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
Let Go or Burn Out: Jeri Williams’ Guide to Reclaiming Your Time
Jeri Williams on Scaling a Business, Letting Go of Control, and Building a Life with More Freedom
In this episode of Financial Planner Life, Sam Oakes sits down with Jeri Williams, the powerhouse behind Smooth Accounting in the UK and now Smooth Dubai.
Jeri shares how she built a business that runs without her, the mindset shift that allowed her to finally let go of control, and why protecting her time is now non-negotiable.
We dive deep into:
✅ Why she expanded into Dubai - and how it’s transforming her business
✅ The reality of stress and anxiety as a business owner
✅ What it really means to delegate and build a self-sufficient team
✅ Her obsession with time, freedom, and being present for her kids
✅ How showing up consistently online has helped her grow a loyal client base
✅ The role of marketing in building trust, visibility, and long-term success
✅ Why community, not competition, is at the heart of her approach
This conversation is packed with practical insights for business owners, financial professionals, and anyone chasing more freedom without sacrificing success.
🔗 Learn more about Jeri: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeriwilliams
📚 Join the waitlist for her new book on moving to Dubai
🎧 Subscribe for more career stories and insights from Financial Planner Life
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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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It's funny because everybody told me when you move to Dubai, sam, you've got to connect with Jerry Williams. And I was like, hey, this is Jerry Williams, you're an editor on my radio and all of a sudden I saw you everywhere.
Speaker 2:Yes, when you're a business owner, you're a business owner for a reason because you're that way. You're wired that way, so we're wired to cope with a certain level of stress and anxiety that comes with the fact that everything is on you.
Speaker 1:And comes with the fact that everything is on you and the norm is here to be 10xing yourself and putting yourself into every opportunity that comes up working really hard not saying no, taking on more possibly than you can handle to push yourself.
Speaker 2:I have managed my stress and anxiety because I'm very protective of my time.
Speaker 1:You've done a really good job of building a business that's giving you freedom back and your time back to focus on the things that you really enjoy. Yes, but what motivates you?
Speaker 2:I was so sick of this kind of hamster wheel. It's not why I set a business up. You know, I set the business up to have more control over my time. I want to give my kids everything you know, like financially, physically, emotionally, like just every bit of me.
Speaker 1:There's lots of people out there that want to run their own business. Yes, yeah, there's people that do run their own business. Business owners are business owners. How do you deal with them? Jerry, thanks so much for joining today on the financial plan of life podcast. Finally, I've got you sat down to interview about your career. It's funny because everybody told me when you moved to dubai, sam, you've got to connect with jerry williams, and I said, at least it's jerry williams. You were never on my radar and all of a sudden, I saw you everywhere. Yes, so yeah, likewise. So we kind of, actually, when we met, didn't we?
Speaker 1:at an event that we did, we did, yes, yeah which was fantastic, so good yeah really good so, and we promised that we'd sit down and do the party we've been trying.
Speaker 2:We have been trying, but we're here now. We did it fantastic.
Speaker 1:So first things first, was there a left phalange on the plane?
Speaker 2:I I hope so honestly like the stress of flying. I'm just, I'm just not a good flyer. I'm not like I do it. It's you know. Obviously I have to, but no, I don't like flying at all. First class business business, quite out the, uh, the first half stage. Yet not always, anyway, I've yet to be in?
Speaker 1:I've yet to be in business class, yet to be in first class. I'm still in the back with the rabble. Oh, I didn't realize that's we can't be friends anymore, right? For those that don't know you, can you just introduce yourself?
Speaker 2:yes, so I am jerry williams chartered accountant. I own smooth accounting in the uk and now smooth dubai over here. Uh, we look after mainly corporates, um, do their accounts, tax and everything, and for the last three years we've been helping relocate people from the uae from the uk to the uae.
Speaker 1:I've read a stat recently, I think it's 26 of adults are considering leaving the uk, which is roughly around six million. That's insane. Yeah, I'm not surprised, though, like are you getting a lot of?
Speaker 2:people reach out to you recently so many, yeah, so so many. It's definitely increasing, like I mean, we've been pretty busy the last three years anyway with people wanting to move, but for sure, it's getting more and more and more and it's every day, yeah, it's constant why do you buy?
Speaker 1:Why do people know this so much?
Speaker 2:I mean all the things with tax reasons. People are sick of paying so much tax in the UK. But I think, on top of that, it's the weather, it's the lifestyle, it's the safety it's for a city, the unusual side of it, I guess, being that it is super, super, super safe, it's super clean, you know, and those kind of things where most cities are not that way.
Speaker 1:I used to live in central bristol and you know it's when you get to like central london, certain areas, yeah, and you go back there now and it does feel almost shocking. Yeah, you know like I had, unfortunately, homeless people who were addicted to drugs sleeping pretty much outside of the flat that was right on the waterfront in bristol. Yep, you know when it was, it was sad to see. When you come here, you don't see, you don't see any. It's like, and it's as horrible as it might sound, because it's almost like you're turning your back on society or people that need help.
Speaker 2:For instance, it's nice to see a city that's clean and doesn't have homelessness yeah, it is, and I think as well on top of that, like the way that you feel when you're in a city like london, for example certainly I'm talking with my own experience how I feel is it's my purse done up, you know it's my, where's my phone? Have I got it? Like don't just hold it. You know like don't wear my nice watch, like, and it's constantly in your mind and you're walking through like tube, the underground, and you know like, fix, and it's just.
Speaker 2:And whereas here I just I would never even question that and I was talking to a um potential new client yesterday I had a meeting with and he said his daughter, his 12 year old daughter, and her friend made plans to go to Nobu and got like a driver to take them and they went to Nobu, the two of them. And like he said, and I said, can you imagine like letting your daughter do that in England? I mean, possibly it wouldn't be Nobu in England, maybe we have got Nobu, but um, it's. And he said, not at all, I wouldn't let her out of my sight. And I'm like that's exactly what it was, you know, when I was here with the kids, all of a sudden and gradually building up to you know, yes, you can go to the park without me, you know, and it's just not like that in the uk.
Speaker 1:How long were you in the bifor when you lived here? Almost two years, yeah, yeah so, and so I'm coming up to a year now. Oh, that's gone past. Yeah, it's very well. Maybe nine months actually. Yeah, nine months will be a year in september. You know, I've worked for these guys for years yeah I kind of coming back and forth. Do you miss it? So living like living here, going back to your bloody house and everything I do.
Speaker 2:I like house in the uk. I do miss it. Um, I'm very lucky and fortunate that I get to come here quite a lot. You know I was here with my husband and kids two weeks ago. We did like 15 days here as a holiday and we're quite often here and I come back a lot for work. So I think I get my fix. I do miss elements of living here absolutely because I loved it so much and I really really did love living here. But also I don't hate, you know I quite like where I live in england. So I don't, you know, I don't miss it to the point where it like really bothers me, but absolutely, you know this is like my favorite place in the world.
Speaker 1:So you know, I think I'm close like almost like walking in your footprints, because you've. You have business in the uk over to dubai. I've got my financial planner right. Which which services are UK? I'm over here at Oxenworth. I was head of creative there and I feel like I've been off more than I can shoot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just. But don't you think it just happens, Because Dubai has that effect. Like you get here and everyone's just fast paced you know I was talking to Chris about it Like it's a fast-paced environment, everyone's growing, everyone's helping each other. Like you know, you do things here that you just wouldn't think necessarily were possible.
Speaker 1:yeah, or maybe you would think possible, but maybe you just wouldn't do it there's an energy here it's an energy yeah, it's like you find it's a vibe and you kind of get swept up in it, because I think everybody else is swept up in it, so it's psychosomatic in that supposed way, like if everybody around you in that environment is doing it, then that's the culture. Yeah, that's the norm. Yeah, that's it, and the norm is here to be 10Xing yourself and putting yourself into every opportunity that comes up, working really hard yeah, not saying no, but taking on more possibly than you can handle to push yourself yeah, 100. One thing I have felt, though, is that where I was 12 months ago to where I am now I would 100 say I've improved in all areas of my life. Yeah, I feel like it's been hard.
Speaker 1:Yes, right, and I read a post that you did about um, stressing. Anxiety never leaves you when you run your own business, and when I read that, I thought I've got to talk to her about that, because I ran a business, a recruitment business, for 16 years. I ended up selling that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:When I was running that, I was stressed and anxious, yeah, worried all the time, because it's my own business. Yeah, yeah, and I've been the same way ever since, really, and I wonder if it would ever leave me. Yeah, and I want to talk to you about that. Yeah, yeah, you know, like, how do you Like? There's lots of people out there that want to run their own businesses. Yes, and there's people that do run their own businesses. Business owners are business owners. How do you deal with it?
Speaker 2:I think it's almost like that acceptance, but like, rather than trying to chase this ideal of you know, know, skipping through meadows and you wake up, you know you have a, you have an undisturbed night's sleep and you sleep for like solid eight hours every night and you know nothing's just like that, just not gonna ever happen. It, it, it doesn't exist. And I think we're always chasing this kind of um, you know when will things calm down? You know how often do you say, like, when things calm down a bit, we should do X, y, z, or, when I get a chance, like that's not gonna happen, like it just doesn't.
Speaker 2:When you're a business owner, that you're a business owner for a reason because you're that way, you're wired that way. You know otherwise we wouldn't be, you know. So we're wired to cope with a certain level of stress and anxiety that comes with the fact that everything's on you Like you know it's. You've got all the risk. Yes, you've got the reward as well, but you've got all the risk. And I think for me, I have managed my stress and anxiety because I'm very protective of my time and I'm so, so precious over my time I'm more precious over that than anything else and has helped me manage. I think everything you know, like I've said no to things that I absolutely would not have said no to previously because I'm protective over my time.
Speaker 1:can you just describe how you put processes and procedures plans in place to protect your time, because it's something that I'm trying to, yeah, be better with I'm really anal about it, to the point that it almost seems obsessive and I think I had to get like that.
Speaker 2:So you know, say, for example, someone sends me an email and goes oh jerry, is it okay if we do xyz? And I could just go, yeah, right, well, I don't just go, yeah or no, I think, why are you asking me? I don't, don't, I don't want to be asked the question. Right, so immediately, rather than responding it's, can you ask signs that don't ask me that again. Right, because I don't.
Speaker 2:And, and like, I mean it in in the nicest way possible, but like, don't drag me into anything. Like because I should be able to just switch my phone off, disappear up the face of the earth and my business should be completely fine and should still grow and should still, you know, and that's the way it should be. So the minute I start getting dragged into anything that even might be a really quick thing, I'm like no, I don't, I don't. I used to be such a control freak and I've gone, I've done a complete 180, because now I care more about my time and not and it's so precious, every, every minute of the day is so precious to me, but I'm really, really, really careful with it. So I think, unless you get to an obsessive level about your time, you'll always get dragged into things that you think need you and I don't.
Speaker 1:How long did you live in that space where you didn't control time?
Speaker 2:oh, the probably the first five years of my business, I'd say. And then I kind of went like enough, I'm not doing this anymore. And I actually at the point I thought that I thought I don't care, don't care if I earn less money, I don't. I was so sick of this kind of hamster wheel and feeling like I I'm so stressed I'm I'm so busy I didn't.
Speaker 2:It's not why I set the business up. You know, I set the business up to have like more control over my time, and it's not even necessarily about the quantity of time, it's more about the, the freedom and the choices. Like I choose to be here because I want to be. I don't have to be, you know, it's that. So I think it was probably about five years in that I went right. I'm employing people that are going to do these things that are better than me, and even if that costs me more money than I think I've got or whatever, like that's necessity and that's what I'm doing and I delegate and my managers delegate, and I'm just really, really keen on delegation.
Speaker 1:So you held on for five years trying to keep that control.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm doing everything. Yeah, yeah, interesting.
Speaker 1:Interesting. Okay, so when you took that five years and you did that, you let other people into your business. You started to delegate, employ people, as you say, better at the job than you were in that specific area. Yeah, so you could focus on you. Yeah, did things improve? Yeah, massively.
Speaker 2:I mean.
Speaker 1:I, you were in that specific area, yeah, so you could focus on you, yeah did things improve yeah, massively, I mean.
Speaker 2:But I got to the point where I wasn't doing anything. I remember just being like, well, now I don't know what to do with myself. Like genuinely, I was like I don't, I don't know what I'm doing on a daily basis. I used to be like I, you know, I'd be checking, oh, is everything okay? And they go, yeah, thanks, I'd like. Do you know, if we don't like so?
Speaker 2:Then I started coaching people because people kept asking me to coach them other accountants and I was like, no, I'm not coach, I have a coach, I am not coach, right. And then after a certain amount of time went by and I had so much time on my hands, I was like, okay, fine, I'll coach a couple of people. And a couple of people turned into like five, turned into 10, then into 16. Then I ended up with my academy where I had like 100 accountants I was coaching um, because I had those a free time. But now it's different, because now I have smooth Dubai and that's a baby business, so that needs me a lot more. But like, smooth UK is my kind of steady, stable, that's my bread and butter. I don't run that on a daily basis. You know, I don't know who the clients are, I don't know. I haven't met some of the team like Like, I don't, I'm not really involved. I'm involved in a strategic way, but I'm not involved in the day-to-day of that business.
Speaker 1:How does that feel? Is that slightly different to what you were used to before from?
Speaker 2:a startup perspective. Yeah, it feels great Like I made it that way. It was like that before I moved to Dubai. You extent that I was involved because I just went.
Speaker 1:So does that mean that you could do that in any country? Do you feel like now you could literally take smooth USA?
Speaker 2:yeah wherever, absolutely, and I sometimes like go the country and then I go no, no, because even like I count a friend of mine, he was like Jerry need to get into Saudi, loads going on over there. And I was like, okay, I need to because because Jerry's mind I go, yeah, okay, like that sounds great. Because I'm a little bit like Magpie, kind of like oh, exciting thing over there. But I'm like no master. Alex Hormozy says focus, master your thing. And I don't feel like I've mastered the Dubai stuff yet because it still needs me. So at the point that I feel like that is running without me and I'm not so involved, then maybe I'll progress on that.
Speaker 1:You've done a really good job of building a business that's giving your freedom back and your time back to focus on the things that you really enjoy. Yes, yeah, but what motivates you? What is it that actually motivates you in your life to do the things that you actually do?
Speaker 2:definitely the kids, and that's very cliche, um, I, I'm aware of that, but I think for me it absolutely is, because I think I you know my mum was single mum. We don't really have much money growing up and and things were difficult. So I definitely think it stems from so it's linked to me having children in that it stems from I, I want to give them the best of everything. You know, my mum gave us the best of everything. I mean, we had more love than a lot of kids have. So from that perspective and that's the most important thing, we we had it in abundance.
Speaker 2:So I think I want to give my kids everything you know, like financially, physically, emotionally, like just every bit of me. And that's why now, you know, my times are precious, because I want to take them to school. I don't need to, but I want to. You know, my times are precious because I want to take in school. I don't need to, but I want to. You know my husband, but I want to come, I want to come bigger mom, you know, I want to come to every. You know play sports every Wednesday. I want to come to every single sports game, you know, don't want to miss any of it.
Speaker 2:And then that's kind of you know, that drive of wanting to be at everything, always there, there, every meeting, every assembly, every. You know I want to be there. So I don't want to just be this kind of CEO that's busy all the time and you know, being busy is kind of like the novelty wore off, I think, around the year five mark of the being busy and I was like no, it's not, it's not for me. So I've always wanted to earn more, but I want to work less and earn more. So that's me. I'm trying to push the two like apart.
Speaker 1:So what was the turning point in respect to that? So you obviously decided like so I'm gonna employ people, right, was that the big?
Speaker 2:the big point was this okay, yeah and like pass all the clients away. So all the clients they want Jerry, because they've only ever known Jerry looks after them and now all of a sudden, jerry's never looking after them again do you get?
Speaker 1:did you find that you were protective because if you felt, if you gave it away, yeah, you would potentially lose your income? Yeah, yeah, and then it would affect your family? Yeah, which means they get all the things you'd want them to have? Yes, perhaps you felt you didn't have. That's your money story. Yeah, it's well your money story. Yeah, it's like your relationship with yeah, it's your money story yeah, it is because I have this.
Speaker 2:I definitely have a strange relationship with money because of that, you know, because I have memories of like we couldn't put stuff in the trolley when my mum was doing a food shop because we just couldn't. Like my mum knew she was buying xyz and that's all the money we had. So when I'm shopping with my kids and they go, can we have, I go, yeah, but then like, and I'm overcompensating because I have these memories of being a kid, so it's like little things like that. I think I probably shouldn't do it but I can't help it because my relationship with money is, you know, probably a bit of an obsession.
Speaker 2:I'd say I think I've always focused on marketing above anything else, from day one. You know, unlike a lot of accountants who sort of focus more on the operational side and doing accounts, I've never been like that, it's always been marketing. And still to this day I put as much effort in marketing. Now, even though my business have established and doing really well, I do not take my eye off the ball at all with marketing, like I do it from the minute I wake up. So let me not go to bed like I'm here on this podcast, right? So, and you understand because of what you do, if people can focus on marketing, they'll have steady stream of income or steady stream of inquiries, right, you'll always have leads. If you've always got leads, you can cope with anything else in your business. So I knew I could employ these people to delegate to, because I've always got inquiries, because I've never, ever stopped marketing.
Speaker 1:I love your marketing, I love seeing you out and everywhere. I know how hard it is, how difficult it is, and I admire what you've done and how you do it and the interaction and engagement that you actually have. And I think in professional services it can be even harder, yeah. Because all your followers can be accountants. Yeah, yeah, another way you turn that into a moneymaker as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, same thing that I'm trying to do with the financial end of life. Yeah, I will go down the whole coaching angle and the community angle. Super looking forward to monetizing further my audience, but monetizing through BamiWad.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, and I wish I'd be there. I just take money from them. No, no, no.
Speaker 1:Want to give them something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it has to come from wanting to help, like I've always been about community. You know accountants have always helped me, so I've always helped accountants and I do every day. You know, always, always help accountants. Yes, comes from a place of wanting to give back like I've people have helped me. I pay it forward. Hopefully they'll pay it forward, and that's just how it goes. You know we're not competing. You know I had added a podcast um a couple of weeks ago with a friend of mine and he runs a uk firm down the road from me. Our kids go to the same school he set up in dubai. He helps people relocate to dubai. We literally do the exact same thing and we're like really good friends or on a podcast together, like, and he was like, you know, people would think what are they doing? And he's like but we don't, we, there's not, there's too much business out there yeah there's too much for us.
Speaker 2:There's too much. Like you know. There's no competition with me at hundreds of thousands of accountants. There was a because there's so much collaboration, not competition.
Speaker 1:That's my motto when I actually got set up. Yeah, um, I didn't want to, because you always found that people were hyper competitive in the financial planning profession. There was quite a lot of ego and right jp a crack, and these got my face better than you know, tide and all of that. The aim for me was to kind of, um, bring financial plans together under a podcast and a conversation that would share best practice, um, how to get out in your career. You know how did I build that many followers or get that much assets under management?
Speaker 1:It was all about sharing knowledge and helping and that works really well for me and has helped establish me as somebody who's a facilitator, not someone who's trying to take, and recruitment was always one of those things where people thought you were trying to take. Yes, yeah, I can imagine it's kind of like and evil, yeah, but what I wanted to do was to say to people in berkeley now this podcast, this whole financial plan of life is for you, because, if I can get you talking on my podcast about how wonderful this career is, those retiring ifas that are leaving and leaving nobody else coming in can be replenished by the ones that you're teaching, because everybody wanted to educate the next generation to say what a great job it was, but no one could really do anything about it yeah they're like my niche and my reason why they should work with me, and therefore I got some vacancies yeah, it comes back around.
Speaker 2:Though, don't you think like, because I even think now I get so many leads from other accountants because they can't help with the device side. I never saw that coming because none of that was intentional. But now I'm like, because I've made such strong personal brand, because I've made such an effort to help accountants, they're all like oh Jerry does the device stuff. So now I'm like getting accountants referring to me, which is like so much more, I guess so many more leads than individual people, because they've got tons of clients. So now I'm like I never even saw that coming, so it comes back around.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love it. Did you find that you had a lot of accountants following you or did you find you had a lot of potential clients following you? Was there a period where you felt like you were just talking to an echo chamber of people that were looking at you because they were like, oh wow, she's an accountant, she's not doing what I'm doing? Because in the financial planning profession you get a lot of financial planners say they put themselves out there and I look at their likes and engagements and comments it's all other financial plans, yeah it's not their target audience, it's almost like they're talking to planners, not talking to their clients.
Speaker 1:Yes, like in a big, massive gap that has to be filled. Yeah, so you have to come in and educate them about? Yeah, nail a niche, create a podcast, speak to the audience you want to connect. Yeah, don't speak to financial planners. Yeah, let's find some clients, you know yeah, so did you find that?
Speaker 2:on loving your I guess I wasn't very intentional with my marketing in the early days. I was consistent. I get the crown for consistency, but I don't think I really knew. But certainly on linkedin when I started I was just always using it for a bit of fun. I never used it initially to get business, but it caught attention and attention then kind of, you know, I could see this quantity over, maybe, quality in the early days.
Speaker 2:Um, and there's quite often that debate on LinkedIn like do you want quality or quantity? And I've always been like, actually for me, quantity because just by statistics, right, just scientifically, the more people that follow me, the more people see my stuff, right. So but I think, as I honed in on what I was actually doing here and actually now building following, and now people actually want to see my stuff. So now I have to post every day because people are like you know where's Geri, what's she saying? That I'm like, okay, now it makes sense, now I'm going to start posting relevant stuff to my audience.
Speaker 2:And then when I built my academy for accountants, then I'm posting to other accountants and you'll see me, I intentionally shift my focus depending on what I'm doing. So if I'm holding an event, my focus will. I will drip feed ahead of the event. You know about it because I'm trying to sell it out or if I'm doing a launch for my academy, you'll see me drip feed about that to other accountants. So I'd sort of tailor it now, depending on who I'm talking to yeah, I've seen that in my area.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's good. I like your direct approach as well. I mean you are being direct and like the fact that you are trying to close. When you are um, building intrigue, you're building interest, but you are closing it every step of the way and I think with me it's one thing I've not really kind of done that enough. I'm not closing enough. I'm not talking about the level of service I offer on the Financial Color Life as a media company, a production company, people are starting to see I kind of do it through show. Yes, but I think that's great. I think it's great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I still don't know if it's brand new podcast comes out tomorrow. I produced that or 12 for 12 months. Prior to that, they had a partnership with me. Yeah, so it's like I, I'm showing the journey. Yes, I'm just hiring somebody in to help me operationally pull the trigger on the marketing. Yeah, because I'm not very super, I'm not organized, like you know, on the front end I'm speaking, speaking, speaking to the social guy and talk to people, but I need that kind of structure in the background and someone holding it all together and creating the funnels for me and all of that kind of stuff as well, the email marketing yes, all of that yeah, I don't do enough of that, or take an idea that I've got and actually put it into a sales process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, help me to articulate it yeah, so I'm looking forward to that yeah, do you spend a lot of money on marketing.
Speaker 1:Like how much you know? People always say to me, sam, like five to ten percent of your turnover should be, should be marketing spend. Do you spend a lot or you literally the marketing wheel?
Speaker 2:I am the marketing. I wouldn't say I really spend anything on marketing other than, um, we spend a bit here and there on someone doing social, like graphic stuff for the business, like more um, corporate stuff, I guess. Um, we've always spent a lot on seo, so that is one area that, even when I couldn't afford it, I found a way and I've spent I've been doing that since 2018, really, really heavily invest in SEO and that, for me, is like a non-negotiable, because our website generates more inquiries than any other thing. So I could delete all my social media tomorrow and we would still continue to grow at a rapid pace, because the FN money I've put into SEO is because it will generate loads.
Speaker 1:You're investing into sort of what's it called AI, whatever it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've not. We haven't done it on that side, but we've got like AI chatbots on our website and stuff like that and that's really to kind of like dabble in it a bit and also field off some of the basic questions about you. Know, you don't need to get in front of me to ask xyz, we can give you that information.
Speaker 1:The one thing that we see um that, I think, is something again I'm going to be building up at hoxton well, from which I've done in the time I've been here, mainly around the career side and the brand within financial planning, social, social proof. So if someone types in the name of Chris Ball, something's now coming up talking about his business career. If someone types in careers at Hoxton, something's coming up, I think so.
Speaker 1:I can sound out to Hoxton, so loads of stuff comes up. So for me, the ability to type into Google or to type into social media and actually get some proof that that person does what they say they're doing and and he's trusted. Maybe some client stories and all that I'm going to lean now into with hox and wealth building advice stories, building client stories and really consumer driven, as opposed to stepping like when I first came in and just hit what I knew best, which was careers, which is a fantastic job, yeah, attracted lots of people. And now I'm super keen to kind of create that social proof content high value, yes, and build out that youtube channel. So I'm quite excited by that because I've never done it, yeah, yeah. Final note though, before you go, because I know you're desperate again, some lovely dinner in the fall season that'd be lovely um you are bringing out a book.
Speaker 2:I am bringing out a book, yeah, and I just wish I could give a date. But it's all. It's always finished. I've had the draft, I just need to tweak its weight slightly. Um, I'd like to think by the end of may hopefully by the time this podcast comes out, it will be available. It's going to be for sale on amazon, but everyone can join the waitlist on. You know my linkedin, jerry williams, or any of my social media handles. Um, you will find a link to the waitlist.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, and why would someone find value in your book or say about I mean, I get asked a hundred times a day about moving to dubai and every question you could possibly think of. So for me it was a case of going right. This is my brain dump. This is everything that I know through having moved myself but also moved hundreds of clients here. Um, I've put it all down in a book.
Speaker 2:So I think it will be a really honest, raw kind of I've tried to make it a bit funny, um, um kind of I've tried to make it a bit funny, um, um kind of collection of chapters about everything from tax to schooling to where to live. You know all of that. So the people that are thinking about moving here, I feel like it's got a bit of everything you know and it's not, it's not dull. I think it's quite interesting. Um, of course, it's my take and it's my opinion, but you know, um, I just think there'll be a lot of value in there for people and hopefully it will answer a lot of their questions that they've been trying to to get answers to but see a youtube channel than that one well, I do have a youtube channel and I do put a lot of content out on it um to buy stuff.
Speaker 2:So yeah, jerry williams, if you want to have a look.
Speaker 1:Gerry, look, it's been an absolute pleasure today. Thanks for joining us on the Financial Planet Life. Obviously, you see accountants life, but what a fantastic journey you've been on. I'm really pleased to be connected with you and I hope we can continue catching up at events and connecting, and I just love seeing your journey. So thanks so much for coming here today and sharing that with our audience.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much for having me.
