Latest / Financial Planner Life Podcast / More Women are Needed in Wealth Management – Female Financial Planners Unite!

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More Women are Needed in Wealth Management – Female Financial Planners Unite! · Financial Planner Life Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hello everyone.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: In this week's episode of the Financial Planner Live Podcast, I'm joined by Samantha Seacum, who is a chartered fellow financial planner and director of Women's Wealth.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: In this episode, we take a deep dive into everything from a female perspective.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: On one side, how Samantha has created a financial planning firm that has an approach centered for women.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: And on the other half, how Sam has used her groundbreaking research to create a working environment that is attractive for women to work in.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: We also touch on Samantha's upcoming academy and what that entails.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: And this is an excellent episode for everyone that's passionate about preaching female financial planners within the industry.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Hello everyone.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: So, Sam, how are you doing?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm okay.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, indeed.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Good.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: So it's the first question I ask everyone when we kick off the podcast.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Can you tell me a little bit about your career journey today and how you've got to the point you're at now?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know what?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Having been in financial services for 30 years, I'm gonna skip quite a lot of it.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I still could be here all day.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, 30 years experience.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I started because back in the 80s, I got a divorce and I was also working for my husband.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: So the it all went wrong.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like I didn't have a job either.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: So like I had two boys to raise and I needed some good income and flexible working.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And this was before flexible working was a thing, you know, for women.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: So um, this was the late 80s, and general accident were hiring mortgage advisors at GA property services.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I joined them and trained to be a mortgage advisor.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the beauty of it was I could take my boys to school in the morning, drop them off, go into the estate agents for a couple of hours, work with the team in there to increase my referrals, and then I would go to um people's houses in the evening, having got a babysitter in to sort of do tea and bed with the boys.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I would do my appointments in the evening, and of course, because they were mortgage clients, they're working-age people, and they loved the idea that they could have a meeting out of hours.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: So it was that flexibility.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I quickly worked out that I didn't want to be representing an insurance company selling endowment policies.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: That kind of like dawned on me within a year or so.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, you know, I want to be one of those IFAs.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that seems the route to go.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So um I started to get my qualifications, but you know, God bless the insurance companies that used to train shed loads of salespeople and set them on the road to financial services roles because I don't think we have that now.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's uh that's a route in that doesn't really exist anymore, does it?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, so I'm one of those old-fashioned insurance salespeople that that turned IFA.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I do love being an IFA, and I very quickly went into the professional services side of things.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: The the transition was a broker consultant with Legal and General, and then um I trained with a firm called Tufton and Farmer, and eventually I became a director there.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: They were an accountancy-owned IFA practice, so that's kind of my bread and butter since really.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the company that um I eventually ended up owning and running was uh it was is called Pentins, and that's now run by my son.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh my son, who's 36, he followed me into the profession.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he has um, he's one of the only people I know who left school knowing he wanted to be an IFA and took a degree um at uh it was a banking and finance, that's was as close as he could get, and he did his CFP exams in the holidays and you know, and and he's now chartered and and runs the family business, um, which has released me to launch Women's Wealth.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: So in 2019, I decided I wanted to make a difference to um financial planning in terms of it being an attractive career for women, uh, because the flexibility, the rewarding kind of relationship building that is just a natural part of the job, is so attractive to women, and I think it's really overlooked.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in fact, financial planning isn't that well known as a career anyway, is it?
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And uh these these particular elements of it, which make it really attractive as an option for women, are even less known.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm kind of like I'm banging the drum for that.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: My ambition, the big title for women's wealth is we're trying to democratize unbiased financial advice for women, both as investors and as financial planners.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the mission.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um COVID really played into our hands because when I first launched the business, every intention was to keep it virtual, um, which was a big learning curve, had to learn to, you know, launch and run a virtual team.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: But it did mean, and this was pre-COVID, and my clients early on in women's wealth, they said to me, What's Zoom?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And they don't ask that anymore.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: They really don't ask that anymore.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, COVID kind of one of the biggest pushbacks I got when I was talking to people about women's wealth and my plans for it was that I wouldn't be able to build the professional relationships screen to screen that I was able to build face-to-face.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Tosh, absolute rubbish.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, turns out that that's not true.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I do think that everybody kind of getting much more familiar with screen-to-screen technology during COVID really made a big difference to that barrier.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, not that I was ready to accept it as a barrier anyway, but it just got knocked down.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I felt like we had the wind in our sails, you know, in in terms of using technology to build those relationships.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, when I think about my old-fashioned mortgage days that I was talking about, knocking on people's door, I used to take a flashlight with me because no sat nav.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Street lighting wasn't what it used to be.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: I said I'm not that old, really, but I used to have a flashlight that used to shine on the doors to try and find the numbers, and I'd be going into these strangers' houses in the dark late at night, you know, on my own.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And when I think about that, I think I never really was aware of there.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, a couple of times I thought, oh, I don't like it here, um, and left.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, these there's just no need to put yourself at that level of risk anymore, nor waste all that time driving and traveling around.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and of course, it removes the geographical boundaries as well, you know, this kind of virtual um relationship with clients.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, so that's what woman's wealth is.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: We're democratising independent financial advice for investors and planners, and it's how I'm gonna spend the last decade of my career trying to make a difference.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And my son's running the other business.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: I feel so blessed that I've got that opportunity, really, because I think without that, it would make it hard to be doing what I'm doing.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And he does frequently, because like we've bootstrapped women's wealth.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: It started off being a trading style of the other business, it only got its own bank account in April 2019, and now um, you know, now we're we're kind of growing it.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: We'll it's a sort of a lean startup situation where we're funding it ourselves.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: So Ollie often says to me, I'll make it, mother.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: You go and spend it.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because women's wealth has been quite an investment over the last couple of years.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it is happening, it is working out.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a new generation company.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it and it's really exciting.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I know the plans that you have for the future, which we'll we'll touch on later.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: But I think if we go all the way back to the beginning when you were, you know, running the business before you said you wanted to make a difference, which was why women's wealth came about.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Was there any particular instances that prompted this?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Anything particular that you'd experience, you know, what really pushed you to want to make this difference and make women's wealth happen?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think there were several things.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: I was um uh I was well aware that when um I met couples, that it became more and more obvious.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's obvious to anyone who works with couples that men and women think quite differently about money.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that actually um it's not always the man who takes the lead either.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Often I would meet couples and what the woman was definitely in charge of the money, um, and and the gentleman very happy for that to be the case, you know.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then sometimes it was the other way around.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: So in couples, you'd have one person leading.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: But whenever I asked the question, you know, what does what does wealthy look like?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the man would generally answer, and it wouldn't matter whether he was in charge of the finances or not, you know, in the relationship, but he would generally answer with status symbols.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: It would be, it would have sails or wheels or or or some sort, you know.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and she would always want the kids all in their own homes, education paid for, and for everything for to be certain that nothing was ever going to be worse than it was today.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's like, you know, so, and then if you could get all that sort of nailed down, she would then start to talk about ambitions, maybe there is a holiday home somewhere or um traveling, or so it was always this security thing versus this like growth and status outlook.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that's massive.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the other thing is I noticed that when when a man would come into the office and I would sit down to advise him, he would say, Let me tell you what I want.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And when a woman came in and sat down, she would say, I feel so stupid.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I should know more.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Will you please tell me what I need to know?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: So there they come at it from a point of view of wanting to learn and be empowered, whereas men tend to already own what they want out of their finances and be a lot more directional in terms of.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: So these are very, very different approaches.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I kind of wanted to make sure that we were, we had a brand that you know made it attractive for women to come and learn, be empowered.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they didn't have to know already how to do this to go and give uh a financial advisor's directions about how to run their portfolio.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: They could come and talk to us and we could co-create.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: We we often use the term, we co-create plans with our clients.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and they're much more likely to follow it if they've co-created it than if somebody said, do it this way because I said so and I'm the expert.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that only applies to women.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think you know, we could all learn a lot from that anyway, but women very, very definitely feel um that they are.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: We I often find that I'm the first thing we've got to do is lift the blanket of shame.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: People turn up and they're like, I should know more.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't I know more?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: How could I miss the lessons on this?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, um, and it's not not fair really, because it's not taught in schools.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a lot of the information that we do get access to uh about finances is from people with a vested interest in making us do or think or feel a certain way.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because they weren't trying to sell us something.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: They're trying to, you know, design a problem we haven't got so as they can give us a solution we don't need.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, so like you can't really it I had a client who had once said to me, and I love it, I always use it.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: She said, I I Googled ISIS, and it's like trying to take a sip of water from a fire hose.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like the amount of information that came back to her.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing is that I was meeting women, I was meeting lots of clients in their 60s and thinking, especially the women, if I'd known you 20 years ago, you would be so much better off.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And um, then I thought, well, how can I make financial planning accessible to women 20 years earlier, so in their 30s and 40s?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: How can I make it attractive and accessible?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that it doesn't strike me as you know useful that they that clients have got the impression they already need to be wealthy before they can approach an advisor.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, who's helping them create the wealth?
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to be in that space.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's that's what we've done.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: We've set up a subscription-based business so that it is accessible to those who aren't already wealthy and it is attractive to women because we're very careful about the language we use and to make it a place where they can come and learn, build their confidence and be empowered by information.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas I think sometimes advisors' practices can be a bit intimidating and it can feel a little bit like you're disempowered, like there's so much information.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you have to leave it to the expert because nobody really gave you enough information to understand why you've ended up in this thing on that platform.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's it is much more about the co-creation of plans.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's very interesting that you said then, like someone saying, like, have I missed that lesson?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because the front end of it is unfortunately, you know, with the education system and the way that it is, none of us really get these lessons.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's all about when you, as you mentioned then, you know, when you approach a financial advisor or a financial planner and you have those meetings with them, it's, you know, just as much about education as it is about um, you know, providing them with that advice, you know, removing not that that blanket level of shame, but also just like teaching them the basics.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: And we touched on this before, you know, a lot of what you do, you provide financial advice to your clients, but it's also about empowering them.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: I love that word co-create.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just pure advice, it's also the empowerment for them to make better financial decisions themselves.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think one of the things, one of the obvious examples of it is that, you know, when a client tells us that they they're a member of an auto-enrollment pension scheme, and you say, Okay, so what's it invested in?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: They rarely actually know the answer.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you know, just helping them log on, find the bit which says what they're invested in, having a look at that, and then being being able to download a report, so many of them have not even engaged with their auto-enrollment pension scheme.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what I mean?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just like these like little things where you can actually put people in touch with information that is available to them that they've just never bothered accessing.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it all seemed a bit boring and dull, and they couldn't understand why.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: And if you then say to them, well, actually, it's going to be the biggest asset you ever own in your lifetime.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to keep an eye on it, we need to make sure it's serving you well.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, oh gosh, better log on then.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we can overestimate uh um, you know, the the technicalities of what we do and the importance of you know, of getting this projection about your long-term care needs and your um inheritance tax sorted out.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: We need to get people with an emergency fund in the right auto enrollment um fund in their schemes um and just in their first ISIS.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's you know, that's where we are.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: And my mission really is to introduce early stage planners to early stage clients and let them grow up together.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: That you know, I know that there are lots of people out there with enough wealth to be concerned about inheritance tax and and you know, and and multi-million pound estates where they they they're losing their residential nil rate bands and things like that.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I know all of that, but that's not where the clients we meet are, they're in the accumulation stage of their journey.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: So it puts a bit of a different focus on what we're doing, and as you say, it's basic level education a lot of the time.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I wish I wish we learnt it in schools.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: I wish we did.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's I think it's fundamental.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: How do we end up leaving school and then making up how to use money as we go along when it's so important?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the amount of um wealth you you create during your lifetime, it literally affects your health, your opportunities, you know, your mental health, the opportunities for your family and your children.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: It affects everything.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's such a fundamental necessity in our lives, and yet we leave school knowing nothing about how to utilize it.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really interesting.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: I was watching this, and this debate keeps coming up time and time again.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: When I speak on this podcast, I speak about it all uh often, but I remember um two weeks ago, I was um in Dublin for a wedding, and the next morning we were watching just the telly, and it was this this morning, and they were talking about um Rishi Sunak wanting to um implement the I think the English bachelorette, which will mean that people will study maths till they're 18 years old alongside other subjects, um, which is, you know, I guess there's reasons why, you know, people want to implement that.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: But once you're in those latter stages of maths, for example, you're learning advanced calculus or how to answer all these equations, which really in your day-to-day life, I don't use the the maths that I used at GCSE.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: And they brought up the point of, you know, it's it's well and good if you want to do this, but why are we not giving you know people basic knowledges of you know their pensions, you know, mortgages, taxes, things like that, which are realistically going to affect them in their lifetime, what advanced calculus they learn when they're 18 probably isn't.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it's funny that you mention the auto enrollment pension, because I'm at that age where, you know, I think a lot of my social group around me will begin accessing financial advice because they're at that level.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: And we had um a meeting as a company about our pensions, and we work within financial planning as an extension of the profession, and we didn't know, you know, where our pension is invested, what that means to us.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: And afterwards, we all as an office felt so empowered.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: We were all logging in, you know, looking at the risk portfolios, you know, we're all pretty much under 30.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like, do we need to be at a low risk?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the majority of us were, and it's that that basic knowledge.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're speaking with people that are like, you know, starting their financial career, do you think then that um that that empowerment is just as important as the advice?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: And do you think that other approaches lack that within the profession?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I do.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think that's because a lot of financial um advice firms are still focused on.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's nothing wrong with this, don't misunderstand me.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: My my my other business, Penn Tins, is very much ad valorum charging, so percentage-based charging.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's a lot of um baby boomer clients with fairly serious chunks of assets that they're trying to make last their lifetime.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing wrong with that business model, but it's an assets under management business model.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it excludes people who don't have half a million pounds to invest.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, it kind of doesn't work for somebody who's not already wealthy.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to speak to people who are creating their wealth and may not already have it, and that's I think that's the difference, really, is that you end up with this exclusive service where you already have to be wealthy, or you and and anybody who hasn't got the money to qualify to be in that club is then left trying to work it out for them for themselves on robo advice sites.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing wrong with robo advice sites either, except that human beings don't want to press a button until they've spoken to another human being, and that's you know, I if you look at the data from some of the robo advice companies, they they offer this ability where you can go and play with a portfolio.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: You don't actually have to invest money, you can pretend you invested it, and then you can keep an eye on it and see what it would have done if you had invested it.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: And they've got hundreds, thousands of people in these flipping portfolios who have never actually pressed the button and put any money in because they're too scared to.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I meet women who arrive at Women's Wealth and say, Oh, I've had this pretend portfolio on nutmeg for a couple of years, but I'm too scared to do it.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: I just like, you know, I just don't really understand it.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so they they need that person-to-person experience.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing, and RoboAdvice will never manage it, and I don't think that um it's part of managing an already established portfolio in the decumulation stage, but there's a big behavioural piece which I liken to my slimming world journey.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't got into my bloody 50s, long into my 50s, without knowing what a balanced diet looks like.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: But the reason I go to the slimming world is because I get seduced by the short-term joy of a cream tea and forget that I want to be a size 12 and healthy for the rest of my life.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: So these kind of short-term things win out over my long term ambition.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Fortunately, I'm not like that with money, but lots of people are.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: And if we can help them to kind of, you know, keep their long term visions and goals in mind and keep the relevance of those important enough to compete with the short term joy.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Of like spending on a new thing, new shiny thing, or you know, upgrading the holiday because you can.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: And will it really matter if you whip two grand out of your savings account?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's that sort of thing.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Can we can we promote long-term thinking and vision so that it has a bit more of a kind of impact when you're making short-term decisions, which don't always favor your long-term plan?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it's about that, really.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I don't know that that's always, you know, we do when you're looking after a portfolio for somebody who's already wealthy, that you do have to kind of compete long-term and short-term with them because you don't want them taking too much out too soon, or they might run out.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: But that's it's a different um psychology around the money journey than it is when you're working with people in the accumulation stage.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and as you say, risk for young people looks different to risk for mature people.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it is you know, it's different.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: We're served the the age group that we're serving is different.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think the fact that we're focused on females means we use different language.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: I hate the idea that women are risk averse, they're not.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: They they're they're risk aware.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and they do like to they leak they like to deal with security issues first.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but once you once you've done that, women are just as ambitious as men.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and they're often a lot more, um, and strangely enough, they're they trade less than men.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's so they're much more kind of sure and long-term about their thinking, which makes them really great investors.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I think there's a lot going um for the natural abilities that make women really good at long-term investing.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the other thing that I really noticed, different for women and men, um, is that 80% of the women in women's wealth invest with a socially responsible screen.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: Oh wow.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: We're not, I mean, we're not a specialist ESG company.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: We we we are very much IFAs and we serve our clients.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's what they want, um, is what you know, is what they get.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: So we but we ask the questions and we ask the questions the same way in women's wealth as we do in Pentins, but a very different proportion of the um you know younger and female client base um invest in socially responsibly screened investments.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: So really interesting.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: Can you make any conclusions on why you think?
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: I guess as you said, like you present the options in front of people and they choose what they want to do.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: But can you come to any conclusions on why you think this demographic is opting for these?
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what I think it's the I think um it's I have to generalize to answer that question.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and a lot of what I do um seems to be, you know, super generalizations.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so with excusing that for the moment, I do think that um it's it is that security thing.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, there's no point in being rich if we haven't got a planet to live on.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm not willing to do that at um, you know, at by exploiting other human beings.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so they kind of they've got this like nurturing, collaborative security um aspect that they they want settled first.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so they kind of come at the same way as they do about risking their portfolios.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I need to know we'll never be worse off than we are now, and that the kids have got their we we know how we're gonna get them through um education and uh um get them housed and things, and then we can get ambitious.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same thing.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: As long as we're not exploiting other people or damaging the planet, let's go for it.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it's that it's that same thing, really.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um really interesting.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: I I didn't I didn't realize that as part of woman's wealth, and that was the trend that you were seeing within your well, I didn't know it was going to show up, but it certainly has.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: It makes it makes me proud, to be fair, that that people are choosing to put their money in.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it's funny because I guess I'm uh I'm a woman, I guess I fit in that generalization of the the category of people that are accumulating their wealth, and I resonate with that.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think if I had a portfolio put in front of me and there was more socially responsible investments in comparison to others, I would probably choose those for the very reasons um that you mentioned.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I you touched on earlier on that you know your approach is different with women.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: You use slightly different language to how you do with men.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um aside from the language element, is there different parts of your approach and your focus that are different, for example, in the other business?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: Or generally, if you think that you were speaking to uh, I guess more women, men alongside women?
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think again, you know, um you get alpha and beta personalities, and they don't necessarily divide by gender.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you can get alpha women and you can get beta women, you can get alpha men, you can get beta men.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I think you know, you have to kind of work with your clients as individuals.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think that approaching women with, you know, the kind of empowerment language and being prepared to help them level up their knowledge, I don't know that men would be attracted by that so much.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, men actually would would I I again generalizing, but I think they would they would be inclined to feel a bit like they should know, so they're going to make out they do.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, they they would they would present confidently.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and even if they didn't understand it, they might not be as ready to say, I don't understand, will you teach me?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that's that's the difference, really.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's very much more, you know, educational empowerment rather than advice and guidance, you know, because the advice and and yet that our career, our careers, all our careers, we're told, you know, what you advise and recommend.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we try not to to make that the focus of how it works out in women's wealth.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so that's that's the difference, really.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: We don't tell them because we're the expert that this is how they should do their money, you know, this kind of like very directional approach.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, for regulatory reasons, there is a suitability report which says why we advise and recommend what we do.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: But we're very clear with the um ladies in Women's Wealth, the clients in Women's Wealth, because they're not all ladies, some some are the husbands of and the brothers of and the sons of.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we're we're very clear about the journey we've taken and how we've landed where we have, and that between us, we've agreed that this is going to be the best outcome for them.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: But it's still that between us, we've agreed.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's the co-creation element of it again.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think that word level up, I think is is so nice because I'm really passionate about how money can influence all different areas of your life.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, money makes the world go round.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: We use money day in, day out.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, try and spend a week without your debit card and see how you get on.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that word level up, I think is so powerful because the advice, advice and the guidance that you provide allows you to level up your whole life because it allows you to feel more secure and feel more confident about your future, potentially do things that you thought you weren't able to do, you know, ease concerns because we all know worrying about money is probably one of the most detrimental things that you can worry about.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: I love that word level up because I feel like once you feel at ease with your finances, you can feel at ease with so many other elements of your life and feel so confident with that.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think goes back to that subscription piece because I think that naturally does having um a wealth management firm or a financial planning company that's based on a subscription model, um, does naturally make the advice more accessible.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Is that sort of the reason why you look to bring that in place?
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah, absolutely.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's we call it gym membership for your finances, you know.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it is we you do need to keep your finances fit.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: You need to, they need to work out, they need to grow, they need to last.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: So it's all the reasons that you generally go to the gym, you need to apply to your finances.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, if you walk into a gym and try and work out how to use some of the equipment and you've never been there before, it's going to look alien, you're going to feel intimidated, you know.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: And and the other thing is that if you if you've ever done any training or working out, having training partners, having accountability, it's all hugely important to actually getting the job done and making a long-term difference.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it's all part of that.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: So we the subscription, and you know, millennials love subscriptions.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, tell me if I'm wrong.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: But like the we we tend to these days, um, I mean, even me and my my I'm not a millennial, but I wish.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I I pay for everything on subscription.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: Even my flipping makeup comes like in a monthly subscription.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: I can't be bothered to go to the shop and choose it anymore.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it's that's how it is.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: All my streaming, all my my music.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the idea of clutching up my shelves with CDs and DVDs, long gone.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: So it's that is that's how we do it now, isn't it?
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: We kind of we pay a subscription and we get our services.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: And what's more, we don't necessarily want them in paper or CDs or you know, we want to we want it streamed, we want uh our records kept in some nice little app somewhere where we know where they all are, we want to communicate easily and readily on the go through our phones.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if we want to have a chat with our advisor one-to-one about something serious, we get sit down and we get our laptops out and we do it screen to screen, you know, like it's kind of we don't need the older um physical manifestations of it.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: So it's this subscription basis, it's keeping it all virtual, keeping it short, sweet, and easy to access as well.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: So our clients have a link to our diaries.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so although, of course, we we do regular reviews, we have dates when we proactively go to them because it's, I don't know, it's the end of their trading year, it's the end of the tax year, it's their annual review time.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: But they also have a link to our diaries.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: So if they need a 20-minute chat with us, they can just pick a spot in the diary and we're there to have a chat.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's really valued by them, that they don't have to, you know, make an appointment three weeks in advance and then try and find a parking space in the middle of town.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it's all of that.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like I'll drop a link in Sam's diary, I can have a chat with her because I don't know whether to do, I don't know whether to go with the company car thing or the or the fuel allowance thing, you know, um, which one should I do?
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's about that.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's about just being accessible, available, the way people want to talk to you these days.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we do this fixed fee arrangement thing as well, which is really important to the ethos and the culture that we're building.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: This business is not about assets under management.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, one of the platforms um who are very nice to us, big supporter, said to us, like, what's what are the AUMs for women's work?
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: What's the AUM?
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, don't it's not a metric I measure.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, What do you mean you don't measure AUM?
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like they couldn't believe it.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Well, no, I measure sub subscribers and arrangements, policy arrangements, because that's how we get paid.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: So we do this fixed fee.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't care whether a policy is a tiddler or a whopper.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we just don't mind because we earn the same.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, so we£500 per policy.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: Normally, a client that you're onboarding will need a couple of policies.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: They're probably going to need 10 during their lifetime.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and if they're paying, we've got two levels of subscription, and it's not about the service, it's about the level of um technical capability you need in your advisor.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: So£65 a month if you're earning under£100,000 a year.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's simply because the tax regime gets a bit tricky once you're over that£100,000 a year.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you're going to need somebody with a greater level of expertise.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you the subscription goes up once people are earning more, they've got bigger lumps of money that need investing because they might then need to be introduced to things like VCTs if they've maxed out their pensions and things.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: So that all gets a bit more complicated.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: But we have a whole range of people who just really want basic level advice.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and and so we've got these two levels of subscription.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: The technical capability of your advisors is matched to where, you know, which level that you uh you fall into.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we charge arrangement fees per product as you need them.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: That means that they end up with a product that has got absolutely nothing being taken out of it to cover advisor fees, they pay all their fees to us directly.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's crazy because it sounds so progressive because it's so different to what you hear other financial panel firms doing.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: But then when you talk about as you mentioned, like everything is on a subscription basis, it seems like everyone else is just quite outdated.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and I think it it's I think what is most powerful is making financial advice accessible to people that are simulating well, not just at the position where like I'm coming to 50,000 pounds and I don't know what I'm gonna do with it.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: Because at that at that point, you obviously need advice.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: But even when I go back to telling friends and people what I do, they always think that it's really far out.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: When it's it's not, it's things that they should be able to have access to as well.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we pay so many subscriptions a month, may it be our TV streaming, our gym membership, our music, you know, financing our cars.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: When you look at it in that perspective and what people's key motivations are and what they really value, if you want to be in a position where you're financially stable, why don't you get rid of, you know, you know, one of the a couple of the five TV streaming services that you pay for and focus on those things that really matter to you.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's so valuable having that subscription basis to just allow different people, different um at different stages of their lifetime to be able to access and speak to someone that has the knowledge and empower them rather than people, as we said at the beginning, just muddling through for years because they don't know what to do.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then they they might get them them itself into positions where they are unfortunately quite unfavorable.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I think um it's really impressive what women's wealth um are doing in that side of things.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think another side of women's wealth that I am really impressed by is not just how you speak to your clients and how you deal with your clients and that element of the business.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually how you have made women's wealth somewhere which is really favourable for women to work as well.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I know that goes back to your research and what you've done yourself, but do you mind elaborating on that side of women's wealth in a little bit more detail for you?
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it was very important to me that I actually worked out how to scale up a business and went and got the qualifications necessary to be able to do that effectively.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I went and did my MBA.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then part of that was a dissertation.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, right, I'm because woman's wealth was the I used woman's wealth in every module of my MBA.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: It got it got poked and prodded from every direction, from operations to marketing to strategic advantage, everything.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: Woman's wealth was my project that I took all the way through every module of that, and it was part of my dissertation as well.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, I want to know why only 16% of the advice community is female.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: I want to know why that's happening.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: I want to know why all these other women who are qualified enough to be advisors, so they've got diploma regulated financial planning and more.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them are chartered and advanced qualified, but they haven't got an SPS.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: So they're not practicing as advisors.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to talk to those women and say, why not?
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: Do you not want the job?
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: Or are there barriers for you know for you progressing or taking those roles?
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it turned out that um women they would like to be advisors, um, they love the idea of advising clients, but they're not willing to become more like men in order to do it.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that seemed to be the requirement of our profession.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they uh, you know, the if I know a really, really well-respected B Corp IFA practice that I love, I'm not going to name them, but I love them.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: I love everything they do.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: And they said to me, Sam, the way we do recruiting, because I was going around asking everybody how do you, but the way we do recruiting is we we got somebody in to help us build an avatar of an ideal advisor.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we built that avatar of an ideal advisor by talking to all the people that were really good at being advisors and building up this profile and all the rest of it.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so we've even called him Rob because interestingly enough, we've got three Robs in the business.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, can't you see the problem there?
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what I mean?
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: If you keep building the future based on the past, you're going to end up with Robs everywhere.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: So and that and that's what I wanted to do.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to kind of look at how do you build the advisor of the future so that it serves the clients of the future.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because if we keep recreating the kind of, I don't know, 1990s pinstriped escort driving, mobile phone um shouting uh insurance salesman, then we are not going to be serving the clients of the future.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's the deal, really, isn't it?
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I did this piece of research which talked to the women who would be advisors if it looked slightly different about how it needed to look.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: They wanted collaboration, they didn't want to compete with their colleagues.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: They were ambitious for themselves, but they wanted to be a better version of themselves year on year, not better than everybody else.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: That was the deal.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: And Women's Wealth is very much about that.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's a supportive community to help women thrive, running their own businesses, which will be as big as they want them to be, and as profitable as they want them to be.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: We all know that you can squeeze more and more profit out of a commercial situation by making it less and less attractive to work in and just on the edge of promise everything to the client and deliver just what you need to to get away with it.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we could we all know businesses that run like that, but do you want to work there?
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to run that business?
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: Or would you actually rather share some of the profitability with your clients and with your staff so that actually it's a really nice place to work and you feel really proud of what you've created?
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, there is this kind of element of competition that will drive the joy out of your work and make the place you work awful.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you let competition just be the only thing, and money and profitability just to be the guides to where you're going to take a business.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it's about creating a space where women can grow the businesses they want to run, work in the businesses that they want to create and be the best versions of themselves going forward.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and if you can provide that for women, then they want to be advisors.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: They really do want to be advisors, but they don't want shop shop.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing is women though, the disadvantage that women suffer in the workplace are um that when you talk about flexible working, I guess it's it's diluted a little bit since COVID, but when you talk about flexible working, it's seen as a concession for mothers, you know.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so the minute somebody wants to do flexible working, even if they're a man, it's kind of oh okay, we've got another part-timer.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no, not less hours, just different hours.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's kind of like so.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: There's this, I don't know, stigma, um, bias uh that still exists in workplaces.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so lots of women are um benefiting from being, and what happened was these were the women who are benefiting from flexible working, not having to show up in offices, because FaceTime in offices gets you promoted, you know the right people, you build the right vertical networks, and you you know, you're on the promotion ladder.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't show up, you don't get that opportunity.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're working from home flexibly, you're not in the same team, as it were, for um for getting the promotions.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: So these women were becoming power planners, and they were becoming power planners, not because they wouldn't laugh and really be good at the client-facing role, but because the power planning businesses were offering them work from home, their pay was based on output, not hours worked.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: So that you write the report and we'll pay you your fee.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: And they had these platforms where they could meet advisors.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: So businesses are managing a platform, introducing, you know, these self employed.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Or work from home, or even employed women mainly to financial advisors, but men mainly.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: And they were doing all this backup work through these platforms because it offered them the flexibility.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: The pay structures were clear, paid on output, not input.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't have to commute anywhere.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: And they weren't having to compete with anybody.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: They just had to be experienced and good and qualified.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I was thinking there must be things we can replicate there, uh, where there's really clear career path, you know, take that exam, get that experience, have that job, this is what it pays, you know, kind of like really clear guidance on how you progress.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to compete with other people, you just work out what you want for yourself and build that.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we're our community doing that.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, uh it's not the working with women, I think.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the working with women clients that is the big part of it.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's the working in a female accepting female first environment where the things that we need to support our careers are not considered a concession.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: They're considered normal.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: First things first, I'll say I was reading some of your, because it's published by the CII.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: We can link it down below that people that are interested in hearing a bit more, reading a bit more can read into it.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it was so interesting.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: This is why I'm going to break the third wall of the podcast and bring notes, which I've never done before, which is really exciting.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: So um, these are a couple of quotes from your thing that I pulled out this morning.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: So women place value on a positive working environment, they enjoy collaborating with others and sharing responsibility, they're resistant to assimilate into male-dominated environments.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: So your research research shows that I'm now gonna put back again.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: You're right, and I found it so interesting.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: And the one thing I'll say it's like you're if you're a business owner or a hiring manager, and you know, this is sparking something in your in your brain that maybe your workplace isn't, you know, as allowing a female, and you know, you feel like it it might be quite a male-dominated environment in the terms of the structure.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: I really recommend to read the research because it was super interesting.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: It reminds me of the research that I did at uni.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: So it definitely sparked that academic curiosity from me.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: But um, yeah, the the research is so interesting and going into detail and without even realizing it, a lot of the workforces are geared to suit men more than they are geared to suit more women.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so one thing that you yourself have done is just really create an environment that is just attractive to for women to work in.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: So you mentioned flexible working.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I know previously you've spoken to me of things about like, you know, if a a woman needs three years off to because she wants to go have a child, she can do that, and then someone can look after her clients.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: And when she comes back, you know, they can be passed again as hers.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I guess what key things following on from your research did you implement in terms of being like, this is what I feel like we need?
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's very much that collaboration piece, you know.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_00: There are enough clients to go around.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody else is advising millennial women in the accumulation stage of their journey on a subscription and fixed fee basis.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: So don't worry about the number of clients.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: There are millions.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't need to fight with each other about clients.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_00: What we need to do is help each other grow our businesses and support each other because sometimes it's emotionally draining work, sometimes it's kind of the hours peak because of you know, other requirements of on your time as a as a mum, as a wife, as a I mean, at the moment for me, it's my parents, you know, I'm I'm the typical um in that sandwich thing.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: My kids are all grown up.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, as as Ollie, as I said, Ollie keeps saying about running the business and making the money and me spending it on my startup.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, you know, Ollie's um a positive influence in my life financially, but my parents, on the other hand, are both elderly.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's it's quite different now, you know, the the balance.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: And women have these changing needs, changing demands on their time, and they need to be able to flex the amount of work they do.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: So working in a team where we all work the same way, that's an important part of it.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: So none of this business, like the old um collaborations of four or five different advisors, all doing it slightly differently.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think regulation prefers there to be robust, repeatable, centralized investment propositions these days.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_00: But it used to be very much that the advisors would all be joined together for some marketing banner, but actually they were doing things very siloed, very differently.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: And at Women's Wealth, we try and make sure we're all doing it the same way so that any one of us could drop into the other one's work and help out if needs be.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it's that real ability to collaborate, pass work around between us.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: It is um making sure we get together, not in person, getting together in person.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_00: We've only managed twice since since launching the business because we are spread out.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's no geographical limits to running a virtual business.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: We are obviously we're UK centric um because because of regulation.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: But other than that, we're all over the flipping place.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: We do occasionally meet up somewhere.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's that afternoon tea thing again.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's a bit of a theme in my life, isn't it?
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_00: But like we we'll meet up and have afternoon tea at Brown's or something um uh in the summer, and we're planning to get together for Christmas as well.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_00: So we we have a couple of gets together, but we get together regularly online and we share like the best and worst that's happened to us in a week.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_00: Some of it's hilarious, some of it's tragic, some of it's very technically educating, but it makes it makes for a very lively meeting.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, and it's important that we're doing that.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's important that we feel that community, especially when we're virtually working with our clients and we don't otherwise have that much interaction with each other.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so helping, supporting, collaborating, sharing, you know, all things that don't necessarily sit well in the vocabulary of male-designed, male-run, profit-motivated, competitive commercial enterprises.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, now it's not to say that I'm not very focused on being profitable and commercial.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: If it's not, it won't survive.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_00: If it's not, we won't, as professional planners, get paid what we deserved.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_00: So what we deserve.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: So like it has to be um commercially motivated, but it doesn't have to be profit above all else.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think that's the thing, really.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: That positive work environment that came out of my research um is a really important part of what we focus on doing.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I it really resonates with me because as part of Recruit UK, we're a very female um management team.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_01: And we always coin a phrase called hashtag collaboration.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because we are all because recruitment itself is an industry where, you know, we're rolled by KPIs, we're sales driven, you know, people are always batting each other off to in other businesses to be the top of that leaderboard.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: But having a very empathetic, patient um female management team that really want to empower everyone and want the business to be pushed forward rather than having individual desires has really reflected in a lot of our operational processes.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I really empathize with what you're doing because I think having a female leadership team here has meant that a lot of that has naturally trickled down because that's what we want to work within.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think it's really important.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_01: And naturally, if we've said before, you know, it's not just building a workplace for women, it's building a workplace which are attractive for women and men can also work within that structure and be successful.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's about just understanding and empathizing with those different nuances.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think one thing that you mentioned um a little while ago, which I think is really um nice or really poignant to bring back up, is that how when um financial planning businesses don't have that structure, and especially within the financial advisor roles, that does mean that individuals, females get stuck in those back office roles as power planners, as administrators.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: I've, you know, worked with so many different businesses on back office roles.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I have worked with individuals that have children and are looking for reduced hours, and the businesses have gone to me, no, we're output focused as long as they are doing the work they need to do, writing the reports they need to write, you know, we'll pay them a full-time salary as long as they're getting what they need done, giving them the flexibility work, work within their hours.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_01: But unfortunately, it isn't something that we see so much with the advisor roles.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_01: There's an expectation that, you know, you've got to be in the office early and you've got to be out all evening seeing clients in their house.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_01: And do you think that different level of expectation on these two kind of roles then limits women to maybe not want to progress into the advisor side of things because they think the back office side fits fits their demands a bit better?
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: I I think it starts at the other end of the problem.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think that because um owning the client has value, um, I think and when you're in a sales and um, you know, uh assets under management and new business oriented environment, so not commission, but like percentage of new business, then you have to be there early to get the leads.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: You have to, you know, you have to be in the right place at the right time.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the more often you're there where the leads arrive, the more likely you are to get the the opportunities.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then if your clients need you, we you you create an environment where I mean we would like you know, promise to do the washing up as long as they stayed as clients, you know, it's like, and then you didn't do the washing up, of course you didn't.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, like it's so you would make all these promises and then you would be trying to deliver on those promises.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_00: Phone me anytime you like, and I'll be there.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, um, whereas actually, if you start at the other end and clients who come to you aren't it's not about the new business, it's not about you always being available, it's more about them liking you, feeling comfortable with you, paying for your services on a subscription basis, but knowing actually they're that you they've got a link to your diary, but you're not always available.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then also like you know, having the collaboration of a team where if you're not available, somebody else in the team is.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_00: So why is it that the advisor has to always be available for the client?
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_00: Who sold that idea?
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_00: The advisor did, you know.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_00: So if you if you undo that idea and you actually teach the clients that we work as a collaborative team, um, yes, I'm your point of contact, but if I'm not here, I work with this beautiful set of women, one of them is able to pick it up.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we all work the same way, we all work with the same values.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, so like you you could speak to any one of us if you needed to, then you don't have to always be available and you you're not competing with each other, you're collaborating and sharing the load.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's in the sale right at the beginning, the competition for the sale, and then the desire to hold on to that client because of the value of it and not let anybody else speak to the client in case they like them more than you.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's that it's that competition, ownership of the clients, ownership of the assets under management, that mind, mind, mind mentality that actually means the advisors hoisted by their own bizarre, really.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_00: They're stuck in in having to deliver that.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and afraid that they'll lose the client if they don't.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_01: And another thing that's really interesting about women's wealth is you're going through this like second stage of development at the moment where you're looking to bring new advisors in, almost created like your own little academy.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_01: So do you mind running through like what you're going through at the moment as a business and what the next stage for you is?
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we're trying, I'm trying to build what I call my dynamic dozen.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_00: So my first, my first 12 money mentors, and um, I've got four, and I need more, and I need more of that as well.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm bringing them on in cohorts of four because that allows them to practice on each other and train together so they team up and client and uh you know, and um advisor and do their everyone loves a video role play, don't they?
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, but you know, we have to have a safe place to practice and get our skills right.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I do quite a lot of training them as coaches first, as I say, a big part of what we do is um help clients to become their own best version of themselves, set themselves up to succeed.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's behavioral finance stuff.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a big like, you know, coaching piece first, and and the technical stuff comes along as they get their qualifications.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_00: So we've built the academy um with the the Verve group helped us, the art of finance helped us build an academy specific for women's wealth and the women's wealth journey, and it we support um them through the modules one to six of the CII Diploma and Regulated Financial Planning.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's units on all of that.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we would like them to kind of get qualified as soon as possible because all the time they're distracted with exams, you know, that's it's eating into your marketing time and your client time and all the rest of it.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like focus on those exams, get that done, learn to do your coaching, learn to take on new clients.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we we tend to give um all new recruits their first 18 clients over the first year, because learning to generate your own clients is a whole piece of work on its on its own.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it's much easier.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_00: We um recommend that uh a new advisor spends at least four hours a week marketing, and that's like in that first year when you don't need to generate any of your own clients, Women's Wealth will give them to you.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_00: You still need to be building your marketing funnel because come year two, you've got to generate your own.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_00: And if somebody looks up your Instagram account and finds out you're six weeks old as a financial advisor, you've got no credibility.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, like if they look at your account and you've been posting for over a year about your qualifications, about your client experiences, and all the rest of it, you've got credibility.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_00: So it's about like, you know, build your funnel, get yourself ready during that first year.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think people fail to do that, advisors fail to do that because they they spend their time again, it's the short-term fix.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_00: They spend their time where they can see an immediate return.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, like an exam or a new client.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_00: They're not really thinking about the clients of the future, and you have to invest in that marketing funnel to like build your kind of uh your future demand from clients and your your brand as an advisor, you need to know who you're gonna work with and why, why they're gonna pick you instead of somebody else.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because women's wealth, imagine I've got my dynamic dozen together on there.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, if one's a crystal healer, one's a endurance marathon runner, and one's a primary school teacher, they're gonna appeal to different people, aren't they?
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna appeal to different people.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like know yourself, know your brand, put yourself out there, make it clear who you want to work with.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so building that funnel, we we help them do that because that's such a big part of um, you know, being a self-employed advisor is knowing how you're gonna find your clients and how they're gonna come to you, how you're gonna talk to them.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the qualification piece, the coaching piece, and uh right from the beginning, these 18 clients, the first three clients they um watch me do.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm training everybody at the moment.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_00: The January cohort will probably be the last cohort that I personally train.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we've got somebody else in training to train um after that.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I will mentor and train the November and the January cohorts, and I will do the first three um meetings.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_00: We have a five-meeting process, and I'll do the first three of each of those five meetings, and they will watch, and then they will do the next three with me there supporting them.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a bit of a joint effort because things will get missed.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'll want something else covered, um, I'll want to nudge the conversation a different way because my experience tells me we need to go in that direction.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll be there collaborating and it'll be a joint.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then the next three meetings, so we're on nine meetings now, they will run and I will try not to say anything.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's really hard for me to shut up.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, like I have to go on mute, and literally, because that's the only way I can try and be quiet.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_00: And they run them and then I give them feedback.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_00: And by the time we've done nine meetings, some of the meetings they'll be able to just do by then.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_00: And some of them will still need some more evidence that they're working on the breadth and depth of their skills in those meetings.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_00: So it's about that like watch it done, have a go at doing it, do it with with somebody giving you feedback, and then you know, take your skills and practice more and more.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the way we do it, live with clients from day one.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_00: Those 18 clients, if you stay with Women's Wealth and you graduate to CAS through our process, we expect that to take two years if you're a novice.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you've already got qualifications and experience, maybe less, but you know, for career changes through to CAS and um fully capable of running your own client by two years.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_00: And if you graduate with your CAS for two years, those clients we gave you are yours from day one.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then by then you should be adding your own clients to the mix as well.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of how it goes.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it sounds so exciting! Sound, you know, women's world definitely sounds like an amazing business um to be part of.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I guess for you personally, you know, why was creating, because you know, you could look to bring in four experienced advisors, you know, why was doing that academy process, you know, bringing people the crystal hero, the endurance marathon runner, why was bringing in like you know, those people, you know, quite important to you?
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because there aren't enough financial advisors, there definitely aren't enough female financial planners in in the mix.
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, the the the the ones that are already in service in situ established, they are not going to serve the clients that need advice.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they they are their clients need advice, of course they do.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_00: But um, you know, there's a whole other generation who need a different approach, and then that we're never going to persuade these people who are already earning a fortune, advising the clients that they're advising to stop doing that and come over here and advise these kind of younger clients at the early end of their journey.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_00: We need young planners to team up with young clients and grow up together.
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we need to achieve here.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the there's a lack of um new blood, isn't there, in our in our beautiful young profession.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, and we haven't, when the regulator like put in place the floor of a minimum qualification and turned off commission, they they made a very big statement.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is now a profession.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_00: But we hadn't then, we hadn't lined up university pipelines similar to solicitors and accountants, spitting out people ready to become financial planners.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody knew still, many people don't know what a financial planner is or does.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I I not only think that that's a shame, I think it's such a beautiful career for women.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's a much, I think it's a much more obvious fit for women than accountancy or law, um, because it's all about these long-term relationships.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_00: I go to the weddings, I get invited to the weddings of um the the sons and daughters of my clients who I set up the wedding fund in their financial planning 25 years ago.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's the type of job that we do.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's fascinating, it's people-driven, it's so rewarding, well paid.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do it the woman's wealth way, where it's on a subscription and a fixed fee, and you're not a salesperson for an organization that manufactures product, you're a professional advisor helping clients become the best versions of themselves financially.
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what job is better than that, really?
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think there is one.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm very privileged to feel like an extension on the financial planning profession and be able to share the stories like yours, Sam, of your personal journey in the businesses and the future of this profession, especially for women.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's such a beautiful note to end it on.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, our beautiful young profession.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_01: I will take that with me and moving forward.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today, Sam.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's been an absolute pleasure.
• 1:05:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much, Edna.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a pleasure speaking to you.