From Cold Calling to 139 Clients: How Guy Skinner Built Citygate Financial Planning

How do you build a successful financial planning business?

In this episode of Don’t Shoot The Messenger, Chris sits down with Guy Skinner, founder of Citygate Financial Planning, to discuss how he built a thriving financial planning firm, won 139 clients in his first year, and why most planners underestimate what it really takes to run a business.

Guy shares the lessons that shaped his approach to financial planning, from cold calling and niching into lawyers, to building a referral engine and scaling a growing team.

Guy opens up about the personal experiences that shaped his belief in financial planning, including losing his father at a young age and seeing first-hand the impact proper protection planning can have on a family.

Whether you are a financial planner, business owner, or someone interested in wealth, growth, and building a meaningful business, there is a huge amount to take from this conversation.

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Transcript

Welcome And Meet Guy Skinner

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So, welcome to another episode of Don't Shoot the Messenger. Today I am joined by Guy Skinner. And he hit me for nearly six figures. He called me arrogant, called me uh a four-letter word, and told me to get out of his office. So, Guy founded City Gate Financial Planning in London in 2014.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

That one person that was brave enough to ask him the questions about what would he do, what would his family do if he died, changed the course of my entire life. What do you look for in the people that you bring on?

SPEAKER_00 0:27

We got signed off by the FCA on the 2nd of February 2015. Is it mainly referrals? Do you, you know, do you advertise your services?

SPEAKER_01 0:36

The best ever um number of referrals I got from a meeting was 10. It's almost like magic.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

So welcome to another episode of Don't Shoot the Messenger. And today I am joined by Guy Skinner. So Guy founded Citigate Financial Planning in London in 2014. He has over a decade of experience as a lifestyle financial planner, working primarily with lawyers, city executives, and business owners. His client niche is distinct. He's built much of his early client base by targeting newly qualified solicitors, which we are really excited to get into. Young professionals who've just seen their salaries double, but obviously lacked financial direction as a result. And in his first year, he's he's approachable in 139 clients, which is absolutely fantastic. He now leads a growing team. Specialisms include cash flow modelling, pensions, investments, tax and trusts, protection, employee benefits, we can go on and on and on. Um, but a particular focus is helping business owners identify and plan for their exit, finding their number before the transition to the next stage of life. So I'm I'm really, really uh excited to get into uh in into our chat today, guy. So first off, if you could just tell me a little bit about you know, you obviously why you founded Citigate, what was you know, what were you doing before, uh, and what was the moment you decided that I want to go

Purpose Found Through Family Loss

SPEAKER_00 2:05

and do it on my own?

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Well, okay, well, there was there was a big introduction and there's a lot of stuff said, and I I might take it to a slightly darker place with some of the answers to what could confess. So um, yeah, well, I I I started Citigate in 2014. We got signed off by the FCA on the 2nd of February 2015. It took the best part about six months to get the sign off. Um, I'd been part of networks actually up until that point um for close to seven years. So I I came in on the 2nd of October 2007. Uh, that was when I walked into financial advice. Um, and I've got no qualms with actually admitting the way that it happened. So it was a four-interview process, it was almost a case of will he turn up and if he does, he gets the job. They were just trying to psychologically out outdo you by seeing if you have the resilience to keep coming back, um, which I did. And I I thought I was gonna have two screens, I was gonna be trading, I was gonna be buying and selling funds and all this sort of stuff. Um, and it was a bit of a climb down because on my very first day I was told, right, well, here you are. Um, we do a lot of will writing and selling life insurance. I thought this isn't the sexy thing that I kind of thought I was gonna be doing. Um, but actually the the penny dropped after about a week, where uh I looked in the mirror literally at the bathroom at the place I was at, and I realised every time I picked the phone up and I was cold calling, I could change the life of the person that was going to answer the phone. And I say that because my dad died when I was 10 and he took out a lot of life insurance two years before he died. And that one decision, that one person that was brave enough to ask him the questions about what would he do, what what would his family do if he died, changed the course of my entire life, I believe. I've no idea what it would have looked like, but I don't think it would have been as good as it as it turned out to be if there wasn't money to support me as well as my mum. Because it wasn't like we had loads of money, but it was just the simple things like mum could pick me up from school, she could drop me off, she could be for all intents and purposes my mum and my dad throughout my childhood, and that's a massive, massive lift that you need. So I I've got a sister as well that's got multiple sclerosis, and she had a critical illness cover payout two years before I started. So again, I'd seen first hand, well, that can pay off somebody's mortgage. She was only 30 bless her at the time as well. But you don't have to be old and think, Oh, I only need insurance when I'm going to get ill because I've got to be old and therefore it's going to be expensive and I won't bother. So I was kind of bulletproof, which is how I took on 139. I'd call them clients, but they weren't really. I took on 139 policyholders in the first 12 months. And people thought I was really dodgy. They just thought, how is he doing this? And it you know, it was just incremental. It was just one person after the next after the next, um, and not just thinking that you're gonna land this massive whale every time, it's just from small things, big things grow, right? And it's um getting lots of referrals, and uh, you know, they were all lawyers, they all looked similar to me in terms of age and profile, um, and so it was quite straightforward.

Betrayal, Clawbacks, And A Reset

SPEAKER_01 5:00

But why I went out on my own, which was the original question, I I honestly didn't actually respect um that much the guy that ran the business. So he said in 2009, um, you know, he's all he was always dangling this carrot in the capital payout that one day we'd all be millionaires and we'd sell the business. Um, and it turns out that line had been kind of repeated many times from um City Financial and other companies that predated him. And I never really quite bought it, but I said to her, I went to his office, and I said, uh, I actually think what we should do is have sort of the best 15 to 20 advisors you've got and just wrap a structure around them. You know, I was cold calling, I was doing all my own paperwork, I was chasing things through underwriting, I was doing everything. Um and just let me have six appointments a day. You know, if my closing rate was somewhere in the region of about 75%, just let me see six people a day. Don't don't don't put like £20 tasks in my diary without sounding arrogant. And he um he called me arrogant, called me uh a four-letter word, and told me to get out in his office. And so that and and an RDR had already been touted, so we already knew that was that was coming, and he kind of thought that that was just never gonna happen, um, and clearly it did. But that company went under in 2014. I left in 2010, and actually I stepped up with another guy that was in that business, and um, yeah, that was quite traumatic as well because he was actually never qualified. He'd I don't know if he'd forgered his exam certificates or what he'd done, but he absconded after two years, yeah. And he hit me for nearly six figures. So um, you know, we were 50-50 on paper. I'd we'd never done anything in terms of a shell's agreement. Lesson learned, every client gets a shell's agreement now if they if they're a corporate client. Um but yeah, he he ran off, and it was only because I found an exam entrance slip on his desk, he'd taken his laptop and everything of an exam that he should have passed years ago if he'd been qualified. It was a certificate level, so it was pre-RDR. Um, you wouldn't be sitting the pensions exam if you if you if you were qualified. So, I mean that was that was a a huge win for me because what it meant I could do is about I don't know, it was about two months after he's absconded, I got a notification through to say that I owed a Viva some money because he'd left me holding the baby of the company and resigned and all the rest of it. Um and I sent him a message just saying the whole world's gonna know that you were never qualified unless you pay that clawback. And I got lucky that actually that connected with him and I got a call two hours later to say, just to let you know that callback's been paid. Unfortunately, nothing ever happened again, but it did live with me for another three years or so, just the hang up of shit. Well, somebody could tap me on the shoulder at any point in time, and there was a reasonable crawlback liability that wasn't of my making, and I never got the benefit of. And he'd drawn half of the money out of the business because we had an agreement, even though I'd generated most of it. Um, so I when I started Citigate, it was well, I need a clean slate, but I I also had dislikes of networks, so there was another network that'd been uh absorbed now already, but I wanted to get into the detail of how did they identify the funds that we should be using, and it turned out they grayed out part of their back end the back end of the system, which meant that you generally arrived at a fund that they got influenced uh fees from. So I'm independent, you know. Tell me openly if I'm selling a fee for you and that's going to make money for the network, and I'll call myself restricted, but I'm independent, that's not independent thinking. So that was why I decided I needed to leave and I needed to be directly authorised, and actually I stopped doing any investment business whatsoever for about three months before I applied for my directly authorised status and got it the following February, and I just did protection for the best part of that nine months because I'm just you know, I I I had a part-time job at Tesco when I was 18, and one of the mantras was don't put it on the shelf

Independence, Networks, And FCA Reality

SPEAKER_01 8:45

if you wouldn't buy it yourself. So I'm never gonna sell anything to a client if I wouldn't buy it myself, and and I'll I'll I'll take that with me right the way through to my grave.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

That's um that's that's I mean, that's some story from where you came from. Um I'm gonna I'm gonna go back a bit if that's alright. So, first off, what do you still prospect using life insurance now? Do you still do you still use that in your kind of um you know in your in your approach when you're speaking to clients initially? Is that something you would always typically deal with, or do you you know, do you focus on building the financial plan first? You know, what what how do you typically give advice now, guy? As and that's evolved at the time.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Sure. Um well the the script that we used to use back in the day was a pension mortgage sketch, so interest only mortgage and then use your lump sum to pay off your pension in essence. And conceptually described that, it sounds like a brilliant idea, in it is if the market confounds you take a level of risk and they don't change the rules in tax-free cash. But with any financial plan, my belief is that protection's got to underpin it.

Why Protection Underpins Every Plan

SPEAKER_01 9:50

So, you know, my dad's financial plan, if he'd not had life insurance, my mum's financial plan would have been ruined, my my sister's financial plan would have been ruined. But I've also done enough digging to look at the data to say, well, actually, if I reduced how much a 40-year-old contributed, but took the took the maximum degree of risk, so 100% equities, versus let's just play the game and follow their risk profile and make them a six out of ten, and then invest a higher amount of money, actually you end up with more money if you've invested lesser amount of money, paid the insurance premiums and taken the full full risk of the market than invested the the greater amount of money at the risk profile that you're at. So I I actually reframe protection for many prospects as it being something that actually keeps you in your seat with your investment. Yes, it's there when the shit hits the fan as well, which is which is useful. Um you want that payout, but psychologically, you're far more likely to stay the course if it's if you've got rid of that what if of what if somebody's died or what if somebody gets ill. Because you know, nobody knows if we're going to get cancer next week and have that diagnosis. It's it's uh I I mean I don't live like that because that would be debilitating, you wouldn't get anything done, right? But that is that is a thought at the back of the mind that that people could have and should have. So I bring that to life, I suppose, and I sketch out every single time. So one of the things we were taught, I mean, there was a wonderful education where I was, albeit you know, I we just had we have a disagreement as to how the business should proceed, but I always sketch with clients and prospects. So I would sketch out conceptually what a financial plan looks like within about the first half an hour of meeting somebody, and I'm gonna use as many of their words to replay back to them and actually sketch out as close to what I can and what they've told me and what they've described, what they'd like their life to look like. Yeah, and it's almost like magic because while one you're visually stimulating people, which most of us I think something like 80% of us are visually stimulated or orientated for our learning, but equally it comes to life, and so it's big it's so memorable that I've got clients from way back when, still now, that have got my original sketch and they've got a folder with their will with their trust forms, and they still refer to it and they look at it and they go, Well, it's nearly 19 years since I started. You know, they look at it and they go, You're right, actually. I've got this, I've had this pinch point in the middle where I've approached my 40s, and money was quite tight. So I'm really glad I made those provisions in my late 20s, and that money worked really hard for me. Don't get me wrong, I mean it does help having a bull market in the best part of 16 years as well, that really put that put that financial plan on steroids. But yeah, we always then transition then next to the financial modelling and the cash flow. But you know, we create the version of status quo if we were never involved, and then the version if we were involved, they're always gonna put in all the the full costing of the of the uh protection in our version of it. And nine times out of ten, just with you know simple interventions like using allowances, pensions, and ICEs, and a bit of GIA, perhaps, depending on how wealthy they are, they're gonna work out better off having paid the the premium. So they they don't mind so much, they know what they're getting into. Um, but I do have that backup and that handy story. Look, my dad died. Don't think you are

Sketching Plans Clients Keep For Years

SPEAKER_01 12:55

um you know not ever gonna have this happen to you. It could be you, it could be me.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

We just never know. Right. How do you prospect now, guy? How do you, you know, how do you find clients? Obviously, before you mentioned you was cold calling, you was you know getting in front of people, you were speaking to them, you know, how is it mainly referrals? Do you you know do you advertise your services? How how do you how do you go out and win new clients now? Because clearly a a key part of why you were so successful initially was because you were going out doing that stuff all day, every day by the sounds of things. You know, you you said you wanted, you know, to be put in front of six clients um a day, which you know some people go, you know, how on earth could he deal with that? Um but you know, I think that's you know absolutely fantastic. But how how you know how how do you do it now versus how you did then?

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Well, I I actually stopped cold calling um because I could afford to pay a cold caller

Referral Contracting That Actually Works

SPEAKER_01 13:50

too, but after nine months or so, I didn't need to actually cold call. Wow. So every single meeting I would start it by thanking the person for coming along because they've been open-minded enough to come along and meet me without knowing what they might get from this. But if you do find it valuable, all I ask is that if you know somebody else that could benefit from this, then you might think of them and let me know who they are. And of course, that's a totally reasonable statement to make. And what I'm doing is I'm contracting for a referral if they find it useful. So by the time I've got to the end of the process, and they've even if they don't come on board as a client, they'll have found what I've done use for because we're asking questions that are going to uncover thinking they've never had before, and we're painting a picture of quite well, not painting, but drawing a picture quite literally of what their life's gonna look like, and people do enjoy that, you know. They we may not actually have enough value to add. So I'll say to them, Look, I I don't think actually I'm the right person for you, or I don't think I can add enough value to your situation, or you know, I've enough experience to know that you're gonna be just fine without me, you just you need to just need to do this, this, and this. But at the end of it, I'll still say, you know, did you find that valuable? And when they say yes, I say, Well, you may remember at the start of our meeting, I know I asked you that if you find it valuable, you might be able to think of somebody else that'd be a friend, family, colleague that would find this beneficial. So the best ever um number of referrals I got from a meeting was 10. And that was probably after about five or six months of way back in 2008. So, in the middle of a global financial crash, a junior lawyer is giving me 10 names of other junior lawyers, people they'd all qualified with and deskmates and stuff like that. And it's it's kind of you know, one becomes three, it becomes nine, it becomes twenty-seven, becomes eighty-one. And I get two referrals a week already at the moment, not really doing much. Um, I've had one in my inbox already this morning, but I've also grown my network, so I know four different accountancy firms. Um, I know lots of um fractional C-suite people, so you know they they many of them are clients as well. So, probably the best thing I've ever done with accountants is I've asked them actually if they have a financial plan. And when they don't have a financial plan, I get them on board as a client, and then they can be a great advocate for what we do because they understand it, and then they see the power of it and how it's changed their life, and they'll just go out and market the hell out of it. So without even trying too hard, it's just a steady flow. Some weeks it's three, some weeks it's one, some weeks it's not, and some weeks it's four, but on average, it's about two referrals a week, and we bring on board now one family per week. Um, my next um step of scaling the business is making it not just me that's bringing on clients, so that there's 11 of us, and I on board every single client, which gives some comfort to a degree because I've I've started that relationship and it feels a little bit safe from the perspective of if the if the advisor left, I think I'd be able to retain the clients. Um, and actually, there's a lot of comfort for the client as well. They know that I should be growing the business because if I get hit by that proverbial bust, they know there's a team and you know there's other ways of approaching it, but um, yeah, I think advertising, I think other methods of of going far greater. I listened to one of your podcasts the other week, and you were saying it was six-figure monthly spend that you'll have on on advertising. I mean, I I love the ambition and the risk taking to actually go do that, and it feels like risk taking when you meet, because you know, that's a lot of our turnover. When you get to a certain size, it's all proportionate, isn't it? And that's I think that's the trick that a lot of people have on and and forget about as human beings. We think in straight lines rather than exponential curves, that's just human nature, but um, it's just iterative risks along the way. So I'm ready for that next challenge of doing something I've not done previously. Um because it's got to grow beyond just you know two per week on average, which is great, but it's got to be more than just simply me that can bring a prospect and take that skeptic to being a convert and a client.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

So obviously, you grew your business uh a lot initially from cold cooling, um, and I did as well. Um I think that's a great way to kind of get momentum, and then obviously you branch off, and then you you know you'll build it up more by referrals from the you know the people that become clients. Natural, obviously, building up through introducers as well, which is absolutely fantastic. Um what I would say on that is um one of the areas that clearly you you you know, and one of the areas I find of your story really interesting that you focused on was a niche, and I think that's

Choosing Lawyers As A First Niche

SPEAKER_00 18:10

a fantastic way, especially to go really you know deep on one sector and to become a specialist in that, and you can start talking the you know, start talking the lingo out of interest. Why did you focus on lawyers? What made you focus on them initially?

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Yeah, so at the office was right by St. Paul's. Oh and I'd I'd love to say I was so smart and so intentional. I went, I tell you what, I was so on you. But the reality is, look, I I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder, the company I was at, I was pretty much the only person there that was uh state school educated. I I didn't get my education paid for. And loads of them now, I was also 27, they were many of them were younger than me. They were always looking on the Aswals FSA register trying to find the person earning a million pounds a year, and I just thought, you're 23. I mean, I was 27, I'd bought I'd bought Bitelep property by that point. My dad had died, my sister had a bit more life experience than others. But I recognised the fact that actually younger people were more likely to deal with me, and I could tell how old somebody was if they were a lawyer. So you think pre-Linkedin really, because it wasn't it was in its infancy in 2007, but you you can tell how old a lawyer is typically by looking at how many years qualified they are. So I knew if they were one or two years qualified, they were roughly going to be a similar age to me, and we'd probably have a bit in common. So that's all the thinking was. It wasn't more in-depth about well, let's think about the psychological profile of the solicitor, they read everything, they're cautious, they like a plan. Nothing like that. It's just there's a lot of within the clients always came to us, or prospects always came to us. So, you know, if they were if within a 10-meter walk radius of the office, there were thousands and thousands of people that are similar age to me that were earning decent money, and I just knew that they had this one perfection in in in um comment. So, you know, I I'd probably do it differently if I was to do it today, and you've got far more social media, you've got LinkedIn, and you know, I I I would I would really love to see a financial planning business out there that went to a property, so you know, they they took something that was you know, let's just work with deaf people or let's just work with um dyspraxic lawyers. Let's go really deep into that because what are the characteristics of it? And it might be that the person is dyspraxic themselves, and one of the characteristics of a dyspraxic person, I've chosen the best word to say you know, I'm gonna get your time out on that, but you know, they're they're they're not normally organized, they find it difficult to organise things, so they need help, but clearly they're successful, they can earn a lot of money, they've got strengths in their other areas of life. Well, let's help that person. Um, and I I don't see it. I mean, to say lawyers is a is a niche, sort of. I mean, it what what have you got to think about? You've got to think about the lag that they have as a partner in terms of what they'll learn versus the effort they put in. You've got to think about the transition of when they go from being a senior associate to either a salaried or full equity partner and what that looks like in terms of their income journey. And you've got to think about them not getting hooked on their lifestyle, but also the fact that they have lumpy uh remunerations when they get drawings, typically it depends on the firm, but it might be quarterly. That's as complicated as it gets, right? It's it's not hugely difficult to get your head around that. There's there's not strange pension schemes like you've got with the NHS or anything like that. It's um it's just a demographic of people that do a certain role, and you you can say there are typical characteristics of a of a lawyer without being um derogatory. You know, we we've got some wonderful clients and everyone's different, but they do generally not like taking risks. You know, that is their nature, they are taught to read things and think her on the side of caution. So, you know, probably the greatest thing we do for most of our clients is push them to take a bit more investment risk than we otherwise would, if like their own devices. And I think that's probably our biggest value add that I've given to all the people I've been working with for the best part of 19 years. And and they'll they know as such because they have set in really terrible bond funds when they're 32 because they they just wanted to see straight lines and not volatility.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

It's interesting, isn't it? It's a really clever segment to get involved with as well, because clearly they're high earners. Henry's um, you know, as as as the as the kind of strap line goes today, but you know, a fantastic uh segment to be involved with, especially when they're you know in their junior junior part of their career, and that's obviously they increase you know their their roles and their responsibilities and their capabilities, clearly that the earnings increase along with it, and then obviously later on, um, you know, when they make partner and things like this, you know, salaries for some of these city lawyers can be absolutely insane. So by hook or by crook, a fantastic segment to uh to you know, segment of the market to associate yourself with, and and clearly you built a fantastic build it, uh, you know, uh a fantastic uh business around it. How's the niche evolved though now? Because obviously, you know, previously we we talked about business owners, like do you still deal a lot with lawyers now? Like how how how's it

Shifting Towards Business Owners And Exits

SPEAKER_00 22:55

evolved over time, guys?

SPEAKER_01 22:57

So I'd say about a third of our clients are lawyers, a third are business owners, and the other third could be any any walk of light general. Generally, they're they're people that are commonly referred. I I started to really want to work with business owners. I did a business management degree and then started my own business. So I understand what the journey looks like going from your back bedroom with nothing to trying to build something that's seven figures and having employees and the stresses of as we were saying at the at the top, about you know, getting an email through about somebody trying to take the trademark of your business name and those sorts of things that crop up. So I'm I'm attuned to thinking a similar way to a business owner because I am one, but I do like looking at it's two clients to the price of one, really. You've got the company to deal with, and you can think about that, the license that, and you can think about the license of your family that you're dealing with. So it's a bit more of a there's there's that extra layer of complexity in terms of how you advise, which is a nice challenge to have. Um, but again, is it really a niche to say business owners? I mean, there's millions and millions of companies in the UK, right? And uh they all do different things, so you you should be focused enough. But again, getting fractional C-suite people as a big network around me, that's how I've got introduced to so many of those business owners. So I was very intentional about how I'd go about finding them. And the one thing they want to be in common is they want to exit within about three to five years. So that's the that's the spark of the conversation from their perspective, and that's why they're happy to come and speak to me, and then we just uncover a shed load of other things that actually they should be focusing on, otherwise they're never really going to be fit for exit. And um, you know, the one thing that a lot of business owners aren't really contemplating is if the exit is not on their own terms. So, you know, having had that experience with that business partner that absconded, I'll make sure that we do everything holistically rather than just focus on well, what does that mean? Um and I'll be very sensitive to the conversation because there's a hell of a lot of stuff that's very personal with people when they when they run a business. But um, it does feel a little bit strange at times thinking, well, I want to do that and I want to do that. How can how can those two universes meet without you conflicting it? And it does feel like you've got to at some point go, right, well, let's have a clear distinction as to what I'm I'm best at and what I do. You know, at the top, when you describe specialisms and you run out of things to say, etc., you clearly you can't have a special specialism in that many things. And we have actually earlier this year sold the the corporate um part of it so we don't do employee benefits any longer. And the realization with that was the fact that if it's not me driving it, it's not going to happen. Yeah. So I've just got to focus. And actually, my focus is going to have to come greater and greater and greater, I think. Um, albeit if I build a team, you know, we've we've got Imogen in the team, and she was a litigator for 10 years at a US law firm. She might take that baton on and run the bit to be just working with solicitors. And you know, I'll retain a handful of clients that I've I've known for decades, and it's really hard to part with because I know my kids and all the rest of it. Um but maybe I'll just focus more on business owners. And maybe we'll just have different strands within the business that somebody can be a true specialist in. But that's just the evolution of a business, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 26:00

So exactly. We we're getting it. It's never going to stay the same the whole

Hiring Fears, Values, And Capacity Traps

SPEAKER_00 26:05

way through, that's for sure. Everything evolves and and grows, and if you don't, you're gonna get left behind on unfortunately. Um, but you you want you know, you started to talk about then with obviously the team around you. So you've obviously built, you know, had a bit of a team around you now. You've got financial planners, paraplanners, operations managers. What you know, what what was the hardest thing about bringing on people, you know, and what do you look for in in the people that you bring on?

SPEAKER_01 26:29

The hardest thing about bringing people on, it sounds quite paranoid, I suppose. But my my concern was well, what if they leave me? Um, and more so around the advisors. So I think the the common path is many people get to, as I kind of term it, escape velocity. Right, now I've got enough clients that I can sustain more than the income I had, I'm gonna leave and set up on my own, and all these clients will come with me. So I think for the first four, maybe five years, that was in my mindset, and again, bear in mind I came from a place of mistrust with that guy absconding. You know, people will tell you what they want, but the reality might be very different. And so it took me a while to think actually, you just build a good business, you don't be the person that tells the person that comes up with an idea you're a four-letter word to get out of my office, like I was told. And it turns out I was probably right, and if he'd done that, maybe you would have had a business post post-2014. But um, you know, being open to other people's ideas is really useful. But I always want people to inspire themselves because I can only do the job for so long. So you you know, while I'm not there, you've got to inspire yourself somehow. So when I look for people we always interview based on the values, um, a set of values that people need to ascribe to, otherwise, they're just never going to make the cut. I, you know, knowledge is powerful, sort of. Knowledge applied is powerful, not knowledge. You've got to have the application. What's going to make you want to apply it? That's what I want to know about. So I like people with in the best the nicest way of saying this, just with a bit of a backstory of hardship or some pain, or um, something that's actually going to drive them and motivate them because being good at anything is not only just a byproduct of really enjoying it for an external reason rather than an internal reason. And so, you know, when I go back to back when I bring on 139 clients, it was never about me. Not once was it ever about me, it was all about the extrinsic of how can I change that person's life. You know, we were we were told to think about and dream big about the goals that you have. So, you know, flying a helicopter and going watching Manchester United or whatever it would be. I was the only person that didn't have a Porsche pretty much. You know, so many of them got a Porsche on finance, but I just could see through all of that BS because I just thought, well, you know, it was a big pyramid structure of a sales organization. Well, my boss is now going to need me to earn about three grand a month just to afford the car finance, which means they're gonna earn this. So if I can get 10 people to buy Porsches they can't really afford, and I'm him, I'm gonna make a fortune because they're gonna need to do that. And I I just saw through that. None of it was about me, it was about the extrinsic, and money is just a byproduct. So I want people that think that way as well and realise that actually there's a greater good out there, and what we're doing is helping people realise that for themselves, money being a tool for that journey and not the end game. Um, and if they don't have that, then they're not going to get very far with me. So I'll ask people why are you passionate about what we're doing? And if they can't think of a reason as to why they're passionate about financial planning, you're not gonna get very far.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

Yeah, I think one of my favourite questions to ask people, especially when they're junior as well, is why do you want to be a financial planner? Like what what what makes you want to do this job? Um, and generally turn down a lot of people that don't have a don't have a very good answer to it is suit. You know, like if you're gonna build a career in anything, especially when you're a junior in my in kind of a junior in your career, uh, in my opinion, you need to have a proper reason as to why you think you're gonna be great at this, otherwise you never will be great at it, or you know, a real passion for it. Um you don't have to have all the answers, but I think you need to, you know, you need to have a clear vision of why why you want to do it. What's been your biggest hiring mistake and what what did it teach you, guy?

SPEAKER_01 30:10

Well, there's been a few of those as well. Um I what what they taught me was about being probably 65 to 75 at capacity before I've actually identified well, before I started looking for somebody. You don't necessarily have to identify them at that point. We don't want to be creaking at the screen, it seems and desperate. So we say, Well, you're the best person you'll do. It's always got to be a hell yes, or it's a no. Um, and and and so when I look at any of the mistakes that we made, it was because we just needed a bum on a seat now, and they appeared to be good enough, but um not perfect. Um, or or perfect's the wrong word, isn't it? Because nobody's perfect, but not you know, not as close to the mark as I would have liked. And it was that desperation that's that's always forced it. So we're just not desperate now. We've got a proper um planning in place to look to look into the future to go, well, when did we think the the based on the cadence of this number of clients, based on you know payroll increasing by this amount and so on and so forth, when are we expecting to see the next hire? So we can actually pinpoint it down to within a couple of months, and we'll know now, again, because we've done this enough times, how long the recruitment process takes. So it's no longer my first rodeo, just and I got lucky as well, because the the first uh employee that has still with me, he's been been with me eight years, and the business wouldn't be where it is now if he wasn't the first person that joined me because of his loyalty and because he's a great employee, you know, that's the foundation upon which to build. Um, and I suppose the other the other mistake when I look back at it, and I've always had this rec realisation, is that the the people that would have been bad hires have generally been doing things that I'd never done myself. So an operations manager, administration, and paraplanning, I've never done those roles. So, you know, I clearly you know, I do all the gable returns and do all the bits about operations, but fundamentally I'm a financial planner, I'm not an operations manager. So I don't really I didn't really know what I was looking for until I really sat down and um thought about it a bit more deeply than I had done originally.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

It's yeah, it's uh it's important to define what you want, isn't it? Very uh very impressive that you can define it down to a couple of months, so that's uh that's some skill being able to pinpoint that that far for sure.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

I'd say I think that's because we're smaller, isn't it? You know, when when the numbers rack up and you could get different growth rates quite easily, that's going to get thrown out quite quickly.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

But for now that works. Well one of the things as well, the kind of

Listening As A Competitive Advantage

SPEAKER_00 32:45

shifting the the kind of conversation slightly that struck me earlier was you saying you were drawing things and sketching. Um so we had Carl Richards on a while ago, and obviously he's quite famous for his sketches on financial plans and and financial planning concepts in general. Uh, where did it come from? And you know, what does it do for the conversation for people that don't do it and people that you know kind of just talk at clients, like actually sketching it out and like bringing those concepts to life in the form of a diagram? How does that change the dynamic of when you're speaking to a client?

SPEAKER_01 33:20

Well, I think I think I mean if if somebody was having a brain scan live or we're doing it, yeah. I'm pretty sure you'd see different colours of different bits of the brain lighting up when you've sketched it rather than just using words back at them. So that's certainly something that it does. But it gives me the opportunity to show them that I've really listened. Because if it's to such an extent that I will use the same vocabulary to the word that they've used. If I if I I'm pre- I it's it's a trained skill, like you've got to practice this, and seeing that many people, that's why I used to love cold cording and just people coming in, because I'm just gonna get to practice every single time and hone my craft and get so good eventually that I can remember the exact words. And then when I deliver that back to somebody, again you see their reaction, they'll lean in, they'll um you know, you'll get you'll get greater number of facial expressions from them, you'll get gesticulation from them, they'll light up in some regard. Um, and that's just because I'm telling them exactly what they told me, and they know they've been listened to, and they know that therefore they've been validated, and we all want that, don't we? Because what's the worst experience we can ever have in life is when somebody ignores us, they talk over us, they interrupt, and so on. So we just gotta um use that opportunity to it's not shutting off, but uh just demonstrate we've listened.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

Definitely, it's um it's it's a great way to replay back and make sure that your understanding is confirmed, isn't it? Uh and for uh and and to help them understand it's it was really nice as well to to hear that you know a lot of your clients still have the original diagrams to do fact-find drawings on the you know, kind of on the back of the fact-find, and you bring them out when you know when you go for a review meeting, the amount of people that you know I remember that, it's uh it's it's nice and it's it's it helps people kind of remember to back to the initial things that you were talking about, and obviously life evolves and changes as well. Um, but yeah, it's it's great to be it's great to be brought back to that point. What's the hardest conversation you've had to have um and have you got better at it over time? Obviously,

The Reality Of Terminal Illness Planning

SPEAKER_00 35:20

you know, talking generally about someone building a financial plan, talking about what happens when you die, you know, talking about you know if what happens if something unexpected happens, cancer, all these, all these things, you know, and and you know, you know, kind of bad things, but you know, things that have happened in your own personal life that you know would throw a lot of people off and you've made a big success of it. How do you deal with that when you when you talk and bring it up with other people and how do you get them to take it seriously?

SPEAKER_01 35:47

The hardest bit has been when I'm I I'm working with somebody that's terminally ill. So they've already had the diagnosis and we know now what what the date of expiration is expected to be. And um that's bloody hard because then you're talking about right, well, we spoke about it maybe before and you didn't get your will written, but now this is a very real thing. It was just hypothetical before, but now I mean it's never hypothetical, is it? But but now it's so real that you know this is probably going to be enacted and used within a matter of months, not years. Um and they are hot they are hard conversations. I I think of it as a superpower, really. I'm I'm lucky because it happened to me, so I'm quite happy having those conversations, and it's you know, people will seek me out because they know I don't mind speaking about the hard actions that you've got and choices you've got to make when you've got a finite window of of time of months to deal with this disease, but also how that's going to change your psychology. Because again, I I can speak from first hand to know that when somebody's terminally ill, they genuinely want to still work. You know, it gives them a purpose, they've got a reason to get out of bed every day, they've got routine, cancer, or whatever it is now, not the thing, they don't want that thing to be the thing that defines them. That's they just want that to be a side aspect, and they probably don't even want to talk about it, they don't want to talk about that every day because they want to just think positive thoughts, and I'm aware of that because I can cast my mind back to thinking about my dad, yeah. And you know, he he he would still work. I think it was only about three months before he died that he actually stopped working. Wow, um, and he wasn't working every day because he he he wasn't in great great health, but he would he would have that direction in that sense of I want to achieve and I still want to do things, I still want to contribute, and that's just human, isn't it? So recognising that rather than saying there and being overly sympathetic. Um, because that again that just comes across as being a little bit false. You've got to recognise it, you've got to show empathy, but you I'm not gonna tread on eggshells because people don't want that either. This is just real life and it's hard at times. And and I suppose why do people know I'm serious? I I don't know, maybe I think we all leak the truth, we all leak whatever it is about us, whether you like it or not, it will you'll exude it, it's gonna come out. So maybe people can just tell I genuinely give a shit because I've walked that journey to a degree.

SPEAKER_00 38:03

You know, I I've been on the receiving end and I get it. It's um I mean it's it's very, very powerful to be able to relate back to your own experiences um for sure. I mean, you know, obviously you you wouldn't wish um you know what what's happened to you or on clearly on anyone, but it as you said before, you know, it's it's a it's fact, it does happen, and ultimately if you are don't have a financial plan as as your dad was obviously fortunate enough to put in place for for you and your for your family, then you know, really bad things can happen. We've talked as well about you know kind of we've talked we've talked about using more, let's say, old school methods such as drawings

AI Note-Takers And Coaching Use Cases

SPEAKER_00 38:45

and you know sketches and everything else like that. How and I'm I'm asking everyone this because I'm very, very interested. What are you doing with AI? How are you exploring that? What digital tools are you looking at for to work with your clients at the moment? What kind of things are you seeing that you're kind of going, oh, I've that looks really interesting, I'm gonna use that in my business. Well, we've got we've got a note-taker, I mean that's pretty standard.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

I was approached by two guys, it's got about three years ago, so they every Friday afternoon they'd interview you for an hour, um, and they developed a note-taker fairly early on. I mean, I don't think any of them are being used the way that they could be. Whereby, you know, the and you anonymize a transcript and let's use it as a training needs analysis tool. Let's build a prompt to figure out what's the probability of success of that prospect becoming a client. Um, you know, let's think about some models of trust and the frameworks and apply those to that transcript and see how much trust, if you can to objectively measure it, was built. You know, I I can foresee a big dashboard where if you've got hundreds of advisors, I want to know the click of a button, how many green flags are there and how many red flags are there, and where the training needs. That's what it should, you know, that's one case use case. Um my trainees now, as they're coming through to CAF status, they will use it for that. We've built those problems. So they'll take their transcripts when I'm not in a meeting, uh, and we will look at what are their trading needs analysis aspects are. I I really want to build an avatar of it, doesn't have to be myself, but it probably is gonna be myself, and that sounds really egotistical, isn't it? But but it just needs to be a 24-7 tool at a different price point because you know you could take the analogy of buying coffee, you could buy, you could go and make coffee downstairs with five pence or whatever it's gonna cost. You could have one I was in a hotel the other week, and it was about £27 for two coffees. You know, there's there's a whole whole uh myriad of service propositions you could give in between, and AI is going to plug some of that gap, and maybe we could build a solution ourselves because there's enough data that we've put out into the world, you know, there's podcasts to even think about well, what would the mindset look like? What would the what would the phraseology be that Chris would give somebody? Um and so you could build that quite easily. So I'm I'm quite excited by that. Um, and then stuff like cash flow modelling and and that should all just be you know uh table stakes for for AI soon, and it'll just happen. And I know this is boring because I hear this on podcasts all the time, so I don't want to fall into that trap. But um, I I want to be far more involved with people's underlying thinking and getting to the heart of the matter because you know probably one of my favourite lines from a film is Shaw Shank Redemption with salvation lies within because yeah, that was his method of escaping, it was in the Bible, but it's also the fact that within all of us we've got the answer, and that's the same of every prospect or client you ever see. So I don't see AI being fantastically good at getting that anytime soon compared to a human being, and like I say, we leak things. Well, what's AI gonna leak? How are you gonna pick up on the nuances of how AI might say something? Because I'm I'm not convinced it will for the for now. So I just want to really make sure I'm delivering that consistently and AI can speed me up in the background and just get us a bit more efficient in the background. Um, we don't play around with it as much as we should. I've actually I asked one of the team recently to be a champion, so to speak, of it and just play around with it and and think about tools they could build. Um, but I'm not I'm a I'm not a laggard, but I'm I'm also not an early adopter of these things. I'll have a look at as to where people go and what other things they might do, but you know, certainly as a as a as a as a training tool analysis to improve conversations, I think that's the start of pretend, and we'll keep using it that way until we see a different use case that we think could be valuable.

SPEAKER_00 42:37

Very interesting. Yeah, look, there's there's so many use cases that you can use it for. It's um yeah, it's it's it's a really, really interesting space, and it's just gonna, you know, it's gonna evolve and evolve and evolve. If I think back two years ago when start, you know, well it was longer than that, but you know, when very much people started using Chat GPT, uh, you know, open AI LLMs, like how how much it's evolved since then. Like it's just not night and day, and these things are gonna keep becoming a sit

Discipline, Targets, And Self-Accountability

SPEAKER_00 43:05

thick and fast. So really excited to uh to see where it goes, and it yeah, it sounds like you've got some really interesting use cases. Um what's been the best piece of advice you've ever got, professionally or personally, guy?

SPEAKER_01 43:16

Well I'd say it's probably to to seek to understand before being understood. And that was said to me many years ago um professionally. So I'm gonna nick it, so I can use one for the personal aspect of that. But that was said to me professionally. Um But I even that I have I had an epiphany this morning around the fact it's more about not understanding other people so much, but I've got I've got to understand myself. So it's you've got to know thyself, but um we very rarely think about what we actually want. Um, me especially, because it was put on me that I was then the man of the family after my dad had died, and so everything's typically been about other people, and I've always been very paternal and wanted to look after others. I never think about well, what what do I want to do? Um that's Very much an afterthought. So that's something I'm going to change soon, and I'll have a conversation with my wife later about what that might look like. Um, but the the best thing personally I was ever told outside of work um was if that if you cheat in life, you're only cheating yourself. And it was actually my football coach said that to me when I was 12 years old because our warm-up run used to be to run to a gate that was sort of a fence that was so far away it was out of his view. So as he turned off to re to run, he'd just always say, if you cheat in life, you're only cheating yourself. And everybody always touched that fence, even though he couldn't see them doing it. And it just because you know why fall short? So you know, going back to when I used to cold call, um, I had a quota, I'm not gonna not not hit it. And I used to do I used to do things that other people probably thought was a bit stupid, like what's he doing? But I'd always finish finish on a positive, so I'd always finish with a call so that was booked. So I'm not gonna get to my 25 target if the last one wasn't a successful call. I'm gonna wait until that was a successful call because I can take that little bit of momentum of good from that day before to the next day. Yeah, and I used to play all these little tricks on myself because I don't know where I picked them up, but you know, I've alluded to the fact life was pretty difficult without my dad throughout my teens, and so there was just these little things I used to do throughout life, and I I had to I didn't have that that wise counsel, so I used to think about well, what can I do to trick myself? Because most of it is about tricking ourselves, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 45:24

Yeah, for sure. I think you know what you need to do, but you know, very rarely, you know, do you are you are always able to hold yourself to accountable, and I think those little tricks definitely help getting you there. The amount of calls, you know, not leaving before you've done that piece of work, giving yourself a reward of a coffee if you do this or do that, you know, kind of it's there's there there's there's lots of things that you can use, but yeah, you're 100% right. I was actually having this chat with Chloe the other day, and she was saying, Have you ever have you ever lied to your doctor? And I was like, What do you mean? And she was like, Well, you know, like have you ever told them that you know they've asked you if you've done something and you've um you know you you've said no, knowing that you full well have. And I was like, Absolutely not, like it was always just kind of like mortified as to why someone would do that. Um, but I think it's a um I think it's more of a I think it's a trait that unfortunately a lot of people have, they kid themselves, didn't they? So uh good fit good on you.

SPEAKER_01 46:19

Um well I I'll go back to the last one. I've got another one that I'd love to share actually, because this this was something that was said to me recently, I think it was a really good thing, because it took me back. You know, when I was cold calling, it was daily targets. And the difficult thing about a daily target is you can fail 365 times a year, but you can kid yourself on the 1st of January and say, by the end of the year I'm gonna achieve this, you can get to June. What are we today? The 8th of June. And yeah, I'm on the way to hitting it. But you kid yourself you're gonna do it. But if you every single day I've got to make five appointments, whatever it is, I can fail up five 365 times. Yeah, and that's tough. But that was actually the success that's what sits behind success. It's just being organised on a daily basis and going, I will do this today. And it's also getting out of bed and going, Do you know I'll do these stupid things like I've been to the gym before we've had this call. I'll say to myself in the morning, am I going to go to the gym today? And I'll tell myself, Yes, I am, and I'll I'll say it out loud, and then do you know what? I f I'll follow through and I've gone.

SPEAKER_00 47:13

Yeah. Yeah, and leaving your gym kit out before you the day before things like that. All the all the all the tricks of the trade. Um last um last question for me because I appreciate I've I've kept you for long enough and you you've obviously got a busy day with with plenty on. If a financial planner listened to this is five years into their career

Ambition, The Advice Gap, And Closing

SPEAKER_00 47:35

and thinking about going out on their own, what's the one thing you'd want them to hear?

SPEAKER_01 47:40

I've got a bit of a beer my bonnet at the moment about the fact that people aren't ambitious enough in financial planning. I think we've got too many distinctly average firms. There's too many one-man practices where again I'll I'll cover old old words that I've already used. It's it's intrinsic motivations rather than extrinsic. So, you know, they want to go and set up on their own because they've got a client bank that can sustain their income, they don't like their boss, they don't like being told what they're told to do. Um, but it's because they want to do pick up and drop off. And don't get me wrong, like I do those sorts of things, I love that about my life. But it's always come down to that being a byproduct of doing the right thing for the client and actually wanting to grow a business. I didn't know I wanted to grow a business until five years in, and then when actually I'm doing this, I'm doing it properly. So the one thing that people need to know that say five years in is that this business is not gonna stop growing, you know, you're not gonna stop getting referrals. If you do a good job, at some point in time you're gonna have to think about how you're gonna grow this, you're gonna have to employ people. So I think there's a lot of people that they don't really think about the connotations of five, ten years down the line and are they really up to this? Because just because you are a good planner doesn't mean you're gonna be a good business owner, yeah. And a lot of good planners think they're just naturally gonna step into planning again. And the reality probably is more like you're gonna do half your tasks or more, you're gonna be running a business as opposed to planning. If it's planning is what you really enjoy doing, you could be a first-class employee somewhere else. You know, give me six meetings a day. Do I really want to do a Gabriel return? Yeah, weigh up those two sorts of things, right? Yeah, if I'd had a really good boss where it first started, don't you go? There were some really fantastic traits about him, um, and he was super inspiring. But if he'd been just a little bit better and a little bit different in my eyes, maybe I'd have stayed, and maybe I'd have loved it, and maybe I could have, you know, been earning seven figures just as a great financial planner and a business with everything sitting around me. Yeah, so I think too many people see that escape velocity, see the pound signs, thinking, Well, why am I paying away this amount and I'm managing this amount of money? But actually, I think that's probably to the detriment of UK PLC because I think that's a big reason as to why we've got the advice gap. And with the aging advisors, we've probably got people at the latter stages of their career going, Well, I've got no succession plan, maybe I better hire somebody. But if it wasn't for the fact they needed a succession plan, would they be hiring anybody? No, and we need that ambition, we need that care for actually what a wonderful thing to share with society. You know, that could you imagine a town, whole town, where everyone's got a financial plan? If you could measure the happiness of that town, it'd probably be greater than a comparative town. Yeah, it didn't. That's what we can give to the world, but we need that level of ambition for people to do like you've done and grow a bigger business. And so if I could follow in your footsteps, I'll be very pleased with myself. But that's that that's one thing I'd love everybody else to do. Is are you doing it for the right reasons? What's your motivation that's that's behind it? And I don't know if that actually answered the question. I've just gone around and searched. No, it does.

SPEAKER_00 50:34

No, I think it's very important for people to hear because I think a lot of people, like you said, think, Oh, yeah, do you know what it you know I'll go and run my own business and my life will be easier, I can do what I want when I want, kind of thing. And actually, it's not really the case. You're probably doing a lot less of the things you really like doing. Um, and I think I I personally think you have to really love running a business to be to be great at it as well. Like it can't just be uh, oh you know, I think I'll give that a go because I think I can, you know, I think I can do it. You you really got to want to do it. And I'm 100% with you. I think there's plenty of great planning firms out there that you can you know associate yourself with and that you know their values will align perfectly with yours. And if you're all about the planning, then you know, it's it's definitely not a bad thing to be associated with them and have a you know have a great career, build up a book of business, ultimately, you know, maybe sell that back to them, and you know, you'll do very well financially as well. So it's not the only it's not the only route. Um, but yeah, I'm 100% agree. That was really, really good guy. I I can't thank you enough uh for giving up your time and coming on and you know speaking with people, uh speaking to people on the listen to the podcast. I'm sure they're gonna take a lot away with it. Uh thanks very much for your time and I and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.

SPEAKER_01 51:46

Thanks for having me, Chris. I really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_00 51:49

Me too. Thank you.