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In this latest pile of TRAP, the Trap Pack discuss
Links referred to in the show:
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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 what many people are calling episode 20 of the real advisor podcast to our AP trap. My name is Lincoln and joining me as ever are the three other horsemen of the apocalypse call the voice which are Alan the storyteller Smith and and the heart Now gentlemen We have a show packed full of absolutely nothing so let's start unpacking it from the get go Mr. Hart give us a low energy reading or three more reviews.
Andy Hart:Fantastic over to me thank you very much look so the first review comes from James Beck good friend of mine good friend of people on the show I believe it's entitled grab your Sports Direct mug and have a listen five stars lick Lincoln and the gang share their wisdom about all things financial planning with some humor sprinkled in for good measure well worth a listen. Next up is from Sharon satin. Again a good friend of the show five stars nice good to hear. We are on the right track. That's if these guys have it right of course with a smiley emoji. And the Irish perspective is useful to hear. Only criticism is for blokes NPS, which stands for I believe male pale and stale. I could be wrong. The final review which is the hit the whole fruit hands, the hunter surprisingly good five stars. When I heard that four of the most egotistical financial advisors on Twitter was starting a podcast that does include UCOL I thought oh, it will likely be a pound a pound land all in. I was surprised when I learned it was full of practical advice for fellow financial advisors. And the undercurrent of loathing and acrimony amongst the hosts gives you an edgy an edge worth six stars back to you lick.
Alan Smith:First of all, that's that is a brilliant review, isn't it? It's a bit it's really got the essence. What do you say the undercover undercover of loathing and agrimony?
Carl Widger:It's not brilliant. It's just accurate. Yeah.
Alan Smith:Talking about that, go on.
Andy Hart:Now I'm just saying people's persona on Twitter is very different when they meet you in real life. So people do have a an opinion of people via Twitter. And then they hear him on a podcast and see them do a talk or meet them somewhere. And then they sometimes changed their mind over to Alan.
Alan Smith:I just wanted to say, just something funny happened last night. We've got a new recruit in the company. Shout out to Olivia just joined us literally a few days ago. And she's come from a different background, which I think that's interesting. In and of itself. She used to work for Amazon in logistics. So we probably learn a lot from her anyway. So she hasn't been in our in our industry in our profession. And I was chatting to her yesterday. And I said well, in order to kind of to get up to speed and understand some of the sort of topics and the issues of the day. I said I co host the podcast called The Real advisor podcast. And Olivia says, Oh yeah, I've been listening to I've listened to a lot of it. I thought I said that. That's that's really good. That's what you think. He says on audio. I tell you who's your biggest fan? I suppose that's my dad. I said, Oh, is he work? Does he work in financial services? He says no, he's in telecoms. He said she just likes the banter. Oh my God, that's funny.
Nick Lincoln:insane. Insane. Okay, let's let's give this show some a timestamp with some topical tidbits. Just before the show recorded today. I saw in my inbox that we've got yet another email from the FSA, a financial resilience survey. I now have the view these are sent out to test our financial resilience God knows how many man hours are wasted doing these things. But that's coming to you dear TRAPPIST, if you haven't got it already. Allen Smith timeline charts 2023. A quick summary of these plays.
Alan Smith:Very quick. Abraham and his team at timeline produce once a year I've series of I think there's about a dozen charts and graphs looking back over sort of 100 years or so of data. And they're interesting, they're informative, and I believe they can be used in client presentations in client communications. And I just wanted to highlight them put a link to them in the show notes is an interesting video where Abraham in his inimitable style explains what the charts are all about. But well worth taking a look but I know that from past conversations Nik says if you use charts, you're a loser or something you think you're, you're not. You don't really believe in using charts and graphs during client communications. Is that right?
Nick Lincoln:I think they're a crutch for weak advisors. You have to use the old graph, but I think people that use just blind clients with graphs are, yeah, I do. I've always said that. I think it's a weakness. Yeah, it's a weakness. You're not trying to convince anybody of anything. That's the when trying to convince people with graphs, you've lost the battle already. Back to you, Alan, with your quick summary of the timeline charts. That's it. I've done it. Excellent. Great. Well, that's a nice segue there from timeline to Mr. Hart's topical champion, because Mr. Hart wants to talk about Abraham's advisor. 3.0.
Andy Hart:I'm a fan of carefully crafted V today meetings. Moving on. So yeah, I believe last week, if that's the right sort of timeline in when this has been released. Yeah. Follow. We're given Abraham two points here. I mean, this is this is this is easy. He's doing well here. Yeah. So we went to me and Alan went to his conference last week. I believe Abraham has put about five or six conferences on different types of themes so fairplay for him to continue to come up with new themes and ideas. But yeah, it's called the advisor 3.0. fantastic venue, albeit a little bit hard to find, but once you find it, it's cracking. Yeah, good mix, good. Good short talks, some fireside chats, but the people in the room, it's all the people in the room, isn't it? So it was very sort of light hearted, good spirited. The sun was out. Yeah, it was a cracking day. Alan, you were there. What did you think my friend?
Alan Smith:I would endorse exactly what you said there was, you know, Seth Godin was a speaker and I'm a fanboy of Seth. I thought he was just wonderful. Every word he says to me is poetry. Yeah. This is I thought Karren Brady was great as well. I didn't, I didn't I don't know much. I know, Nick, you might be surprised about that I wasn't expecting I'm not a fan of that used to watch the apprentice anymore. Don't really know too much about her. But I thought her talk was really good. It was inspiring and positive. And there was a bit as you say, and the the, the sort of the wisdom, the energy in the room in run the coffee shop, the you know, the coffee machine. And inevitably, in the bar afterwards, I just like it was just as community. And I think this is all kind of this. We've been out of lockdown for a while now. But it seems that we're really sort of getting our mojo back as a community. That was just some positivity in the room, the place was buzzing, lots of conversations spinning off here and there. So I remember waking up the next morning with a mild hangover, but a warm glow of positivity about this, you know, this amazing profession that we're all we're all proud to be part of. So it was it was a great, a great, great experience.
Nick Lincoln:Great stuff. Anything else to add to that, Andy?
Andy Hart:Um, yeah, I wrote about 10 different notes of things to do and actions to take, which is very rare for me, I'm I normally go to conferences, and if I write down one thing, it's been a good day. So I wrote down about 10 things. And the good thing about it is I'm even like watching a talk by fellow financial advisors. And they're saying something, a key point, but then it's led to something else in my mind. So so I'm not even writing down the key point, they said, I'm writing down something else. So just being there live sitting in a room, a live room, rather than everything via zoom, your brain just starts thinking in all different directions, which I think is fantastic. So that, again, is the whole value of the conference format. So well done to Abraham, the team is very, very well organized. As a fellow conference organized, I know how hard those things are to put together. So yeah, back to you look.
Nick Lincoln:Very good. So well, actually, it's back to you. And because the next topical tip, it is a perennial favorite of yours. The Times was at the Sunday Times Rich List.
Andy Hart:Short, I knew it was back to me, but God forbid I did two in a row without the chairman chipping in in the meantime. Okay, I want to move to the rich list. I've read
Carl Widger:that review. That review was so accurate.
Nick Lincoln:The low the the low, the scale is already at max.
Andy Hart:Okay. So the Sunday Times Rich List was released last weekend on Sunday, actually. And I actually was in center box with my kids. So I ran down on Sunday, ran down to the local supermarket. The Sunday Times are three pound 50 I subscribe online, but I bought the physical thing. I pulled this on the richest out of it and just bought that for three pound 50. Anyway, I've read its cover to cover from sort of the age of 10 I remember my dad first gave it to me, I love reading it. But for me, I think a lot of the value is in the is in the later numbers. So 100 Plus, that's where you find, you know, the real entrepreneurial journeys. I mean, we're all aware of the sort of James Dyson's the Branson's you know the sort of well known entrepreneurs but I like reading about the odd businesses that have done you know absolutely fantastically so yeah, it's Sunday Times Rich List is something I read a frequently what's
Alan Smith:what's the minimum entry level to be in this cars are 1000s 1000 people. So what's what's what's number 1000? You know,
Andy Hart:I think it was something like 300 million. That's just me thinking I listen off the cuff anyway, let's move on from that he's stressing out the old German.
Nick Lincoln:Right? Okay. Mr. widger, you've got us some, some minus negative news. Tell us about this. This this court thing?
Carl Widger:Well, it seems in Ireland were in the eye of a storm in terms of news every single week in the Sunday papers about various geared property funds or loan notes or solar panel businesses and all this kind of stuff going pear shaped, and last week, for directors of chc. So customhouse capital, who are kind of geared a geared property company back in the in the mid 2000s, were jailed for fraud. So it was very interesting to see it's the first time as far as I'm aware of white collar crime guys being caught and jailed, actually. So what they were doing was an absolute disgrace. And there's other stuff, I think, coming down the road. So I just think it is it is reassuring. Finally, for people who do serious fraud to actually get the punishment that they deserve. They're up for appeal at the moment. I'm only telling you what's been in the papers what's been reported. But for me, finally, it seems like I know understates like this stuff happens all the time. But we've seen to hear I don't know about in the UK, but here it seems to be very light touch, very soft touch in terms of punishments. But there's hefty punishments, the head guy who was jailed for almost seven years. So serious sentences handed down, and hopefully it'll be a deterrent for people doing bad things with investors money going forward.
Nick Lincoln:I think I think it's obviously it's unfortunate, it's ended up in jail sentences, but I'm glad it has ended up in jail sentences. And your point is well made white collar crime here. The perception is is people tend to tend to get away with it. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. I certainly know in your neck of the woods, Carl in the in the early mid 2000s property was like the thing wasn't it. And then of course, you had the credit crunch, the banking, implosion, whatever you want to call it, and it left a lot of people in a lot of strife. And he
Carl Widger:doesn't does one thing and investments going wrong, okay. And people understanding what they were going into and the investment didn't work out. There's another thing people fraudulently putting money into places they shouldn't have put it are not where they said they were going to put it on. I think that that's the crux of the crime here. So yeah, they are two different things for sure. But you know, it's good to see that that you know, there's heavy punishments now been handed out and there's, that's a precedent and so, you know, hopefully that will deter any bad behaviors going forward.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, well done. The Irish authorities. Okay. And the next topical tip, but it's also you, Mr. Widget, the currency. Yes, Sydney though, Sullivan.
Carl Widger:Yeah, the currency is an online kind of business news app, I would say it's absolutely amazing for it's behind a paywall. It's definitely the best subscription that I subscribe to. I would urge every Irish financial adviser who's listening to this and anybody else in Ireland to subscribe. It's absolutely amazing. If you're interested in business, and most of its business stories and how businesses have succeeded or whatever, on my favorite writer than in the currency is Sinead Sullivan. She's absolutely amazing. You can follow her on Twitter. But she's recently started the context. And the context is basically an online book club. And the reason a lot of it is there, you know, we often amongst ourselves ask, right, I'm going on a journey or playing journey or whatever podcast or what book should I listen to? And it's, you know, they're kind of typical business books or you know, self development or whatever. This is, Sinead is recommending a number of books that you wouldn't definitely have read before. Now. I'm putting them on Audible, as you know, but I'll talk in the culture corner about the book that Junaid the first book that she recommended, which I listened to and I just devoured it was just awesome. And definitely not a book that I would have listened to before. And I just thought, you know, talking about innovation and online book club, so basically you read the book, you've a couple of weeks to read it. And then she does a podcast with the author. So it's awesome. Yeah, really, really good. I mean, aside from that she needs writing is always brilliant. So I highly recommend
Nick Lincoln:it. Okay, great. Is there a link to the currency in the so called show notes?
Carl Widger:Of course there is German You're a good man. Watch this.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, the next topical tip. Oh, God, this was painful. Yeah, the Stig and his his his god Alan, you just talk about it quickly.
Alan Smith:Yeah, it was it was painful. We this was in the weekend papers. We all know that a lot of the newspapers the times does it I think the The Mail on Sunday, a bunch of them all do this, where they ask a high profile person or a celebrity, you know the sort of questions about money and do you how do you invest your money? How'd you do saved you like pensions, you invest in property and ask them all these questions and how, you know, how did what was your biggest earning payday and all that sort of stuff I just saw and they're all was pretty tragic. Honestly, they're always pretty bad. Bearing in mind, all these people are relatively high profile, presumably high earners. They are financially illiterate without exception, but this one really took the biscuit this was the guy obviously, it's public information, you can go and check it out the guy who played the stake if everyone was a fan of Top Gear, the Stig was motor racing driver, I think his name is Ben Collins, they asked him all these questions, do you invest in this to invest in that? So he says pensions are don't go near pensions? Because and it's quite interesting, actually, as a member of the public, so they always changed the rules about pensions, which is true, it doesn't mean that you should avoid the tax efficiency, your pension. So I never touched pensions. He said, on investments here. Once I invested few years ago, I invested in a fund of a high profile investment manager, which I'm guessing was Neil Woodford, he said and it fell by 97%. So I'm never investing in that again. So another era, you said the best investment was investing in wine about a case of you know, Rothschilds, Laffite, whatever it was, and it doubled the value over a few years. And I thought you did well not to drink it. And he sold sold over a few years later. What else he said it was just a complete just a checklist of every mistake you could ever make with your investments and with your money. And I just thought God, he's you assume that high profile high earning people are well advised. They've got a sort of army of really smart people around them telling them what to do. It's the opposite. This guy doesn't. And I don't think any of the others do. It's the opposite is and it's not. So it was just and it's kind of to me, I just thought that's representative of just I suppose a member of the public who knows no better everyone needs to accumulate and save for their old age or whatever. And this guy is just doing if you can have a checklist of the opposite of things to do. He's doing every single one of them credible.
Nick Lincoln:Yeah, yeah, indeed, human nature is a failed investor. Yeah,
Andy Hart:just on that, yeah, money. Wealth certainly doesn't equal literacy. You know, financial illiterates hate pensions, they hate the stock market. You know, hence, we're here to continue to do our good work and save, you know, clients from the financial darkness over to lick.
Nick Lincoln:Thank you very much, Andrew, Mr. Whichever your firm is recruiting.
Carl Widger:We are indeed. So after our MBO has settled in over the last couple of months, we've decided to embark in the next phase of our growth strategy. So very excited to announce that we are recruiting up to six positions at the moment. So a lot of the focus, there will be on our Dublin office and building out that office under Patti Andrews. So yeah, I have a link in the show notes. We would absolutely love people who want to do real financial planning to come on board with Ireland's best financial planning firm. So please do click the link, please do apply. And I look forward to talking to you all
Andy Hart:just the six positions. Don't challenge we
Carl Widger:don't challenge don't challenge that point. Andrew was supposed
Alan Smith:to sponsorship and service for this. We sponsored by Metis. Norway. I was gonna say is he paid? We are now now.
Andy Hart:That's the whole reason why he's come on this show. Smith 20 episodes. Mr. Smith, do you want
Nick Lincoln:to talk about do you want to talk about Vanguard target date? No, not no. Okay. Right. You do talk about? You do want to talk very quickly about a workshop
Alan Smith:about Sandy Hook. Talking about target date funds. We'll come back to that. Yeah. As we know, from past conversations on this, I've gone down to the AI Artificial Intelligence rabbit hole in a significant way Mr. Hartz can have with me as well. To some degree, I'm the day this podcast goes out, I will be speaking at a workshop. God helped me about the implications of artificial intelligence on what is generically called consulting businesses, which we are we're consulting companies, and I've spent quite a lot of time trying to understand the impact is going to have and there's no question everyone can raise their eyebrows and stuff. But there's no doubt whatsoever of the impact that this will have on all of our businesses where they've been, and it won't be like other things in the past, like the internet and all this stuff won't be over the next 10 years. It will be over the next 10 months or so. We did it a sort of collaboration with a few other people that I have known from the past who are the real experts on it. The guy called piers Linney, who's next Dragon's Den, Dragon entrepreneur and another guy called Alok. We're running this program. As I say, we'll be out today. If you're listening to this today, this podcast comes out, but because it means so much interest from financial planners and advisors, we're going to run another session. I didn't know in a couple of months we're going to look at the dates that are available. and we'll post information about it. Because I think if you are particularly if you senior or you're running a financial planning company, it will be absolutely worth your time and worth your while to spend a day, just chewing the fat, looking at the opportunities, there are a ton of challenges, there are an amazing amount of opportunities. And I think it's now time to collaborate, get together, discuss them, because there's going to be absolutely gonna be winners and losers in this whole, complete and utter change that's going to happen over the next you know, few months and definitely a couple of years. So I'm just flagging that up. And I gotta mention it but something else later on in culture corner, over to you lick do
Andy Hart:just Just following on from their image, just wondering overnight, under the AR situations, a lot of talk about it now, certainly the financial press, and is also in the sort of mainstream press. And whenever they ask people what, you know, professions do you think are the most vulnerable to AI financial advisors are quite high up then. So it's our investment managers, I believe as an insider is going to be such a benefit for us and our firms, I don't believe it's going to limit the amount of clients that seek financial advice, I think we're still going to get as many clients as we've always got, I just think the way that we're going to then interact with them, and sort of service them on an ongoing basis is going to be a major benefit for our firms. So yeah, I am really excited about AI,
Alan Smith:the whole so yeah, it might it might experience the whole, all the changes play right into the hands of all of us on this podcast, and most of our listeners in their a with small businesses. So when we're dynamic, and we can execute things quickly, we can take advantage of things. And we are evolved sort of component parts that make up a financial planning experience, which is things like data analysis, number crunching, cash flow, modeling, investment management, all those sort of stuff, let the bloody robots do that all day long. We're at the other end of it, which is behavioral coaches. And yes, you will absolutely you you will have that exists already. And that will get better and better. And you will, you could have a financial planner coach in your pocket on your phone. But I think we're a long way off. People want you're not wishing to engage with another human being, you know, look in the whites of their eyes, shake their hands and really understand that. So I think our emphasis on that exclusively human interaction is going to play right into the hands of this and we'll get the robots to do pretty much everything else. But so therefore the value of the cash flow, the investment management is rapidly going to go to zero. And unfortunately 90% of the financial planning community that's that's this value proposition. So it will be interesting. For folks like us, yeah.
Andy Hart:Back to you, Nick.
Nick Lincoln:Dan. Okay. All right. Okie dokie. Thank you. So as we announced, I think it was in the last episode and via social media. The voice the voice is going on a family holiday to the west coast of of the USA and he is not around to record the next episode. He wants to be fully present with his family. That's the excuses given we all know the trap is that getting car to work the tech from Limerick is a miracle. It ain't happening over the Atlantic. So we have a guest host for episode 21. I'm pleased to announce who the guest host is. Before I announce the guest host this is this is skill first. Just to say we had a really good response to this we had over 20 people 20 mugs saying they wanted to do it so it you know for the 19 or 20 people that aren't going to be the next guest host you are in the hopper and you your your your expression of interest is greatly received. Thank you so much. It's not a slur on you or anything like that. We just had to pick somebody from the 20 and the person we've chosen is a young financial advisor from the northwest of England Amelia Powell of Premier wealth solutions. And I think she's going to be a great guest host for that next episode. Something I didn't know actually but she's she's a PFS, new professionals officer looking to support those new to the financial services industry. And we're so we're gonna have a young voice on the show. The TRAPPIST reception seems to be really strong from younger advisors, sort of newbies to the profession who who so cut the gibberish that we that we spout out so it's Amelia Powell for the next episode. And that's the end of that. Okay, final topical tip bit. One of our one of our more rabid fans. We have some raving fan, which is great. I you know, it's amazing how much support we get. And this guy's Phillip Donnelly, he's on Twitter as at Phil Douglas Don. He's doing the 100 mile 100 mile ride London cycle thing on the 28th of May, which is a couple of days off. This episode comes out. He's raising money for Great Ormond Street Hospital. You know, I'm sure most people know what Great Ormond Street does it's it's, it's for children and children who aren't very well. So it's a real sort of really good cause. And there's a link to his his JustGiving page in the so called shownotes if you choose to donate or not to that but there's there's there's the boost view full of what goes well. Okay, I think it's time for us to move on. To the meat and potatoes, do we not think it's time to move on to that? We've done it all, haven't we? Right? So in the last episode we, we talked about the initial discovery process, the, how do you pitch it? How do you outline your value proposition to prospects, because they are prospects, because we're always prospecting and we're always selling, whether we're financial advisors, whether we're, whatever profession we're in, whatever we're doing, we are always selling ourselves. And that was that was the last meeting. So assuming you've gone from the discovery meeting, and you've vetted the clients, or better the prospects, remembering that you are vetting them, they are not vetting you, assuming they've got through that initial filter, you're now on to the first planning meeting, where you've got all the information, all the financial stuff. More importantly, you've got all their values and goals and aspirations that are going to be funded by the financial stuff. And now these poor saps are coming to you absolutely petrified. For the initial planning meeting, they still don't really know what you do. They're probably too embarrassed to ask too many questions. How do we how do we get this thing going? I think, Mr. Hart, you're going to lead off with the initial planning meeting meat and potatoes section of episode 20. Of Trap.
Andy Hart:Yeah, sure. Thanks, Nick. That was a great intro. So yeah, I call it a strategy meeting. So that's the first sort of point to note. I generally don't have all of the financial data from the client, I'm happy to build it live with them. But I do let them know that we need to have all the financial data to hand we're in 2023. So obviously, I've been doing most of these via zoom, which I'm totally comfortable with. So again, you got to be on top of your tech. However, I've done a couple of recent strategy meetings live I'm way prefer the live strategy meeting, large screen, you know, comfortable chairs, I've got a whiteboard, that's, you know, ready to go to explain stuff as well. Yeah, I'm comfortable building it live with them. As in, they come with all of their financial data on laptops, or physical paper, or they've got it live on Zoom. Because this is trapped, we can get into like the specifics of it. So I use voient financial planning software. So again, let's just focus on that. But whatever you use, it's a similar sort of process. I might put in there boring stuff, like dates of birth, and stuff like that. But I do want it to be very much live and collaborative with the clients. So I've got basic stuff like date of birth, the first point I generally enter into my financial planning software, is the lifestyle expenditure, you know, how much you know, I asked my clients, mostly monthly questions. So if you were to retire next month, how much monthly, you know, expenses, or monthly income, do you require to live a dignified and comfortable retirement? Once we've got that number, keep it simple. Let's say it's five grand a month, that'd be plugged into the system, five grand a month, 60 grand a year, we then have a black line Ryan running through the financial plan, let's say they're both 60. Keep it simple. I kill them at 100. So we've got a 40 years rising cost of living. And that's their lifestyle costs, I keep it in nominal terms that goes up from the sort of left to right of the chart, I then sort of say to them, this is the sort of problem that we have, we now need to, you know, build your financial plan into this with the various different incomes and assets that you have. I spend a lot of time on the timeline page and I say, Look, I'm here to help you with anything that requires time, money and planning. And initially, I just put a few markers on on the timeline on the chart, basically, when they're going to potentially die again, that's my first guesstimate. And I always tell my clients at 100. So I'm, that's my first cautious assumption, I'm assuming the money needs to last longer than it potentially is needed for I then put in their retirement goals or retirement points. I rename it F dot i dot d, which stands for Financial Independence Day or financial independence, I then put anything else that I know sort of sort of final salary schemes, if they've got kids, anything linked to that. And initially, it depends on how future focused and engaged they are. Whereas the initial plan might be quite, quite bare, there's not much going on. But the more involved they get in the process, the more that they realize the capability of me and the software and what we're trying to do, they then start throwing in a lot more you know, goals and sort of milestones or markers that we're trying to achieve. I then again sort of conscious of time and other people chipping in i Then I then build out the I layer their financial plan with the various different income and assets that they've got. And whilst doing the strategy meeting, every point is discussed. So I'd say Right, where's this pension? What's going on there? So I've got a pension at work. I'm paying that much I'm doing this. Do you know what funds is invested in now? Okay, fine, move on. I don't get into the really nitty gritty, but by the end of it, I've got a financial plan and strategy built out. I call this their financial master plan. This is version one, it's live and collaborative will update every single year. The whiteboard normally got a lot of load of notes on it of all the assets that they've got, what we're potentially going to be switching and transferring across what the initial fees are going to be and the ongoing fees. So by the end of it usually about an hour and a half, sometimes it's a bit longer if is a bit more detailed to it, I know their financial situation inside out, I know their financial plan, you know, the aspirations what they're trying to achieve here and the dynamics between the couple, we've got everything sketched out as best we can. And we've got a bit of a, a sort of the next sort of jobs to do in terms of transport assets and move things across. So that's generally where I am with it, I'm very happy building it live collaboratively with clients. I've done, you know, hundreds of these over the years, I've been using financial planning software for 13 years training advisors for 1011 12. I'm totally in flow, and I have these meetings. And the trick with these meetings is to have a two track mind. So you've got one track on the client. So Mr. Mr. Client, what's happening, what's going on, and then you've got another track on the financial planning software that you're using. And they both need to be independent tracks. If you've just got one track on the couple, you then can't think about the software. If you've got one track on the software, you can't think about the couple. So that is the key skill that financial planners that want to build plans live and collaborative with clients need to have I know, that's just how I do it, of doing this for many, many, many, many years. Other advisors do different things. But that's how I do it. So that's my starter for 10, in relation to how I run my financial strategy meetings. So who's next?
Nick Lincoln:I think I'll jump in here, maybe. And then we'll go to Alan. And then quite interesting points there. And I know Carl, when we come to you call you will help you manage the running of the meeting very differently to the answer myself. So what do I do? Well, I think it's important to reset just reset the scene when these when these prospects come back to you from this initial planning meeting, having gone through the discovery, vetting, just reset the scene with them remembering these people are coming to you, they don't know, they don't really understand what you do. They've listened to you. And in the previous meeting, but they've come into their part. They're part baffled, they're part embarrassed, because they don't quite know if they're gonna understand what you're talking about. And they're probably partly terrified that if the graph or the cashflow looks bad, you know, what are we going to do. So just be cognizant that these people don't work in art, they don't do our thing. They aren't involved in what we do there. They've got their own skill set, and they're giving you their time. And they're coming to you with all these fears. First thing I do really is I mean, I do use the bucket in the discovery meeting to draw graphically what we do for people and I will revisit the bucket. And I will put that up on the screen like Andy, I do, I do most of my nine I do all my annual planning meetings now. And initial planning meetings through zoom, I will bring the bucket up on the screen, and I'll walk them through it again. Because what I want to do is link the bucket to the cash flow, I want them to see the connection between it. So when I do and again, I like like Andy I use I use voice and I'm I'm competent, very competent voice. And the first graph I will bring up is the expenditure questionnaire, the expenditure graph rather the the cost, but just to just to go but push back a bit of what and as I do build the initial base plan myself, I want to be totally comfortable with it and where the clients are going to be if they do nothing if the status quo remains, where are they going to be in 1020 30 years? I don't want to discover that during the class. In the planning meeting, certainly when the client start asking questions, then we do the what ifs together. Well, what if we do this? What if we do that, but the base plan I have built already. And I should have said this at the outset, I encourage the clients to leap in I know then they don't understand. So I said, if I start using jargon, I say something that's wrong. I've just got it. You know, you don't understand I don't want you sitting there suffering and feeling embarrassed not to ask you must interject raise your hand and say Lincoln, you're crediting you've got that completely wrong, or we just don't understand, okay? Because I don't want you to I don't want you to feel embarrassed about by not speaking up, it's your time, please speak up. So the first graph that I should bring up is the expenditure graph shows all red, okay, and I say okay, remember on your bucket, there were three or four taps leaking money out of your bucket. Well, that is it here, there's that this this red is the year on year outflow from your bucket. Now we're going to add everything back in all the incomes and future savings. So I walk them through it. But I try and do it at my own pace, or that I try and do at a pace that I think is aligned with the client's ability to soak it up. The other really important thing is to get the clients to buy into the data. I do run through the data as well before the first graph is brought up. I will just get into agree that data and I don't go if they've got five pension plans, I don't put five individual I'll put them into one pension plan on the software and show that there's a we've we've just put if they've got six savings accounts. It is one savings account. I keep it simple, stupid. But I do get the clients to buy in on the data because I think it's really important because if they agree with what's gone into the plan, they cannot disagree with the outcome from the plan. This is your it's just mathematics. So you have to get into buy into the data because then they're buying into the outcomes you're going to show them Through the graphs, the meetings Yeah, typically last the planning meetings can be it depends how involved they get or how many watts Yes, it can be an hour can be up to two hours. But it's it is collaborative. Again, the planning meeting is the plan. The financial planner becomes the plan because they build up, trust that they listened to you, and they trust you. And in the end, they don't always get what you do. They don't always understand what you're saying, but they believe you because it's you saying it. And that that comes that comes over time. That's how I run through my planning meetings. At the end, we'll agree some strategies. Okay, looks like you're going to run out of money, you know, way earlier than you thought. But we've you've got surplus income here. You agree, you can afford to invest this for your future sales. I'll follow up with some with some recommendations. But for the meantime, I think we should be doing X, Y and Zed simple high level stuff. Meeting meeting is pretty much over but I do revolve around the planning software. The Cash Flow isn't terrible that the cash flow is the financial plan, you can dress it up and whatever things I don't print anything off afterwards, I don't give them reams of paper to look at. It's the planning meeting is where the magic happens. And I am very conversant with the software. But I know that other people like to maybe outsource the software part to a to an assistant to a power plant or what have you. But I'm with Andy I personally I like being I like I like a focusing on the client and listening to what they're saying and looking at them and picking up the cues. But be also having the other part of my tiny brain thinking, Okay, I know, I know we're in the software, how we're going to address this issue and being because I don't I don't want to look unprofessional. When I'm using the software to me, it matters that I look in control of the software. So being an OCD control freak like my, my young Palawan heart that matters to me, which one of you and which one of Mr. Smith, Mr. Widow wants to go next.
Alan Smith:I'll go now before I forget, I've got things off in my mind. If I don't get them out, I'll forget about it. I'm going to both excellent, bro, I guess we're all doing a variation. And in sort of detail whether it's there's some differences, I'm going to sort of take it up a bit higher level. And think back in a sort of strategic viewpoint as, as we talked about on the last episode, which I saw a lot of feedback from this online, which is about this concept of critical non essentials. So we're still we're sweating, the small stuff, we're looking at lots of small things, because I see this whole experience, this is where the rubber hits the road, this meeting, this is us where we're demonstrating our skills and our experience and the value that we can potentially bring to this family that hitherto they're just weren't aware of. So I see this as a bit of theater, I see it as a bit of art, and we sort of we we really think it through in a major way. So I try to also think about our team things we reverse engineer the client experience. So I'm so glad that were predominantly back in the office now because we've then got control over the environment. And we can sort of Shell we've got a beautiful office in London, the whole thing needs to be part of the the journey and the experience. And so small things. So when is it? When do you ideally have the meeting what time of day, so it doesn't always work. And people have got busy lives. But in an ideal world, we'll have the meeting at about 10am On an average day, because it will generally run for a couple of hours. And what I know is often but a husband and wife get together, maybe they're just maybe after they have a meeting to go grab a lunch together, they're gonna get a sandwich or something. And I know there'll be say, What did you think about that? Would you any good? Was it nice was good. So the time of day is important, what they're going to be doing afterwards, we want them to have a conversation say, Wow, that was amazing. That was much better than I expected. I thought there's going to be some dull conversation about pensions and investments. This was all about our family, our life and our future. So knowing that what we what a good outcome looks like we reverse engineer. So I might have mentioned before in our office, which some of you have been to, we've got different rooms for different parts of the client journey. So I mentioned before we've got a room which is called the lounge. And that's the that's the discovery meeting. Place to have we sit down soft furnishings, low lighting, chitchat like like an upmarket coffee shop or something. But now we're getting into the business then. So now they're coming into more traditional office with whiteboards and screens and all the rest of it. And I know that it is I see this as a piece of theater because we've got a mountain the advisors and the team that I see them here the walking that I've been trying to get on the whiteboard, they walk back the walk into the screen, just that kind of engage that physical involvement and engagement. And I honestly think of course Zoom is far more efficient, but you lose that you lose that artistry, that experience that realize, I mean, I think for taking clients on as much as possible, do it in real life, do it. Do it in your environment, wherever you can future meetings. Once the trust is built up. Of course you can do annual planning meetings and so on. We should have another session in the future about the APM experience a couple of other just brief brief points we send in advance a couple of videos different bit we explain our investment proposition one of our one of my colleagues, Graham, he said his greatest several really good quality videos which explain three minutes, five minutes, seven minute versions, because that's too is takes too much time to explain it in the meeting. And people haven't got all this sort of cognitive ability to process, you know, index funded factor based investing. So we just sent a couple of things. If they don't watch it, they don't watch it, we don't sort of not have the meeting if they don't. We name everything. So all the things so this meeting is not called a strategy meeting, which is generic, it's called a blueprint. So everyone knows that if we, if you're building a house, you hire an architect, and the design a blueprint, it doesn't tell you what color the tiles are on the bathroom. But it tells you how many bedrooms it has, whether you're south facing or north facing, or whatever, which is what this this is all about. We're not going into the granular detail. It's high level stuff. In terms of the actual work, we follow Nick Lincoln's approach in terms of we build the initial model based on the information that we've had. And then in real time, we'll adjust it, is this right? Is this correct? And if so, and you do a number of what ifs, of course, that's where the magic is, what if you did retire five years early? What if you did give your kids additional money, etc. And I think that is so important. I've seen other people who kind of have a pre packed presentation here, it is almost like a PDF. This is your and that's just that's just doesn't work. It's very interactive, and also shows that it's up to that you decide what life you want to live, you tell me and we'll see if the numbers stack up. So it's a really live and interactive situation. The only other thing I'll say is on the basis that we really think through because if these meetings do generally last two hours, will have automatically one of the other members of the team are the duty to people lead advisor advisor and an Associates which in other in all money is a paraplanner to people in the room because it's quite difficult. Someone else has said to manage the client conversations, the tech, if it's just one person doing it so to you know, an advisor and a co pilot, it works really well. And after about an hour what we know is people will either want a comfort break, or they might want to top up with a coffee or something. So someone gently knocks on the door after 60 minutes pre planned in advance and says we didn't want to take you want to take a break now or do you want another coffee? People think this is slick. It looks good. well thought through and organized. That's kind of
Unknown:grab yourself a drink a very long drink it Storytime with Ellen Smith.
Nick Lincoln:That's what people think of the 60s 60 ministers up. That's that's when they need the first exactly right.
Alan Smith:Now you can tell them that.
Nick Lincoln:Thank you, man. Carl, you've been very patient. My friend took us through the Metis Norway approach to the whatever you want to call it. First cashflow meeting.
Carl Widger:We call it the Metis life plan. And I'm I'm minded to remember how I came upon cashflow modelling. I met Andy Hart first. Then I met Nick Lincoln, and then I met Alan Smith. And you've all clearly copied what we've done, right? Because I'm listening to how you
Nick Lincoln:evolve how you all do nothing new under the sun, my friend.
Carl Widger:Yeah, but it's funny how we've evolved. And I think we're big and bold enough now to be making some decisions ourselves. But it's definitely has been highly influenced by you three boys. Yeah, we call it the Metis lifeline meeting. I'm smiling Ireland says theatre You boys have heard me saying I call it a one act play. And it's really important for us now that we have kind of more private client managers or our financial advisors that everyone knows how the one act play goes. So every client, of course, people bring their own style to it. But every meeting is broadly the same. We have two people in the meeting always private client manager, so for you, boys, financial advisor, and financial planner, so for you boys power planner, we know exactly who's doing what in the meeting will never ever have a Metis lifetime meeting before someone has completed to getting to know your questionnaire. So we're just not doing it. Therefore we have the base plan built, we also probably have a couple of scenarios built as well. Okay, as to Well, here's some quick wins as to, you know, what we think you should do. And here's the impact that it has in your plan, I won't go into the detail of Andy has has done it really well in terms of the black line and the red and the shortfall and all that. Obviously we build it, we build it out. We're using volume goal now. I thought the previous version of point was better for the actual matters, lifeline meetings, being honest, but we are where we are. So the financial planner will stand up. We'll start the meeting, by the way, by saying what do you want to get out of this meeting? So to reiterate, right, because no matter what they say, we're going to have it covered in the Mattis lifetime meeting. So we're just going to make sure that we're talking to the client. So the financial planner will stand up and go through the dashboard. So basically, we're just asking them just to reconfirm everything that they have already told us, I think this this is is almost designed to bring down any barriers or to bring the comfort levels to a certain level. So people are kind of going, okay, these people have listened and this is my plan, it's bespoke, and it's only to us. Once we do that, then we start getting into the the base plan. So here's exactly what you've told us, here's what the pictures and we tell them, It's all pictures from now on, and pictures and graphs. And, you know, I believe, like Alan said, having the two people in the room allows, you know, to check body language to make sure if someone is looking uncomfortable, or someone gives you that, I have no idea but kind of afraid to ask, you're able to go back and spot it and say, Okay, let's, you know, is everything okay? on that. And I think, you know, like Andy said, the timeline holds, we don't necessarily Andy dwell on that page, we do talk about goals, dreams and aspirations and keep trying to get people to because almost always in the getting to know you, we don't have, you know, any big goals, dreams and aspirations, we spoke about that the last day, you can't, like, you know, on a form, built, build trust with someone for them to tell you their, their, their deepest desires. But we do start talking about, you know, let's, you know, if you want to buy a yacht, or if you want to have a villa in the south of France, let's just dream big here, let's just see kind of be done. And that encourages people to, you know, start saying, Oh, what if could you do this? Could you do that, and the financial planner can obviously live will scenarios then. So, I think we've, we've got it, we're pretty, pretty slick at it. Now. Interestingly, guys, ours would last, you know, an hour and a bit, maximum an hour and a half. And I would challenge the private client managers and have done if it's going beyond that, I think it's too long. Because this is a process. It's not a it's not a one hit and done. So you know, if it's, it's going on too long, I think you probably could, you know, be giving too much information and bewildering people with with, you know, all of the stuff that you're going through. Once once the meeting is done. We'll, I suppose the big focus on the meeting is are we going to be okay, so that's where we're trying to get to. So if we can get there in the base plan, then fantastic. And we do often now right with the types of loans we're getting, but oftentimes, we can't, right, so we're trying to get our way. Okay. And then it's like the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, then where do we go after that dreams, goals, aspirations, then legacy stuff, and whatever. So depending on the circumstance, we will decide on where we want to go. But being conscious of not trying to do too much in the first meeting, because we're trying to partner with people over a very long period of time. And we would have been guilty of that before. And we have evolved, and we've developed the process along the way. Once the meeting is finished, then we'll do one of two things immediately afterwards, we will either record a video so that the clients will have a Vimeo with the advisor, the private client manager saying listen, thanks, fantastic. To see you. Here's the the main themes of what we discussed, and here's here are what we have agreed are the next steps, we need to do that, or we'll do a summary email. But the summary email has to be out within 24 hours, if we do the Vimeo will try and get that out same day. And that the Vimeo that the video summary of the meeting is super impactful, because it gives some people something almost by the time they get home, they have it at number one and number two, they'll forget, we know this stuff, but they'll forget. And yeah, and you know, the wild moment of you know, when you've built the plan and build some scenarios in here, and we're all going to be good, like everyone has, this is amazing. And I've never had this experience before. Because the last time I went into a financial advisors office, he was telling me about which pension fund was the best. Alright, so this is like, wow, this is incredible stuff. And it is mind blowing. And, and I remember myself seeing it for the first few times. And I keep on trying to talk to, you know, the team here at Metis, to say, you know, this is adding massive value. And this is nothing that any of our clients, or prospective clients or who are coming in have experienced before. So I think that's really important. I think then if there's something like we've spoken about this before, a big dream is to go and see my daughter who's emigrated to Australia, well, we'll get them a book on Australia or something like that, just to you know, say again, this is more reiteration of were listening, this is be spoke to you, we know exactly what you want to do. And that's going to drive any of the recommendations that we do. So that's the following step is then after that and we will say it in our summary email, or in our video, the next step is for us to issue some recommendations as to financial products or whatever it might be. We might talk in more detail about those the next in another episode, but in that the recommendations, they have to be x y Zed pages long, but we will always do an executive summary. And so look, that's a whistlestop tour of something that we've put an enormous enormous amount of thought and effort into. And if I can, if I can say two things like people should focus on what Alan said, it's theater for what we say it's a one act play, it's your chance to showcase the value that you add. And it's your chance, also, to make sure that the clients know that this is for you. We haven't just picked this off the shelf and you know, done a PDF, this is your plan for you to make sure that you can live the life that you want to lead.
Nick Lincoln:Great, great stuff. I know in the chat that both Alan and Andy have got points to make I just quickly I, I use a like UCOL, I send a very quick follow up video. I do record the entire initial planning meeting for clients, but they might not want to wade through another being with me in the in the cloud. But I tend to like a loom loom video two minutes with the with the graphs in the background, my head on one side the graphs in the background. So just to summarize what we just discussed, and you can embed that in the email, the clients get that email when they're back home, it's already sitting there for them just to recap what we've discussed. So we'll go first to Alan, and then Andy with some points in the national wrap up.
Alan Smith:Yes, quick couple of points. First of all, coming back to AI, you'll be able to record all these meetings, and it will automatically create a summary of all the key points immediately in real time. But that's for another time during getting into the detail of these meetings, and really start to think about as Carl has referred to, really from the clients perspective, we're kind of selling the invisible army was selling as well as fluffy stuff, hopes, dreams, ambitions, etc. And how do you make manifest? How do you make that real? So one of the things that we do, and this came from Michael Kitsis, and his he wrote about this, and I'll put a link to this in the show notes, is you create a calendar for the client, this is what the next 12 months looks like we there's often there's a lot of things to do, you got to get organized, structured, you know, we include things that you need to get are your wills up to this or the legal aspects up to date are the kind of tax returns up to date, there be a range of just kind of, you know, dull but important things to get sorted that we can't do all in day one. So we'll share with them our projected next 12 months relationship that makes things visible. Okay. Yes, I've been trying to sort that out for several years haven't done that haven't done that. So 12 months from now, this will be fixed. Absolutely. So we've made that real. The other point I would say is, you know, at some point, you've got to explain what the what the cost of it is, whatever your fee structure or model is, you're gonna have a conversation around costs. What I have found in the past, often clients, particularly if they're coming, you know, as you know, we deal with a number of people who can have sudden wealth of soda business, they've never really engaged with advisors much in the past. And they literally have no idea of what the costs are. I said to someone true story, very short one, I said to prospective clients quite a few years ago. I said, just to understand what her perception of Do you have any idea of what the costs of wealth management financial planning would be? And she said, No. She said about 10%. And I said, 10% of your in? Yeah, I said, we'll do it for 9%. aside here, it was just again, it's another example of a she was amazing, outstanding entrepreneur. And but I just realized that she thought was 10% a year of her investments. So that 10 years from now, I've got all your money, and you've got none. And so we had we build into our model A is kind of just price anchoring. We take some data that's that exists from the FCA produced a signal the market average, we're not we're not trying to position ourselves as a bucket shop or cheap. But just to give you a sense, where there are there abouts in terms of the costs. So people got Okay, that's what they want to know about. So I'm not getting ripped off, I'm not paying. It's not for free. And it's not 10% a year. So I think that's quite important. And the last point I will say Just following up with calls, because tech makes this stuff so easy. We said after the meeting pretty much immediately we do do the same as you guys just send a summary. And we send our digital proposal form or doing business together document. And wherever possible. We'll personalize that to the extent of because nowadays with Canva, you can do it a second. If the client has said they were really interested in horse racing or sailing or rugby, we'll just put an image on the cover of this digital document because it takes a second so it's another little tiny thing that they say wow, that is a picture of this sailing yacht that I've always wanted to sailing or something. So it takes a second and it's pretty good. And then we set up a time because often people want 20 For us 40 hours a week to reflect sometimes a seeing other advisors perfectly fine. But we'll agree a time when we can touch base and move on to the next stage. Over to you, Mr. Hart.
Andy Hart:Okay, yeah, final couple of points. I think Carl alluded to, but everybody uses Cash Flow Planning, knows how this works is for the first time a client with a financial advisor has realized, Oh, my God, they are they are actually helping me plan decades ahead. So prior to this meeting, they've had meetings with financial advisors, and they've never been able to see their future was when you get out something like voyant. And they're 60. And you're showing them up to 100 for the first time ever, and they're like, Okay, well, genuinely, this individual is actually helping me plan decades ahead. And we're very, very future focused as financial advisors and our clients aren't. So it's just opening that sort of thought process with them that I think is important. But Alan's point, I mean, I sometimes say to clients, look, to get your financial house in order, we've got to do about 45 things that it's probably going to take a few years, I'm not going to overwhelm you with all that stuff. Initially. However, we're just going to do the big things first, Carl alluded to it as well, like insurance might crop up in the meet, I said, Look, we're going to talk about insurance and other time, we're just going to sort of build the high level plan here. So yeah, I don't want to get into the tune nitty gritty, too much. I mean, in these meetings, I'm in absolute flow, it's my most enjoyable part of this job is doing these meetings live for clients, I had a three hour meeting with a really, really complex client situation the other day, we both absolutely love that he's really into this stuff. And he seeks me out for this work. So yeah, that's that. A couple of other things by the end of the meeting, the whiteboard has got pretty much everything sketched out. So I'll take a photo of the whiteboard, put it in the client file. And that's all good. I will touch upon it, which is what everyone's spoken about Allen specifically framing in these meetings, trying to keep it as simple as possible and repeatable with the client. So you every year come back to the same ways of explaining things like this is your saving period of your life need to be saving during this day, this is your spending period in your life. This is your financial independence day. At the moment, you've got a bit of reading your plan, you're not getting over the financial finish line or actually your plan is quite healthy, you are getting over the financial finish line. Yes, wording is very, very important. I think the next iteration in these meetings is going to be huge screens that are finally touchscreen and really work. So we had we had we had massive TVs then we had the thin TVs then we had the light TVs and we had curved TVs it didn't work. The next iteration of TVs I'm sure Samsung and LG are rubbing their hands with is going to be enormous 85 inch TVs at a touchscreen. At the moment they're just too expensive. At some point they'll become reasonable and a lot of financial advisors will have them in their room. That's it back to you lick
Nick Lincoln:Okay, thank you. Yes, Alan. I did have my finger poised over the UltraGrip area and drop it and the just side of megalomaniac played it for a while. Yeah, yeah, just right. So everyone likes it. Just to tie a bow on this three three final points from me. Thank you guys. By the way. I mean, this is this is an absolute knowledge first here for especially for younger advice, I think and I hope don't hold back when you build the financial plan for clients are saying we want to buy a yacht, we want to do this, okay, knock all that stuff into the plan, even if you know intuitively this is not going to be feasible. It's their plan and if they just scale it back, we scale it back during the planning meeting, we dropped stuff out and they said they wouldn't do this doctor. Second point, this is really important. I think this is something that younger advisors perhaps do feel a burden at the end of the day, it's not your problem. If the graph is still showing where they're still going to run out of money before they run out of life and you've done everything possible you can to do it then it's over to them as adults don't make it your it's not your mission on this earth to get the graph just showing blue to get rid of the red you're gonna do everything you can to do but if it's still showing red and then they've got to grow up and there are there are four variables you either work longer you earn more, you save more or you spend less and it's up to you Mr. Mrs. Client go away and think about it because we've done what we can do. And the final thing just out of interest we've barely focused on the actual investments in the in the initial planning meeting again as younger advisors you may feel you now need to talk about the investments that are going to fuel the plan I don't talk about it at all in the in the initial blueprint meeting planning meeting whatever you want to call it that comes up at a later date I I just I bury it
Andy Hart:I do Nick I've hidden page for three hours I don't spend long on it I don't spend long on it, but it's I discussed the Maven invest portfolios once we're looking at the numbers and the investments and pensions and stuff because I believe that they in that meeting may wish to discuss that so I don't want to be too evangelical about the financial plan I want to I want to bring in the investments because we do look after clients their life savings it is very important but yeah, I don't dwell too much on it but I do discuss it
Nick Lincoln:okay, but there's no there's no it's interesting how we got him was doing it and that's that's part of the joy of what we do in the joy the four of us finding out how the other one of us do things wrong.
Carl Widger:Can I just just before we jump on to the obviously Not postally Go go go I think the point here is there is no ideal way there is the way that works for you and that you found works best for the clients you know and it will evolve and don't be afraid to change it because sometimes you can think that oh yeah this is absolutely perfect like we're always trying to evolve ours were actually considering we don't do the investment chat at the moment. But we have recently been kind of asked to you know, can we bring that in? So we're trying to maybe say Okay, can we bring in maybe two or three slides just to talk about that? Or maybe we do send out some stuff you know beforehand like Alan says about the investment philosophy so yeah, I will do what works for you but and then back to whom Andy just said you know, it's what he loves doing best I stopped doing it guys you guys know this right on I'm back end doing it this year. I just love it. It is the part of the business that I get up and I've I know I am presenting a Metis life plan on a particular morning I am buzzard coming into work I love doing it because I really really really feel honest. Honestly, honestly, honestly that we are doing really important work and we're adding huge value. So if I have a new couple coming in I'm like oh my god, we were actually going to change some lives here today. That might sound like a ridiculous statement I believe it or
Nick Lincoln:not at all not so I mean imagine people who don't do this as their integral offering and just doing it the old way. It's just like
Andy Hart:94 Okay, thank you percent of advisors Nick.
Carl Widger:Probably that statistic you're basing that on was my data
Andy Hart:from my 12 years of traveling the country and training advisors
Alan Smith:course is an ultra crapper Darien 97 cents is made up
Unknown:stats or Andy the holds you grab a Darien Andy, he knows about everything. Andy can be told anything. His name is Andrew Hart.
Carl Widger:Andrew, our dear friend, Andrew has has a fantastic way of making up statistics and I'm always challenging. But I love it.
Andy Hart:I will say one thing. I'm sure 80% of the Trappists do this though. This is the you know, 5% I'm talking about but I think generally in the wider market most don't
Carl Widger:know it's 78% 80 and 5% 100 100%.
Nick Lincoln:What? Nonsense. Just to close on this shouting. Two thirds, two thirds of the stats we say on the show are made up. Okay. Can we go back because the bloody the the the post is also a one isn't it? That's good posters of the front door. The front door and she's got the she's got the bulging sack of questions as ever. If you've got a question to pose to us, please do send them in. There's the pin tweet advisor podcast you click on there and you can submit your questions. And there's also the link in the so called show notes with all the trackers questions in which could be fired in there. So the first question off the board. Let's have a look at this. This is from Gavin Burton. He loves the long ones who are misses. his Twitter handle is at Bert on one. Recently I listened to Brett Davidson on retire mentals and he expressed his dislike for the vertically integrated model. I think he is naive what he's a big guy Brett de was I think he is naive and looking at the world from inside his own tin. He argued that the advice piece in a restricted model can be delivered at a cheap cost because the investment piece is loaded and they can sell their own shit. His words. Apologies dear Travis. Well, having worked for leading if a firm in the Northeast of England I dispute this. They just sold their own ship to I now work for a restricted a device firm who managed money in a way that makes my old firm look like amateurs. Alan recently said that simplicity and vanilla flavor is the client's friend. The portfolio is what powers the client's future. What cannot be sold for the client by the Vanguard lifestyle funds question mark. Where do you go with the independence argument then selling your own Shi T is a process driven cost efficient model with lifestyle planning at the forefront. That seems pretty good to me. Thank you for that Warren Piece Gavin Burton quit Well, we have talked about this in the last episode before I think we're all I think advisers ifas are all might not be our nominee catcher but in practice, we are restricted right? We all tend to have one or two platforms. And we all know which funds clients are going to go into the class suitable for us. So I agree I agree with you really? Thoughts on that?
Andy Hart:In the words of Alan Smith, what is the question?
Alan Smith:Yeah, that's oxidation is
Nick Lincoln:restricted model it that's, that's, that's there's nothing wrong with that. Did you put livestock production planning at the forefront of it? Okay.
Alan Smith:There is there's, as always, these things are nuanced, right? Depends, you can interpret that point or question and in several ways, what we're talking about, there are some firms which are vertically integrated, who take a significant margin on the investment management piece, you know, that, and that's the model. So those are organizations, which are their businesses first, and then they work out what they're doing and say, How can we make a significant margin and profit on this? And there's the various on what the experts call the value chain. So there is platforms as of asset management, and there's the planning experience, we know where the real value lies, of all those things. And the rest, frankly, are commodities to be, you know, choose choose whatever one you want, and justify it. So that to me, there's the restrictive versus independent, we have a view, it doesn't really matter, honestly. Yes. As we all know, there are bad independence or a great restricted. Yeah. What I think what the overriding thing is, is all is the client, is there a cross subsidy is the client paying a huge premium, and I mean, just a 10 times premium, which is literally true, I can buy a Vanguard fund for 20 basis points, and I might pay 200 basis points elsewhere. Is it so and most of that is going back to the vertically integrated firm. So is that good? Is that justified? My opinion would be no, I would rather speak to whether it's an independent restricted firm, who just sensible low cost evidence based investment, offerings, a sense that, you know, they're held together on a simple, effective administration platform, but they get outstanding world class behavioral coaching, investment and all the other stuff that we asked us to do. So moot point really,
Andy Hart:final point is, people don't want cheap they want safe, safe is how they deem it.
Alan Smith:Move on. you're conflating Yeah, that's provided
Andy Hart:later. Right. Okay.
Nick Lincoln:Next question is from Who's this from? Toby Evans, who's on Twitter as at Tobias Evans won numeral one. Do any of you this is a really good question. Do any of you pay for an independent financial planner to hold you to account on your own financial plan? If not, what strategies do you employ to protect yourself and natural human behaviors and biases to avoid straying from the plan? If you do, how do you if you do outsource? How do you choose who and how do you reconcile getting sufficient value? When the lights were telling you what you already know? Okay, I'll quickly kick off, I think Alan's got a different view on this and maybe call it I have a high internal locus of control. I'm quite happy to be my own financial planner, and to hold myself to account I don't need somebody else telling me what I already know. Alan,
Alan Smith:you're right depends on the most important part of all this, as we know is behavior is behaving ourselves around our own. We can tell our clients all day long to do we always do it ourselves. I have hired a financial planner in the past. And I recommend it. But the real thing I want to hire a financial planner for is the talking me off the cliff edge because I'm human like anyone else. Every every now and again. I'm extremely capable of making poor financial decisions in the short term. I honestly think for people like us, you're strongest body armor, it is a group like this, because I know that we talk about this and I will say in confidence, you know, in a in behind closed doors, I'm thinking of doing this. And I'll be you know, I'll be I'll be coached and advised not to do it. Do I need to hire a full time financial planning to do that? Not necessarily, possibly. But I would dip in and out of those conversations anytime I'm facing a significant decision. If I've got a group of well intentioned high quality friends, we'll have an intelligent debate about these things. So that's that's my personal experience.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, Andy and then car.
Andy Hart:Well, I'm a financial robot. I make perfect decisions and everything I do in life joke. I was divorced at 14 when he played your drop so and all the other plans go out the window. Now I don't. I was actually building my or updating my financial plan last night live and voice. I love doing it. That's all I do. I've got my own financial plan. I invest the exact same way as I tell my clients. I've got a sounding board of people to discuss things I'm going to be doing, you know, this group included, but now I don't employ a separate financial advisor. I have worked for other financial advisors on projects for them. Usually when they're selling their business, they want to work out they've got enough. So yeah, I understand how other financial advisors employ other financial advisors because I'm on the receiving end of that, but no, I don't do it myself. Cool.
Carl Widger:My colleague Keon Callahan does my plan. And he's always telling me that I'm going to be working till about 85 I guess unless something changes,
Nick Lincoln:quite a bit of work to do recently.
Carl Widger:Moving swiftly
Nick Lincoln:Thank you, Travis. Thank you, Travis for your questions. That's, that's always good. I listen. We're an hour and 10 minutes for Christ's sake. miscut. Okay, culture corner, I shall kick off. Firstly, we had a, we had a long rambling question from one of the Trappists in a previous episode, obviously, because it couldn't be in a future episode about the dangers of everyone going into indexing. Wouldn't that distort the market and make it very difficult to actually to you wouldn't have an efficient market. The rational reminder Podcast Episode 252, the two very polite pleasant Canadian chats, they have Burton McKeel on on the show, if you don't know who he is, look him up. If you do know who he is, you know who he is. And at one hour, 40 minutes, they asked this question to Burton and he says, well, it'll never happen. They'll never be a totally index market. And if it ever gets close to it, then you'll see people will find ways to to identify value and value gaps in that so I will listen to that that's in the so called show notes. Of course, as are all the culture corners, Mr. Smith, Mr. Moss stack
Alan Smith:as the name of the country with you'll be hearing more about this guy in the future. Sorry to harp on about it. I'll try not to speak about it in the next episode. But Ms. Mustard is is a London based. AI is one of the leading AI people in the world. He was interviewed very recently, Danny in the valley is a podcast is the son is two times CORRESPONDENT The guy lives in San Francisco. And he's got a really interesting podcast all about tech innovation. And what happens to the interview quite recently, this guy Mr. Masek, and, honestly, I just think it's mind blowing the staff which is already here. And I mean, these are just so just listen, spend spend one hour listening to that podcast, and you will be amazed. Well worth your time.
Nick Lincoln:That was it. Okay, lovely. Thank you, Mr. Hart. This Christ on a bike I care on Okay, let
Andy Hart:me just let me do it myself. Going back to a previous point, Nick, you use is use it's better be good. You use some jargon, Nick, do you want to share with the listeners what an internal locus of control is please?
Nick Lincoln:No, they've got Google for that might crack on.
Andy Hart:Okay. First, on from following on from my new change of life, divorce, etc. I'm moving into a new place. And I'd use the IKEA online wardrobe help thing. It was fantastic. I mean, there's nothing worse than me schlepping down to Wembley, walking around the IKEA store, sitting down with somebody doesn't want to be there and designing my wardrobe. So they have an online service. I recommend that you do it. It's like zoom. They've got great software, they build it out. They tell you,
Alan Smith:are you on the road? You might be on the wrong podcast. I know. You've got a couple of other podcasts anyway. What the hell are you talking about
Andy Hart:if you need to design wardrobe, the if you get divorced and you move house, it's just the same sort of thing. Alright, moving on,
Carl Widger:squeezes divine Jesus.
Andy Hart:Could you get cars dropped? Gents, get kills drop in for the end of the show. The final my final, somewhat more useful point. So I will get an advisor says to me, thank God you told me about IKEA online wardrobes. It saved me a shedload of time, effort and hassle. I will guarantee that when I don't Oh,
Carl Widger:you will. And you'll share us with us that in the WhatsApp. None of us will. Again.
Andy Hart:Right so the final point
Carl Widger:I keep going to apologize to my kids and my mom for the profanity.
Andy Hart:That is the second F on my desk. I'll show by the way and Nick. You're coughing this episode has been atrocious. Right, moving on my final point. So everyone asked me or people often ask me what mics I use. So I've got a new mic for this shows this if this sounds alright. After asking. No one's ever Alan. Alan, you must get it as well being a fellow amateur podcaster. So anyway, this new mic I'm talking on is called the road NT USB versatile studio quality mic. It's a link in the show notes. It's small, it's high quality, it just connects your computer via USB. If you're in the market for a mic, which a lot of you are then do check out the so called show notes. Is it over to German?
Nick Lincoln:Okay, great stuff. Thank you, Andy. Call. Disrupting time.
Carl Widger:Yeah, so I mentioned Sinead O'Sullivan's the context. The online book clubs, or the disrupting time is the story about how Swiss watches became best in class and it's about industrial espionage and the lady even hundreds. That sounds like a pretty boring book, it is an amazing book. I highly, highly recommend it to everybody. So on my second culture corner piece as I embark on a bucket list holiday. And then also, they'll also see that I was deeply uncomfortable with the content of some who today's always to the Irish versus UK cultural differences I have a song for everyone to listen to. And it's the end is nigh by Black Swan. And it's a song about, well, the song speaks for itself. But it's about who will make the call when your time is up. So for me, it's so busy at the moment, life is just busy life is just crazy. And I'm sure it's the same forever. I know it's the same for everyone, because everyone tells me it is. And sometimes you got to stop. And you got to say, Okay, what's really important, and it's so easy to lose the focus on that. And we keep we often remind each other about this, don't we? And I'm always saying it and the reason I'm always saying it, it their notes to self. And the end isn't I who will make the call when your time is up, there's a line in it that says these moments are fleeting, as they are pure. And a two week holiday bucketlist holiday with my kids, that's going to be a fleeting moment in the overall scheme of things for everybody. But I intend to make it memorable. And I would urge everyone listen to the song and then have a little walk and talk to yourself about what really matters in life.
Nick Lincoln:That's you know what, Kyle? That's that's why you're almost a valuable member of this this team. That's that is that is yes. That's That's amazing.
Alan Smith:But have you ever used the IKEA online wardrobe service?
Nick Lincoln:Spell X Bell X, you know, that sounds like bell right?
Carl Widger:X 1/3 Amazing. I respond but
Nick Lincoln:obviously, okay, all right. All right. All right enough in Africa just like herding cats that are in right one hour 17 minutes in I think we can draw a line on this car. Have a great trip. Look forward to catching up with you in two episodes time. Do you like the show? Please leave a review on iTunes six out of five stars. You can also do the same you can watch us God forbid. on YouTube. We have people who aren't involved in financial services who actually watch this drivel and somehow get into anatomy cardio trying to say something behind me going so
Carl Widger:best of luck, Amelia. I know Amelia is going to be absolutely brilliant and will be way better than me. And best of
Andy Hart:luck she might be alright, let's
Nick Lincoln:go there. Alright,