90 - BRETT DAVIDSON: The Financial Planning Wizard of Aus

TRAP LIVE26 tickets on sale here: https://www.therealadviserpodcast.com/

In this latest pile of TRAP, the Trap Pack discuss

• Topical Titbits
• Meat and Potatoes: The Financial Planning Wizard of Aus
• TRAPist question from Patrick Duggan
• Culture Corner

Show links: http://tiny.cc/traplinks

============================
Take part in the conversation! We want YOU to suggest topics and questions you’d like the Trap Pack to answer. The best way to do this is to ask them here.

Help us to help you! The more followers we have, the more we can do stuff going forward. So please:

• Subscribe and Like our YouTube Channel
• Leave a 6/5 star review on iTunes
• Share TRAP with your peers and colleagues
• 'Enjoy' the Twitter chat at @AdviserPodcast.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:08

Matt, welcome to the real advisor podcast, T, R, A, P, trap. Please follow us and join in the conversation on Twitter at advisor podcast, where you can suggest ideas and themes you'd like the trap 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 pile of trap you it,

Nick Lincoln: 0:43

dear trappers, welcome back to what many people are calling episode 90 of the real advisor podcast. My name is indeed Nick Lincoln, and joining me as ever in the digital studio of doom, are two of the three other Horsemen of the Apocalypse, because a good friend, wodge, the voice della Voce. He's floating somewhere with the sharks in the Indian Ocean. We don't know quite where. He doesn't know quite where. So it's the three of the Track Pack today, and we're looking forward to it. So before we get started, let's kick off episode 90 of the real advisor podcast with another high energy review, read out by my very good friend the right honorable Mr. Andrew Usain Hart,

Andy Hart: 1:24

before we start that, Nicholas, I just thought I'd do a bit of a shout to the TRAPPIST across the pond. It was the Super Bowl of the weekend. So big shout out to the Seattle Seahawks who beat the New England Patriots. Did you start for it? Nicholas, no. I love

Nick Lincoln: 1:39

American football. The Super Bowl is totally overblown and hyped up. And I wake up in the morning and I watch the highlights on YouTube without trying to see the score. So I watched that. It's quite the Seahawks are very good. They're defensively very strong. And New England have got a very young team. But it wasn't a classic, but to what? But they've been Andrew, I do believe they've been more.

Alan Smith: 1:59

Yeah, we know. Move on. Come on. Come on. Move along.

Andy Hart: 2:03

Stay on the egg shaped ball. So the opening match where France absolutely hammered Ireland.

Alan Smith: 2:09

Oh, brutal, Yeah, where's watch

Andy Hart: 2:12

and then your next game was an absolute thriller in a very wet Rome. What was the final score in the end? Alan, I

Alan Smith: 2:20

don't know. I mean, the game should have been called off. It was just it

Nick Lincoln: 2:24

was Scott's normally used to playing in balmy sunshine, whereas the Italians would struggle in the rain.

Alan Smith: 2:32

It was a bad game. Bad game. What do you think of the Scotland shirts? Though? See that pink, nice pink, mauve color

Nick Lincoln: 2:42

wasn't our

Alan Smith: 2:43

wasn't our finest, because we're saving ourselves for the next.

Andy Hart: 2:47

Oh yeah, yeah, the cup is the only game you think about.

Nick Lincoln: 2:52

Goodbye, Greg, right. Okay, come on,

Andy Hart: 2:55

Saint heart, yeah. Okay, just, just to tie by in the rugby and then obviously there was a master class England against Wales at the Allianz. Let's call it.

Alan Smith: 3:02

Oh, you're English now. Andy, I thought you were Welsh or Scottish, or whatever it was, whatever, whoever's winning, right? You currently English. You may be French. You may dig out some French ancestry, Nick Scottish.

Andy Hart: 3:13

I just look at the league table and work out what I am for that exactly for those few weeks. Okay, moving on, a review entitled helped prompt a career change. Stuart Heggie, five stars. After over two decades in fund management, I'm now well on track in making the switch into financial planning, and benefited from the help that The Verve foundation provide. My decision, My decision was in part influenced by listening to the back catalog of trap credit an enormous thanks to all. The podcast is irreverent, amusing and informative, and equal measures for me, the good humor, humility and candid opinions of Carl bring balance to proceedings. Long may that continue. Well, he's away today. He's away today, but we'll be back just humility. Despite having worked in active management all my career to date, I remain curious and open to building a central investment proposition that best serves clients, perhaps predominantly made up of passives. On that note, I look forward to your discussions on that topic. Too many active passive chats become binary and as such, boring investing has not and will never be solved. Interesting, interesting choice of words, power to your elbow, gents and all that you do with trap. Looking forward to meeting you at trap live. Thank you very much for review. Review. Back to you. Nicholas, great stuff. Thank you, Stuart. Appreciate that, and do keep the reviews coming in. TRAPPIST, we absolutely love them, and they give us ideas about what to talk about what to talk about future meat of potatoes. And we are going to give the active, passive debate another good raking over

Nick Lincoln: 4:47

in a future meat of potatoes, specifically around the star manager concept, and Mr. Smith, Terry Terrance, will be part of that. So listening to that one as and when we can get it planned. Okay, let's crack on to the topical tidbits for. To put episode 90, put a put a timestamp on what's going on in this thing of ours? Yes, of course. Trap live tickets. We literally now have just a handful left. So if you want to come, and you don't want the worst ever bout of FOMO that anyone on planet Earth is ever going to have, come along to trap live, 13th of May in London, right by Great Portland Street tube station, the real advisor podcast.com, we've made it easy to click. You just simply click on a box and it pops up and you put your credit card details in. It's all the rage. It's going to catch on. We've broken the internet. Look forward to seeing the TRAPPIST there, and talking of people are going to see it. Trap live. We had a we had a great time last, last week at fundment LIVE. Fundments live event in the heart of the West End. Really good day. Some really good speakers. Professor Brian Cox was was, you know, just, I know, and he weren't mad, and I thought was an excellent mind blowing kind of stuff around the cosmos and where we all came from. And, you know, it's just just too big for my small brain to grasp. Friend of the show, Daniel Priestley also, was there, very good value. Samantha Russell, friend of the show, part time trappette, when we can get her on. It was really nice, really good. And then we had the charity event needed. So thank you to fundment for that, and nice. And you know, all three of us, I'm sure we all had the same experience. The TRAPPIST is coming up to us and being so lovely and just taking time to say thank you. It's just, it's, it is, I've been humbling. It's just great. It's just great to meet the people community, because fundamental about community, and if I think trap is absolutely about community, if you are coming to trap live, you will see it's not just us, Gibraltars talking on stage. It's about the whole thing. It's about talking with your peers. It's about having a laugh. It's about sharing things, connections being made. It's a young audience. Connections made at trap live will last. Could last, could last, theoretically, decades, and lead off into companies being formed, and partnerships emerging, and so forth. So, yeah, but anything, anything about fundment life?

Andy Hart: 6:51

Yeah, I'll chip in very briefly. I thought was a superb day. The venue was amazing. Yeah, it is all about the community, the networking, and in some cases, the not working? Yeah, no, I thought was brilliant. The stage was mind blowing. Yeah. We had a great time in the evening as well. Nicholas, you came back to my hotel to get ready. That was an interesting hour of my life, doing your bow tie after a few drinks. And then we went to an amazing black tie dinner where we were. We dance, dance the night away. Over to you, Alan, and it's also your birthday today, my friend. So happy birthday. One again, a lady's age. So over to you. How did you enjoy fun man.

Alan Smith: 7:36

Fun man. Was great. I think Nick said, or most of it, I like the energy around that organization. You know, I'm not overly familiar with their services, although we are speaking with them, but I just love the energy. They're a young tech startup, fundamentally, so all the people around them are that sort of person, you know, ambitious, energetic, trying to make an impact, trying to change. And you're right. Obviously, they are great partners of this podcast and conversations I've had with Ola, the founder and CEO, over the time, that's what he keeps saying, all about building community. They've got a superb office space in the West End of London of brand Fitzrovia, which they use very successfully and wisely and gather people together, because no one has got a unique monopoly on ideas. Everyone's shoot has got ideas. And just the sort of one plus one equals 10, just speaking to people bouncing ideas off the one challenge I had was hanging out with you lot and a bunch of others in the evening whilst I'm still doing dry January at the time, and the conversations were getting progressively worse for me and louder as the evening wore on. So I did sort of take my exit and left like Cinderella when the time was right. But brilliant day, brilliant evening. Congratulations to Scott, to Ola, to Lori and all the team at fundment. Really well done.

Andy Hart: 8:54

Yeah, no, agreed. The final, final thing, the final thing, I'm going to say, I bumped into about 2025, people at fundment That said, Oh, I still need to buy my tickets for trap live, so I'm shoehorning that in there. Do grab your tickets before they sell out. Back to you.

Nick Lincoln: 9:07

Nicholas, always be closings to heart. Get those statements. Get the top of the table all right. Get those state modes right. It's staying with you. Ultra and one of our favorite platforms, because we do like it, even though it's expensive, but not as expensive as it once was.

Andy Hart: 9:22

Yes, so this is Hargreaves Lansdown. They got recently taken over, went private, and I was quite surprised that they come out with this news. They're reducing their fees, which is the general sort of direction of travel with all the platform markets. Sorry, all the platform providers, they reckon that 94% of their clients will see no change or a reduction, so only 6% will see an increase. And there's whole full full detail about it, but their main fee is going from 0.45 to 0.35 but as a wider note on this, before you guys chip in, I am just i. Being just bombarded with advertisements at the moment, mainly on the radio, mainly on print, from all the investment providers out there, pension, B AJ, Bell, Hargreaves, Lansdown, Vanguard, HSBC, I've made a note of all of them, interactive investor trading two on two. IG, I'm just every second advert on the radio is an investment platform. It's time of year, isn't it? Which I basically say is sort of his time of year. But I don't think it's coinciding with ISIS season, really. But this, if anything, should promote an investing culture, not you know, some committee of the FCA that come out with some what I mean is corporate, corporate fire power, marketing spend being thrown at it. So I don't know if other Trappists are experiencing the same, but just an absolute overload of advertising from platforms at the moment, direct to consumer will, I'll add. So yeah, that's it. HL would reduce their fees. I'm sure the others will follow any comments on that.

Alan Smith: 11:04

I saw some commentary on social media about it, and it does depend on what sort of investor you are. For example, I don't know all the detail, but if you buy individual stocks, there's a lot of Hargreaves DIY retail investors do, and you buy and sell, it suddenly become much more expensive. I can't remember what it is, but the sort of cost per trade has doubled or trebled. So this is where people, if they do pay attention to this stuff, they say, Look, if I'm a long term buy and hold and make a monthly contributions, then some platforms are better than others. And again, it's all about value, as Nick always reminds us value, not price. Hargreaves does provide a lot of bells and whistles, great, great

Andy Hart: 11:46

tech just they used to have this oddity. I know a few boys picked up on this, but they used to treat ETFs as shares, and they didn't used to charge their fee against it, right? So you could effectively have 5 million pounds in one ETF and pay nothing via hl. I learned this from a client and looked into it. It was correct. They've backtracked on this loophole now. So for example, you now will be charged their platform fee on their ETFs that they're now not treating as shares. So yeah, there's a, you know, devil in the detail and that sort of stuff. But yeah, good news all around, I'm sure, yep.

Nick Lincoln: 12:22

Okay, good stuff. Okey, dokey. So Smith, you lead off on this, and then it's going to segue into Ultra,

Alan Smith: 12:31

yeah, it's, it's, I guess it's big news in, in our in this thing of ours, which is the Wednesdays going out Thursday. So the recent news that Evelyn partners, which are a very large wealth manager, financial planning investment advice company, have just been acquired by NatWest, the NatWest group in a what was it? I mean, a number kept going up when I first saw it was a 2 billion pound deal. Last time I looked it was 2.77 closed Yeah, 2.7 closed deal. So So, I mean, that in itself is of interest. That is that kind of at scale. Because if you look back to the origins of Evelyn partners in the group that that in itself was a PE funded amalgamation of, I mean, who was it originally? Was this, I get confused. Were very acquisitive just before they merged with Tilney Smith and Williamson. I mean, Smith Williamson, in my day, they were a big, big company in accountancy practice, what have you, which I think they've hired hived off, I believe, and it's all focused on the wealth side. So, so my take on this is quite interesting. I also keep an eye on the sort of big ticket M A activity across the pond in the US, and you look at JP, Morgan, Goldman, Sachs, all these like really major banks, investment banks, they are now coming to the conclusion that they just call it wealth Wealth Management. This is a really valuable piece of their pie, their revenue generation. A lot of the other activity in banks is very seasonal. There's times there's lots of activities, lots of trades and m&a and what have you, particularly in investment banking. But wealth is seen as pretty sticky recurring revenue that's pretty defensible almost regardless of prevailing market conditions. So they see it as a nice, dripping Roast of profitability. And that West too, as you know, not that long ago, were effectively bankrupt as part of the RBS group and were bailed out by the taxpayer.

Andy Hart: 14:26

Well, that was 18 years ago, Alan, but

Alan Smith: 14:29

nevertheless, nevertheless, so obviously, they have slowly but surely recovered. The other thing about NatWest is they do own part of their group is Coots, Coots bank, and then Coots wealth management. Quick aside on that, then I'll hand over to you. Andy, I met, no names mentioned, but I met with somebody last week who's very senior at Coots. And they just were saying, said, We cannot make money on wealth on the wealth management, which I found interesting, said we make money on lending. I mean, we make money on. Banking, just basically banking costs. But the wealth thing we find because just the kind of regulated environment they've got to operate in, obviously, is a tier one bank is a real challenge. They've got to put money aside all sorts of complex things. He said, We barely make any profit at all on it, on a ball. Another wealth management, yeah. Now whether that means, because this, this is obviously far bigger, I believe, than the Coots wealth management I presume it is. Coots are expensive. Well, they again, they've been trying to curtail their costs because they were losing a lot of big customers recently. But, yeah, it's an interesting dynamic. There's a lot of moving parts known in that West group with Coots, with Evelyn and all the other parts, and it will take a long time for them to assimilate. You know, culture is the biggest thing when groups and organizations get together. But it's a huge story in our space, and it shows you again, this has all been driven by the private equity investors that are sort of pushed up, push these deals through and increase the prices over time. What are your thoughts?

Andy Hart: 15:55

Andrew, notice, yeah, your final point is key there. It's a massive success for the PE backers that have salt in that West, I think is the first purchase they've done since they've been 100% owned by themselves, as in the government don't own a slice in that West. I think Evelyn partners are around about 70 billion assets under management at the moment, which is, you know, pretty, pretty sizeable amount. I don't know what they're going to do in terms of keeping the brand names, or they're going to merge them all into, you know, Coots, as it were, long term. That's the, that's the status brand. I mean, Evelyn was one of those homogenous, or just, you know, bland names that don't offend anybody that was created about five years ago. I think, yeah, it's massive. And the the CEO of NatWest said today, or the last few days, the main focus is going to be to promote financial planning within their wealth arms. But again, they've said this many, many times, so we will see how active they are with that. But they know they can't just focus on the investment management fees. They need to add, add more due to all the competition. So, yeah, very interesting purchase. Pretty massive. Royal Bank of Canada bought brewing for under 2 billion, I think so. This is one of the biggest purchases we've had for a long time. And I know quite a few advisors who sold their businesses into Tilney before they then merge. So they might have got another clip of the ticket, as they say, we will find out. Over to you, Alan,

Alan Smith: 17:24

yeah, I'm just coming back because I think it is worth worthy of just sort of loitering on this for a minute or two. And I was just looking down our slate to see if we're going to bring this up later. I don't think we are specifically, but again, I'm just throwing in anecdotal kind of word on the street type things this. Look, it's been well documented. We've raised it many times in the past that the PE fueled M and A activity around your financial planning companies, wealth manager companies. What I'm seeing, and some of it comes up a little bit on trap, is, you know, down in the weeds on like the day to day financial planner job, you know, five, 710, years ago they were working for, you know, Joe Bloggs and his business partner, IFA. They were bought by somebody who was then bought by somebody who then Tilney acquired who then merged with Evelyn was now about NatWest. And the job they were doing 1015, years ago, happily looking after clients going about their business is an entirely different model. Actually, I am going to refer back to m&a. I think in a couple of things, there's some interesting new data about it. But just, you know, the odd cup of coffee I have with people, the odd DM I get on LinkedIn, and what just, there's, there's, there's some, let's just put it this way, there's some. Maybe we'll come back to it. There's some uncertainty, if you are sort of grassroots, trying to get on with your job, financial planner delivering high quality advice to your clients, because your environment has changed quite dramatically.

Andy Hart: 18:51

Yeah, I had a conversation with someone this week. Their business was acquired, I think three or four years ago, specifically to your point, their power planner went with them. Then they were in this big beast of a machine. And, you know, I think they've just now been let go, because they were saying, Why are we paying this power planner X 1000s, when now the going rate seems to be a lot lower? Yeah, so getting swallowed up, down into the big beast,

Alan Smith: 19:17

shall I let me just bring forward, because I was looking down the slate. This is going to throw Nick completely. Sorry. Let's stand by. But there is a report. There's a company, and if you sort of thing that you look at, Andy more than any of the others, but company called Marsh Berry, seen them. They are very active in they are like, I would say, an M and A advisor for mid market, I would say, and they produce a report. Got none of his monthly or quarterly. I have put a link to their most recent one in the show notes. And it does say again, because we're always thinking, well, this is going to this is a flurry of activity which is going to run out of steam. We've been saying that last couple of years, markets change environments, change interest rates to fund these. Deals have gone up. But so far, according to the latest data, there's still a lot of deals being done all the way through from, you know, obviously this is one of the biggest ones done in years, but all the way through smaller companies, mid sized companies, ifas, wealth managers, investment businesses, there's lots of m&a activity going on. And as I say, what happens? I mean, on a personal basis. I don't know if you guys pick up anything on this, but we do get, not a load, but we do get a reasonable flow of new business, new prospects and inquiries from exactly those. Imagine those sort of retired couple that were dealing with Joe Bloggs IFA, and went for a cup of coffee with them and went for a glass of wine chit chat, and now they're owned, now that he's he or she have retired, and they've got somebody who's telling them there are fees, your fees are going up, and you're going into our model portfolio, which is twice the cost that you were paying when you had a small IFA. And those at those very clients are then saying, hang on a minute. I'm going to have a look around. I'm going to see what else. Because I do like that kind of boutique, smaller, more highly personalized business, and as we I've already mentioned, you've got advisors as well who are reviewing their options, shall we say. And I've had a few conversations from those people in recent times. So change, change creates opportunity. There's this. It creates threats, depending on who you are and what circumstances that you're in. But there is no shortage, and it does not seem to be slowing down anytime soon, according to that most recent report.

Nick Lincoln: 21:27

Nicholas, yes, well, I can. I've got family experience of this now. My the boy. The boy works for a decent firm in up the road in borehamwood, near L Street, WD, six, and they were bought out end of towards the last year by salts, one of these big consolidator kind of companies, and they've sort of swooped in on this, this, this, this little, not it was this decent size IFA, but it's, you know, it's a provincial IFA, and they've come in with their own systems, and we're doing it this way, and everything's all up in the air a little bit, and that they're aware of it Soltis and must. But, you know, there's, there are also opportunities aren't there? Because if, if you work for a regional IFA, provincial IFA and you're taken over by big company with branches all over the place. I mean, Salters have got ifas all through the city and so forth, all through all through London. So, you know, provides opportunities as well as being disturbing at the time of acquisition. But there's an awful lot of it going on. And my son is, yeah, he's a he's experiencing it. He's experiencing it. Okay, let's crack on, because Tempus is fusion.

Andy Hart: 22:22

All good training for him when he takes over the empire.

Nick Lincoln: 22:25

Nicholas, yes, indeed, the Empire.

Unknown: 22:29

Lincoln and Lincoln, you underestimate the power of the dark side.

Nick Lincoln: 22:38

Darth, Empire burgeoning as we speak. Okay, I think I've got a point to raise now. So, sekel. Sekel, this disruptive. I mean, that's just overused bloody word disruptive. I've just kind of used a kind of a quick, a disruptive platform that, ifas can white label, apparently, very, very sort of leading technology, very low cost. And, you know, it's a good friend of the show, literally, a good friend of the show. David Ferguson, one of the one of the good guys, x nucleus, I think he's chairman. Now you can disabuse me of that, Alan, but they had their reports came out, their financials came out. And, you know, as good as second apparently are, and as good as their proposition sounds on paper, you know, they are burning through money. And they they had a 22 point 2 million loss for the 2023 financial year, 140% increase compared to the previous year. Their assets under administration, 6.3 billion. Sounds like a lot of money, because it is a lot of money. But in the platform space, it's not enough to make a profit on. And they're going they're burning through the cash. So just want to keep an eye on there. We know people that have used second they've got some quite big brands. You know, have used entire Abraham for, I can say timeline, I believe, are powered by seckel. Some other big are the big companies, Soderberg, they also are. So, yeah, what do you think? I mean, there was a good there's a link to it. It's a long it's a long article, well written article on on city wide. Well worth taking five minutes to go through, if you're, if you like this thing of ours, and kind of in the weeds of it all, it says, well worth reading.

Alan Smith: 24:32

Yeah, I mean, you're right. Mean, Fergie is a close personal friend, both of me and of the show, and he is, yeah, he's a supreme operator. He's been at the coalface man and boy for many, many years. And he's got this. I just, I found, I did find it interesting, the move away from CEO to executive chairman, the role of a chairman, again, you tell me what the role of a chairman is. A bit more of a strategic, less hands on day to day. Again, we are, I suppose, a lightning rod. We do hear a few of these stories, and I have heard this, you know, they've gone into a few companies, and all is not as it might wish to be in terms of their delivery on these because companies are building this. You know, Seco is the engine room, and then they're building their stuff around it. Again, I've got small sample set. Only a couple of people have mentioned this to me. They're not loving it on the basis that, and quite right. Lately secular, going where the big deals are. They've aligned themselves now with Monzo. Monzo obviously huge disruptor, digital bank, entering the investment slash wealth space and using powered by secl. Now, obviously, if you're secular, you're going to put a lot of resource into making sure that works, and perhaps a little less into, you know, your local IFA firm who've aligned again. This could be just a one off, couple of comments and feedback I've had from people working for firms that have aligned themselves with them. I guess all platforms will go through challenging periods. They are privately owned, the part of the octopus group, which is not a listed business. They can be patient, unlike some of the others who have got, you know, a lot of backers, investors, VC money, or even publicly traded like transact, where the the time horizons are clearly far shorter. They're looking at quarterly returns. So I have to say Nick it was, I can't remember who put it in our chat, but it was a good kind of long form, well written, well researched article, which was me, yeah, it was, it was definitely interesting. And look, we've already talked about Hargreaves Lansdown. There's a continual attempted land grab to gather what the hell's

Nick Lincoln: 26:45

track pussy. I've got to go deal with Penny's pussy. So give me that two minutes. I throw it the drop kick. The Scottish should have kicked on Bloody Saturday. What?

Alan Smith: 26:55

All? Right, he's gonna, he's gonna drop kick. Penny's pussy, fine, but, yeah, there's, there's, you know, it's all about asset gathering when they're taking basis points. Seco, like others, have come in on a sort of modern digital platform, which is gender generally lower cost, and therefore there's less revenue. So, you know, I'm sure they'll all be fine, but people may have to just be a little bit more patient than they have been in the past. And if any thoughts Andy on seckel as a as an offering, or what, or the article

Andy Hart: 27:26

you've covered, most things, it's written by Vicky Bell, one of her, one of her better articles is a very much a deep dive. So pour yourself a cup of tea. There's 220 people that now work at secall. So they are feeding a lot of mouths. They are part of the octopus group who are very deep pockets. So they can continue to fund this. They obviously see a future in it. I think it is a compounding beast. Obviously, they are paid on the ad valorem basis, so obviously, the more money they look after, the more profitable they'll become. I don't think they're going to become profitable for a couple of years, but I don't think that's the concern that, you know, they're a genuine startup, so I think their future is quite bright. That Monzo tie ups. Interesting is that going to be transient money? You know, putting a grand in, putting a grand out, putting a grand in, put a 900 quid out. You know, it's very hard to make money from those types of clients you need the more mature, older, stickier, long term money. I know second have got partnerships with so many people. So, you know, even their legal team and their procurement team would be probably 50 people. So yeah, I think they're going to do some interesting things. I think they can move a lot quicker than a lot of the other platforms. So yeah,

Nick Lincoln: 28:41

watch this space. Okay, cool, right? Let's crack on. Keep the show going a nice, brisk tempo. Okay, Andrew,

Andy Hart: 28:49

okay, so this is the CIS eyes, annual financial planning conference. I've been going pretty much for the last, I don't know, 15 years. It was the IFP originally, then they switched to the CIS. I was definitely there last year. I may have missed a couple of years along the way, but anyway, they've got their 2026, financial planning conference. It's in Windsor on the eighth and ninth of October, Thursday, Friday. I've just booked my tickets this morning, and I'm just mentioning, I think the early bird tickets increase Friday, tomorrow or Monday. So please do grab your ticket as we mentioned about the fundment recent conference. It's all about the community, meeting people, discussing ideas, picking up a few nuggets during the breaks. And you get to stay over on the Thursday night, and there's a bit of a black tie dinner on the evening. So the usual shebang. You boys didn't come last year? Did you get FOMO? Or you gonna come this year. Nicholas, is it a bit too far to leave Watford? It's Windsor,

Nick Lincoln: 29:54

sorry, I zoned out. Where's it? Windsor, again, is it Windsor, yeah, Windsor. Windsor, I'll have a look at the agenda. I haven't the lady, the lady there who runs these things, Anna, she's very pro trap, so it might be good just going on. I don't know I would look at the agenda, probably not, to be honest with you,

Alan Smith: 30:14

okay, I think that we need to be selective. I'm sure it's good as an agenda. What I think now, obviously, trap live is the number one. Trap live is the number one event in the calendar, and it just so happens, I. Like the fact that it sits around Mr. Brett Davidson, who we may be hearing a bit more of shortly his conference. And the following day is the advisor 3.0 so there's a lot of you know, conference activity in that time, in May, fundamental hours in the calendar. There's so many you can go to. I'm a big believer in showing up to a number of conferences throughout the year, but we can't go to unlimited ones, but we'll check out CISI.

Andy Hart: 30:55

Yeah, do check it out. There's a link in the show notes. Thank you very much.

Alan Smith: 30:59

Very good. Okay,

Nick Lincoln: 31:00

well, on that note, as you're listening to this two days ago Tuesday, I was giving a speech at a conference the future vision 2026 a conference in near Holborn, organized by the personal finance society, the PFS and the million dollar roundtable, and I'm speaking. I was I spoke at 330 so hopefully I made it through and and the voice you hear now is still alive. On today's being Thursday, I'm looking forward to that. Since it's been a while since I've spoken at an event. I used to speak at quite a few events, and used

Alan Smith: 31:31

to be keynote in a big event, until you were canceled.

Nick Lincoln: 31:36

I think this is, this may be a show, a true receding of the woke tie that Lincoln is back on the

Alan Smith: 31:43

agenda. What's your subject?

Andy Hart: 31:48

Oil stocks and tobacco companies now? Yeah,

Nick Lincoln: 31:51

I'm talking about, I like, how to build a lifestyle, financial business. You know, how I do it, by the way I've done it, how I, you know, the thing I talk about on here, really, you know, if I starting again, how I niche and all that kind of nonsense. I'm gonna try and shoehorn trapping as much as I can. It's a big audience that's about. It's about 300 attendees, yeah? So it's

Alan Smith: 32:12

PFS in association with MDRT, because million dollar round table. Yeah, I think

Nick Lincoln: 32:18

Craig sales, but they've got quite a good they've got quite a good agenda there. And the guy speaking before me is the referral guy who we've heard before.

Alan Smith: 32:25

He's very Oh, Matt Anderson, yeah.

Nick Lincoln: 32:28

So, yeah, it'll be Yeah, it'll be good. It'll be good. Well, I think it'd be good whether, let's see, it could be chaos. Could be another place I'm barred for for life. So hopefully they

Andy Hart: 32:38

record it in video at Nick so we can watch you back and trap or something.

Nick Lincoln: 33:29

Yeah, I imagine they will do but you love it. Andy, the slides, you know, it's like, oh, we want to commit to the slides. Yeah. Can you just do the Oh? And what the learning outcomes and objectives I've got, what you want me to tell you, what the time to whack that into AI and gave him some bullet point bullshit, right? Anyways, two days, two days in the past. That's gonna say what I like, great people, some of the greatest some of the greatest people, China. Okay, sorry, Carl, couldn't help it. Let's move on to Aberdeen, complete sale of IFA, good

Alan Smith: 33:57

grief, well, back on the m&a thing again, aren't we? Did you know, let's go for it briefly, yeah. Did you know that I used to work for

Andy Hart: 34:06

standard life, you can say the wrong thing, though, weren't you because Aberdeen, no,

Alan Smith: 34:11

I used to work, but that's what Aberdeen used to be called, before they changed their name, and there was a different branding, but I used to was a broker consulting. I was in northwest London. There was a place called alperton, which was the epicenter of London financial services. Back in that day,

Unknown: 34:38

I can see my wheelbarrow filling with props signed by the week willing. I was 21 I own

Alan Smith: 34:58

man. I love that song. Brilliant. That could be your best drop jingle ever made. Brilliant so. But that was a long time ago, and they've changed, and they've evolved, and it would be created an advisory arm, which they called 1825, and they bought a load of companies. Over the years, they bought some very good companies, companies few years ago. Anyway, they've decided that after all this time, millions spent businesses bought that they can't hack it on delivering financial advice. So they packaged it all up and sold it on to is it Ascot Lloyd, I think so. That was another monumental, well process. This is, you know, that we go around in circles again, big companies believe they can deliver advice. Very few actually absolute,

Nick Lincoln: 35:49

absolute working example, yet again, of the destruction of shareholder value, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.

Andy Hart: 35:56

I'd love to know the details of this transaction. Alan, apparently it's close to 15 billion of assets, 39,000 clients. That's an average of about 380,000 per client, which is good averages, because that many clients. This deal is valued at around about 500 million. Them. I'm pretty sure Ascot Lloyd paid nowhere near that. This could be an absolute deal of a century for Ascot Lloyd. So yeah, hopefully they do

Alan Smith: 36:25

good things. Well, yeah, it could be. You need to have the scale and the infrastructure to absorb. Don't have any advisors. They've got, but it's a lot, and knows that hundreds of 1000s of clients, there's a lot

Andy Hart: 36:35

of people, so there's only 39,000

Alan Smith: 36:37

39,000 even that you people, you've got to have scale to be able to absorb all those so. And I

Andy Hart: 36:44

guess if they, if they can make this work, it'll be an absolute deal. Yeah, yeah.

Unknown: 36:49

Could be moving on. Our guest

Nick Lincoln: 36:51

is waiting in the lobby. I'm conscious of time as well. So Ultra

Andy Hart: 36:56

okay, this is very brief. I don't know if other people on the call have experienced this, maybe Nick but advisors listening to this, would I so, you know, no good deed goes unpunished, is the saying. So I've helped a couple of clients recently, one who's a client's child, and one who's actually a client. And I've said, look, you've got a few pounds in your pension. Now you want to make sure you've got the right funds. And they say, I'm in the, you know, illuminary to polar lifestyle manage fund. I say, No, no, we're gonna, we're gonna have to look into this. So what you got to do is get me, you know, the options. So that I thought I was doing something simple. I said, Well, what you want to do is, you really want to do is, you really want to look at the options of global equity funds. They say, Okay. Andy, so one client sent me five pages of global equity funds. Another client sent me a PDF from your old employees. Alan, again, there's something like six pages of global equity funds. So you know, you'd ideally want the client to go, oh, I need to choose my own funds. And there's literally hundreds of funds available, which obviously they think is a good thing for these employees, but it's just information overload. They can't decipher what's what. It took me about half an hour to work out what may be the most appropriate Global Equity Fund for one of my clients and your entrepreneurial so if you can't, and I'm an investment insider, so I'm sure other advisors are experiencing this, even when you say, you know, you think you're just going to give them a small, you know, a small nudge, a bit of guidance, and they're going to log In and go global equity funds. There's three of them. Three of them. I'll do a bit of a mix now, 14 pages of different global equity funds that come straight back to us. What one do I do? And it's like, Okay, let me just spend a bit of time thinking about this. So yeah, it was just a just a client story, really. So yeah,

Nick Lincoln: 38:53

good point. And something I noticed with these group pension schemes, they've all got loads of fixed income funds, no short dated ones. And it's just like, well, you must just stick with equities then, because they come the next rate rise cycle, you're going to get butchered, as per the list trust budget. Okay, guys, take through it quickly. Oh, Ultra. Time to talk about you.

Andy Hart: 39:09

Yeah, time to talk about me again. No, this is quite an important point, especially in my life. So I've finally launched a book. I know it's been an absolute labor of love, shall we say, also known as, you know, a freaking nightmare. Taken me about seven years to piece this together. I've tried to attack it a few times over the years. It's cost me a few quid because I've had to get a publisher to sort of hold my feet to the fire as they say. The book is coming out on March the fifth. You can pre order it now. It is called no bullshit, money advice, straight talking strategies to take control of your cash. Oh, that's basically it. It's for end consumers, end clients, end investors. As I said, I thank you, Nicholas. And a couple of weeks ago, a couple of weeks ago, I went to Bristol to record my audio book in a studio. So I was locked in a, literally a shed for two days straight, and it was tough going. But yeah, if you sort of want to support this little project, and you think I've got some okay things to say, then please do pre order the book on Amazon. It's available as dusty, it's available as Kindle, and it's available as order audio.

Nick Lincoln: 40:30

It's a great it's great. Well Well done. Well done. Just one question, Have you counted all the pages? All the pages are there?

Andy Hart: 40:39

Oh, it's quite a short read. Thank you.

Alan Smith: 40:41

I've got to say, is it just one page? So what the first, the world's first ever one page book, and it says, Buy global equities?

Andy Hart: 40:48

Yeah, I did see you later. I did include that one star review of my podcast. You know, repetitive was the title just says, like, buy global activities. I actually have that in the intro, and you have very kindly written the forward. Alan, so, okay, yes, yes, you

Alan Smith: 41:07

said, No, I can't possibly got a reputation to uphold.

Andy Hart: 41:10

You left the review, but my publishers didn't include it for some reason. But watches review as May. You did just Google team, I think wasn't your review. That's two hours of my life. I won't go back again. Something like that. That was your review. Yeah, that did make it. Yeah. So there's a link in the show notes to the Amazon and there's a link in the show notes to the book website, but the book website, okay? Noblemoney.co.uk, thank you very much, everyone.

Nick Lincoln: 41:33

I've got a very quick point. David Coleman, not the former presenter of grandstand, but the live IFA, who's based in Norwich, David common, young guy, had a zoom chat with him last week about how he uses Gemini in his firm. Gemini is Google's AI. David and myself were both immersed in the Google world, Google Docs, Google Chrome, everything, Google Mail. And of course, Gemini is baked hard into that, so it makes sense to use Gemini, and I think it's the best one. He's doing some really interesting stuff in terms of interesting stuff in terms of producing reports, building these Gemini gems, multi layered programs within Gemini, just trigger with a word we're having. So watch this space. And I think he might be coming to trap life. He does live in Norwich, so it'll probably evolve 15 train journeys in a barge. But hopefully we can see some or all the people who just financial planning, right? I think we've got two more points. If we're doing your one Smith disclosure,

Alan Smith: 42:23

carry mine over. All right, it's a perennial hot Okay, let's

Andy Hart: 42:27

close this close with you. Ultra. I know you're chipping through Nick, but I'd be really interested to jump on a webinar with with that guy and maybe some other people will to look at this. Because I'm I'm between the two chat GBT and Gemini. You're right on Google, everything, so that's why I'm a bit more focused on Gemini. Yeah. Okay. This is an article from Jessica Cook, who is a practicing financial advisor, financial planner. I'm not 100% sure about her jurisdiction. I believe she's between the UAE and the UK. I could be wrong on that. Anyway, she is now a columnist for The Times on the money section, she writes some superb articles. I think she's written about five so far. Maybe could be wrong. This one is called, what you were told about investing is all wrong. And she doubles down about how horrendous attitude to risk questionnaires are. How, yeah, you know, not fit for purpose. They are loads of other stuff, which is great writing in a, you know, the arguably one of the biggest and most renowned and established papers for end clients. Yeah, brilliant article is behind the paywall, but whatever, if you subscribe to The Times, you can read her stuff.

Nick Lincoln: 43:36

You know what maybe the mainstream media is finally catching up. You know, maybe the FCA started talking about inflation is being risk, you know, maybe, maybe our voices aren't just being screamed in the wilderness. Okay, I am conscious of time. We're like, 42 minutes in good, really good topical tip is they've given us, just three of us and Carlos floating with the fishes somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Let's let in our guest, the oz streak of piss. He can't hear this shit. Be rude about him. There we go.

Alan Smith: 44:03

Very kind of you. Here he is, hey, there's somebody at the door.

Nick Lincoln: 44:13

The legend, the legend that is Brett.

Unknown: 44:18

Hello. Hi, Brett,

Alan Smith: 44:19

how are you? Hey, then we're all good. Sorry we kept you waiting. Couldn't shut couldn't shut. Andy Hart up, apparently he's got a new book coming out

Andy Hart: 44:29

right up your street. Brett, no bullshit money advice. I

Alan Smith: 44:32

think you've trademarked that, Brett, haven't you?

Brett Davidson: 44:35

Yeah, no. Absolutely sorry. What was that?

Alan Smith: 44:42

Don't worry. We are you're well known. Brett, can you hear me?

Brett Davidson: 44:46

Okay, I can there. Seems like there's a delay. I've got everything shut as as instructed, but

Alan Smith: 44:56

yeah, here we go. Here we go, are you on a MacBook or an apple? There's always a slight delay with Apple. All right.

Nick Lincoln: 45:05

Thumb, then we ask a question, then we shut the fuck up. Okay, do not double dip, right go, yeah.

Alan Smith: 45:14

All right. Brett, welcome to the real advisor podcast trap. Good to see you as always. I'm going to open with a question for you. Now, Brett, you and I, we go back a long way as there's a there's a phrase in this podcast called and Nick's not around to give us the warning bell, but it's a close personal friend. Now we are good, I would say professional friends known each other a long time. I would I remember when you first came across from Oz, and it was more than 20 years ago. I think, if memory serves, and I believe I'm right in saying that I was one of your first clients in that you ran a workshop, I was curious to see what this, this Aussie, had to say. And you got a group of people together in an office in the city couple of decades ago. So we've both been on journeys over the last couple of decades. And really the opening question I've got for you, Brett, is having seen the last. Last two decades, as they've evolved in UK, Financial Services and Financial Planning sector in particular, what are the big themes today, in terms of, what are the what's the current market? What areas issues, challenges and opportunities? Are advisor firms facing number one and number two going forward? You know, the next three to five years and beyond. What do you see the the same things, opportunities and challenges. Over to you. Brett,

Brett Davidson: 46:47

yeah, so I, I think the opportunity is no different, Alan, to when you and I, yeah, yeah. First, first met, like, 20 odd years ago, independently owned firms, you know, run by a founder or a team of founders, have have always had, and today, I think, have more than ever a chance to really do something incredibly good. If you want to stay small and just earn an income, you can do that safely. But I think what I'm seeing is firms like yours and loads of other firms that we see around the industry, there's a real opportunity to scale and to really make an impact. And all the good firms I know, they're not looking to sell out to consolidators. They're looking for internal succession, or EOT or some other form of continuity. And you know, the more firms that get consolidated. You know, the more the PE firms destroy the ethos and culture of good quality financial planning firms, and they do, the greater the opportunity gets for people like you and I and everyone else who wants to still play in this space.

Alan Smith: 48:05

Okay, so it's, I'll just follow up on that, and then we'll hand over to Andy. Obviously, this is thoroughly rehearsed as always, but let me just do a follow up. So Brett, you're just, you're seeing a lot of potential growth in the like firms, like capital, the owner, managed, founder, still, you know, in the weeds, dealing with the team, the clients, what have you. You see that as being a specific opportunity to grow. Because we have been talking on this episode about the very active m&a world, pe companies coming in and, you know, challenging things, but those owner managed businesses, you see a very strong future for them.

Brett Davidson: 48:47

Yeah, I do. And, and the more I like just talk to different people I know who, who are involved, who've been acquired. You know, look, I'm sure there must be, there must be good acquisitions out there. I just don't know any, right? So that's a bit tricky, but, but I don't, I don't know many, right? So, and the more I read about PE in the US, you know, again, there's the possibility of them bringing something cool to the table, 99.9% of the time. That's not what happens. And so I just don't, I just don't drink that Kool Aid. You know, fuck that. I just don't agree at all that that's a great way for the profession to go. And, you know, they cut advisor numbers that they've like changing. Yeah, they'll add incentives. I've just written a paper about not to do that, and I just, I just don't buy the story. So yes, if you are a client focused, founder or successor, or just a good financial planner who's client focused, I don't see anything coming. Ai included, that's putting you out of business.

Andy Hart: 49:55

Brett, welcome to the show. My first question to kick off is, what firms do you see being in the most trouble? Shall we say? You know, is there a pattern that you see, like a size of firms, staff, numbers, service, service offering? Yes, firms in trouble. What do you see as a recurring theme.

Brett Davidson: 50:21

It's, it's really, it's tricky to try and give you a like, a really tight response to that, but I think, I think Andy, the firms that are getting it right, the key bit is about building a great team around the key people in the organization, whether that's, you know, a one founder firm or multi advisor firm, got to build a great team. Great financial planning is a team sport, right? The days of the charismatic, you know, salesmen are just just gone, not that the communication skills and good advisor skills are not important. They are, but you don't deliver it on your own. So I guess, I guess the firms that are in trouble for me are the ones that are unable to to address that you know, to address that issue. And most of the firms that I see selling to consolidators, these are people I've met who've told me they never want. Do that. And next thing you know, I just see somewhere in a newspaper they have and I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, not dissing on those people. If I was in their situation and I couldn't quite get it together, I would do the same thing, right? I got no crimes. I'm not thinking it's morally wrong or anything, but I just know most people who've done it didn't want to do it, was a thing. So getting into trouble means not addressing the foundational, fundamental issue of building a great team that can deliver, you know, to for clients.

Andy Hart: 51:51

Just on that point Brett is that because obviously the money talks, you know, they've obviously got their strong principles about not selling out, and then they inquire to a few firms that they think are aligned on principles, and then they get an offer that's three times the price, you know. So is that what you're seeing? Because, again, we've also experienced some of that as well with the

Brett Davidson: 52:18

people we know. Yeah. Look, I think, I think there may be some of that. And again, I'm not even casting judgment on people who make that choice, like it's up to send it off to an individual to decide, is the money more important or a particular sort of ethos. But I think there's the other group of people who are selling because they just couldn't get it together, and again, I'm not I'm not being rude. I think that's just where they find themselves going, Look, we gave it a good go, and this isn't working out the way we wanted to. We struggled with certain issues, and they feel like they have no option but to sell out. Like to do anything else is sort of self torture, or it's going to cost them a lot of money, and I don't blame them in that situation, I guess. I guess where, you know, I've tried to insert myself into that situation, is saying, Look, you know, we can help people solve a lot of those issues that they're struggling with, right? So without being too self promoting, that's my whole raison d'etre is to go. It doesn't need to be like that. So, so if people really don't want to go down that road and sell out on the basis they didn't want to do it, I think There's us and there's other people out there too providing great support to fix that stuff.

Nick Lincoln: 53:34

Okay, great stuff. Great stuff. Thank you for that, Brett, nice to see you again, fella. Thank you for coming on on track. Our erstwhile Irish colleague is swimming somewhere in the Indian Ocean, so he can't be with us today, but he did pre record a question, which I'm going to hopefully play now. Brett, hopefully you can play it. So all cross our fingers for the technology and we'll hear Carl's dulcet tones.

Carl Widger: 53:57

Hi, Brett, can you believe I'm away for the episode? You come on as a guest when I've been extolling the virtues of you and your uncover your business potential, course for so long. Anyway, I'm hoping that by coming on, everybody subscribes to your brilliant monthly newsletter. It's absolutely fabulous. Anyway, I have a question, and the question is based around your experience of dealing, or, I suppose, advising so many ifas over a long period of time. What's the typically? The one thing that you see that all of these firms could do, but that they don't do, and that it would move the dial significantly for them. I'm sure there are common threads all the time, and I just love to get your insights on that. Yeah.

Brett Davidson: 54:53

So again, like to try and because it's, I think it's a multi faceted jigsaw puzzle of an issue. It's hard to sum it up. But what I would say great, great businesses like, I think my great sporting teams, you know people I love, who you know individual sports people as well. They they they master the basics, and that is it. You know, you I heard a thing on the on the All Blacks Richie McCall once, and he said, test rugby. He said, All you do is run past catch and tackle faster, right? So that's all you have to know how to do. But you have to know how to do it under great pressure. And I think it's the same in financial planning. What we do is not difficult. If you have one, one core value, which is just do the right thing by the client that's in front of you, you cannot go wrong, right? I don't care for your money in the short term, it's going to make you a shift ton of money in the long term. That's the key.

Nick Lincoln: 55:52

Yeah, totally, totally agree with that. Brett, you mentioned your white paper, fella, so what's, what? When did it come out? What's, what is it? How do people get hold of it? And just, what are the, what are the key themes that you can tell the TRAPPIST,

Brett Davidson: 56:08

yeah, so came out in October last year. It's on our website and the white papers tend to take a little while to. Gather some momentum. I think people need to read and consume and think, What do I actually think about this, but on the on the website, at Fp advanced.com but it was, it was called, you know, if incentives worked, we'd all be amazing by now. And it's a slightly cheeky title, but it's just questioning the value of incentives, because in our profession, because we came out of the old sales culture, it's not even questioned that you have to incentivize advisors or people in your business. And I just wanted to challenge that, because I just think it's nonsense. And I tried to make that case. I tried to make it with some some research and some argument, and also then to give people some resources for how they might do it differently.

Nick Lincoln: 57:05

Excellent stuff. As I think Andy said in his when he was talking with you in the part of the show that you couldn't hear the topical tip. It's, it's so front of mind at the moment. You know, NatWest acquiring evil in partners, Aberdeen, after years and years and various iterations, just giving up the ghost and selling their their in, quote, sales force back to to another. IFA, it's, it's just a merry go round. It's just the endless destruction of shareholder value. I don't know. It just, it just amazes me that and loads of people down the line would have had their beaks in the trough and made a can't be living from this. And in the end, it just just all ends. Houston ends in a bit of a shit show. My friend, you have got your event on the 13th of May, a Wednesday in town. Tell us a bit about that. I presume. Well, you maybe not. You're that. You're that head of the curve. Maybe you have sold out. But if you haven't sold out. Just tell the TRAPPIST what's happening on 13th of May. Yeah.

Brett Davidson: 58:02

So, so look, just, just to be clear, this isn't an event that's open to the advisor population. It's an event we we run a conference. We run once a year for people who are either in or who have graduated from our uncover your business potential program. It was this decision we made not to be wankers and make it like exclusive, but just we needed people who are on the same page. You know, we could run another event that was more general and whatever, but we've just chosen to do that. You know, we had 150 people there last year. It's growing every year as that community grows. So that's the event that's on the 13th. But unfortunately, it's not an open go for everyone.

Nick Lincoln: 58:46

Cool, cool. Okay, any chance of seeing you, we've got our track live in the evening. I know, I know you're probably not good, or you probably hobnobbing with your uncover your business potential cohorts, but we'd love to see to come along to track live. You're more than welcome mate. Stick your head around the door.

Brett Davidson: 59:04

Yeah, cool. Look. Let me see how I fare up at the end of the day.

Nick Lincoln: 59:08

That's cool. Put it on the spot. Andy, I think you got a question.

Andy Hart: 59:11

Yeah? That's a resounding no.

Alan Smith: 59:15

You know what rejection sounds like

Nick Lincoln: 59:19

events. My middle name,

Andy Hart: 59:23

events, or a walk in the park. Brett, you'll, you'll walk it, my friend, yeah, as if, okay. My final question, really for you, is mistakes you see advisors and firms making, you know, over and over again. You know, is there a list of key points that you just see as massive mistakes and errors? Is it dicking around with fee structures? Is it employing the wrong people? Over to you, my friend?

Brett Davidson: 59:50

Yeah. So look, I think two big ones, and it could be all of these things, obviously Andy, because if you're working on stuff that isn't going to move the needle, right, that's that's a mistake, and there's not that much stuff that's going to move the needle. So, you know, the last two white papers I wrote, you know, the incentive one, I think the way advisors are paid causes a lot of drama in a lot of firms, right? So if you could just fix that. That would that would properly align everyone's focus. The white paper I wrote before that how to solve the scale problem, we talked about splitting that role of servicing advisor and new business advisor, and that's quite controversial. Even now. I talk to people going, oh my goodness, I'm not sure my advisors will go for that, but I think it's how it's positioned. I think people perceive that one is higher than the other. I don't look at it like that, but if we don't address that issue, and all advisors do everything so they look after a bank of clients, and they do new business, I'm telling you, that is the take 20 years to grow large root that. So for me, that's a huge mistake. We've written about how to deal with it, and yet we're still having lots of conversations where people are going, well, I don't know. So I think there's two big ones, excellent stuff. Excellent stuff.

Nick Lincoln: 1:01:08

I think we're going to wrap up there. I'm going to close the one final question, Brett, let's get another one, putting you on the spot here. What's the one? Thing in this thing of ours that isn't being talked about, that we should be talking about.

Brett Davidson: 1:01:29

We talk about a lot of stuff. Nick, you guys talk about a lot of stuff. Anyway. God, it's such a tough question. So what's the one thing that we should be talking about that we're not talking about?

Nick Lincoln: 1:01:46

Okay, can I can I leap in there? Can I leap back?

Brett Davidson: 1:01:49

I think it's actually, yeah,

Nick Lincoln: 1:01:52

okay, bug bear of us on this show is firms that say they do financial planning, and they do sweet FA Do you experience that? And do you think it's as prevalent as we believe it to

Brett Davidson: 1:02:10

be? It's hard for me to say, because I think I work with a pretty select audience, and don't get me wrong, I still get a bell curve of perhaps what people are doing in my groups, but it's probably not as disparate as what you see. But I I'm also, I'm less, I'm less hot under the collar about that. I can understand, perhaps why, why you guys might be but I just, I just think it's a bit of a journey for people as well and and maybe they're dealing with different clients, to you, and so I don't know. I think I'm probably going to give people a little bit more slack around that, you know, someone that's purely just selling investments and doing nothing else. I mean, I'm sure there's firms out there doing that, charging a fortune. You know that that does make one a little bit upset, but I don't know. I don't know how prevalent or not that really is,

Nick Lincoln: 1:03:05

okay, okay, Russian fellow, we've taken 20 minutes your time there. You're You're a busy man. You're a massive influencer for the good in this thing of ours. I there's a handful of respect to consultants, and you're right at the pinnacle. Even though you're Australian, you're much admired and loved in this country. And thanks for your sterling work. We'll let

Alan Smith: 1:03:24

you go, Nick. I just, I just want to say for those because I have downloaded and consumed Brett's white papers, and I think the thought leadership that you arrive at Brett is first class. It really is. I spoke to the others, and certainly Carl is also a big fan running a business. We've spoken it's almost like you're inside our mind. You've really got your finger on the pulse of what financial planners are thinking. And sometimes I see other stuff out there, and I think that, you know, that's not an issue for us right now. And I would like to say, could both your it's funny that you say, Brett, that it takes a while for the information to kind of download, you know, full confession, I read you one about incentives last year. Didn't agree with it. I think human beings are driven by incentives. The dust has settled a bit in our firm. I've, you know, I've had conversations with our team in recent times. I thought, You know what? He's right. Brett is right. And my my team and my advisors aren't chasing up. I need to get paid more. I need to get paid more. Necessarily, there is, there is a balance. So the that that paper, and I'm going to say the one before that, which is about scaling, that I found at the time, very, very impactful, because at the end of the day, if you're not growing, you're dying. And a lot of firms, and mine, included, was, was really bumping up against those capacity limits. And just say that we've we've got a mature business now. We've got a healthy client bank, and yes, we want to continue to grow, but there's a lot of challenges, and some of the nuanced thinking that was in that paper, really, really was world class, and I took that into my colleagues, and we kicked it around, discussed it, and absolutely made some changes as a result. So I'm just doing a big shout out. Anyone's listening to this that hasn't fully engaged with your materials, Brett, they should go into your website. Down for starters, just download those two white papers, read them, put them down again, come back to them in a week and read them again. I really think they are world class thought leadership, and I commend you for it. So thanks. Thanks very much. Brett, okay,

Nick Lincoln: 1:05:29

Brett, I'm going to kick you out, Brett, but if you can just keep your browser window open, okay, until the upload is finished at your end, you just look at the upload when it hits 100% thanks, fella.

Andy Hart: 1:05:38

Take care all the best. Trap. Live, Brett in the evening. Trap. Live, Brett.

Nick Lincoln: 1:05:43

He cannot wait for that. That was obvious. Don't let us down.

Unknown: 1:05:48

Oh, good lad, Good lad.

Alan Smith: 1:05:51

We had the usual problems with the delay is, I think anyone with a MacBook, we've got the same challenges, but no Matt guests, but at least we could hear him clearly.

Nick Lincoln: 1:06:00

I think we're getting better. We're getting better at navigating our way around it, that's for sure. But it's um yes,

Andy Hart: 1:06:05

we can talk about the admin off the show. Yeah. Okay, moving on.

Nick Lincoln: 1:06:09

Nicholas, hold on the beloved champion. Say hello to the Trappist. Oh, that's. 3000 downloads an episode, you're missing out.

Alan Smith: 1:06:18

Hi, Penny Nick's been talking about your pussy.

Nick Lincoln: 1:06:24

We heard this on my recordings are going out now. You keep on jabbering. Babes gone. Oh, classic, right? So moving on with the show. Let's move on to the next part of the show. Absolutely. Let's go live Penny, right? I can't even, I'm just what's what's

Alan Smith: 1:06:49

happening, right? It's

Andy Hart: 1:06:50

this weird meeting. Potato, no, no, it's not meat. Potatoes

Alan Smith: 1:06:54

is the postman. Is the postman? Come on. You normally say posting

Nick Lincoln: 1:06:58

here we she goes. There's postage. She's at my front door. She dragged the bulging sack of track lists, questions of the drive and this trap. This is where we open up the bulging sack and pull one out for you and give the gap down with thrashing. So let's see who this one is from. This is from and this looks like a genuine person, not the made up person we've had the last couple of episodes, but please run up to me. This is from Patrick Duggan, who's on LinkedIn, so his LinkedIn profile will be on the so called show notes. Thank you once again for an excellent Podcast. I'm curious to know how you deal with quiet time in your businesses, ie, when it feels like there is no new proposals or plans to work on and your pipeline looks a bit lean. Do you dedicate time to sales prospecting, strategies. Should we go with you? Smithy on that,

Alan Smith: 1:07:43

that's a good question. It's a really good question because, yeah, we all go through peaks and troughs and cycles, quite interesting in professional services, in that you can be prospecting and marketing, doing a lot of things, then the work comes in. You've got to deliver the work, and then so your pipeline dries up a bit. So it's quite interesting. I saw that question before, so my simple response is, is this, there's a load of things you can do if you are a bit quieter on the day to day job, if you pipeline and you prospects is a bit lean, here's here's the thing that I would do. Very simply, I would look to my top five to 10 clients by revenue, by engagement, by the advocacy, and I would ask to meet with them outside of their meeting review cycle. And I'd say, I'd love to buy you breakfast, coffee, lunch, and I want to ask you a few questions. And I would simply meet up with them, and I'd say, What do you like about what we do. What do you not like? What are we not doing that you wish we did what we are doing? What are we doing that you wish we didn't? I look for feedback within that context. That is always going to be a good thing. Your best clients are going to be delighted that you're taking the time out to do that. And the other thing I would do is I would position this very subtly for introductions. I wouldn't call them referrals. I'd call them introductions. And the way I do that in the same conversation is by letting your advocates, your ambassadors, your good clients, know that we do have capacity to take on more clients. I always think it's this is this is like the narrative. It's a bit cringey to ask for people for referrals. If you were me, what's the best way to position for introductions? And you're basically just subtly saying we're open for business. If there are people you know, please introduce them. So that's what I would do.

Unknown: 1:09:29

That's it. Just grab yourself a drink. A very long drink. It's story time with Alan Smith.

Alan Smith: 1:09:38

I mean, Jesus, if I speak for more than 60 seconds, it's a story. I mean, you lot can jabber on for bloody hours for

Nick Lincoln: 1:09:45

less than 60 seconds. It's front page story.

Alan Smith: 1:09:48

Anyway, make use of the time. You've got to go and break bread with your best clients and get some candid feedback. It's a great thing to do over to you boys, make it

Andy Hart: 1:10:00

snap in cracking story. Smith, are you going to tell us about equitable life before we close

Nick Lincoln: 1:10:06

taking our adverts? No,

Andy Hart: 1:10:09

no. Okay, fine. No. Seriously, Patrick, is a cracking guy, close personal friend of mine based in Cape Town. Superb. Question. A couple of points on this. Well, you should do your, you know, classic advice to business owners. You should be marketing when you're busy, you know, if you get very quiet and then you start the marketing, it's sort of the wrong time. I remember when I was first self employed, many moons ago, and during the quiet times in my early stage of business, I thought, Oh, my God, I'm never going to get another client again in my life. When I used to do mortgages and I had like a quiet week, I thought, That's it. My Self Employed life is over. I'm never going to get another client again, and I'm going to be super quiet. I think, as business owners that run our own businesses. We are constantly on the lookout for potential work and clients. You know, our employee friends say to us, how do you get your business? And it's like, well, where do I start? You know, it's it runs through me. You know, I think about it all the time. I have a never have a break of not. Thinking about, where am I going to get clients from? So, couple of points there. Now, I quite like the quiet times. You know, I'm never sitting there thinking, Oh, I'm never going to get, you know, any work again. My business life is quite full. But it's a very interesting question, I suppose, because we're not 100% reliant on new business and commission. Let's say, you know, our clients are ongoing clients who are receiving ongoing fees, and there's ongoing services that required. So we never if we were selling air conditioning units, we have, like, a super busy three months, and then we literally have nothing to do for a month or two. So I think the manager the business of financial advice, fortunately, doesn't have totally dead periods. Nicholas, over to you,

Nick Lincoln: 1:12:02

yeah, I probably have the least to add on. This is I've got, you know, my business is mature. I'm not, so I'm not, I'm not a scaling business, like, like Alan, so much. I suppose if I was in the storming and forming stage, I would do what I you know, two days ago, I spoke at the PFS MDRT conference, and Matt Anderson was there. And Matt Anderson is really good pass through about how to really work on your referral system. Haven't have a process of a real system for referral, and that's what I would be doing. I'd be going to my clients saying, you know, the obvious stuff, the stuff we all know, you seem happy with me. You think I've done a good job for you. I know you mix with people who are like you. Any chance to be meeting them, because I'll do for them what I've done for you that. I know you fluff it a bit, but that's what I'd go back to asking, asking for referrals, and being on the front basically

Alan Smith: 1:12:47

what I said, but in a better way. Yeah, thank you.

Nick Lincoln: 1:12:52

Okay, so I've got, I've got TLP in the background, I've got a bloody cat, which is going to get drop kicked into the gardens next door, right? Let's move on to what many people are calling culture corner, and the drops are playing up as well today, which is even

Andy Hart: 1:13:12

better. Come on. Is it a solar culture corner? Just me? Okay, I've got one. I've got one. Okay, cool. It's a podcast or YouTube podcast. Chris Williamson, modern wisdom, the mighty Morgan Housel is back shelling his third book. His first book was psychology of money. His second book was same as ever, and his third book is The Art of spending. He's going to be making a lot of money from these trio of books. As a fellow author, I will know the selling. I'm in the red, massively in the red, obviously, obviously, anyway, that's my culture corner.

Alan Smith: 1:13:57

Alan, yeah, I didn't put I'll add the link to the show notes. Did you guys not see I'm taking the opportunity while widge is away basking in the Indian Ocean, to mention someone that he doesn't have a lot of time for, greatest entrepreneur of our times, Elon Musk. Elon Musk was on this podcast. It's the guy, John Collinson, and another guy, yeah, well, it's this. It's their new podcast, John Collinson from strike. I mean, it's three hours long, and he's just so lucky. But it's called cheeky pint, and they're in a, like, obviously, a made up, a made up pub. You know, they're sitting drinking pints of Guinness. It's quite funny, because there's, he's kind of John Collinson is like, smashing, smashing his

Andy Hart: 1:14:39

pints down. Also, he's super smart, and he's totally in awe of what Elon's telling him. Like, yeah, most guests he

Alan Smith: 1:14:46

No, he's really in awe. But it's a nice setup. Elon's having a having his pint of Guinness. So it's quite the other guy who's a guest. He's a proper podcast host. He's, you could tell he watching it, thinking, hey, drink your pint. It still hasn't been touched anyway, but oh my god, is, I mean, it's a little bit technical. It'd be, it'd be above your kind of level. Andy to understand the technical aspects of what he's building, but it's like this freaking brand master plan that Elon is all these companies that he's talked about are effectively merging. He's got SpaceX, which is not and they, and they are building, they're going to be building data centers in space, and this will be done within three years to be launched. I can't remember, 10,000 rockets, 10,000 building. All these. You there? So, yeah. So, yeah. So he's building all these in space. He's got the whole the AI machine is going to it's been merging with the robotics that Tesla is building there. What's that called, again, these sort of humanoid robots. And then, because the key thing about all this technology is energy, access to energy. They just haven't got enough energy in the US, and they could build solar farms in Nevada, but the planning and the zoning will just take so long, even with Trump in power. So it's quite I was thinking, Who the hell owns space? And no one owns space. He can just pop them up there and just build these, and he's going to build them on the moon, because he can do it in the money on the moon. He can build themselves.

Andy Hart: 1:16:16

Alan, you need to get some access rights too. Well, there is, there is, yeah,

Alan Smith: 1:16:19

there are rules. Anyway, it's just kind of mind blowing what he's talking about doing and how the whole how the world is just going to evolve in the next and it's not 1020 years, it's three years from now, he's talking anyway, I encourage you to invest a couple of hours to watch Elon speaking to Collinson on the cheeky pint podcast, and watch it on YouTube rather than listen to it.

Nick Lincoln: 1:16:39

He's not in commission in space. We can't even

Alan Smith: 1:16:45

UK wasn't mentioned as part of this changing dynamic. Anyway. That's it. It's good.

Nick Lincoln: 1:16:50

All right, okay, one hour, 16 minutes, good stuff. We'll wrap it up there. I think we've done a lot, but some Bob's not missing anything out. There you go. Dear Travis. Another trap. It's another episode. Episode 19, the real advisor. Podcast, trap. It's been flushed away down the U bend of Father Time. Do look like and subscribe to us on YouTube. Do leave a review, please. Means an awful lot to us. And if you listen to podcast, by luck, subscribe to the bloody thing. Okay, you won't get better value anywhere. It's better. This is better. Bounded than that. I don't know, a KFC Bargain Bucket, the very epitome of oak cuisine. This is even better value than that. So tuck in and we are fried twice with that, take care out there, and we will see you on the other side. Goodbye, Travis, goodbye,

Alan Smith: 1:17:28

goodbye, and get your tickets to trap live.

Nick Lincoln: 1:17:35

Just during this we've sold another 17 tickets for trap live. So we really are down. Look at that. There's one left.

Alan Smith: 1:17:42

I'm still recording, so we're pretty much we're almost sold out now.