TRAP: The Real Adviser Podcast
Four business-owning entrepreneurial knuckleheads chew the fat on the sometimes murky, always quirky, world of UK and Irish personal finance.
TRAP: The Real Adviser Podcast
45 - TRAP Live!
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TRAP Live!
This is a TRAP episode recorded on 9th May 2024 in front of 140 adoring TRAPists at Lola's, the louche, loose, slightly dangerous bar in the underground caverns of the world-famous London Hippodrome casino.
Our sources confirm that this is the first (last?) UK financial services-related live podcast held in the UK and, secondly, there has never been any financial services event in the UK involving so much alcohol.
The show follows the normal format, albeit in a slightly more "shambolic" fashion than normal.
At the end, there's a bonus 30-minute Q&A session where the TRAP Pack fields an assortment of idiotic questions from our beloved TRAPists.
Thanks to Emmelia Powell for emceeing the chaos and Dan Haylett for his excellent pre-recording presentation. And lots of love for our event partners (with special TRAP-focused landing pages), Vanguard and Timeline.
No thanks at all to the striking train drivers. Bring on the robots.
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So the moment we've all been waiting for the for Sarki sods, we're going to do a Trump live. So welcome neck, Andy Arlen and call to the stage
Unknown:Welcome to The Real advisor podcast, T our AP tour. 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:Thank you very much. Yes indeed dear Trappist. Welcome back to what many people are calling episode 45 of the real advisor podcast T R A P trap. My name is Nick Lincoln. Joining me not in a digital studio of doom. But in the world famous London hippodrome in the underground slightly loose, slightly loose, slightly dangerous Lola's bar are the three other horsemen of the apocalypse called della Bochy, the voice which, and Alan, the storyteller Smith. Now dear Trappists, dear Trappists, this is a live recording of episode 45. When this goes out, in two weeks time, there will be people at home listening to this on their transistor radios. Totally not believing we've managed to corral a live audience we can't believe we've managed to corral a live audience. So on the count of three, totally spontaneously, casting aside your British reserve. I want you to shout out as loud as you can. I haven't thought about this. Maybe lick is God. On the count of three because God 123 My work is done. Dear trapeze. Thank you for making the effort to get here for your time. Do appreciate it. Anyone in the room got any immediate family? He was a train driver. What's a bunch of bankers. We've got people who've come from very far to be here. We got lunch club duck, all the way from South Africa. All that stuff doesn't mean he loves coming to this country or he doesn't. He comes here. He just spends his whole time this hotel room flicking the hotel lights on and off thinking. Yeah, 24/7 electricity. I remember this. This is good. It's coming back. It's coming back. We've also got international people of mystery from Chile. We got Chris Emmet, somewhere in the room. Thank you for making that effort, Chris. And, and we have Richard Holmes, also from beautiful Budapest in Hungary. So thank you, Chris and Richard for making the effort. Really appreciate it. And those guys, they're offshore offshore advisors. They work in the murky world of the offshore investment world and it is a murky button. They're two of the good guys. And they're very busy. I've seen their diaries and 24/7 they're flogging offshore MIPS to gullible expats. They're bloody good plans you know get the first 17 years with the premiums go and initial commission. But those leads from Michonne Marie downtown and they're expensive you got to be closing. I think Chris is online for the steak knives this month. Richard's catching up good guys. And we've got our event partners of course want to thank them timeline and Vanguard there are representatives here from timeline and Vanguard really happy. Really happy to be aligned with them in a sea of mediocrity in the industrial side of what we do. They are two shining brands and we're very glad they're here, of course, two brands at the disparate ends of of their growth cycles. You know, one, one brand seems to dominate the UK media scene is becoming an international behemoth is going to launch our platform. I mean, it's bloody massive and then there's Vanguard. Just the 8 trillion under management rest in peace Jack we love you. Okay, that's it done. I think the hashtag for you youngsters on SNAP face Insta check back atcha The hashtag is trap live. Apparently whatever that means. Stephen Evans is going where am I? Trapped live. Okay, right. Without any further ado, we do have a show pack full of Absolutely. Now what about this bloody thing now? We have a show pack full about it. salutely nothing so let's start unpacking it straightaway with some more high energy review reads read up on my very good friend. The Right Honourable Mr. Andrew hearts. Thank
Andy Hart:you very much, Nick do a very brief. Thank you very well. Thank you for everyone for coming. It obviously means a lot of rather surreal anyway, I'll crack on with my trademark reviews. First up, it's from a private investor, Ashton 1975. And talk entitled private investor the review is I recently came across the real advisor podcast with a no have already got a problem with that. Whilst reviewing potential advisors with a no again, I'm a private investor. Not an advisor is a minefield out there. But listening to this podcast brings intelligent debate, clarity, sensible thinking and good humor, which has really helped in my search. Keep up the great work. Thank you. The meaty review is from George F. P. 1989. George Hagen good guy in our business. Five stars in titled quotes, I made Nick Lincoln famous Andy Hart may 2023. It's a story about that not for you. The review is this show is an essential lesson for all advisors who care about real financial planning from the very best in the profession. hugely grateful for you all taking your time to share your knowledge and experience. Each episode is more valuable than all the Nashville conferences combined. Thank you very much. Been a real financial planner can be a lonely place. And this provides a welcome sense of community Keep up the great work and I'm gutted. I can't make beer and loadings at Lola's. I'd have sweaty into that. On the ninth. Looking forward for the next drinks. Thanks, Andy, for texting the delivery, something that Nick gets very annoyed about texting. Nick, over to you back to your boss. Thank
Nick Lincoln:you Ultra, thank you as ever for just raising the energy okay.
Carl Widger:You're not alone because you Volunteer. Volunteer.
Nick Lincoln:Right, let's put a timestamp on this episode, Episode 45. With some topical tidbits voice, you're gonna lead off with crypto in mainstream finance?
Carl Widger:Yes, indeed. So in the shownotes, because this is all a bit weird because the live audience, there's going to be a link to a Twitter post from one of the Collison brothers from stripe and Stripe are now going to be accepting payments via cryptocurrency. And I suppose I thought it'd be relevant to bring it up because I have because you've listened to all of the shows. You know what I think about crypto, I'm a large skeptic. But when you think about stripe are now saying we're going to take we're going to accept payments via cryptocurrency, we obviously have the ETFs. Maybe it is going to happen. Maybe I will be proven wrong. And let's just see what his journey goes on. But we did see the price of crypto getting back to 72. It has slipped all the way down to 60 to the 72 peak are back to its peak was was was made after the ETF launches. And it has slipped back so for me it's still way too volatile. Because we've we all know how difficult it is to keep clients in their seats in terms of investments. So for me for now, and I can't see in the near future it being part of any portfolios. I just think that for me, it's not mainstream enough, but
Alan Smith:maybe apart from the fact that you can't because it's illegal. And it's not a regulated product. Yeah,
Carl Widger:but it's nice for your product. I suppose the point is that the date it is becoming mainstream, and it's only a matter of time I think so. Will it be available? Yeah, I think it will be in the shorter term.
Andy Hart:But details could be fear cryptocurrency so it's linked to a stable currency. So the technology is the main thing that they're focusing in on rather than just random coins. I think that's the case. Anyone? What
Alan Smith:is it? Is it a currency? Or is it an asset class? What is it called? What do you think is trash?
Carl Widger:It's not an asset class for me, but but this is what I'm saying. I may well be proven wrong in this right. But I don't think it's an asset class and his tuition invested 10 years ago. Of course I do.
Unknown:Even though it's 10 years ago, yeah.
Carl Widger:I mean, you're gonna you're gonna it's class looking at the at the at the price and it's shooting up and then go down shoot, but it did start down here and it is up there now. Of course of component that's total Ponting did I wish I invested in Apple when Apple started off of course, right. But you can't always be looking to you know, back the one horse the one winner. That's not what I'm about. For my clients. That's not what I'm about. So look, it just remains to be seen. I just put it out there because I have been probably us for the largest critic Have cryptocurrency and
Andy Hart:Stripe are huge and amazing. I use them every day to tax amazing. You bought your tickets through stripe. So yeah, they're just extending what they do
Unknown:Irish Boise I was just gonna say
Carl Widger:no surprise couple of Irish boys. My kids are going to the same school
Alan Smith:as my parents. Is it too early for the drop, Nick? That's why you
Carl Widger:right so yeah, that's my crypto story for this episode.
Nick Lincoln:Okay so myself an ultra I don't know how this happened we found ourselves at a Morningstar conference last week in West London. Ultra your thoughts on it?
Andy Hart:It was Lancaster Gate, a very well organized, great app. I got to tread carefully. Yeah, some interesting speakers a lot of Fireside Chat stuff. Anyway, the good points, I don't know who he was. He was like the CEO of Morningstar or something like that he led off the state of the advice industry business that we're all in. And he said, there's some positive factors. And these are the six points I'm going to read out and can chip in if you wish, the adviser numbers are reducing not by a lot, but they're not growing by much so you know, if you're if you're, if you are an advisor or in this business, and obviously it's a good place for you to be household wealth is growing. I think you mentioned 14 trillion UK net worth. So obviously a chunk of x in investable assets. And that's going to be getting larger and larger the share moving towards investable assets, mainly via pensions. He also said rising compliance costs again, we all know about that. Apart from unit they are the only firm in the UK where compliance costs are going down. What is that one from the FBI here today? And then the fourth point is digitization and technology 100% agree with that that's gonna be great. Obviously that's your little AI thing. industry consolidation I mean yeah, that was gung ho until some of the latest sort of rumors or issues have been brought to light mainly follow in from not doing annual reviews etc that not doing your job basically, which is rather interesting. And he said about profit margins still look quite healthy so all in all, it was okay, we left at lunchtime you left I left the
Nick Lincoln:10 1050 I did I think it's actually maybe before 11 I I was there and as soon as I was there I'm like this any social situation where the parties I'm there and I'm thinking Why am I here? I don't know anybody. I don't like anybody here. I walk through the front door at home. It was quite interesting. You were saying the lovely TLPs over there squirming she'll get hurt yeah, I went I just it was it was amazing. I mean, I know we get we get critique on track but I pay on me on staff okay. And there is obviously true to that because we are pale male and perhaps we are star this morning star thing. I mean, it was incredible. The ratio of men to women was just off the charts the wrong way. Most of the men were wearing suits and ties. Ali Smith is there is morning stars. media guy media comms guy he gave an editor. Yes. Hi. Wow. Yeah. Anyway, in his in his dressing, I mean, all my pronouns are he him and I was waiting for the joke. And everyone around just straight face. guy who, in my opinion, he's got a beard, who, who? You know, most of us used to read new model advisor because it was worth reading. It ain't worth reading now. And there's, there's a litany of reasons for that. And I think he may be connected to, in my humble opinion, so I'm not that great show and I left we left at
Unknown:lightning. We're recording this.
Carl Widger:I'd like to distance myself.
Nick Lincoln:I would go on with Danny love Ali Smith. He can't get enough. Right. Moving on. It was it was it for me. It wasn't me. Okay. Storytelling, you're solving the life of another challenge, apparently.
Alan Smith:Right. Okay. To me. As we know, on the technology expo this group, the there's, I think anyone in the room who well anyone who is actually doing our job will recognize some of the biggest challenges. In fact, interestingly, there's a recent survey that I read. I'll be in strategic consulting did the service. Someone from Albion is in the room right now. But they were identifying what the biggest challenges were in financial planning businesses. And interestingly, this is backup the Morningstar stuff. It wasn't necessarily things like fee compression. It wasn't so many other things, some biggest challenges were actually onboarding new clients and support In the Canon annual review process, it's still parts of that still remain in the last century of the century before because it's paper based, it's signed forms and sending them to legacy providers and trying to gather data. So I was very pleased to see an organization and forgive me for those of you already using this is new to me, the company called the pensions lab, I spoke with my chief operations officer Shereen about this morning swings in the back telling me all about it really interesting business, the pension lab.com, I think, where everything's digitized, everything's online, clients can sign digital letters of authority, submit them automatically to providers. And the thing that got me I thought, wow, this is a breakthrough. As we know, some of these providers are still insist on wet signatures. So the pension lab have got FCA approval to effectively replicate the signature the client signed digitally, and submit and effectively create a paper copy if it's essential for this legacy provider and use that and then they automatically chase the mark, follow up. Do you know, we've been talking about AI and technology and honestly for quite a long time, we've yet to see some really significant breakthroughs that you know, save time, we've got people in our company I'm sure you have who just spent bloody you know, half an hour on the phone to whoever Prudential Phoenix live, wherever you're listening to Vivaldi. blardy blar Your call is important to us. That important that you know, we'll keep you waiting for an hour. So this is a new piece of kit. You can do your own research seven pounds and LOA which I think is actually reasonable versus the cost of hiring people. You know the people doing that and it frees people up to do good things, you know, do much more meaningful client follow because work so that's my little opener,
Unknown:or they just do an LOA is was that their first product and they're going to go into other stuff? Yeah.
Nick Lincoln:Are they the question?
Alan Smith:I thought was telling me because you know, he usually does. I have now reached the boundary of my knowledge on this subject. Ask me anything else? Oh, Cherie, or the pension lab pension? Is that
Nick Lincoln:okay? All right. Excellent. If you can't take the exams and letters of authority. Now the next topic is dimensionals new Sterling short duration real return fund.
Unknown:Isn't this is a bit in the weeds? Yeah,
Carl Widger:here we go. Perfect. For a live show with
Alan Smith:Ultra you've got quite a complex fund.
Andy Hart:It's way above my station to explain this fun, but a DFA don't release funds every day. So it's quite an interesting fund that caught my eye. I believe they've got a one in the US. I mean, it's, it's, you know, the whole problem with fixed income. You know? Yeah, I'm not a fan of fixed income funds as you probably well know. They've taken a bit of a battery in recently and 2022 and other stuff so anyway, they come out with this new font that's hopefully going to address that. Any thoughts people know
Alan Smith:explaining tells you this fun
Unknown:thing about got here but I'm not gonna go through that. Explain it. Yeah, we got the if anyone and speak to them over the
Nick Lincoln:tree, I think we have to FA in the audience, I did look at their online verbiage on this and it just ran to page and page and page. Alright, enough. Yeah. So yeah, I didn't know I'm not interested. Really? I didn't, I didn't see what's I didn't see what he was trying to scratch. You know, I didn't I didn't get it. Okay.
Alan Smith:To deal with short term volatility short term index link thing. Yeah, but it's too volatile. Is 2022. proved? It's the mix. Okay. Do your own research. Well, that was very helpful. Thank you. Any other games? I can't help me out.
Carl Widger:We're just hoping that summer.
Nick Lincoln:Oh, no one is gonna land the old one, surely. All right, let's move on from that, because it's not gonna be this one call. Let's bring the excitement Down. Down. Voice voice the financial services and paint. record number of complaints in 2023. Rising by 29% on sizzle? Yeah,
Carl Widger:it was a kind of set myself up for that one. Anyway, what I'd like to say about this is that our complaint service in Ireland had 23 24% more complaints in the previous year. And they're basically out there saying we want to recruit loads of people. So I've been fairly vociferous about the lack of regulation, when we talk about for the UK or for Ireland are you guys have had RDR and you know, have the new thing, whatever that's called, which is what you're all getting. It's a very bad thing. Yeah. Which I think is actually consumer, Julie. Oh. And you can all come and learn about Ireland as well now in a minute, but, but I suppose what I think is happening in Ireland is that the clients or the consumers are, you know, they're actually going to drive the added regulation. which can only be a good thing and I know I'm like a broken record saying this but we need to tighten up the regulation we really do and that will make it bring us more away from that transactional focus to real lifestyle financial planning and that's where I would absolutely love our business to go in Ireland. So that's why I said it bring it up. Plus I've got the Ireland flag behind me so I had mentioned something about Ireland so
Alan Smith:yeah, yeah call us call call Mr. Popular in Irish financial.
Nick Lincoln:Carl is a fee based financial planning firm in Ireland and he is it's a it's a rare thing. These guys are behind the when we started doing this trap podcasts we had a drop whenever cardboard, and it was the Wild West theme, you know, cowboys. He he took offense to that so we didn't have got taken out but certainly they aren't. If you got it today, but you are ahead of the curve installments credit. And your whichever some put down on you're not going to get one my friend. That's a genuine. That's the one for the year. Right. Moving on. Are we done on that done? Okay, fine. storyteller, the bulletproof. We talked about your podcast. Okay. That's interesting.
Unknown:I Yeah.
Alan Smith:I host a co host two podcasts once award winning one is it. True story. My most recent episode, this is just think this has got some relevance. If you've ever come across clients, potential clients, who say this stuff's quite easy. I can do it on my own. I don't need you because all you need to do is choose a few funds and put it into isover pension is quite straightforward. And what we know and as Dan was talking about earlier on, this is more a behavioral question than it is a math question. And the last guest I had on the podcast was an interesting one. It's worth checking this out, because this was somebody who was a Yeah, she was an IFA, and it was a financial services professional and he invested money and he got founder shares in another organization, which subsequently sold sold out to another provider and all the original founders and shareholders got a significant payout. Alarming mean, you know, seven figures in the millions. And this guy, his name's Jim Kim, the podcast. And to his credit, he said to me, because I got to know him recently. And he said, love to come on, I honestly, you can learn a lot from fear of failure, you can learn perhaps more from failure than you can from success. I've had a lot of people on it, who've had great successes. None of them have been straightforward and easy, but they've sort of had a big exit and made millions etc. And they've gone on to other things. Jim had a big exit, took the money invested in something else. And don't forget, he's a financial services professional. And long story short, he blew it. He lost. He lost all the money. He lost all the money that he invested. And what he recognized was, this is a behavioral thing. And I just took that as a really interesting experience for all of us when you have clients say, I would never do that I'd be smart. Here's a true life story. And ladies and gentlemen, may I tell you that Jim is in the audience with us today. Jim, stand up, Jim.
Unknown:No, stand up. Stand up
Nick Lincoln:me go. No. It was it was a good episode. Very good. Very good. It was a really good episode. Jim. I don't I enjoyed it. That sounds a bit cruel, but I did it. I did enjoy it. It was very good. It was Foot and Mouth Disease of it. And I just think it saved my filter.
Alan Smith:You'd be working behind the bar later. Certainly.
Nick Lincoln:Right? Ultra, you've got some shitty conference.
Andy Hart:Yes, I'm gonna continue the self promotion theme that Alan. Alan started you may or may not know I run a company called humans under management. The tickets have just been launched for London seventh of November. I've only got 100 left. No BS hum essay is on the 17th of September if you wish to come to homicide you live in the UK. It's all complimentary tickets for you. That's a trap live special. It's not that I'm still recovering from your flights. Yes, so that's it. Really? That's it? Getting tickets back to your
Carl Widger:super Have you anything to promote Nick?
Unknown:No.
Alan Smith:Let's move on. So we've got says Mr. self promotion, we've not prepared. Okay, think about Metis Norway once.
Nick Lincoln:Let's get back to that. Let's get back to them sort of in the weeds stuff. So the 4% The 4% safe withdrawal rate this can it's been around since 1994. I think Bill baingan published a paper in the States I know you're all familiar with it and then Wade foul pfcu What's that about? Wade foul, and then Michael Kitsis. Talk about this incessantly. Don't The 4% rule. And I think there's a pushback against it, I think people are starting to think Hold on What we do is as much art as science, this world of financial planning, and these people that knock out these reports, they're like lab technicians, they think we will live laboratory lives, not real lead lives. The 4% rule, I think it's crazy. I just don't think it works. And this thing like guide rails, and if the market dips, you'd, you bring your income down by X amount, and so forth. It's, it's almost as if you know, we're not, it's one of the here's a rule, and everyone will fit in this silo. And life is not like that. And there's, again in the so called shownotes. There'll be a link to a young IFA on LinkedIn, Chris Thompson, he put a post out, he's he's quite why the 4% rule is bollocks was the length of the text, it was the title of his piece. And it got loads of traction from younger devices or just saying, You know what, I think this is rubbish. And the reason I think it's rubbish is because as we know, as real financial advisors, right, real financial planners. Doing Yes, Dan Haley, you're absolutely right. We can't be absolutely besotted with the cash flow. But I would hate to do my work without doing cash, meaningful cash flow for all of my clients. Because it's a conversation starter. And when we do the cash flow, we know there are things coming into the clients buckets, later on state pensions, DB pensions, inheritances, sale of rental property, we know all the mess that goes on. And there's different stuff going out of their buckets all the time. And I think there's a there's a regular lifestyle cost, but there's lumpy stuff. And to say, right, you're gonna have a 4% withdrawal from your investments now until you're 90, it's insane. I've got I'm sure we I've got clients who are stripping out there ISIS at a rate of about 678 percent. But that's fine, because it's in the context of their financial plan. And they'll push that down when the state pensions kick in. That's 23 grand a year of index linked income, it's going to come in from Mr. And Mrs. United Kingdom at a later date. So I just think we need to again, really, really important that that we iterate and I know we all believe in this, I think that it needs to become more part of what we talk about that what we do is art as much as science. And we need to develop a tolerance for ambiguity. The 4% rule, I think, comes from the school that says, This is what's going to happen. This will sort you out and I just don't think it's
Alan Smith:Have you ever heard a concept for phrase trust the Science Trust the science? Yeah, well, don't get the academic standard. Because this this is the thing that people highly, highly qualified, much more qualified that anyone on this stage tell you this is the thing to follow. This is what you must believe these are the rules. This is what the spreadsheet says. And I think this is one of the reasons that this podcast against all the odds has become quite popular, because all four of us to one degree or another still at the coalface still deep in the weeds, and still having conversations with real life, human beings, and clients. And I just always go back to them surprise you to No, but I'm the oldest in the group and high here. But I couldn't because I was well advising in the great financial crash.
Nick Lincoln:There was no chuckle there at all, obviously. And
Alan Smith:so 2007 2000 789 When markets absolutely cratered factory decline, and guess what clients said, I probably will tighten my belt a little bit, I'll probably want to spend at the same rate as I had been doing with things. They basically were spending plans. Yeah, yeah. Other than the essential and so guess what, that's real life. And that's what happens. And if you assume that we're going to carry on spending at the rate whilst there's a temporary decline, costs are going to run out or they're going to come against problems. But that's not real life. Ultra.
Andy Hart:I agree with the bulk of what you said, Nick, we're people that are in retirement applying that rule. But again, it is way more of an art. But I'm a fan of people trying to accumulate their number their stash having it as a rule of thumb, someone in their 30s and 40s. They say I want to spend three grand a month you're trying to buy 300 900 cows is what we're trying to achieve. It gives them a target to go for is the five principles. So I'm a fan of those principles that are trying to strip down your financial IRA to its essence.
Alan Smith:I mentioned fire as a fire. Yeah, Carl just got a
Andy Hart:drink at the bar. So yeah, at retirement is totally different. It's bespoke to the individual. It's an art as well as science, all the stuff that Dan speaks about, we do with real life clients. But for younger people, I think that the 4% rule is a target to achieve, I think is well placed. Okay. All right.
Nick Lincoln:So watch the exodus from our favorite ESG funds. Yeah.
Carl Widger:wrote notes. So this is the first podcast I've ever written down some notes. I've never done it again. It's very, very confusing.
Nick Lincoln:They're really good crayons.
Carl Widger:But but there are two numbers here, right. So in the US, in the first three months of this year, 8 billion has left ESG funds. And it seems that the reason behind this is that a lot of investors are leaving because of fears of greenwashing. Now in Europe is not the same. 11 billion was added in that period of time. But what I would urge everybody to do who's working in this business? If you align yourself to Being Evidence Based Investing. And that's what you'd like to follow. I think you need to do you need to do some research on this, and you need to look into it yourself. Because there's a lot of funds. There's Article Nine funds in Article eight, we won't get into the detail. Right. But But last year article, a whole bunch of funds went from Article Nine, which Yeah, ticking all the ESG boxes. So you know, the funds that stuck there? Yeah, we are is ESG on the brochure? Well, they all had to come back down to Article eight funds. And then it meant that they lost tons and tons and tons of money. So I think ESG for me, the the fund management industry has used it as a Oh, lovely, nice place for us to kind of rebrand and get a whole lot of money in. I don't think it has, it has grown up yet. I don't think there's enough regulation there yet. And I think a lot of investors, a lot of our clients can be fooled by it. So I would just urge everyone to just go and do your own research because I believe that the exodus is going to continue the what's happening in the US is going to follow in in Europe, and then what will happen those funds so I would just urge caution, and you know, we're always against the whole the next best thing maybe this was the next best thing and maybe has a long road to go before we can
Alan Smith:go Yeah, hey, not normally under one guy is deeply invested in.
Carl Widger:shorted ESG so no, like getting a few people clapping normally on the podcast and ESB you know, I can see him in the screen going. Alright, so that was that was that was that was nice. But yeah, I just think watch this space. I think there's there's a lot more to happen in this space. And I'm, I'm
Nick Lincoln:sure we know Vanguard and BlackRock have been pushing back against as well. They've really taken a step back from the backyard
Alan Smith:in particular with
Carl Widger:Vanguard didn't enter the fray, like BlackRock. Oh, it's the way to go. And they've definitely dumping their view on it. Here's the thing. There's people
Alan Smith:from BlackRock. They seem to me that the largest asset management business in the world, they seem to me as like an organization that follow trends, they were very big into this Bitcoins, a new game in town, they're big into that now, and they're dropping out and the pulling out of all these climate change committees, etc. Here's the thing this stuff is you got to remember the asset management business is exactly that. It's a business. It's a commercial operation institution, trillions and trillions around the world. It's marketing. It's a lot of it. Look, there's underlying themes. Of course, no one wants to sort of pollute the planet and all the rest of it, but these organizations will see what is the next bandwagon that we can jump on. Where's the emerging trends? What are people investing on? over 20 years ago, when I was working for standard life? I was there was a company can't feed you any better than this.
Nick Lincoln:Trump's sign by the way. I was sweating. I filled out.
Alan Smith:Just to clear that out, it's good. alperton, which has taken the Glen Campbell song Galveston alperton, is a suburb of high school, Wembley, northwest London, where I used to be drunk in charge of a wheelbarrow Adrian where we remember when I was doing the broker rep job, and they were filling up wheelbarrow full of props signed by the weekend wheeling. Thanks. That was classic when Nick first did that live I'd never heard of before. It was great. But I was competing with an organization called Friends providence and they had a fund called the stewardship fund. That's right. Oh my God, was it it was the richest people with the friends provident, it was a girl that she remember she was filling her wheelbarrow Lady, lady female, she her full of props signed by the weekend willing war for the friends proper stewardship and but of course, it had a period of significant outperformance. It was great. You could have oh, you could save the planet and beat all the rest of the market. And that's what he went through. Obviously, the ESG funds were predominantly tech stocks. So you've looked at your performance. last few years, you've done pretty well. And you had a sense of saving the world as well. But as I say, I think there's underlying issues, of course, but the asset management industry is an industry driven by marketing and they'll look for what people are buying at any given time. And you're right, the sizzle seems to have gone out of that sector for the time being, but it'll come back again.
Nick Lincoln:Maybe Yeah, maybe in 10 years. different form close on this post tech stocks dominating ESG. And it's laughable. Yeah, no, it's better. If you think lithium batteries are doing anything for the Earth. You've got a screw loose. I mean, you think Facebook is the force for good? Yeah. Okay. All right. So what's next on this? Topical Tibbets? Ah, yes, we've just had one of Ultras, best weeks of the year. Omaha, go on, talk to us about Omaha. So this is
Andy Hart:shoehorn Warren Buffett into this he had his annual Woodstock for capitalists last Saturday seven hours Manana. What should we eat? 1.5 speed now to Alan and I, Alan and I sorry, get my grammar right. It's definitely worth watching. It was a big tribute to the mighty Charlie Munger who died at 99.9. What an age to die.
Alan Smith:Well, the Charlie Munger is a bit like Nick Lincoln finishing his podcast 99 They don't know Nikki to serve his own podcast. Was it cool? The money hats it the money hat tip. And of course he issued 99 episodes then stopped. That just says all you need to know.
Andy Hart:So I thought I'd shoehorn Charlie Munger quote in this is a quote from Charlie Munger on money managers. The general system for money managers requires people to pretend they can do something that they can't do. And pretend to like it when they've done. I think it's a terrible way to spend your life, but it's very well paid.
Unknown:Rip by the group. Thank you for your work. Have you done? I think I'm done. Yeah.
Alan Smith:Because I'm gonna jump in now. Just follow up just following that. You can see that afterwards. It's not really a good one. But is this a good one? I think it's the Google unforgiving. I'm gonna read this out because I have to. Now I want you to know that this is nothing. This is nothing personal that I bought the people involved as publishers and one of the trade mags yesterday. I read this, and I just I thought it was parody. I thought it was April Fool's Day or something is on. But I think it's unbelievable. So I thought I'd share it with us as an article or comment which magazine investors something or other. And so it's bit like saying some of my friends are something but some of my friends are fund managers, as I know these people and they're well intentioned human beings. And this is not personal. But it's kind of it goes with the territory of what's the legendary Mr. Buffett Mr. Munger said a while ago, hitting his J. O. hambro on the virtue of underperforming
Unknown:thought we need to do
Alan Smith:a well designed poll for this, this the article with some of their quotes, but starts off a well designed portfolio should include investments that do well in different contexts. There's nothing scarier than having all your funds going up at the same time, because they might also crash. The journalist says investors have on the Jo HCM Global Opportunities Fund hadn't had this problem. Its diversification and value style had meant it behave quite differently for the rest of the market, and it kept struggling against its sector and benchmark whilst other strategies flourished. But this underperformance is a virtue. According to f e fund info Alpha managers, Robert Lancaster and Ben Leyland, who find silver linings in their track record. There's virtue in underperforming not necessarily per se, but doing something different. For the majority of the past year, five years, perhaps even 10. Many in our industry have herded towards the same place there's virtue and avoiding the herd, blah, blah, blah. And he goes on, we are sacrificing some of our returns trying to solve future seats. Right Thing, this 624 million pounds Global Opportunities Fund failed to beat the MSCI World Index in the past 10 years, five years and three years and remained in the third quartile of funds in the IEA global sector over 10 years and 12 months. story ends, both very well paid. Here's the thing this is what did I say 624 million pounds, it's the thief had a quick look at it. And their fees are naught point nine, five percents call it run numbers 1%. That's a 6 million pound revenue business, which has failed to deliver on almost any of its expectations and requirements for type. 6 million pound revenue is I'm gonna guess maybe with one or two exceptions is more revenue than any single financial planning business in this room. It's more than ours. And we are a force for good we're changing lives, the lives of people for the better. They're actually taking away value. And this is not the one we're not going to fund performance. But come on three months, six months, one year, three years, five years and 10 years, underperforming and taking 6 million quid a year for the purpose. And I think there's a big disconnect. I always go back to things this is people's life savings. This is family's financial thanks. Do you know this is partly what this This podcast is all about we're not, we're able to say a few things, we will sort of step over the line apart from occasionally, that's been edited out. And unfortunately. And I think historically, you know, there's people, I think people have been pointing the guns in the wrong direction, really, it's this sort of stuff that kind of gets me going. Like there's there's different models or different financial planning models, different advisory models, and people charge their fees in different ways. But, you know, I meet a lot of advisors, the vast majority, the vast, vast majority are doing good things that are well intentioned and might not be perfect. This stuff is bullshit, you know, and that's what we're going to just continue to call out because we have the platform to be able to do so. And, you know, we're going to challenge this conventional thinking and the way because as I say, 600 million pounds of crap. Disappointing. Any thoughts, Nick?
Nick Lincoln:I think you've said it. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Unknown:Nothing to nothing further to add.
Nick Lincoln:I mean, I would what I've made, I mean, that is that that that releases, some believe it is like something Kafka esque about, isn't it? It's airline releasing a bulletin after a plane crashes. Yeah, the planes crashing, everyone's died. But we're one step closer to having a plane that stays in the air. It's like, spinning this spin man. And I would imagine the
Alan Smith:company of that size will have layers of lawyers and PR people and stuff. It's got it must have gone through a few p now. Just say is that okay? Is that we're happy with that, man. Yeah, is Madison. Madison is just yeah, anyway, just literally press yesterday, for bring it to your attention. Okay,
Nick Lincoln:well, we're gonna close off the topical tidbits of thinking about got this right with Ultra, an app from visual. It's very good for an audio you're gonna tell us about an app from visual capitalist.
Andy Hart:Yeah, a lot of you subscribe to visual capitalist who's your capitalist subscribers? Yep. They've just come out of the new app. It's a bit more of a social app where you can sort of share a lot of stuff. Voronoi app.com. There's a link in the show notes. Do check it out. They're constantly trying to expand what they do. That's it back to you, Nick. Okay,
Nick Lincoln:fine. So how long into it? What time did we start? Yesterday must have just been on about 40 minutes, I think it's time we moved on to the meat and potatoes of episode 45 of the real advisor podcast T our AP tracks, please deliver six out of five star review on your podcast app of choice. And also like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We are around the 800 subscribers on YouTube, which is amazing. That's the sound of potatoes being peeled in the background, which drives storytelling nuts. Today's meeting potatoes is a recurring one, but it's a big one. And I think everyone in the room hopefully will get some value from this and also those at home listening on their transistor radios. How if you were starting from scratch? Would we and you by implication, we hope? How would you design your ideal financial planning? Practice? We're going to start off with storyteller go. Water for Andrew. Sorry, earnings.
Alan Smith:If I was starting from scratch today, knowing what I know now. So I think we you need to start thinking differently and stop thinking like an advisor and start thinking more like an entrepreneur and a business owner and what do other industries do? And what I know is because we are you know, I follow this stuff, I find it interesting things like tech startups, for example, what do they do someone's got an app, or something, or you have some new piece of technology that you'd like to build, create and sell. What did they do this. So the classic startup model is what they call bootstrapping, which is using your own money. If you've got any savings, use it to get the whole thing going, then you go to kind of what they call, you know, friends and family. And fools, they sometimes say friends, family round for raising a bit of money, borrowing money off your family and friends. And then you kind of go through seed funds, venture capital funds and raise that. And I think what that does is it creates a certain discipline, you have to execute, you have to get things done, you have to get to profitability within a certain time, because it's not just you doing it, I have to say and again, I'll just speak about myself, I think there's a lot of kind of almost a degree of it's a bit amateurish, what financial? Well, I did, I just started kind of by myself with my own savings, and it just takes such a long time to get traction. And also that sort of model. What it means is you can't really be intentional about your future is very hard to say. It's very hard to turn down prospective clients in early days because you have a lot of money coming in the door. And I think begin with the end in mind, I would try to adopt some of the kind of the foundations of like tech businesses once it has to use use your own savings, possibly use others. How interesting would it be to have a business partner who's not in the same business but bought 10% of the company, gave you whatever it was 50 grand 100 grand wherever that allows you to get the thing underway, because this leads into the second thing that I'd be really focused on what I wouldn't want to be is a sort of all Were there all seasons, every type of clients, we deal with business owners, executives, doctors, dentists, lawyers, anyone at all easily. And again, my early days were the classic. If they can fog a mirror, they're a client, if they can breathe, they're in. That was the that was the filter. So I'm a firm believer and I know that Carl's got a different difference of opinion on this. But I'm a believer in Sector beers become a sector special become a niche, remove any competition that exists. And the way you do that is by solving really big problems for people who've got money. So it's taken us it took us 15 years of my company to get there. I would say now, humbly, we're probably the number one independent advice firm for and it's a micro niche.
Unknown:yourself a drink, a very long drink. It's Storytime with Alan Smith.
Alan Smith:Ashley, right, go drink. Let me tell you a story. I learned this idea of law via a niche specialist. One of the people that introduced me to the to the real idea and really got me into the weeds on this is some of this well known thing to most people, or some people in the room you've mentioned before, call Richard Scott Richards, aka the behavior gap guy a few years ago, and a very close friend of mine is gonna say, I used to live in London moved to London a while ago, timing was perfect just before COVID for about three months.
Andy Hart:He emigrated for three months.
Alan Smith:So I used to hang out with him a bit because he lived near me and we and he would and he was talking to me about this idea. Go go super nice. And he said no, it's not particularly well, and I don't think he talks about it an awful lot. But he's built two separate multimillion dollar advisory businesses at different times in his history. Two different businesses in entirely different states, one in Utah and one in Nevada, doing exactly the same model this and he just basically unpacked exactly how he would do it and all about niche. His first niche niche was dentists, dentists in Nevada, you're asked to think but yeah, they are the welfare moclobemide. And the second was like real estate guys in Las Vegas. Anyway, he was telling me about this, this is a story go live remembering it makes me shudder. But listen, that so he said, Look, would you like me to come to you into your office into your team? I'll just present to the team about what I did. He said he said I do this but I do I've got a presentation. So about 40 minutes I do and I just I unpack exactly step by step what you must do in order to become a niche specialist and grow your business really fast. And I said I said nobody charged $5,000 for you my close personal friend Alan on the house I said I mean, so he comes in to our office he doesn't listen to this does he? Not he comes join me for coffee because he might listen to this you want to go for a beer I don't drink more for some water. Anyway, so he comes to my office and he and we got the team together and he was fabulous. And he did this presentation just unpacked the whole thing all the demonstrations showed exactly this is what you do to build the business from zero to at least a million pound revenue and being a sector specialist, that whole thing and he brought his own MacBook to the presentation that will disclose the slides that he was sharing with us and he said would you mind after sponsor finish this? I'm going live on quite a big podcast in the US if Can I just borrow a room? I said of course go so once you've done with it so does the presentation to us wonderful everyone loved it we all sort of finish up and go about our business call goes to use the gents comes about whilst he's going away we've got this young kid who has another story story he was is the son of one of my best mates now one of my ex best mates according to His name is George this kid he's lovely kid but you know he's he's not the most going to organize anyway he's clearing away that table behavior gap call Richard has left his brand new tops top of the range MacBook on the table. George has got to pick it up all the glasses and stuff he and I can walk it in our boardroom George just drops this massive jug of water and I just did that slow motion I'm trying to grab his MacBook and it would not get there in time the whole water goes all over it oh my god and I'm quickly like you know get trying to get all the water off shake it off and because he's still at the loop has just broken glass everywhere water all over the table all over his bloody computer and carcass as well. sort of I've made it as dry as I possibly can because right okay, I'm gonna use the other. I've got my room for this live podcast now. Off he goes unless he's walking through this water dripping podcast and he said, Hey Alan did anyone spill any water on this? Oh, I'm so surprised they charged it. Anyway. That was it. It was an absolute shambles. It was a it was a it was a disaster. We had to give them an old laptop of ours to do his live podcast.
Nick Lincoln:Just just just just just the point of being slightly pedantic. The question was, how do you design your ideal
Alan Smith:name is to be a nice specialist. He told us me a nice specialist, I went off on a tangent sometimes. So anyway, that's that's I would I would have enough capital. So I would expect, I would expect not to have to make any money, I wouldn't have to take on anyone that knocked on our door or be sort of all things to all people. I'd want to identify specialism that I like to work in, and you can't just see business owners as not specialism. And I would effectively eliminate all competition, but it would take me two years to get to breakeven points or things like that to make sure I had sufficient saved capital to afford my lifestyle. And I'd look for investors to get into it. And I would just nail a specialist, you know, sector, and then the whole other thing, and the last one and the way I do that is I'd effectively build a media business. I do like the version of what Dan's done. And, you know, this is where we're all finding our information, and to become Vigo to absolute no competition expert for a micro niche. That's very good. Very good.
Andy Hart:So your free presentation ended up costing you five grand in the end, I had to buy a brand new MacBook. Yeah, which I remember the story well, over to me, is it I'll be a big issue Ultra. Yeah. hunchy Okay, so my first point is following on from Alan's is marketing marketing had been the key thing. Key person of influence I thought Alan was gonna allude to, which is the Daniel Priestley thing, I think it's very, very important. Social media is huge. building a personal brand. leverage social media as best as best you can try and be unique, and you need to do it yourself, you can get other companies to help you and assist you. But I believe it's the 8020. Again, 80% of it needs to be coming from you 20% of the assistants, it when it's flipped the other way around, you will almost do a minimal and you expect them to do more. I don't think it's very effective marketing. So my first point is on marketing. My next point is a bit in the weeds, but it's what we do, you know, it's our it's our day, job day in day in, day out financial planning, I believe it's absolutely vital. You know, you said, hands on financial planning, you know, I talk about Business Smart versus clients smart. So the clients might think you need to get right. And to do proper financial planning, you also need to do it live collaborative with clients. That's my my main thing. And then I'm gonna find the easy way to drop some Ultra thing here. I'm trying to trying to try to straddle it. My final point is about fee models. I think we're going to move to a hybrid model, I think there's going to be an agreed fee, and then still a smaller ad valorem fee, I think fees are going to come down on the high end, and they're gonna go up on the low end. And I think the hybrid model is more scalable. And we'll get the computers and machines do all the boring stuff in the backend, the plumbing in the admin, and we'll still have that client. Sorry, human, human focused advice on the front end. Yeah, I
Alan Smith:think well, hybrid trees, agreed fee, everything's an agreed fee, which is a major fix. I
Andy Hart:mean, there's couple of people in the room that would be subscriptions. Subscriptions. Yeah. advisors that charge what we traditionally call fixed fees. When they hear agreed fees, they prefer that because fixed do change. So the agreed fee is a little bit more flexibility. I mean, it's framing and wording, but that's everything we do we sell the invisible, so it's important to frame stuff correctly. Anyway, agreed fees, I prefer to fix fees. That's it. As a bonus point, it's all about asset allocation, knowing that global equities and returns, you know that all the clients need everything else is noise and distraction. That's me who's next?
Alan Smith:What would you do if you set up an advisor business?
Unknown:Exactly? I'll let you know.
Carl Widger:Yeah, so I kind of came at this from a little bit of a different angle. Clearly, as you say, right. I'm thinking about how do I set up a financial planning firm that you could scale? And also, I talked about it from money being no object, because you're right, like, clearly, probably everybody in this room has done the whole one client at a time. And then when I got a few quid in the bank, I hired my first person or whatever, and you build your business through that. So let's just say money isn't an issue here. How do you build a financial planning firm that you could actually think about scaling because it's not easy? It clearly isn't easy and it takes an awful long time. So the first one is exactly what you bought said right now I'd hire a CMO, our marketing department and as you say, become a content machine or a media company, right? I love both of those phrases, right? And, and you build a brand. And in the brand, you start telling stories about the good we do. And I think you know that that's really, really important. And unfortunately, it sometimes takes a number of years to get to the point where you can afford to do that. But imagine if we could all do that here. Imagine the power we would have about the storytelling about financial planning, I think that will be absolutely amazing. So if you're not doing it, we've probably proven in this thing, right? That, you know, getting out there and telling stories, and just telling people exactly what you do day in, day out. That's enough, it does not need to be really polished, you can make it more polished as time goes along. But I think creating that content, creating that, that media company idea, I think that's absolutely central to it all. Okay. The second thing I would do, if I was to try and set up a financial planning firm, that was that was scalable. I'd hire as fast as you can. Or if money is no object from the AF, C O, write an Operations Officer and have that person in your decision making room. Right. So this is someone who I would say, own some shares in the business, and you set up systems and processes that you don't veer off, because it'll make you the main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing. So if you can always, always, you know, it's really, really important. This, this makes sure that you decide, this is what we're really good at, these are the services we're going to deliver. And this is all we're going to do. So I'm sure I know, we all get these, you know, oh, invest in this great company, or that this great thing or every single week, certainly, maybe it's even more often than that. And it's easy, then once you decide this is all we're going to do, we're going to be really, really excellent at it. It just clears away everything else. And then you have you have absolute clear road ahead. This is what we're good at. For me, this goes back to the point about the so I know every single marketing book is going to tell you to niche down, right. I think it's bullshit. I don't think you need to do it. Right. And I think that, you know, it is okay to say we're going to deal with successful business owners. Because I think successful business owners need financial planning. And I don't need to know intimately about their business, in my view, I know, probably everyone disagrees. But this is just the way we do our business. And if you have, like, Okay, we have minimum levels, and all that kind of stuff, whatever you have minimum levels. What you want as a human being doesn't change. If you're a surgeon, or a football player.
Alan Smith:What I'd say caught on that is as you grow your business, you should have what is like why we call verticals, you should have a team of people who are just nailed on experts, and I don't know, tech entrepreneurs in Ireland, or whatever knows. And they know all the like, they go to all the conferences, they read the magazines, they go depart the community, and this other guy from generic IFA down the road says, Oh, I'm interested in that as well. But it's this guy he knows about our our equity schemes are sort of share options, and all the rest of it knows intimately. But then unless the market is sufficiently big, that you're restricted, you say, well, now we've got we've got this vertical, we've got this, and it's some of the organizations that do that. And they do really well. What I'm saying is you eliminate competition, if you are a generic advisor to God, or financial planner, to affirm and you're just another financial planner, and you don't know their their world and you know, going to their conferences, I read in the magazines, and all that sort of stuff. You don't know what the news, it's going to say earlier on. We do a lot of a lot of our work is whether it's a micro niche is media companies, television production companies. I mean, there's only 100 in the UK. And obviously it's not a firm in the UK that deals with a financial planning side, the owners of those businesses, but I read their magazine broadcast magazine know if they've won an award and all these things, and it just is the glue, what we're recognizing is and technology's going to make this more and more relevant. It's all about the human connection and to have that call and say, Oh, notice that Joe Bloggs won the award yesterday it's just part that's why I would say it's part of it coming back though, and just to challenge you if I may for a bit so I didn't know when we decided this it wasn't money no object. It's money. No object. Yeah, I'd hardly Learjet and I just fly fo my clients around the world but as you face the challenges have hiring a chief marketing officer and the chief operating officer is day one, you have any revenue. Yes, that's that's the challenge. So you got to have to It's either you can you've either got, it's either going to cost money or time. If you've got no money, it's going to take time. And that's that's the thing. If I was working for a firm, and I think I had an idea that I was going to, I could, I would give this a go. And by the way, it's much harder for those of you who haven't done this yet, because I know this from a couple of experiences. It's much harder than you think, you know, starting a firm from scratch, and I'm trying to trying to grow it. But I'd be building my own personal brand on the side, I don't know, I start a YouTube channel, I do something I build a community such that, Oh, yeah. And that's so that's gonna take so I'm gonna stay in that situation. I ain't got any money. But I'm going to build a community with my time, my evenings, my weekends, my whatever, I'm going to create a white paper, I'm going to create documents and read stuff, solving the unique problems of the audience I want to deal with, you got to make the choice. Most people aren't fortunate enough to start a business unlimited. You don't know.
Carl Widger:But look, all fair points, I suppose. The the market I operate in? Is the Irish market, just the size Manchester? Like, you know, you say go after all the I think well, we used to say that. Well, I don't know if
Unknown:it's a detail. Slight detail. There's
Carl Widger:gonna be a couple of million out there, right. Yeah, but I? Yeah, I don't know, do I? So I'll ask you this question. Right. And I have one kind of controversial thing at the end that I want to throw in, right? And if so, your your niche is? How
Alan Smith:many fights do you need? Support? How many clients do you need to service to for one?
Carl Widger:No, but I suppose I made the point at the start and trying to scale this. So it's like we're getting the world grow? Yeah. So the question I'd ask you is your niche is media entrepreneurs, that is say, so if a surgeon walked into your office with, you know, 14 million in his bank and said, I want financial planning, are you gonna go? Sorry? You are
Alan Smith:probably not right now.
Carl Widger:Well, we will soon, we will soon. So does niching in the marketing books, and then his niching in the real,
Alan Smith:alright, so that's an extreme example of a surgeon walked in with whatever name the numbers are, or the or the, honestly, right now, because other people do, I would say, I've just done it a couple of times in the last few weeks. And it's they're looking for specialist skills that we haven't got, and we can scrap around Oh, my God in my in our early days, is we know we know a phrase, I'll give it a go. I've got I've got some funds in a Swiss bloody offshore ladder that I got so used to live in Australia, I'll give it a go. I would rather just say it's not our bag, and I'll find someone like Chris Emma or someone around the room to say you're better suited to deal with. That's a very fair, I just don't want to deal with
Carl Widger:Nick does the point I'm trying the point I'm trying to make is that if I get that, and you'll be right to you know, to give it a go stuff is never ever you never make money out of that has never worked. I didn't just become an absolute pain. But humans are humans and of humans with money need financial planning, that's my view, I'm open to doing challenge. My, my, my, my last point is probably controversial, right? So I would I would hire, so we're all about you know, it's the financial planning. And that's the core. And that's the thing that matters. And that's where we add the value. I've changed my mind a small bit, right on the next thing, I'm gonna say it is still all about financial planning. And that's where we add value. If I was to scale, and I wanted to go after inverted commas, high net worth clients, I would appoint a CIO, a chief investment officer enough to say, oh, let's look at this fun and that funding whatever, I just put the CIO together with my CMO, because one second, and I get them to find loads and loads of ways of providing evidence and stories and reassurance as to why Evidence Based Investing whether that's passive or whatever, right, Evidence Based Investing, which, sorry, timeline yet? I don't know. I'm not very familiar with timeline, other than they are our partners today. Thank you very much. We love you. In my defense, they do not operate in the Irish market. Yeah, yes. But we can't wait to welcome them and go and call but yeah, but i would i would i would i would i What are high net worth clients have told us is we were way too evangelical about the financial planning and dismissing almost, you know, that that investment, Vanguard investment, and they want more, and you need to, I think to be taken really, really seriously. And remember, I'm talking about trying to scale something. Yeah, I think you need that strength in your business. And that's something we're gonna look at for sure. But it does not mean we're going to change any of our investment philosophy still the same. What
Alan Smith:would this person do? Today
Andy Hart:Yeah, I was just gonna say if I if money was no object, I would employ a part time CIO, why did they come up with a strict reason not to do in its own bollocks? Yeah, just, it's all right now. Yeah, sit there and do nothing.
Alan Smith:They'd be more of a presentational type person. Exactly know about speaks
Carl Widger:all that language. And so my, the way I'm thinking is that obviously we have enough clients now that there's an awful lot of reviews. Sorry, planning meetings go on. And the clients have told us Yeah, but what How's How are my funds performing versus the market you're doing? That doesn't matter. Your only benchmark is yourself. That's, that's pissing them off, right? No, no, I just want to make sure that we're not like way underperforming here. So can you just tell me, so my idea would be that to separate out the financial planning where we're adding value, you do that first. And then at the end of the meeting, you have your a CIO? Does people in the audience do him know? He's totally wrong? He's talking through his head, right? Fair enough. This is just my thoughts at the moment that the CIO will come in and go, now let's talk about your investments. Here you go. And it's 10% of the meeting, or it's 10 minutes at the end. But it's a it's, you know, straight up and it's coming from someone who's qualified knows their stuff. And like you say, really good at presenting as well.
Alan Smith:So a niche in other words, that's what they do. It's, they're a specialist investment person, what you could do is you can have someone on your team, any of your team right now who got some Ruby, my colleague, great, he just loves all this stuff. He's in the weeds, and he reads all those dimensional papers and stuff. And, and every now and again, someone wants that conversation, but he's a financial planner. Yeah, bring him in for that. I mean, in from a commercial viewpoint, the sort of person you're talking about is expensive, Chief Investment Officer part time to say Just don't touch anything, just come and present the stuff you could upscale or whatever and existing personnel in your team. They'll be someone who just loves all this stuff. And you say he's called Give it a good name. I'm a big fan of titles and naming products on the investment director Correct? Exactly
Carl Widger:what I'm thinking he in Japan, you know, hiking, not for you. Okay?
Unknown:If you're listening, he's too good. A financial planner, exactly.
Carl Widger:Is your biggest fear and are definitely not.
Alan Smith:Okay, what would you do? What what do I do object?
Nick Lincoln:How would I design the ideal financial planning practice? I have mentioned this before, by the way, which does not sound ideal. And I know we're talking from the position of having mature businesses. So maybe we're projecting that onto our comments here. I know that it's very hard to go out on your own at the moment with the FCA and they're getting through their, their vetting process way harder than it was then when myself and Andy went out on our own but a decade a decade and a bit ago. SJP is a route of course, there are quite a few SGP people, you underestimate the power of the dark side. Quite a few SJP people here today. They're going back to Coruscant tomorrow. The Emperor is calling and this has been something with the charges he's not happy Palpatine having a rage. What would I do? What's pretty much what I did to be honest with you. So I set out in 2008 and I you know, Stephen Covey write the seven habits of highly successful one, which is why I'm sort of moderately successful the other six I couldn't be asked with, but the one he had that resonated with me was begin with the end in mind. And when I set out in 2008, I began with the end in mind, I just did the metrics and I'm amazed more people don't do this. I worked out what lifestyle I wanted, how much I needed to learn gross, to get that lifestyle because nobody lives off net. We live off. Nobody lives of gross we all live off net, right? We live off net. I've worked so we had to get gross netted that down to the tax, okay, that will support my income. To get that level of my lifestyle to get that level of gross income. I need x number of clients generating Wi Fi that gives me Zed turnover. I'm going to build backwards to build a business to give me that turnover. So I did that. That'd be the first thing I do. Just get the metrics down, have a plan of where you're going right? Begin with the end in mind, and then work out your why Okay, for me, it's giving people money, peace of mind. Okay, sounds trite. Maybe it is trite. But that's what I do for people. I don't want maths. I don't want high net worth. Generally, they're a pain in the ass. They're never happy. They'll never give you the whole slice of the cake. So they've got a retinue of advisors. By the way. You mentioned, Chris. Emma is not sure if I mentioned Richard Holmes as well again, because I got permission to share with both of them. But only if I mentioned them both. But the high net worth guys, they've got a retinue of advisers you'll never get all the cake. I want mass affluent people who are never sure if they've got enough that's my target market home counties coming into retirement and just want someone to say Nick, are we going to be alright know your target market and know your why metrics first then know your why. And the third thing and this has become more important to me and again, maybe it's with the benefit of having a mature business. but just learn the not for me principle. When you are talking to prospects, they think they're vetting you. That's rubbish you're vetting them, you are vetting them. If you bring these people onto your bus, you are driving them to financial nirvana for the next 30 or 40 years. And if they're a pain in the ass, it's hard to kick them off the bus once they're on it, and you're traveling down that road to salvation, trust your gut instincts and turn away as many referrals as you're taking on, which kind of ties in with what Alan said, about I'm not interested in someone's got an Australian superannuation pension that he wants to use to pay off his Swiss Swiss mortgage. I'll give it to setting his company in the in the Seychelles,
Unknown:I'll give it a go to clue us.
Nick Lincoln:I'll give it to Paul clean with it. No, just just be really, it's, again, the art and the science of our thing. And people think, well, human intuition, that's rubbish. There's no such thing. I'm telling you. It's strong. If you don't like somebody within the first 510 seconds of meeting them, you probably aren't going to like them. I don't like most people when it's the first time I've really honed it down. I mean, it works both ways. Yeah, so have a have just been a be totally comfortable with turning people away. And then the end, you will get a client bank. So to use these pejorative term, the sample job but as human beings, but you know what I mean, you'll get a client bank of people that liked you, you like them, and they'll start referring people that they mixed with because like mixes with like, and if you've got clients you like the chances are you're going to like their friends, and they're going to like you in return. And if you get the referrals off that habit, have a scarcity mentality. Don't be worried about saying no to people because the door will open and someone else will come in. To have a really good look, I've got a lifestyle business and to a degree as a lifestyle business, we're so low advise, I really am a solo. It's just me, I outsource everything. It's just me. It's a lifestyle business. I only want to work with people. I never want my phone to go and think ah, Christ on a bike. him again, her again divert. Just because we've all been through, I'm sure we've all worked in companies that are like that, right? You can create a business in your own fashion where all your clients you like most of them become friends and most of your friends will eventually as well become clients. And that's why I say no your metrics. Know your why. And turn people away. It sounds counterintuitive. That's what they're saying. The younger advisors who are here, think about doing it, because they won't be told that it'll be about sales cultures, you might be buying in leads crashed on a bike, God help you. It's not going to it's going to end in tears. So the moment they can tell
Alan Smith:you you make a good point. And again, we've we have spoken about this in the past when I first met Nick, that was a story in itself that's within the bar afterwards. But being really clear about whether you are going because of a different you there's I think about 50% of advisor firms in the UK, our sole advisor firms 47% Last sold advisor. Yeah, so you gotta you gotta be very clear. I didn't I just thought you're supposed to grow a business. So I sort of start hiring people and stuff. But so if I was doing it again, I'd be super intentional. There's two examples on the stage right now. There are amazing solo Lee with a bunch of them. There's some advisor firms, you're either doing that and being the best solo advisor firm, or you're hiring, you're scaling you're recruiting and you know, you got your three year five year sort of vision and plan. Do we clear because I was very unclear for a while.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, let's see. All right, brilliant. I think we've given the meat and potatoes a damn good thrashing. I can see on my nest camera, that post is dragging the bulging sack. Up the drive. That's the barging sack of tracklist questions which are still sent in via Royal Mail unbelievably hits the post. However, we've got a dedicated q&a session after this. So we're going to skip the crappiest questions in this episode. And we'll have a 32nd 30 minute q&a session. We're going to turn the tables a little bit I'm gonna throw a question out to you dear trappers who are here today. So if you open up your phones and if you can go to this website on your browser tiny.cc/trasporti Five tiny.cc/trap 45 This is episode 45. We're in May, I'd like you on that Google form that you're bringing up to enter your name and what you think the level of the s&p was at. In May 1945. What was the s&p is tiny.cc/trap Live key Keith s t i n y yes okay with a good man. Okay, so enter that the first 10 or so to get close to guessing what the s&p stood at in May 1945. When a highly coveted no expense spared trap coffee mug, which we will give out at the start of the q&a. Okay, let's move on culture corner to culture corner.
Unknown:Time dot CC forward slash
Nick Lincoln:tiny T i n y working off my pronouns really serious I will I will look into this tech snafu in the break so keep it open sorry guys and girls bollixed up that was tiny.cc/trap 45 No I said trap It's a trap 45 trap 45 It does work it does work tiny.cc/trap For five slash
Unknown:forward slash u n one more time tiny.cc
Andy Hart:forward slash trap 45 for tiny dots
Nick Lincoln:it's a new one actually done it it says working poor What's the secret
Alan Smith:to you taking care of this technology yeah
Nick Lincoln:it's a guy amateur. Right speak to Amelia she's our texting coach Coach
Andy Hart:corner Okay culture corner is crapping on Alan all the time no not not long right guys
Nick Lincoln:guys and girls guys and girls will sort this out right right yeah, sure good, right. Smith the wealth This is how we roll the wealth money can't buy
Alan Smith:culture corner coach quarterbacks we know is books podcast nothing else I hope you're gonna again the wealth of money can't buy a book by a close personal friend of mine by the name of Robin Sharma some of you may have read Robin Sharma books in the past 5am club or something but very good. And he's got a brand new book I went to his book signing other day in London and had a chat with him he's but it's Robin Sharma is very I can upload kind of spiritual sort of duties in theory there's other was the monk who sold his Ferrari I like his stuff, Nick, just you know, you'd hate it. Yeah, good idea. It's just because it's spiritual and human meaning
Unknown:meaningful he wanted 150 grand to speak by Oh, my Lord.
Nick Lincoln:George Kinder questions. Have those trees maybe.
Alan Smith:Robin Sharma, the wealth the wealth of money combined or something like that?
Nick Lincoln:Money can't buy Yeah.
Alan Smith:It's a good it's a good yeah. I recommend it. Okay,
Nick Lincoln:mine is the billion dollar loser the epic rise and spectacular fall of Adam Newman and we work so this is an interesting story in its own right. I would recommend you get it. I read it on Kindle. It's a great it's a great book. It's it's well paced. Why it's interesting to us as real financial advisors in this thing of ours is it just emphasizes yet again how people want to be sold a story. We have this sort of desire to be sold to to believe there's a new paradigm that someone has found something that inverts all the rules we understand and we follow these people. And people follow this guy Adam Newman, a very charismatic guy, six foot five, long hair, shorter length hair, used to walk around his office in a T shirt and jeans and barefooted. And it's kind of the Messiah figure it basically he was a landlord. That's what he was. He would rent office space and then sublet it out and charge a margin. And his company we work there, whatever the ones in London has one in marrowbone near you, they're all around the globe. And he was a people got sucked into believing this guy is somehow changed that the landlord business model and he his business was valued at billions based on the funding he was getting anyway, he came to his IPO. And suddenly his hard nosed bankers came into the room and said, This is built and this is just this is a house of cards. This does not stack up. And it's hubris it a bit like sand bank when flooded with all the sandbags and Fred was an app now crook. He's in jail. He deserves to stay in jail. Adam Newman was just a guy who believed in myself. He said we work was going to change the world consciousness your landlord may get a great anyway come the IPO these big heart you know tough cold glint. I merchant bank said that this is a pilot. This is a crock and the whole thing collapse. Really good read I will suggest you look at billion dollar loser the epic rise and spectacular fall of Adam Newman. And we work Ultra the algebra of wealth.
Andy Hart:Yes, this is Scott Galloway, who you might read his podcast another close personal friend of Alan's. He was on his podcast last week actually weirdly, to start, like a bit of odd question that you asked. But anyway, it's a new book coming out. It's decent, really decent. It's a strong, strong recommendation from me. He's also known as Prof chief Scott Galloway. It's called the algebra of wealth. A simple formula for success. I'm reading it dusty copy is Leeson yeah proper,
Alan Smith:old school.
Unknown:I can read. Oh,
Nick Lincoln:what does this share up? Should we alter you for that? Yeah, shall we do anyway and you can read and you can read.
Unknown:And the the UltraGrip of Darien Andy knows about everything Andy can't be told anything. His name is Andrew Hart
Nick Lincoln:Very good. Very good. Thank you. It's a career high voice informed decisions podcast. Yes,
Carl Widger:there is a guy called Patty Delaney. He spoke at home before an advisor in Ireland does great stuff. He has a podcast called The informed decisions podcast. Yeah, that's right. I have listened to three words. Well, at least a new one to go today. There was nobody else left. But it's short and snappy. He does mostly solo episodes. Really, really good. Reminded me actually a little bit like the hat tip. The money had a podcast which you stopped at 99 episodes, but really, really good. It is a little bit technical sometimes. But I think that's that's that's part of its kind of charm. He does do an episode on Fisher Investments. So they've decided to come into Ireland like whoa right. And they're definitely the dark side so he breaks it down really really well I think is a very fair analysis but he says it as it is so the informed decisions podcast by Patty Delaney
Nick Lincoln:would you say has an Irish slot? I would so goes fishing
Carl Widger:there and then also they'll also see that I was deeply uncomfortable with the content of some of today's always to the Irish versus cultural differences
Nick Lincoln:every time we play that YouTube D monetize us from money we never have This is bizarre. We
Alan Smith:don't know you said your D monetize
Nick Lincoln:things suddenly off the top was not even on Thank you. Thank you. Okay, listen, we've that is about an hour and 20 and we have got to have a 10 minute recess. And then we're coming back to the q&a. So I'm going to just close up here on behalf of the track pack. I want to say the thanks now so we record it so it goes out I want to thank some people I want to thank Amelia for MC I want to thank Dan Hale It was excellent I want to thank I want to thank my wife for helping promote this event details including a link to the purchase tickets I want to thank Craig is the AV guy in the back there and I want to thank Laura the events team at the Hippodrome they made it remarkably easy to book this compared to other events in London. I've talked to anybody about off the record where not to go a real absolute shambles of a company I want to thank Vanguard I want to thank timeline Vanguard have got a fantastic landing page. Please do look at that we'll send an email after this specifically for trap attendees today great resource timeline put a landing page together it looks like it was coded by car but they put one together have a look at that and that will also be in the Speak truth is your job and it's really good to George on video. JOE We love George on the video but mostly we again are speaking on behalf of trackback we the trackpad I want to thank you the Trappists the last couple of years have been absolutely crazy and mad ride thank you for making the commitment today. We love you
Unknown:to the q&a You don't have to go there we go upstairs Yeah upstairs
Emmelia Powell:Hi. Hi, everyone. Hello. We're gonna start the q&a now. Have you heard the ball you can stay the if you're standing and talking. Just don't stand in the way. Everybody else. Thank you for sitting down. Over to you Nick. Okay,
Nick Lincoln:quickly. We thought Jesus Christ right quickly, we're gonna go and give out the prizes for the people that got the closest to the s&p in May 1945. The answer was 15. So in no particular order, hold your hands up if your name is called out, please we have Peter Turnbull, Jason Mountjoy, Rory Cunningham yesterday. have Google right? Yeah. Cool clothes with Charles single Hearst, Keith button. Dark Groeneveld Jackie Davidson slacker, your hands are up in the air so that you're getting it good. Right guys distributed prizes. Please. Quick. Just Just see if you're going to take these home just so you know for those of you with an ESG Ben because we're bigger. There's no way that's speaking about to South Africa. Yeah. Because we're big into seeing ESG shoes. Well, I could have had to wonder you guys keep on talking right? Are we done? Okay, cool. Right. Those mugs are made from recycled active fund managers. Okay, second thing I want you to if you've got a question for us, now's your chance to ask it. Can you put your hand up to see if we had set how many people are prepared to ask a question? Because I have faced notoriously shy one gentleman at the front raising one one department to the back to the next. You've never seen any more than two people amazing. Show we just go straight to the right game. Yes.
Andy Hart:Well, who's the first question, Nick? Because they know the scripted questions that they that yeah, they might not need a mic if they can do by the way.
Alan Smith:Time when we got to be out here.
Nick Lincoln:So seven o'clock alum. Six months? Question. The gentleman at the front. Say your name. How
Unknown:long have you been in the business? Hi, guys. Graham. I've been in the business since September.
Nick Lincoln:One question no multiple clauses or I'll kill you.
Unknown:If you were looking for financial advisor yourselves, and out of the four of you, which one would you choose? I can answer that.
Alan Smith:Because I'd like to introduce you true story to my personal financial planner. Andy Hall. He holds me accounts of fixed fee, obviously.
Andy Hart:High fixed bid agreed fee agreed fee. I've got to answer that. I would probably say Nick. Yeah. For me. It's good question. It's a very good question.
Carl Widger:So stupid. Make just a call. Because I'd keep looking.
Nick Lincoln:I, I this makes me feel sick to the stomach. But I would pick Ultra course I pick up. Yeah, who would you pick?
Unknown:We did this on the train down and I went to Cal.
Carl Widger:That's just because he feels sorry for me because nobody else does. Don't worry. I don't mind. It's all
Nick Lincoln:commission offset I would do. Okay, great. Second, second question. Please put your hand up. That'd be shy. Stephen Evans.
Unknown:Stephen Evans, 35 years and advisor. When you talked about when you were talking about building a business, you didn't mention purchase of other businesses and no other and you did that once, many years ago? And on the basic principle that if you've been raise funds, what's your cost of capital? Or what's the return if you buy a business? And if the return is greater than the cost of capital and you've got a good deal? What's your question? The question is, why didn't you mention that when you're talking about building?
Alan Smith:Okay, I'll give you my personal experience. I've done it twice, actually, very, very early days and in a very minor, minor way. acquired two kind of retiring advisors sole trader advisors retiring and came up with a deal and it is a good thing. The world has changed a lot since since then. But if you can do a deal, and it's a mutual win, win, and if you're a younger guy, you can take over retiring guys and work work out the financials. I think one of the podcast episodes now I remember it, we had a we had an episode called and it was like our biggest mistakes. It wasn't it was one of our longest episodes. And I discussed one of my kind of just a real challenge that I had a few years ago, I was trying to make an acquisition. And here's the thing, Steve, I agree with you and some people like you, Steven or no, well, I've known for many years, one's business called Evans heart and he's made a great success out of doing lots of acquisitions. And it's another one of these things you're either in it or you're not and I was a bit hybrid. I was kind of dabbling in it. As I tried to do it, and here's the actual thing that's a bit like the 4% rule. Your spreadsheet says, Yes, I can buy a business, I can fund it through debt, the cost of capital, make sure that the revenue and all washes its face. Here's what gets in the way. Human beings. That was my experience, sooner more by the dreadful experience for the human beings involved with the business I was trying to buy just kind of toxic human beings happy to say that
Unknown:he's not here tonight
Alan Smith:with Keith, and I go back a long way, we just have a chat in the toilets. So I think that's a steal. I take my hat off, do you seriously you've done it? Many acquisitions? Have you done 60 acquisitions? Wow. You nailed it, you did the numbers, and you must have some special skills of dealing with human beings. The things I found out about a lot of advisors is they've got big egos, you know? Yeah. Oh, Andy. So you're right. I've tried it sort of didn't work really, for me, but all credit to you because you've made it work. But these guys forget it. Next question. I don't think buying a
Nick Lincoln:business. Okay, we've got we've got all and then Keith, behind the variable.
Unknown:Hello, portlemouth. I've been advised 24 years. My question to all of you is, what is your definition of success? Or true wealth? You choose? Which one you want? You want to answer?
Nick Lincoln:Oh, that's a tough one car. Oh, true. Success,
Carl Widger:freedom. I'm going to answer the one that you you said I had a choice. Yeah. So true, for me is freedom of time. So you manage your own calendar, freedom of relationships. So you do whatever you've decided you want to do with whomever you want to do with freedom of money, guess that's what we're all doing through financial planning. But I think the big one that everybody misses is freedom of purpose. So too often, Dan spoke about this earlier on. It's all my number is whatever my number is, and I'm going to get there and I'm going to retire and then I'm going to do nothing, I'm going to lie on a beach or play golf or whatever. And I'm sure loads of people in this room have had experience of that not really been the dream that it was kind of sold us. And so I think I think the world is changing. I think the whole like, don't not use the word retirement because that's what our clients know. Right? But we got to, at the same time, move the word retirement away to this third act that I always talk about. And it's the it's the freedom of purpose, but it's what is the purpose? What gets you up in the morning, myself and Alan have spoken about this? Because, like, what would happen if you know, someone swooped in and bought a business bought your business? Well, you know, like that, I know, personally, would not be good for me. I love love, love what I do. But if I didn't wake up in the morning and have a purpose that I loved doing. So for me, that's the key element of of the definition of real wealth. It's that I can manage my own diary. Do what I want to do with whomever I want to do. Don't have to worry about money. But I'm waking up each morning loving what I'm purposely driven to do.
Nick Lincoln:Polar that Success to me is is it's similar to yours call very well. So Success to me is waking up every day. And just loving the job. I do wake actually waking up every day to a dry mattress misplace key. Those pants are good, Keith, by the way. Yeah, thanks. Have you achieved it yet?
Unknown:No.
Nick Lincoln:It's waking up and just think. Honestly, it's Oscar Wilde. It's waking up and just loving your job to me that success. I mean, it's sounds trite to gammas you know, we all know in our future lives I've started our past lives I'm sure we all had bosses we work for and maybe in different careers and we weren't we woke up on a Monday morning I thought Jesus Christ. Allen Smith is my boss No, it's just yeah, that's it. For me. It's just I love my job. It's the knowing that knowing I want to do my job As long as I've got my faculties really beyond beyond the accumulation of my number, because I really love what I do, and that's that we're blessed to have that. That's so many people get up because they have to pay the mortgage, and they hate it. And they've got to do it and we're kind of in a bubble I think in so it's just it's just that's to me success. And
Carl Widger:you've got a whole client bank of Victor Meldrew. So it's like, manna from heaven. It's like, Oh, my God, I have arrived. Yeah, my my
Nick Lincoln:climb back in is to six people now. Family, they're a minute late for the zoo anyway. So I'm giving you a Keith Keith, I think we all had a chance to answer that. No, no, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I'll
Andy Hart:do it very quickly. Sorry. I've got a long winded answer. The true. The true wealth, things above my station for today. But the success thing, I think he's just waking up every day. Pretty much doing what you want to do. You know, the joke is, imagine if I had a real job, you know, my granddad was down a coal mine. You know, my dad had a proper job in the city and I, I do what I do. So I'm blessed anyway. So yeah, waking up, I've done pretty much doing exactly what you want to do.
Alan Smith:over to my friend, the short answer is time, is freedom of time, and options, toxins and choices, you say we are here, we're human beings on the planet, once so many of us. Other humans don't have options, they've got choices, which are driven by economic demands, and swapping time for money and all that other stuff to have options about your time. And just to sort of add another bit of color, the thing that really I think about a lot is this other thing called potential is achieving, achieving your potential. Because you get to a certain point. And you know, Carl, and I were, you know, we've talked about this in the past. Here's, so you want to sound like he's a sound, but the definition of Hell is, on your last day on earth, the person you are met the person you could have become. Alright, so what else could you achieve? Every single person in this room me included? You know, you could achieve more could achieve more and I don't mean financial, necessarily. Or it might, we've got other things that we can achieve. And I'm just I'm kind of driven by achieving my own potential, those of my team, my colleagues and others, and His ways and means of doing it. And I think we should all go out there tonight, tomorrow on the rest of the week, in the month and do our best to achieve our own human potential. And also, as Dan referred to help our clients to achieve their potential as well.
Nick Lincoln:Maybe just very quickly, Paul, can you give us your succinct definition by the microphone of what you answer your quick answer, please?
Unknown:Quick answer. So I heard this recently, actually a warren buffett thing which I really took to heart, he said that the definition of success is having the people that you want to love you actually love you.
Nick Lincoln:Wrong audience? Audience raw support, right, next question.
Unknown:But some crowd that will teach you
Carl Widger:again, applying or if ever there.
Unknown:Keith button, just 39 years of age 37. My question is more about people coming into the sector. So there's a big cohort of people that are looking to come in no experience, they want to be in the independent financial world, they understand financial planning, there's a lot more knowledge out there that there is a big cohort of people that are learning now, where they want to come into, but there's no real pathway for them. So as a collective group, what's your thoughts on the best pathway for these people that have got no experience? Maybe some qualifications? How do we develop a pathway for them?
Nick Lincoln:So the first step on that you will? Listen, I noticed that it's a trigger trigger phrase for many financial advisors ifas but I do think St. James's place Academy in a world where we don't have direct sales forces anymore. We don't have that insurance company, broker consultants going out there. They have a fantastic training academy. Okay. And you can see why younger people are attracted to them, they give them the support they help them there with business plans. Yes, their business model currently is under scrutiny but ours is gonna be under scrutiny those who are enjoying SGPs is travails at the minute just you just watch your own backyard right because it's coming to us as well. Loving my answer SJP June I
Alan Smith:think Keith I you and I would remember and how I grew up and I joined a big institution and the training was first class and my see and we had this thing that you had to sort of nowadays speak in hushed tones about called sales training. Who does sales training and alone you know, you learn a lot you don't have to listen as I'm demonstrating. And that kind of doesn't exist the kind of old industrial type thing. Let us do it for ally crowbar effectively learned all he knows. So we so we went through allow If I didn't exist, I would say right now, I mean, Keith, what's the name of your firm? Boost boost. And you are from what I gather new. And, Josh, you do some great things and you build your own programs and your recruiting, you're talking about even career changes as people like you. But there's also, I see quite a lot of resources is a company again, I'm gonna get it wrong but verve and they do some stuff up your new startup advisory firms. You do do a little bit of homework, there's quite a lot as it goes another podcast, obviously not as good as ours, Sam, which is named Sam oaks, financial life podcast, he's got lots of good things. He's got a number of inroads and structures and options. For people who are doing it there doesn't seem to be other than things like this SJP Academy's M and G Academy, which is another one there's, there's more and more of this. In other words, there's no lack of options. All right, you got to do your homework, you got to do a bit of effort and find it. Next, a next gen a right next gen. Great stuff, great, great, great stuff. But you kind of got it. There's no dis natural path, like I used to do in the back in the day because worked for Prudential or something like that, and they teach you everything you need to know who you are today. Congratulations. Most of
Nick Lincoln:us stumble into this thing of ours don't mean we stumbled into it.
Andy Hart:You guys want a final point? I don't know what the answer is. But I know what not the answer is where people do the exams on their own while they're working as a waiter, for example. And they struggle for three or four or five years and then they approach a good firm, like people in the room and go, I'm qualified, I've got my five exams, give me a job. I think I think that's a sub optimal way of doing it. So the least worst option may be some of these Academy options. But again, through your work through CSI and stuff, this stuff can be made better. So it's an ongoing your your journey into the profession, my friend, how did you come into the profession in September?
Unknown:Running Cafe cafe. Tell us briefly, briefly,
Carl Widger:your sub optimal according to
Unknown:I used to do the exams on my own and then I joined the SJP okay.
Carl Widger:You're going to be known as so
Unknown:now he's flying
Nick Lincoln:on a call card. Just be nice to have a female voice. Are there any ladies with the hands raised just for sure. Hamrick? Yes. The lady behind you behind you, Amelia. I'm sorry. No, that's fine. That's fine.
Unknown:So like buses.
Nick Lincoln:And if you get your get in, right, we'll get you
Unknown:pregnant. So for me, it's a question about AI. I don't know whether any of you have seen the reed Hoffman. The reed Hoffman, interviewing his twin. Right. And Reid Hoffman. He is the founder of LinkedIn. And honestly, his AI twin is better than yours. In terms of, you know, he's just a very eloquent, etc. So that made me think about where could I industry be going in terms of AI and automation and replacement? You know, where could we see the industry changing in the near future because of AI? Okay,
Alan Smith:Chase, first of all, of course, that stuff is amazing. And the future is everyone can have on their phone, Nick Lincoln in their pocket? The answer is one thing to AI will never ever be never ever be human. It just can't. It's not human. And that's the thing we are called sentient beings. We feel we touch we think we join the dots, on screens, everything else. It is just incredible. And let's bring it on as fast as we possibly can. But they will never sit across the table from you and have a cup of coffee or a beer or a glass of water and have a conversation about life and human beings and elevates all of us in the room who were human first financial planners, but there is the best thing
Andy Hart:but there is a lot of awesome companies new startups coming into this space to disrupt it as there always is.
Alan Smith:A Saturn AI in the room Ray boys. So Saturday, I check them out. If you haven't what's the website goes?
Andy Hart:Obviously robos came to disrupt us we're gonna do that. Yes. The AI stuff I'm excited about it's enhancements in technology, which I'm which I'm all about. But obviously at the moment they're dealing with. They're as strong as the weakest link in the chain. And there's always an incredibly weak link in the chain like they're coming guns blazing with a cherry Ain't everything that Phoenix rock up? And it's like, yeah, good luck deal with those guys.
Alan Smith:So I've told you a solution earlier on.
Unknown:Do you know what I think? link in the chain? No problem.
Alan Smith:But I think one of the challenges because because you've got like read the reed Hoffman and others. One of the big things all of us need to alive to is fraud is fraud. What are your going to do when you get a video call comes up on your phone, wherever from your client, it says, Can you send me 50 grand to my bank account? And it's it's then, but it's not them? Yeah, obviously
Andy Hart:be on the alert for it. Next question. Okay, three minutes.
Unknown:Jim McLaughlin, lost it all.
Carl Widger:Just just on the.ai question, right. It's an amazing question. And it is so so big. It is just I don't think we can do it any justice, by answering with Dubois arguing amongst themselves over there. But I think if we are not aware of this, if we're not all over this, then we you know, we'll get left behind. So it's it's a great question. Thanks for asking.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, this might be the final question. Sorry.
Alan Smith:We really got to be out of here. Yeah,
Unknown:yes. Stop wallowing. I'm Georgia. Hello. been in production for five years. I'm a career changer. But if you had to change careers tomorrow, and it could not be financial services whatsoever. What would you choose?
Alan Smith:I'll cut to the chase resources quickly to the time I would get into something creative and media driven or tried to be I don't know at marketing advertising. Something that people that were you could influence people's behavior and decision making process. I find that stuff fascinating actually doing that in an ethical way. That's what I would do. I'd
Unknown:get into AI
Carl Widger:professional rugby player
Nick Lincoln:I go back to my old modeling. And on that bombshell on that bombshell of questioning, maybe Okay, Mr. Prince at the front here, our friend from the northeast.
Unknown:Thank you Ray been in business for 30 years now. I know don't look over yet anyway. So the question is will the regulator ever understand real financial planning?
Nick Lincoln:Okay, I'll go first one I not in my life of my career. I don't think they will do I know these compliance consultancies don't really get it I was with simply because for years and years and years, decent enough of what they do, even in 2022, when I'd when I let go simply because they still thought we were product pushers. And if these firms can't see it, I don't see it. That's that's the price we pay to be in this wonderful game that we're in with a regulator that doesn't know us ask them his elbow, most of the time. It's got a really tough job. And it's it's really shit at it. Here's how I look at
Andy Hart:all go next. Maybe Alan Turing,
Alan Smith:by definition really can't do because as a regulator, they had to be driven by data, facts, spreadsheets and stuff. And this stuff, Neverland, some spreadsheet, those conversations in your 30 years you've been you've been in the room is having those conversations where there's like, you know, the hairs in the back, your neck is standing up and the rest of it, you can't put that in a spreadsheet that never have and stop expecting them ever to tick the boxes, go through the process and just deliver world class service to your clients.
Carl Widger:I'd love to answer the question, but I'm not going to write because I think they've answered it beautifully. I would just like to say because I think we're coming to the very end right? For me, I'm just so grateful to be in this room tonight. But I would like to just thank Alan Smith Allen Allen is a close confidant of mine and yeah, but but certainly we bounce ideas off each other on the heart for introducing me to this group of nutcases. But there is one guy who keeps his show together and it is I mentioned Victor Meldrew. Right it is like working for Victor but the guy does unbelievable work there would be no trap podcast without this man thank you
Alan Smith:big shout for call widget from Ireland thank you
Nick Lincoln:okay okay, guys and girls it's just gone 7pm We do have to be out of here I'm gonna I've said that thanks already the thanks a heartfelt We love you all. I do want to thank timeline and Vanguard again. They put an effort into to give me some landing pages so when we send the email out to authors do investigate that to fantastic brands. I mean, we are so lucky when I came into the industry as it was back then in 1993. It was a shitshow. Really, really was and we're getting there. It's a brilliant profession. Let's make it better. Let's go and have a warm sherry. Good night and get out.
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