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 Academy - start your career today!
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Financial Planner Life Podcast
Hiring Missionaries, Not Mercenaries: How Guy Skinner Built a £1M Financial Planning Firm
Hiring Missionaries, Not Mercenaries with Guy Skinner
In this episode of Financial Planner Life, we welcome back Guy Skinner, founder of Citygate Financial Planning, to discuss what it really takes to build a sustainable, mission-driven financial planning firm.
Key Takeaways:
đŸ”¹ Why ‘Missionaries, Not Mercenaries’ Is the Hiring Philosophy That Works
Guy shares why he prioritises hiring people with purpose over those who simply chase numbers. He believes that a team driven by values - not just financial incentives - creates better client outcomes and a stronger business.
đŸ”¹ The Blueprint for Growth: Focusing on Young Legal Professionals
Instead of chasing high-net-worth clients, Guy built his business by helping newly qualified solicitors - young professionals who had just doubled their salaries but lacked financial guidance. This niche allowed him to scale rapidly, bringing in 139 clients in his first year.
đŸ”¹ How Clear Communication and Visuals Transform Client Relationships
Guy explains how sketching financial concepts in real time helps clients truly engage with their plans. This simple but effective approach ensures clarity and builds trust.
đŸ”¹ Bridging the Advice Gap with Technology
With only 8% of the UK population receiving financial advice, Guy is exploring how AI and digital tools can scale financial guidance and make advice more accessible to younger generations.
Why Listen?
If you’re a financial planner looking to build a business that lasts - or a firm owner struggling with hiring the right people - this episode is packed with practical insights you can apply today.
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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Run your own practice. You're a success. I think you turned over. How much did you turn over this year?
Speaker 2:We'll go through a million quid this year. We're all mission driven. We're all missionaries, not mercenaries. Nobody's out there just trying to make the most amount of money for themselves, me included. I am kind of sick of seeing people coming in an employed role as an advisor and then nicking off and starting up on their own, because for me me that's theft. I am sandwiched right in the middle between kids that want my attention as soon as I've walked through the door and a man who I'm trying to pay the carers and sort out aftercare from the chemotherapy session. If you are 25 until you are 30, help people that want to get onto the property ladder. They're not going to be the wealthiest of people. We know this. The terminology that we'll use is henry's. So they're high earners, not rich yet, but what?
Speaker 1:does that actual career look like? How much can you earn? Money is a big part of it. How can you appeal to somebody that is entrepreneurial? Can they build value in the long term within financial planning?
Speaker 1:Welcome back to the financial planner life podcast guy. How you doing? I'm very well, thank you. How are you, son? I'm very well, I'm very well. I feel like I kind of touch base with you every single day. We're part of a whatsapp group and and I do find it really interesting and really educational just to sit back and watch you all chatting about financial planning, all the things you love about it, all the things you've got problems with, all the ideas that you have collectively about how you can improve the profession. So, from the outside looking in, I'm seeing loads of great content in there. And one thing came up this week, guy, that really really took me by surprise was just I posted something, didn't. I said just out of interest everybody, what percentage of your clients are under the age of 40? Because in the business I'm in at the moment it's actually really low. Percentage is about four percent. And you popped up and said, well, I think mine's about 50. But on closer inspection it came in at what percent? 39 was it yeah, 39.36.
Speaker 1:Not that I'm splitting hairs, but yeah yeah, 39.36 of your clients um percentage is under the age of 40, so that's actually a really large amount. So it kind of got me thinking because, um, within that, within that group as well, we were were talking about the happiness ratio, wasn't it? From 40 years old, people tend to get a little bit unhappier and by the time they're 50, it climbs back up again, probably because they might be earning good money, but they've got high expenses, right. Maybe life's a little bit yeah, that's all. They're a little bit more time poor. So it was interesting, interesting, my family interest. So I wanted to invite you on today because one of the things I wanted to do was I wanted to pick your brains and I wanted to give something away today because I know that you love giving away.
Speaker 1:You've built a really great practice. We've already heard about it before. You've been on the podcast before. Um, obviously, city gate financial planning. You're very passionate about life protection. That's one of the reasons why, if you want us to hear that podcast episode, go back and listen to the podcast episode. I'll put it in the show notes. But you're very, very passionate about making sure people, especially young people, are following a process that's going to help them be a success within financial planning. So today I want to pick your brains about that. You okay, absolutely. Yeah, that's good, fabuloso, let's get straight to it. All right, you run your own practice. You're a success. I think Today I want to pick your brains about that. You okay, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's good, fabuloso, let's get straight to it. All right, you run your own practice.
Speaker 1:You're a success. I think you turned over. How much did you turn over this year? An inch. We'll go to a million quid this year, for a million quid this year Fantastic, so that's good. You a superstar within your life. So let's start at the very, very beginning. Let's reflect on your journey and then how your journey and your experience can then be articulated to someone like me, a fresh-faced person walking into the profession, walking into your business, wanting to be a superstar. So let's kick things off, let's go back to the beginning don't it yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:So when I first started in 2007, it took me one week of kind of thinking, well, what the hell's all this about? And the penny dropped and I realized why I did what I did. So I know I'm covering old ground talking about my dad again, but look, it's my whole point is it's the reason why I do what I do, why I do what I do. We are literally changing people's lives when we give them a financial plan, and if you can find the pain point that you had in your life and it really resonates with you, you'll know why you'll do what you want to do. So every time I ever have a new trainee that comes in, I want to ask them why do you care about this? What's important about people having enlightenment around their finances? And we're all going to have slightly different things. For some people, that might be that their parents lifestyle drifted and they ended up penniless and having to work till they're 17. For some people, it's like me, where license insurance saved their childhood because their dad died. It's not just my dad. I've got two sisters one's schizophrenic and one's got multiple sclerosis and so I've got other insurance claims, not just my dad. That really gets me going and gets me fired up, and that is my why. So if everyone can reflect on what their why is and why it's important to them, you'll have that burning desire every day to get out of bed and just do this. It's not a job that you get paid for money. That's a byproduct of doing anything that you really want to do and you know your why. So start with that and I know there's other people, like simon senec, that's spoken about this, but this was me 17 years ago. I didn't have to read his book then because he'd already written it. Just know why. It's really pretty obvious. And then, when you know why, you know who you want to help, and knowing who you want to help, you'll be you'll. If it comes from a point of pain, you have empathy, you'll have authenticity, whether you like it or not, because you understand the pain points and you want to stop those people ever having that similar pain that you've had. So you know who and it doesn't have to be.
Speaker 2:Everybody owes a 50 with a million pounds and I'd love to ask every advisor that puts that on that linkedin well, what makes you really super qualified to speak to everyone? That's only 50 with a million pounds or more, what our business owner? What is it that resonates in your life, that really strikes a chord with them? And if you haven't got, you're probably going to struggle a bit more than perhaps I would do albeit I'm 44, not over 50, but I am a business owner and I understand how difficult it is to grow a business and I also understand that things evolve and change over time. What you used to do in the past isn't going to get you to where you want to be in the future, so you've got to change and evolve to where you want to be in the future. So you've got to change and evolve. And if you're not speaking in that language to a business owner, what do you have in common? So, if you are 25, if you are 30, help people that want to get onto the property ladder, and they're not going to be the wealthiest of people. We know this, but the terminology that we'll use is Henry's. So they're high earners, not rich yet. So you've got to think of a business model.
Speaker 2:And protection isn't just there because it pays good commissions and it's a good thing to focus on. It is holistic planning and there's a massive survivorship bias within financial advice with people dealing with older people that have survived their working lives already, they've not had that critical illness or they've not died aged 44, right? So protection is already spoken about, but if you're dealing with younger people, it's a massive springboard. So this is the next thing. Really, it's a massive springboard of a source of finance to grow your bloody business. You know, you don't have to be charging massive fees because they can't afford them anyway, but commission will offset some of that and help you actually grow.
Speaker 2:Um, and these people as well. They don't need a full financial plan, right? So if you're dealing with a 30 year old, they they're not going to be living in their forever home yet or something like that. They might not have started a family, they might not even be married. So that's why I always sketch. So if I talk about how I do, I always sketch with people. And if I've taken on a 30 year old as a client as opposed to a 50 year old because, yes, I still work with 50 and 60 years, but I'm not going to deny myself referrals to good quality clients where I can help them I'll do full financial planning for everyone, bar none but the relevance of a full cash flow model for somebody in their 30s is not the same as it is for somebody in their 60s. So you've got to find a way of doing that and demonstrating your value and showing them the way forward without it taking a ton of your time, because that's expense. So that's more of the how and um.
Speaker 2:Again, I was doing that for for years. I was well trained at the outset. But if anyone wants to look up dimensionals 4s's, that's where they talk about scripts, sketches, supplements and stories and they're the 4S's as to how you should optimize your communication with people. And again, I was doing it without even knowing it and I had all these happy coincidences throughout my journey. But we really should be visually demonstrating things to people. It's something like 80% of the population is visually stimulated.
Speaker 2:So if you can show people in the first meeting that you have with them within the space of an hour, the way that I always used to do it, and the way that I still do it now, is you speak to the person for half an hour, 45 minutes, and all your focus is on them. You want to understand what they want out of life, how you can add value to them. We're not talking about money. We're not talking products. We're just getting to connect with the person, understand what their motivations are, and then my superpower is, if I can sketch that back to them straight afterwards demonstrate. I heard every word that they said. Use their own language back with them. That's going to trigger things in their brain and they're like bloody hell, this guy's a genius. Now, the fact is, I'm not a genius. I've done this multiple times and it's repeatable and although we're all unique which is, of course, true there's probably about 95 overlap with a lot of us, right? So if I'm working and I know who I'm working with and they've got similar pain points, my sketch is going to look very similar every single time. But to that person, it's like the first time they've ever done it and they're like, wow, that's amazing. So it's hard work as well. I think that's probably one of the things that doesn't get spoken about enough.
Speaker 2:Actually, sometimes I think, uh, other advisors that are 15, 20 years younger than I am might think it all just landed in my lap and I got lucky, and of course, it was commission, all commission back then, and you know, the world was different. It was dead easy. I started about six months before the global financial crash. Yeah, that's dead easy, isn't it? You know, everyone running around thinking shit, am I going to have a job? And the stock market's tumbling couldn't have been an easier time, could it listen? And I did 1.2 million pounds of commission in 32 moments. And it's not, it's, you know. And that's in that period of time. So of course it was dead easy. Everything landed in my lap.
Speaker 2:It's not as hard work. You know. I would start work every day at half past eight in the morning and I wouldn't finish till seven o'clock at night. And it was only on a Friday that we'd stop at around lunchtime and ease off and have a couple of drinks. And, you know, enjoy being in in london, as it was, and chill out. But it's hard work. You've got to be prepared to work hard, roll your sleeves up. But again, I go back to knowing your why and who you want to help and helping them avoid pain. You might have felt you don't mind a bit of hard work. Then you know I don't do this for money. I do this because I want to change people's lives at this point let me ask you some questions.
Speaker 1:And about those early days, because a lot of people get stuck on where to actually start and who's out and how to help them and why. Right, so they work. Let's say they work their why, how? Let's just reflect on you. You know who did you hand your hat on when it came to a client or a client demographic or a niche, at the unique audience of individuals that you think that you could help?
Speaker 2:when I started it was um, me on a floor with about 100 other people. Um, it was the bad old days. So only about 25 of us were actually qualified and I wasn't qualified when I started life. Um, and people cold calling. That's how we did it. So, day one, there's a diary, there's a phone, go and start a business. You know, no laptops, no computers. We weren't even allowed a computer actually until we'd probably been there about a year or so, because how many people hide behind emails these days rather than just picking up a phone and actually communicating properly? But these are the sorts of skills that, funny enough, an hour can, an hour can pass by with writing war and peace in an email. It takes five minutes on a phone call and you get action and it's. It's really simple stuff, isn't it? Um, you know 100. So I was, I was cold calling in. A hundred other people were and they would be running, they'd be looking on, as was the fsa register, phoning bankers, and they were trying to find whales all the time. That had a fortune and what they didn't remember. I was 27 and they were.
Speaker 2:Typically I was one of the oldest people there, so they were people coming fresh out of university, say age 22, 23. Um, I was the. I was pretty much the only, uh, non-privately educated person there and they thought, well, you've got to get a whale, and blah, blah, blah and you know. And I just thought this is crap, isn't it? Because what have I got in common with somebody in their 40s or 50s that's earned 15 million quid last year? Absolutely, bugger all. But how am I actually going to demonstrate my value? So I, you know, I took great pride actually in the fact that, um, I kind of slapped them on the face with your mum and dad wasted hundreds of thousands of pounds on your education, because here's a little old me who didn't have an education that was paid for and I can figure out a way of finding out who's best to call.
Speaker 2:So it wasn't that I really wanted to work with solicitors because I love solicitors, or that I've got a solicitor and there's a pain point for my background solicitors, or that I've got a solicitor and there's a pain point for my background. I just knew that if I took the list of solicitors in April because they qualify in March and I deducted March's list, I'd have all the newly qualified solicitors. So I'm 27,. They're going to be roughly 27, 26. They go from earning about 35 grand a year back in 2007.
Speaker 2:In Magic Circle law firms they then went to earning roughly double what they had before. I learned what their employee benefits were and then we've got a lot in common with similar ages, but they've had 100 pay rise. So all I used to do is explain to them about how they should try and make some of that pay rise, go a bit bit further and work harder for them, and I repeated that 139 times in 12 months and I I earned the company 540 000 pounds from a standing start and, as I've just said, I wasn't even qualified, which I know is wrong. I know that now. I didn't know that then, so I left when I got competent advisor status and set up on my own, but I'd done 1.2 million pounds and I'd got qualified.
Speaker 2:The interesting thing with that actually is, as I started to pass the exams, my my abilities reduced because there was that temptation to show off that you knew stuff and use language that wasn't the client's language. So talking about even tax-free cash over people's head, but if you like, why do you even need to speak in about that and you don't need to put that sort of stuff in there, but it was almost an opportunity to try and show what you knew. So the best thing was learning and then unlearning. And actually one of the other things I say to to new people that come into the team is try and bottle it, try and think about all the stuff you don't know right now when you join and capture that ceiling and capture those words, because if you could hold on to that, two years from now you'll remember exactly who you want to work with, why, and, and use their language, not your advanced language, now that you've passed r012, r06, very interesting.
Speaker 1:So let's go back to this niche, then of of legal professional solicitors. So they were young, they were around your age. They were transitioning into a higher earning role because they were qualified. These clients once they started earning mega bucks. I suppose as their years went by and they got progressed in their careers, maybe started up their own practice, etc. I assume they just bub it off and went and saw somebody else who can deal with them. Or did you continue servicing the individuals that were coming fresh out of um you know ones that were transitioning in their first couple of years of being solicitors? Did you continue with those or did you? How did it work? Because this obviously is the answer as to why a lot of your clients are probably now in their 40s and um, maybe not under 25, right?
Speaker 2:sam, you're teeing this up so nicely. So I didn't lose a single client. Um, and you know many of them would be made up to full equity partners in their firms. And that's when the likes of coots are all over them because you know it's announced when people make full equity states in law firms, it's publicly, publicly out there, and that's when they get all the likes of the private banks wanting to work with them and they'll give them discounted loans. So I had people that were going to get charged more knowingly for still working with me rather than going working for coots, because they would discount their loan, because they moved all of their assets to them to manage.
Speaker 2:And I didn't lose a single person because will smith says it as well will smith still has the team that surrounds him from when he wasn't famous, because he's like, well, where were you when I wasn't famous? I don't want to speak to you now just because I've got everything now that you want and, um, it's a bit like, well, I only want to speak with the people over 50 that are worth more than a million quid. Where were you when they were struggling? And, um, you know, for me, I think retirement kind of represents the, the greatest point of vulnerability in a person's financial life. You should have had a relationship with that person for a good 10, 15 years prior to getting to that point, not at that point. But we've got to educate society a bit more, because people only put their hand up and say I need advice when they feel the pain. They're not proactive, they're very reactive.
Speaker 1:But again, that would be financial education out in the masses, out in the workplace, and how you get people to be on the front foot, which is what I'm trying to do so that 39 percent that are now um with you and they're in their 40s, right, um, they're going to continue being with you, hopefully up until the point that they retire, because they will also be probably around about the same age as you, right exactly, yeah, so there's a beautiful symmetry with it.
Speaker 2:We know you spoke about that smile of life earlier. Well, that's what I've always called it, and the smile of life, uh, we can also divide it into learning, earning and yearning, and there's three stages of life, if you like. So it's like when people are in the middle of their earning phase, when they're in their mid 40s, but also you've got pressure from both sides. So you know, before we came on air, I told you about my mum who's got terminal cancer, and I had a five-year-old's birthday party, my daughter's birthday party, two weeks ago. I am sandwiched right in the middle between kids that want my attention as soon as I've walked through the door and a mum who I'm trying to pay the carers and sort out aftercare from the chemotherapy session, and I am totally and utterly sandwiched. I'm like that thin slice of wafer, thin ham, between two massive loaves of bread I'm not a massive steak between two small bits of pita bread right now, and that's why you have this dip down and happiness, and then things will start to pick up.
Speaker 2:Don't get me wrong. This isn't me saying, by the way, guys, I'm not happy because I am really happy and life's pretty good, because there's a lot of things you can do just to manage your own psychology, your own health and well-being. And, unfortunately, I've always been somebody that likes to think about balance. And how can you know? I'm not afraid to cry. There we go, but it's an important thing to do. You've got to let your emotions out, otherwise they manifest in in horrible ways. So I'm losing, I'm losing the thread of what you were saying there. But you know that, that smile of life and and walking that journey with those people at the same time, yeah, they'll still be with me, but as I'm growing a business, the client also has to accept that they can't always get me. So that's when we have a team that we have to build and they, you know they've got to be, they've got to be.
Speaker 2:I hate thinking things like behind me. You know I'm the leader of the business, so you kind of say behind me, but actually we come together as one and they all know why we're doing what we're doing. We're all mission driven, we're all, uh, missionaries, not mercenaries. Nobody's out there just trying to make the most amount of money for themselves, me included. That will just be a byproduct of doing the job well, um, but yeah, we're not like we've got a very, very strong retention rate and even with protection, like I very, very rarely get any callback. I've never been bothered about four-year terms and things like that and in non-indemnity it's never been an issue. No Good.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you've Someone's listened. Sorry, I'm the hypothetical financial planner in your business. I've come in and you've shown me how to do it. I've niched out, and I've decided to niche down on dot net developers, because I know their career pathway, I know how much they earn, and I can go on linkedin and I can very quickly identify all the ones that are 150k earners and I know what's next and I know what level they're at, and bloody, bloody blah. So I've done all that and I'm starting to build it all out now.
Speaker 1:Let's say, for example, I was working for you, um, and I was interested in following the same path as you, though, and I want to set up my own business. Okay, you decided to set your own business this day and eight right. When is the right time for me to do it? When do you think is the right time for me to do it? And then what I want to do is get into how not how I go about setting it up in respect of getting directly authorized, but how do I build that team around me? How do I build those right people around me, and who do I actually hire to make sure that I can progress to the next level?
Speaker 2:that's funny, I think. I think readiness is a fallacy. So whenever you think I should do this, you don't have to wait to everything to be aligned, you go for it, okay, too many people procrastinate and give themselves limiting beliefs and we can just sit there on the sidelines waiting for the perfect moment. And it won't ever be the perfect moment. So know that right.
Speaker 2:Um, for me, the problem was I'm not a very good employee, because I always like my own ideas more than somebody might tell me they were a bad idea and so, like it or not, I was gonna do it. Um, I also believe in a true meritocracy. So the fact that and I put on linkedin, I put one brought that 1.2 million pounds in. I'd paid away more than a million pounds of that to somebody else. Well, that wasn't very fair. I wanted the benefits of what I was, of what I was achieving as well. Um, so starting your own business kind of helps with that, but this gives me a bit of another b in my bonnet.
Speaker 2:I am kind of sick of seeing people um, coming in, coming in an employed role as an advisor, building a client base, perhaps, but being employed and paid to do that, waiting till they get to escape velocity and then nicking off and starting up on their own, because for me that's theft. I guess the client none of us own a client, right? Let's just say that nobody owns a client fine. But for somebody to take in just because they've had the benefit of a relationship for as it might have been handed over from the need advisor, that's again something I think stops the whole of the financial advice gap being plugged. Because I think nationally there's a bit of a disincentive for people or a fear of failure or this limiting belief that we can't grow a business properly because people run off and take clients with them. Clearly it's in my psychology. I wouldn wouldn't have raised it, but I'm still happy. You know, we've got 10 people and every client doesn't deal with me, far from.
Speaker 2:You've got to use other things, such as having a good culture. You've got to have multiple touch points. You've got to do other things to to try and retain that client relationship if somebody were to leave. But it is a risk. There is always a flight risk, um. But that said, I've got an abundant mindset that even if clients did leave, I'm very happy to think I'd be able to replace them and it wouldn't be lost. But also, if a member of the team left and tried to take clients, they'd know that it's not just me they're upsetting. They've got their colleagues that they'd be um kind of impacting because I might have to make people redundant if half the turnover walks out the door. But I think that's something that does great with me, because I know that that does happen out there and so I don't want people thinking, oh well, I'll get to that point of escape velocity and then I can earn all of the trail fees that come in from these clients.
Speaker 1:If you were paid to bring them on and service them, they don't belong to you, even if you have the relationships there should be decency and grown-up relationships to say I'll pay you for that client base that I'm now taking, not just run off and steal it ensure that that uncomfortable situation doesn't arise within your business and that the people that you actually bring into your company are aligned with your thing thing and if say, for example, they did think in the back of their head they want to go off and set their own business? Is there a process in place to be able to, um, perhaps buy clients that they feel that they've brought into your business, or do you create a structure within your business that celebrates entrepreneurialism, so the environment's intrapreneurial enough for an entrepreneur?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's a good question. The fact is, every client that we deal with, bar probably one, maybe two, I've brought every single client in, so I want to foster those relationships of the team bringing in new clients. But there's also people that are meant to be employees and people that are meant to be entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, and sometimes the two don't necessarily meet, so know who those people are. But we recruit people based on their values, and fairness is a really important thing. What is fair? Is it fair that you get paid to build a client bank and then take it with you and when we all know that's not fair, if you describe it like that, um? So you recruit people based on their values and you don't have that issue as much. You have multiple touch points with the clients. The client realizes they're a client of the business, not that their sole relationship is with one person. Yes, we've got other things, because I'm not naive, so we've got non-dealing and non-solicitation clauses in contracts and I've got a period of probably six months or so for me to get back in touch with clients if somebody did leave, um, and and rekindle those relationships. But I'm also not so distant from the clients because I brought every single one of them in pretty much. But I still chat with them now and again and we have company events and there'll be drinks and there'll be presentations and people speak to me.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying that you you know, when I've handed people over, people have got me around the ankles and said, guy, don't go, because that isn't the case. Like, clients are very happy and if you think about it, I explain to them. I've got to build a succession. You can't always be with me for the rest of your life, because I'm not going to be doing this forever and you are the same age as me. So, as I said, when you get to that point of maximum vulnerability, when you're at the peak of your wealth, I'll probably be there as well, right? So I'm probably going to be thinking about more holidays and working less as well. So I need to make sure there's a good team behind me that can look after you, because it's not going to be me doing it and they get that, they understand that and they appreciate they are a client of the company, so that that's how we do it.
Speaker 1:So it's a company, but essentially the company is guy skinner who holds the relationships with the clients. Therefore, you are really the individual bringing clients in, you're not in. And this is just me just breaking it down, just interested to understand it. Because everyone, everyone wants to run a business differently and everybody wants to work for a company differently. There's plenty of financial planners out there or trainees or whatever, or parap power planners that would just love to come into a practice like Guy Skinner's, knowing that they don't have to go out and win client relationships. It's not expected for them to do that. It's actually expected for them to come in and service clients and historically people call them farmers, right, or hunters, farmers or hunters, and some people want them both, don't they?
Speaker 1:Some companies, and you're hanging your hat on the fact that, by the sounds of it, your model is that I. I like you. You bring the clients in and you build a team around you, a servicing team around you that creates a really beautiful client experience. You're still very much connected to the client relationship, but you're passing it to somebody else to be able to service, to build a relationship, the continuation of it, and then you touch base with the clients every now and then, or they know who you are. Maybe you put some videos out, maybe you put a podcast out, maybe you put some blog articles out, emails so they know it's still you, but it's somebody else in the business that's dealing with it.
Speaker 1:Now someone coming into your business business. You'd have a conversation with them and say that's the model. This is how it works. What happens if that person comes in and says yeah, but I want to smash the shit out of it. I want to pick the phone up and phone a load of phone, a load of people up. I want to find a load of clients. I want to build my own book. What do you do with that person? Do you turn them away and say, go and join someone else, or do you take them on?
Speaker 2:I'd take them on. So I said earlier, what gets you to the point so far won't get you to the next point, and what I've described is where we are right now. That's not to say that I don't want a team of other people that can be entrepreneurial. I absolutely do. I don't want to be the handbrake on this. You know, I want to reach a million people nationwide, so it's got to be taken away from it just being me. Uh, I suppose the reason why we've got to where we are is because we've got some really great people that are very safe pairs of hands.
Speaker 2:Um, there's a danger as well. So I'll say it farmer hunter. There's a lot of recruitment out there, um, and and you know the figures that are put out there in terms of what people will earn, there's a mismatch between the salary expectations of a farmer and a hunter, and I don't, I don't think we have them accurately labeled within the recruitment space so that you, you run into issues of people that are farming thinking they deserve remuneration of that of a, of a hunter, and that's. You know, and I'm quite happy to have hunters, you know, if they were to then leave the business in future and think, well, I brought all these clients on and I built this. That's fine. We just have a mechanism as to how they buy the clients, or I kind of also have to have deeper pockets than them to make sure that I can retain it, but that there's other things along the way.
Speaker 1:That means it shouldn't become legal as a battle so would you then, in that situation, create a pathway, create a, create a career structure for those that let's call them farmers? Okay, I don't like it. But yeah, you've got those, those individuals that are servicing clients, bringing, you're bringing them in, whether through leads or referrals or whatever, and they're working with those. And then you've got another side of your business, and that other side of your business is that, look, you're entrepreneurial, we would like people like you. Okay, so you can come on in. But here's the contract. This is what it looks like.
Speaker 1:You know, you get this kind of basic salary. There is a responsibility for you to go out and hunt, but guess what? I've got the blueprint for you to be able to do that. The guy skin a blueprint, so I'm going to replicate it with you over there. I'm going to mentor you, I'm going to support you and I'm going to help you get to the levels where you build a practice that has a niche and an expertise and you build a team to my level.
Speaker 1:But to do that, you're on an employee contract with a heavier commission at the end, right, a heavier split at the end, right, in respect of what you actually earned, and within that contract, you then tie into the fact that if they do leave is you know the clients are yours and they could they have to sell them to you, or something like that. You know they have to sell their part to you. So there's no way that they can take clients because contractually, if they go they have to sell them to you or they. Does that make sense? So there's a way to have like an eco, there's a way to nurture an entrepreneur in the entrepreneurial environment, and then there is the farming aspect of it and then that will help you bring those hunters in, that will go out and push and build your brand and build your business. But they've got some form of long term buyout option within it as well.
Speaker 2:Sort of just remember the fact we want missionaries not mercenaries, but you want both.
Speaker 1:You just say, if someone came in, you would take somebody else.
Speaker 2:But they have to be a missionary, not a mercenary. So they're out for the greater good. They're trying to deliver ways of challenging and solving the advice gap, helping people for the right reasons. It's not about how much can I earn and how much goes into my pocket but they want to sleep, they want to run their own business, so they want.
Speaker 1:They want to be. Yeah, so you. It's like guy. So if you met guy, if you met guy the same version of guy when you started your business they walked through your door right now and he was saying I want to go and run my own business, yeah, but I really would love to work with you. How would you position it? How would you create a structure that would actually keep the younger guy in your business and help you build it out?
Speaker 2:Or would you? Well, I'm not sure I would, because I always knew I wanted to start my own business. Contraptually, you're going to struggle anyway, like I know of cases where people have less. It has gone to the courts and actually the company is lost and somebody's walked out, even though they're a farmer and they've taken half a million quid of turnover and it's now all theirs and that it may. It really irritates me because I just think, well, that's just a total lack of respect. So I wouldn't have hired me because I knew that I wanted to start my own business and I see it as a red flag.
Speaker 2:I want people to be part of a team and and you know, I don't want them to necessarily want it's a tough balance, isn't it, of having an entrepreneur and somebody that is a hunter that isn't just going to go. I'm going to leave after five years and, like I say, the contracts don't stack up and they're hard to challenge. Um, I also disagree with heavy-weighted commission structures because it just promotes the wrong behaviors. So it's it's not that you don't necessarily charge ad valorem. You can do things sensibly, but if you've got somebody that gets a basic and then 30 percent of whatever they bring in, they're going to be trying to overcharge people. Perhaps they might be trying to put the wrong products in place. There's all sorts of stuff that can happen from that and that's. I don't want that behavior. So my philosophy is very much one of you just pay people an excellent salary that's above average, and then they're here because they want all the other bits that come with it. They they want to know every day they're doing good and they're putting good out in the world. And they want to work with younger people. Because if, if the benefit of great financial advice compounds over time, let's deal with the younger generations because you're making more of an impact on the world for longer.
Speaker 2:I want people that think that way, not people that think how much money can I make for myself. You know for me this people that think how much money can I make for myself. You know, for me this has never been about how much money I can earn, never has. And you know people would see that if I shared with them the company's bank account. I have not stripped out every penny of this. I pay myself what I need, not a massive amount. I have a Skoda on the drive. I don't drive a sports car I could do. I could pull the money out and drive by a porsche. I want to build a sustainable business for the long term and I want to do the right thing. It's just hardwired within me so I'll hire people that are like that and maybe I'm talking back now. Maybe I would hire myself, but I don't have to temper my frustrations about not then leaving to start my own thing up.
Speaker 1:Yeah but goes back to this what would you do to hire your own self, so to nurture that person who has an entrepreneurial spirit? So I'm not saying pay him high commissions, right. How would you reward that person differently for the extra effort that they put in to grow? How would you? How would you lock that person in? So somebody says a farmer, right, you pay him a decent basic salary. You might pay him a percentage of profits in the year to align them to the goal of the business being a success, right. And to, yeah, reward them for the amazing service they offer.
Speaker 1:Now the other person's going to come in deliver an amazing service as well, but they've got this deep down burning ambition that they want to build clients as well. They want to bring clients in. They're a business developer, they've got an amazing spirit in that in that sense, and they're brilliant people. So how would you absolutely so if that person came to your door right now, guy the young one, this is just hypothetical mate, we're not. I'm just sort of asking you, what would you? I know that's fine what?
Speaker 1:What would you create right now that would make that? Would it be a short, could be a smaller basic with a, with a with a higher split percentage. Perhaps would it be shares. What would it? You know, how would you? Because if there are people out there and we don't want to lose those people in the businesses now, unless you're saying I'm hanging my hand, this is the model that I want. I'm going to grow it this way to the point of where I get to a point and perhaps I do an employee ownership scheme and the employees buy it off of me. I don't know what you're thinking is around. How you know, is that a way, way that you can keep people motivated in a farming environment? Is you make it like an employee ownership and you know shares and get shares in it, or whatnot? Have you thought about that?
Speaker 2:yeah, um, I've not. I've not put loads of thought into it, but employee ownership would form part of the overtime EMI schemes, things like that. I think with a farmer you've got to see that people are actually genuinely able to do what they think they can do, and I've only ever hired people that have never worked in financial services before. I've never hired somebody that's actually already qualified and come in. That's done it all, and maybe that's a change of recruitment process that's required because maybe somebody could come in. But again, I don't want them to bring clients with them. I don't want to be the beneficiary of them stealing clients from their old practice. That is no good for any of us. That's not going to inspire trust within the financial services community if you like.
Speaker 1:Maybe they have had a look. There's plenty of places at the moment we won't name names where people can go out and build client books themselves. Right, they can build their own clients, but perhaps they don't. They thought they were entrepreneurs and they were self-employed and then they fell out of love with it and thought this isn't for me. There's way too much responsibility. I just love generating clients. So they have a client, they come along and they bring that client book in, so they're not going to steal clients from anybody else. They've already got their own client relationships. What they're looking for is the guy skinner model to become a success like sky skinner. How do I replicate what guy skin has done in guy skinner's practice? Have you thought about that? Is it because just not part of your?
Speaker 2:I'm not, I've not put a ton of thought on it, but I wouldn reject those people. I'd feel slightly uncomfortable if they're bringing clients. If it was tarnished or fettered and where they'd come from, even though they were self-employed, did look like they were owning to them. Look, okay, clearly I took clients with me, but I was self-employed and I'd paid a million quid away. So it's not like I felt like I was undeserving of those people. I generated every single person myself through cold calling, doing all the hard yards, bringing the clients in. I didn't feel like I owed anybody anything and, by the way, even when I left, I didn't insure any callback on the old practice. I waited till callback terms had come off, because I'm a decent person, I wasn't going to go and give them a belt of foot as well. But, um, there is room for people like that. And again, it's like what would the 44 year old me tell somebody that was 30 when I left and start on my own? It's a lot harder work than you can imagine. Yeah, you know, and when I set, when I set up, I joined forces with a guy that was at the company I was at and I unbeknownst to me, I don't know if he forged his exam certificates or what he did, but he wasn't actually qualified, so he absconded. Two years later it hit me for nearly six figures and actually I was out in the wilderness for the best part of five years until I set city gates up. Yeah, um, and you know where would I be if I'd actually had a really good company that I joined when I first started and somebody that supported me? I could have been way further ahead than I am now. Now I enjoy the struggle right, happiness is in the journey, not in the destination, and I'm enjoying everything I've done to this point and I like the fact almost I've got some scars and some bruises and some good stories about stuff that's happened along the way. That's just all part of life, right.
Speaker 2:But, um, there's a lot of people that we just need a reality check. Sometimes, you know, it's very easy to get carried away with ourselves, and me included. Um, it's my kind of my favorite thing whenever I think I'm doing really well and I'm getting ahead of myself. My little boy he's only seven he always draws me back in and he'll bring me down. He'll cut me down at my knees with one comment and it's brilliant, because you need that in your life to humble it. But he loves. He loves space and we read about space facts and my favorite thing, when, when we we talk about these things, the observable, observable amount of the universe is the equivalent to a cup of water compared to all of the water on the planet. We are that fucking insignificant excuse my french, we're that insignificant. Yet we can get carried away with ourselves far too easily and you just got to remember that.
Speaker 2:So you know, when you have a setback in life, whatever it might be, is how you recover from the setback not beating yourself up about it, but just trying to get back on the bike and just carry on cycling again. Keep the wheels in motion. That one percent incremental. Let's be better today than I was yesterday. How can I improve but not get too down on myself that things didn't go right and and that's like that's the way that we should. We need to operate, but I don't want people in their 20s and 30s thinking I could do this, I could.
Speaker 2:It is hard and there's some you know, there's a survivorship bias. That I'm speaking to you here right now um, and I'm. These aren't my words, but these are the things that people have said to me they're like me, like abraham uh offkin sandy said to me maybe I'm one in a hundred that could do what I did with with leaving a company, having the dodgy business partner. You know when he left. She's now my wife, but we were dating at the time. We lived in a studio flat that was 270 square feet, the fold-up bed at the bottom of that was my office, the desk. She's a doctor, so she was doing twilight shifts, night shifts, early morning starts. She'd wake me up at all hours of the day. That was how I survived.
Speaker 2:For two years I was doing all my own power planning, all my own admin, all the generation of every single client. I was doing all my own power planning, all my own admin, all the generation of every single client, all the servicing of every client. I was stupid. It was post-RDR. I didn't have any ongoing fee relationships. Everybody was just purely transactional. I changed it over time, which is how we've now got a really successful business with ongoing recurring income and there's loads of shortcuts. I could go and tell my younger self about that. I wish I'd had somebody, but I didn't. So I've learned the hard way and I've struggled, but I've done it. But for people that think it's easy or that think it looks easy, do not be mistaken it's uh, it really isn't, and it's not for everyone what's next for you then?
Speaker 1:so you've built this practice million pound turnover right, which is doing incredibly well. You've got a fantastic million pound turnover right, which is doing incredibly well. You've got a fantastic team around you. But you're young, you know. You're mighty Well, yeah, you are. Well, you're 44, aren't you? What's that I mean? What's next for you? What is the thing that's getting you fired up about your career within financial planning? What do you want to do next?
Speaker 2:I want to be part of the solving of the advice gap. I want to get out there in a big way it's. You know, I met with somebody last week about making an avatar of myself, which sounds really egotistical. So it's not a case of being egotistical, but if we can break things down and feed an avatar, feed ai enough with my way of thinking of the world that somebody feels like they're getting me, but they know it's not me. If it looks too much and sounds too much like me, that's a danger, right. So it's got to be known that it's not actually me. But if that sits behind a paywall of 99 pence per month that somebody can come and ask questions that they would ask me normally and they get value enough from that and actually I could have 25 000 subscribers. That's how we start to challenge things and solve things like the advice gap. Um, so I'm looking at stuff like that and it's how do you make it scalable? I want to start with my own hometown. So I'm an adopted son of hitch and I've only been living here four years, but I'm giving a talk on the 6th of april to loads of mums and dads actually from the kids school and I've got flyers out there and there's only capacity for 65 people. I'm not. They're paying 10 pounds each per person as a donation to a charity that I'm the volunteer for on a fundraising uh, trustee of. But if we can get people living a better life because they make better choices with their money, that's what I want to do and it is it's about getting it out there and in a bigger way, because for every advisor out there that thinks they can just cling to their, their group of clients that are over the age of 60 with large portfolios that they take one percent a year on, do not be mistaken. That business model is going to change. It's going to get disrupted. The old guard is going to get upset. I'm probably really upsetting people right now with a lot of the stuff that I'm saying, but I kind of don't really care because it does need to change, the same as loads of other business models with estate agents and all sorts of stuff get upset over time and get disrupted. We all like the disruption.
Speaker 2:It is clearly wrong that a profession if I'm going to call it that, which I do think we are if a profession can only serve 8% of the population, something's wrong with it. It really is, and we're not solving social issues and even the extent to which I work with children when I'm volunteering, I very much believe that if you solve problems earlier in life, you don't get the knock-on impacts. If we deal with mental health of a teenager, you've got one less drug addict potentially maybe that's a bit severe. You don't wait to be curative, you're preventative and that's my whole piece around.
Speaker 2:Why have we got so many advisors waiting to deal with the flabby, overweight people in their 60s with too much money, rather than getting people at the boot camp when they're 30 and 40 and really striving and making a difference to society? So that's where I see the future of it being um and I'm kind of apologetic because that's a bit of a harsh uh, a harsh analogy to use. But look, I'm making the point right. You understand where I'm coming from with that. I think most people listening to this will do as well.
Speaker 1:Combination of technology, a combination of coaching, relatability, social media, the ability to speak to this will do as well. Combination of technology, a combination of coaching, relatability, social media, the ability to speak to as many people as you physically possibly can yeah, so a combination of technology, a new way of approaching advice, whether that's like coaching. I mean there's lots of people getting into financial coaching now it is quite unregulated, but I think if there's a lot more energy, a lot more effort in that, you could bind technology with that, also With quite unregulated. But I think if there's a lot more energy, a lot more effort in that, you could bind technology with that, also with, then, the right education around financial planning which leads into financial planning qualifications. There is a gap. There isn't there that can be solved by a lot of people that are going out there and being coaches, if we can get them early enough in the journey and get them on the actual pathway of a financial planning career. So what does that actual career look like? How much can you earn? Money is a big part of it. How can you appeal to somebody that is entrepreneurial? Can they build value in the long term within financial planning?
Speaker 1:A lot of people don't realize that as a financial planner, you can actually have a capital event at the end and it's relatively easy to actually do that if you follow a set blueprint that's out there, already tried and tested. Someone could look at that at 20 years old and be a 35 years old, could be a multi-millionaire right, it's, I'm seeing it around me at the moment. It's, it's massively achievable within financial planning. So I think the big point is educating people around actually what the career is, what the pathway, what the route is, but it's getting good quality people being able to train and develop and help them through the process, which goes back to your idea of this ai. You know this avatar of yourself that someone could jump into and ask questions to every point of the way and you can walk this way, go this way, go this way, go this way, follow this blueprint. But I wonder, um, I wonder if it will happen, maybe, maybe not.
Speaker 2:We'll see right, I'll do everything I can to make that the case. I'm pretty sure if you spoke to Martin Lewis years ago, he didn't think he'd be where. He was having a TV program at prime time once a week and mostly talking about switching energy bills and savings accounts. There's much more we can do than what he's limited to because he's not regulated. Why has nobody done it? You know, it's the old way of thinking is there's still a hangover. Don't be wrong, we are poles, apart from where we were because of rdr.
Speaker 2:That has really pushed on the whole service proposition. It's really pushed on a lot of the thinking. There's a lot more great work being done now than there was. It's the norm to be a planner rather than somebody pushing product. I think you know I don't know the statistics around it and that's the way it feels, because most people I speak to people don't always do what they say they're doing right. But most people I speak to they are planners and they say that they're doing all this great work. Well, the fact is we're only doing for 8% of the population, so let's just try and drive this and there's never one single solution to any problem there, and there's never one single solution to any problem. There's multiple factors and we've just got to chip away at all of them. Fantastic.
Speaker 1:Well, guy, look, I'm going to bring it to an end there, because it's actually five o'clock here in Dubai and I've got to get ready to go to England tomorrow. For three weeks I'm going off to Manchester, then to Liverpool. I'm going to be filming a little documentary about farming, especially around the inherited sack side of it. So, documentary about farming, um, especially around the inherited sack side of it. So we're doing that up in up in um, up in liverpool and down into man. And where am I going after that? London, bristol bath, birmingham for an opening of um hoxton's birmingham office with bobby sahota. So I'm quite looking forward to catching up with her as well. But, guy, as always, it's always a pleasure talking to you.
Speaker 1:You're very passionate about change. You're very passionate of inspiring the next generation of advisors. You are a fantastic role model and I for one, a hundred percent, think you should create the model of what you have already created with city gate financial planning. It should be wrapped up in a very simple blueprint. I know it's not simple, as in like the journey, but there is a blueprint. You have got an absolute, tried and tested pathway and I think it's relatable to the next generation um. Your approach was a next generation approach. So why not deliver that and offer it to people? And I think, personally, I think people will sign up, I think they'll buy it and I think they'll buy into you, guy I hope so.
Speaker 2:That's the plan. Look, give me a shout when you're in london yeah, I will, we will.
Speaker 1:We'll catch up on me in london 100. Nice one guy. Thank you so much for your time today, really, really appreciate it. Always a pleasure catching up with you and and good luck with everything good man.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much. Enjoy the rest of the day. Cheers guy.
