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In this latest pile of TRAP, the Trap Pack discuss
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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, dear TRAPPIST, welcome back to what many people are calling episode 22 of the real advisor podcast T R A P trap. My name is Nick Lincoln or Nick Lincoln joining me once again the band is reunited babies we're back on the three horsemen of the apocalypse Alan the storyteller Smith and the heart and call the voice which a call just before we go into Andy's high energy reading of the reviews you've had a bucket list moment you you charted the 777 and took your brood to the west coast of a former Connelly How was your time out there my friend
Carl Widger:with its charter the economy seats in there lingers for a long haul flight. Not too bad on the way over but by Christ that was a long journey on the way back. Can I just say before I start well done to Amelia and to thank you and to the people who private message me to say that Amelia was much better. It's Amelia and Amelia on the show. Set up whilst it may well be true that Amelia was much better, it's just plain mean telling me that by message so anyway, yeah, we went we went to San Francisco first we did a couple of days there did all the touristy things like cycling over the Golden Gate Bridge, which was great fun. However, in San Francisco, you can't be struck by the amount of homeless people. And it seems to me America is very much broken. It's the haves and the have nots, there ain't in any in between. And it's literally every 50 yards, there's homeless people. So a kind of does detract from it a little bit and it is mega expensive. So just be warned if you're going there. We then went from there on to Yosemite National Park, which has been on my bucket list for ever. There is no picture that can do Yosemite National Park justice. It is the most incredible place I've been in my life. And people would often say you know that view took their breath away and I'd always be on really don't know really what you're talking about. I do now. This place is incredible. Now with four teenagers in tow, doing six days hiking and cycling around. Yosemite National Park was probably one day too many. But in fairness, they wrote in and they really got stuck into it. So it was great fun. We went from there, then to Monterey, which is on the coast. That was also magnificent. The weather strangely wasn't fantastic. We were getting kind of 1718 degrees as Irish people used to rain on much lower temperatures that was just about perfect for us. But but genuinely for all of the we've kind of packed I'd say four weeks into two weeks. So we were very, very very active. So those temperatures were absolutely perfect for us. Very very, very expensive over there though, like absolutely mega expensive. Top tip I would say if like me you have four teenagers. i We did Airbnb in Yosemite and in Monterey. Definitely a brilliant idea because everyone kind of gets their own space. And it's just much better than jamming us into kind of two hotel rooms which we did in San Francisco, where people are all on top of each other. The boys didn't mind it so much but the three girls weren't major fans of it on by the way on bucket list items. So I ticked off a number of them on the trip one being see the cure play live. absolutely magnificent. Your Saturday was another one and then I went whale watching in Monterey. Absolutely terrible. It was like four hours of drizzly cold miserable stuff to see one whale about 100 yards away for four and a half seconds and cost a pretty penny as you can imagine. So I couldn't help but think about you know, bucket lists and having only one To things on your bucket list is probably a bad idea because they can underwhelm as much as they can overwhelm. So like, definitely samedi did was everything I taught and way more but Jesus way. Now I'm sure loads of people have had magnificent experiences way to watch a book just read it because you can't tell the whales that were on the way lads, will you just pop up there? So yeah, I haven't I actually have a bucket list. I have a little diary and I write loads and loads of things in it. And I think 14 Not not I think I know I have 48 items there. And I've ticked off three now this summer. So I think really important and as real financial planners, to encourage all of our clients to you know, really work on this. And I think if you write things down, you know, they just tend to happen. So, you know, for me, it was it was absolutely brilliant. And we had a magnificent time. And yeah, back at it now.
Alan Smith:Was that was being a co host on The Real advisor podcast. Was that on your bucket list, set another tick off?
Carl Widger:No, I've told you the only reason I did that bucket list was know that both of those were more as a result of FOMO.
Alan Smith:Just Just a quick quick point on that. I did uh, I mean literally 2527 years ago I did a similar trip with a group of friends flew to San Francisco drove down that Pacific Coast Highway level of I ended up down in San Angeles, then on to San Diego, crossed to Las Vegas a few days in Vegas, and then flew down to New Orleans for the Mardi Gras. And all the new decades and decades later when I meet up with the PALS of mine that I went with we're still talking about that trip some of the sort of crazy things that went on so there's another example of spend your money on experiences more than things because they never got a fashion will always keep giving you always have the memory hopefully if they are good memories
Carl Widger:now look totally 100% And we're like look we made memories of a lifetime for sure. I would say on that trip I just embarked on on the trip that you just discussed there the only thing similar were that they were both in America
Alan Smith:so yeah, we didn't we didn't do any whale watching. Yeah, which we saw a few other things
Nick Lincoln:all right you Celtic brothers. Let's let's let's try and bring some order to the show. That's great. Great to have you back when we mean that. Yeah, we kind of mean Andrew. Review Time go on energize us.
Andy Hart:Yeah, okay, so we're up to 114 reviews on the Apple podcast platform. So here we go. Review number one the for the crushing it five stars great insights, useful advice interspersed with lots of banter and invaluable resource that's from Phil seven to three next up a good listen five stars a must listen, wherever you are on your financial planning career some great insights and nuggets and very easy listening. Nick Platt, finally fantastic this one last week. I don't think we did. What on guys, this podcast is great. Maybe the next one. Alright, let's move on. Back to you Chairman.
Nick Lincoln:Just just to the TRAPPIST Lok, had you as much as I love you, you are a weirdo who who puts things and then reads from the bottom up. Yeah. Okay.
Alan Smith:Have you just learned that He's a weirdo?
Unknown:I'm going from the old knowledge oldest. Oh, anyway, okay.
Nick Lincoln:Right so just my so they're lovely Penelope has had her hair styled this morning. And I think she's so if there was a crashing sound in the background, it's just her doing something with their stylist, whose name apparently is Victoria rose. There you go Victoria a free shout out on the on the trap podcast and I'm recording this as the fourth day of the first tense ashes test commences literally 11 o'clock this morning. So I don't know what's going on there. When we end this. It could all be over. Right Mr. Hart? Next Gen conference. Give us the lowdown Dahlia.
Andy Hart:Oh, okay. Yep. So I was there. Correct timestamp this time last week. It was in Manchester. I was there for a couple of days. Yeah, superb again. Yeah, congratulations to the whole next gen team who put on a great show. The amount of effort to put that on was a lot there loads of different streams, lots of stuff going on now to sort of gathering party awards the night before we were up for an award but sadly, we didn't win it. So Sam oaks, the financial life planner, podcast won it. So congratulations to them. Yeah, it was great. So we're not better again. Maybe, maybe next year, we'll come back fighting. And I spoke to a load of people who were there and loads of them were huge fans of traps. I'm gonna shout out a couple of people now. Ben Baldwin, George Aegon, Harry Duncanson down Western. They're all sort of avid listeners so I thought I'd give him a personal shout out but yeah, lots of people in the audience and delegates do listen to the show I'm sure so yeah, we're doing some some good work back to you boss.
Nick Lincoln:Very good fellow is still with you. The next one he actually devote have some clients withdrawing money to help kids?
Andy Hart:Yeah, this is, I suppose a slightly bigger topic. But I've got a couple of clients at the moment who are doing this, and helping out their children who are going through tough times. And one of them's sort of a relatively small amount, let's call it 10% of their overall investable assets. But one of them's a lot larger amount. And I know obviously, really advisors listen to this will, will, will straddle this sort of situation with their real clients. But to me, I always sort of boil it back down to obviously, it's great that are in the position that they can help their family, you know, you invest for your unknown future, the more wealth you can create more wealth is freedom, freedom is opportunity. So yeah, it just reinforces, you don't know what's around the corner. You know, we've got clients now that are, you know, having to pay financial contribution to things that are not even their issues. You know, friends and family are having sort of medical issues, friends and family having sort of marital issues. So, yeah, I just thought I'd bring it up on the podcast, I'm dealing with two at the moment live cases, as I say, one's a relatively small amount. And one's a, an incredibly large amount of their investable assets that they're now having to pay to help a family member. And so I thought I'd raise it to see if you guys obviously have come across this. And, yeah, just to just to bring it bring up really,
Alan Smith:I've got kind of a quick, quick comment on that. This is yet another example of the fallacy of trying to be overly accurate, with long term financial planning. exactly that, you know, people over it over engineer the fat don't if you're going to mention this, Nick, there's something else that you shared with us a couple of days ago about the kind of the overly precise nature of withdrawal amounts, and various other things like that. And people get overexcited about, you know, expected rates of return for future assets, and all that sort of stuff. I've always said, these sorts of things, and it tends to be like, death, divorce, disability, things that happen, not expected. You vote, you know, health healthcare issues, you know, you can all of a sudden, you know, the cost of paying for, I don't know, cancer treatment or something like that, if you're not fully covered for it is crazy. Tax rates, for God's sake, you know, suddenly, you know, we've had, you know, tax rates are increasingly getting higher in the UK. And it could get higher still interested in all these various other things which aren't really built into most financial planning Academy. Our point being can you how can you go to bed because you meet your, your daughter might get divorced, sometime it might need help out with, you know, buying a new house or something like that? Because there's no limit to what the potentials are. Exactly. And yet there are there are people commenting, so called experts commenting about trying to be overly precise with the estimated rates of return, you make.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, what cold call first, and then I'll pick up on the point that you raised there. Yeah, I
Carl Widger:think Mitch Antony coined the phrase, when life goes and transition money moves. And you know, isn't that exactly what you're saying here, Andy? And that's the point, you never know, what's what's gonna happen. The one thing I would I would just caution against is, is we've had a number of clients in similar positions on the right. And it's really important that that's the EGM. Right? That's not your annual planning meeting. That's some Speaker Yeah, come in, let's do the cash flow plan. Because we always make the point, first and foremost, the couple sitting in front of us, our clients. Now, if there's obviously an off cash, clearly to see them through Well, at that stage, we can start looking at how to distribute wealth and all of that kind of stuff. So I think it's really, really important to do your cash flow plan and to say, if you do this, this is the impact it's gonna have and look like you're saying, it can't be precise. But at the same time, if it's going to move someone from a position of the cash flow plan says, Yeah, you're all good to Whoa, you're gonna have a problem when you're ready to? Well, you have to give bad news just like you. You give good news, and you have to tell the truth about the money. Nick?
Nick Lincoln:Yeah, yeah. And his point was this, this and I think we all believe this. And I'm certainly I think most of what we do actually is art. The art of managing people and not science. And I read something one of these American guys, these these, you know, this from the Kitsis kind of guy, Wade, foul P F. Au. Yeah, I believe, who who's done research showing that the average American who investing in a 6040 portfolio needs to save 16.6% of their income to achieve X amount of of the equivalent their salary in retirement. I just thought, What a load of bollocks that is out of this. As soon just seemed to go to a decimal point. I'm thinking bollocks. You know, I mean, it's just like completely trying to make something precise is totally precise. Andy, you had a digit raised?
Andy Hart:Yeah. And the final point of this is we seem to have a problem with creating wealth for wealth sake. You know, we always want to put sort of a reason to besting and saving, whereas it's like we're investing or saving for unknown future, we just don't know what it's going to look like. I mean, there's some few markers in the sand, we potentially want to start work, then we potentially want to give some, you know, gifts and weddings and stuff for the kids. But apart from that, again, it's the unknown future. So if the returns are available, and they're there, you know, building portfolios of people in their 50s 60s that then they call upon in their 70s and 80s. The fact that there's a little bit more money in there, I've not got a problem with that. But all this your financial plan immediately says that you need to reduce your investment return you still be okay. You don't know what the unknown you know, the only future holds. So I've got I've got problem with creating wealth for the sake of creating wealth. I've got a problem with spending wealth for the sake of spending wealth but creating it, I've got no problem with you know, wealth is freedom. Freedom is opportunity. I think a lot of us sometimes some people miss this. So yeah, who's next?
Nick Lincoln:Okie dokie. And it's you again, my friend. You've just typed in a bucket list on the the agenda of dreams. Oh, that's just
Andy Hart:a very throwaway point. But we were talking about bucket lists. So mine is way less grand than Carl's. But a couple of weeks ago, I went to an event in amnesia in Ibiza, the event was at elrow. And for me, it is a bucket list event. So I've ticked that off. Albeit a small one but you're right, if you have a load of arcanist events, I went to see you know, Barcelona vs Real Madrid last year, it was like the worst football game my life. If that's if that's all I'd be looking forward to then. Then Wow, I'd be very disappointed. I don't if it's as bad as whalewatching Well, watching sounds worse, but you know, Paco, will will fight over over a pint.
Alan Smith:I think I think that's that's a good point. Actually bucket list, you need to have a lot of things on it because you will be disappointed because it just reminded me of going to the Grand Canyon. And that's supposed to be a bucket list thing. And that was one hour. All right. It's a big hole in the ground. But apart from that was of course normally impressed.
Nick Lincoln:I've got one bucket list it now my urges to wake up to a dry mattress. Right? Me I mean, for people that were people watching consuming this thing of ours who are Joe Public, this next 30 seconds, just embrace them your life. General investment accounts, GA's, I, I use accumulation units in client portfolios. But for GIS, I've now had to create a whole batch of identical portfolios with income units, because income units throw off income that goes into the cash pot on the platform. And with the CGT allowance is plummeting and plummeting and plummeting. I don't think going forward, you can be selling down accumulation units, because you're going to be crystallizing capital gains. So just a little in the weeds thing there that for your GA portfolios, if you don't do already maybe create mirror ones but income units because you don't have using up that 3000 pounds or you know any decent portfolio any decent growth, that 3k allowance is gone and your clients are paying unnecessary tax. So that's just a little trick of the trade. Mr. Smith you had when you've had many incidents in your life, ongoing legal battles. And again, we still support you, or in the m&s incidents
Andy Hart:just to push back on the technical point of view, is that correct? Because it doesn't matter if it's accumulation or income, the net tax position is going to be the same how they declare it. Are you just talking about it from a practical management point of view?
Nick Lincoln:I'm talking about when you have to replenish the cash bucket in a GLA portfolio each year. If you sell down accumulation units to do it, you're gonna be crystallizing capital gains, whereas the income units, the dividends and fixed income coupon comes into the cash and does it automatically you don't need to sell units to replenish the cash bought
Andy Hart:for the tax net book
Nick Lincoln:in the weeds. Okay, Stephen, that's what I've just said is right, right m&s incident,
Alan Smith:the famous m&s incident of a couple of days ago nothing bad happened. I was I happen to be
Andy Hart:saying the funny stories Wait, it's really funny. Just say just say so the whole story about you Well, funny story about Your phone percentage and all that it's really funny. You say it's really funny.
Alan Smith:That's, that's not really that funny. No, it's just a kind of, alright, I'll say part part of this story. This was just a very simple experience happened to me the other day and I'm just sort of send the same showing the message that is kind of as as hot always says the good we do. I popped into Marks and Spencers to buy lunch couple of days ago. I'm just sort of walking around there and yes, as a side as a side story, my phone my mobile phone with me. What had 1% battery left in it, and I needed that to by my by my lunch, you know because I use the you know, the the contactless part the phone, I didn't have anything it means of payment. So I pick up my sandwich, I'm gonna drink blardy blar. And then this random guy walks up to me because I excuse me, Jr. Malin. Do you have a podcast? Yeah, I do. He said, Yeah, listen to the trap podcast. I listened to your other one bulletproof entrepreneur. I found you through Andy Hart's podcast Maven advisor podcasts. Make money. Oh, that's nice. I thought there's quite a nice bloke kind of man bun on Luke. Luke. Pretty cool and trendy. I said what's your name? Because I was that Honey, that's really nice. Thank you so much for that. Their feedback is great. It's anonymous. It's been brilliant. You said I came back from traveling 50 grand in debt.
Unknown:Grab yourself a drink, a very long drink. It's story time with Alan Smith.
Alan Smith:Now, anyone watching this on YouTube, Nick, that looks like you're drinking straight vodka from the bottle. Just to get through my story. So Danny says to me, me, I came back from traveling 50 grand in debt. I've now built an investment portfolio with 100 fat that he said no, actually more like 150,000 pounds in investments and savings, great companies of the world. Doing great, really happy and thanks so much for all all the work that Andy's done. And you guys are doing a listen to all this stuff. It's so so helpful to me. So I thought, lovely. That's really good. Thanks so much. Really appreciate your feedback. I still have a selfie. Let's do a selfie so I can share share the love so we did a selfie took a photograph of me and him. And then I went over to buy my food my sandwiches, but which time I want percent battery.
Andy Hart:So the story Island, you went into m&s with something, didn't you from a previous event you're at?
Alan Smith:Oh, sorry. That's it. And also yeah, I forgot that. I've gone into m&s and had, as you do on a champagne
Nick Lincoln:day trap is we've now migrated into the m&s podcast in about three hours, we'll go back to the episode, I'd forgotten
Alan Smith:that I told Andy this story the other day, and I had gone and because I've met an advisor in the morning, I had breakfast meeting with his other advisor and I gave him some time instead of helped him out and he gave me as a gift for my time, nice bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne, which is a bit odd walking around the streets of London with a sort of loan sign with a with a bottle of champagne in my hand, but I didn't I didn't have a wasn't in a bag. It was just as loose bottle of champagne that I was walking around with. And so walk into Marks and Spencers tried to buy my sandwich got accosted by Danny did a selfie, by which time I fought had died. I couldn't go to the counter to buy this phone bloody died, and then got my bottle of champagne. So the woman comes out and says, Well, sorry, you can't buy the goods now. And yeah, and I'll just have to leave it. Oh, yeah, I'll starve I'll go hungry, then means I will get to take my champagne. Whoa, where were you going with that? So I brought this in with me. She goes, Are you sure? I said I promise you just run it through your system. Honestly, I didn't. I'm showing up and taking that from the counter. I said no, you'd have that tag thing on it. I had this big debate with a woman from Marks and Spencers. It was it was a bit of a bit of an incident Marks and Spencers Marleybone reported it as an incident that
Nick Lincoln:isn't the entire episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm at the beginning and
Alan Smith:it was That's the story. Anyway, shout out to Danny, I'm glad that we're helping you. And good we do. Move on.
Nick Lincoln:Wow, thanks for making
Alan Smith:me just follow up that point briefly, just because it's relevant to something else a statistic that I read that yesterday, which is kind of linking these two sort of abstract, abstract stories. Someone like Danny listens to these podcasts. And a lot of our mantra is about you know, invest, invest your money, invest in the great companies of the world, then go and do something else more interesting. Don't over engineer don't overthink it, just save as much you know, whether it's 16.666% of your income, or whether it's just what you can afford to do put your money in sensible investments and let them let the markets do the hard work. Two statistics for MSCI global growth index is up 26% year to date 26% year to date tough year last year fine this year. 26% other statistic 75% of Eisah money in the UK is held in cash, ISIS, cash ISIS. So 75% of the UK population who have taken the time and effort to open tax effective savings plans aren't benefiting from this investment. So linking those two together the likes of Danny and many others like him are listening to people like us are helping themselves are investing wisely. But unfortunately, the vast majority of the public who would seem are ignoring this stuff and are excited because they're able to secure 5% Cash Deposit return for for the short term, albeit tax free within an ICER wrapper. So two random statistics but irrelevant and I'm glad that we will keep sharing the message and hopefully helping other people to create their own financial independence and security.
Andy Hart:But just to chip in there my best review on the move money podcast was a one star review and someone said he just says the same stuff all the time by global equities. Yeah, that was that was the best review I've got a one star review anyway.
Nick Lincoln:Hockey document on this on the on the sort of flavor of cash and so forth. I what I think is rapidly burgeoning, not scan, I don't need to scan up I can't Yes, it's a bit of a disgrace the fact that for 15 years we've had, you know, negative real interest rates and cash returns were, you know, in nominal terms disastrous and we're after, after allowing for inflation, which were just a proper pile, obviously, we've had base rate rises at a record rate in the UK, and then are wherever they are four and a half percent and I'm not quite sure as suddenly the this this thing about platforms, taking a skim off the top of what they earn on cash is because I think it's come really, really relevant because the long term trend for interest rates in the UK is about where we are now it's about four and a half percent historically. So assuming this goes on, it'll go on and go on and it'll be a bigger scandal and if rates go up more, it's going to be is gonna become a real thing. So basically, a lot of platforms don't pass on what they get from cash, they they they keep back a tiny sliver of it for the for the customer for the best and they they keep the rest. And there's an article in city y, new model, advisor, whatever whatever it's whatever that is called no still put the model in motion and how Transact share prices as has struggled recently, one of the primary reasons is that Transact don't take a cut, they don't skim off the top of the cache, but other platforms do like AJ, Berlin, Hargreaves and hot I'm really excited for Batum for the six months at the end of last year, Hargreaves made 122 million from cash accounts more than a third of its total revenues, and AJ bells ongoing, profitable growth, revenue growth is up massively. They don't disclose how much comes from cash, but it's just gone through the roof. And I think it's I just think it's so here we are, we spend hours don't we're looking at, you know, platform due diligence. And this, you know, this one's five basis points more than that one, how on earth can you justify, and this whole cash game thing blows that out of the water. And here's the reason why this is from something that Transact released. I'll read out verbatim so as interest rates rise, you will have seen many more reports and the different approaches platforms are taken with client cash. One platform recently reported profit of 24 million from their clients cash alone, our approach is different. We think that it is wrong to skim and that's Transact adjective skim client interest. This is an interest investment return just like a dividend, or distribution. So we pass on all interest to clients. Anyway, long story short, what Transact get now on cash is just over 4% for clients. And they pass that all on to the clients 4%. And here's the interesting thing back to Transact, the average portfolio with Transact is valued at 235,000 pounds, with six and a half percent, typically in cash. And what that means is on that six and a half percent in cash with the current rate of interest, the client earns 26 basis points, that more than covers Transact costs. In other words at the moment Transact pay you to put money on their platform. And that sort of bog standard four and a half percent long term trend UK interest rate and I just, to me that isn't that isn't a credit to Transact some other platforms do pass on the full amount, but not many. And you're just thinking, you know, you're getting a free platform at the minute, the I don't know, averages contain a whole range of skews and distributions, but the average on Transact is getting a free platform and two basis points thrown in. So I don't know if you guys have a view on any of that. And a year
Andy Hart:ago, now, it's a huge subject, Nick, it crops up every so often. And there's probably something that's done a proper reporting in the UK, if we're going anywhere that the US is heading, all the big platforms in the US have technically bought their freeze down to zero, because of this scheme. I think the clients will be net net however way they slice and dice it, because if they don't skim, they're just going to increase the basis points they charged directly to the client. That's why sometimes from a like for like basis, the ones that do scheme come up cheaper in the sort of leagues and someone like Transact does, so yeah, I mean, it's smoke and mirrors. Don't get me wrong. The regulator obviously is okay with it. Because Hargreaves are straddling the regulator line. They're not breaching any rules, I'm sure. Yeah, I think the typical platform has cash of 10% transactions lower because it's advised clients so they're doing less mistakes. That's an interesting point in itself. Yeah, this is a huge huge subject for well done for bringing it up. Who's next? Next Oh,
Alan Smith:I would just I would just say that it just it's to me just smacks of the it's kind of just about integrity. Integrity is whose money is it really is it I think is double dipping, because I don't see someone like Hargreaves Lansdown, you don't get a discount on their platform charge of 45 basis points that Hargreaves charge plus they're making the money as you say, like a third of their revenue. Third, they will profit comes from this cash skim it just to me,
Nick Lincoln:can I interject? I mean, what the what these platforms will say and it's true, but they will they will say well, we disclose this in our terms and conditions that we have costs on the full amount and which I which legally they took the book. I just think as advisors we need you've had 15 years of nothing to give a monkey's about this because I haven't been based in which Africa but now yeah, if you're not doing this part of your platform due diligence, I'd want to Okay, I'm picking AJ bell here and I think their standard platform pricing is 20 basis points compared to Transact 25. In actuality, on Transact the actual clients paying zero, you're probably still paying 20 basis points and AJ Bell. Okay, just a fact that's quite a cost difference. I would say, Okay. Mister Mister the voice the voice Metis Island recruitment update.
Carl Widger:Yeah. So I said before I went away that we were launching a recruitment drive. So we had seven positions open. And I think we're, we're there with four of those positions bullsh, one of the ones that thank you one of the ones that were struggling a little bit being honest, right is getting experienced private client managers on board. So that's basically people who are out there advising clients. And look, I just want to shout out because I know they're watching or listening to Trump to say, send me a DM if you're in a inverted commas financial advisory firm, and you're just selling product, you know, there's a better way of doing it, you know, you owe the clients, please send me a direct message. And then also, they'll also see that I was deeply uncomfortable with the content of today's always do the Irish versus UK cultural differences
Nick Lincoln:there we go the voice the voice saving the Irish financial planning community by doing the right thing and an advocate if you want to join a proper firm Metis Norway is the place for you. And that's okay, Mr. Smith, the ideas exchange.
Alan Smith:Yeah, I'm just gonna pull a couple of thoughts together. On this, the ideas exchange of which we've mentioned a couple of times on this podcast before, is a kind of mastermind group of I can't remember but 36 now sort of business owners financial planner business on a senior people ranging from you know, solely a one man band operations to quite significant, you know, big big companies and even global banks, I think one one or two cases. And, and it's exactly that, and we generally meet once a month over breakfast in the West End of London. We just had our we have twice a year we have a bit of a social we have one a Christmas and we have one in the summer. We just had it the other day, and it was a lot of fun. We all got together students, blazing hot sunshine, and drank copious amounts of champagne and absolute shambles. I got a good laugh. At the same time, a couple of days ago, I got a message from and shout out to Fabian Taylor. Let me just briefly read out. Vivian said to me, Hi, Alan. I'm an IFA based in Nottingham, and a big fan of trap. And bulletproof entrepreneur, the other podcast, I'm looking to get an ideas exchange or similar set up in Nottingham as a forum to share ideas between ifas I know you've touched upon it in trap, but was wondering if you'd be able to willing to give a bit more detail about it, ie the format it takes what the membership fee goes towards the type of people you have speaking, I want it to be seen as valuable to potential members and not just another conference seminar, where a fund manager or product provider is trying to flog their wares, blah, blah. So I said today, rather than just reply to his message, I thought we could just have a quick chat about this here. Because as I did reply to Fabian, I think that every sort of community up and down the country in every major or city or town, could have their own or should have their own networking group, even if it was half a dozen of you don't need to have 36 or 40 people but a group of people. So as I say, I know, we've touched on this before, but I think it'd be worthwhile just maybe Nick as the newest member to that like group, sharing your thoughts and the benefits of a mastermind group. What the format ought to be who should be invited? What about speakers? And, you know, what are the fees go to go to pay for? What are your sort of headline thoughts on this, that there'll be helpful Fabian, and for other listeners,
Nick Lincoln:thank you for the complete lack of preparation at all or needing so you asked me what I think of the idea of exchange.
Alan Smith:Yeah, or just the idea of a group of advisors who meet periodically share their best ideas, thoughts.
Nick Lincoln:I mean, it's just cliche. So what's the downside? I think absolutely. Especially if you're a small you know, one man band or solopreneur, whatever want to call it the, the traditional family. Kind of IFA size, maybe one two advisors and 38 power planners doing God knows what. Yeah, I think you're in your own little cell and it's i Yeah, I'm a recent, I've been with the ideas exchange, what probably three or joined during the Fauci flew Bedwetting, so I think three years and I do get I do get stuff from a little bit flies over my head because as you said, the firm's are so disparate in size. So when they start talking about I don't know, diversity and inclusion or or or client experiences or getting clients on the on the board and all this kind of stuff. I kind of glaze over but I get enough from it to to make it worthwhile. It's easy to do isn't it is why isn't there was 1520 years ago you got the internet now you just put the clarion call out on the internet. And so we're looking at, we're gonna meet at the Nottingham I don't know whatever the Nottingham Ibis every every Wednesday, you know, every third Wednesday of the month, come along and what you can do, I've got an interest in what people get their money to. And that's, that's not my purview at all. But I think it's definitely it's definitely worth doing. And then I belong to a couple of groups. Some are very loose and informal. They're just tend to be over lunch. And two more structured where's the ideas exchange has been going for like four decades, doesn't it? So it's got a whole as a whole structure to it and an organization and with 38 active members and then an alumni as well, if that's not included in the 38? It's quite a serious? Well, there's an AI that I can stay category, there is no doubt there's any longer standing IFA peer group network group in the in the UK than the idtechex. But yeah, I'd go crack on and do it. Absolutely. By the way, when we talk about Nottingham my thoughts go out to the parents of those of those afflicted by the latest horror. Yeah, that's my beer.
Alan Smith:Andy views
Andy Hart:over to me. Yes, another huge subject. It's definitely a meat and potatoes subject. I think we've covered it before. But yeah, masterminds are, you know, how to get rich or whatever Dale Carnegie, it's masterminds are the way to, you know, business riches. I've invited the ideas exchange for 11 years, it is a good club, it's very well structured. That's why it's been successful. You know, that we're strict on attendance. We're strict on timings. You know, I like a club that's well run. The fees have gone up over the years. When I first joined, I've been there the say 11 years, I can't remember it was like 700 quid, then it went up to a grand and it went to 1200. Now it's a 1500. But we've increased the fees, because we are allowing nobody to pay to play, you know, pay to speak. When I first joined my god, the standard of speakers were on a maze that hung around thank God, Alan was there to say no, and it's not that bad. Forget that last 45 minutes. You know, they're just there to pay for the scrambled eggs. I thought okay, at least there's some some method to this madness. Yeah, I recommend setting them up. I've sort of got a volunteer sort of mastermind. This is an example of a mini mastermind. A next gen is another mastermind sort of organization. So yeah, the ideas exchange, I think is probably the longest running the most well run. And it's got such a mix of people in the room. And we do have a sort of structure that we can loosely share. If you are thinking about doing it. My advice to you would be yes, sort of start small. Do it once a quarter but get all the dates in the diary. Get a small bunch of people already together. Yeah, ideally, do it the main city do it face to face. We do 11 A year we miss out August, and we do two zoom meetings. But I probably think zoom meters will go probably in 2024. And maybe the July meeting might go so they're going to miss July, Miss August and we have 10 meetings a year, we meet at about a bit more meat to the bones here we meet like eight in the morning, or half, seven in the morning. We start at let's say eight. We have round robin topics and nine o'clock we have sort of a presentation for one of the members in a presentation from external then we have further round robin talks. And then we finish about half 11. Yeah, it's very well run well oiled. But like all clubs, it's got its challenges. But yeah, sort of spoken enough over to your call.
Carl Widger:Yeah, we have here on this before because when we did, I got a few calls from people who are doing real financial planning in Ireland. So yeah, let's do it. So had a couple of cups of coffee more than a couple actually. And it was up to me then to set it up. And I have done nothing about it. So I'm sorry, but it is on my agenda. Time. Yeah. Yeah, no, I'd look I'm all for it. I think it's I think it's a really great idea that one of the things that I discovered recently was, as far as I know, there is volunteers, the main cash flow modeling software used in Ireland by anyone doing real financial planning, I think there is one other kind of entering the market and maybe making a bit of inroads, but in the east, right, which is where Dublin is right? There's only I think 14 firms in total. And Andy, you've probably trained at least half of them, but only 14 firms and total note like say the really big ones will count for one firm so so they might have loads of licenses, right. But the people there's a lot of people saying they're doing real financial planning, but actually the market is still really really, really small. But I have met I have been that one of the massive benefits of of the real advisor podcast you is that people who have listened to it, I've reached out to me and said, look, let's meet up. And they are all really good people. And they all have really a little bit like our group here, guys, you know, you can't bought benefit from sitting down and talking to people who are doing it as well, because they'll have different slants on it or different ideas. And, you know, you can only benefit from that. And, you know, my final point of this is, if the real financial planning market gets bigger in Ireland, well, Mattis is going to benefit from that, but all the other firms will as well under lobbies will be a few will join us. And that's, that can only be good, though. Yeah,
Andy Hart:that those those stats are very low car, but I'll take your word for it, the baby will advocate word with our good mutual friend Stephen Brown to see see where we are all that over to
Carl Widger:where they came from. Okay, cool.
Alan Smith:Yeah, just kind of wrap this up a couple of quick points. It's, first of all, we employ what they call Chatham House rules. So you're going to say things behind closed doors, you have to be comfortable with the people you share with because you might want to share some relatively confidential information about your business or some challenges or some issues. So you got to be able to largely trust the people you set down your rules at the beginning. There's I think, as we'd have talked about before, there's there's rules for bringing people on and if if I think if more than one or two people object to any potential new member, because they got past issues or challenges with them, not looking at you specifically, Nick, but then members have got a chance to so called blackball and not allow them in. And the other thing is, yeah, because Because Fabian specifically asked us about getting guest speakers and all that and as Sandy said, The by far the best meetings are we have had loads of guest speakers in the past and we continue to have guest speakers but because we no longer pay them. We were very very selective about who will come along because by far the best sessions or member sessions were all just yeah seeing issues and yeah, there's a lot of people there but when I've you know I've come away from this meeting sometimes thinking wow, really, you know, my my notebook is filled filled with ideas or you know, things to do with things to avoid doing little so some of the experiences you hear other advisors you think God that's you know, that's a it's a real challenge they've gone through Oh, sorry. Oh, sorry. Also,
Andy Hart:what planet are they gonna do some of the stuff they bring up? Well, there's
Alan Smith:some you just scratch your head and say we've never I've never even thought about that. But no, as Nick is said, just I think most communities most areas you kind of know your local firms your if you're a Nottingham you probably know three or four others in the general area. So reach out to them book it in the diary. And just do breakfast is a good time and if you do start early enough doesn't eat up too much of your day. And and so therefore the membership fee should really just cover expenses. You're we've we've got other things we've got charitable things as well, but the just your expenses, cover the cost of your breakfast or your coffees or whatever.
Nick Lincoln:And just kind of kind of getting into the into the into the nuts and bolts of something that you wanted nuts and bolts. You want your wiper out with your hands back and forth. I mean, let's not get too much in the detail, you can work it out, Andy,
Andy Hart:just the final thing on that let's not skip past that. That's the first thing you need to have a one in his life, he got the most amount of black balls of any new member. So what are they? Correct?
Nick Lincoln:Now, about seven times now on this on this on this?
Alan Smith:We'll do it we'll do a few more as well. Just
Nick Lincoln:Andy, by the way, spell it. If you're going to cough twice loudly, doesn't matter if you lean to your left because your microphone goes with you given his dangling around your neck so that there were two beauties are dropped in there. Right. Harvard, you know done. Harvard University did a study in 1938. And it's still ongoing looking into to the teenage, mainly American men in 1938. And every two years interviewed them on their on their progress through life. And most of that cohort, as you might imagine a dead hell. But there are some signs that live an interesting report I read I don't think this is new news. But but it's important to what we do and I'll put a link to the so called show notes, saying that these these these these people now who are in their 90s Saying that retirement was something completely different from what they thought it would be in terms of challenges for these for these people. It wasn't the what we kind of because we were consumed with the money side of it, making sure people got enough right and managing future cash flows to match future events. Actually, what the number one challenge these people found who have who are once our age and younger and and our older and a lot of them are dead, is that in retirement, it's having a purpose. And and people retire from work and actually they they might not miss the work that much, but they miss the interaction with colleagues. And that's just something that you know, again, Mitch Anthony, I think you mentioned his name early colleges you didn't mention his name and he says it's not what you're retiring from it's what are you retiring to, to and I think this is the one of the big things that we're gonna find with our clients is it's just helped me I definitely have been involved too much. I'm not one of these sort of a, you know, happy clappy hold their hands kind of thing, but it's just raising it with That's okay, we've made this decision that you are you've made the decision, you want to be financially independent at 55. And I'm helping you get there. Just you know what you're gonna do what you suddenly got 4050 extra hours a week? How are you going to fill it? So that's an interesting, interesting thing. I thought I was
Carl Widger:just a quick comment, Nick, if I may, there was a, I'm trying to remember the name of the program. But there was a program done on on Irish television here. I can't remember the name. But anyway, they focused on people who've kind of successfully done the whole retirement thing. But and really, you know, their longevity, their, their mental capacity, you know, how did they, how did they do it? And the common thread amongst them all? Was that number one, they stayed really active. But number two, right? So everyone knows that the active people who dropped out and all that kind of stuff, right? Number two, they had social elements to their lives. So they were dancers, golfers gardeners, you know, but they met other people, they had other things to get up every morning and go and do. And you might you might be involved with talking to clients about that, Nick, but we very definitely do. And that's one of the reasons we we decided we do future you, which I will talk about on the next episode. As it's going to happen in September. Again, I think it's absolutely vitally important. And if you're doing real financial planning for me, you got to bring these heart or maybe sometimes hard topics up.
Nick Lincoln:Just just closing on this my favorite. I mean, I love all my clients. My favorite client is a guy who was born in 1933. So he's turning 90 this year. He's got the mental outlook of someone 40 years younger than him. And he's got more than enough, we do his cash flow, and his son sits in on the annual planning meetings, which is absolutely fine. And something I would advocate. He's just closing another business deal. That's going to be going a couple of 100 things he has opened, I just I don't think part of his Vim and Vigor comes from the fact that he's still involved in a commercial thing, even though it doesn't need to because he loves it. And he's done it all his working life. And it's got a whole network of people who he who he knows all their stories built up over. Crikey, maybe 5060 years now. So you know, he's an example of living that live in that and how different some and he's one of those people, you know, so how long would this guy live? So I could be a long, long time. He's just so full of him and bigger.
Alan Smith:We've given a few shoutouts to Mitch Anthony in this one. But what he says as well, another great, he's brilliant at wordsmithing. Some of these these, these experiences, he says, You need enough money to sleep well at night, enough purpose to get out of bed in the morning. Morning. I think that that sums it up really nicely.
Nick Lincoln:That that is Zinger Okay, Mr. Smith, you've got an the shiny, shiny Magpie man, you've got an AI event for if a workshop you'd like to talk to us about.
Alan Smith:Yeah, I think I mentioned this last time. Last time around. There is a specific event on July the fifth in central London, all about AI Artificial Intelligence, but more specifically for financial planners. So we're gonna have a bit of a deep dive. As it relates to the work that most of us are involved with, it's actually sold out. But there are which we'll probably be able to squeeze another few tickets. By the time this comes out, there's probably a chance of probably five or six tickets available that probably go quite quickly. But if you listen to this on you're interested, do use discount code Allen ala N Get 50 quid off, it's only 150 quid, and it's going to be such we'll have such great content. So if you can get along. Also, if you can't get along to it, there is a video version of it and you get a stream, you get a chance to get the recording, which you can watch at your leisure. Later, there'll be some real practical tips to try to get along to that. And the other event, whilst I'm here to mention again mentioned that recently bulletproof entrepreneur podcast or live interview with Henry Dimbleby, founder of the Lyon fast food chain sold for over 100 million pounds if you'd like meeting and speaking to sharp entrepreneurs who had a great, great success and asking them questions directly. also pick up a copy of his book, signed, autographed and come along to homegrown, Private Member's club on June 26. As there's a link in the show notes, and if you are a listener of this podcast, you will get complimentary entry free entry, save yourself 35 quid, so if you're in town, if you're an area do come along, I love to see you. Thank you.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, great stuff. Thank you, Alan. We did have one more thing left on the typical tibia and Mr. Hartz put in Should we do that next show, so I don't know if we should do that or not. This is my, my, my chain migration class on an advisory basis into one fund.
Andy Hart:It's a big subject, that subject should be subject thinks enormous, enormous. Everyone, a lot of people are talking about it next gen conference as well. So let's do that a good crack, I think.
Nick Lincoln:Okay. All right. So we'll we'll try that for Okay. Thank you. Thank you for the insight there. Okay. Well, in that case, then let's move on to what to what some people may be called During the meat and potatoes of the show, and in the last two episodes, we talked about the prospecting, funnel, how you go through that. And then once you've got prospects into clients, because remember, you're betting them, they're not betting you, they might think they are. That's wrong. Once you've got them on board a question of the initial planning meeting, which is the dinar moment, and hopefully they buy into it. So you know, you've got these people on board and you want to keep them on the ark with you, because you've kept the loons away, you've got decent people who share values that are similar to yours. How do you keep them on the straight and narrow? And what is your ongoing communication strategy? So Mr. Hart?
Andy Hart:Yeah, so our financial planning overlord and trainer, Nick Murray, who we roll on that out in the morning facing Brooklyn, talks about this as continuing to, you know, top up your clients, vitamin C, the human body cannot retain vitamin C, you can sit down with the client and explain global equities, portfolios, asset allocation, you know, for two, three hours, the moment they leave the office, leave the Zoom call, you know, a month later, three months later, they're gonna throw grenades into your business about something that's happened, it's outside of your control. So it's just the wider concept. We've spoken about the initial stages with clients the welcome meeting, now it's a case of what do you do now? Well, I immediately nuts and bolts, I put them onto my ConvertKit, email subscription service. So they're gonna get monthly emails newsletters from me that have got various things in it just a, you know, a monthly touch point. Social media, you don't know who's following you on social media, you don't know what clients are following you on social media, you should just assume that all of them are. And your persona should be as you wish it to be. So I'm quite public on LinkedIn, quite public on Twitter, not very public on Instagram, I run Maven money podcast, that's probably my biggest marketing channel. And again, that's quite good because I can divert or direct existing clients, new clients, potential clients to various shows that I think will be useful and impactful for them. It's all that sort of general social proof, isn't it with ongoing marketing, I check collateral every so often, I send sort of bulletins if something really important is to happen to happening in the world. But I generally don't do that, that often. It's the whole don't panic, well, I wasn't panicking. And so he told me not to panic type email. I did quite a lot in COVID. So that's it, really the whole social proof conversation. And this is an example of it. So yeah, some of our clients listen to this. I also sort of focused on financial advisors or clients through the other businesses that I run. So again, I do various marketing in that space. So yeah, I'm just opening it up the next stage, once they're onboard, they're welcomed. How then do we continue to top up their victim and see have touch points? What channels do we use? What channels do we not use? I'll start with you, Nicholas, or lick. Sorry, over to you.
Nick Lincoln:Thank you. Thank you. I'll trick aberdaron Thank you for that. So I'm yeah I'm I'm like you I think less is more with with client communications. You don't you don't want to del use them with with stuff because it's like a god or something else to have me to think about maybe to worry about. But I do have believe or not. And you the three of you might change because I do have kind of an overarching strategy with clients. So I do this quarterly newsletter, I'm not sure who reads I write him off my own benefit. And it's quite long and wordy. But that just gets my name in their inbox. I do the does send that thing. Maybe I don't do Christmas cards and everything. But I do physical handwritten birthday cards for my clients. Okay, and you know, just from me, blah, blah, blah. And by the way, since, since the year of your birth, UK inflation has been XML if it comes to the UK return Y amount, capturing that differences, financial salvation, I've got a little card I put in there. And this is the thing I want to get. My segment here is consistency of language is consistency of message that whenever you do touch your clients with communications, and and the point you made earlier about your review, your best review was your worst review because all he does is bang on about the same old bloody stuff. Yeah. In all your client communications, make sure you bang on about the same bloody stuff in the same language you used in the prospective meeting the same language you used in the initial planning meeting. Just consistency consistency. So of try and avoid using the word stock market. Try and avoid words like loss. Really try and avoid technical words even like personal pension, it's a free money growth pot. You know, the ICER is a tax free growth pot. You know, and the GIC growth pot, right? Don't use we don't have to use these technical. We were blessed we got the English language, but it's the most beautiful language in the world the most fluid, we can use whatever words we want to convey our measures that we're comfortable, we don't have to use the technical jargon that's on the statute, but we must refer to that in their instability lessons. So well that's fine, but when we're communicating with clients, remember they don't know what they really don't have a clue what we're talking about most of the time and, and using arcane acronyms and other stuff in front of them I think is a crime. So just use whatever language you you feel most comfortable To convey your message, and then just make sure you're consistent with all that, again, it's the vitamin C, the vitamin D, what have you, repetition is the mother of all learning. So I have a light touch contact point in my clients, I know, you will use it again, mainly American studies say you should be touching clients with communications, eight, nine times a year, I got notes, when they get these figures from I don't really do that outside of the annual planning meeting. And of course, round that there's a lot of communications can go back and forth with data and updating and so forth. But whatever you're doing consistency of language, consistency, consistency, consistency. Mr. Smith
Alan Smith:just got a couple of points to add interested, there was a I think I'll put a link to this in the show notes. There was a an article online, I read the other day advisor voice and it was referring to a study spectrum group and who they are but another company who will do sort of financial advisor and financial advisor client studies. And they cited the top four reasons for a client leaving an advisor. And three of the four most highly cited reasons were communication related things like I never hear from him. I met someone the other day prospective new client became a became a client is currently with another firm elsewhere and said I never hear from them. never hear from them. Not a Dicky bird markets up markets down anything going on. No communication whatsoever. And is there I know, you said I don't even meet them with them. Are you supposed to meet them at least once a year? Because well, maybe I've been a bit busy. So you can go sometimes people go for several years without any communication from clients, which is nuts. I think. I think you're right, I think dimensional, have cited this in the past, if you've got one annual planning meetings, you've got you, the client gets the injection of the serum of the truth serum about the you know, the real benefits of financial planning sensible investment gets up once a year, he's got 364 days of getting media noise, which is the antithesis when we say so the pick it up. Interesting, Andy, you just in terms of a technical aspect ConvertKit. We've just moved to ConvertKit from mailer light, find it better, more comprehensive, better for tracking our data and everything. So we send a monthly client newsletter to existing clients generally got three articles in a monthly basis. Increasingly, my colleagues are writing articles as well, which is great. We are using a little bit sometimes spice it up a little bit with chat GPT write an article and put it into chat GBT and just say to make this more, you know, more interesting, more specific use, or appealing use, you know, things like that the subject line is often you know, that's where if you don't people, people who don't read it, don't open it, then you've wasted your time. So just spending a lot of time working out with the subject line is going to attract attention, I think is important. And the other thing, I just as a last point, I'll say is this social media like eye candy, I've been active on social media now more proactive for probably 18 months now. In terms of new business, it is now as fast become our single biggest source of new business inquiries or new new clients. And it is a bit of an ecosystem. It is LinkedIn, Twitter, and podcasting. And people sort of find you in one place, then he can track you down somewhere else. And before they know it, they kind of get a good sense of what you stand for what your values are. And I guess a lot of people say, Well, I'm not remotely interested in hiring them. Wonderful. And those that are but the other thing is quite interesting is that are quite a few of our, our existing clients do like follow me on LinkedIn, for example. And sometimes the messaging that you put out, you got to be a little bit, let's see, careful, but just be alive to what some of the messages are. Because for example, I'm like the rest of us. I'm banging on all the time about investing in global equities, investing in the great companies of the world. But of course not all of our clients are 100% invested in equities. So now and again, you'll get somebody who reads something because hang on a minute, why am I in a 6040? You said that equity isn't the place to be. So they go back and have a chat with one of my colleagues as an advisor. This happened recently, client said, I've just read Allen's thing to wait, investing in bonds is a total waste of time, why 40% bonds? And so you know, we've got to just sort of unpack that with the client and say, well, because you're this is that was Alan's view was kind of generic doesn't necessarily apply to everyone. We've got very, very detailed, specific advisory process for you. And for these reasons, it makes sense on a one to one basis. But fundamentally, we do believe that the engine of future growth and financial security independence is great companies of the world. But we do do bespoke one to one advice, but everyone is everyone is online. Nowadays, everyone has read stuff. Everyone reads social media, a lot of people are on LinkedIn, a lot of clients are on LinkedIn. And and also the email inbox is kind of sacred real estate. Almost all your clients have got to whether it's a Gmail account or a business account, they check their emails, if not every day, every couple of days. And so what you send to them you've got it's a privileged position to be allowed to send people information into the no one wants junk. So be very, very careful about what you send out. It's got it's just got to add values. it'll be something different and impactful. So it takes us quite a long time to craft these messages. But it's just popping up every month just saying, Hi, we're here. And if you want to, you know, it's just a reminder of people that we exist and the message remains consistent. What about you, Mr. Widget? What are your thoughts on ongoing comms? You do a lot of one subject.
Nick Lincoln:And sorry, Carl, I think you mentioned you meant to go before then I went to Alan. So my apologies. I No worries
Carl Widger:at all. No worries at all. Yeah, look, I'm not sure I have a ton more to offer than what's already been said. We do a newsletter once every couple of months. Just if I can help people on that what we found was our open rate almost doubled when we started putting in a piece about the team. And so focusing on couple of team members are some of the softer stuff that some some of the people might be doing. We've, we've babies do in the O'Halloran, Andrews and Ross household over the next couple of months will be definitely baby photos, God willing, in the in over the summer months, which is great, because it gives people an insight that we're real people. And, you know, we're we have all the same issues that all of our clients do. So that's a, that's actually apparently, our open rate is double what the normal newsletter open rate would be, which is really good. But like what Alan said, we spend a lot of time figuring out which articles go in. And we have, though done, and I think I've mentioned this before, we also do an investment newsletter, twice a year, we've only just started that. So we've just done the second one, it was all about the security of our client assets. So telling people, I suppose the journey, their actual money goes on and the securities, the security of those assets. And that's gone down really, really well. And that was as a result of direct feedback from our clients survey. So that's really, really good. Blogs, it used to be just me writing all the time. And social media, it used to be just me all the time. And now I'm gone really bad at it because I don't have time, or at least that's my excuse, which probably isn't excuse, but the team have unbelievably up their game. So if anyone goes into the latest news section in Metis, Ireland, one could argue actually, that we've too many blogs, but that's never going to be a complaint that I'm going to be giving and they're all very active on social media. So I think our we're casting that net with relevant information as wide as we possibly can. Yeah, I don't Other than that, there's, there's a few other points I had there, but everybody else is going to touch on them and to a certain degree. So that's as much as I have to offer that would be valuable, I think.
Nick Lincoln:And are you comfortable given that good thrashing?
Andy Hart:Yeah, I think so. Just a final point, I mean, all of this stuff, sort of compounds, and most of it sort of out there, you know, generally forever, certainly things like podcasts. So we're sort of the somewhat infancy of this sort of period where where we are in terms of information being out there. Obviously, we've got this AI journey to go on that nobody knows what it looks like. So things will be getting more and more sliced and diced. I did come across a couple of good AI tools. Whilst in Manchester. I'm stealing Smithies Limelight here. One that was quite good is there's there's AI avatars now that can basically look exactly like Nick Lincoln, I mean, Paris, Christ. So what you can do is you can write a script for Nick Lincoln to deliver it perfectly word for word. But what will happen is, people will want to be able to offer this to professional services firms. So when you take on a new client, you'll send them a link with a video that's an avatar, that's a perfectly scripted avatar of what you want to say for them, you know, just like you do on loom. But what I'm saying is, it's going to allow a lot more funnels to be created. So you take on a new client, and it's like some boring thing around pension drawdown. You've already got the script sketched out, and the avatar of Nick Lincoln can deliver to you what may be a boring video about drawdown but if they're interested in there, just carry on watching it. So there's going to be a lot the problem with financial advisors, most financial advisors got all this intellectual capital in a box, you know, they're a good advisor, they've been doing it for 30 years. They're great in front of clients, but they're in this box, they don't get it out there. And we're all cottage industry. So every different advisor, got no external message just got over this great intellectual capital inside a box. So I think this stuff's going to going to open up that. So I'm somewhat excited about that. I mean, a lot of advisors have got capacity to take on new clients. They're really good at what they do. They're very, you know, knowledgeable about what they do, but they're just not very good at getting their message out there to more and more clients. And I think things like AI will batter the barriers down and people will realize that it's not about going to, you know, a shiny skyscraper in the city to have your money manage because you asked you out GBT, what's the best investment fund that comes out with something that's plain vanilla. So a lot of the Bs is going to be hopefully dispelled about the sort of next stage of AI that we're going into But without me getting too much on my soapbox. Yeah, I think that sort of Avatar creation of custom avatar, where you can get your message out to more and more people more and more funnels, you can always pretty much create the
Alan Smith:thing is, this is the one. Yeah, the the point, the point being that all of a sudden, one thing is for certain. And as Carl has alluded to, as well, creating content via newsletters, blog posts, podcasts, everything is time consuming. It just there's no there's no doubt about it. And so therefore, we're kind of doing one to many. So we do when we do our newsletter, and it is a source of kind of irritation for me somewhat is that we send we've got your clients like you've all got, everyone's got in the same age ranges, excluding see the children of clients, but certainly your clients in their 30s and sort of normal engage clients up into their whatever 80s 90s I don't know. And we are sending out same newsletter, you know, full disclosure to that. And that's kind of gets me a bit I'd what I'd love to do is just really say talk about avatars, but really segment our own existing clients down, it could be by age, it could be by any number of different ways of segmenting it, because what we want to what we want yeah, interests or specific recent experiences or anything like that, because the core message is probably 80% the same. So you could say the same that whether it is about pensions, or you were saying specifically, you know, if you are aged over 75, this is something to pay attention to so far for my 75 year old clients and instinctual clients because they Oh, this is interesting. This really, really appeals me and my 38 year old clients never going to see it in the first place where at the moment, they might see something like that and say, well, doesn't apply to me. So AI will allow us to just create content at scale, but in a much more highly personalized way. And it also applies to sort of lead generation content. If you're creating something designed for optometrists in Nottingham, for example, then you can you can do it and it's 80 90% the same thing. But if you're an optometrist in Nottingham, you're probably going to pay attention to that more than some generic post on LinkedIn about five key things to do about retirement. So it's an interesting time.
Nick Lincoln:Okey dokey, chaps. We're up to one hour and seven minutes in and I can see on my nest camera that she's loved it up the drive by bolting saccade TRAPPIST questions, and we didn't do any questions in the last episode with me live because we just basically ran out of time. As a reminder, if you want to post a question to us do click on the pinned tweets at the top of advisor podcast. And or in the link in the so called show notes. We will get around to your questions. We're doing them chronologically. So what I always struggle with, and even if you've asked questions been asked before, we will read your question now out of respect to you. And as a thank you for contributing to the show, because it's your show as much as ours. Right. Haven't got all that claptrap out of the way. First question is from Adam livello. A bit of a boring one, guys, but some, including me may find it useful. What strategy do you use for clients taking income from their portfolios to guard against sequencing risk, ie natural income, pot investing cash buffer unit and Cashman or something in between? Really enjoy the show? Keep up the good work. Thank you, Adam. I don't know I'm gonna go I'm gonna pick on car.
Carl Widger:Cheers, buddy. None of the above? Adam. If you do real financial planning, you're going to know every single year at the annual planning meeting. hard cash is required. So in terms of guarding against sequencing risk, I think it's it's not a conversation that you need to be having, in my view.
Alan Smith:Call isn't it's on Adams list. One was cash buffer. Is that not what you mean? You anticipating going to be spending x next in the next 12 months and you create a cash buffer to be drawn down upon? Is that not what you do?
Carl Widger:Yeah, yeah. But I don't think a cash buffer is guarding against sequencing risk. So I don't think,
Alan Smith:well, you're not you're not. Sequencing risk is irrelevant, isn't it? Yeah. If you've got if you've got cash, that, you know, you got to spend the next 18 months let's Exactly. Yeah,
Nick Lincoln:exactly. So aside two years worth of living expenses, say and I
Carl Widger:know we do, that's what I am saying we do so but it's like we're not putting them into specific funds to guard against sequencing risk. I think that's a total you're
Alan Smith:creating a cash buffer, you're creating a pot of everage that they're going to draw down upon to support for
Nick Lincoln:for different funds. And Andy
Andy Hart:Yeah, this is a huge subject subject again, and it crops up all the time. There's been reports written about it books bring about it, but as calls alluded to, the real financial plan with your clients will somewhat dictate what the strategy is. Our regulator the FCA is very much on this at the moment, and I believe a lot of advisors have been sending out a questionnaire around their sort of retirement, financial planning strategy, is it different to the accumulation? Nick has coined the term of the centralized retirement advice proposition, you can all work out? Well, the CRA P, you can all work out the acronyms for that. So it's a combination of I suppose most things that you mentioned in your question, Adam, but when I do training with advisors we go through so in a lot of detail, you know, I present voice I've been doing it for years. So yeah, at some point, maybe we could sit down and do the fat on that. But yeah, it's a meaty subject. Over to you Nicaragua?
Alan Smith:Well, I think from my viewpoint, I mean, in simplicity, and of course, there are always exceptions to the rule. But the default rule is, as we've already said, I mean, I, I've called it a cash buffer and sitting down with a client. Now, there are things that happen, as we actually talked about at the head of the show, which is unexpected events from which you need to get access to capital quite quickly. So that isn't necessarily factored in, because you can't factor in every potential unexpected event. But generally speaking, I've got
Carl Widger:sorry to drill down. That's why like structure products or you know, lock ins and all that, that's why they're they don't form part of kind of real financial planning, if you're advising on investing.
Alan Smith:But for the 90, let's say, 90 95% of the times, we will go into some detail with clients and say to the level to which you can reasonably expect or predict the future Aarthi Are you planning any major CAPEX expenditure this year? Have you got like around the world cruise by moving house buying a new car, anything addition to because we know what your expected monthly requirements? Are? We factored that in we've got that sitting in cash. We know there's a trade off, because you know, you're not earning much on it. Although you doing okay, if it was Transact mentioned mentioned early, earlier. So therefore, we know that that's not investment money, that's money, we know you're going to spend in the next 12 to 24 months. That to me is so your sequence risk is I mean, it's not it's not completely eliminated. But it's significantly reduced by that, because you're still invested the monies you've got, yes, but long term investors money that, you know, you know, you're going to spend 10 years from now, you know, let the markets grow that such that it's the price of your petrol in the car 10 years from now is going to be more. So that's what we'll take, we're mitigating inflation rises, and so on, but the money you're gonna be spending and, again, it's I think it's one of these ones and storage is going to put it down, but it's kind of another over engineered complexity, most thing that I know, I'm going to spend 50 grand next year, like I've been doing every year, in fact, I might reduce it a bit, because Because Because All right, well, you've got 100 grand sitting in cash, we're going to draw down upon that you got eight, your two years worth. And then yes, oh my God, my daughter got divorces. So she needs 30 grand to help her with such as, okay, we had either gotta take that from the cash buffer, which is going to be shorter, he's going to spend some money that you're going to spend next year, or we're going to look into the portfolio we might do we might possibly have to do that. But we can't really overly you know, over engineer the whole process and the
Andy Hart:most frequent risk. Most Sequent risks exist in spreadsheets, not in real life, financial plans and clients edit their behavior. Yes, using a proper forecasting tool massively helps and keep it simple. Keep it cautious. It doesn't matter. It's deterministic is the best we've got, I can't say look like I've got another solution. But I'm not gonna use deterministic, you're either going to be worth minus 500 or 16. Point 8 million, you know, again, it's just gonna give a fan output. Yes, it might give me a percentage success rate. But again, we're going down to a slightly different road now. But yeah, yeah.
Alan Smith:You've hit the nail, the nail on the head. Because this assumes that clients don't modify behavior during this sort of sequence risk challenges and every single one I've you know, when there's really measurable COVID You couldn't travel but before I remember back in 2008, markets were absolutely tanking. Guess what people weren't spending at the same rate, they everyone decided to just tighten their belt around them. So yeah, so another one watches is spreadsheets versus real life. Yes, you have to be wise you have to be sensible, but you're never going to just get 100% accurate.
Nick Lincoln:It's almost like we're dealing with real adults, isn't it and not to almost almost grown up on this. Adam, Adam, just closing your point. The one thing I would say is don't rely on natural income I'm a definite a unit and Cashman person, you know, what's going out? It's not totally random amount from digital returns is everything. Total Return? Okay. Now we have another question from Darren bill. Kid dad who's on Twitter at Darren underscore Bilka. But yours is quite a big question. Darren and I think what we'll do if that's okay with you guys, because we're one minute, one hour and 15 minutes into the show, and we'll we'll carry forward your your question to the to the next show if that's okay, which means inevitably, by by fair means or fail, we've got To culture corner which is still still just about friends so Mr. Smith and kids oh god yeah kits his summer readings I've looked at this gone
Alan Smith:didn't didn't Didn't you like it we're coming to this time of year but people tend to take some time off and sort of lounge around by a swimming pool with other things and if you're anything like me you like to read read a few books when you are on your vacation. I'm always looking for new ideas new books to read or to listen to and I did like it Michael Kitsis which most of the listeners will be aware of his this proliferation of content and output and podcasts and stuff but he does produce this once a year or produces his summer reading list and had a look at it and there I think there are some really good suggestions a lot of books had never heard of before which I'm certainly going to buy or download a number of them some things which are kind of off the modern age is kind of like living within this hybrid work lifestyle just some insights and ideas there's just a few others just kind of representing financial planning in the in the modern area era. There's a list of about a dozen books on it I'm probably going to buy four of them the link to his list is on our show notes and I think it's well worth despite what Nick says well worth taking a look at and getting an idea or two decent
Nick Lincoln:Okay, very good. Mine is my as my as a negative and a positive. So my culture corner there TRAPPIST and if you're watching on hold up the camera now the essays of Warren Buffett now, the ultra crypto and is going to have a mini panic attack here but I tried to read this and found it awfully awfully dull and dry actually. So I'm willing to give this away the first TRAPPIST who hits me up, oh, shoot me. Who reaches out shoot me. He makes contact with me via a DM on LinkedIn. I will send that book to them. There you go. There's your present. What I didn't join, which I've also finished recently by Audible was the Tao of Charlie Munger. So Charlie Munger has wisdoms and quotations and speeches. And I found that really enjoyable. I think of the two of them mongers actually though, the probably I think the better communicator he says he's, he's bone dry. But I did enjoy that. So I would, I would go go carefully with the essays of Warren Buffett but go into the Tao of Charlie Munger, because that's really informative. Really easy. Really quick. Mr. widger. Muted call you there. So well.
Carl Widger:Are you here to do the full show? Jesus? Yeah. Anyway, my one is I did an interview, a wide ranging interview with the currency about where the Irish financial advice industry as ash. And that's what the headline said. So the headline, I should just show that for those watching on YouTube, financial planner card with your calls out industry, many aren't trustworthy, how to
Alan Smith:how to win friends and influence people in Ireland. There are a bunch of cowboys.
Carl Widger:As you can imagine. I shared it on I did the interview before I went holiday. So I wasn't really I wasn't checking anything except I was checking the currency to say, a wonderful headline, no, put on that. So lo and behold, I got a little panic attack. So obviously, that headline is a little bit out of context. However, there have been so many investments and unregulated investments and unregulated investment firms carrying on as if they were regulated, blah, blah. So I do think it's something I can stand over. However, when I put it out on LinkedIn and Twitter, crickets, right, nobody said anything. I did get a few text messages from real financial planners saying fairplay delighted, but I did know that nobody was publicly willing to back me on that one. But anyway, look, I was delighted to do it with currency because I think the currency is Ireland's number one without question, business news app. So for me to be asked to contribute as a thought leader, that was pretty cool. From my point of view, it is behind a paywall. So I'm pretty sure every Irish advisor listening to this will have subscribed to the currency. So go check it out. And yeah, if you'd like to give me a little bit of backing, that would be great, but I don't expect it.
Alan Smith:Carl, why do you think that you didn't get a lot of backing for that what you said was you just you were just you didn't say anything, which was not true was not demonstrably true by previous press reports, newspaper accounts or so on. Why didn't let other Irish devices get behind you publicly? Any thoughts? I don't know, like I look, I see,
Carl Widger:I got I have tons and tons of followers from UK advisors obviously because you know, you guys and haven't spoken at home before and all that kind of stuff. And I saw I follow a lot of you guys and I'm, as in UK advisors on Twitter, and I can see you all fighting all the time and you seem to be much more comfortable with the conflict and Irish advisors are. I think everybody in Ireland is like who Why would you be upsetting people? I think there's much more without any question or doubt, because I've heard her but there's much more conversations going on behind the scenes. And for sure I have a target on my back. For sure. People will be watching every step I make. And every breath I take probably, but yeah, look, I can stand over what I said, I'm absolutely comfortable that it is fair to say that there are many who are untrustworthy. And there are way too many advisors in the market. And I mentioned one or two things about the regulator. And I stand over those also.
Nick Lincoln:Yeah, well, that's, that's, that's the important thing called you can stand by what you've said. And that's that's the integrity. Wherever you go. We go over this Man in the Arena thing, you know, you can Okay, so, so no, I'm being I'm actually being genuine. Now, Mr. Hunter. Come on. We're one one hour 21 minutes for the love of Christ. spellcaster the full, the full of sand bank mint fried. Mr. Hart?
Andy Hart:Yeah, so this is a new podcast from wondery which is a famous podcast studio and they put it together spellcaster the full of Sam bank when fried, which is the SB read free FB FBF anybody should think about this as this whole story about he was a massive donator to the Effective Altruism industry. That went on a huge, you know, rise and tear, mainly sort of backed and funded or to a part four he was up to. I know, obviously, Michael Lewis is going to cover this there's going to be loads of different podcasts loads of different films. But yeah, I thought it was I've listened to the first one. It's it's pretty decent classic wonder it's quite American. But yeah, decent and worth a was that worth a listen. But yeah. Does anyone have any comments about this Effective Altruism thing that you've looked into? Or? Yes,
Nick Lincoln:it's a bloody fraud. This guy was an absolutely crook. And he bent himself in this Effective Altruism thing and all the woker RT couldn't wait to suck up to the guy and it's an hour and
Alan Smith:I think this guy is it will McCaskill altruism i i think he's legit. I think I've got I don't know, I think he was the incredible thing from what I've seen or read or watched about SPF is that he was I mean, I'm not saying you should judge people what they look like he didn't look like the most impressive character with with his sort of mop of frizzy hair and his and his shorts, wearing your two big conferences and things but he clearly was a good salesman, like often these guys are like Bernie Madoff was many others where he was a brilliant salesman, because I think he hoodwinked McCaskill and a bunch of these others to sort of get behind him because they had existing credibility, aren't they? And he just sort of jumped on the back of their credibility I think they were as hoodwinked as much as many others were, but all the it's all going to come out I mean, I don't know there's a trial isn't it there's got to be there's a trial coming out we won't be till it was a couple years next year. Now there's a
Nick Lincoln:couple of couple of trials you need to if you need to boast about your altruism it's you're already in the in the bin as far as I'm concerned. You do it you do it yourself and you keep quiet about it. You don't leave start writing books about it for Christ's sake. And that's the received word of God to end this show on there's a fair enough guys one minute 21 hour 23
Alan Smith:Well, I'd be disappointed if we wrap up before hearing about Andy Andy's drop. You want to hear and then we can finish Come on.
Nick Lincoln:This is random detractors enjoy
Unknown:Darien Andy, he knows about everything Andy can be told anything. His name is Andrew Hart. There you go, there you go.
Andy Hart:I've now got a rock up at three airport with a ticket it says Andy Hartley. My name is Andrew Hart. So wish me good luck with that people. Good luck.
Nick Lincoln:Good luck and enjoy. Enjoy both prayers. That's indeed in every respect. That is a wrap for this episode. Dear trapeze. Thank you as ever for your time and input please do leave a six and a five star review on iTunes like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We got about 300 and something subscribers to the YouTube channel now which is which is pretty hefty. Until the meantime from the Track Pack it's Addy OS and take care of their folks. Goodbye. Hi