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.
Be sure to check out
Financial Planner Life Academy - start your career today!
https://financialplannerlife.com/academy/
Financial Planner Life Podcast
From Council Estate to Financial Planning TV & Social Media Influencer!
In this episode of the Financial Planner Life podcast, host Sam Oakes reconnects with Emmanuel Asuquo, a leading financial planner, TV personality, and social media educator. Emmanuel was Sam’s second-ever guest when the podcast launched, making this a special full-circle conversation.
They dive deep into Emmanuel’s journey from growing up on a council estate to becoming one of the UK’s most recognisable financial planners, using platforms like Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube to educate and entertain audiences.
Discover how Emmanuel built a purpose-driven career in financial planning, leveraged social media to attract clients, and became a trusted voice for financial education across the UK.
Topics include:
✅ How to use social media for client generation
✅ The importance of authenticity and storytelling
✅ Why niching down builds stronger engagement
✅ The future of careers in financial planning
✅ Building trust through “edutainment”
If you’re a financial planner looking to grow your business, build your brand, or attract the next generation of clients and talent, this is a must-watch (or listen).
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
Be sure to follow financial planner life on YouTube for extra content about a career within Financial Planning HIT THAT SUBSCRIBE BUTTON!
If you're looking to start your career in Financial Planning, check out the Financial Planner Life Academy here
Reach out to Sam@financialplannerlife.com in regards to sponsorship, partnerships, videography or career development.
And today's guest on the Financial Planner Live podcast is a good friend of mine, Emmanuel Asukwo. He was the second guest in London on the Financial Planner Live podcast about five years ago and today he joins me in Dubai and we're going to talk about social media, his TV presence. We're going to talk about YouTube. We're going to talk about the best ways to generate clients through these platforms. We're going to share some hints and tips about how to niche down and generate a client base within financial planning.
Speaker 2:I call it edutainment. You know, edutainment, edutainment. So like education and entertainment at the same time. Laugh into education, try and make it humorous, try and make it less teachy, less in your face and so serious.
Speaker 1:Finance is serious. Emmanuel Asukwo is a financial planner. He is a TV personality, but at the centre of everything he does is positive impact for the community.
Speaker 2:I'm an educator. I really want to empower people. I guess my purpose comes from growing up on a council estate to parents who, you know, both came from Nigeria, and just seeing a lot of people in the community that I grew up in make bad financial decisions.
Speaker 1:It's all about helping absolutely everybody with their finances, and today you're going to find out exactly why. Right, iman, thanks so much for joining me today on the financial planner life podcast. Amazing to have you in dubai. Yes, and what I just say as well you were my second ever guest on the financial planner life podcast and today is episode probably, by the time this gets released, 240.
Speaker 2:Wow thank god, we love it. Well done for the growth you've done. Amazing it's. It's great that, um, I could even be the second, second guest, but I've seen the journey it's been. It's been fantastic, um, your true example of consistency. I always tell people, if you do something, one thing enough people will know you for it. Do you know, I mean, and like you've done it, you've kept doing it, kept putting it out, and like the numbers have just grown and grown and grown, here you are, you're, you're a leader now.
Speaker 1:Oh, mate, thank you. Well, you're definitely a leader, because you're one of those people I've always got inspiration from. You know, seeing you out there doing what you do as a financial educator, as a financial planner, with a higher purpose and a positive impact on society as well. The sort of conversations you're having with the end user, if you like, the consumer about the stuff that really isn't getting tackled these days, like financial education. Yes, I see that money worries can cause us. You know you are a consumer champion, so I'll tell you what. Why don't you fire into this? Okay, because a lot of people might not no-transcript. So tell us who you are, what you do and your background and really what your higher purpose is. Sure, I'm Emmanuel Sucre.
Speaker 2:I'm a financial advisor. I have been for almost 20 years now, so you know long time. And yeah, also tv personality, um, motivational speaker, do talks at schools. I'm I'm an educator. I really want to empower people.
Speaker 2:I guess my purpose comes from growing up on a council state, to parents who, you know, both came from nigeria. I'm the first of my family to be born here in the uk and just seeing a lot of people within the community that I grew up and make bad financial decisions because nobody wanted to give them advice. And again, that's not a fault of their own. That's the way the system is. You know, financial advice is typically held for people that have X amount of money, and if you don't have that, you can't get that advice.
Speaker 2:And for me, I just felt like I want to be the financial advisor that my parents should have had but didn't have access to, and so for me, it's all about helping the everyday person, trying to empower them to make better decisions. At the end of the day, how does somebody get to the point of having 100,000 or 150K if no one taught them how to manage 1,000 or 5,000? We have to start somewhere, and so for me, it's about giving them education through social media, which allows me to reach the masses, and then, as things go on, if people then want one-to-ones, if people then have the finances to then come to me. I can then help them invest and take them on the financial advisor journey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it, man. They've got a real good higher purpose there of helping people and giving back, and I think you know when we do look at our parents, don't we? And we look at how our parents grew up, what they did, how they did it, your childhood, the people around you, and we take massive amounts of aspiration from that. Now, some people might look at that and go I want to go higher up, right, but you're looking at that and saying how can I help people around me get the same level of education that I have got? Do you feel like financial education is something that sets people free and gives them a happier, more fulfilling life? You think yeah?
Speaker 2:definitely. It's so empowering. I always tell people, no matter what job you take, you're going to need to learn how to manage money. Whatever you decide to do you might do the arts, you might do whatever you need to understand how to manage money. You need to understand, however, whether you have a large amount or a small amount, you need to know how to make that work for you. You need to know how to make good financial decisions. You need to know how to budget and all of these types of things.
Speaker 2:And guess what? There's not a lesson at school. They'll teach you, you know. You'll learn Pythagoras and you'll learn Shakespeare, and all of that is not going to help you. You know, be able to budget and understand how to make sure you pay your rent on time. Make sure you understand the difference between a direct debit and a standing order. You understand the difference between a credit card and a debit card, how savings accounts work, how tax works, what your pay slip means. You don't learn any of that yet by 18,. Here's a student loan, here's a student credit card, you know. Or here's a, here's an overdraft, and yet no one's ever giving you any education.
Speaker 2:I think we're setting our young people up for failure and so and again, if you come from a more wealthier background, maybe you have parents who have the time and have can really teach you about finance and money and so forth. If you come from a background like mine, where parents are doing multiple jobs and and they haven't necessarily got a time plus, they were never educated. They came from a different system. My parents there was no such thing as a mortgage in in in nigeria. You, you buy the land, you build the house. There's no, there's no mortgage. So who's going to explain that to them? And so forth. And so these are.
Speaker 2:And then you come with that mentality no one teaches you. You're going to make mistakes yeah, and so many people are learning from mistakes and these mistakes are setting them years behind, and they're already behind. So imagine starting the race, you know a hole behind, and then you're wearing instead, everyone's wearing spikes and you're barefoot yeah, you're not going to be able to compete. And so for me, that's my purpose, and it's really about helping people understand how they can manage money better, how they can that wealth. They can build wealth in their own way even and it's really about helping people understand how they can manage money better how they can that wealth. They can build wealth in their own way, even if it's not, you know, millions. They can build it in their own way and then set their children up for a better life and so forth, and that will have a ripple effect for generations to come.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. So that's about some of the. You know you talked about tv personality. I know you've got the bread and butter podcast. You know that I've seen out there doing really, really well. Um, you're out there giving financial education talks and everything. Um, I mean, people would look at you I do certainly. I'm like, wow, like that's insane, like that's. I've always looked at you, um, as in you know, inspiration to get myself out there and be confident in front of camera. You'll be yourself. One of the things I've always noticed with you, uh, iman, is you are authentic, you're never back. You're always saying what you want to say and I think people love to hear the authenticity and the realism of what it's like to be you right and how you tackle money and how your family tackled money, and how you're helping people and some of the realities of what people are actually going through. So, when we look at those different ways and those methods of communication, what do you think is one of your favourite ways of doing that?
Speaker 2:I think I use humour, I think I try to make people laugh into education, try and make it humorous, try and make it less teachy, less in-your-face and so serious. Finance is serious Most of the time. Let's be honest. We're here in Dubai, we're looking cool, but the reality is most financial advisors are going to be in a shirt and tie, even in this world Do you know what I mean? And and so and so it seems serious. It seems that we're using jargon that people don't really relate to and don't understand the words that we're using, and it feels very much like I need a financial advisor because I don't actually understand any of any of this stuff that's being said and for me, I just want to break it down, I want to make you understand it in a fun and educational way. I call it edutainment. You know edutainment, edutainment. So like education and entertainment at the same time. So I'm going to educate you, but in a light hearted way, like we'll laugh, we'll smile, we'll. We'll go through this experience together and one of the big things, I think a lot, you know, a lot of financial advisors may look at me and think, oh, you know what, actually I'm just going to focus on on my clients and so forth.
Speaker 2:But the thing is is that there's a whole generation that's growing up to me and I'm sure we remember, you know, I don't know bruce forsyth or these people that you saw on tv. They, they're just staples. Yeah, you want and and again. There are. There's a whole generation of people younger my age and slightly older who are growing up watching my content and and they're going to inherit. They're going to inherit money over time and when they do, it's going to be natural for them to come to someone like myself to help them invest that money, because I've been helping them their whole lives through the content that I put out, reaching to the masses.
Speaker 2:So I feel like a lot of financial advisors are missing out and, at the end of the day, as financial advisors, should we not be at the forefront of education when it comes to financial education? Should we not be at the forefront of education? Should we not when it comes to financial education? Should we not be at the forefront of educating people? Why are we leaving people who maybe have learned something from an experience, they've done some investing or they paid off some debt? Why are these people the ones that are at the forefront of education, when they're really just teaching it from their own personal experience. They haven't done any quantification. They haven't really understood holistic financial advice, yet they are the ones teaching the nation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. I think there's a huge divide right between financial advice and financial coaching. I think the two should come together, none a shadow of a doubt, and I think the companies that start to put their foot forward and actually talk about even the simplest financial education. We're talking about things like credit cards, debt, how to manage that. You know, all those things are really, really important. How to get a mortgage you know lots of people out there are in a situation where they're stressed out. They've got these money blockages, they've got these money traumas, these handed down beliefs, and it's blocking them off from actually aspiring to becoming wealthy or even just having a quite a simple financial plan that creates a level of security. And then, when you go into the schools, the aim of that, I assume, is to be able to educate so they don't make the same mistakes maybe their mother and father have done through learning through debt, through learning through getting yourself in sticky situations of your spending, all those typical types of things. And I think you know one of the things I like about you right is is the higher purpose, and I buy into that. Yeah, right, it's like what can I do on a higher purpose level to add value to people's lives. Right, like that to me, means that you have a uniqueness of kindness, compassion and education, right, yeah, that's really, really important when you lead with that in anything that you actually do. A byproduct that people will see you as a good person, right, yeah?
Speaker 1:So when you look at financial advice, they, they miss that off. I I never really see financial advice companies leaning into that positive impact element, the ethical side of it. You know, the positive impact. What are they doing positively? Um, whether that's to communities, how's that helped you in your financial planning career? Because there is there is this divide, right, there's a reason why you don't invest a load of money in that. Right, because a lot of those people don't really typically fit the mold of a financial advice business. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:So how do you balance the two together financial advice, financial planner, looking for people that maybe have a spot that have got to a position where they've got some money to invest in the pension or whatever it might be right, a typical client now, you hear a lot. You know the average investable assets of a client really to work with us is minimum 250 000. Yeah, right, a lot of firms are like that, yeah, you know. And then you've got on the other end people that haven't got that money and they need that financial education, but they're in serious problems. Yeah, how do you marry the two together? Because you must be conflicted at times, you know what?
Speaker 2:for me, I don't find it conflicting because for me, I focus on empowering people, that people to make better financial decisions. At the same time, even though I'm talking to people who maybe are not the wealthiest, don't have huge amounts of money, there are other people listening that do, and they reach out and guess what I feel like, as human beings we are, we are more conscious now of where we put our money. I've got a lot of my clients. I mean I'll say I want ethical investments, I want to, I want, I want my money to be better for society. And so, because of that, they're looking at the core ethics of your financial advisors. I think financial advisors are great, very professional, very good at what they do, very educated. But actually, who are you as a person? Because people buy people. I think so much time financial advisors lead with oh, you should get an ISA, you should get a pension, you should get an iso, you should get a pension, you should get an offshore bond.
Speaker 2:People do not care. They do not care and as much as you feel like they, they don't care. People come to you because they want peace of mind, they want security, they want to, they want someone to to hold their hand through this process. Yes, to us. We've done the education so we understand the importance of these rappers and why they're so, why everybody should have them. But that everyday person, even people with wealth, they don't really care. What they care about is are you trustworthy, are you someone I can, I can, depend on? What are you doing in order to make the world a better place? People care about that and for me, I care about that and because of that, I naturally I don't, I don't have to sell, I don't have to sell myself to my client.
Speaker 2:People come to me, in fact, people, fact people come to me and say can I even afford you? Oh, like and like. They feel like oh, I've watched your content for so long. I feel like I'm finally in a position to be able to work with you, and it's like actually I'm here opening doors trying to help you, and so for me, it's so important that that barrier of finance being only for the elite, to me, that has to go away, and again everyone's got their own business model.
Speaker 2:So I'm glad that there are people that say, yeah, only 250, only half a million. I'm glad that you do that, because that leaves more people for me. And actually, who do you want to work with? I get to work with entrepreneurs, actors, sports stars, people in tech, contractors. I get to work with people that I can vibe with. Yeah, so actually my clients are people that I would hang out with on the outside anyway, so it doesn't feel like work. I just get to help people that I I like and do what I love and get paid for it people, planet and purpose was three of the the core values of b corp.
Speaker 1:And I had a recruitment business and I put it through B Corp, which took a good 12 months, and the aim was you slap the B Corp sticker on there, ben and Jerry's, different thousand different companies in the world that have got it, and you have to, as a business, be able to evidence you're helping people, you're helping planet and you're working with purpose. And I like that. You know, I really really like that because, again, in financial planning, when do you ever really see it? You know there are all these ethical investments that you can do, these positive impact investments that you do, and when you start to actually dig into it, you realize that people could if everyone invested their pension in a different way, because the impact it would have on the world in a positive aspect, it would take down thousands of planes out of the sky. You know the impact it would have actually on planet, people and purpose.
Speaker 1:And I and I think it's an area that not enough financial planners lean into and I think they will do when there's requirements around esg and that gets bigger and bigger and bigger, yeah, you know, and also the generations that are coming through are so more aware of the impact that they're having. People are retiring now, are looking at their kids and they're looking at their grandchildren, thinking what sort of world that can going to be for my child, my grandchild. You know what are they coming into. So I do think it's really, really important that financial planners do lean into this higher purpose, this positive impact element, and I think a consumer looking at somebody who is doing that is going to build trust a hell of a lot quicker than somebody who's just hiding behind like a picture of a. You know the cityscape of london, um and uh, you know an old couple on the beach sipping their champagne.
Speaker 2:You know, I agree, and I think there's a saying you know, if you keep doing what you've always done, you're going to get left behind. Like things are changing time, times are moving, um, and so for me, it's so important to move with the times and really understand what's really important. And listen, financial advisor is such a great job it's. I tell people like you know, okay, we might not make the same, um, initial money as an investment manager or a private banker or what. Listen, in regards to lifestyle, in regards to being able to just what you do on a day-to-day, it's a fantastic career and I think it's something. That that's something.
Speaker 2:Also, the amount of people that reach out to me and this is again because I am visible people want to be me. Yeah, I've, I've. I have single-handedly had hundreds of individual meetings of people about how to become a financial advisor. Why? Because they see me and they're like I can see myself doing that and actually, if we're locked away, just speaking to high net worth individuals, how how does the next person come to say I want to become you?
Speaker 1:You're very prominent in the black community Very, which is very interesting. Yeah, exactly when you are Very underrepresented within financial services in general. Yeah Right, those people that come to you, how many of them are not white, for example? How many people come into you? That would be classed as a minority, I would say probably 70 percent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 70 percent. Yeah, there we go right. So you're in there, you're talking about finance, you're prominent within the black community. You're inspiring people within the community which probably feel like maybe from the outside, looking in, where they see you know the white middle-aged man and all that kind of thinking. But that's the hard place for me. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Now they feel like actually I can do this and I want to do this, because actually it looks like it doesn't look, it looks like how people will see manual. Like what do you? I love what I do, like I work. I tell people like I just turn, I just turn 40, hence why I'm in dubai just celebrating it. And and I kept thinking, what do I want as a present, what, what would I? What would a gift be? And I told people you know what my gift is?
Speaker 2:Purpose I get to live my gift every single day. I don't I don't need a new car or a watch. Where I get to, I get to live with purpose. I have a purpose. I wake up every morning and I have a community to serve. I have people that listen, people that respect what I do, people that want to work with me. I get dms every day where people have questions, people. People see me as a trusted source, a trusted pillar, not just in my community but in other communities as well, and it's actually I wake up with purpose and sometimes I tell people when I go to certain places, like certain events you'd think I'm david beckham like the love is so strong because people watch my videos every single day and they have done for years.
Speaker 2:Do you know? I mean, and you've made an impact. They've changed the way they they look at money. They've changed. They're now I've I've met people who've been the first in their family to buy a property just off watching my content. I've met people who now have an investment portfolio of over 100K. They've never seen those types of figures all because they started NISA five, six years ago and then they've religiously put that money in there and they've seen it grow. And you know, I've had people who've been able to now not just buy their house, they've now got multiple properties. They're running down the investment property route. I've got people who started businesses, become entrepreneurs and had the confidence, all because of the impact, because of being visible and that's so important. And so for me it's beyond just making money for myself, it's the legacy of when I'm gone.
Speaker 1:The ripple effects of me being able to be out here will be seen for everyone to see, what I love about you as well is you saw a community and you were in a community and you saw an opportunity to serve your community Right, that's really, really important because we know that in the UK at the moment a community isn't there as much as it used to be. You'd have a bank manager and everyone knew the bank manager and every bank manager know everybody that was in the community. I had this guy um her, in a podcast actually and we've had a podcast chat. Anyway, one of the things that he did was he used to work for bank as a bank manager for 20 years. Yeah, you can imagine, like best bank manager, you know everybody, right, serving people, you're serving the community, all that kind of stuff. And he felt really good and that was a big part of his job. He was out there at the, he was never in the back, he was at the front talking to people and all that. Yeah, anyway, left that. He got, got made redundant, went into self-employed self-employed it's really hard for him three years, really stressful financially and all that. Anyway, got offered a job internally on a with a client book and he was like I'll take that.
Speaker 1:But when he was working self-employed, he did one thing right. There was a community library ran for by the community yeah, not like a library, like, yeah, and there's a cafe in there and all of that. So you know, I said, well, was anybody, is there anybody in here? They're sitting with people just to talk to them about their finances. And they said, well, no, he goes. Do you mind if I set up a table in here once a week and you know, if anybody's got any questions, they'll come in to see me? And he did that. And three years he did that in that space. So he held space for people and he had every different type of person come in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was helping this community library. That's essentially a charity within its own right. Yeah, he then brought in like um citizens advice bureau, because there are certain people that he could help and couldn't help. But a byproduct of that was he was generating the type of client that he requires for financial planning as well, whilst observing that community and working with purpose. His financial planners now reach out to him and say how did you do that? It's simple Base yourself in a community, start offering a service to people. Don't be so selective in just thinking the type of person that you're actually looking for. Open yourself up a. You're going to feel good about yourself. You're going to be serving other people right? That's a great byproduct. There's yeah, that person's going to tell everybody else. Word gets around that you're the guy in. You know you're doing the wealth clinic. Yeah, well, that you know the financial health clinic in the in the library and where they were then promoting it online and had a big following. He became part of that.
Speaker 1:And he just grew his brand, quite simply, and I think there is a. I think there is a when people say I don't know how to generate business, I don't know how to go out on a network, go and find some space where people go and just offer your services. Right, if you're not talking to enough clients, if you're struggling to prospect, go into a space where people want to talk to you. Yeah, exactly, it doesn't matter if they've got money or not. I guarantee you someone's going to walk in there or word's going to get around that you're there and someone with money or something or needs that help of an actual financial planner.
Speaker 2:In the skills that you've got, you're going to generate clients and that's exactly what he did, yeah, and the best thing about it now with social media, that space is there, like now, I always tell people my second biggest community is Birmingham. I'm based in London but I get clients from Birmingham. I get talks in Birmingham. I get talks in Manchester, talks in Scotland, talks in Northern Ireland. I get talks all around the country, like there are financial advisors in all those places but nobody knows them and they don't have the gravitas to pull a crowd. And so it's being.
Speaker 2:We always see the death of the high street because people are online. So if that's where the space is people are occupying, why am I not there talking about finances, trying to compete with all these pet videos and all of the other stuff that goes on on social media, and just let people know that I'm here and I'm available and I'm going to be available and I'm and I want to help you. And again, once you become that trusted source, people come to you. I literally have clients.
Speaker 2:People call me my dad's looking for a financial advisor, and this is what people don't understand, like a lot of the time, I've got kids my younger audience that maybe don't have money, but their parents do, their grandparents do, yeah, and guess what. They're coming to me. I'm not having to force it and so even now I'm getting so much financial advice clients that actually I'm reducing the tv. I'm reducing the the. The tv is natural because tv is kind of reducing anyway. But I'm reducing the social media side of things and the influencer side of things and increasing the financial advice because there's more and more people coming to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that it's a great solution for the intergenerational wealth transfer, exactly right, you talk to their children. Well, you're not talking to, like, 10 year olds, no, yeah, you're talking to 25, 30 year olds in their life, where they're thinking about their finances, maybe, maybe 30, 35. That kind of age is perfect and obviously they've got their parents. They're introducing you in Bang when it comes to any kind of wealth transfer. You're transcending generations. So actually, again, that's an incredibly powerful thing for a financial planning company to do. They're trying to understand how do we communicate with the kids of our clients? How do we do that? And you've brid, bridge that gap, so by being, yeah, so by being able to communicate with that audience, and the thing is as well. It is a slower burn, right? Of course, it's a tight tip down Foundations, man. Like, how many followers have you got Across? All about 80,000. About 80,000, man. So you've got 8,000 people, right, yeah? And then, when you look at that, how many parents have they?
Speaker 2:got. We reach about half a million people a month. Half a million a month, yeah, and so it's just like who's. And then, not only that is that as we get older, as parents, as parents get older, they lean more onto their children. So the children become a trusted source to them because their children are helping them with their finance. The children are helping them with their finance. The children are showing them how to use social media and all of this type of stuff. So when your child makes a recommendation for you and you have a good relationship with your child, you're going to listen to that recommendation.
Speaker 2:And so, again, this is what I'm saying I don't have to sell. In fact, when I do my meeting, I do my meeting with the child and the parent at the same time. Yeah, nice, just to make sure that everyone feels comfortable about what's being said and you understand, because guess what, after we're doing this money for your parent, but this money is going to be yours in the future. So we want to make sure that you understand what's going on, and so we bring everybody in. And I can do that, you know, and I have things where sometimes there are family conflicts because you know someone's passed away.
Speaker 2:I can do and I do on zoom. I do a person. I'd have to drive to somebody's house and have that awkward moment of being and that I've got to tidy up because I'm turning up. No, we do all on zoom people to me, wherever they are. We're all there and we have the conversation. My ai takes a transcript when we finish so they have all the notes there. I don't have to worry about notes all there. If they want to watch it, they can watch the video recording back. All done from the comfort of home, comfort for me, comfort for them.
Speaker 1:We're embracing the modern way of financial advice I, I want to get real about social media right, because I didn't make any money for a long time with Financial Planner Live. I was just really lucky that Recruit UK was my business and it kind of funded my journey into Financial Planner Live. I wouldn't say I made any money for like three years easily, like and it's. I kind of suppose that when people like, when they think about it and they look at you and they think, hey, a thousand followers, he's out there talking to everybody, and all of those lines you know tell us a little bit about how tough it is to actually be an influencer or a thin influencer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sam, you said something. You said you didn't make any money. You didn't make any money, but you made a lot of impact. Yes, and impact equals money, and that's what people don't understand, because we have been taught to go get a job and then the end of the month, money comes in and that's how money works. But actually what, what we're really trying to do, is value, and if you can add enough value over time, money will. Money will follow and so, being a simple, it is difficult, it is hard, like I took, if you think for me the amount of messages I get on a day-to-day. But most people their brain would go crazy because every day I get DMs.
Speaker 2:Like every time you post the content, you get comments. You're posting on. I post on mainly Instagram, tiktok and LinkedIn, and then I've got my podcast on YouTube. Yeah, so it's four different platforms. Yeah, you've got comments. You different platforms. Yeah, you've got comments. You've got um inquiries. I've got my website. You know we've created funnels. You know we've got loads, loads of we're impacting people, so there's loads of people reacting to the content that we're putting out there. That needs to be managed and, again, not everyone every comment is gonna is gonna lead to a sale at that moment. But everyone, you're warming them, you're keeping them, you're building that trust. So when they comment, you need to reply when they, when you speak, it's it's a lot, it's very intense, but at the same time, for me it's it's beautiful because I get to. I get to, I get to like we are doing. This is content.
Speaker 2:Right now we are creating content, and so people, when I see to financial advice, I don't know what to say in the video, just say what you'd normally say yeah, just. And in fact, the easiest way to do it is forget a script, just talk for 10-15 minutes on a topic and then you can edit it, just like tv. You can edit out the parts you don't want. And again, if you talk for 10-15 minutes, you'll probably get three or four videos, rather than trying to do that one video for 60 seconds and trying to memorize it and becomes difficult, and so it's really important to understand. For me as a, as a financial influencer, it is hard. It's difficult, again, knowing the boundaries as well, because you can't say too much. So, because I am a financial advisor, I still try and keep it.
Speaker 2:More financial influence on social media because I don't want to have to at the end say this is not financial advice. This it becomes, it takes away all the joy out of the content. So a lot of the time I just keep it to basic information and if they want to know more, they know where they can reach me and they can contact me and we can go into further detail and I think that really works well. And if I want to go into more detail, I could do a webinar. I tell people I did a. I did online webinar in January. I did one post. I got a thousand signups of one post.
Speaker 1:Well, it was to sign up to the webinar itself, to the webinar itself. What was?
Speaker 2:the webinar. About the webinar it was New Year so I did three days. So I did three different webinars over Friday, Saturday, Sunday and I told people sign up. I had over a thousand people sign up to a webinar off one post, About just your finances for the new year. Just finances, it's a new year. Let's get your finances right. Look at retirement, Look at inheritance and tax. Great time to do it, mate. It's a great time to do it. And guess what? Tell me how many people could get a thousand, a thousand people to sign sign up for a webinar for free. It didn't cost me. It cost me nothing.
Speaker 1:Webinars are decent man. Obviously, I like Hoxton Wealth over here, so we run some webinars and, you know, like I was looking at it, we can generate like 60 inquiries, like 60 like inquiries for a couple of webinars, exactly as in, like, I want to speak to somebody. Yeah, which is pretty powerful. A face-to-face seminar this week in a cinema, yeah, it's quite cool. Actually, I managed to get my financial plan of life videos up on the Oxfam Life one. Sorry, yeah, up on the big screen in the cinema. It's quite cool. I actually, when I was in there, right, and I was like webinar's great, because you can get so many people in a room in hopes, youtube's brilliant. You can come on the screen, you can sit on the sofa, they can be on the bus, whatever it is. I'll tell you what, though, mate when I was in that room and there were people in there and there was an energy in there and I was watching the financial planners deliver exactly what they know in the way that it was so succinct into helping those people in there, and you knew those people that were in there wanting to be helped. You can't wanting to be helped. You can't capture that level of connectivity. No, online, right, what's your and that's the thing, right.
Speaker 1:I do think face to face people's face to face is dead. Like you know, it's all ai is this. It's, that's not. I think it's a surgeon stick of musicians, right. So the music industry went through a phase of like all they ever did.
Speaker 1:You were a musician, you release albums right, it was 12, 13, 14 quid an album. You can't do that anymore. They're earning pence off of their tunes on Spotify, right. It kind of killed the way that they earn money. So what did they do? They go back to gigging. The gig circuit is like where do you make that money? And they charge a lot more for the tickets. The experience becomes higher and I feel like the face, like don't write off face to face, and like one of the big things I've got going on in my head with financial plan of life is to create a face-to-face event like podcast lives, get sponsors there, but do things differently that aren't boring, you know. And so what's your take on that? Like, how do you feel about the face-to-face up against social media? Can you get too lost in the social media game and then lose connection?
Speaker 2:yeah, I definitely, but I come alive face to face. I love face to face. At the end of the day, I do public speaking. Corporate brands pay me to come and, like some of the biggest companies in the country, pay me to come and give talks to their staff at events. I love a room full of people and, like you said, it can't be replicated. And when I do my own events, the conversion is much higher on a seminar in person than on a webinar. You might get more people on a webinar and so forth, but actually to convert is harder on a webinar.
Speaker 2:When you're in person and people can feel you, you can look people in the eye, you can really respond, people really warm up to you. And, again, podcasting is amazing. That's why I always tell people to podcast because, again, my conversions of podcasts are huge when someone sits down and listens to you for an hour and again, this is why it's so important, again, with your podcasts, most people are watching you on the television, so use television camera quality, because they're not watching you on their phone. You're using your phone, but then we're going to put it on the TV. It's not going to come out the same. So actually, people watch YouTube on their television. So actually spend the money, have the high quality camera, because when people can feel like it's TV, they'll sit down for an hour and watch you and when that hour that they've listened to you talk it's, that's it they've bought into you, mate.
Speaker 1:I like, I love watching, uh, youtube on the TV, so I don't really watch television in the traditional sense, even Netflix yeah, I did watch that Liver King documentary on Netflix yesterday because I wanted to look at that. But usually I sit on my sofa and if I'm going to put anything on, it's going to be like a podcast or like a little docu story or something like that, and I am going away from the poor quality towards the better quality. Because of the situation I'm in, I want to feel like I'm watching a TV program Right. Yeah, towards the better quality. Because of the situation I'm in, I want to feel like I'm watching a TV program right Now. If you think about that, also in respect to my target client I'm now trying to communicate with because I'm head of creative here at Hoxton Wealth, I'm looking at people in the age of 45 to 55 years old. So, when it comes to financial education, I'm looking at those individuals and I'm thinking well, what are they watching on? What are they used to watching? Now, one of the fastest growing demographics for watching consuming content on YouTube is the 55 to 65 age bracket. It's doubling year on year and you know what they're watching on TV. Yeah, they're going to be watching on their mobile phones and stuff like that. You know they're going to be watching on TV and they're looking for something that they're familiar with. Right, they're looking for those programs that they've watched on TV, that they grew up watching, and they're going to youtube to be able to hear and see people like them going through a situation that they're in, or an expert hyper focusing on the question that they're asking and answering the question, and they want to see that in the highest resolution, the best quality possible, because they see that as an element of comfort and also as an element of trust, right, and I find that really fascinating.
Speaker 1:So that's the bit that I'm at now. It's like, right, well, how am I? Because I'm like I've stepped away from just what I've stepped away from. I'm still doing it. I'm doing it right now, but I'm still financial planner life. I'm still talking to people about careers and education around financial planning and steering more into, like media production and stuff like that, but in respect of generating those clients educational content, that's my thing right now. You're thinking how can I communicate with those people? And it's interesting because I don't think financial planners there's a few out there. James shack, you got pete matthew right. These are some great people making some really great content. I'm leaning into the usa and looking at what they're doing out there.
Speaker 1:Ultimately, what you see is you see personal brands, you see the person, like one person, just talking about a specific subject in front of the camera, talking at the camera. From my perspective, I want to be able to create high-value content that's going to take somebody on an emotional journey. I want to see social proof. I want to see my clients at Hoxton Wealth sitting down with them, them having a cup of tea with some beautiful b-roll being shot with the advisor. You know I want to take them on a story, on journey. So I started doing that with hoxton life and I started creating I'd mike. You.
Speaker 1:All these very popular financial planner for hoxton lives in france say people are thinking like mike, you're chicken tuesday.
Speaker 1:Who is this guy? What does he do? Why is he living in france? What's it like living in france as a financial advisor? So I flew out there, yeah, and I took a film through and we went to france and we met mike and we went through and we met his chickens as famous chickens he puts out on linkedin and people come back to me. That's amazing. That was a proper emotional journey. I did one about farming and about the inheritance tax situation. Yeah, I brought some clients in and we sat there and we showed what we did and how we do things and we were at a seminar. So all of a sudden, that element of social proof is there and that's what I think is now missing within financial planning and the evolution is take it away from the person staring at the screen and just chatting into it like talking directly to you. There is a place for that, don't get me wrong. But to stand out at the moment, it's emotive stories that resonate with the target audience that you're talking to in higher quality.
Speaker 2:And what people miss, and I think that you do that once you film that one hour. From that one hour, you can then get three or four 10-minute clips to put back onto the same. So you've got the long form for YouTube, then you've got 10-minute clips to put back onto YouTube YouTube. Then you've got 10 minute clips to put back onto YouTube. Yeah. Then then you've probably got 10 60 second clips that you can put on YouTube, instagram, tiktoks, then you then from that, the topics on that. You can then put that on LinkedIn, yeah, and have a longer script on that.
Speaker 2:With the video, you're talking about one piece of content. Yeah, that can then go on. That's your week's content. Yeah, so when people talk about not having time, it's because they're not planning themselves. Well. If actually the problem the problem is we started with short form, we started with these small videos. Your week's content, yeah. So when people talk about not having time, it's because they're not planning themselves. Well. If actually the problem is, we started with short form, we started with these small videos and then we're trying to work out backwards, it becomes difficult. Start with the long form so that you can bring down everything to the short form.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and people by people is what you're saying. You don't need to let my kids. When I look at my kids, they're watching other kids on YouTube. Kids are not famous. These kids have only become famous because people don't watch. They're just normal kids with a normal family. People are buying into normal people they can relate to.
Speaker 2:So what's your niche? Who are you talking to? And it's okay, you don't need to have like, yeah, fair enough, I've got 80,000. You don't need 80,000. Even if you've got 3,000 people that can relate to what you, that is enough for a financial advisor to build a good client. Even if you've got 1,000, sometimes, because it's on social media, try and get 1,000 people all together. Do you know what I mean? That's a lot of people. So if the average financial advisor, if you know so, if, if you, if the average financial advisor, if you know what your, your client bank, you need for your client, let's say you want the average client to be 200 000.
Speaker 2:If you can get a thousand people with that stick, that criteria, you've got not enough for you. You can now bring juniors underneath. You've got a whole firm that you can that you can make good money from, yeah, and so it's forget the numbers. Sometimes they get lost in the numbers. It's not, it's not, it doesn't need to be, and so it's. Forget the numbers. Sometimes you get lost in the numbers. It's not, it doesn't need to be a big number. It's about the impact. Who are you impacting? Who's your community? I met another lady that has social media. She just focuses on women who've been divorced. Yeah, yeah, that's work. Is that Carrie Griffin? Yes, yeah, that's her niche and it's very clear if you're a woman that's been divorced, take my content in. If that's not, you leave me alone.
Speaker 1:It's okay, but she doesn't need to have huge numbers, but she's super niche, right, because she's she niches down on women divorcing multi-millionaire CEOs, exactly. But that's interesting as well because you know what that is as well, because if I'm a woman, right, and I want to divorce my husband, yeah, and you look at women divorcing probably millionaire ceos you may not be a multi-millionaire husband or whatever, but I tell you what you're gonna look at that and go, well, I'm interested in that. It's like, it's like an aspiration thing exactly. It's like if you pick content on social media, right to put out right, and it's like, um, I don't know, transferring a, transferring a million pound from a pension, yeah, somebody hasn't got a million pound in their pension, they're still going to watch it, watch the video. They're still going to go like, I wonder what it's like to be a million. Is it the same for me, you know? Or someone's on like 700k in there, something. Well, I'm gonna be near a million, so I'll watch that. So I think hitting those numbers and hitting those specifics as well in respect to the target niche audience that you're trying to talk to exactly one of the things that social proof, yeah.
Speaker 1:So let's say, for example, someone is 55 years old and they're sat there and they're thinking, right, I want to retire. Right, everybody thinks about retirement and every lot of people think about retiring abroad. What type of programs are on around retiring abroad? But you've got, you know, um place in the sun, yeah, right, and the place in the sun, like, a lot of the time, if they're going to put it on during the day, it's not going to be like some couple who are 21 years old, thinking about moving to Dubai and smashing their social media managers, right? No, like they got like the couple that are approaching retirement. They live a certain way, they sound a certain way. And Mr and Mrs Miggins, who are sat on the sofa, right, they're watching and going.
Speaker 1:I relate to that, I resonate with that, right? So that's the avatar that we need to create and that's what I'm going to be doing with YouTube. It's like, right, that's who I need to bring on. You know, that's who I need to build the stories around. So it's relate. That's the key. That's the key thing. What's your favorite channel? What's your favorite social media channel? What's your favorite social media platform? You know, if you were to steer somebody listening and they were thinking about doing it right, what do you think is the most impactful channel to deliver financial education and generate, hopefully, some good clients.
Speaker 2:I think you've got to know who you're trying to talk to you right, because if you're talking to 45 50, then you probably want to be on facebook because that's, that's that's where the majority is the biggest, that's that's the biggest one for that age, for that age group, yeah, exactly. Whereas if you're speaking to younger people, then you might want to be on tiktok because that's and that's growing the fastest. So TikTok will probably outpace over over time, probably outpace Instagram. But if you're talking to that kind of 25 to 40, then I'd say Instagram is where most of them are at. They've grown up with that app. They know it. Um, most brands are comfortable. You know the brand deals I get. I get on, you know Instagram tends to be a lot higher than the brand deals I get on TikTok, for example, because I'm speaking to people with the money. But again, if you really want to go to a really young audience, there's Snapchat, so it depends there. But to me, youtube is.
Speaker 2:If I could start again, I'd have focused on YouTube. The reason I say that is that YouTube gives you the option not to monetize, and so I've built all these followers, but the majority of them are platforms that I can't let. There's no monetize to them, whereas if I would have built them on youtube, I'd have a. I'd have an income from my subscribers where my videos are getting me paid all regularly. I probably have 100k subscribers by now because if you're on youtube, I tell, if you're on youtube four or five years consistently, you will. It's crazy how it happens, but all of a sudden the algorithm will just expose you to and your numbers will just start to fly and and so it takes time. So I would say I'd start with youtube. If you really want to build an audience that you can monetize in the future, I'll start youtube, and the best part about youtube is because it's that longer form. Yes, you can then feed it onto the other platforms as well.
Speaker 1:Also as well, right, and the stickiest content that is out there now isn't your twit, your tiktoks. In fact, it's starting to diminish a little bit. The short form content. The actual stickiest content right now is long form podcasts. Yeah, it's the one that the people will sit there and watch the most, till the very end and do one hour episodes. Two hours of joe rogan yeah, exactly two and a half hours watching a joe rogan, or I might stop it and I come back to it. Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like and, as you said, like, if you, if you're creating a piece of content, it's an hour long, right, where it's like well, what are the subjects you're talking about? If you planned it properly, you've got six, six different subjects in there. You might go deep on this, the videos, right. So there, you've got that. Once you're doing your research and you're understanding, am I hitting the mark? Am I, am I of a? Am I a research outlier of videos? Can I create a better version of that one that's done really well? And these are the things you've got to be thinking about when it comes to YouTube strategy, which I'm not going to share with people right now because I'm paying for that information. I'm paying for that information, for me to be able to deliver a YouTube channel that's going to absolutely smash it. When I've got that, I'll package it up and I'll teach other people, but right now, I'm going through my education from it. And you're right, youtube is absolutely underserved. Right, it's a goldmine for financial planners right now, and I know somebody who's got 60,000 followers and does 12,000 quid a month when it comes to monetization of that channel as well, and obviously Serbs also is a personal brand platform which pushes you into other areas of monetization.
Speaker 1:When it comes to my podcast, financial Planner Life, it's a niche podcast. It serves financial planners in the financial planning community. Right, it's uber niche. It's not something that I've got hundreds of thousands of followers, because there just aren't that many people out there. I'll tell you this man, man, I've managed to monetize that audience, of course, and not just through the podcast, but through the services that I offer on the side of it. Now, that model that I've got for financial planner life and this is the interesting thing, because I've been speaking to financial planners about it and I explain the model right, I call it podcast-first marketing, podcast-first business development how you develop a podcast that serves a niche audience works for financial planners to become a key person of influence within the target niche audience that you want to serve.
Speaker 1:So let's say, for example, you want to serve legal professionals, or you create the legal life, yeah, and you interview people from a legal background. Now that gives you an opportunity to then go into the business and make some of the most aspirational leaders within legal maybe they're running businesses. Why you bring them on? You rub their ego a little bit. You ask them how did you get in? What did you do? How have you been a success where you're the financial planner that sits alongside it. So you become the kind of financial expert, but indirectly, it's not about you, it's about them.
Speaker 1:Now, who's going to listen to that? Well, legal professionals. They want to learn what it's like to run a legal business. So all of a sudden, your audience is legal, not financial advisors. So you're pulling all those legal professionals in because they want to learn from the people who've done it really really well, successfully. So all of a sudden, over one, two, three years, then you have a niche audience. Once you've got that niche audience, then you can do something with the niche audience.
Speaker 1:But in the meantime this is the thing right that podcast becomes a door knocker. Yeah, so I want to go into businesses and I want to sell my services. I want to bring on some really top-end legal professionals. I down, you're building a relationship, you're having a pre-podcast chat, you're doing the podcast, you're putting the podcast out, you're following up afterwards with it. Then you're talking about what a level of service that you can offer that company and their staff do you?
Speaker 1:And of a sudden, you get referred around the legal professional. You get considered to be the financial expert to the legal professional and you're in Key person of influence. Next, you put it on events. Then you're doing this, that and the other. The model is not difficult, it's the consistency it's turning up and it's just knowing that there is a framework and a blueprint and I Teaching people that that's what's coming over the next year. Teaching people how to use a podcast to make money and not in the sense of like, well, how do you make money? That's advertising, that's one revenue stream. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You need to use it as a business development tool to knock down doors, to build relationships and to transcend face to face to social.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and I think that's the thing. And when you understand that, that's where it becomes a game changer. Because, again, you in your situation, you now have financial advisors who, especially the successful ones have money yeah to pay, yeah to do and again, they don't, but they still don't have time. And also, who wants to start from zero when I can start from someone who's already done all the pain? A wise person learns from somebody else's mistakes. Why would I start zero to make mistakes myself when I can pay you and I can start where you are? And I actually don't bypass all those issues because you've already worked out the formula. So, again, that's the dedication and this is what I said about the impact. If you focus on the impact and not the money, once you made the impact, the money will come. Yeah, because all the lessons you've learned whilst trading impact now will enable you to be able to create more money.
Speaker 1:Do you know where you have this? The most valuable thing that you and I have right now right, and we need to give ourselves a pat on the back and give ourselves the confidence to push forward and make the money we deserve yeah, definitely and to live the career and the life that we want to live right is that we have built an audience. Yes, we have positive impact, and it's not just for our own personal gain. The things that we do add value. I get messages left, right and center from people thanking me for the education that I've given them, because it's helped them go from employed to self-employed or it's helped them understand how to get into the financial planning profession, how to pass that certain exam, how to run a business with it. I know to people yeah, contact me like that I know a byproduct of that is even higher purpose the more people that I attract into a profession that is losing young people I have not attracting enough. Uh, young people older generation are retiring out. Less people are getting financial advice. What's that gonna have a problem on the same community as yours is a man that don't have the access to financial education and it's going to have a negative impact on their well-being. So the higher purpose that that is as well the access to a certain financial education, and it's going to have a negative impact on their well-being. So the higher purpose of that is as well.
Speaker 1:I also am a talent attraction tool to a profession. Yes, so I'm having a positive impact on a profession which, in the bigger scheme of things, higher purpose is having a positive impact on families and all those people. So I feel good about that and when you lean into that and you realize what it is that you have and the value that you've created is how, how can you not be a success? Do you know what I mean? It's just the bit after, it's the confidence to step away and go. Actually, I mean, I've got loads of skills, yeah, and now I'm going to package it up and sell it exactly, and I always tell people I'm already winning.
Speaker 2:I've already, I've already won in life, but not because of the amount of money, but because of the impact, because of what I do, because I get to do what I love. That's already a win and once you have that contentment, I've won. I'm doing well, I'm doing what I love to do. There's a joy in that. People who maybe make a lot more money than me, but they're not fulfilled, they don't enjoy what they do. They do it because that's the skill that they have and that's what they know how to do, but they don't wake up feeling like I'm making a difference, feeling like they found the purpose, feeling like they can really see the joy in what they do. I get that, yeah, I get that, and so there's always money to make. You can always make more money, but you can't. The way you make it and how you impact people that's the difference.
Speaker 1:I'm going to finish on a final question. Okay for you. What's the future hold for you, mate? What's your main focus? What do you visualize in the six to 12 months? Where are you going?
Speaker 2:So I'm moving away from the financial influencer side of things. I'm moving more to financial advice, and when I say that that's probably now going to be more, four days a week financial advice, two days a week um, you know, financial influence and so forth. So I'm really focusing on building my assets under management. I've got great clients around me, you know. I've got great, luckily, doing what I do. I've met wonderful people, and so now it's time to convert. Now it's time to really, you know, get some, get, get that on board, build up my assets under management and then have life freedom.
Speaker 2:I'm planning we're in Dubai, um, you know, come out here, my wife, she, she loves it. So I do plan to hopefully live between Dubai and the UK and come back and forth and and really just enjoy life. What? While I can live it? You know? Um, unfortunately, my father passed away recently and you know he literally retired at 67 and then died at 68, and so it made me realize that I need to. I need to live whilst I work rather than wait till I finish work to live, and so, if I can, if I can do both, have the impact and make the difference, make money, but then also enjoy life, while I still fit and healthy too. That's the, that's the goal, so that's the plan.
Speaker 1:Beautiful work to live. Don't live to work. Exactly, heyman, it's been an absolute pleasure having you back on the podcast. Seeing you in Dubai, don't be a stranger. I'd like to hopefully see you out here at some point again. Definitely, and we'll definitely hook up when I'm back in the UK. Thank you for having me, man. Cheers Iman.
