F-BOMB ALERT AT 26m22s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In this latest pile of TRAP, the Trap Pack discuss
Links referred to in the show:
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F-BOMB ALERT AT 26m22s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In this latest pile of TRAP, the Trap Pack discuss
Links referred to in the show:
=========================== ===
Take part in the conversation! We want YOU to suggest topics and questions you’d like the Trap Pack to answer. The best way to do this is to ask them here.
Help us to help you! The more followers we have, the more we can do stuff going forward. So please:
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 truck 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 track
Nick Lincoln:yes indeed, dear Trappists Welcome back to what many people are calling episode 25 of the real advisor podcast te R A P trap. My name is Lincoln Lincoln and joining me as ever are the three other Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the heart Alan the storyteller Smith and Carl the voice which are now gentlemen We have a show packed full of absolutely nothing. So let's start unpacking it straightaway with some reviews from Mr. Hart red in the high energy fashion out and the I don't care how many reviews there are 1234 I don't look at it crackhead.
Andy Hart:Okay. So the first review is from Darren Brinkley entitled fantastic listen for old and new five stars. A great Listen, whether you've been in the profession for a while or a new to the scene, great banter between the four horsemen who all come at things from a different perspective. And the format makes you feel like you're sat next to them in the pub. There's no shortcut to experience. However, if you absorb the key messages in this podcast, you'll learn a few valuable lessons that take some people their entire career. Next review is a lots of letters so 5975 to whatever great insights five stars. As someone who's looking to get into real financial advice, this podcast is brilliant. It's great to get so much information from people who are experienced, it's helping me loads I'm currently undertaking the CIA deployment and regulated financial planning. I know the CIA SI is another option and I was told that the best is to get the CIA qualifications. Thanks a lot. I listened to every episode of this podcast Maven money podcast and meaningful money. Five stars for sure. Back to you look.
Nick Lincoln:Fab Thank you dear Trappist. For these reviews, they just give us a shot in the arm a little boost of energy to keep on doing this. This shambolic production. Okay, let's, let's move on to some topical tidbits. So we can put us on timestamp on this episode that even though we're in the sort of summertime and this is supposed to be this required news, quite news time for everybody. There's quite a lot going on. And on this, this year's Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, has put some policy idea about there to allow pension providers to allocate 5% of their pension funds. Our money dear TRAPPIST our money to unlisted equities? I don't know who put their good show notes, whoever did I put, please crack on a comment?
Alan Smith:Yeah, I did. The ons with in some measures, it's this is all about sort of helping startup, early stage companies getting funding, which is all well and good. And it's a kind of noble idea. However, I don't think it makes sense at all for the average and what they're talking about doing is I mean, it is it's not mandatory, apparently. But there's a strong recommendation from governments and from the treasury, that large corporate pension funds are sort of the ones that either Mr. or Mrs. Miggins are members of should be allocating all their pension fund managers or administrators should be allocating a percentage of their investments to this. There's talking about UCC unlisted, but they're talking about venture venture funding, so very early stage venture capital type funds. And honestly, I think this has got no place whatsoever. In this type of investment. Most of us, I think all of us listen to the all in podcast, which is obviously fashioned after hours, and they've largely coffee, trap podcast. And if you listen to them at any given time, so they're all bunch of, you know, early stage venture capitalists experts, and they say how difficult it is to make any sort of meaningful return with venture investing. And I just think those people who are active in it, the proper VC type investors, they're going to just take this, take them to the cleaners because it's like lambs to the slaughter of the likes of Aviva or legal in general, some big pension fund manager tries to invest in some sort of, yeah, rollout, some sort of early stage tech startup. They're just going to get all the all the companies that the main VC the act of people that really experienced venture capital managers have, have ignored or put aside so overall, I'm not in favor of I don't think it makes sense at all. What do you guys think?
Nick Lincoln:I think it's, I try and listen, I know, okay, I think we're all cynical, maybe I'm the most cynical of the four of us. I do try and look at these things and think what what's the upside to I just don't see any upside to it. I'm naturally predisposed to think if there's an idea from the government, it's a bad idea, until proven otherwise. And this just reeks of being a bad idea. I don't know why they're trying to do it. I know, the UK stock market is moribund anyway, you know, and companies are listing and other exchanges around the world, because because of the regulation brought in by who else previous governments, and the way they say it's voluntary, you know, I love that. It's like, it's not really is it? Because it'll be? Oh, that's a nice little pension funds you've got over there. It'd be a shame if something happened to it, wouldn't it? You know, it's voluntary in the same way that the mafia used to go and collect rent. So I think it's just another bad bad idea. Are we done on that one? Well,
Carl Widger:just from an Irish point of view, it's interesting, because we're kind of going into total another opposite direction, where we're being bound by rules where simplification of the investments in pension funds is kind of coming into into regulation. So you can't have more than 50% in one asset class and that kind of stuff, which is screwing a lot of people who've got, you know, all pench all property and their pension funds. So they've there, they've kind of got timelines now to fix all of that. Yeah, I can't see how this is a good idea at all. And watch this space to be a lot of new venture capitalist funds, I think, springing up in the UK to try and take advantage of this. And, and don't we just know it, because we've often spoken about it. There'll be a lot of venture capitalist funds springing up and it'll be investing in nothing, but we'll be making lots of fees on the way so I think yeah, terrible, terrible idea.
Nick Lincoln:Yeah, come back to the coming on to a classic example of a fund that disappeared. Always returning returns disappeared over time, mainly due probably to fees, but that'll be the last topical tidbit. Okay. The Coots bank saga. We just want a bunch of Coots. Well, this is obviously for the for British listeners, Trappist. But I think also it's made waves around the world actually, certainly demolished the reputation of this, this, this highfalutin bank for the rich and rich and wealthy, which people like Paul Mason and Kevin Maguire on the left have suddenly leapt at this defense, which has been a thing of beauty. I guess, again, I don't know who put this on. I'm guessing it was you Alan.
Alan Smith:Yes, it was, I've managed. I've managed to unmute myself.
Nick Lincoln:Yeah. You're having a tech morning for the ages. Aren't you? My friend?
Alan Smith:I am a bit a bit away from laptops for a few weeks. So which we'll talk about later. Yeah, I mean, I was just interested sort of the views from the panel. Really, I mean, I just found I found the whole thing kind of fascinating, interesting. And yes, everyone seems to politicize it, depending on what your outlook is. But nevertheless, I mean, there's so many different layers and levels here. If nothing else, this is a this is a so called Private Bank, who as far as has been alleged, I think it's She's admitted it the CEOs have said, well, the of the whole group. You leaked, disclose certainly your private information about the
Nick Lincoln:details to a journalist. Yeah, it's actually probably if that's true, that's a criminal act. Defense.
Andy Hart:I mean, yeah, yeah. But we're not even anywhere near the position she is. It's ridiculous.
Nick Lincoln:I think about the law. Gina Miller, who's this? Yeah, do it. Let me talk. I'll get them out. Gina Miller, is hardcore Remainer. She has also been banned by her bank. I think it was one of the starling Metro. I don't know. Monzo.
Alan Smith:But hang on. That's this is all sort of, as usual getting exaggerated. As far as I've read it. They don't do bank accounts for political parties.
Nick Lincoln:Why not? And how on earth are political parties supposed to start up if you can't get banking, you've got three, you've got a uni party in this country. If you can't set up a bank account for any new parties. You don't have any new party. My point was going to be Gina Miller is the other extreme to me, in terms of Brexit and European Union, and I think what's happened to her is appalling. So I think this is a really dangerous precedent. By the way gentleman has met and married to Alan Miller, the former Jupiter active fund manager who made a small fortune and now evangelizers for passive investing, but doesn't seem too keen of giving his money away, and especially the kids who got through private school. Now the story, I think it's outrageous. I think it's appalling. And I people say, Oh, the banks are private, they can do what they like. We're not really we own 40% of NatWest, but that's not the point banking, banking if you if your bank account is shut your business bank shut it must be an absolute nightmare and you cannot function without it. And you know, I just think my broader point is I don't care if you're on the left or the right isn't is is really, really wrong. And it just makes me laugh these these hardcore lefties. Oh, this is okay because it was nice. Faraj, if I had been Jeremy Corbyn, that it had his cat account closed, they would be absolutely screaming. But so you've got to be, you've got to have a, you know, it might, you know, I'm very black and white is wrong, regardless of who they're doing it to, unless they've done an egregious criminal act. It's wrong. That's me. That's me. Agreed. Okay. All right, good. Oh, well, this one, we can just let's just just have a little celebration. Because that great thing is going to change the lives of all the consumers in the UK, because what they're screaming for is yet more regulation. Consumer duty is what have you today. So a one day old? I think it launched on 31st of July Happy, Happy first day consumer duty I don't really want to say any more about it than that anybody got any thoughts about doesn't really apply too much to you car. But what you know, what happens here does does come to you guys eventually. But it's well,
Carl Widger:like a pension freedoms, we we started that and then you guys fall on. So I think it can go both ways. But anyway, on the consumer duty, I am looking out there. And then also, they'll also see that I was deeply uncomfortable with the content of some of today's always do the Irish versus UK cultural differences. Anyway, as I was saying, Yeah, I am looking on with interest on this consumer duty thing. And like a lot of the articles or I'm reading about it are totally conflicted. So some people are saying, it'll have no effect on fee. Some people are saying that fees will go up, some people are saying fees will go down. Some people are saying it's a good thing. Some people are saying it's a bad thing. So I'm just interested to see how the people who are thinking this has no effect on anything they're doing, how that will play out for them. So yeah, I am interested in
Alan Smith:trusting our friends at St. James's place that we had a whole podcast episode a few a few episodes ago, shipped to me. On the dark side.
Carl Widger:Well, we've changed our views.
Alan Smith:Now, we've always been read fair and reasonable. But the share price fell, I think about 17%. In a day, when this came out the they they've announced, I mean, it's really some tweak to the charging, they've kept their charges they get I think they give a a 15 basis point deduction after 10 years. It's a sort of loyalty bonus. So it's hardly sort of life changing, I don't think but it may be it's a sign of things to come. Maybe they were always the kind of outlier, that seems to navigate the way through all the sort of previous rules and regulations and still a built in exit charges and penalties. And all the rest of us were told we couldn't. So interesting. So from what I can see quite a few of the certainly the larger advisory firms nationals are sort of tweaking and changing, and they're sort of looking at their bands of fees and their various sort of discount levels and so on. So I think overall, there's a there's a direction of travel is kind of reducing fees overall, particularly around the the bigger firms, but early days.
Andy Hart:Yeah, I think the larger firms are gonna be more impacted with this, that they just don't have as tight grasp of their numbers, their clients, the service offering, you know, systems processes repeatable. But yeah, it's a huge chunk of regulation that's just landed, and we've been preparing for it for months.
Alan Smith:Well, it would be unusual if I mean, God, if any organization but certainly the bigger ones, if they sort of came through all this, and it's been what has been a few years in the in the making, and sort of planning for huge amount of even a firm like ours, and shout out to my colleagues Shareen has done a ton of work, or just getting us ready for this and signed it all off on you know, in good time. But it did take us so we're a small firm too, because a lot of time, a lot of resources, a lot of efforts to the very, very large companies must have spent, you know, 1000s 10s of 1000s million millions, I don't know. So it'd be odd if they got through the other side of that and said, Nope, we're all good, Pap, you're perfectly fine, we'll have a great value always have been. So I think they're going to they're going to have to show some action has been taken as a result of all the work that they have. They've gone through but time will tell but you know, as you say, but one that we're a couple of days into by the time this podcast goes out. It'll just be interesting to see you mean things that we've talked about in the past because it covers a lot of other issues, not just sort of standard fees, but things like you know, the skimming of cash accounts that Nick's raised before there's there's a number of other things which are kind of somewhat sharp practice you would argue which must come under the sort of overall kind of headlines of consumer duty and value and delivering good outcomes for clients. So right
Andy Hart:okay, yeah, time will tell.
Nick Lincoln:All right, so, thank you for that gentleman. Voice. The Limerick hurlers which is not a drinking competition. Is it as believe it's some sporting thing talk to us about that Limerick hurlers.
Carl Widger:Yeah, so this one is a little bit difficult. For me because if you know any of your geography I'm originally a Kilkenny man and Metis. Ireland was born in Limerick, and the limerick Carters have just won the all Ireland hurling final for the fourth year in a row. absolutely magnificent team. Now for those of you in the UK and further afield who don't know anything about hurling, I have included in the show notes, a clips of the highlights of the recent Final. Another UK counterpart said to me when he looked at it, Jesus Christ, that's grown men with sticks going around hitting each other. It's not quite like that. But it is the fastest sport in the world. It's absolutely amazing, impactful skill. Anyway, this Olympic team never go out pretty much no success for ever in a day. And the last four years, they've won the bloody thing four times in a row, which is difficult for me as a company man, because Kilkenny are the former kingpins of the hurting world. But what I wanted to just kind of raise was what a couple of things that I think we can tenuously linked to the financial planning and investing world. Number one, this was a very long term plan. So they set up academies and that kind of stuff 10 And more years ago, so they they worked towards this, they did not look for any quick fixes. They work towards this over a long period of time. Number two, the one word that every single that all the coaching staff and all the players keep coming back to is we stopped the process, we stopped to the process. So they didn't have it all their own way this year. They had some difficult moments, but they pulled through for the stock to the process or for us, they stuck to the plan. And then the last thing is by Christ did they celebrate. So there's lots of Twitter clips and YouTube videos and all that kind of stuff going around of them celebrating hard. So it was like these guys, you know, talk about we've spoken about monk mode, they do a monk mode for kind of nine months of the year to try and win this thing. They're amateur athletes. And it just reminded me of, you know, celebrating the moments when they come along, because we all have a habit of right what's next, you know, and I'm reminded of listening to a podcast, Jonny Wilkinson, the the England out half who kicked that drop goal to win the World Cup that reminded me of all time. Yeah. And he What did he say about after winning, they won the World Cup. He celebrated it for about 30 seconds and then went right what's next, you know, and it's really important for us all in life to just take that step back. And in business, we've just gone through a kind of momentous barrier here in Madison a milestone and it's very important that we do take the time to celebrate our achievements and celebrate together as well. So I just thought I'd mention it but that definitely check out the show ketchup.
Alan Smith:That's, that is interesting. And I like those stories and the crossover between sport and business. And it reminds me of a close personal friend of mine called called Hugh Vivian. Have you ever come across Hugh Vivian, who Vivian who played for England Saracens? Yeah, one of seven brothers and a new Hue quite well was coaching my son's rugby team and I was chatting to him when they went into service you know the story about Saracens and how long is it crappy we're now this I buddy but he just he just he does a talk about this about when the I can't remember they brought into some new coaches okay and just cleared out they had some really top players, but the attitude was all wrong and they just like you said call the starter from scratch. Again, it was a Saracens, were really mid table club for a long time.
Nick Lincoln:came in and just transformed.
Carl Widger:They brought in all the brought in a lot of money into Saracens and also a lot of South Africans. The interesting thing about hurling is you're born where you're born, and you play for that county. And that's it. There are no transfers, so and it's totally and utterly amateur sport. So I hear you about the Cyrus's thing but I it's not comparable. From that point of view you have what you have in terms of resources. live there, they don't.
Nick Lincoln:We did an episode and we have a critical nonessentials, which we drill on the sporting books that have been the rugby and the GB cycling team has been a focus on the small stuff and just nail it and just nail it and repetition and process. Very good. Capital is recruiting I can only guess that must be you, Mr. Smith, put that in there.
Alan Smith:Just take the opportunity as cold as everybody week just to do a bit of self promotion and advertising. We are Yeah, we were looking for support members. Members of our support team are growing, growing the company and if anyone is out there, it's probably a relatively early stage career people looking to get, you know, get into financial planning in a kind of administrative role heading through to support paraplanning and beyond. Or if anyone listening to this knows of anyone then do get in touch. Thank you very much. Excellent.
Nick Lincoln:Plug the plug there,
Alan Smith:just fire the Whatever capital dot code at UK, find me right?
Nick Lincoln:Good enough. Okay, so last Episode Episode 24 We put out that we're going to do will be killed each other by then we're going to do a trap live event next year ideally tied in with our 50th episode, which will be around 50 weeks away. So let's just say the best part of the year 129 People say they would like to come now saying they'd like to come and actually coming and shelling out for it are two different things. But a really, really good response. I think this is a goer. Again, if you're interested, there will be a link in the so called show notes. But I think we've already got enough of an indication that there's there's a market out there to do trap live. So watch this space for that. Mr. Smith again, you the next point, a complete breakdown of s&p 500 companies. Oh,
Alan Smith:this was Andy, what is what's the what's the company that does these infographics? Fantastic. Visual capitalist, I just subscribe to
Andy Hart:this anyway, they do a daily email, they do a roundup. So do subscribe to is brilliant.
Alan Smith:Yeah, really good. And it just as the name suggests, images and visualizations of really sort of interesting subjects. And the one that they did last week was just all the companies of the s&p relative to this relative to the sector that they're in. So whatever healthcare, technology, financial transport, whatever, financials and then relative to their size, and you look through it, and you just you kind of everyone would look at that and say, Well, I use a lot of those companies almost every day. And it's just, it's a really useful, I posted something, I think on LinkedIn about this and got a good response. Because, you know, there are some of the financially What do you call them Andy financial literate. So there's a lot of people out there without being rude to them. Just think the stock market that's risky, I don't like investing is gambling, too much gambling. And if you just look at the companies, there's just a beautiful visualization, which is the link to in the show notes. And people should use it with advisors should use it with clients, prospective clients, saying this stock market is not some kind of inanimate inanimate thing. It's just a bunch of really good, well run organized companies and say, here's an example. Here's what you have a quick look through it. And you will understand why it's good to own a small plot of
Andy Hart:all these people say they don't understand the stock market, it's like, well, you don't understand what you're buying, every single penny that you spend is going to be directed to a stock market the company inadvertently. So if you don't understand the stock market, that means you don't understand what you're spending, which may be the case. But you know, if you said you've got a mortgage roughly how does it work that you know, they give you an answer, you know, you buy consumer goods and washing powder, you know, they've got an answer. So they're happy to buy the products of the companies but not own the companies themselves. It's just insane. But anyway, once I get that realization that it is real companies selling real things to real people, it does change their mind. So yeah, it's a it's a journey that we all have to go on. Like,
Nick Lincoln:the one fund is the shopping list Fund, which I said before, which Allah, I'll keep on hammering that nail and to you three are broken. Okay, we're done on that point. Mr. Smith, again, the challenges of consistency and no link.
Alan Smith:Right? This, this is just, this is just me thinking aloud. And I was, I was just reflecting, as you may know, I've been, I've been sort of away, I've been on holiday for best part of the month, really. And I was thinking and have come back and I'm back at work today. About half half a stone heavier than I left. I've enjoyed the good life. And what I was thinking about is we talk in this podcast quite regularly. And I think we can be sometimes unfair with all kinds of demonizing or people, you know, stick to the plan by the great companies of the world, never sell them stick to long term, don't worry about volatility, play the long game, et cetera. And that's just information, but it's hard to do. Because I can tell you, I haven't really stopped to my if you like personal health plan over the last month, what I should be doing is exercising every day, eating healthily, getting eight hours sleep a night. And I can tell you I haven't been doing that for quite a few weeks. And I was just, I was reflecting on that this easy to see be consistent in many things in life. It's actually quite hard to do or it's certainly hard for me to do so maybe we should be a bit kinder, more gentle to people be the advisors be the clients be the investors. Because it's not Yeah, there are there are challenges in doing that. If it was as as Derek Severs if you followed Derek Severs as he said, if if all you needed was information, what if more information helped, then we'd all be billionaires with six packs. So information is all well and good, but you've got to actually execute you've got to be consistent while those people are welcome
Andy Hart:to trap confessions. ALAN SMITH first.
Nick Lincoln:Okay. All right, go. Okay. Okay. Ashley's Update Column now and you were very very keen on giving Nash's updates the first two tests you've been quiet for the last three tests any I'll just skip over that.
Carl Widger:I just like to say congratulations round Rounders with tea. It was magnificent for England to get a draw. And I know nothing about this topic. So I should just probably just we shouldn't leave
Nick Lincoln:your previous word. Your previous was evidence that okay, well, we'll let that lie for the moment. Boys, fund manager BS. It's about it's all about disintermediation of the value chain. Oh, my God, there has to be an active manager saying that nobody speaks
Carl Widger:real. So I put the link to this article in the show notes, right. So I'm not going to actually call out because I'm not Nick, I'm not going to call the guy's name or fundraise. But I just I read this. I don't know why. I don't know why. Because normally I just skip over these things. But I happened to read this particular article. And there is so much language in it that I just went, Oh my God. And, and we mentioned Terry Smith's annual letter before. And I remember and Andy was saying it was great. And I found the first page and a half of that really good. And then after that, I felt it just went into all this mumbo jumbo language, right. So the line I took out at this particular one was so this for me sums up active fund management. It's all about the disintermediation of the value chain. Now, I'm sorry, but what the fuck does that mean? That is like, this is like if people can see through that crap, well, then, you know, you just got a, he should be saying, Hey, I'm an active fund manager. We charge more than the passive funds. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that we can beat the market. We haven't done it before. And we're not going to do it again. But yes, we have a line like that. And I'm sorry for using that profanity. But I'm, it just drives me absolutely insane. When people are up there talking this absolute rubbish, it's in Ireland. So yeah, I just wanted to point that out. I don't
Andy Hart:think he's going anywhere. I mean, ever since I've entered this mighty profession, we've had this issue and the overwhelming evidence that it doesn't work because had almost no impact on it. They continue to grow. So yeah, I don't think it's going anywhere over the next few decades, certainly within my career by changing it, but I could be wrong.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, Mr. Smith, achieving long term financial security is about investing adventurously. That's, that's the title
Alan Smith:of an article. It's just a quick one. This has actually been out for a while. It's all a bit. I don't know if you know, Charlie Ellis. I had the pleasure of meeting him when the US. Yeah, I think it's close friend and God, another close, personal
Andy Hart:personal friend. You bumped into a Vanguard seminar symposium, did you correct them? If you saw my book?
Alan Smith:Yeah. No, he, he's quite interesting in that, so he talks about obviously, he like, like we are, it's a big fan of investing in the great companies of the world. And he talks about sort of traditional portfolio beats or 6040, as, as being a common, common way to hold assets. And he and he's this article that he's, he's written recently, sort of says what we're thinking of all that wrongly, because we're ignoring certain other factors, which are kind of you like, sort of bond like in our lives. So it talks about human capital, which is on you know, people don't sort of factor that in. If you are, you know, in working age, and particularly if you're a bit younger, the value of your human capital is significant in terms of your long term financial security, and should be factored in as a non as, as long as you enjoy decent health, chances are that you will continue in gainful employment, and you'll still generate revenue and income. So that should be factored in, he talks about the cap capital value of your state benefits like state pension, that should be factored in, as well. And he talks about things like property, obviously, any defined benefit pension schemes that anyone's got, which are pretty secure in terms of the income generation and also property assets. And he says, for most people, when they look at us owning a 6040 portfolio, they're probably more like 4060 or even, you know, 2080 or something in terms of their kind of non equity assets. And we should be looking at it in the round in the in the hole as opposed to just your kind of liquid traditional kind of retail investment fund. holdings. Just thought it was a well thought through I'll put a link to the
Andy Hart:or read the article, but it was just explaining proper financial planning. Really, Alan, I mean, nothing unusual. Someone's been doing proper financial planning for years.
Alan Smith:Yeah, to some extent, but there's plenty of people who are speaking to clients who've got, you know, another 2030 years of Working life to continue and own property assets might have what we know will expense, pension benefit, and they still have to do a risk profiling. And 6040.
Andy Hart:As I've said, bonds should be banned from pensions for anyone under the age of 50 should only be allowed global equities and pensions under the age of 50. Just as a rough marker to get started contributing every single month by an on average prices, I mean, the amount of money they leave on the table is astronomical. But again, we're not going to have regulation that's going to, you know, enforce that. But as again, is a good thought experiment. Bonds fixed income should not be allowed in pensions for anyone under the age of 50. Go, Nick,
Nick Lincoln:we got the we got the we got we got the inverse of that. We've got bloody regulation that puts auto enrollment people into bonds when they're young. Yeah, that's what's gonna take it they saw a decline in value, which of course, they have seen the declining value of the last 18 months. So let's see how that pans out. Just the unintended consequences of legislation. Right, fine. Okay.
Andy Hart:Motion.
Nick Lincoln:Yes, you got a podcast down under my friend. Do you mentioned when we finished this, and I'll tell you how the ashes work so you can get a few ribs in your friend crack on?
Alan Smith:Yeah, do that, although he's English or anything. He's Welsh, to Welsh play cricket. Anyway, I mentioned. Yes, I by the time this pod goes out, I will have done it. But you would do a live webinar Geico. I mentioned him on this podcast before Stuart Bell or dairy consulting. And he's got a lot of good content. Interestingly, when I spoke to him the other day, he said when I mentioned it, his his website and his content on trap a few episodes ago, he didn't obviously didn't know that I mentioned it. And he immediately got a load of downloads, from.co.uk websites, that's the you know, the influence of trap. But now as a consequence of that, he's just right to be on. So we're going to be having a live webinar type thing I've got to do at eight o'clock in the morning, which is 5pm all the time in Sydney. So that's an early start. But the putting them up put I didn't know what we're going to talk about. Hopefully, it's interesting. He's definitely got a lot of good ideas, a good good content. He's a, he's a, he's a consultant to financial planners down under a very, sort of large and strong financial planning community in Australia. So I'll put a link to that if anyone wants to tune in as well. Thank you.
Carl Widger:Are we going to have a subscription model so you can skip the ads?
Andy Hart:Hello, Mr. Robin? Yeah.
Nick Lincoln:Oh, very dry. All right, right. Okay. Well, I have got that in my calendar. Anastasia, we're looking forward to listening with that. And good luck with being compass mentors at 8am. Okay, the final topical tip that I think is the final one. This is a this is a massive one. Actually, Mr. Hart has raised this the bloody gars funds. I mean, Jesus Christ and about everything wrong about the industrial side of our profession in one fund, Mr. Hart crack on?
Andy Hart:Yeah, so I think the guards Fund, which stands for Global absolute return strategies. It's an absolute honey trap for investing illiterates, they love to hear that sort of description of a fund. So I believe it launched in 2008, to great fanfare, and at one stage in May 2016. Drumroll it was valued at 27 billion pounds, I believe, I think it was the biggest fund we had in the UK. I mean, Terry Smith's fund, I think it's the biggest in the UK now. And it's not even near those numbers, or it's close to those numbers at the moment. Anyway, the amount of fees that this fund has generated is astronomical every single year, even if we just sort of be kind to them. So it's about 1%. So they've just extracted so much wealth from your typical investor. And now the news is they've merged into one of their similar funds. I think the value of it now is down to a billion, the performance of the fund since it started, obviously, it had some good years. That's why I attracted some some people. But over the last 10 years, it's been absolutely horrendous. It's basically done nothing and lost money, I believe. Yeah, so people get excited about this, we bang on about it all the time that we invest in things that have always worked, we try and avoid anything which is working now. Again, nothing mentioned earlier about 5% needs to be invested in vent. That's again, something working now. And then obviously, the gas fund was working now and then we try and avoid it. So yeah, this gas fund is, yeah, been a bit of a thing in all of our sort of professional lives. But yeah, we've all avoided it, I believe, which thank God. So yeah, who's who's next to common about God. So
Nick Lincoln:I quickly throw it in just a second, just to say that we you were sort of before we started recording that we saw a graph of the returns of this fund. And it's basically flatlined since 2013. But your point and what we love is as because this thing of ours and we're immersed in it. Most of the money into that farm would have flooded in at the point of the high officials strong relative performance through the credit crunch and everything else. So even the Good, even the good years, the vast majority of investors in that fund wouldn't have picked it out later picked up that trait like Kathy Woods Ark. Yeah.
Alan Smith:It's like the Ark fund is the new version of the RFP
Andy Hart:the wrong time. And again, another risk that I bang on about that almost nobody talks about is a risk of low returns. So imagine if you had a typical client, they invested 100,000 In this fund, and it's just gone nowhere and lost loads of money if they just invested in a normal Global Equity Fund, that would have done about 200% In the last 10 years. It's just ridiculous. It's absolutely insane. But hey,
Carl Widger:what wasn't, wasn't one of their selling points, but that they had the their own pension funds, the standard lives own pension fund was in predominantly in gars. So wonder how that one for them all? Yeah, how do they talk to their own their own people?
Alan Smith:Do you know, I mean, this was so so popular. I mean, in the, in our sort of mastermind group that the UK members of us used to be talked about a lot. I remember and a lot of advisors piled into it. And it wasn't a bad because it did it when did you say was launched 2008 is sort of it was launched, you know, after the banking, global sort of back end of the financial crisis. Time. So everyone was everyone was feeling a bit sort of raw and bruised by having sort of a lot of volatility in a previous couple of years. And so piled into it in a huge, huge numbers really, really significant. But I remember looking at it in some detail and looking at the, you know, the fun fact sheets in detail, I'm not sure if everyone would have read them because a lot of it was currency trading, but there was there was really sort of complex kind of hedging strategies. And I remember seeing this thing that said that because it would list all the trades they had on it, or certainly the top 10 trades, and it was something like the Mexican peso versus the Swiss franc. It's like a currency swap type thing. And I'm thinking that this is for, you know, widows and orphans and Mrs. Miggins or what have you, I have no clue that there's all sorts of weird and wonderful currency swaps and hedging strategies built into it. But inevitably, you did do quite well for a bit and then everyone piles in and as you say, it is the amount of wealth that has been destroyed by sitting there for the last however many years versus just buying global equities
Andy Hart:Why wouldn't I regulator look if I remember and work out the fees that have been paid and the wealth that's been lost? It'd be it'd be madness sorry.
Nick Lincoln:Two regulations if there's a savior the regulations the problem called made the point before we started recording that he doesn't you know, don't invest in something you don't understand and this the gars the guy although and if you were near convention time and you were just lacking on your days of going up down the high streets of North London flogging standard like products would you would you have had a go with cars if it had been around puts on
Unknown:my wheelbarrow props signed by the week I was 21 I owe about
Alan Smith:bringing us up excelled yourself.
Unknown:This busy week Nick.
Alan Smith:Do I have to explain do you have to explain what that means to anyone?
Andy Hart:Just the famous hour just
Alan Smith:very briefly, my Yeah, my early days was spent working for the aforementioned Standard Life as was a great company when I was working for them and my power was broker consultant. My patch was the geographical area was kind of northwest London including Wembley, a place called alperton is a suburb of Wembley and I used to did used to walk out there and it was brilliant love that that jingle that drop. I used to walk up it was referred to as the proverbial wheelbarrow up with my wheelbarrow and knock and all this and ifas financial advisors and accountants door
Andy Hart:used to work out of shops and like taxi prophecy.
Alan Smith:Guarantees Yeah, yeah, Gene shops literally chucking the props and yeah.
Unknown:Application the props Chuck
Alan Smith:into props, boys. So and that was Nick's a well done. Congratulations. He's made for you. That's a Glen Campbell I believe Richard was
Nick Lincoln:great. Glenn can watch Elvis doing those now become
Alan Smith:out. We've got a new drop. That was funny and you threw a few surprises or none of us knew that was coming. So it's been
Nick Lincoln:a few weeks. I haven't had the right opportunity. But I thought okay, god.
Alan Smith:Guys, was it I predated guards? It didn't exist when I was working for web with
Nick Lincoln:which actually, which actually is the forerunner of this kind of thing, isn't it? Yeah, opaque. Completely indecipherable. Yeah,
Carl Widger:we'll get we'll get to solid return. No matter what, no matter what the low returns
Nick Lincoln:guaranteed poverty and retirement destiny, you know,
Alan Smith:these things do these things appeal to human beings, don't they? Yeah. Whether it's whether it's God is a nice
Nick Lincoln:say appeal to lazy advisor, they appeal to those who are the same. Yeah. 2008 2012 you couldn't take a piss without a gas salesman standing next to you at the Orion because it was just everywhere. And now it's just the stony silence.
Carl Widger:I remember when I set up originally in 2010. It might have been 2011. But the the guards on manager salesman thing was done in my office, and it was massive in Ireland. Yeah, massive. And it was like, I was I was an idiot, because it wasn't putting my clients into it. And it wasn't put my clients into it. Because I genuinely was afraid I'd be asked a question because I could not understand it. Yeah. And that's a fact. And it was like, thank God. So anyway, yeah. Anyway, yeah. Rip gars.
Alan Smith:I wonder if I wonder if the introduction of consumer duty, it seems very coincidental that the pulled the fund, sort of the day after consumer duty came in to justify, well, Mirage, that was you just closed it down, isn't it. But if you have to justify that as a value for money thing on the consumer duty rate,
Andy Hart:regulation that the FCA has gotten to now and that fund managers need to prove that
Nick Lincoln:their fair value assessment? Yeah, it's just got,
Andy Hart:I mean, how are they navigating all?
Alan Smith:They've had to do that for last the last few years and this and they're not the only fun. There's plenty other No,
Andy Hart:I get it. No, no, yeah, we're just highlighting this because
Alan Smith:this was this was the biggest, yeah, some margin. So somebody, some board somewhere has just have signed that off every year, there's
Andy Hart:been a lot of Ferraris bought, and a lot of school fees paid via that gas fund. And it, you know, it's part of our profession. And it it really does great me. Yeah, so
Alan Smith:can I can I just chuck something else in here just briefly that we hadn't rehearsed or talked about in the past. So somebody chastise me recently, online, because I've been sort of having a moan and groan about a couple of things, is about fees and a number of other things. And people seem why do you why do I and and by by association, why do you? And why do we talk about negative things in our sector? This is all negative, we should be promoting and highlighting the positive aspects? Both because part of our part of our Yeah, well, I think I think we do and I think when we identify things that we say are, you know, whatever you want to call it sharp practice or not, you know, something that will we wouldn't recommend perhaps something that we don't enjoy seeing within our industry and our profession, then I think it is, I think it's fair game that we mentioned it, we're not being personal. We're not sort of singling out. Any company in particular, there's a lot of there's a hell of a lot of good and positives that we talked about. But I will have no hesitation. If I see things and an end of the day. It's just my opinion, or our opinion, it may be right and maybe wrong. But that's that's all it is. And everyone's entitled to their own opinion. So I will continue. And I'll certainly continue when I see things that I just simply don't agree with to highlight it and say, Maybe we should be doing something else.
Carl Widger:Perhaps though, it's a valid point. Okay. So I come from the point of somebody said exactly the same thing to me about that. Now infamous article in the currency where the headline was, card with your financial planner says most advisors are many advisors are untrustworthy, and someone challenged me on Be that as a maker, would you not have been better off talking about, you know, how you do it, and how you think is the best way of doing it. And I had to stand back and say, That is a very, very valid point. And I'm actually doing a presentation pretty free over the next few weeks. And I'm going to start with a picture of that headline, and I'm gonna go actually Genova that use the Oprah Winfrey, the title of her book, what I know for sure. And talk about what my values and beliefs are. So I think it's, I think it's valid, but sorry, they can Oh, you want to get in, but there is a line. And it's important not to cross it. So to generally be more positive than negative, I think, I think, yeah,
Nick Lincoln:I get that. I get that. However, in the world of wealth management, I wouldn't imagine this any other industry where there's so much grifting that goes on in plain sight. And I think we have to call it out, you know, all it takes for evil to thrive is for good people to do nothing about it.
Carl Widger:Yeah, no, no, look, I agree. And I've just used profanity or Iran, which was totally unplanned about active fund management, because I'm very, very passionate about it. Right. So I agree, and I will continue to do that. However, we sometimes you got to take the feedback on board and go Yeah, okay. I hear you and maybe we'll focus on some of the positives. Let's as Nick shakes his
Nick Lincoln:feedback on in 1993 and year four.
Alan Smith:Okay. Five minutes.
Nick Lincoln:Were it wasn't that long. 45 minutes. I think it's time we we Move on to the meat and potatoes of episode 25 of the real advisor podcast.
Andy Hart:This one, gone?
Nick Lincoln:No, no, please get in touch with me now to crack on and complete the job.
Andy Hart:Now over to you both.
Nick Lincoln:Brilliant. Brilliant. So we're in the dog days of summer. And we're all I imagine just taking it a little bit easier now if only because our clients are often doing things with the money that we've helped them accrue. In other words, spend it on nice holidays and going away with a family all these value things his bucket list things that were the word that we're very positive about because we're positive people selling positive things. How do we as advisors cope with the summer months, two of us are one man bands two of us are slightly bigger than one man bands. We all have different ways of coping, as advisors and as business owners with with the long summer hiatus. Let's go through this. And we'll start with Mr. Hart. What are your thoughts on how you survive and thrive through this summer?
Andy Hart:Yeah, so I try and separate my year to block August out my diary and generally the last three weeks of December. Fortunately, in our business, they're quiet months. That's what I found anyway, being so no advisor. So I try and get all my annual planning meetings done between January and March and then just do ad hoc stuff. After that, I obviously run a training business and do loads of other stuff. So again, I just block out my diary in August. We're early into August nor and I'm already somewhat a little bit bored. I've already been to the Cotswolds with my family. And I'm going to be going to Spain with a few other people and various other things. So I've got stuff in the diary. But I'm obviously just allowing that you know, just just keeping on top of things as it were watering the garden as they say, I'm fortunate I've got a roundabout 40 ongoing family. So it's not a huge business. And I can use tech and I've got a great team and that sort of stuff. I generally don't put an out of office on I found I find that out of offices a bit cringy I'll talk about the humble brag out of office, if anyone's doing it, continue to do or whatnot. So I spend a lot of emails, hundreds of emails every single month I send an email to someone I get an automatic bounce back I lows, we call them out of offices, and it's humblebrag. You know, I'm recharging my batteries in Fiji with my close friends or whatever. You know, I'm spending quality time in my family. And I think well, that's, that's quite enviable. Five minutes later, they send me a reply, you know, so they've done this humblebrag out of office intention. And then five minutes later, they mean Yeah, Randy. Also, I want to get back and I think I thought you're ready for three weeks in Fiji. Why you emailed me back within five minutes. If it's genuine, I'm away for three weeks, and I'll email you three weeks. I think that's fine, you know. So yeah, it's a quite a funny, these are humble brag out of offices. So now I don't put an out of office on and on sort of there for my clients. I don't even really tell my clients. I'm not doing much in August, obviously, I'm around. See anything important will be dealt with. I've got sort of three potential ongoing clients to take on board. I've pushed all three of them to September and they're fine with that. Yes, that's it. Really. That's my starter for 10. Who's next?
Nick Lincoln:Mr. Smith, Mr. Smith is coming at it from a slightly bigger, bigger operation, more personnel more more things to juggle but also I think, and the you will disabuse me if I'm wrong, Anna gives you the chance to just delegate and you can truly not not be involved in the business while you're spending a couple of weeks in Turkey or what have you.
Alan Smith:Well, yeah, exactly I am. Unfortunately, I've got a fantastic team, it's a self managing business, it doesn't really need me and often thrives and does far better when I'm around. But I that's why I wanted to talk about this because I don't think I've really got this nailed. And I've just as I mentioned already, I've just I've taken the anti UK EU sort of focus on August, I tend to take July off as soon as the school holidays starts my kids schools break out I think and as soon as soon as they are the same as the day or the day after we just take off because it's a bit quieter in early July. And obviously got a kind of an annual routine to do you know, you're with somewhere warm, like like turkey that I've mentioned and I've just been up to Scotland and seen the folks and seen all the relatives and all the rest of it. And so I've had the best part of have a month off but I'm like you I don't put an office on. But by the same token, I don't really check my emails every day. And that that can lead to people you know, sending emails expecting a reply because they haven't had an out of office from me and it's it's kind of a worst of all worlds. And what I really should do is just just close it out completely and just you know have an out of office just it probably wouldn't be a humble brag, just say I'm away I'm on holiday, we'll be back on that, you know, first of August or whatever it might be and then just but the challenge is honestly this is this is the big sort of issue or dilemma in that I don't find it's no big deal for me checking my emails or keep in touch man to use the phrase before just sort of pruning pruning the garden just I'm not going to sort of do a complete over I'm not gonna reply to Big long complicated emails but if there's a few things I could just look at ping and reply back. Similarly WhatsApp I mean, I don't know my life is so intrinsically wrapped up with business and life and then some people WhatsApp me people text me I post something I see something I'll be sort of lying by some input I might post something on LinkedIn it's not the end of the world for me. So I don't just I don't really close down completely I mean, I did a bloody trap podcast from holiday Yeah, please release to know that there's no faulty fire alarm
Nick Lincoln:so I just attributed that I read a read a review this annual read out the coming weeks by some guy who's listening to the show. Check out his house for fire alarms. Anybody got a car and listen to the podcast? He will nobody recording point on emails, could you not me, what I would consider doing in your situation is just for the month or so that you don't want to be checking your emails? Yeah, it's just sort of a rule in Outlook or whatever you use to to forward all your email to someone in the team that you trust. Yeah. And just send us if something comes up. I trust your discretion that you'll come to me. If something in my inbox needs to turn that way. You don't have to look at you know, don't get drawn into that. Looking at your email. He
Andy Hart:was saying he's not really that bothered about checking his emails, you know, pre pre spy about three months. All right, pre kids eyes. We were about three months of the year. I wasn't too bothered sitting there. You know, having a beer, checking my emails replying to important stuff. I might use a bit. It's a bit merged. You have to control it, though. Yeah, I mean, on my, my iPhone, I generally have emails switched off, I've got to go into the Gmail app and turn them all on. Seems like an extra yeah,
Alan Smith:that's, that's, that's the good thing. Because it's, it's so easy as you say, like sitting in the hotel bar or whatever, and just just just just flicking through your phone isn't and you certainly
Andy Hart:don't want to check email in late night and you get a grenade in from a client. That's a real nightmare to do. Just literally can't sleep then. And he thinking Why have they? They say they're usually a bloke? Why are they emailed me that at that time? You know, now it's just stress for me to think about it, then you got to try and piece together your answers. I mean, it's nothing like groundbreaking, the awful but it's just a minor grenade into the business yet then
Alan Smith:the other thing is getting in. I mean, when I was away, we I certainly had a couple of sort of new prospective client inquiries. Now it wouldn't be the end of the world. If they got a bounce back from me today. And I'm away for a couple of weeks. I'm sure they would have waited, replied and got back. But I was quite keen. I thought, well, that's great. That's good. I just reply, get somebody to give them give them a call, just keep the whole get the whole machine moving forward. already do. So I In summary, I haven't nailed this at all, I've got this kind of blended approach. And then on reflection, I think I'd like to at least like close down completely for a week or 10 days. And just did not check anything not as you send it forward emails or just if that is the case, then you can have an out of office on that's genuine. And then you know, ideally,
Andy Hart:don't check it. But yeah, if anything is super if anything super important. People have got your back number and they and Yeah, exactly. The joke is what is it? You do Andy? I live my life and WhatsApp. I'm a financial advisor and oh my money you know, I'm on frickin WhatsApp the whole freaking time. Sorry,
Nick Lincoln:Zinger one liner. That's that's, that's a wicked joke.
Alan Smith:Yeah, call widget call which has got a view on that's
Andy Hart:all No.
Alan Smith:Call. Haven't you got a view? On humble brags, and out of office messages?
Carl Widger:I do. Think they're a good idea. Let's hear it. So, first thing to say when I go with my kids, I do not bring my laptop. I turn off all notifications. Do you have a laptop? So so so for the people listening in? The guys are always like that I don't have a laptop because I never bring it with me. Because I'm like, I'm sure he
Nick Lincoln:has a laptop and never leaves his desk.
Carl Widger:I do. I do have to work from home sometimes and I have on the road a lot. But I put on out of office and I I have I used to put in more detail on it. And I maybe do it that that's a little bit IQ. What I what I put on the out of office is I'm away on holidays on my kids, I've promised them that I won't be looking at my emails for the next few weeks. I'll catch up when I get back. I'm gonna leave it at that. And, and I'm pretty bloody disciplined about it right? I will maybe look at the emails four or five times over over two weeks. But I didn't actually genuinely look at it more than that. I turn off the watts, I turn off the wats app, although that was causes a bit of a problem in California this year because the kids are no bigger and bolder and they're off doing their own thing. So I kind of need to be tracking them down and then you turn the notifications on was like whoa, you have 140 messages. It's okay though because mostly does 98 from the trap pack so yeah, I look what I would say is I haven't nailed as either, right. So I've tried lots of different ways I've done the me be doing kind of a half an hour in the morning or in the evening of emails, whatever. But I did feel that I didn't switch off. So the last couple of years, I have switched off as much as I possibly could. And what I would say though, right, and this is important, right, and I'm, I'm talking from the point of view of a firm with teammates and all that kind of stuff. Honestly, we couldn't kind of shot them for the month of August are kind of July and August because we need the money coming in. Frankly, that's just business right? So I'm always talking to the guys here and the guy was here about you know, taking your time out and do not be contactable and nobody has to contact anybody and blah blah blah, right so I'm just wanted beyond the email and that's okay. But really take rest and recharge the batteries and all that, put them in you come back right you're on and just want the final point until the quarter just gone right q2 This year was our best quarter ever. But before that, q3 2022 was our best quarter ever by some distance. So businesses don't during the summer and I do believe that that's kind of a mindset issue that I gonna switch off because everyone switches off business is done and we had a magnificent third quarter last year I'm certainly open for and we are tracking we're one month in no new right but we're tracking to do really really good stuff this this q3 as well. So in summary, I don't have a cracked and I keep kind of toying with the different ideas and different ways of doing it.
Alan Smith:The other thing is your company tends to do better when you go away to new say that
Carl Widger:that's always been the case you
Nick Lincoln:said as well Andy Yeah Well, I think it was raised
Andy Hart:also people go on holiday and they think you know what I need to get on top of my finances I need to find a financial you know, so sometimes there's there's incoming from people that are chilling behind you know, chilling around the pool, you know, that communicate with financial advisor because they've got some downtime to think about it. Yeah, back to Alan's point the pruning the garden is yeah, there's nothing worse than like going away and just leaving your garden on the tender you come back, it's just a complete shambles. That's why you just asked the worst, prune the garden as it were, in terms of keeping on top of your emails and everything sort of taken away. I am a solo advisor, but I've got a big team that worked for me. So I'm always directing emails and sorting out stuff again. So I need to be active and not been a bottleneck.
Unknown:And the the UltraGrip, a Darien Andy, he knows about everything and he can't be told anything. His name is Andrew Hart.
Nick Lincoln:Yah, yah victim agree, and they're both really nice people, shall I just my, my song. So like, Andy, I am, I am a one man band with an enormous, enormous team behind me. And I am as you know, dear Travelers, I'm married to a head teacher, that lovely Penelope. So she is very much bound by her school calendar. And of course, she has the six weeks in quotes off, although she spends a lot of time at school. So I try and spend time with Penelope. And that time also because because I work from home and I do zoom meetings if she was in the house. You know, it's got to be quiet. When I'm doing a Zoom meeting, you got to be totally immersed in the zone. And I just know that it'd be it would cause frictions if I booked in in planning meetings with clients when when she's here and I want to be spend time with her. So I use things like Calendly Calendly is brilliant, you know, I've got various diaries in Calendly. And all client interactions I put in date overrides I'm not available through these dates late late July through to late August I leave my lunch and dinner doors open. Obviously you're not gonna decline those I and I take my laptop with me when I go abroad because I have to write it's my it's I just have to do it. There might be something that means I have to get my laptop out rather than dealing with it on my phone. It actually never actually happens. But I need that comfort blanket. As a business owner, you never really turn up with your Metis Norway and oh, you know, capital, the bigger firms You guys never really turned up I think, Carly, you're the best at it of us a part of your brain will still be worrying through your business figures for August and so forth all the time. It does not this is not a grouch, by the way. Well, whatever put your brain words call that part of it probably is. But we're all set to put a positive spin on this we're not employee maybe employees can just walk away and not worry about any of these matters and then come back, you know, but we don't have that because we've chosen this thing of ours, which is where we own the business because we're not really employable in in a in a broad sense of the word. So I don't want to switch if I do what I do like like candy with with there's no automatic way we've had this before and within within the Gmail application you cannot pause emails but there is a there's a thing called Boomerang a free add on that I on the browser and I pause my work email. So even if I pick up my phone on the beach and try to look at my emails, I cannot I don't know what's there. I can't turn that on or off on my phone either. Then once again About the hotel room just put put on the laptop and then just see what any emails that come at night. I get so few anyway in the summer months people I know Carl you do lots of business. But typically my clients, they're just they just don't contact me or contact me even less in the August period and they do otherwise. And like like Andy funding if I've also got three or four prospective clients coming on board the product the same people now they were probably pitching as to each other. But I've told them you know, if you do come back to me, we won't progress things probably until the end of August, early September. Because most of what we do is not it's not time critical is it? It's it's not we're talking about in a multi Gen multigenerational lifestyle financial planning by
Carl Widger:Nick What I found on that point is that a lot of stuff that we'd be we may have started the work and kind of February March like Andy said, right people kind of maybe have a little bit more time and they're ready to kind of implement that. So it's not that we started the business necessarily the business relationship in the summer it's like people are going right let's just go and implement that so just just a minor point on that.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, thank you Dan, as well my dad you you might have sowed the seeds back in February March and now the things coming to gestation because they got the time to do absolutely. They can't read another bloody novel by I've no. Clancy who are people read on the beach? Okay, I think meat potatoes is kind of done. We are also over an hour into this into this absolute shambles. Absolute shambles. So shall we move on to the actually I don't really get a choice about this because I can see out the front door that the post is rolled up. And the sack of trapeze questions is of course bulging and they're trapped. If you want to leave a question for us, please do there's a link in the SoCal show notes. We've got three questions for this episode. One of them is from a chap called Amon Prendergast Amon, your question was about 58 sub clauses there. So it's it's a long question. It's about how to run seminars, effectively. And basically you want chapter and verse and how to do it. We are going to cover this in the next episode, we're going to focus because we are obviously great the trap pack. I mean, are there for better advisors in the world? No, it's a rhetorical question. However, even we have made mistakes. In the next episode, we're going to go over some of the mistakes we've made. And one of them will include this podcast seminars that didn't go well. So we'll bring that into it there. However, we got two more questions from our dear Trappists to get to so let me just quickly find the drop where I pretend the listing open. There we go. This one is from Steve Smith. Steve, not Steve Smith, the Australian batsman list I don't imagine that is. He's on Twitter as Steve Smith live. Can the presenters discuss a? Here we go another one with 58 questions? Can the presenters discuss a what the financial aspects of their ongoing service agreements are be what the clients get for that amount and see how they derived any tears? They have? Great show chaps. It's done a lot of good. So keep doing it. Gob. Lyerly. Okay, let's just quick, quick whistlestop tour around around the room if we can of what your charges are, and how you got to them. And any tears making sure
Andy Hart:isn't a question, Nick?
Alan Smith:is sure aspects are of ongoing service agreements,
Nick Lincoln:financial aspects of their ongoing service becomes Yeah, what do you
Alan Smith:get for that amount?
Nick Lincoln:Yeah, exactly. What?
Andy Hart:It's an enormous question.
Nick Lincoln:It couldn't be more of what I just said.
Carl Widger:What was the guys are figuring it out? Right? There's a document on our website called doing business with us. And it's all in there. And the tears are just trial and error over a long period of time. We're doing business with us. It's on our website. That's you'll see everything and
Nick Lincoln:oh, yeah, yeah, for that amount be in the chat. What do you think? Why don't you show us
Unknown:the service?
Andy Hart:Okay, what the Ask not what are our fees? Okay, we're saying that's a that's us interpreting it be? Will the clients get for that? I mean, you can't answer what the clients get for it. And just a round robin style cameras, the whole thing we've been talking about the whole entire being of this show is what we're discussing and talking about, it's very
Carl Widger:well if the annual financial planning review process,
Andy Hart:they get derived tiers you use, okay? I don't really have much to say on that. It's a bit weird.
Alan Smith:I mean, this is obviously our approach to fees is a bit different. We probably aren't going to go through that on this podcast. We should probably come back to that I was always keeping up my sleeve. We'll have a conversation around retainers, flat fee retainers, subscription type models versus percentage of assets models. Because we've we've got a very clear range of fees which are not directly dependent upon the assets under management, managed or looked after by the advisory firm. Well, we've we've sort of derived a pricing structure, which is predominantly focuses on things like complexity. But number a number of other things as well, complexity and value, also time, time taken to do particular things, but it's probably that we don't have the scope for it here, if you want to do it. That was the mean potatoes and
Andy Hart:it's an hour hour to answer that question. I mean, this is what I discussed with clients on the onboarding process with lots of
Alan Smith:headlines. They are the head, the headlines are, broadly speaking, people charge 1% for financial planning, investment management, ongoing behavioral coaching, all that stuff. And there's some discounting for larger, larger clients. Yeah. Summary.
Nick Lincoln:Yeah, yeah, yeah, my fee agreements on my website. It's very explicit, but it sort of is there. And also, I say what you get for it, but it's ever we determine the cost, the client determines the value. Sorry, FCA. That's just the way the world works. Okay, onto the second question, and this is from Mr. Kiran Fowley who's on Twitter as at Kieran Fowley? How do you chaps turn down new clients when you feel they won't be a good match for you or not profitable? How do you sack existing clients? So you don't want to service anymore? So I'll have a quick stab at that. They're not clients or they could turn them down their prospects your prospecting your vetting them? Yeah, it just, you just kind of know, don't you? If I don't really, I get turned down really. But I don't turn down many, you know, it's just it just doesn't work. I don't either. Do you like them? Or they're gonna pay your fees? That's two questions. Job done. And yeah, there are a lot I mean, there's quite a bit on this. How do you sack existing clients, you don't want to service any more than Nick Murray scripts. There's stuff in there in the in the Google group that I run, IFA forum, and you can join that by going to the Twitter handle at IFA forum. This is a recurring question. There been loads of good answers about how you do this gentleman anything to add?
Alan Smith:Well, we, we get people approach us and it's clear that for whatever reason, they're not a good fit, I just think it's very important always to try to leave them positively. So we were sometimes for it could be it could be what they're looking for, or it could be sort of, sort of size or quantum that relative to because you know we've got we've got a we've got fees, we've got minimum fee levels. And we're it's unlikely to be for some people so like to be good value for money. And we've got a sort of overall sort of decency level when it comes to our our fees. And we will always want to we've got a couple of advisor relationships that we will refer them on to good good firms. They've got a slightly different business model to us. But I've also referred people to Vanguard to Hargreaves Lansdown number of other organizations, but we always want any prospect at all that knocks on our door, we want to help them one way or another, if we're not the right firm will either find another firm that can do help them because we know, we pre vetted it. And we've done our due diligence on them. Or as I say any number of other if someone says I want to spend 200 pound a month in an ICER, for example. There are better organizations to do that. And I think it's important always to help people out as opposed to saying, we can't help you. Anything else?
Nick Lincoln:Okay. I think I think that's the word. That's, that's, that's great. We've given some value there. Okay, then without any further ado, let's move on to what many people call culture corner. And storyteller you're one is the first week we've talked about human risk podcast before so so throw some magic new sparkle dust on it. Have we? We talked about it? Yeah.
Alan Smith:Okay. Well, there is a there's a new episode of it. And it's got I think it's a series of episodes that were that they went through three of these guys went over to Abbey Road Studios and recorded I think three episodes there. Paul Craven, Rory Sutherland and Gerald Ashley. Andy Hall. I think two of those three are speaking at humans under management. Is that right? Yes. Yeah. Paul and Craven is? Yeah, but they're both both speaking this this year. The this this episode of this series of episodes that they did just recently really good and has lots of relevance to financial planners. When they talk about I think I'm not sure which one it is. He's talking maybe Paul Craven, does he do a lot of behavioral stuff for asset management companies investment management companies? Not sure exactly. And it wasn't Rory talking but when one of them was speaking, us talking about how people present information use offer making presentations, and how most people no include sort of financial advisors and vessel managers how we get it all wrong. And an exercise that he goes through to do it so highly relevant to the listeners of this podcast and some really interesting tidbits and actionable takeaways from those three icons of behavioral finance
Andy Hart:as decent I've just
Nick Lincoln:called show notes. Yes, there is,
Andy Hart:is the latest three shows. Yeah, thanks. Well
Nick Lincoln:Okay Mr. Witcher money men by Dan Crum call you're muted my friend
Unknown:you're still muted haha it's the Wirecard story sorry guys.
Carl Widger:Yeah, I'm actually reading this in book format to try and help me sleep at night when it's working treat. It's there's so many characters involved but it's absolutely fascinating and again, it's I seem to be drawn to these stories about people swindling other people out of money but fascinating story. Highly recommended why Wirecard story? Money men by Dan McCrum.
Alan Smith:But that's that's a Netflix show is Netflix. One of those. It's a it's a documentary film as well, which I've seen. I haven't read the book. But I've watched I
Carl Widger:haven't seen that. Yeah. Yeah.
Alan Smith:Crazy stuff. German German company, wasn't it?
Unknown:Yeah. German. completely fabricated,
Carl Widger:make make ERP Asian companies. Yeah. But the investigative investigative journalism that went on there is absolutely phenomenal. So you know, we do need these people. Yeah, really good. Really interesting.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, thank you. leading on from that the same kind of thing. I want to thank you call because I listened to the stuff that you mentioned. That was a previous episode episode 24 The Melissa Caddick podcast yeah this this was another financial for just just just wow human beings man. She you know, Bernie, Bernie Madoff was the king of the Ponzi. I don't he just he's on a different level in terms of the amount but she lost. I think it was 38 million Australian dollars, I'm not sure. But it's improper money. But it's still probably quite a sizable amount. But she didn't not only did she fleece her, you know, friends and clients, she flees to have family. This is the most recent Bernie Madoff didn't. I mean, obviously, he trashed their reputation. And that's that's, that's beyond. You can't put a price on that. But he didn't. He didn't take money from his own family's pockets. But she just she took money from her parents. And it's, it's just hikes and stuff. Yeah, it's just about but I am drawn to it as well. Like here, it is just like geez, you know, here we are, again, you know, worrying about consumer duty and how you know, can we justify this ISIS switch? She asked, sociopathic and just don't have don't have any conscience and
Carl Widger:the common the common theme, but what made off and Melissa Kotick was they didn't invest the money at all, ever. They just gave out these kinds of fraudulent false statements. So, you know, if you're investing money, try and get some online logins so that you can actually see this this thing yourself. I mean, it's pretty standard you would imagine these days, but yet when you hear about these stories, it doesn't necessarily seem to be
Alan Smith:talking to things that that just bring in it, you know, timestamp I shared with you guys this morning. We just in the BBC today yesterday, this local authority things Faruk cancel events, they're like, over half a billion pounds in sandwich looks like a fraudulent setup of some solar farm organization and the founder apparently or someone's sort of wrapped up in it obviously this is a presume is going to be some sort of court case coming down the line was buying private planes yachts, Bugatti is huge. And now that now the council is technically bankrupt and have had to cease delivering all non essential services. I mean, what your 655 million pounds what what? Yeah,
Carl Widger:I read it I read it out and I read it I actually tried to comment on it and did technology went a little bit haywire and people there this I don't know is this solar wind farm thing? There's, we have one of those ones gone pear shaped here in Ireland as well, but that I read that article, Alan? Oh, my mother.
Nick Lincoln:Good. It's all good. Because solar, it's so less so we'll save the polar bears. That's all fine. Don't question the narrative invest in solar doesn't matter if it the money goes down this shit. Okay, my final culture corner one is, this is a bit of a different one. So I put in I had a penny had a party recently, you three are invited. None of you turned up. It's been noted. And we had this guy come along, to sing it. Our party, Penny met him. He was busking and what fun High Street? And she said she spoke to him. He said, would you want to come and see our party? I thought Christ on a Bible. What's this about? Anyway, this guy was brilliant. Chris Harvey. He thinks sort of jazz soul sort of beautiful, sort of molasses dark, beautiful, smoky voice and he was really good. I'm giving him a shout out because the guy lives in hand and down the road from in northwest London. And he's lived in the same place for 20 years rented it and he's been chucked out by his landlord and he's not he's got nowhere to go. He cannot afford the rents in the UK are just astronomical at the moment and I finally get this guy he turned up on time. He played for longer than he said he would and then he buggered off and he just brilliant thing brings his microphone brings the lights to sings and live music even as simple as that it just transformed the party so there's a link to his his website in the show notes if you if you're in the home counties area And you want someone to come and sing at bash or having a garden party or what have you? Definitely, definitely highly recommend Chris Harper. He was a pro and we
Carl Widger:well, we all know that's awesome fairplay for calling that one out.
Nick Lincoln:Thank you my friend, Mr. Hart lower middle estate Cotswolds?
Andy Hart:Yes, we've just returned from the Cotswolds a week with my family, quite a lot of us hide a big house. It's a great little place if anyone's thinking about going to the Cotswolds. It's in sort of, they call it the Cotswolds water park area near South Cerney near Cirencester. And the main place I've gone to I think I've gone to there about six or seven times now it's called lower mill estate. And the main people that rent out houses there from from as small as two beds, three beds and then there's obviously the biggest sort of 567 beds it's called Habitat escapes. So if you want to go somewhere lovely in the Cotswolds it's really great for London is only an hour and a half away from London. Check it out we had a fantastic week there on the lake with a hot tub kids going crazy all the good stuff lots of ice cream weather was not the best but we made the most of it so yeah if you want to go somewhere really nice and we've got all over the state it's also great for kids to go swimming and paddleboarding and and all the other water sports so yeah, check it out.
Nick Lincoln:Now it's a beautiful part of the world my brother lives in in in the Cross Hospital political bloc when you and I ended we penny we met few years ago and just in that era it is it is lovely. It's so it's just this picture postcard. Beautiful. Okey dokey and I think you're off to the otter Spain Mr. Hart is that correct?
Andy Hart:Yes Your Sawyer Salah depends on how you say it. Yep.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, I've got Sicily next week, which I'm looking forward to the forecast here by the way for the next week. My god. Okay, guys, we are now at look at that as ever was kind of it was coming around 80 minutes. Are we are we comfortable? That's we've done it all. We've been that a good a good effort. Okay, I'm assuming the silence as a yes. So that's a wrap for this episode. Dear trappers thank you as ever for your precious time and your input into the show. Please do rate and review us on iTunes, leave a six or a five star review. Like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. I think we're about 350 subscribers on that now, which is not a bad effort whatsoever. But until the next time from the trap pack, it's adios and take care out there folks. Thank you for your time.
Unknown:Bye bye bye bye