody need to incorporate into their pitch.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_03: So if you are talking about pensions or you are talking about end of tax year, and you are talking about the problems that people are experiencing, you should be talking about all those wonderful solutions that you've been solving for your mate round the corner.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_03: So, do you know John's um solicitor firm?
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I know John's solicitor firm.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_03: Great guy.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_03: I think he's a fantastic bloke.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_03: That these are some of the things that they come up against, some of the challenges, but these are some of the things that we've fixed for them.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_03: Do you come up with the same challenges?
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_03: Do you have the same problems?
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_03: I always remember the keeping up with the Joneses.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I I always like to talk about the things that I've done for others because I know damn well that the person I'm speaking to is also experiencing those same problems.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_03: And it's a fantastic tool to build trust.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_03: You're not lying because you are actually creating those solutions for other for other people, but it's like a mini kind of testimonial that you can give there and then.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_03: And if you can create it within 30 to 45 seconds, it's like ping, they're like, I want a bit of that, because naturally we want the BMW.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_03: If someone's got the BMW next door, they just got their windows double glazed, then.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_03: You know, Dave ran the corner.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we did the double glazing up week.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_03: Have you seen how fantastic it is?
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_03: Just looked at your looked at your windows, they're not as fantastic.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_03: And it's just classic.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I think those are the types of things that I think that when it comes to outreach and winning people and winning clients and winning relationships, simple little things like that work really, really well.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's like the elevator pitch as well.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_03: I've gotten really good at giving an elevator pitch of my services where I can literally within 60 seconds give somebody a pitch of exactly what it is I'm doing.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_03: And then I shut up and I say, How can I, how can I that's me, but what can I do for you?
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_03: Is there anything I can do to help you?
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_03: But within my pitch, within my elevator pitch, are all the all the A, the validation of the things that I do, but are entwined with what I've solved, the things that I've solved.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_03: And it's just, and you sit back, and I love what you said earlier about how can I help you?
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_03: You ask that open question.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_03: So how can I how can I work with you like I've worked with these guys?
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_03: Then you shut up.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_03: And then you just let them because that because you're business owners, right?
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_03: You come up against challenges every day, but we've all got our challenges, haven't we?
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_03: And all got our problems and all got our barriers and stopping us from pushing forward.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_03: And when you ask that question, you're kind of like, oh my god, somebody's asking me a question about me and how I am.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_03: And like, we we want to talk about it, we want to tell them our problems.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_03: I started the call by telling you my problem I've had this week, you know.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_03: That's the kind of way that we are, I think, business owners.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_03: So, um, do you do that?
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_03: Have you got a good solid elevator pitch, a good introduction?
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_03: Do you think that's a really worthwhile thing for somebody to do when they first start out?
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I do think the elevator pitch is important.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_01: And do you know what?
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_01: With the elevator pitch, it's something that consistently changes all the time.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_01: So when I first did the elevator pitch, I always thought, right, I've got it down, it's on a piece of paper, I'm gonna do this to every single person, memorized it, did that, and it was just so worried and so terrible.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, whoa, this is I hated it.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't do it for a bit, and realized Nate, everybody's different.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_01: Why are you talking like this to every single different person?
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly the same.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_01: You don't do that in life, you don't speak to your mom like that the same way you speak to Ryan, all that kind of stuff, you know.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_01: So it's completely different.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_01: So with the elevator pitch, one thing I definitely would say is make sure that you've got your points.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, as you say, you've got to have what makes you great, what have you solved, what are you looking at, how are you as a person, but be able to adapt that and have certain words just to change it for whoever's in front of you.
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_01: Is it the CEO of Lipack?
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_01: Is it financial planner, whoever it is, it doesn't matter.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_01: You can just change it and then that person's like, gosh, he's actually talking to me.
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, actually, now you said that, Nate.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it rather than me talking about all this stuff, and you think not one of those things that you you just mentioned four things, and I actually want that over there.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_01: So that's great, Nate.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, catch you later.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely hear what you were saying.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_03: It's about it's about matching the persona, isn't it?
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you've got to understand what the persona of the individual.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_03: Individual is you've got in front of you.
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_03: That client, you know, that segmentation, who am I targeting today?
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that comes down to like the niching as well, doesn't it?
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_03: People like to niche down on certain types of individuals.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_03: But if you understand that segment of who you're going out to, who you're going to be approaching, you're going to change your pitch or take change your approach to the to the right audience, basically.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_03: So don't go in there with the same thing over and over again because you're not going to talk to a teacher like you're going to talk to a doctor.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_03: You know, there's different problems that they experience in their lives, and the examples you're going to use need to be matching the persona of the individual you've got in front of you, right?
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_01: And another thing, just adding on to that as well, is try and make it different.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying this is where Rai will pull me down with the fairy tale, the creativity, but you know, there's how many financial advisors are there in the UK?
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_01: So if I come to you and meet you for the first time and say, Oh, I'm a financial advisor, oh, okay.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it doesn't make any it doesn't make you want to listen.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I I remember I went to um it was a talk, and it the guy was talking about the elevator pitch.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_01: And he came out and he said, Um, my name's Chris, and I fight pirates for a living.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_01: And everybody just went, What I just fully focused, fight pirates.
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_01: And Faky, what he did, he created like the the nets that go on the side of boats to stop literally pirates from actually going across.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_01: Really great guy.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_01: But that just got me thinking, actually, yeah, I'm not, and I'm not saying I'm gonna go out and say, hey, I fight pirates, I'm not saying that.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's about being different and not just saying, yeah, I'm I'm a financial advisor.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, the how many 30 odd thousand there is in the UK, 40 odd thousand.
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's about doing something which is different, but you know, keeping within that level.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_01: But I can see Ryan bubbling now already, thinking, where is he going with this?
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_03: If we talk about financial planners that are just starting out, okay, and winning new clients is a bit of a struggle.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_03: I think you've given some great examples of things that are quite simple that they can do, that they can get out there and start to win some new relationships.
• 1:08:01
  SPEAKER_03: But you've had your challenges as financial advisors running your own businesses.
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_03: So, in the first year, what do you think some of the challenges that you've come across come up against that you could kind of preempt the new advisors and what could they do to overcome them?
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's a really good question, actually, Sam, because the first year is probably the year where you think I'm gonna continue down this path or I'm gonna go and get a different job, like basically because it's hard, it's really hard.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I think if you're thinking about going on your own with no support, no real sort of experience, I would really think about either finding a mentor or working with a firm that can give you that support.
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think you can't put you can't put a value on the support that's given in that first year.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_00: It is it's a time saver and it makes you more efficient, you learn more.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's probably the best bit of advice I can give someone about starting out is getting getting a mentor, getting that support from someone, although okay, you might have to uh you might not have the amount of money you want to earn in that year because you'll be probably paying towards that kind of support, but it's the best thing that you can have.
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think otherwise, if you're going on your own, you might you might not even know how to go and get business.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you're not good on socials or you're not good at picking up the phone, you might have no idea how to generate business.
• 1:09:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's something that is vitally important to your to your your your own business when you're starting out.
• 1:09:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think and also just the take on on board in that in the first year get comfortable with rejection.
• 1:09:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, not everyone's gonna say yes, even though you want to be right.
• 1:09:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you've got to understand that clients have their own way of thinking and past experiences and things.
• 1:09:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd say get used to rejection as well because not everyone will agree with you, and that's fine, and it's just business.
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_03: Nathan, what do you think?
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Don't think take things personally.
• 1:10:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, one thing again, when in the industry you'll see people, new people join in and they'll have a meeting, or nobody wants to book in with them, and they they take it as if they are the problem, that it's because of them or the markets have gone down and they're taking it on board.
• 1:10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Don't take things personally, it's just relative to what's happening at that moment in time.
• 1:10:31
  SPEAKER_01: If you can understand that, then aim to solve and fix the solution.
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's the key, rather than just thinking, oh my gosh, I'm the problem and almost burying your head in the sand or not being transparent about what's going to be happening in the future.
• 1:10:45
  SPEAKER_01: Also, as well, um the the first year, if you can just think, you know what, I'm planning here, not for just next year.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_01: This is a three, four, five-year uh plan.
• 1:10:58
  SPEAKER_01: And if you think to yourself, I'm gonna plant these seeds now, you know, and you look at things and you think I'm gonna do that, that's gonna grow in two years, that's gonna grow in three years.
• 1:11:07
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually, going back to the evergreen piece, you're gonna have a forest, aren't you, in the future?
• 1:11:11
  SPEAKER_01: You like that?
• 1:11:12
  SPEAKER_01: I do like that.
• 1:11:12
  SPEAKER_01: You like that, don't you?
• 1:11:13
  SPEAKER_01: That creativity.
• 1:11:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you're gonna have a forest forest in the future.
• 1:11:16
  SPEAKER_01: So it's all about understanding RAM.
• 1:11:19
  SPEAKER_01: You're not gonna go out.
• 1:11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Some people go think, oh, I've got one client, it's gonna be amazing.
• 1:11:23
  SPEAKER_01: I just need to do that.
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's no, no, it's not, it's just about understanding.
• 1:11:27
  SPEAKER_01: There are so many people that need help, so many people that need help.
• 1:11:31
  SPEAKER_01: But if you just think, okay, it's not gonna be hitting everything straight away.
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_01: I've got to grow this, I've got to build this over a steady period of time.
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_01: It will you will come through all those, you know, those bumps in the road.
• 1:11:44
  SPEAKER_01: And also, again, just to go back, that training, that support, you have to have somebody that can or affirm that really genuinely give you that.
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because yeah, we we've had experiences where people have that they've been told they're gonna get support and they haven't, and all of these different things, and they only then find out they're doing something wrong when it actually goes wrong, and then all of a sudden you've got 50 people coming down on this one person.
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_01: So hang on, where were you 50 people before this to help me to stop me from getting there?
• 1:12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, if you can make sure you've got training and the mentors, that that's really key.
• 1:12:24
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot of people say, Oh, yeah, we'll train you, we'll do this, and don't actually follow up with that.
• 1:12:30
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to have someone who does it properly.
• 1:12:32
  SPEAKER_03: Love all that.
• 1:12:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, love it all.
• 1:12:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um, communities are so important for learning, development, and support, for sharing ideas.
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_03: And I think historically, financial planners, especially ones that have worked on their own, and I think we're gonna see a rise of uh solo advisors due to the fantastic technology and the ability to get yourself out there, work from home, and the ease of doing it.
• 1:12:53
  SPEAKER_03: And actually, solo financial advisors are some of the most profitable out there as well.
• 1:12:58
  SPEAKER_03: So I think we're gonna see a rise in the solo advisor and a rise in self-employed.
• 1:13:02
  SPEAKER_03: But I think what you do need if you're gonna go down that route is you're gonna need a network.
• 1:13:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and when we say a network, a network of support, um, people around you that really can sort of guide, mentor, answer those questions where you don't feel silly, because historically, financial planners have always been quite stiff up a lip.
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, British and so, I think, we're a bit stiff up a lip, you know, we don't want to ask for help.
• 1:13:21
  SPEAKER_03: But for some reason, financial planners have been overly prideful, um, whether or not that's because that's predominantly a male profession and predominantly males of a certain age are like that.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_03: Whereas I think nowadays we are a bit more open to asking for help, um, especially around things like your mental health, because your mental health can be affected when you're running a business.
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_03: You put yourself under a lot of pressure.
• 1:13:42
  SPEAKER_03: You talked about it there about hyper-focusing on the problem and not looking at the solution.
• 1:13:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's a hell of a lot easier to look at yourself and and and think, oh, you know, oh, I did that better.
• 1:13:51
  SPEAKER_03: What about this?
• 1:13:52
  SPEAKER_03: Or I can't do that because of this.
• 1:13:53
  SPEAKER_03: It's easier to think about a negative thing than it is to think about the solution, because the solution, you have a bit of work that goes into it to work it out.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_03: But that's where you should be putting your energy.
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_03: It's focusing in on that, focusing down on that solution.
• 1:14:05
  SPEAKER_03: And really, sometimes on your own thinking, you can't get there.
• 1:14:09
  SPEAKER_03: You need to turn to your left or your right, and you need to ask somebody for help.
• 1:14:12
  SPEAKER_03: And more often than not, that person goes, I'll definitely give you the answer because I know, or I'm gonna let or I'm gonna introduce you to somebody that can help you.
• 1:14:19
  SPEAKER_03: Because guess what?
• 1:14:19
  SPEAKER_03: We've all been there and we all want to know, we all want help now and then, don't we?
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_03: We all want to be helped, but you have to have the courage to ask for it.
• 1:14:26
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's a really good, important point is like surround yourself with people in those early stages that you can turn to that are gonna help you, because on your own thinking, it can take a long time and it can be quite lonely.
• 1:14:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and most people have experienced the problem as well, and they want to they want to help.
• 1:14:40
  SPEAKER_03: Just a little thing going on from Evergreen, because I love the name by the way.
• 1:14:43
  SPEAKER_03: Well done, chaps.
• 1:14:44
  SPEAKER_03: I love the name Evergreen.
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_03: Can I make a suggestion about something if you haven't done it already?
• 1:14:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um, because you're a clever pair, aren't you?
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_03: So um Evergreen is like a forest, right?
• 1:14:55
  SPEAKER_03: And you're growing your forests and you have to nurture your forest, don't you?
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you have to look after it.
• 1:15:03
  SPEAKER_03: When you offer a client a meeting, why don't you plant a tree for every meeting that you offer?
• 1:15:12
  SPEAKER_03: So there's a reason for them to come.
• 1:15:14
  SPEAKER_03: They have a meeting, even if they don't use your services, you plant a tree.
• 1:15:19
  SPEAKER_03: You're gonna plant that tree and you're gonna look after it and you're gonna nurture it.
• 1:15:23
  SPEAKER_03: And they're a bit like that.
• 1:15:25
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm gonna plant a tree for you now.
• 1:15:26
  SPEAKER_03: But whenever you want to come back, you're in our forest and we're nurturing and we're working on everything and we're creating the best um environment for you and all of that.
• 1:15:34
  SPEAKER_03: So sooner or later you can come back.
• 1:15:35
  SPEAKER_03: Your tree will be here just like you, and we'll look after you.
• 1:15:38
  SPEAKER_03: Or they do it, we plant a tree for you, and just like the you know, evergreen will nurture a tree for you, like we nurture your journey through financial planning.
• 1:15:47
  SPEAKER_03: And it's kind of correlating that to it, and then what you can then do is build a forest.
• 1:15:52
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm building a forest in my business.
• 1:15:55
  SPEAKER_03: So every deal that we do, every every employee that we take on, it's all about offsetting our carbon footprint.
• 1:16:00
  SPEAKER_03: Now, if you use someone like Ecology, they'll do that for you.
• 1:16:03
  SPEAKER_03: And what ecology then do is give you back all the work that they're doing in that forest, types of trees, where they're planted, how it's helping the community worldwide.
• 1:16:14
  SPEAKER_03: So we might be planting a forest in Africa, for instance, but what impact is that having on the local community?
• 1:16:20
  SPEAKER_03: And we might be there might be farming that goes on around it as well, so it's creating job opportunities and all of those typical things.
• 1:16:26
  SPEAKER_03: And I think what often gets overlooked in financial planning is that piece.
• 1:16:30
  SPEAKER_03: What are you doing that adds value to the world as a whole?
• 1:16:34
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and I think by doing that, it's a USP, it links in with your tree, with your evergreen, with nurturing, looking after, and you're building a forest.
• 1:16:42
  SPEAKER_03: And guess what?
• 1:16:43
  SPEAKER_03: It's something to talk about.
• 1:16:44
  SPEAKER_03: It's something to talk about because ecology then give you back loads of content about all the good work they're doing, and you can brand that up and put it out, and it shows that giving backside to you as a business.
• 1:16:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I just thought I thought that, thought evergreen, and thought if you're not doing that already, you should definitely do it.
• 1:17:00
  SPEAKER_01: No, thank you.
• 1:17:01
  SPEAKER_01: That I love that.
• 1:17:02
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 1:17:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:17:03
  SPEAKER_01: Ryan was costing that up as you were speaking there, spreadsheets going.
• 1:17:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's how much is this gonna cost?
• 1:17:08
  SPEAKER_01: No, but yeah, that's that's a that's a wonderful idea.
• 1:17:12
  SPEAKER_01: And we always try and look at how can we give back?
• 1:17:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's really important, you know.
• 1:17:17
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes you can just be focused on giving back and think, oh, we have to do this, we have to do this charity walk.
• 1:17:22
  SPEAKER_01: However, how great is that?
• 1:17:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you're planting a tree, you're making the planet a better place, not just now, but for the future, and you're leaving that legacy as well.
• 1:17:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's so much stuff going on now, which is beautiful.
• 1:17:33
  SPEAKER_03: And they're around for a long time, trees, aren't they?
• 1:17:35
  SPEAKER_03: And like family and entwine that into the family tree and all of that kind of stuff.
• 1:17:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's a really simple, effective way to build that kind of okay, I will sit down with you.
• 1:17:43
  SPEAKER_03: That's a really lovely thing to do.
• 1:17:44
  SPEAKER_03: But you can tie that into introducers, you can tie it into every you know, taking on employees.
• 1:17:48
  SPEAKER_03: It's a really beautiful way of doing it.
• 1:17:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um, we went through the B Corp process, which is a really great way to put a micro, you know, microphone, great way to put like a microscope over your business to see what you're doing.
• 1:17:57
  SPEAKER_03: Um so we're now B Corp.
• 1:17:59
  SPEAKER_03: But again, a process like that, I think we need more B Corps within the financial planning profession.
• 1:18:03
  SPEAKER_03: Um so if you're interested in going through B Corp, there's a guy who took us through the process.
• 1:18:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I can introduce you to him and you go through it in like a cohort because it's really hard to go through the process.
• 1:18:12
  SPEAKER_03: It takes like 12 months, but when you go through the cohort, you're with other businesses, and then together you're going through the application stage.
• 1:18:19
  SPEAKER_03: So things that they're doing as examples of how they're evidencing that they should be a B Corp.
• 1:18:23
  SPEAKER_03: You learn from that in case you haven't got one.
• 1:18:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and then 12 months later, you're B Corp.
• 1:18:27
  SPEAKER_03: And then B Corp is a fantastic thing to promote as well.
• 1:18:29
  SPEAKER_03: And people like to work for a B Corp.
• 1:18:31
  SPEAKER_03: And when you're talking about your clients and you're talking about ethical and positive impact investing, their children's future, the state of the planet, I think people care about that stuff at the moment.
• 1:18:39
  SPEAKER_03: So I think it's a really great thing to intertwine into a business and it's great for brand, and I think it's great for marketing opportunities also, and it's great for culture, and it's great for talent attraction.
• 1:18:47
  SPEAKER_03: So tick, tick, tick, tick, tick on all those fronts, really.
• 1:18:50
  SPEAKER_03: Chaps, it's been absolutely wonderful talking to you both.
• 1:18:52
  SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm really looking forward to seeing your journey over the next few years, seeing where it's gonna take you and how you're gonna grow.
• 1:18:59
  SPEAKER_03: Because, you know, it's hard in the beginning, isn't it?
• 1:19:01
  SPEAKER_03: It's tough, it's tiring, it's exhausting, but you guys are definitely two people that have come together that I think are going to create an amazing business.
• 1:19:08
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm really, really looking forward to seeing your journey, seeing where it goes, and hopefully helping you along the way as well when you need me.
• 1:19:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 1:19:18
  SPEAKER_01: Really appreciate that.
• 1:19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks a lot.
• 1:19:20
  SPEAKER_03: No worries.
• 1:19:20
  SPEAKER_03: Chase traps.