Financial Planner Life Podcast
Welcome to The Financial Planner Life Podcast. We cover an intimate and honest account of what it’s really like to work in the financial planning profession.
Our guests share their stories of success, failures and learnings, as well as what to expect from a career in the financial planning profession! We host guests at various stages in their careers, as well as multiple roles to ensure that our audience has a variety each week.
Financial planners, business owners, paraplanners and back-office staff all have their own story to share, and The Financial Planner Life podcast is a platform for them to talk about their personal and professional journey. The podcast covers a multitude of topics, from mindset and motivation, health and wellbeing all the way to diversity and inclusion.
We approach each episode with the idea that it is going to educate and spark a conversation within the industry with topics that may not be openly discussed. So, if you are thinking of becoming a financial adviser, or you’re curious about learning more about this brilliant sector, we urge you to give the podcast a listen.
The Host: Sam Oakes is the host of The Financial Planner Life Podcast. since 2008 Sam has been supporting leading national and global financial planning firms in finding the best talent, he was the director of Recruit UK, a 7 figure turnover financial planning recruitment company that he successfully exited in 2024, Sam now works as the Head of Creative for Hoxton wealth, building out podcasts, YouTube and social content for this fast growing fee based international financial planning firm.
Sam has always had a passion for financial services, starting out as a trainer for leading product provider in the UK, he has been in the industry for over 20 years.
He sees himself as a partner to the industry and wants to contribute useful resources such as this podcast to educate those further who are seeking advice and help about how to push their careers forward in this amazing profession.
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Financial Planner Life Podcast
Want to Be a Financial Planner? Here’s What You Need to Know! - with Carla Brown
🚀 How Do We Attract and Develop the Next Generation of Financial Planners?
In this episode of Financial Planner Life, I sit down with Carla Brown, President of the Personal Finance Society (PFS) and Founder & CEO of Oakmere Wealth Management, to discuss the biggest challenges and opportunities in financial planning today.
🎯 We cover:
✅ The PFS Professional Map – A clear framework for career progression in financial planning.
✅ The real skills gap – Why technical knowledge alone isn’t enough & the need for relationship-building and sales skills.
✅ The importance of protection planning – Why financial planners should focus beyond AUM.
✅ The 46% increase in under-25s joining the profession – But why we still need more young talent and more womenin the industry.
✅ How PFS Power Webinars and Wealth and Women, originally a PFS mini-series and now an independent podcast, are driving real impact in financial planning.
Financial planning is an incredible career—but we need clearer pathways, better training, and more support for new entrants if we want the profession to thrive.
Begin your financial planning career journey today
Whether you are looking to become a paraplanner, administrator, mortgage and protection adviser or financial planner, the Financial Planner Life Academy is for you.
With limited entry-level job roles, giving yourself the best financial planning career education, will not only kick start your financial planning journey with relevant qualifications and skills, but it’ll also help you achieve success much faster.&nbs
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Reach out to Sam@financialplannerlife.com in regards to sponsorship, partnerships, videography or career development.
And today's guest on the Financial Planner Live podcast is Carla Brang. She is the president of the PFS and she's also owner of Oatmere Wealth, the financial planning company that she has built over the last 15 years. And today we talk about young people entering the profession, what they do at the PFS to engage with youngsters, to educate them and teach them about this fantastic career within financial planning. We, of course, touch on women within financial planning why we need more and what the pfs has done with financial planner life so far, with podcasts to attract women into the profession. We talk about other things that can be done as well. We talk about the power panel.
Speaker 1:It's something the pfs do to train and develop anybody within the financial planning profession. So if you want some training, if you want some development, make sure you become a member of PFS to take advantage of some tried and tested solutions to things like business development and career development. You're going to love this episode if you want to learn more about the PFS. So, carla, thanks so much for joining us today on the financial planner life podcast. How are you?
Speaker 2:yeah, I'm really good. Thanks, sam. Thanks for inviting me on that's all right.
Speaker 1:You're in England, I'm in Dubai, I've got air conditioning, noise. You got a bit of wind in the background, which is very classic England, which I'm going to be enjoying for the next three weeks, because I'm actually in England from Sunday.
Speaker 2:Oh, well, I well. I hope the weather improves for you. It's a bit grim at the moment.
Speaker 1:Is it? It's grim up north though, isn't it? And I'm going to Manchester and Liverpool first. So I haven't even got. I've got no wellies, and I'm going to a farm to do some filming. I've got flip-flops. So I'm that guy now rocking up from Dubai town, nowhere, you know, no pope, no, nothing, just flip-flops and shorts at the airport, and I'm going to go off to Liverpool and try and buy something Hopefully not a taxi.
Speaker 1:Well, we've got white popes up north, so you'll be all right. Where are you from then? Where specifically are you based?
Speaker 2:I'm originally from Preston in Lancashire, but I currently live near Chester in.
Speaker 1:Cheshire, so partly south Nice, so you're not a million miles away from I'm going to Liverpool.
Speaker 2:No not far, about half an hour from there, not far at all.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Well, carla, do myself and the audience a massive favour and just introduce yourself who you are and what you do and how long you've been in the financial planning profession.
Speaker 2:Wow. Okay, so my name is Carla Brown. I am a founder and CEO of Oakmere Wealth Management, which is a small, medium-sized financial planning practice based in Cheshire, set the business up 14 years ago, but I've actually been in financial services since I left university, so going around 27 years now, which really dates me. I'm also president of the personal finance society, so I was appointed to the um, the board of the pfs, as a member director in 2023 and then appointed as president last year. Um, so it's really exciting helping to to shake the future of financial service oppression, which is um and deliver, you know, good value for members is what our aim is.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Let's just go into that then, because people have been listening to this at work within the financial planning profession. They might've seen the PFS, but they might not be a member Now as the president. Welcome, mrs President. You have a good idea of what value it adds and I'm sure you wouldn't tie your horse to that wagon if you didn't think it was good for the profession. So give us a little bit of an insight and understanding of what someone would expect if they actually got involved and were part of the PFS.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I mean, the PFS is the largest professional body in the UK, been around for 20 years this year, and what it offers is a really well-structured qualifications framework, first of all, to get you qualified to go through your role. We've also got a lot of other things in there, so massive amount of CPD online in person. We have events. We had about 80 events throughout the UK last year. Some were run centrally, some were run by local committees, some were run centrally, some were run by local committees and we have, you know, we're trying to deliver more value going forward, to deliver more of what our members want, whether that's online, whether that's in person, whether it's more technical, whether it's around the soft skills. So I've been involved with the PFS Power Panel now since 2021, which is content that's put out by practitioners for practitioners, and we've got loads of really good stuff on there on. You know you're technically qualified, but here's how to do your day job. So running first meetings, doing good fact finds, all that kind of stuff, and also looking at you know if you've got somebody coming into the financial services profession and they're not sure where they want their career to go. We've got a professional map on the PFS website as well. So people can look at that and think, ok, this is where I want to get to, but how do I get there? What do I need to do? What qualifications do I need? We've got a mentoring facility, we've got apprenticeships, we've got all sorts going on. So you know, if somebody has had a look at the PFS for a while, I would really suggest that they don't.
Speaker 2:No-transcript. More human side to financial planning. So our tagline at the moment is is being human is your superpower? Because it's not about how qualified you are. That is obviously important, but it's how you can build that rapport with your clients and show the value that clients need. And so we get practitioners in or well-known consultants who are experts in their field to come in and do sort of an hour's webinar and talk through their specialist subject. So there'll be people on there that we've all heard of and delivering some fantastic content. And it could be you know how to sell more protection? It could be, um, how to build your cash flow forecasting. How do you build that into your client meeting. How do you explain that to clients? Um, and at the end of last year we brought out our financial planning guide. We've linked that we've got five consumer outcomes that we're trying to deliver and so we've linked all the skills that you need to the consumer outcomes, which in turn links to the GFS professional map.
Speaker 1:So, really trying to build a framework around, we're not trying to prescribe what people should be doing, but it's just to help people think OK, if we want to build a good practice, these are things that we should be thinking about. You touched on a almost career development framework as well for the profession. Yeah, so if you were starting without any experience, where you would begin and where this journey and career within financial planning could take? You do you sort of break it down into role by role and if somebody's got a clear objective of, say, perhaps one day running their own financial planning business, can you work out a, a realistic time scale of actually doing that, based on the knowledge and experience that they might need to get to that stage? Because I think that's one of the one things as well as you know you could.
Speaker 1:You've got the likes of some of the academies out there saying, right, you don't, you've never worked in financial planning, come and join our academy and we'll turn you into a financial planner. And then you've got somebody was saying don't do that, start off as a trainee financial planner. Um, you know, work your way up. And then they say that and there's no career framework within their business. You know, how long does somebody stay in an admin role? How long does somebody stay in a power planning role? Is that even the right route to becoming a financial planner, when we're hearing some fantastic stories of people absolutely smashing it when previously they sold cars and now they're working as a St James's Place advisor, running a practice and doing exceptionally well? There is a clear-cut career framework for the profession. It's one of those things I've never really seen. Is that what it is?
Speaker 2:Because if it is, I'd love to see it. Yeah, so the professional map it kind of is that. Yeah, so it will give you the framework and the skills of what you need to get to where you want to be. So if you want to be your own business owner, then it will tell you what technical competencies you need, what skills you need to get to that position. What it won't give you is a timescale, because I think that's going to be very different for everybody.
Speaker 2:But a business could certainly take the professional map and build that into their own framework, because a lot of things you talked about there, such as how long should somebody stay in an admin role or as a power planner, if that's what they want to do that's going to be very subjective to the business needs and also, I think, the individual needs. So I mean in my business, for example I don't know if you've seen me on social media, but we were advertising a graduate position to become a new entry into the profession, to charter financial planner within five years, and we put together a really clear framework utilizing the professional map but also sort of taking them through the ranks in their practice as well. So somebody coming to us in that position will know exactly where they're going to be in five years. So if people can take that professional map and build that into their processes and their recruiting structures, that would be really useful.
Speaker 1:And 100% I totally agree.
Speaker 1:Coming into Hoxton Wealth, they've got something called the pathway.
Speaker 1:They literally would take somebody from no experience whatsoever all the way through the process within their ecosystem to the point where they can actually exit and sell their clients back to Hoxton Wealth, which I think is really, really great. One of the areas I've recognized with their pathway program is the very, very beginning stage. So at the very beginning they're not chucking them into an admin role which you often see within the UK financial planning firms. It's like almost well, you start in admin first we're saying is come on in and then you start in almost a business developer role. So they spend an awful lot of time and an awful lot of money generating lots of inbound leads and then the trainee will actually sit on the phone phoning through these leads and qualifying them and talking to them, telling them a little bit about our services. They've obviously got an interest because they've clicked on something about a pension or something like that, and then they get them booked in with the advisor and then they sit with the advisor and go through the process with the advisor.
Speaker 1:So it's a really hands-on approach. But it's also develops the skill set which I think is missing, um, from the people that I called to we'll get into that in a minute which is prospecting, which is the ability to pick the phone up and actually make a telephone call and build that cold relationship, regardless of whether it's elite, right, it's cold. You know they've just clicked on a link and that's the most uncomfortable part. I don't know about you, but I've seen a lot of people come into the financial planning profession. They're hoping to become a financial planner but they've never actually ever sold anything. They've never sold themselves or even a service. And they're getting highly qualified. Maybe they're spending a few years in like power planning and not even sitting down with a client. And then they're thinking now I want to be a financial planner, but that leap is quite crazy for them. It's quite a big transitional chain.
Speaker 1:So with the PFS, are you seeing that? Are you thinking we need to develop more content that's going to help people build deeper relationships and help them business develop? Is that an area of importance and growth? Relationships and helping the business develop. Is that an area of importance and growth? Are you doing that? Are people interested in that the most? If not, what are they interested in learning the most?
Speaker 2:So, yeah, people are definitely interested in that. You know how do you convert a prospect into a first appointment, for example, and I think you know the skills that you talked about there with Hoxton. I mean, what that's going to be developing is resilience, because everybody knows how hard it is to pick up those co-leads, and I think that's where a lot of the academies have struggled, in that people have come through the academy, they're technically qualified, they can do a role play, but they haven't had the opportunity to build resilience and actually have those knockbacks. Because it's tough, it's not an easy job. When you're starting off on your own and clients don't necessarily walk through the door, you've got to go out and find them, um, and I think that's that's a really difficult lesson to learn.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, so certainly you know, through some of the power content that we've got out there, it's about having those initial conversations. It's about you know how to articulate the value of the service that you offer to your clients so they do come back, that they will refer you, um, you know having that, that ability to to get back up at the end of every day and say, right, okay, let's go again yeah, I love it and it's about getting those people that have done it, tried and tested, coming in and actually explaining exactly how they did it.
Speaker 1:And here's the proof. And they might even still continually be doing it. There's something worse than someone coming in and telling you what to do when they've never even done it or they sold their practice five years ago or whatever, and it's just that it's always better when someone's in the mix and they understand exactly what's going on, based on the rules of what you can and can't do, how the market is actually responding, how clients are responding, and being able to articulate that in real time. I mean, we're lucky enough to be in a little group at the moment and we've got the likes of guy skinner in there. Well, we've got paul taylor in there, two people that, when I listen to what they've got to say, they're hugely passionate actually about that relationship side and building relationships and developing business, which we all are quite in agreement.
Speaker 1:That is lacking a lot in the training and development of new financial planners coming through, even in some of these major academies. I'll go for the academy and they're like shit. What next, you know, and I've seen it. So one of the things you touched on was protection.
Speaker 2:Which is one of Guy's thoughts, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Which Guy has been talking about. And we had a chat, didn't we in the group? And I put a question there. I said, just out of interest, what percentage of your clients are under the age of 40 years old? And Guy ended up I think he over-egged it a little bit he said 50%. He said 50%, didn't he?
Speaker 1:But I think it came down more like 39 or something or four, which was an incredibly high percentage exactly, but his whole model. We're going to get him on the podcast to talk about it actually a bit later on, actually, I've got him booked him next, but his whole model is that protection isn't it.
Speaker 1:You're going out with the mindset of building protection, so are you. Are you creating content around that for people to understand? Right, how do I position protection? How do I have that uncomfortable? You know conversation about the world creating the illness and guy's got a sad story that helps him actually articulate why the protection is so, so important. But you know, over to you, do you do this guy on there and actually, you know, for example, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So have a look. Have a look at the you know the Power website, because Guy's done a webinar for us very recently actually on protection, and it's one of our currently one of our best trending webinars. Paul Taylor's also done content on there for us as well, and both are speaking at the next round of Exchange Roadshows in the UK as well. So, yeah, we are really keen to get people who are doing the day job out there talking to people, because this is how we learn. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. I speak to people who are already doing it, and that's always been my preferred way of learning is asking somebody who's doing really well how do you do it? What are you doing? What can I pitch from you?
Speaker 1:No, 100%. On the subject of protection, I produced a podcast for Legal in General. So they've got a podcast called Just Covered and it is specifically about life protection and they bring advisors on. Advisors will share best practice and what you can do and how to position it in the right way. It's a really educational podcast. So if anyone's listening to this and they're thinking maybe I'm not doing enough protection, go and listen to that podcast as well as going into the power panel because it's it's really really good. And the more I get to listen to it because I'm in there recording it, the more I go holy shit. That's like that is the route into proper financial planning. When I work for aviva is always protection, uh, pension investment. You know, you know you let your life particularly. Otherwise, what happens when you die?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. I think in the UK we do not recommend protection often enough. You know you tend to go for the low-hanging fruit and then potentially even the client's vulnerable. So, yeah, it's definitely a skill, I think, that people need to brush up on as a whole.
Speaker 1:Fun. Yeah, a bit of an emphasis really on that whole AUM kind of model. In the US they absolutely smash protection. They sell lots and lots of protection, something like obviously being in a company now which is smashing into the USA. I'm starting to open me up a lot to the domestic side of what products are being petitioned to clients and some of the money these individuals earn is ridiculous.
Speaker 1:Um, okay, fantastic, interesting actually around that power panel.
Speaker 1:I didn't really know much about it to the level and the detail that actually is, and I'm aiming to do a financial planner life podcast and live this year and I wonder if you and I, off the record, should have a chat about how we can incorporate that power panel into my panel, because I've already spoken to paul taylor about it and I can imagine, like paul um guy, perhaps yourself on there, and we're all talking about it and really, really emphasizing all these great important things.
Speaker 1:These simple things are tried and tested and can be done. I love paul because he you know I love my paul cold called his way to a million quid. I love, yeah, you know I love that and that's a really good selling point because you know, at the end of the day. You've got to put those laps in, haven't you? And you're not going to get any, as you actually make yourself feel uncomfortable and someone hears the word sell, or they hear the word cold, clean or whatever things that you're not supposed to do, right, but it is part of the job. You've just got to be able to drive those inquiries into you at the same time as well.
Speaker 2:I started with no clients. You just literally went out and networked, went to every single networking event I could find and just kept going back, Hated it First time I went. It was so uncomfortable, painful, but you've just got to keep going back and it worked what would you say?
Speaker 1:is your well, yeah, what, you know what? What is your approach to it these days? So you've been. How long have you been running your business for now? 14 years 14 years, so well established business, and what's your approach to developing new client relationships? Do you do that anymore? Is it more of a nurture for you these days, or are you focused on the generating new clients or not?
Speaker 2:So we are. I would say most of our clients these days come as referrals from existing clients and we're in a really fortunate position that that tends to be enough for us to cope with over the course of the year. So we don't necessarily have a big push towards going out and getting new clients. Whether that will change going forward as we take on more, more advisors maybe, but at the moment we kind of just work with what we've got, which comes organically, which is a lovely position to be in, but it's taken a lot of hard work to get them.
Speaker 1:I hear you. What's the biggest challenge? Do you think?
Speaker 2:to financial planners at the moment. I think the biggest challenge I don't know if it was two, but the biggest challenge to the profession as a whole is around the value demonstrating the value that we add and articulating the value that we add, because there's so much information available to clients these days and we've got to be really careful we don't end up, um, you know, with the drive to the bottom in terms of cost. Um, you know, we've got we. We are a profession, we offer a professional service. We should charge a professional fee for our services, and so we need to be able to articulate that to clients in a way that they understand it. So it's around to me it's around an education piece to clients that advice isn't free, it has to be paid for we do add value, and how do we add that value? So I think that's a big challenge we've got going forward. When you know clients can go on chat, gpt and google things or whatever.
Speaker 2:Um, I think the other big challenge that we've got as a profession is around the lack of young people coming into, uh, the profession as new starters. Um, you know, there has been a big increase actually in 2024 to 2025. I was reading an article this week, there's been a 46% increase in the number of under 25s joining the profession, which is fantastic, but it's still nowhere near enough. And also we need to be getting more women into the profession as well. The dial hasn't moved enough Only 18% of advisors are female. We need to be demonstrating that financial planning, financial services, is a great place for women to be working in.
Speaker 1:Why, though? Why is it such a great place for women to be working in?
Speaker 2:Well, I think, having been around the profession for so long now, it offers so much flexibility. There's so many different roles within financial services that pretty much everybody can find something to suit. But also I think you know if you do want to be a financial planner, then your diary's your own. You know. You've got flexibility. You can work around a family. If you want to have a family, you can work it around other commitments. So there's a lot of flexibility that we have that a lot of other roles don't offer. A lot of other roles don't offer. A lot of other careers don't offer.
Speaker 2:You know, as a solicitor or an accountant you probably don't have the same foot that we do and you are in control of your own destiny. You get out of it what you put in um. So you know it's got a lot going for it. But I think the reason we don't get as many young people and females in is because they don't know about it. You don't generally get people leaving sixth form or university saying they want to be a financial planner. People tend to fall into it later in life. So what I'm really keen to do and what I'm working with the pfs on is how do we get into young people. How do we get people the only in their, in their kind of educational journey to educate them about what our profession is and what we do? Um, so you know, we do that by going into universities, going to sixth, going into high schools and talking about money, talking about what we do. But hopefully that will drive more people to look for a career in financial services, financial planning.
Speaker 1:I think as well, though, it's about articulating to younger people what the journey looks like. So what does that career journey look like? Because there aren't many professions out there, you don't have to go to university to work as a financial planner. There has already been a clear-cut pathway. There is a path People have done it before and it is a journey that can also provide you with recurring income throughout. So as you start to build clients up, your recurring income goes up, which is good, so you can start to see the value and it starts to give you that level of flexibility and freedom that you just talked about as well, because there might be an amount that you require to be able to live the life that you want to live, whether that's spend more time with your family or friends or, you know, gym or exercise, whatever it is you want to do. Financial planning as a profession can really really you that right. It might take time to get to that level, but everything takes time to get to that, to that level. But there are but there isn't also a great deal of places out there at the moment where you could literally say, right over a 10, 15, 20 year period, I'm gonna have a capital I'm gonna have a capital event as well, no, so there's an opportunity for me to actually sell what I have built on an internal basis, especially if you go to places like some famous place where it is actually got a an ecosystem, where you can do that right, which we're doing ourselves at hoxton as well. There's plenty of companies that can do it, but you can literally sit them down and say like, at the moment you're looking at youtube, at the moment you're looking at tiktok, you're looking at instagram, everyone's telling you you've got to get down, you've got a graft, you've got to do this, you've got to be got a hustle, you've got to work every hour under the sun to get to get to the levels that you need to get to. You've got to set your own business up right. That's one of the ones that freaks me out a little bit. Every young person is saying you're not a success unless you've set your own business up and you're doing it for yourself, which I think is a real bullshit message, because I think you learn. So, yeah, it's a lot of pressure and it's a bullshit message because get into a company and you learn so much from being, um you know, inside a company.
Speaker 1:Terry smith right fun smith was on the podcast and he was. That was one of his big ones. He was like do not go on your own. Get into a company and understand business first and understand how it works, gain as much as you physically can and then go and set your company up. And I think people need to understand that as well.
Speaker 1:It's not just about so, if you kind of, if you again it goes back to your pathway thing, which I love. So if I was going into a school and I was a pfs and part of my journey was, but part of my proposition or part of my sales pitch to them was just why the profession is so good, bang into the. You know the emotional connection with money. You know how we think about money. Um, what pension is why we need it, need investments, compound all the stuff that makes them go. Well, that's really interesting because I didn't have a clue and then say, look, but you could do that, you could deliver that, and here's a roadmap. And look how much you could actually earn in this roadmap, which is realistic and tried and tested. And I bet the light switch. The light just goes on for so many of them and they go holy shit, I could do that, I really could do that, and that's an ambition we think it needs to be done.
Speaker 2:You don't need a degree to get into our profession. You don't need to be a maths genius, which I think is a really common misconception. There's all sorts of routes. Then there's apprenticeships and things like that, which, if somebody wants to go to university, then there are other ways. And I think what you said there was really interesting about you know people being encouraged to go it alone too soon. I get so many aspiring advisors who reach out to me and say you know they've spoken to an academy or you know they want to become an advisor, they want to set their own business up, and my advice is always go into a practice. Go into a practice first, learn from people who are already doing it. Immerse yourself in the experience and then think about setting up a new one further down the line once you've, once you've you've got your tools and you know what you're doing yeah, don't run before you can walk as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, some of the most successful, successful people that I'm around at the moment spent five years, you know, in a in a trainee type role before they felt confident enough to go into financial planning. And again, I think it sorry to go in and be and be a financial planner. But even then, not everyone's going into being a financial planner like self-employed straight away. You know like you don't have to do that. You could train all through your 20s, earn really good money, become super duper, experienced, understand the actual client relationship side of it, the psychology of it all, what makes a great financial planner the relationship building, and then start your business at 30. Then 44, 30, 30. I wish I look back on 30 and think I'm old. He's like no, it's not 30's, like you've got 10. People are like 30 and they feel they haven't got somewhere and I'm like you've got 14 years on me right now, like when you're my age. I'll be old so it's like.
Speaker 2:So it's like what's the rush? You know it's until I was late 30s, you know. Before that I worked in various large corporates learning what I was doing. Learn, you know learning skills, and so we should early, you know, because I learned a lot during that time and it's given me the skills to do what I do today and that's where, when we talk about, I'm a little bit obsessed with the career pathway thing.
Speaker 1:I think it's really, really important and I and I think from 16 years of being in recruitment as well, running a recruitment business I used to always buy a salary guide.
Speaker 1:Salary guides were the most downloaded things you'd buy, yeah, I think. And again, if you create a career framework, you have a salary expectation alongside it and you can lose it. You could go I want to be a millionaire or whatever it is. Then you can actually create a real clear pathway, realistic, based on the earnings, based on the job, roles, how long they're in it and when might be the right time to move or when might be the right time to step up if you want to go into different types of roles, and how you can go sideways, how you can go up, if you want to continue in power planning, what's the maximum that you can earn in that and, if we can, if we can map it out for them that they can totally understand it based on evidence right, we've got enough people who can give us that evidence.
Speaker 1:Then they'll be like they'll be bought in, because all people really want is a path. They want to know what the journey is and where they're going to get to and how to get to it and how much am I going to earn, like, if I'm going to go down this career? How much? And I bet you, right, I bet you, if you went to a university and said, guess how much a financial planner earns? None of them were quite salute right. But they might have a guess or a stab at what an accountant or what a solicitor might earn, but they wouldn't have a phobias about a financial planner.
Speaker 2:No, and also, you know, it's not just about what they earn is obviously important. You're absolutely right in what you say there. They wouldn't have a clue but it's also about what does the actual day job look like? We day job look like, we all know what an accountant does. We know what a mechanic does. We know what a lawyer does. People won't know what a financial planner does. So just talking about what we do on a day-to-day basis, the conversations we have with clients, people will think it's sitting in front of a screen all day moving money around. It's absolutely nothing. It could be better than that. So actually educating young people as to what the job looks like is really important as well.
Speaker 1:Those who want to go down the teaching route because they enjoy teaching, or ones that want to go down the psychology route because they enjoy psychology and they might become a counsellor or something like that. All those skills are actually completely and utterly transferable into financial planning. Financial planning definitely is an amalgamation of so many disciplines, more so than people think. So again, yeah, articulating it and sharing it and explaining it, which is what the podcast was all about. The Financial Plan of Life. The reason why I set it up was because no one was talking about what it's actually like working in the profession and if anybody was interested in joining the profession, they can come on and hear real career stories, the ups and downs, the realities and how people get ahead, and failures and wins and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, I think, um, I must have definitely helped that 45 increase come in, showing this did it well, that was to you, sam, always on that article.
Speaker 1:Did it give an indication of where they'd come in, you know, had they come in through academies, had they come in through independent firms, or what type of roles they were doing? Is it qualified? Was it qualified finance? Was it? Was it like fca registered advisors or was it just people? It was right, it was an advisor fca registered advisors.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think there's something like 200 I think it's 254 under 25s now registered with the fca as advisors. So, yeah, that's definitely increased. So, yeah, it's heading the right way but we need more.
Speaker 1:Could you send me that article, because I've not seen it and I'd love to read that. So what's coming up then for you? Then, what does the next year look like for you?
Speaker 2:Wow, well, really interesting. There's a number of things that we're working on at the PFS around education. So at the moment we have education champions who go into schools and deliver educational workshops. We're looking to expand the reach there. We already do it with Duke of Edinburgh, so we do a skills badge for the Duke of Edinburgh. So we're looking to develop our reach further with young people. We're also looking to work more with some of the education settings. So how can we get involved with universities to enhance financial planning as a career of choice, to enhance financial planning as a career of choice.
Speaker 2:And then, focusing on the live events that we do through PFS as well, making sure that they're delivering what members want. We're putting more events on this year than we did last year. We're trying to get to more locations. It's hard. We're never going to please everybody. There's always going to be locations that we can't get to or there's just not enough member engagement there, but we really are trying to get out. And then within my business, I'm looking to develop the leadership team, which allows me to spend more time doing some of the other stuff but bringing on our graduate recruits as well. So our trainee and I'm really excited about that. We've got one going through the process at the moment. This will be our second graduate apprentice, so really exciting to see them develop and become, you know, more confident in their own skills, sitting in our meetings, uh, dealing with clients. So, yeah, I really really enjoy that part of the role hands-on experience.
Speaker 1:Good good thing, yeah, we obviously did. I did the women. And back to the females in financial planning more women, yeah, women and wealth. I did that with the pfs um, which I think was a fantastic podcast. I'd like to see that continue, because I think it really does need to continue. It was a short kind of have a go and see if this is the type of thing that would work, and I think I was told that it was one of the most had the most impressions and the most sort of yeah, most impressions, and the most sort of yeah, most impressions and all sorts of stuff, the most impact of all things yeah so it's an even great conversations that we had on there.
Speaker 2:We did the, we did the live uh version at the national conference as well last year, which was was really well received.
Speaker 1:Um, so definitely want to continue that conversation yeah, definitely, and the ladies were were so natural and one of the things that and this is what I loved about it the most so I went in there.
Speaker 1:Well, I just sat back and obviously got a chance to to listen and I've always I've always been championing women in financial planning. But I'm a bloke, you know, I'm a guy, you know, and I think women need to speak to women and women need to be having the conversation and you know women will look up to women who are having it and living the living, the lifestyle, living the dream of being a planner and the reality of the job. And when I sat back and I actually listened, as opposed to then get involved, it was like a completely different conversation, it was a completely different tone, it was a completely different pace, the energy was completely different and it was like a peek into what it really is like to be a female in financial planning and I loved it and I thought it was just a breath of fresh air. So I think the more we can do around that, the better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, having more female role models like that, who are, who are doing the job, who can talk about what the job actually entails, what, what it looks like, you know is hopefully going to encourage more women into the profession.
Speaker 1:And I think one of the biggest is this flexible working approach that, being a financial planner, you can manage your diary the way that you want to manage it. So if you are going to have children, if you want to dedicate and balance your life a little bit to family, I think it is something that a lot of women obviously want to work and, fair play, do what you want. But a lot of women also actually want to look at, you know, be balanced and look after their families and be able to pick their children up from school and not feel uncomfortable or guilty or feeling like they're letting the company down if they're pregnant or need time off for whatever reason. And I think most companies in the UK are very forward thinking now around being flexible, and so do blokes. Guys want that as well. Guys want to look after their kids.
Speaker 1:You know, when I ran my own recruitment business, I was the same. I loved picking out my daughter. Now I'm working in a financial planning company over in Dubai. It's a different cat and a fish. Sometimes I'm working 10 to 12-hour days and that's not something I've ever done before, and that's one of the grim realities of working here is that expectations in Dubai are a lot higher. Really, of kind of working here is that expectations in Dubai are a lot higher when it comes.
Speaker 2:yeah, 100% very, very different from the UK, very, very different. Yeah, and you know, I think you know, certainly I look back at my career and you know I've done the long days, the 10-hour days, but you know, while my son was young I was able to fit them around him and that's the beauty of it is that you have got that flexibility. Whether it is young children or it might be dependent parents or it might be other calls on your time that you can fit the job around, then you know that it's perfectly viable to do that. So there's a lot of good stuff there 100 color.
Speaker 1:Absolute pleasure talking to you. Thank you for spending some time today to share your insight and to give us a? Um, an inside view, basically of the pfs as well, um, of something you know, an organization I want to get more involved in myself, so I'm really looking forward to looking at the power panel and just getting to know you further and hopefully get you on the podcast more and more and more and just share all the great work that you guys are actually doing.
Speaker 2:Fab. Thanks for having me, sam, it's been great.
Speaker 1:Fab.
Speaker 2:Cheers, carla, bye.
