Welcome to The Real advisor podcast, t r a p twerp please follow us and join in the conversation on Twitter at advisor podcast where you can suggest ideas and themes you'd like the track team to discuss. Also remember to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel and leave a six out of five star review on iTunes. Doing all this really really helps us which means we can do more to help you. Now let's head over to the studio for the latest pilot trap
Nick Lincoln:yes indeed, welcome back dear TRAPPIST to Episode 11 of the real advisor podcast. T R A P trap. My name is Nick Lincoln joining me as ever are the three other Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the heart. Allen the storyteller Smith and Carl the watch Meister Witcher. Welcome back. Gentlemen, we have a show packed full of absolutely very little. So let's on stop unpacking it straight away, who was slipping down the microphone that we could if you could stop doing that, please call water. Apple reviews. Andrew, we've got some lovely reviews coming in. And we're gonna mention mentioned on the show because it makes us feel good, but it also lets other therapists know that they're not alone in listening to this and perhaps liking it. You've got a review for us, I believe.
Andy Hart:That's exactly right. I've been given the coveted job read now the reviews, we're starting from the beginning. So the first review is from Jeff has 13 left on Apple podcast entitled sharing his caring five stars, thanks to the Four Musketeers who who some share some great ideas, views and opinions with us. You. It's not the guy who drew, the guy's not written it correctly. Time, you would be foolish not to take time to listen to this podcast once released in its fullness. As a professional, we are great at sharing and helping each other. So thanks very much for leaving that review. I'll be reading out all the reviews. We've got a little bit to catch up on. And please do you might
Carl Widger:you might not actually have lost your job.
Andy Hart:This job up so I'm not
Carl Widger:sure Andrew volunteered to do that job.
Nick Lincoln:That's magnificent. And you can only get better. And so that's that's the good news for us. To give this, this episode a timestamp if you're listening to it a little bit after the event, some topical stuff, Mr. Smith rediscovery meetings.
Alan Smith:Yes, this is just something that came to mind over the last couple of weeks as any regular listener, if you listen to the last episode, you will know I am currently and still in monk mode. So monk mode means booze free, no alcohol. I'm fasting every day meditating, and exercise. So I'm just trying to, you know, get ready for the rest of the year and spending a month living like a monk. And as a result of that this exercise things quite interesting. So I've been going to the gym regularly. I've got a personal trainer, Andrew, shout out to Andrew of executive fitness club in London. And but I've known Andrew for years, years and years. And he has changed his whole kind of new client onboarding process how he would deal with a new prospective personal fitness client versus what he was doing, say 10 years ago when I first met him, which was next to nothing. And so I said to him, Well, he said to me, actually, why don't I take you through the process as if you were a brand new client I've never met before. I said, Yeah, let's do it. And he's got a fantastic process. Now we did all sorts of deep analysis, he gives me a form to fill in on online, all these retests and measures. So we sort of effectively restarted our relationship, as if, as if I was a brand new client. And that just got me thinking, because all of us, and probably a lot of the listeners to this podcast have changed their own processes in their business over the last number of years. I know that we have, we've got better, we've got a far better process today than we had, you know, 510 years ago. And so I'm putting it out there that it might be an opportunity for people to reconsider if you if you've got existing long established clients. Did they miss out on a better onboarding process, then because they've been with you for quite a long time and, and maybe there's an opportunity to go back, and I'm calling a rediscovery some of the questions that we now ask new prospective clients or might are different, they're better in my opinion. Then the client then there's questions we used to ask five or 10 years ago. So we're, you know, I'm encouraging my clients. Some of my colleagues have done this already. The clients have been there for quite a while, and some encouraging people to do a rediscovery process with long established call Alliance.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, that sounds like a good idea and also on the on the fourth of Feb Mr. Smith, what are we what are we sort of semi hosting? Do you want to put that out there?
Alan Smith:Yeah, so I'm in monk mode until the fourth of February because on the fourth of February, a few of us are getting together fourth of February for those who are interested is the I think it's the first round of the Six Nations rugby we're all quite keen sports fans, rugby fans, and we have the Wales Ireland game swiftly followed by watching the mighty Scots defeat the English. So England, Scotland
Unknown:drives first 35 seconds to go. This is the one it's coming back for Jonny Wilkinson. He drops the wild golf glory he's done it. Jonny Wilkinson is England's hero, Jonny Wilkinson, Johnny Wilkins
Nick Lincoln:Sorry, I gotta say
Alan Smith:this. It's like the football you never you never hear the end of 1966 D.
Unknown:Ruptured version
Nick Lincoln:of it. Anyway.
Carl Widger:So I won't be attending on the fourth.
Alan Smith:Yes, for that very reason. We're getting together we're getting together a central London pub hard at a room anyone any of the trappers anyone listening in if you hear this in time, you're more than welcome to come along. We will put a link to the venue in the so called Show Notes fourth of February.
Nick Lincoln:Very good great stuff. So what else so the CI the CI PFS battle continues so I am considering my I currently get my certification and my statement of professional standing my SPS through the Chartered Insurance Institute. I'm now looking at the alternative which is called ci si that what's that stand for? Actually, I don't remember anyway. It's instead
Unknown:of security securities investments, securities investments.
Andy Hart:Yeah.
Nick Lincoln:So I'm looking at I'm looking at I'm probably gonna do joint membership with them. It's not a lot to join them and I've had a look around the website actually looks pretty decent and their CPD recording tool looks pretty decent as well. So even if the PFS survives, I don't want to be associated with the CI they seem to be just an inequity run organization and quite shady. That's what I'm doing Mr. Witcher, there was a very popular series on on Netflix. Tell us about it, my friend.
Carl Widger:Yeah, made off the monster of Wallstreet, I think it's called it's a four part series on Netflix. Going through the the made off story, which has been told lots of different ways before. It's probably not brilliantly made, to be honest with you, it's for our long programs, but probably should have been just to the point, though, is it's very popular. And it's been watched by an awful lot of people in Ireland in the UK. And I think the reason I just wanted to bring it up was I think, is really important as advisors to our clients that we we kind of get out ahead of this and that we're proactive in in, you know, talking to our clients about the security of client assets. So whatever platform you're on this the, you know, hotspot, third party securities out there, whatever fund manager you're with, etc, segregation of assets, because I think making assumptions that you know, oh, well we don't do it Bernie Madoff way and how could people have been so stupid? I think that's probably not a great place. From our clients point of view. Our clients want the reassurance that Jeepers, there was an awful lot of very clever folks caught out on that. And we've seen that some bank mon fried debacle going down this last year as well. So I just think it's worth pointing out and just kind of, for all advisors to make sure that they do some work on this on that they have somewhere where they can point their clients to on their own website for the work that they've done internally to just demonstrate the security of client assets and what happens your money and who gets your money and the security thereof. So okay, just important to point
Alan Smith:out. Just add quickly, there was an article in the Financial Times at the weekend about some super wealthy American family, who invested millions and hundreds of millions in Enron and then he invested in maydel Another just thrown countless millions at FTX. It's just I mean, it's I shouldn't laugh, but it's just beyond ridiculous how your family with sophistication one of the wealthiest families in the United States, and they've just been throwing hundreds of millions at all sorts of weird and wonderful investment.
Andy Hart:I'm sure that I'm sure they've made a few quid and some other puns. So Alan, you know if you're going to invest, so that's okay different ideas.
Nick Lincoln:Call the Twitter algorithm is giving you the heebie jeebies. What are you?
Carl Widger:What is happening like perfect I don't see any of your three accounts anymore so they used to be so severely blocked you
Nick Lincoln:don't tell me Elon Musk has shadow banned us?
Carl Widger:No I don't know
Alan Smith:called have changed it, they've changed the the Twitter setup that you need to know if you look at your Twitter account, there's a column that says for you, which is which is Twitter's algorithm sending stuff that they think you should be reading or following. And there's one called a separate column called following and it automatically defaults to the for you thing, which in a way is quite a good thing because it means you'll get you'll get things that you won't necessarily have automatically sought out you might find other things which is quite good if you create content on Twitter because you get a wider audience but you have to every time you open up the Twitter program you've got to specifically click following that column following and then you then you get your normal Twitter threads to the stuff that people that you do want this
Carl Widger:year for answers that
Andy Hart:basically it's called this is called latest not following it's for you and latest is that is the one that will just do it in order. But it always
Nick Lincoln:depends what client application you're using doesn't because I use TweetDeck I have these problems. I have lists of people I want to follow and sadly you guys are still people I want to follow so I can't avoid your dribble and grew heart the Terry Smith funds myth letter. You're big. You're big. You're big fan.
Andy Hart:Yeah, so if I was Alan Smith telling this story, he'd be one of my close personal friends Terry Smith, even though I well he isn't the one on corteza uncle tell you I've got his WhatsApp number. We speak a bit but I'm trying to get him on my show.
Nick Lincoln:Stop bothering me on my bloody WhatsApp part.
Andy Hart:I've got his email got his WhatsApp and he lives solely a bit weird. There's a fund manager called Terry Smith. I think he's one of the most successful UK fund managers he runs a fund called fund Smith. It's the biggest fund in the UK, I think individual fund. He's sort of heading towards a 100 billion pound value at some point down the line. Anyway, every year he comes out with an annual shareholder letter of the owners of his fund that is very, very insightful. So do a search, Terry Smith fund Smith letter, a lot of the financial journalists love to read through it. And he's in the papers at the moment due to his excessive earnings even though the fund is down by minus 13%. But that's the nature of the business. They earn money when the fund goes down their money when the fund goes up. He also runs a fund administration company that also charged the fund blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, his Yeah.
Alan Smith:offshore tax exempt in Mauritius pulled out 36 million quid despite his funding, absolutely.
Andy Hart:Plus, plus more Allen plus more for the company. But anyway, the the the letter is very insightful. I think it's about 13 pages long. It's a little bit like the Warren Buffett sort of letter every year to the Berkshire shareholders. It's decent. There's a lot of insights in its I recommend you read it. Certainly advisors read it. Obviously I'm not proactive management. But if I was to be involved in the active management space, it would probably be a fund that I'd look at very closely. Over to you, Nick.
Nick Lincoln:Yeah, points were made. And he's very, very quick in a world of stuffed shirts and sort of, you know, Clintons and Petronella. Is he Terry Smith is your Essex lad, and he's very quotable. And down to earth, and yeah, good. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Okay. Great. So that's, that's the topical time times don't give them to this episode. Let's let's move on to the meat and potatoes and the recurring theme in the crappiest questions that get put to us is around the client acquisition process. How do you acquire clients? What's the route you go through to do it? So today, we're going to devote a lot of time to this and it may well be this this could be a part one of two episodes, because if we're if we're still deep in the weeds on this in sort of 40 minutes, then we'll carry over to the next episode. Because without it sounds, this is a facile comments, a lot of me but without clients, you haven't got a business, right? They are integral to your business. And you've got to get them if you haven't got them. So I'm going to lead off with this and I so I became an IFA in 2001 and I set up on my own in 2008. So I could regale you with stories of how I as a startup business got clients in the 2000s. But I think that world has gone or imagine that world has gone I did it through the classic networking, business breakfast meetings, hooking up with local accountants and solicitors and just asking for referrals. I think the the great bedwetting over the Wuhan flu, might have put an end to the breakfast networking to a degree I don't know if that still goes on. And the thing that's changed between now and then is the internet, the internet has changed everything because we have so much knowledge now at our fingertips. So I'll quickly talk a few minutes here and if I see your eyes glazing over you can I will stop. I would now see if I was a hungry 30 year old starting financial planning practice with a blank canvas and zero or a handful of clients. This is what I would do for our American Trappists. We love you. But the word is spelled N I C H, E, it's a French word. But despite that, it's a good word. niche, niche, not niche. I would Nish like a bugger if I was starting off from scratch today, and my niche would be and I thought about this yesterday, but I would go for limited company owners. Okay, that's the first filter, husband and wives, limited company owners. That's the second filter. They've been a specific sector. And I've just picked the creative sector for reasons I might explain a bit later on. So limited company owners, husbands and wives in one sector aged between 35 and 50. Ish. Those be my four parameters. The fifth one would be they must want to work with me digitally. I don't want to face to face relationship with these people. And they don't want it with me normally. So they could be based anywhere in the country, but they've got to be switched on with the tech. And if then the creative agency feel they probably are tech enabled because they're designing websites. They're doing other stuff, branding, they know how to use the software packages. Those will be my filters, and I would niche niche niche down on that really focus on a particular strong area. But as I say that word is pronounced the way I said it.
Unknown:So what do you know, now you wish you could go back and tell you from 10 years ago as you're getting started? niching is important. I wish I woulda committed sooner. I wish I would have known the benefits of niching. You know, I think if you have a niche with a good looking website, and you really focus
Nick Lincoln:it's niche. So I would niche ferociously. So what I did yesterday, those are my filters. I just put into Google creative agencies Watford, okay, I can see people anywhere through through a digital financial planning practice. But I thought let's, let's just look at local firms. So there's some similarity if I'm if I'm sort of in quotes, cold calling local creative agencies, and I put them to Google, and the Google Search comes up and there wasn't the creative agency right at the top, it was a sponsored ad for a company called the rhino group. Okay, so I looked at them now they're based up in Cheshire, SK 14 Is their postcode. Okay, lovely website, immersive fluid, as you'd expect from a creative agency, really good website. I then went on to Companies House, because you can do this in the UK, and I'm not sure about other Ireland, or America or South Africa, but certainly the UK, you can go into Companies House and look under the bonnet of these companies. And what I'm about to tell you is all in the public domain, I'm not giving away any confidences, and the rhino group and the directors are not clients of mine. This is just an example I looked at yesterday, on Companies House, the two directors of the rhino group, Lee Higgins, and Stephanie Higgins. Now unless they're brother and sister, which is highly unlikely, straight off the bat, I've got a husband and wife, limited company, Companies House gives me the month of birth and date of birth, Lee Higgins is born June 1971. Bang, he's 51. He's just on the edge of my filter, I'll take and his wife is five years younger. So now I've got a creative company owned by husband and wife in my age racket that I'm looking for. Even better Companies House gives you abbreviated accounts. Now they're not good for much anymore abbreviated accounts, the balance sheet, you can infer stuff from the balance sheet. But what the abbreviated accounts give you, other clients, accountants, they're on this. And now I know, this company is owned by this couple I know their ages. I know who their accountant is. And I can look at their balance sheet and say they've got net worth of 1.7 million in the company. So it's a going concern. It's profitable, or certainly has been in the past. I've done that from a 10 minute just looking on Google Now what how would I follow up and I haven't been asked this obviously, I would think about a bit more. But I'd probably send Lee and Stephanie a copy of the book enough. And in there, I would put a little card saying, sure your business looks fantastic. I work exclusively with people in your field, helping them work out whether they've got enough. If you're interested, please give me a call. I post that out in the physical thing. I'd email the accountant Antony witching Co. and I say I noticed you've got a client who works in exactly the same field as I specialize in. I help the directors of these companies to financial fruition. And I work with their accountants to do this my experiences, it strengthens the relationship of all parties in the advice chain. I'd love to have 20 minutes of your time, please. I think it's time that you will save if we work together going forward or something like that. And I would if I was starting a business I'd be I'm getting excited to think about it what if the information is at your fingertips and I'll be getting up at 7am and just doing this to all the creative design people aged from 35 to 50 that are owned by husband and wife because you can get the information it's all there on the internet. We didn't have this 20 years ago when we had to go to valley breakfast networking meetings and all the other crud this is what I will be doing day in day out but I've been niching down and if the final say why would I do creative design. The reason is because last year I picked up two
Andy Hart:clients you'll be niching down
Nick Lincoln:niching down whatever just in the cheek sorry that last year I picked up to a couple that and they're gonna get married or they're not married yet but they're gonna be husband and wife and they both are in their creative design. He says that in the 30s. So there's just front of mind, that would be who I'd probably go for. But the reason is if you do if you niche and have a sector, you then become the expert in that sector. And you start writing stuff for the trade publications for that sector. You just Google Creative Design, trade publications and see what comes up. You get in with their trade body, you go to their events, you become one of them, and you see the world through their eyes. And you're just you're known then. Okay, Nick Lincoln, he's the guy that works with the directors of creative design agencies to get to financial nirvana. And that's what I will be doing, man, I didn't have a business now. And if I wasn't much in quotes, mature, and my business wasn't desperate for clients, that's what I would be doing. If I was a 30 year old person, go out there and fight, find your niche, find your sector, and just work work at work and become known as the expert. Right. I've done a lot of talking there. I
Andy Hart:was brilliant. It was brilliant. Nick. Yeah, that
Alan Smith:was that was the best thing I've ever done on this podcast. Yeah, that was that was a brilliant, that was just a masterclass Nick, brilliant. Can I Can I just I just got to sort of enhance that a bit or or add to it? Should I say so how do you become the go to person in that sector? How do you become the expert for in this to follow your particular example, creative businesses in Hartfordshire? Let's say. So another thing you could do? Is you is create content for them. And so how would you do that? You would ask them, you would say that I'm just going to build some materials, some help and support for people exactly in your community, or the account. And I've got 10 Questions cut out you are the phone them up and ask them or send them an email or something or a questionnaire and you say, what are the what are the key challenges of running a creative business in Florida, all that stuff? And then you sort of cross referencing that with the financial issues? Are they building to sell? Are they looking at others as a cash cow business as it tax efficiency, and you can create a very nice documents, call it a white paper, ebook, whatever. And I think if you do that consistently, then you end up getting invited to speak at the creative bla, bla, bla annual conventions, you know, writing their magazines, on their websites, and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, before you know it, you do that consistently, within 12 months, you are the go to for most of these firms will have advisors will have sort of random, generic general advisors, the accountants might have ifas in house, but all of a sudden, just through your research, analysis, getting feedback, and then translating that into content documents, white papers, video, you are the go to guy and I think you do that consistently for a year or two. You know, you build a business that way. I've known people who've done exactly that.
Andy Hart:And that was superb, Nick, you are wasted as a financial advisor, your your your Mora, marketing coaches such. Yeah. And the way you the way you pitch it was right. And it was just very passionate, and you covered all the things on I mean, you could push a little bit further and say in an ideal world, you'd send them connect with them on LinkedIn, then you send them a link to a video that's tailored to them saying, Hi, I'm Nick, I know exactly who you are, except to score curry. I think I think the key thing that people have to do is pick your niche carefully. The niche needs to be a viral niche. As an example, for my situation. I used to get a lot of referrals from an accountant I used to work in Hampstead. He referred me to about three lovely wealthy Hampstead widows. They were great clients to work with, but they never really spoke to each other. So the niche wouldn't grow. So the one that you mentioned is creative agency owners, they sort of do speak to each other, even though if they're in competition, and they the niche is viral. So yeah, I would say, I agree with everything you said, the amount of public information out there is phenomenal. So yeah, that find a niche that's viral over to call.
Carl Widger:Yeah, very interesting. Yeah. And really good stuff. Nick, I'd like to apologize to Lee Higgins for the easy four copies of enough that he's going to get after this.
Nick Lincoln:But that was just pure, I came up with that ideal client profile. And then that was literally the first creative agency. I clicked on the first one in the search, and then it happened to so you know, I just I think it's out. I think it's there. I think it's there. Sorry about Frank crack on.
Carl Widger:Yeah, no worries. No worries. Yeah, look, I'm gonna come at this a slightly different way. Right. So if I was starting off, but like you, Nick, everything you said, that's what I did when I started off, right. So the network and like hell, and getting out there and lots of cups of coffee and blah, blah. So if I was starting up now, there's, there's a couple of points I'd like to make at the outset. Right. Number one, it's hard work. Number two, you got to do the hard work over a long period of time. So you got to be really consistent. And that does not mean this bullshit 24 hour hustle, it just means you got to be really focused and do all the right stuff. And we've spoken about this lots of times before so if I had my time back on If I was starting out, no, I would do two things. I would, yes, 100% due to content creation. And if I can just tell you what's really what's worked really well for us here at Metis, is we've created a number of different guides that you can download, we either put them out kind of on social media that you can download from that, or we put them on our website, and we do get lots of really good leads. So it's like business owners, you know, 10, things you should be thinking about when you're coming to retirement, that kind of stuff. So I would 100% to that. So that's kind of on the, on the same track as what you were talking about Nick. However, when we started Metis, Ireland in 2014, bear in mind, I was four years out of on my own before that, one of the one of the things, the best things we ever did, and it has definitely evolved since then, was we did a launch. So big launch. And we got Joe Schmidt, who was the Ireland head coach for rugby at the time. And the Irish team, it was obviously between World Cups was we were doing really, really well, we just won a Grand Slam. So we got Joe to speak out. We had Gary Connolly, who was a friend of mine, speaking about passive investing. And then we just did one or two other things about real financial planning. And we filled a big room in a hotel, I think we had 160 people there. So loads and loads of work went in now at the time we hadn't, Bob. But we kind of scraped together this event. And it was absolutely brilliant. The Joe was magnificent. Joe subsequently spoke at two more events for us, became a friend of mine before he went back to New Zealand. So we use Joe a couple of times after that, we also did some launches, where we brought kind of high profile sports people in or we had a guy called David Coleman, he's a very well known child psychologists kind of dealing with teenagers, because that's the kind of thing a lot of our clients were dealing with at the time. So we did a lot of those kinds of events where we were bringing experts, our high profile people, but But back to the very start at the Joe Schmidt event, we just had a little feedback form and on the feedback form. So obviously, if there was 160 or 70 people there, there was loads of them loads and loads of them who weren't already clients. And we just had a would you like Metis, Ireland to talk to contact you about real financial planning. And almost everyone ticked us and gave us their email address. And the amount of business we got out of that. And it was big, and it was ballsy. And it was, you know, we were absolutely shitting bricks beforehand to make sure that, you know, we didn't have a room full of 12 people that we we got two people there, it was a lot of hard work, it was very stressful. But by God did it pay off. And then we kind of found our rhythm. And you know, that like they the evolvement evolvement of those events was the future you and that we spoke about before. And we're planning that for 2023 a bigger and better one. But I get what you're saying Nick about doing everything digitally? Personally, I would yet create the content 100%. But but maybe everybody is going to try and do a digital digitally. And maybe you can kind of set yourself out from the crowd by saying no, no, we're going to be the guys we're going to press the flesh as well. So yeah, that is the single I'm look, I have other stuff that we've done along the way and that we're doing now that are definitely working. But you know, I would say go big, you know, just go big back yourself and do it.
Nick Lincoln:Cool. That's really, really interesting. You're a mature business now, aren't you? Do you set as part of your business planning each year a set number of new clients that you wish to acquire in the year?
Carl Widger:Yes and no. Right? We do have. So we've kind of four advisors now who are who are out looking for new clients and they have kind of do their annual plans, which we've we did before Christmas, and we're going to be reviewing them now and this week, actually. And they will set out what they want to get. So we have different levels of clients. So they'll nominate how many of our top level they want nominate how many of our kind of second level down that they want. And then what we do is okay, well, if that's all we want, what are all of the activities that you need to do in order to do it. And because we're in a mature business, it can't all be about events and golf and all that kind of stuff. But but that is there that you know, we're trying to raise the profile of our advisors based on a conversation I had with Alan about 18 months ago I would say about doing you know them writing blogs, doing video content, all of that kind of stuff to raise their own personal profile but Look, having said all of that, it'd be wrong to say that we don't get most of our business via referral. And I, obviously, that's brilliant, because, you know, once you meet someone who's already been referred, I think the initiative barrier is already broken down, you know, that you're kind of in already. But we're trying to, to develop other strategies as well. So that, you know, business is kind of coming to us from other sources of of places as well. But it's, it's, I just I do the reason I'm saying this. And the reason my viewers might be slightly contrary, and I don't know, is that doing only one strategy and honing in on only one thing, you know, if you go through, if you're setting up on your own, and then you go through a bleak couple of months, on that one strategy, well, you might get kind of disenchanted. And that's really you want to build momentum and momentum is massive, build momentum, and then keep it going.
Nick Lincoln:And yeah,
Andy Hart:I agree with your call. Yeah, you have to try a few different things, it needs to become you, you need to be constantly, you know, on the lookout to build clients, it does depend on what your background is, you know, are you an insider, so you've got previous experience in financial services. So you've got a somewhat of a head start, or you're an outsider coming in from a totally different business. And it's sort of a second career. Also a practical point that I sort of do mentioned quite a bit to younger advisors, you need to become quite good at becoming referral and also know how to deal with referrals. So if you're out and about, and the friend says, Oh, my, my dad's retiring, my sister's doing X Y, Zed, buying something is a trigger word that you know that you can help them for some inexperienced financial advisor, so we'll get them to call me and that's never going to happen. So you've got to flip on its head, you've got to say to them, Look, it sounds like I can help your dad, your sister, your brother, your colleague, do let them know that I'm gonna give you a call, or sorry, I'm gonna give them a call, just, you know, confirm it with them, that I can call them, you know, from a practical point of view, you need to understand how you know how to deal with referrals, you only need 50 families to really run a successful sort of if a business and then obviously, from there, you then gonna go for growth. So I think the real challenge is going from naught client to let's say, 25, or something, isn't it not to 25 family, that's where you're gonna be doing the heaviest lifting the hardest work, once you've got there, you've got a bit of traction, then you can sort of, you know, pick and choose who you want to work with, and sort of refine the numbers and play of it from there. But if there's anyone that needs your help, say to that person who's the middle person, do let them know that I'm going to give them a call, just you know, pass it through with them. Because take the job on yourself, whenever you give someone else that the job to call you never normally happens. And that one person could be a great fan that you're gonna look after. But you've bought it up because you said I'll get them to call me and they're not going to rather than the other way around. So sort of a small practical point. I think Alan's next
Alan Smith:Yeah, all good stuff. This is and this is really, for me, this is very front of mind. For me, because you know, we are also we're a very mature business now. But we're still very ambitious. And we're still looking to spread the word. When you business when new clients and we're speaking now at the beginning of the year, and I'm looking forward, we do set ourselves pretty ambitious targets we had the best year in our history last year, it despite the fact that was a difficult time for markets investments. So we've just we're sort of honing our thoughts and ideas, and I've got a lot of things I can share in the interest of time. I just want to say that is what you've talked about there, Nick is, in particular, that there's kind of what I would call sort of slow burn things you would do for a while you'd build up relationships and build up clients and relationships with accountants, which will take a while. There's also quick wins. I think there's things that you probably could do if you need to be a bit brave. But those quick wins that you could get a quick return with an opportunity to speak to people. Let me tell you a brief story to tell you something that I did some years ago
Unknown:grab yourself a drink a very long drink. It's Storytime with Ellen Smith.
Nick Lincoln:Parts gone hearts gone.
Alan Smith:Anyone who's watching this on YouTube is disappeared. Hearts left the room we'd get a drink well done. Good is that is a gin or vodka in that look, sir. It's good. That so when I when I got started, which was 2000. And for those people who are old enough to remember those years, the dominant piece of news in personal finance around that time. It started a couple of years before that, but it was still ongoing was the saga of a firm called equitable life, who were the one of the largest and most successful investment insurance pension companies in the UK. They were established in light seven teens out there, one of the oldest companies in the world 1760 or something. So they've been around forever. And they were very famous in that they and all their TV adverts and they were prolific. They were everywhere they advertise, we cut out the middleman. They had their own internal salespeople. And if you're an advisor or an IFA, you couldn't get access to their products. And so they said, We don't pay commission to all these middlemen that was the sort of the sales pitch at the time, and then they paid their own internal salespeople plenty. Well, that was that was the exactly so. So as a result of that a lot of the professional classes that were well known for having no judges, lawyers, doctors, surgeons, very senior professional, very wealthy people were attracted to sort of cut out the middleman so that were hugely successful. And without going into detail, I mean, look it up. If you don't know the story, it is an incredible story. But long story short, they went bankrupt, they went bust pretty quickly. And I was watching this from the outside of because of course, as a new sort of startup, IFA, we didn't have any clients exposed to that. And I just thought, here's an opportunity. So I think the phrase is news hack, I news hacked, I looked at something that was going on very contemporary, very much in the press front is, you know, not just the financial press, but front page of the telegraph and the papers. So I just decided and completely didn't check with compliance or anything at the time. And so any listener, you should check with your compliance people before you do anything about this. But I decided to take out a small ad in the Sunday Times. And of course, this is pre internet years. And since then, I've literally it was like a an eighth of a page cost me about 500 quid, it's the page and the I've still got the clipping from it. It's said equitable life investor, question mark, for free, impartial advice, please contact this number. I don't even think we had I think I don't think we had a website we might have done. But if it was, it would be very, very rudimentary, actually. So it was a complete speculative one off, let's just see what happens. And I gave the phone number of the office, which had an answer phone and answer machine. Again, those these is really showing my age. It was, you know, one of these old fashioned tape recording answer machines with a spool of tape, you know, a little cassette tape. And I just didn't think much about it. So advert went out, literally in the Sunday Times. And I looked at it in the paper bought the paper. Oh, yeah, that's the ad phone number came into the office Monday morning. And the tape, there was so many messages that it ran out of tape, there was you know, there was about 25 messages from people, and then there was no more to be taken. And then the phone started ringing. As soon as I got to the office, and it rang all day, that day, the next day, the day after they after. And it just kept ringing. I mean, a lot was just not relevant. We're just sort of random stuff. But I can tell you 18 years later, we have still got clients, to this day, who came from that little one off, it didn't repeat it, you know, couldn't handle I was by myself. I couldn't handle the inbound inquiries at the time. So the moral of that story is, that was something that was very newsworthy, and I offered to help people that were in a court I knew that did the very nature of this issue was they didn't have advisors that gone direct that cuts out the middleman. Well, now, you might need a middleman, you might need somebody. And we did some I did some really good work if I say so at the time. There was a it was a sort of one off opportunity that you could extricate your funds before the gate came down after a particular period of time they locked he couldn't get your money out there was all but for about six months, I think around about that time, I can't even remember the exact detail. But there are clients who are with us now that we just you know, we saved them. We got their funds out with no penalties or exit charges. And it was a really good job. And so fast forward to where we are today. You might not or maybe you would. But you think about things going on. What you know there's I mean, right now, if you think about the the biggest platform in the UK is Hargreaves Lansdown, right, so most of those people are DIY investors without an advisor, often now, people have bought funds. If you think about some of the funds of the last couple of years, maybe I mean, in the US, you've got the Ark fund, you've got the what's it called a Scottish mortgage trust, it's done about 70% or something very tech focused. I know as a one off posting something again, you wouldn't necessarily put an advert in the newspaper, maybe you put something I don't know this world but Facebook ads or something like that. And you say, are you an investor in X, you know, for an impartial review or something get in touch. If you wanted a quick win for low low cost investments, that might be an opportunity identify where there's a pain point, relevant to particular investors right now, and offered to help. And I would imagine you're gonna get a dozen or a couple of dozen inquiries of which you might convert a few into clients is part of your short term strategy, whilst you're building long term relationships as described by you, Nick, just
Carl Widger:excellent, Alan, and I love hearing stories like that, you know, which is you just took a flyer and I think that probably the point on that is you got to try lots of different things. So if you're told Talking about, you know, Facebook ads, you know, you can targeting those, you can do that yourself, I wouldn't do it that clearly. But you can and you can you can start changing. You know who you're targeting and just see where the sweet spot is. So where are you getting 10 to some inquiries from? But I think the point is you gotta try loads and loads of different things. And I'm sure we could do a whole other show on stuff that we all did. That didn't work, you know, so that'd be a long. Yeah, isn't isn't that the point of it, you know that, you just got to just be really persistent. I just keep trying, keep trying keep trying, I think Andy's point is really well made that the challenge is getting from zero to 25. And if I were starting out again, and I got a couple of my ideal clients, I would just mind them, like, nobody has ever minded a client. And one of the things that we did was, if we got a couple of really good clients, we would bring them and I'm a little bit like Allah, no, we right at the time, it was me. So I would bring the client and maybe another one, to a really nice golf course, I'd say bring a buddy. And they know straight up, they know what I'm talking about, right? Bring up here, someone you think is a little bit like you that I might be able to help them. And I develop that from one firewall to two firewalls, to to eventually doing a kind of a an annual gig where I might bring 20 or 25 people out. And we still won't we're after a couple of years off because of COVID, we're going to look at doing that again this year. But that was a really, really great way of building relationships. And I think, you know, you're not looking on the 13 T to ask somebody, you know, have you got a pension fund, it's just how you own ideal with this guy, and less less my clients, Nick, tell my prospective client, Alan, oh, yeah, current looks after my stuff. And it's, you know, he does a really great job. All you're looking for is a cup of coffee after that. And, you know, again, you're building relationships, building relationships, and I think you cannot underestimate, whether you're trying to do it through content. And, you know, putting yourself out as an expert, you're trying to build relationships through the digital channels, but you're also trying to do it outside of that as well. And really, you're trying to be the what's the phrase Ireland the key person of influence in your area? And so how keep keep the focus on that? How can you keep doing that? How can you be the go to guy when somebody has a problem with their, you know, has an issue that they want to discuss around their pension or their investment or whatever? And yes, we all know that then we get them into real financial planning, but deal with the issue in front of the client first, so don't get too evangelical about real financial planning, because you got to be commercial about it. And I think, you know, building those relationships becoming someone that people know, like, and trust, that's your best way from zero to 25. Very good. It ain't easy. It ain't easy, Andy
Andy Hart:a couple of points on that call. Yep. Bring a buddy just not me broke buddies. Yeah, yeah. The what we call ourselves
Nick Lincoln:brilliant. Thanks, Andy. You're itching to say that weren't
Andy Hart:burger buddy siblings? No, no, no. Got more to say. Yeah, do call yourself a financial advisors call says don't get too evangelical about financial planning and lifestyle financial plan. They don't know what that is. Say you're a financial advisor. Keep it simple. If you want to be a bit more provocative on that side, you can even call yourself an investment advisor because often that people are looking for an investment person. Even though you are a financial advisor or financial planner, they are going to get behavioral coaching. They don't know any of that. So yeah, call yourself financial advisor talking about content. When I set up Maven advisor, I pretty much launched a podcast alongside it and money guidance podcast called Maven money. I'm sort of known as the no bullshit, the no BS financial advisor. That's my niche, I suppose. And if you're going to set up a podcast,
Unknown:and the the ultra grabber Darren, Lee knows about everything. on anything, his name is Andrew Hart.
Andy Hart:Okay, I'll finish my point. The podcast format is amazing. And I think we're just getting started with it. Hence, we're doing a podcast here. This is a video podcast. The good thing about podcasts is you can get relatively cheap equipment, and then just press play, and then stop and then upload it. So along with everything else that you're doing during the network. I mean, I was a member of BNI. So my story is somewhat interesting. I started as a financial advisor in 2007. So I'm sort of 16 years in this. So I sort of spent eight years in the old world rocking up to shittier counsel's offices and shaking hands and drinking bad coffee, go into golf clubs at ridiculous hours in the morning. And then I've run a podcast for about, you know, 567 years. So I've had half my life professional life in the old dusty world and half my life in the, in the new digital world. So yeah, I've seen different things along the way of that. So I'm just banging the drum for podcasts are a great way to get your message out there. But you need to be consistent with it, you need to have somewhat of a niche you need to have a quite an opinionated voice because it's quite a noisy market. Yeah, and that's about it. Who's next?
Alan Smith:Nick, Nick, are we I mean, I've got about three or four other things I could say here but I'm just weary of the time and other stuff we want to talk about what do you what do you think should we chat a bit more? Or should we carry some of that over to another episode?
Nick Lincoln:Well, I think we I think we can really mind this and we've got a lot to share I'm I'm of a mind to draw a line under it for the meat and potatoes for this episode on and then we'll give the proper due care is due in the next episode. Is that okay, guy? Do you think that makes sense? Yeah. Yeah. Just a couple of things. A yes no answer call. Alan was just just out of my own interest and for the TRAPPIST and perhaps so equitable life was an organization based around this concept of with profits, yes or no? Do you have with profits in Ireland? Yes. Okay. Sorry to hear that. And Allen's point about I'm going to butcher the phrase, but really what your your, your critical verb was a brilliant idea and what you're doing there, if life hands, potential clients, lemons, then you can make lemonade and that doesn't mean you want bad things to happen. But yeah, absolutely right pressure points. The example came to my mind, in the low down the road from me and in BoRam, were WD six, there was an RFA called Freddie David, who about three, four years ago, so it's pretty current. And he you he a Jewish guy, and he was a big financial advisor in the Jewish community. And he was a Roman, and he's, I think he's still in prison. If I've got his name wrong, please don't sue me. I think his name is Freddy David. He was gambling client money basically and living this lavish lifestyle isn't IFA, but embezzling client funds. What I would have done, I would have taken if I'd been a Jewish person, a Jewish financial advisor and the Jewish community in that example, for example, taken the Jewish Chronicle and say, Well, you know what, there's something but we know what's going on come to us for a free review of your finances. Now you're not you're not wishing bad things on people at all but the fact is, the bad thing has happened and you are reaching out and saying I think I can help you come to this you know, so this this thing of making lemonade from lemons is a really good thing as well. Content Creation. We're talking about the Allen's a big one this time because I think we're all big on this actually. It's so much easier now than it was 20 years ago again because of things like Grammarly AI GPT you'll tell the AI write me an immaculate blog piece at the creative directors in the Stockport area and it'll do it for you got no excuse.
Alan Smith:There's no excuse anymore. No, scarcely.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, that's pretty. Okay. So trapeze Thanks for Thanks for Thanks for bearing with us. We'll do more on the client acquisition process in Episode 12. That'll be part two of that. And we'll we will tie a bow on it. I think it's time we should move over perhaps to answering some of our listeners questions because they are still mounting up. The SEC is bulging. So let's pull let's pull three out of this this week. And Carl and Alan Smith. This is a few to answer. So they'll be prepped, but I'll go through it. The listeners name is dar DAR. Many financial planning firms hire people and eventually leave and take clients with them. How do you keep employees happy within a firm and ensure longevity? What is a fair split between what the company makes and what the advisor makes? I think that last question. That's probably one question too many. Okay, so what do you do with clients or devices that take clients? And how do you keep those those those advisors not leaving with your clients? Carl and Alan,
Carl Widger:join me to go out
Alan Smith:you go first call. I've got some thoughts.
Carl Widger:Yeah, I am. I think I'm in a pretty good position to answer this because it was absolutely terrible, creating an environment where people wanted to stay in work here. being totally and utterly honest. And I did a lot of work on this around 2018. And my focus since then, has been to try and create a really great place to work, really great culture. And I think you cannot underestimate how important that is if you want to build a successful firm, and I think we're in a good place now. But it's ever evolving. So I think number one, you got to create somewhere that's really that's fun to work in. That's successful, that ambitious people can be successful. Sometimes, you know, people are just going to want to break out into the world. We'll take that that's just life. And that just happens. But I suppose what you're trying to do is, is make that decision kind of almost difficult for them in terms of saying, Look, you know, it's not all a better roses out there, I think we mentioned this, maybe in the last episode or a couple of episodes ago, there are barriers to entry for people to kind of leave and set up on their own. Now in terms of the extra compliance, the corporate governance that's required, etc. So having all those ducks in a row, what I've tried to do is, we've mentioned this before, is build pod systems around our clients so that we have an advisor or power planner, and a kind of client service person around them, so that that protects our business. But it also makes the job of the advisor weak on a private client managers easier because they're just out doing, you know, what they're made to do what they like doing, which is business development, going get get new clients, in terms of, you know, how we reward people, we do it two ways on, you know, new business, new clients that you will bring in. But also, key to I think our success and why we've retained a really great team over the last number of years, is that we also remunerate people on business retention. So client engagement, you know, how many of your clients are going to give you the net promoter score of the eight, nine or 10 that you're looking for? So yeah, it's a it's an ongoing battle for any business, of course, you know, keeping your best people making sure they're happy. And I think the last few years were certainly last year was difficult, because it was definitely employees market. But I was all over that and making sure I was talking to all of my key people and making sure that they were happy.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, very good. Alan.
Alan Smith:You Yeah, as Carl says all about. So it's all about culture. I mean, I know this very well, because I mean, it's, it's quite some years ago now, since I removed myself from the frontline advice, and encourage my colleagues to step forward into the breach and be the main advisors. So I, I handed all the clients that I had, that I looked after, since the day we started the business across two colleagues to yet to other advisors within the firm, and a number of people told me at the time, you must be mad, you can decline so then all they're going to do is leave take the clients with them. But no one no one did. That was years ago. No one did. Everyone stayed. And we grew the business since then. And why is that roundabout that time, there's a good book called drive by Daniel Pink. And Daniel Pink talks about how humans are motivated, particularly in the workplace. We think it's all about money. But of course, it's not money becomes money should be a hygiene factor. People should be paid well and competitively. And then there are other key issues that are going to drive our decision making. He talks about the three key three key issues, mastery, autonomy, and purpose. And without sort of going into too much detail there. If you've got a business and a person who works your colleagues work with you are able to embrace that they're able to be become better, I master it, they've got autonomy so they can make their own decisions. They're not just dictated to, and they've got there's there's a there's a bigger purpose within the business. You've got you attract the right people, they will stay with you and they won't go down the road for an extra couple of quid elsewhere. So it is all about the culture. As Charles said, it's never ending you keep you keep going. And I from a sort of compensation viewpoint. I've noticed increasingly firms are just paying advisors fixed salaries. I still believe a little bit old school about incentivize, I think it's incentive still work. You've got of course, you got to look after your clients. But you know, we're all driven by incentives to some degree. Oh, yeah, yeah. So we do pay our advisors, and there is bonuses, and you've got to be doing all the right things and KPIs, making sure that you've got compliant files, all that all that sort of stuff. But we're a mature business. It's not like we're hiring a bunch of sort of self employed people, but people are and pods are awarded our pods run their own p&l. And so it is it is about profitability, and people are well paid, and they are bonused on new business and retaining existing business. And but but that's an individual business decision. Some some really successful businesses do still pay fic, you know, sort of flat salaries, and have some sort of bonus scheme, through profit share at the end. But hopefully we've covered that make.
Carl Widger:Yeah, just just one very, very final point. If you're in the business of trying to grow your business trying to, you know, expand fixed salaries for me, I don't know, does that work? That's just my own view. And I think you got a, as you say, incentivize people for great performance and for and for helping in the expansion and the growth of the business. That's just
Alan Smith:definitely you know, what, when I when I started all these years ago, they were not even before when I started as an IFA that the traditional to answer that specific second part of the question that dar raised, all are all Advisors, a lot of them had self employed people working with them, but when I was going sort of knocking on doors with advisors in those days, there was a traditional model, which was a third, a third, a third. So the the IFA firm retained a third, to run the operations and keep the whole thing going. The adviser took a third of the income, and the third was kept for profit. And you know, what, 20 years later? It's not that a million miles away from that, is that a starting point? You'd adjust that up or down? Depending on your business, your structure and your overhead? It all depends, are the advisors self generating opportunities, you know, that's the lifeblood, as we've said, already of growing a business and if you're doing all that yourself, or the company is creating all the new business, all the prospects everything, then the company's gonna have to be compensated for the cost of doing that. But as a starting point, the third isn't a million miles away from that, that might be quite generous, but, you know, broadly speaking, that's it. That's
Carl Widger:it, I like it. And I think, you know, if you're in if you're trying to build a brand, that people can, you know, buy into and it helps them when they're doing their business development. I like it. I think, you know, if it ain't broke, there you go.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, very good. Next question, from TRAPPIST Jordan Cole Klaff, who's on Twitter as at Jay Cole cloth, F p Foxtrot, Papa. Hi, guys, I'd love to hear your thoughts about passing clients down to New and in particular, younger advisors, your views on the best way to do this, how to go about introducing the new advisor, best ways for the new adviser to handle the transition. Be bold, and take the relationship back to basics or avoid rocking the boat at the risk. You never really get to know the client properly. And what worries might the seating advisors have, if any? Thanks? Well, we kind of touched on that in that previous but but again, and you're looking to chip in But Alan and Carl have marked this for discussion. So what have you guys run with that question?
Alan Smith:I'll just follow on from what I was just saying. Because this is exactly what we've done. First of all, I've handed over clients to exhibit to other advisors and younger advisors, we continue, we continue to do that. And it's, it's quite funny, because when I was beginning to hand clients across, and some of these people I've known for years, I thought that I'll fight tooth and nail to keep me
Unknown:fine. Yeah. Why? Why did you think that? Yeah, one day
Andy Hart:to know more stories from Alan. No.
Alan Smith:But I mean, again, it's very, it's very personal, it's individual. There are some clients, you just know really super well, don't you I know, some clients I've knew socially, and it wasn't just gonna walk out the door. So and in fact, there are some clients, I still, you know, I'm in I'm in the meetings with. So in terms of the practical transition, it's very simple. You have joint meetings for a period of time, the main seating advisor, as he's put it, together with the new advisor that's being appointed, you have one or two, depending on what it is you get, get them used to it. And I positioned it on the basis that it's not as if you're losing me, because less than the seeding advisors leaving the company, you say, well, you're getting, you're getting access to the greater team, I'm still around, if you want to pick me to join a future meeting want to pick up the phone are happy to discuss anything, but day to day, here's here's John or Mary or whoever is gonna be dealing with your issues day to day. And I think you can position it as a win win for everyone for the for the client, who's going to get better, more dedicated service for the young advisor, but without saying I'm abandoning you, and you won't hear from me ever again. And I think the last thing I'll say is almost sort of smaller boutique businesses have got a lot more to add to that than a traditional, you know, the banks and the big nationals who just people just leave, and you've got to start all over again, right? Yeah, here's a new advisor, he doesn't have any of the details. So and we actually make that quite a strong points when we're speaking to particular clients, you'd likely to speak to the same or the same organization, you know, for many, many years ahead, which is what clients are really keen to do. Call,
Andy Hart:I think that's I think that's a major advantage. Don't call me Nick with our small businesses in terms of we say to our clients, we're going to be your advisor, basically, forever, you know, join a bank and it just a revolving door of advisors sort of call it to you
Carl Widger:know, I have nothing to add. What we do is exactly what Alan has just pointed out, there's no point of me saying the same thing. And
Nick Lincoln:okay, but
Alan Smith:just just looking at his question again, because it just went I've already said it can refer back to things at the beginning about rediscovery, because Jordan was asking about, you know, do you go back to basics to avoid rocking the boat? Yes, you you do you don't you do rock the boat in a good way. You say I'm a new guy got all the information here. But if you don't mind, can you sort of just go back to this? Can I just ask you some basic questions and talk about it? Because I'm pretty sure you'll uncover quite a few things that the existing or seeding advisor isn't so aware of. And I think clients deserve that. And I think that appreciate it.
Nick Lincoln:Yeah, exactly. You could say listen, I know you as the numbers, I can see your numbers, but I don't know there's the people so I was just, I just wanna, I just want to learn a bit about you. Right? Is that okay? Okay, well, we're gonna do three questions this this episode maybe for future episodes, cuz we've got so many backed up. So the final one is from Matthew Sinclair, who's on Twitter as at map see Sinclair also has got a LinkedIn profile. I am really enjoying that. I am really enjoying the podcast and listen to three last week on a flight back from Lanza. Rati. Jesus. My question is about suitability letters. In theory this should be a document focused on outlining to the client clearly what is being recommended. Recommended why and any risk warnings however, often they feel like a compliance exercise designed to cover the firm's ask for a complex new client who's coming to the office tomorrow. The report is 30 pages. I'm interested to know how long your reports are. And if you have any tips, we're often told at events that a one page report will be possible. But this will be a huge change from 30 pages. I know colleague noted, put your hands down. So we'll come to in a second. I think the one page report that's talking more about the financial planning report not the compliance bit that has to go with the product being recommended. And mostly typical as I pushed them right the limit in terms of how scamp they are I mean, they are brief and and what I use your appendix so I don't insert a bit less I will not describe what pensioners are one ICER is or what investment risk is they will be appendix at the back of the actual suitability letter that's written bespoke for the client is about five pages long. And you can get it all in there. And what my compliance consultants continually tell me they like in my suitability letters, they are very much about the soft facts and the background to their most recent interaction with the client. The fact that I put in there a cash flow chart that underpins the advice. The templates I see are horrendous, horrendous thing. So by these big compliance firms, they're not they're not designed by human beings, no human being would design or want to read that. That's my tuppence worth there. Maybe Carl. And perhaps Andy, as well might have a point to raising this car. What would you say?
Carl Widger:First of all, which one of you guys is volunteering me to answer all the questions, because I certainly didn't put my initials beside all these questions. Anyway.
Nick Lincoln:Before Christmas, we went we went. We did, we did. We did annotate them with initials. So you did my I
Carl Widger:just got lucky, I just got lucky that I got three in a row today. Anyway, I do have a bit of insight, because we've done a lot of work on this. And we try to figure this out ourselves. Because Matthew is right, like issuing a 30 page report. But just a bunch of compliance is just irrelevant to everybody. So what we try to do is, we do a one page financial planning summary at the start. Okay. And then we do a kind of we try and flesh that out over the following. Maybe it might be five or six pages. So it's like, here's a summary of the product. And here's why. And just refer back to that one page, financial planning summary. And then we do all of the compliance stuff that has to go into to everything in an appendix. So that's how we do it. So it could well end up being I don't I don't think we've got 30 pages necessarily, but it could be lengthy. But it's very easy for us to focus with the client on the important bits. And almost always, it's the that one page summary as well. That meeting is focused on the client and get a full copy of the letter and can go through it. But I don't know do many clients actually go through that word for word. But that's what we do. And we found that that works for us. And
Andy Hart:I issue a client, a financial master plan, that's the output from voyant, the financial planning software that I use, it's got a one page financial plan at the beginning, and then an output of all the data specifically to the suitability letter, I just play the game. I'm amazed that this complex client has got only a 30 page suitability letter. I've seen astronomical lenses suited. But yeah, it is. And I do play the game, I use an outsource paraplanning company that are amazing. They make beautiful reports, but they're incredibly detailed and complex. I'm almost certain the clients never read them or start to glance through them and get to I don't even know what page or paragraph they get to. I'm not too bothered, I think you should just continue to play the game issue horrendously lengthy reports, and just move on. All the good stuff is done live with the client, either via zoom or the meeting, you know, you are the financial plan, you are the suitability letter. You're the one that's you know, telling the client do the right things with investments in the right products. Don't worry too much about it. Just continue to issue these horrendously long reports because we got to play the game. Alan?
Alan Smith:Yeah, just just quickly, there's a lot we should spend more time thinking about design, design and layout of information. So instead of just having this sort of standard Word, Word docs, that's it. It's been a bit of time with Breakout boxes and summaries and checklists and bullet points, all that sort of stuff. Build that template. We're doing a piece of work this year to just try and improve on ours. That's one thing, but there are some compliance information but the best world in the world with all the best design in the world, you never go into nail. And I always see this in the very same ways when you download some something from Apple or Amazon and you scroll on your phone, like 1010 pages for the stuff, you just you just click Accept. And he was exactly what it's like that it's going to be okay. And this is the same sort of thing just send this to the client you can it's all there is, is to protect both of us both me and you, Mr. Client, Mrs. Client and us. It's all there if you want to go through it by all means do so but there's information we could have you could send to you. And you're never going to design that beautifully. But the headlines and the summaries and the one pager you can make much more accessible.
Carl Widger:And isn't that the point? And we spoken about this before? Right? So it's, it's, it's a compliance document? First and foremost, right? But how can you turn that into making that an advantage? So make us you know, make the presentation, make the design, make it more beautiful, so that it's easier, at least for the clients to go through the things that are really important because Andy is right, all of the all of the real work is done in the presentation of the plan. But you can't afford not to do this. You can't afford to get this wrong. So why not just say, Okay, well, if we're gonna do it, let's, let's make ours the very best. And like we've done our so our terms of business document that we have, I feel it's the best one in the market. So we have made it, you know, as good as we possibly can. So So rather than all of these things be a problem, how can we make them take it as an advantage? And again, this is advice I got from Alan Smith about four years ago. You know, I think Alan, you said to me, I can't remember exactly what he said. But rather than making complaints being a problem all the time, how can you turn it to be in be an advantage? And that's, you know, I were so vague on
Alan Smith:exactly that right? Everyone else is moaning and groaning about it and they're still sending out these crap 30 page report to the clients hate no one likes nobody. Okay, so how we're going to be how are we going to take advantage of that situation, we're just going to do better make it more engaged and for clients got three opportunities to be to three different advisors. I know which one is going to choose if the information is much more accessible and well designed.
Carl Widger:For example, look at look at our website and look at our terms of business document because I think it's bloody good. Mr. House.
Andy Hart:I just think pick your battles. And Carl's gonna get about 47 emails now asking for is there any chance I can have a copy of your client agreement? No, bugger off. Yes. whines anyway,
Unknown:it's on our website. Yeah, it's
Alan Smith:free. And I didn't even charge car for that brilliant advice I gave him four years ago.
Unknown:I think I gave the other advice or any the other five years ago I have
Nick Lincoln:simmered down travel hacks simmer down right I think we've done this questions there there justice. Let's move on to what many people call the culture corner. Right No particular order. I'll start with you Andy. Because you always get to go live. We'll start with your culture corner. you're recommending a book Rich, wiser happier, tell us about it my different.
Andy Hart:The book richer, wiser happier how the world's greatest investors, when in markets and life. I think the life actually is what's a bit more interesting about this book. I think he the author, English guy spends quite a bit of time in the US spend sort of follows around 10 to 15 famous investors, Charlie Munger, Mohnish pabrai. John Templeton and spends time in their homes and where they live and how they sort of do their routines. It's a decent book, really, really decent book. I love hearing about these sort of eccentric trader characters, Joe Lewis, the currency trader. Yeah. If you're into that sort of stuff, as I say, it's the more about their insights and wisdom around life that I find a little bit more interesting than their sort of trading records. But yeah, a decent book. Well, well worth a read or listen.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, thank you very much, Andy. My one is to a book mine is a book called Midnight in Sicily by Peter Rob is a book that came out in 1997. I've read it a couple of times, and is front of mind for me because the lovely Penelope and I TLP. We're going to Sicily in the summer holidays for a week and it's a fantastic beautiful island. I mentioned White Lotus a few weeks ago the series set in Sicily. Midnight in Sicily by Peter Rob is a book it's a nonfiction book about the corrupt gone.
Andy Hart:Are you flying with Sicily
Nick Lincoln:ECDA EasyJet guard do not go down there. Change changing names on once you've booked up tickets 55 quid per flight each way.
Unknown:Anyway, you booked Nick
Nick Lincoln:got over that anxiety midnight in Sicily by Peter Robbins a book about the corruption in Sicily and how the Christian Democratic Party which was the ruling party of Italy since the Second World War. Giulio Andreotti was the Prime Minister about seven times over that period. And he and how important Sicily was to winning the elections of the Christian Democrats and they have the mafia. You have this corrupt Sicilian political system. You have Giulio Andreotti who I think in the end was indicted, which initially is a miracle. But the book weaves that in also with the art and the history And the music and the food of Cisco. It's a really, really nice book midnight asleep by Peter Robb. As ever with all of these things, there'll be a link in the so called show notes. Mr. Smith, the shaping wealth program
Alan Smith:where you're just bringing it back, Cecily. Sounds great, but bring it back into our regular jobs. Shipping wealth program is created by a friend of mine, Brian Portnoy, I mentioned his book on this before geometry of wealth. This is, I think, there is no doubt that we all I think we all believe that going forward, the hope behavioral piece is going to be more important for advisors, it already isn't going to be increasingly more so as everyone wakes up to the idea that investment management is increasingly commoditized. And this This is a program that might we're piloting or my colleague is going to start on that this month. Friend of the podcast Dan Hale it some of you will know good egg he's been on this program and on it last year and said it's use his words it was transformational, both on a personal basis and a professional basis. So worth checking out put a show put a link to the put it in the show notes.
Nick Lincoln:Great stuff. And last but not least the watch Meister bad sisters, my friend tell us about that.
Carl Widger:Yeah, last week I spoke about a book by Paul Hewson, aka Bonnel. This week I'm talking about a Netflix although it's not actually Netflix, I think is on Apple or one of those. It's a series called Bad sisters and Banos daughter Eve Hewson is in it it's absolutely brilliant. If anybody like me is in the middle of dry January and you are looking for things to do get on 10 parts it's absolutely it's intriguing on it's funny on its soul well acted just absolutely brilliant bad sisters go and get on it. Cool.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, there we go. Listen, we're coming out of that 71 minutes for this episode. I think we've done our Trappists a good turn today as a really good effort enjoyed that so the next one episode 12 will count we will carry forward the client acquisition process because Mr. Smith has some more stories to divulge so oh yes so yes I hope you been wait the wait the two weeks for that for the next set of stories as ever please please please do leave a review on iTunes or six out of five stars it really really does help us get up the rankings and subscribe on YouTube like on YouTube whatever if you want to watch a
Alan Smith:scribe subscribe on the podcast as well the platform
Nick Lincoln:yeah yeah, we'll
Carl Widger:vote on Twitter for who's who should be reading out the reviews from now on
Andy Hart:Yeah, I'll give it back right next time sorry about
Alan Smith:you do it call your dulcet Irish definitely no limit
Unknown:you you know that
Andy Hart:I believe are grammatically correct so I can read it I'm looking on
Nick Lincoln:Twitter there is a trending there's a trending hashtag on Twitter ABN anything but Hart ABA Jr. And he's trying to be anyone. Right Jen?
Alan Smith:And if anyone and if and remember fourth of February if anyone's around, come and meet us for a couple of pints and watch the rugby
Nick Lincoln:at the Royal Oak in Marylebone they'll be linked to that pub in the in the so called channels. Gents bugger. And Trappists will speak with you in two weeks time. Take care. Bye, cheerio. Bye bye, everybody.