Dont Shoot The Messenger

How Advisors Win Clients With YouTube with Pete Matthew

• Chris Ball • Season 1 • Episode 17

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Pete Matthew is the founder of Meaningful Money, one of the most established personal finance platforms in the UK.

What started in 2010 with a cheap camera and a simple idea has grown into:

  • Over 10 million views
  • 145,000 subscribers
  • Nearly 700 videos
  • A business generating consistent enquiries and long-term client trust

In this episode of Don’t Shoot The Messenger, Chris Ball sits down with Pete to unpack how video and content can transform the way financial advisers build credibility, attract clients, and grow sustainably.

They discuss:

  • Why YouTube builds trust before the first meeting
  • How consistency beats perfection in content creation
  • The moment Pete realised video was changing his business
  • Why advisers do not need expensive equipment to start
  • How content improves client conversations, not just marketing
  • The reality behind monetisation and funnels in financial services

This conversation is essential listening for advisers who want to grow without chasing, communicate more clearly, and build long-term trust at scale.

If you want to see what life in Hoxton Wealth is like, please visit: / @hoxtonlife

For more information on Hoxton Wealth careers, please https://www.careers-page.com/hoxtonwealth.com

For my videos by Chris, please visit his Youtube: ⁨@ChrisBallHoxton⁩

SPEAKER_01:

I've got a very, very special guest with me, Pete. So Pete Matthews uh started Meaningful Money in 2010. Meaningful Money has got 10 million views, 145,000 subscribers.

SPEAKER_00:

I wanted to do more. And I thought, yeah, cool. Why don't I have a go? And so I bought uh a very small, very cheap video camera.

SPEAKER_01:

Like a hockey curve, you noticed all the time that you were getting better and better and better.

SPEAKER_00:

He had very narrowly avoided being ripped off by a dubious advisor close to him. But at the end of it, he said, Having watched several of your videos, I feel like I know you and can trust you. And I nearly fell off my chair, and it's three inquiries a day without fail.

SPEAKER_01:

You know what I'm going to ask you next? Realistically, not that many people will probably watch it.

SPEAKER_00:

I think he's the best finance YouTuber.

SPEAKER_01:

Have you ever faced any criticism?

SPEAKER_00:

We've grown by over 30% this year.

SPEAKER_01:

It's fairly unheard of.

SPEAKER_00:

So now it's like, when can we start?

SPEAKER_01:

So, welcome to another episode of Don't Shoot the Messenger. Um, and today I've got a very, very special guest with me, Pete. So Pete Matthews uh started Meaningful Money in 2010. Um, and just to put uh meaningful money in context, for those of you who don't know, um Meaningful Money has got 10 million views, 145,000 subscribers, and nearly 700 videos. And it's you know, Pete has built up one of the most established advisor channels for clients to help educate them in uh in the UK, which is absolutely fantastically possibly even the world. Um so I'm really really happy to have uh Pete here uh with me today, and today's video is gonna be all about how YouTube can help advisors connect with more people, build credibility and trust before the first meeting has even begun. Um so who better uh to have talking to us about this than Pete? So, first off, Pete, thank you very much for coming uh on. Really, really great to have you. And let's let's kick off with how did uh meaningful money begin?

SPEAKER_00:

Um this is one of those stories I feel like I've told a million times, but it don't matter because it it kind of is it still resonates. Like I I kind of say that it started because three things came together uh at the same time, which kind of gave me the nudge. So the first that in several different areas of my life, people told me I was good at explaining things, right? My dad was a teacher before he was a uh a church minister, and so maybe that's just kind of in the DNA. But whether I was a governor at my kids' primary school or just around the dinner table or whatever, people would just say, guy, you know, you really explain that well. I never would have thought to have put it like that. And that kind of sank in, right? So that was the first thing. Secondly, I had a bit of a you know, by this time, by 20, well, 2009, I was kind of feeling this way. Um, I was 12 years uh as an advisor, 11 years at that point, pretty well settled, CFP, chartered, uh owner, co-owner of a firm, nicely settled, but a little bit kind of um unfulfilled in that I wanted to do more. And in a sense, I wanted to kind of reach more people, make a bit more of a dent in the universe rather than just help people get richer and enrich myself, right? No judgment on anybody else, whatever. That was just me. That's how I felt. Kind of wanted to do a little bit more than I was. And then the the third thing really that really nailed it for me was um I read a book called Crush It by Gary Vaynerchuk. Now, Gary's internet phenomenon. Uh, he basically built his dad's what we would call an off-licence from three million to sixty million in the case of like a few years, and he did it with video. And the premise of that book was that whatever your message is, there's nobody now standing in your way between you and getting that message out there. There's no producers, there's no directors, there's no studio saying you're not pretty enough, your accent's funny, none of that. If the message is any good, you can get it out there and people will listen. And I thought, yeah, cool, why don't I have a go? And so I bought uh a very small, very cheap video camera and set it up down on the uh on Battery Rocks in Penzance very early one morning because I didn't want anybody to see what I was doing, and um and just started, thought I'd have a go and just said, I'm gonna explain how money works and I'm gonna take you step by step. And that's now 15 years ago, and uh I've uh spent a bit more money on cameras since.

SPEAKER_01:

I was gonna that was gonna be one of my questions, which was you know, like because a lot of people, you know, they put with in general with doing anything, they always kind of get this fear, well, I've got to have this and this and this and this to start. Yeah, but the equipment that you started off, it sounds like was very basic. If you were giving advice to someone today, what would you say is like the bare minimum, the bare bones that they would need to kind of get set up?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, uh this I don't know if you anybody watching this this is what I started with, right? So it's about the size of a packet of fags. It's got, I mean, it's it's like it's starting to disintegrate, it's like it's gone sticky, it's weird. But there's a little USB stick that flips out, and it's not even full high definition, right? But this was better than phone cameras at the time, and so that served me pretty well. I used to have to wait because I used to keep it in the car because I would shoot like anywhere. Sometimes I used to have to wait for it to demist if it was a cold day, I'd get it out of the car, and I wouldn't be able to shoot for 10 minutes while the sort of condensation went away. Um, but nowadays, of course, what we've got is phenomenally powerful cameras uh in our pockets, right? When it comes to video, particularly the video quality is obviously important, it helps, but far more important is audio quality, in my view. So you can set up a your phone and the camera will be easily good enough, better than you need. But if you're you know if you prop your phone up on a wall outside or even just in an echoey room, the sound's going to be rubbish. But for 100-150 quid less than that, actually, potentially, you can get a really good microphone that just clips on your thing here, the other end of it clips into the end of your phone, and the audio quality will be 10 times better. And really, that's all you need to get started. Given that we're probably primarily talking to advisors, everything else you've got, you just need to know how to channel it and to sort of direct it specifically for video. But in terms of equipment, man, I'm I'm in a room probably with a hundred grand worth of kit here, which I've built up over 15 years. You don't need that, yeah. Right? I could do broadcast quality, these my cameras here are Netflix approved, so I could do anything here if I had the uh time. But you don't need that, literally, for building trust and winning clients on YouTube or on video, all you need is your phone and a decent mic.

SPEAKER_01:

That's I mean, that's you know, music to my ears because I you know, we have uh advisors in our business that you know I need this and I need that, and I'm like, no, no, no, no, it's just to get out there, just try and record it, or just try and you know try and make it happen because inevitably the first few episodes are not gonna be great, you're not gonna be your best, and you know, realistically not that many people will probably watch it. It's repetition, repetition, repetition. So, you know, when did you realise that you know you were actually after all the reps that this was actually coming together and that this could do something? Was it you know, was it the first one just blew up? I'm assuming not, was it definitely not?

SPEAKER_00:

Nah, it was um uh there was a bit of a turning point. You're dead right though, by the way. Nobody watches the first few, which is a great thing because it means that you can make all your mistakes and you can learn really quickly, right? Mine was windy. I basically lashed the camera to a uh like a fence right down by the sea, and I th it was really early in the morning, and I thought there'd be nobody around, but of course, everybody, all like the middle-aged people go swimming off there, so I kept I kept getting interrupted by a lot of uh sort of uh portly people in wetsuits walking past me and asking what I was doing. But look, for me it took 18 months. So I mean, I I kind of I carried on because I loved it, right? And I love the process of creating. I to me it's the perfect marriage of liking the sound of my own voice and also um a love of technology, right? If you uh I just it really floats my boat, cameras, computers, software right on my street. So that's so I enjoyed doing it for its own sake, and honestly, I don't even know if the phrase content marketing was coined in 2010 when I started, right? So I'm just putting this stuff out there, feeling all sort of altruistic and like a good human because I'm trying to help people manage their money, whether they instructed me as an advisor or not. And then in the summer of 2011, so about 16 months after I started, I'm probably 150 videos deep by this point, right? Because I was doing three a week at one point. Wow. Yeah, I'm not doing that now. Um, I had an email come through out of the blue to my work email address. I don't even know that I had a meaningful money address then. But this guy tracked me down, and he had very narrowly avoided being ripped off by a dubious advisor close to him. And he was a bit of an intranet entrepreneur himself, and so he sent me an email, and he sent me an email with great detail of their financial situation. I mean, please don't do that, folks, in an email, right? It's just like a data theft identity theft nightmare, but he's full financial rundown, real detail, you know, his saying his concerns about being ripped off and sort of scammed and all that. But at the end of it, he said, Having watched several of your videos, I feel like I know you and can trust you. Full stop. Will you work with us? Question mark. And I nearly fell off my chair because I'm like, because this guy's in Bexillon Sea, it's 400 miles from where I live.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And I'm thinking, Well, that's cool, but how do I do that? I really don't want to drive that far. You know, I live in the end of the country, all the way down in Penzance. So I thought, this is really cool though, because he actually doesn't know if he can trust me or not, because he'd never met me, and even then, right? So I must have done something that resonated. I must have said something in a certain way that resonated and made him feel like he could reach out proactively. And I thought that's interesting, and that was just the first. So I started in 2010, by 2014, so four years in, right? Meaningful money was the primary source of new inquiries to my company, my practice. Wow. Now it's nearly 90%, and it's three inquiries a day without fail.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, and we are flat out and growing like gangbusters just trying to keep up with it. So, you know, it started slow, but that was when I knew I was onto something.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, Pete, so if I can just take us back then from what you said at the start of that, and you were talking about actually how you were doing three videos a week, which to anyone that's produced content will know that that is uh an awful lot of content to produce uh and and to get out. How um how how impactful was it about just building up those repetitions at the start? You know, was it like a hockey curve you noticed all the time that you were getting better and better and better?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, it is about the reps, isn't it? Whether you're building muscle or whatever, it really is about the reps. And so you I you have to think I'd be intentional about improving. So, you know, some so many people are like, Oh, I don't like watching myself on video. It's not you're not gonna be able to improve then. And so, yes, it's not just obviously uh how to describe something, how to explain something, how you eyeball the camera, um, how you then edit and cut out the bad bits or whatever. I mean, when I was doing three videos a week, man, I was editing, writing, editing, but I was writing bullet points. There wasn't a lot of editing, it was dropping in the odd graphic, but not really, you know, complex cutting out bits or anything like that. But you just got better and quicker in Portlandly, because if you're gonna churn out that much content, you've got to be pretty streamlined with it. But it was my hobby, right? So I was doing my five days a week at least advising job, a busy advisor bringing in court million quid a year revenue, just me, no power planning support. So, you know, I was busy, but I loved what I was doing, and so I didn't resent the reps, and I enjoyed very much the process of getting better. I'm also a relentless consumer of other video. So I'm watching other people and saying, right, what can I improve here? How uh how what can I take from that and make it mine uh and implement it? So um I do think you can't you have to be a kind of a fan of the process because otherwise, if you're just waiting for results, they may not come as quick as you want. In fact, they almost certainly won't. So you've got to you've got to be somewhat invested in the process, I think. 100%.

SPEAKER_01:

And you know what I'm gonna ask you next. You said you're a relentless, uh, you know, a relentless watcher of other people's content. Who does Pete Matthews watch?

SPEAKER_00:

So in the industry, uh, I watch pretty religiously a guy called Damien Talks Money. Uh his name is Damien Jordan. I think he's the best finance YouTube YouTuber, and it's not even close. Uh, the only one who is uh even remotely close is James Shack. He's another advisor in the UK. When it comes to sort of non sort of finance stuff, I love Peter McKinnon. I love a guy called uh Simon who has a channel called Better Creating who's about productivity, massive fan of Ali Abdahl. So I like sort of improvement stuff, but I also love tech. I watch a lot of music videos, particularly keyboards, because I play keyboard and drums. So I'm obviously watching that. But um Damien Talks Money is my absolute hero when it comes to finance content. He's so gifted, it's it's really annoying.

SPEAKER_01:

Have you ever spoken to him?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, he's a mate. Yeah, I've been on his podcast, and he's been super helpful. You know, when I mean they call me the granddad, right? Because I was pretty much like the one of the first finance YouTubers in the UK. And these guys have surpassed me many times, and I just celebrate that because I think it's amazing. Um, and they're obviously very kind and respectful while also not hiding the fact that they think I'm really old. Um, but I just think they're brilliant, and I love to see super talented people just taking it and running with it and making a massive difference. And he's doing really, really well, built a fantastic business, but probably explains things better than anybody I've ever met. I think he's superb.

SPEAKER_01:

That's really, really cool. And and you know, kind of like I I love that about how you know it it there's no kind of you know, ear um you know jealous eyes looking at what other people are doing, like it's a community and you know you you're creating together. Like, have you have you ever faced any criticism? So within the industry, what you know what when you started creating content, has anyone ever kind you know said anything that you you you know kind of got your back up a little bit?

SPEAKER_00:

Nah not criticism, more um scepticism and condescension on more than one occasion. People have you know, people have said to me, Oh, you're the guy who does the little videos, aren't you? I'm like, yeah, those little videos that bring in two million quid a year, yeah, that's right. I'm really just messing around with it. So but that's the sort of it's just like, oh, what a funny little sideline it is. But actually, you know, I'm growing, I mean, I watched your meteoric rise, yours in Hoxton, and it's just next level, man. But for a small, you know, smallish firm with 25 people, we've grown by over 30% this year. It was 20 odd percent last year, and there's not many small local one office firms growing at that kind of pace, right? No, and it's because of my nice little videos. So uh condescension rather than criticism, but I can usually shut them up.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I bet I bet. And I mean, look, organic growth rates in businesses that we typically look at are between one to five percent. Anyone doing double digit is a superhero is fairly unheard of. Um scary. Your videos are doing something right, mate. Um, so how was like how has YouTube changed the way you attract and work with clients? Is it much more now like you know, and I visualize kind of like a uh you know, the the kind of process and journey of bringing on a client is that you obviously the initial introductory parts of any client journey, it's building trust, it's building credibility. But I imagine a lot of that with you, and especially with what you said with you know the entrepreneur that contacted you, that's already done. Like they're coming to you ready to ready to ready to go. I I actually watch um the guys uh in the US, the the podcast has completely gone out of my head, the compound and friends. And Josh actually was talking the other day about how clients are just there, they're like that they're not there's no courting period, it's like I'm ready to go, I want to work with you, I've decided. Yeah, which is really cool.

SPEAKER_00:

It is cool, and that's that's exactly it. So it's changed things in a couple of ways. One is, I mean, Jackson's my company can trace its roots in Penzance back a hundred years, it's the definition of a provincial firm. And Panzance is 10 miles from land's end, right? You go like 10 miles in each of three directions, and you're in the sea, so it's a very small world, it's a long way from the centre of anything. Everybody knows each other, and so we are built on local business originally, but of course, you know, people can watch you from anywhere, and so that first contact from Bexhill on Sea was followed by somebody from Yorkshire and then Scotland and then Northern Ireland, and now obviously most of the business is from nowhere near Cornwall. So geography is one thing, also, the complexity, the wealth level has massively increased. We've always been able to do that stuff. My firm was built on pretty complicated pension work in the 80s and 90s before I came along, but you know, we've always been able to do that sort of stuff, but now it's fascinating. Super high earners with ridiculous share options and stuff, and we're helping those people, retiring CEOs, you know, with you know multiple decamillionaires, we can help those people now, which we couldn't have done before. But you're dead right, Chris. For me, nobody ever says no because they already know how I think, they already feel like they know me, and they know that I'm you know fairly stand-up guy, I'm not gonna screw them over, and they know what I feel about investment. They also know that for me, all the value is in the planning, uh, and perhaps crucially of all, they know that I actually don't care very much about the money at all, but I love people deeply. And for me, money is an enabler for all the really important things in life, which is family, health, relationships, great experiences, travel, all the cool stuff, right? And because that's my philosophy and it's it sort of colours everything that I do, I haven't got to convince them of that. That that's what they've already pre-bought that, so now it's like, when can we start? And I'm saying three months' time because we've got a waiting list, and they're like, So, which means I need to hire more people, obviously, but you know, it's but that I mean that's a continual battle, but yeah, that getting over the trust thing, particularly in a world which is full of scammers, full of um I was gonna use what a certain word, but I'll I'll come back from that. People who don't always tell the truth, um you know, and I think if you can crack that by just being consistent and being yourself and all that, I'm not gonna win everybody because not everybody's gonna work with me. It's perhaps not a surprise that my audience largely looks like me, they're mostly middle-aged guys, but you know, for for everyone like me, there's there's somebody who wants to work with another, you know, YouTuber or content creator or whatever, because they resonate more with that person, so the more the merrier. But I mean, it it for me, it's just there's no winning, there's no courtship. It is essentially that bit's done, which is fantastic.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's that's really cool. And have you you know you said something earlier about kind of like how the client profile has increased over time as well. You know, talk talk a bit uh about that if you wouldn't mind, because obviously, you know, when people first start, I imagine that they, you know, it's better like anyone in any of their advice career, the clients you first start advising aren't the clients that you end up advising later on that you know, people change and people grow. And no doubt it sounds like you with your audience growth, the you know, the type of clients that you're attracting. Have as well. And do you have different segments? Like, do you have people in your business that will deal with clients that maybe you know are earlier on in their career, or have you got things set up for people that you know, and how does that work?

SPEAKER_00:

Mostly the segmentation is accumulation and decumulation, that's the broad segments, right? But obviously, there is sort of some sort of nuance within that. Um, I guess the development and the uh perhaps the higher level, I want to say, of cases and clients that we work with now is partly my own development, right? You know, I'm 28 years in now. When I started doing videos, I was 12 years in, 11 years in. And so, you know, just by virtue of doing the job, you get better at it. You know, I think if you're prepared to stretch yourself and sometimes say, Yeah, we can deal with that, while internally you're freaking out and thinking, right now I'm gonna have to do an awful lot of reading and talking to people so that I can deal with that. But then that's the first time, and then the next one comes along. We're like, Yeah, yeah, cool, 500 grand a year of RSUs, we can do that. All right, they're resting on a uh quarterly schedule, not worries, we can fix that, we can model that for you, we can talk to you how to make the best of that, and it just becomes bread and butter just by virtue of doing it. But I don't think we would have attracted high earners in the city from Penzance, yeah, and have had to have had an office in the city, which I've no interest in doing. So, yeah, you know, that it from it's bridged the gap from that point of view. So it's it's it's made those kind of people available in a way that they probably wouldn't have been otherwise had I not been sort of pimping myself on YouTube for 50 years. Um, so you know it's great, you just kind of got to go with it and um and and be excited about what's possible and and back yourself a little bit. And sometimes it's properly feels a little bit sort of uh bum clenchy, shall we say, but I think it's you know, that's how you develop, that's how you grow, right?

SPEAKER_01:

100%. You got you've got to be on the edge or close to it to keep on growing for sure. And you know, like kind of if you as an advisor now who wanted to start creating video and you're like looking out there and going, you know, I want to start, I want to bum clenchy stuff, I want to get on the edge, you know, not just with the clients I'm I'm working with and that being exciting, but I want to push myself because for a lot of people this is pushing themselves, it's doing something that's completely not natural to them and you know they're they're uh they're uncomfortable doing it. Like, what's the simplest way to begin? What would you do?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's a great question, man. There's many benefits of this, it's not just winning new clients, there's real benefits in putting yourself out there for existing clients as well, I think. Just reinforcing the messaging. Um, but if I was wanting to start now, if I if I'm speaking to an advisor who's thinking, yeah, I kind of want to do this, I think there might be some merit in this for me. The first thing I would do would be to, over a period maybe of a few days or a couple of weeks, write down all the questions you get asked by clients, right? There will be recurring themes, all right? And but I would have thought without too much difficulty, you could probably come up with 50 questions that you're regularly asked. Obviously, we've not that long had the budget in the UK. Pretty much every question you get asked was about what Rachel Reeves is going to do for like six weeks before that. Or, you know, now that pensions are in the inheritance tax regime, what what does that mean for me? Write these questions down because I think the best thing you can do is answer those. Because if your clients are asking them, then so are all your prospective clients. And I think if you can find a way, firstly, just answer them. Literally, set up a camera and say, I got asked this question today, and I imagine there's a lot more people asking it, so let me answer it for you. And give the answer, do it like do three takes and use your best one, right? Because your first one will be rubbish, your second one will be better, but your third one will probably be pretty succinct. And put it out there and do that once a week, and do it for six months without a break, and then see what difference it makes. Read a brilliant book by Marcus Sheridan called They Ask You Answer. Okay, and this is a guy who built he bought a swimming pool company in America in 2008 when the property market was collapsing, so nobody was buying swimming pools, but he literally did this in blog form. So he wrote, you know, what questions am I getting answered? What's the difference between a concrete and a fiberglass pool, for example? Wrote the answer. And of course, people are searching that and they would find his article, read it, but that was really helpful. I'll bookmark them for when I, you know, want to make a decision about a pool. And he transformed this business while all his competitors were going under, he built this thing to this massive uh national business fitting fiberglass swimming pools. Who knew, right? But the whole the whole premise is answer the questions that your prospects are asking, and that's where I would start. That's actually how I did start, Chris. I was in a boring seminar, and I thought if I was taking somebody from zero, knowing nothing about managing money, all the way to kind of advanced level stuff, VCTs, phase drawdown, all that sort of stuff, um, what journey would I take them on? And I wrote down in this really bold dull uh seminar 75 pretty much episode titles, and they were basically a step-by-step guide, and that's the kind of thing you can do. That's what people want to know about, and don't hold anything back, give it all away for free, right? A lot of I built a career on telling people they don't need to see a financial advisor, and yet we're busier than ever, so go figure, right? The fact is, anybody can do what we do, but most people don't have the time, the wit, or the energy, and that's why we have work. So just help them make a decision, and we they're not gonna go anywhere else.

SPEAKER_01:

And and you you said earlier as well, Pete, and you know, and you kind of boiled it down. There was the 75 questions that people ask, like, and then you said you were, you know, people noticed that you could take complex subjects and explain them really simply. So, you know, getting on a video and talking how we are and starting to flow throw in a load of acronyms and all the rest of the stuff is not gonna work. Like, how how would you advise an advisor, a planner, to you know, boil things down in the most simplest format? You know, what are the do's and don'ts on that?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, good question. Uh for me, uh one of the singular benefits of creating content for 15 years is that it has made me a vastly better communicator with clients, with my team, with people I meet. Um you you you repeat the same stuff often enough, you distill it. So when I'm training my advisors now, they'll get asked a question by a client, and immediately into my mind comes the 12 to 15 word answer to that exact question that the client's asked, because I've been asked it a thousand times before, but they haven't. And so I'm doing everything I can to shut up, right? Because I I know I can just fix it like that, because I've done it a million times before. And the advisors are like trying to throw in everything that they know to sort of impress the client and uh and sort of dance around the subject and really get sort of technical, and you can see the client glare is over, and sometimes I'll just say, Can I, you know, can I just jump in and just answer the question? So, your question, which I so far haven't answered, is how do you sell advisors to um you know to do this? Um listen to what is the actual question underneath the question. If somebody's asking maybe a technical point, what they actually care is how does this relate to me? Yeah, and do I need to worry about that? And for most clients, the answer is no, you don't need to know the details, but if you want it, I'll give it to you.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um but so, for instance, one example. Um, I've heard quite a lot about investment bonds. Do I need one of those? Now, an inexperienced advisor might say, well, here's how an investment bond differs from an ICE or a GIA or a pension or whatever, and go into the fact that it's built on life assurance rules and you've got a 5% tax-deferred withdrawal and all that sort of stuff. But for me, the answer is you don't want one of them because you're a non-taxpayer. Right? Because you're paying tax within the thing, you'd be paying unnecessary tax. So I'm not even going to talk to you about those. The client goes, Cool. Because they want what they want to know is not about the technicalities of investment bonds, they want to know if they should have one.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

The answer is no in this case. Or I considered it but discounted it for this reason.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Right? And the client goes, cool. And that's all they need to know. So listen for the question underneath the question. Clients care about themselves, they don't care about financial products, for God's sake. Right? They can they only care about themselves and their own future. So our job is to answer their questions in such a way that gives them complete peace about themselves and their future. So clear away all the financial crap that the client doesn't care about and relate it to them and get really good at that. It's only practice, man. There's reps again.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, there's no shortcut to that. But practice, practice, practice, and creating content will help you.

SPEAKER_01:

It's like it's like repetition, isn't it? Is the key to most things in life. Getting better is doing doing lots of it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, which is yeah, which is super important. And it's it's really interesting there. What you say, it's almost like take the answers that you think that the viewers, you know, the reasons why they will be asking that question and and then you know build that into your content that you're doing. And I suppose you can give a couple of different variations for different scenarios. Sure. When you're recording content, I mean obviously you you've said that you view it as well. So what when you when you record it, what are some of the mistakes that you've made as you've been recording content and you've obviously kicked out over time? What and you know, what are the mistakes people can avoid?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, um I think a lot of people who create content, and I've definitely done this, create content for themselves. It's like your starting point has got to be why should anybody care about what I'm putting out, right? And the point is any piece of content, it's not about you, right? I know I joke about this like in the sound of my own voice and all that, and that's 100% true, but I don't do content for me, I do the content for those who consume it. And everybody wants, I think a perfect piece of content hits three things. One, it educates, so it improves the sum of their knowledge and applies it to their particular situation, helps them do so. It's entertaining insofar as they want to consume more. I don't mean you have to be funny or sing or dance or anything, but you know, that it has to make them want to come back for more. So educate, entertain, and then I think it needs to empower them to take action. I didn't come up with those three E's, by the way, I can't remember who did. But it otherwise it's just information or it's just entertainment. If you can actually say, and what you need to do is this, after you've listened to this video, watched it all, first thing you need to do is pick up the phone and talk to your pension provider and switch off lifestyling, right, or whatever, right? And they're like, okay, cool. And here's why. And you you know, oop, sorry, bang my microphone. And it's you know, I think if the content is outwardly, outwardly focused uh and consumer-led, it sounds so obvious that, but too many people start with, what would I want to watch? Well, you're not a client, you're an advisor. You need to ask your clients what they would find useful, so that'd be a good place to start. So my I mean, I've made mistakes, I've you know, agonized over videos and taken ages scripting them, and then they've just bombed, nobody's watched them, even though I thought it was a brilliant idea. And then sometimes I'll just throw something out because somebody mentioned it to me and it'll go gangbusters. And I've not put half the amount of thought into it, but it's really resonated. Now, YouTube is a bit of a black box anyway, it's hard to kind of uh suss out the algorithm sometimes, but you know, really the ones that don't generally do well, for instance, my most watched video for years was UK Pensions Explained. What a cracking blockbuster title that is. But it just went nuts, like hundreds of thousands of views. And the next one is overpay or invest. Should I overpay my mortgage or should I invest if I've got their money every month? These are the questions people want to know.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, think about what you what your uh audience want and speak to them, not to yourself.

SPEAKER_01:

Very interesting, and you you like you mentioned there, like you know, that um and again kind of rewinding to the start where you had videos that didn't do so well, you had videos with not a lot of views, it really started taking off you know, 18 months into the process. How how do you how have you remained so consistent with it? Is it because of the passion that you have for it, because you actually really love it, or is it because you're now seeing you know the kind of financial rewards and you know, or is it because it might it might be a combination of all three as well, Pete, that you know, now you've got um, you know, now you're actually helping hundreds of thousands of people. Um, you know, 10 million people have watched your 10 million views on your on your videos. That's a lot of people that you've helped out as well. So, you know, what is it that keeps you creating?

SPEAKER_00:

It's a good question, man. I mean, uh, and it is a combination of the three, and I think each one kind of waxes and wanes. I think easily that the singular thing that keeps me going is the feedback I get from ordinary people. Um, my dart, my daughter started working for me recently, and she started to get insight into because she's sat in on quite a few new inquiries. She's basically helping me with the marketing and the comms, she's really good at it, and but she's now getting some insight into the feedback that I get for meaningful money, and she's like being a little bit sick in her mouth because she's listening in on clients who are saying, Oh god, I feel all starstruck. And I don't be, I mean, I'm like, I gotta stop that, but she's just like, Wow, these people really respect you and really rate you. Yeah, but yeah, it's nice, isn't it? But when somebody emails you and says, 18 months ago I had 25 grand worth of credit card debt and I was in really deep trouble. Now I've got an emergency fund, I'm overpaying my mortgage, I've taken out life cover and income protection to look after my family. I feel for the first time in my life I'm on an even keel financially, and it's because you gave me the tools to do so. That's really good. That keep you going. Money, I'm not particularly motivated by money, but meaningful money has changed my life financially. You know, it is itself a multiple six-figure business, yeah, and it takes me, I don't know, 15 hours a week, maybe. And Jackson's has doubled in size in three years, right? So it's changed my life in so many ways, and all of that is really exciting. But ultimately, if the money went away, I would dig into my little folder that I've got of feedback emails, and it just it's good for the soul.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, I can imagine getting that that you know, kind of that real positive feedback loop of actually changing people's lives every day. You know, it's like a really nice thing. I mean, we we buzz about it, you know, internally when we you know have helped someone and they you know they send a nice email in as part of our MPS score. So I can imagine that with people that aren't even clients that are coming to you and saying, you know, you you've really helped me is is super super cool. It's exciting. Kudos to you and for and for doing that. You know, it's a really cool thing. With with the videos, obviously the the amount of you know, and as you said, you know, the information that you're giving away is free. The uh content that you're producing is super meaningful to uh to a lot of people. That's you know, no pun intended. Um but um do you script every video or do you is it just kind of like you get into the camera and talk? Because a lot of people, you know, won't uh you know we'll just see you as talking. But then you obviously you've mentioned you do write these things up as well.

SPEAKER_00:

So I do, yeah. When I started, I had you know, I had this that tiny little camera on a tripod or fixed to a wall somewhere, and I had a just little notepad with clothes pegs on it with bullet points written really big so I could see them from a distance. And they were just kind of hooks to make me you know say the right things, make sure I didn't miss anything. And occasionally I'd do a calculation and I'd have to write that really big so that I could say it. Now I script to the word, and on my YouTube videos, particularly they are scripted. I use a teleprompter, so you know there's a thing in front of the camera with the words, and I have a foot pedal so I can stop it and move it back. But I've learned to read in such a way that it feels natural and your eyes are not scanning. Um, but I do that because I construct, I create in writing. So I write, and that is how I kind of construct and and build my thoughts. So I'm kind of pre-editing. Whereas if I just at least now, I'm not worried about compliance. I think compliance is just something you don't need to worry about. Any competent advisor could stay the right side of the compliance line, right? It's usually compliance people that worry about compliance. Um, and I know it's important, I'm not disparaging them, but I think advisors use it as an excuse not to create content, and so do networks, particularly. So I I you know I don't worry about compliance, but for me, I just construct that way, and so my thoughts are more coherent and distilled if I write them and script them. But my podcast with my best mate and former uh director colleague Rog, we're just chatting, answering clients' questions, right? And so that's not scripted, and so it's it's just a different it's longer form, you know, it's a good 30-40 minutes, it's like this, yeah, and it's unscripted. So I think a bit of all sorts, really. But for the focused videos, they are 100% scripted, and I'm reading them.

SPEAKER_01:

Interesting. That's really interesting. You're using a teleprompter to do it. Oh, yeah, amazing bit of kit, changed my life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really, really, really cool bit of kit. And you obviously mentioned that you're working with people in your business, you've mentioned Jackson's obviously um a few times now. How how do you manage running the business with um with filming the content? Um, is it content first, business first? Is it business and content equal? You know, what does it look like?

SPEAKER_00:

That's sort of changed over the years as well. Because for years I had colleagues, I had co-shareholders. Um, I still do technically have one, but he's largely he largely lets me get on with it. He's mostly retired now, but he's a brilliant, brilliant partner, just in case he's listening to this. Um but I you know until last year had active business partners in with me, and so Meaningful Money is mine, but Jackson's was ours, and so I was always fairly conscious that I didn't want to kind of half-ass it at Jackson's because meaningful money was going gangbusters, but at the same time, it was driving all the business in. So that's changed a bit now because it's just me and they are kind of coming closer together. Um, you ask how I do it, the answer is I hire great people. So the best thing I did four years ago was take on a practice manager who is herself a visionary and a brilliant integrator, get stuff done. And she is continually saying to me, look, you need to go make more videos, right? We need some internal comms videos. Why don't you build a CPD library for the advisors? Because you'll probably do it better than you know, we can buy in and all that sort of stuff. And so she's just like, you know, play to your strengths, Pete. This is what you're brilliant at. I can handle the rest, sort of thing. So it's taken me a while to let go. I don't do much client work now, I've just got a few family and friends I look after. Um, yeah, but really it's about hiring great people and um and creating the space. Plus, I I neither play golf nor watch TV. So that frees up all our time.

SPEAKER_01:

This is meaningful money is your hobby, it sounds like as well. As much as you really enjoy doing it. And I think that to do anything well in life, you've got you've got to really, really enjoy it. You know, like but you've got to be passionate about it, and it's it's very, very clear you you are passionate about it, that that is for sure. And it comes across in all the videos. I've watched the view, like you actually do enjoy it. It's not you know, it's it's not you um just looking into a video and reading the script. Um you know, you're engaging, mate. Uh what's it?

SPEAKER_00:

I'm glad that comes across, thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

So how are you you know, like kind of uh you know, maybe this is a bit of a personal question to the practice, but over time will you get more of your advisors in? Involved in uh in the video creation, how how do you kind of manage that? Because obviously it's very much linked to you.

SPEAKER_00:

It is. I don't know that anybody's ever asked me that question before. That's really, really good. Uh, and it's exactly the right question. I would expect it from you actually. Um, I mean, it's one of my kind of models for this, at least to some degree, is a guy called Dave Ramsey in America. So he started and it was the Dave Ramsey show, and now it's the Ramsey show, and he's got other personalities and voices and faces on it, but they're mostly his family. So I'm not sure I want 100% model that. My two daughters have no interest in being advisors. But my goal now, I've just turned 50 this year, a bit of a milestone, so I'm figuring, right, 10 years left to really build and leave something that I'm proud of. And my primary goal is to increasingly make myself redundant, both from Jackson's, uh, so to build a culture and a leadership team there that can make decisions in the same way that I would for the same reasons. And the same follows at meaningful money, although that is more challenging. So I want to create more media. So I am starting a podcast in the new year with my youngest daughter, and it's aimed at her age. She's 22, right? And she put out on her Instagram, thinking about doing this with my dad, who's a chartered financial planner, what money questions have you got? And she was just inundated with questions from her peers. What does my pacelet mean? Am I ever going to be able to afford to buy a house? I've been joined to this pension, I ain't got a clue what it is. You know, we don't arm kids with this stuff, so we've got to you kids, young adults with this stuff. So she's gonna front it, and I'll be the kind of the brain, the wizened old hack in the corner that she can ask questions of. And so that'll develop things a little bit. Um, I've got two power planners want to do something in in uh uh two parasitors at Jackson's who have become advisors, they want to kind of document their journey, so starting that in the new year as well. So I just want to kind of broaden the suite of shows and output so it becomes less and less about me over time. Eventually, people won't want to listen to me anymore. So um so but you know, so I need to build a company that can produce whatever's uh needed or wanted at the time, um, and not just be about me, really. So that I mean that's a that's the sort of thing that keeps me awake at night, Chris. So I don't have an answer as to how I'm gonna do it, but I am working on it.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it sounds like you've got a pretty uh a pretty good answer on on what you're on what you're doing to get there, which is um, which is the main thing. There's that plan in that plan in place to to push it forward, which is really cool, like being able to speak to the next generation and impart the wisdom and also give them a leg up. You've obviously been doing this for 15 years, you know what works, what doesn't. You know, it's a really cool thing, and hopefully it means that you can reach even more people and make a difference in in their life too, which um which is super cool. So the one of the other things that you mentioned as well was obviously it's actually a business, like you know, that meaningful money is a business in its own right alongside your your financial planning. How do you know and this is more for this is more for my understanding? How on earth does the revenue metrics work um on YouTube?

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, so uh YouTube, you have to have a massive scale on YouTube to make any money. So I'm 145,000 subscribers, broadly quarter million views a month, something like that. And revenue, that's like uh anywhere from a so they're 800 quid to 1500 quid a month. So I'm not gonna retire on that, right? But yeah, it buys me some equipment and um it's it's not bad, don't get me wrong. Yeah, it's cool. So, but YouTube for me is the widest part of a funnel, as is the podcast. So you need to think of free content as uh as the widest part of the funnel. You want to collect as many people in there, and then of course you want to funnel them in. So I have a next level which I call meaningful academy. So that is essentially it's the same stuff that I talk about for free, but put together in a more distilled and curated set of courses with workbooks and um monthly live QA calls with me and all that sort of stuff. That takes me literally, other than updating the videos, which I do occasionally, takes me literally 90 minutes a month and earns a quarter million quid a year. Now it took me a ton of setting up. There are hundreds of videos on there, right? So it took me probably 18 months of pretty hard graph to set it up, but that was my lockdown project. But that now is like the second tier. So that is what pays for the incredible room I'm sitting in with all my fancy lights and posh cameras and all that sort of stuff, yeah. And you know, that's what has in many ways changed my life. That's just a huge amount of money, you know, compared to what I might have otherwise earned just as an advisor. Yeah, um, that is gross of VAT and corporation tax and all that, but still that's growing pretty rapidly as well. And then, of course, the sort of thinnest point of the funnel is like do it all yourself for free. Pay me a little bit on a one-off basis to get access to these courses and help yourself even further, and then you'd be amazed how many people come all the way through and eventually say, Do you know what? This is a big decision to retire. I'm gonna get professional help. And by then, they're not going anywhere else, and that's why we're inundated at Jackson's. So it is its own business in itself. I have affiliate arrangements, uh, particularly one with Life Search. So I'm not really interested in doing a load of protection work. We can do it, but it's not our specialism. Life Search are brilliant, so I cut a deal with them, I send them a lot of leads every month, and they cut me in, so that's pretty passive. Um, and you know, I've got a few brands that I work with, uh, Fairwill, who do online wills and stuff. I mean, it's my that's very small, but you add all this stuff up and it becomes a useful business in itself. So um that's how meaningful money makes money, but still it's Jackson's currently turning over about two million quid a year, and meaningful money is directly responsible for 80% of that.

SPEAKER_01:

That's amazing. That's so cool. I mean, all from something that you started on the beach uh 15 years ago. It's a super, super cool story, and I love stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you, mate.

SPEAKER_01:

Very, very entrepreneurial. Um, and yeah, it's it's amazing what you can achieve when you dedicate, you're passionate about it, you put your time into it, and you know, and you really want to do good. And like you said, like the money comes afterwards, huh? Like, it's not all about the money, it's actually a very small factor of of why you're doing it. It's great, but if you didn't like what you were doing and you didn't feel strongly about it, you would never, ever, ever have done so well about it.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, the money wouldn't have flown quick flowed quick enough to keep you interested. If that's your primary motivator, particularly with online content, it's a slow burn. It doesn't need to be as slow for those coming behind me as it was for me. I I mean, like nobody was doing a podcast about personal finance in 2012 when I started that. Hardly anybody was finance YouTube in in 2010 when I started that. Now, even though there's more competition now, I think it's much more understood how you can build content. And there's people, I mean James Shaq and Damien Talks Money, those guys are growing at a rate far surpassing me because they're genius at it. But they've studied it. I just basically found my way and just stuck at it and then started getting really strategic about it. So, but I think if you're really into it and you want to make it work, you can you can you'd have a quicker journey than me, put it that way. But if it's all about the money, you won't stick it out. I think I'm absolutely a believer that if you give generously of yourself, put it out there, just out of a general desire to help people, the universe will look after you. But whatever your belief system, I think that's fairly universal. So um, for me, that's worked in spades, and so you know, I'll keep doing it because it's I'm having a whale of a time doing it.

SPEAKER_01:

Fantastic. Well, please do, because it I really enjoy watching your content. Thank you. Anyway, so I'm one of your uh I'm one of your 10 million viewers. Um but yeah, on that note, it was really, really great to have you on, and I'm sure some advisors will find real inspiration in what you've talked about and your journey, and you know, hopefully it you know it means that we can get some more uh great content out there for consumers who desperately need it and who find this stuff super confusing and you know and and worrisome, and you know, all the other bits and pieces that the advisors help with. So we'll be really, really thank you for you giving up your time and coming on. Um, and you know, really, really appreciate you uh and everything you're doing. So thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you so much for having me, Chris. I'm uh in awe of what you're building, man, so uh keep going and uh I'll uh cling on a little bit to your coattails going forward. Thanks for having me, man. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you very much. Cheese P Taker.