Redmill Advance: Raising Standards in Financial Planning Education & Qualifications

In this special episode of the Financial Planner Life podcast, Sam Oakes welcomes David Tate, Managing Director and Founder of Redmill Advance, our official training and development sponsor for 2026.

David shares the inspiring growth journey of Redmill Advance and how they are transforming training and development in the financial planning profession through accessible qualifications, CPD, and behavioural support. From self-study learners to large-scale corporate academies, David explains how their tech-first, learner-centric approach is improving pass rates and raising industry standards.

We explore learning styles, neurodiversity, and how financial planning firms can deliver consistent, high-quality CPD. With a first-time pass rate above 85% in their academies and less than 5% client churn since inception, Redmill Advance is quietly becoming one of the most impactful education providers in financial services.

This episode is a must-listen for aspiring financial planners, T&C professionals, and business leaders seeking to develop internal talent and futureproof their advice businesses.

Key Subjects Covered in This Episode:

🎓 Qualifications & Learning Pathways in Financial Planning

• CII, CISI, LIBF qualification routes
• Diploma vs Chartered training
• Self-study vs Academy formats

🧠 Learning Styles & Neurodiversity 

• Supporting different learning preferences (visual, auditory, kinesthetic)
• Onboarding resources focused on study psychology
• Accommodating neurodiverse learners

📈 CPD, Competency & Regulatory Needs

• Bite-sized, digital-first CPD
• Centralised CPD solutions to reduce fragmentation
• Data-driven MI to identify training gaps and compliance needs

🧑‍💼 B2B Training & Academy Solutions

• Running academies for leading firms (SJP, Quilter, Mazars, etc.)
• White-labeled platforms (Redmill Advance Hub)
• Supporting HR, T&C, and compliance goals

💡 Business Growth & Market Impact

• Redmill’s journey from startup to major player
• Over 500 learning modules and growing
• Strong client retention and pass rates as proof points

🚀 Future of Redmill Advance

• Strategic investment in marketing and storytelling
• Hiring expert trainers to scale delivery
• Commitment to raising standards and closing the advice gap

To celebrate the Financial Planner Life x Redmill Advance partnership, you can enjoy 10% off ALL Redmill Advance learning solutions until 31st March 2026. Just use the code FPL2026 at checkout to receive your discount.

Click here: https://www.redmilladvance.com/fpl

Financial Planner Life is sponsored by Redmill Advance
Whether you're starting out, already qualified, or building a training academy, Redmill Advance delivers expert-led learning, exam support and CPD from Level 4 to Chartered.
✅ Trusted by top UK firms
👉 www.redmilladvance.com/fpl

Be sure to follow Financial Planner Life on YouTube for extra content about  career development within Financial Planning. 

Reach out to sam@financialplannerlife.com in regards to sponsorship, partnerships, videography or podcast production. 

Want to appear on the Financial Planner Life podcast? Drop Sam a message.

Transcript

Meet David Tate And Redmill Advance

SPEAKER_01 0:04

And today's guest on the Financial Planner Life podcast is David Tate from Red Mill Advance. This is a special episode because Redmill Advance are our official training and development sponsor for 2026. We dig deep into CPD, exam support, and academies for businesses and individual learners. We look at different learning styles, even tap into things like neurodiversity to see how they support learners from all different backgrounds. You're gonna love this episode if you're looking to push ahead in your career through exam and behavioural support. So, David, thanks so much for joining me today on the Financial Planner Life, a very special episode, as you are now our official sponsor for 2026, which we're massively excited about. It was hugely important for me to partner with somebody that has credibility and that adds a huge amount of value to the financial planning profession. And Redmill Advance are doing extraordinary things in that space, not only with businesses, but with individuals as well, around CPD, qualifications, academies, the lot. And it's about time I think the financial planning profession knew a bit more about you, David Tate, and the business and the team that you've got there and the amazing things that you're doing within financial planning. So welcome. Thank you. It's nice to be here, Sam.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Sitting in the hot seat, as it were.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Mate, it's definitely the hot seat. So um, what do you think about the setup?

SPEAKER_00 1:27

I think it's great, actually. This is such a cool environment. So um absolutely beautiful place to podcast, actually. FPL Studios first class. Love it. Excellent. Well, thank you very much. You could have brought me some nicer weather, I have to say this. Um I left Scotland this morning, it was minus seven, expecting it to be slightly better here and it isn't. So it's still freezing.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Like you said, blue skies, sunshine, a bit of cold weather. Yeah. Pretty much my favourite. I think London looks pretty incredible when it's in that weather.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

So well, I hear you're off to Dubai in two days, so I'm not jealous at all.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

No, I am. I am looking forward to that actually, a bit of sunshine. Obviously, it's been six months since I've been there. But uh being back in the UK for me has been fantastic. I am looking forward to doing a bit of work though with Titan Wealth in their international site. Very good. Um, they're just doing extraordinary things out there, not only in Dubai, but internationally as a whole. You obviously work with a lot of international companies as well. So we'll get onto that a bit later. But I think first of all, David, tell us a little bit about who you are and who Red Mill Advance is and the impact that you're having on the financial planning profession.

Qualifications Landscape And Routes To Level 4–6

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Sure. So I'm managing director, founder and managing director of Redmill Advance. Um, I guess personally, uh look, I've been in financial services for it's about 30 years now. Um back to 96-97, I came into the industry. I actually started life as a self-employed financial advisor for Canada Life. Do you remember them, Canada Life? I do know Canada Life, yeah. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Um and uh sat in that role for a few years prior to then went on to become an IFA, again, still self-employed, actually. So even in those early years, some experience of kind of building business within the financial services world. So did that for I don't know, six, seven, eight years, something like that, Sam, and then um moved across to the dark side, so recruitment, a world you know, obviously. The dark side and uh looked after you know financial advisors, recruiting them into organisations, did that for about a decade, about 10 years. And there's a bit of a timeline there, you know, which we might touch on a little bit later, but ultimately that led me to establishing Red Mill Advance. And that was in 2016-2017, which is obviously what we're here to talk about today. So my background is about 30 years in the industry. In terms of Red Mill Advance, um, really Redmill Advance, we're here to I guess our mission um our our DNA, it's about raising standards and financial advice through quality training and development. What that really means in practice um is we we have two parts to our proposition really. Um in terms of individual learners, we touch every part of a financial advice uh financial advisor's journey. So it doesn't matter if you're brand new to the industry, if you know nothing about the industry, you can come along to our website, jump on there, have a look at our education content so our exam content, and you can buy it. So Sam Oakes could come along and you know pick up R01 or R0 or any of the education content from our website. That's actually a tiny part of what we do. Really, we're a B2B provider, so we work with um large-scale organizations, medium to large scale organizations. And we do that in two ways. We run academies, so we've all heard of the large academies that run in the market, financial advice academies. We run many of those. I'm sure we'll touch on that in more detail as we uh run through this podcast. And then we also have a full CPD proposition. So if you're a financial advisor and you're looking to get into the industry, we can support that with qualifications. If you're in the the industry and want to progress to chartered, we can do that, whether it's self-study or whether it's through our academies. And if you want to stay at the absolute top of your game with high quality CPD, we have a full CPD proposition, reporting and recording technology, all sitting in the one place as well.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Wow. So a one-stock shop then? Exactly that. Um a lot of training companies out there tend to just focus on the CII qualifications being one of the most popular, really, within financial planning. But what about you guys there at Redmond Advance? Is it CISI, NIBF, CII, or do you just focus on one?

SPEAKER_00 5:17

We're agnostic, so um we look across all three regulatory bodies. Um CII remains, I would say, probably the most popular route. It's just the way it's been in the market for many, many years. So we support that full journey through level three, level four, and level six, so through to chartered. Um but yeah, we have a full proposition around the CISI as well. So we support level four, that's the investment advice diploma, is the route to level four qualification. We support that through level six in way of PCIM. So again, both from an academy perspective, but also from a self-study perspective, you can pick those up on our website. Um and equally the L IBF will become a bit closer to those really over the last 12 months, that regulatory body. Um they've changed a framework in terms of how they're rolling out their qualifications. And actually, as of January 26, maybe late January 26, um, you'll see that level four and level six proposition from a self-study perspective on our website. But we do also run academies across the L IBF as well.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Fantastic. And we're gonna get into some detail around these academies as well, how we help the businesses. I'd love to dip into that CPD as well, because I think it's super duper important. Firms obviously need to make sure they're doing that from a regular regulatory perspective. Yeah. Why do you think people tend to gravitate more towards the CII qualification as opposed to say L I B F and C I S I?

Learning Styles And Neurodiversity In Practice

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Um, I think it's just because it's been around for such a long time, it's naturally been the place that most advisors would navigate towards. I mean, it probably goes back, to be fair, to pre-RDR days. I mean, it seems like a lifetime ago RDR, right? 2012. It's only 14 years ago, which isn't a long time in my timeline. I'm an old guy. So, but 12 years ago and prior to um RDR, of course, level three qualifications allowed us to be financial advisors. But when RDR was introduced, that drove level four and the CII, R01 to R06 was the preferred route at that time. So I think over the years that's kind of stuck, to be honest, Sam, and it's been um one of the main routes to level four qualification. Most people have gone down that CII route. I've seen change in the market recently, I have to say. Again, we're agnostic, so you know we have no preference either way. We'll support our clients and our delegates in any route. But I've certainly seen some change over the last 12 months. Um, internationally, they tend to focus more on the CISI route. Um, but I have seen a move uh towards the LIBF as well, and particularly over the last 12 months. So it's quite interesting the market at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Love it. What about learning styles? I just want to stay on these qualifications because they're conversations that come up a lot with the listeners, especially those that are considering moving into the financial planning profession and the ones that are thinking about academies or maybe doing it themselves. Yeah. Learning styles. Yeah. You know, what best suits what qualification, or does it not matter?

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Well, um, so the first thing is important to recognise that people learn in different ways, right? There's not one size fits all. I mean, if you break it down, you're either kinesthetic, you're visual, you know, or audio, um, or you like to read, you know, you like to actually get a book out and you like to get your highlighter out and you like to actually read and make notes. Certainly, our content caters for all of those types. I think um probably one thing is worth mentioning is look, our the team that sit behind Red Mill Advance, obviously we have a team of chartered fellows, you would expect that, you know, the types of academies that we run, the types of CPD content that we produce. It's produced by highly technical individuals. They're market experts that have been doing it for many years. But the breadth of that experience extends much further. So we have PGCEs in the business, we have NLP practitioners, we have psychologists as well, or psychologists that have interacted with our content, reviewed it. And actually, we do that through the lens of ensuring that we have lots of assets in our learning content and our CPD content. So there's reading material, there's e-learning to interact with, there's testing to do, there's videos to watch, there's mock exams at the end of it. And the idea really is not just about you know ramming that technical information down people's throats. Of course, that's not necessarily the best way to learn, but take them on a journey through all of those ass those assets, whether it's for regulatory education for qualifications or whether it's for CPD, you know, we really do look through the lens of how can this material best suit every type of learner?

SPEAKER_01 9:28

You're all pretty much obsessed with raising the standards of training within financial planning. Yeah. And just financial planning in general.

Digital-First CPD And Raising Standards

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Yeah. But but what does that mean? Well, for us, it's about really good quality, accessible content. Um now, we're a digital first provider, right? So the business was established pre-COVID actually. So if you think about this, the way that the way that people consume information has changed greatly since COVID. Um, I mean, put it this way, Sam, right? If you think about now, if you're setting up a meeting or if you're going to have a conversation with someone, when was the last time you said, I'll give you a call at 3 p.m. and can I get 30 minutes of your time on the phone? You don't, right? You naturally go to can a teams you can we set up a Teams call? Can we interact in that way? Pre-2020, that just didn't really happen, right? But it's naturally woven into how we do business now. And actually, from an education perspective, I think a lot's changed around that as well. Um, historically, pre-COVID days, you know, it wasn't uncommon for individuals to make their way to a classroom to be trained that way. It wasn't uncommon for them to have to go out and actually attend events to actually consume CPD or, you know, consume learning. So when we talk about raising standards and actually in a way that individuals now are consuming information at the end of their PC, we can do that through really good quality learning and development that has all of these assets within. It's appealing to all of those learning types. And not just that, right? So from the individual's perspective, obviously what they can do is they can access this really good content all under the one roof. Think a little bit like Netflix for them. So if you're at home, you've got Netflix, right? You jump into the TV, and if you want to go and search for a particular genre, you type in horror, it brings up the horror movies. Or if you want to go and watch Forrest Gump, you type in Forrest Gump, it takes you straight to that movie. Well, for our learners, it's exactly like that. They can go in and there's a catalogue drop-down, they can get straight to good technical content, soft skills content, well-being content, regulation content. So the way that they're consuming that information all under the one roof, I think really helps to raise those standards because it's accessible to them. From a client's perspective, um, when they are providing that, all of that content to the people within their business, they're doing it in a really tech-savvy way. It's inside the learning management system, it's automatically reporting into CPD recording and reporting technology. But ultimately, what it allows that business to do is truly understand how those individuals are engaging with that content. And that for that business, for those key stakeholders, those the management teams in those businesses, it allows them to identify gaps, it allows them to hone in on areas that, you know, true development for those advisors. And again, that's raising standards, right, for that organization. I mean, ultimately, that organization is held to account for the advice that those advisors are delivering. So why wouldn't you, as a CEO or an MD or a compliance director, want to have a system where you can identify in detail those development needs and really hone in on them? That to me is about raising standards.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Yeah, I love that. Absolutely. What about the inconsistency across these firms, especially when you look at financial planners? Where are you seeing um uh patterns of inconsistency? And maybe someone who's listening who's got a firm, different shapes, different sizes, might be able to identify, hang on, we've got that problem.

Fixing Fragmented CPD For Firms

SPEAKER_00 12:50

I think when CPD is fragmented, it's a problem. So when you one thing I've noticed certainly in recent years is there's less of a reliance from organizations to say, hey, look, to their employees, you go out and you find your own CPD, right? You've got your 35 hours to achieve this year, or your 50 hours if you're a PTS, you're on your own. Go out and find that material. And then what tends to happen with that, you get to the end of the year. Financial advisors are busy, right? So you get to the end of the year, and lo and behold, they haven't quite achieved the full 35 hours, and they're running around, they're trying to find um, you know, good quality CPD to kind of tick those boxes to make up those to those 35 hours. So when it's fragmented like that, it's not great for those organizations. But what I've seen actually um around kind of quality CPD and companies taking more charge of implementing solutions that um they are providing uh really good quality content to the people within their business. And if you look at our solution, the Red Mill Advance Hub, particularly, so that solution is um is all our content um white labeled into our clients' brand. So we have around 50 clients that engage um on that basis, um white label platforms, you know, these are companies that are a hundred-man firms to thousands strong. Um and all of our content sits under the one roof. So with that, they can actually guide their people within the business towards those 35 hours. They can set deadlines. So actually, what you find is rather than people running to achieve CPD at the end of the year, they're achieving it in bite-sized chunks throughout the year. You know, those uh senior managers can decide, well, actually, we want AML rolled out in January and TCF in February and you know, whistleblowing in March. They can set that, they can set deadlines, they can understand how people are engaging with that content, if they're starting it, when they're starting it, if they've completed it, and really hold in on that. So fragmented CPD is a real problem for organizations, and actually, what I found particularly in the last few years is companies are becoming much more aware of that and implementing these types of solutions. Loving it, creating that control. It's exactly that, and transparency and accountability as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

No, I love it. Um, when people hear the name Red Mill Advance, I want them to understand the seriousness of your business and the scale of your business. You're quite a humble person. You don't brag about it too much. You know, you're not on social media talking about how brilliant and big our business is. But just tell us a little bit about the journey, where you are now, who you're working with, and the scale of your business, and also why is scale so important when it comes to working with um businesses, especially within financial planning.

Scale, Clients, And Credibility Signals

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Well, first of all, thank you for uh saying that. So, and it it's been an intentional thing, Sam. You know, we have we have flown under the radar, and that's been with purpose. And it's been really important to me not to be out there talking about how we are the best in the market and we have a solution that you know is right for every single client. And, you know, we haven't gone out there and we haven't pushed that message out there. The reason for that is I I really wanted over a period of time to build up proof that our content is quality, that our proposition is quality, that the people sitting behind the business are delivering an incredible service to the academies that we run. So that has been with purpose. We've flown under the radar intentionally. Um, without talking about the obvious in terms of size and scale, to help your audience understand, you know, obviously I could go straight to, well, you know, we millions of revenue and profit and so on and so forth, which is true. Um, but I mean, in terms of giving you an idea of um scale, I think the first place to start is look, we work with some of the largest companies in the market. If I look at our academy solution in isolation, um, we've all heard of these large academies, right? So St. James's Place, Open Work, Benchmark, Mazars, Ascot Lloyd, Um, Quilterplc. You know, these are the large academies that most people in our profession will know. So all of those companies we run. Um, it's our technology that supports it, it's our learning content that supports it, and it's our charter trainers that um take it into the classroom and you know, tutor these individuals in a virtual environment but in a live environment. So the clients that we work with, I think, is a good indicator of how far we've come. Um, these are some of the largest companies in the market. Also, you know, you look at the breadth and depth of the content we've got, you wouldn't necessarily see that from our website because we've got, I think, 20 to 25, what I call retail products on there, exam products. But actually, sitting behind our proposition, we have 500 bits of learning. Um now you won't see that from our website because um to the larger extent, we're a B2B, you know, we serve um large clients, and those 500 bits of learning across our you know, various uh CPD ranges uh sit for our um our corporate relationships. So the breadth and depth of our content, you know, we have hundreds of um pieces of learning, and within that, there's you know 6,000 technical questions across every product group. Um, there is hundreds of videos, you know, there's lots of um uh assets in there. Now, that alone, from a governance perspective, incidentally, um year in, year out, because obviously the CII, uh so on and so forth, syllabus updates every year, it is uh it's quite a task to keep that stuff updated. Budgets were obviously having to update that. But then I guess that comes back to you know who we are as an organization in terms of um the uh size of the company as well in terms of employees. You know, not the market may not actually realize that we were acquired in 2022 and became part of a larger education group. And within that group, we have a sister brand, for example, that does exactly what we do, but within the general insurance markets, same technology, and working with some really major players, but for general insurance, we are financial advice. But across the education parts of our business, there's you know 30 employees, um, many more contractors retained and engaged on our ad hoc basis as well. And we have a really big middle office tier as well. So, again, we have that large um structure in terms of employee count. So, look, as an organization, we've been around for eight years. Um, we have a huge product range that we maintain every year. We work with some of the largest clients in the market, um, and we have you know a really big employee count as well. Um, so we're a serious business. Yeah. Um, and we have been for many years, but we've intentionally flee under the radar. And it's only now we feel it's time that we should start telling our story. And we wanted to do that when we could prove through the results that we've achieved in the last you know number of years that we are a serious player.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Love it. Well, thanks for choosing our platform as well to share that to share that story. Such a good platform. So love it. So from a from a business to business perspective and from a decision makers perspective, what do you think credibility looks like? So, what do they want to see from you? I know you reeled off quite a few things there, but what The things mainly that they want to see and they want to hear from you, what's really important for those key decision makers in those businesses that want to take their training and development to the next level?

What Decision Makers Need To See

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Yeah, I mean there's the obvious stuff, right? They want to see quality product first and foremost. So whenever an organization comes along, you know, they do look at our content in detail and they want to make sure that it ticks all of their boxes. If you think about it from a kind of organizational perspective, you know, these companies, um depending on who we're engaging with, they'll have different needs, right? So HR directors within an organization will maybe care about things like can I access really good leadership training or management training or those softer skills? Um, can I um you know have a really good suite of well-being content or EDI content? These tend to be the things that HR directors are, and rightly so, focused on. Uh training and competence managers is part of that. So they tend to be more focused on how am I getting my people their 35 hours of CPD, how am I getting them their 50 hours of their PTS? How am I achieving that? How am I recording that? How am I making sure that they're hitting those numbers? And then compliance managers or compliance directors within those organizations, well, they tend to, not to stereotype, but they tend to be more interested in are my people competent? Are they compliant? Can I evidence it? You know, are they doing their mandatory training every year? Are they doing their quarterly competency testing? And can I evidence that? So credibility, it depends who you're speaking to, right? Because um, within any organization, that senior and management suite tend to look for different things. Um the good news is incidentally that we achieve all of that, right? So our proposition, our solution covers all of those bases. Um, but credibility to these organizations, um, you know, it is well, size and scale of an organization is really important. That's important because it's the simple thing, Sam, right? That if we're running, I mentioned some of the names that we run for the large-scale academies, um, it's really important to these academies that we're going to be around in 10 years. It's really important to these academies, you know, that again, the simple things like if two of our trainers don't make it in tomorrow, you know, there's another six trainers that we can put in to, you know, for that continuity. So that's really important. That's risk mitigation for these organizations. Um, and actually, it does matter to these organizations as well that um, you know, if I if I I'm getting a flight out from City later to head back to Edinburgh, if that flight heads down um to the ground, plummets to the ground, and I don't make it back, red mill will go on. I have a first-class operations director that can pick up the reins. She has a team, you know, they have people. So it's about risk mitigation for these organizations. Credibility looks like um engaging with an organization that's going to be around in a few years, that has quality product, that's wrapped inside really good technology that gives them insights and data and a really good understanding of how you know their people are engaging with content. It obviously does all the stuff you would expect it to do. It ticks those boxes from a, you know, can I evidence that my people are compliant? Are they doing AML, TCF, bribery, corruption, their and competency testing? Can I evidence that stuff? You know, again, that's really, really important. And I think the last thing I would say on it, and and I do think that this is really, really important for any decision makers when they look at an organization in terms of who they want to, who they want to partner with, is the people. And actually, are the people credible? And, you know, the team at Red Mill are incredible, Sam. And, you know, we have such an amazing team, like they are such an amazing team. They really are. And when we talk about these academy propositions or our CPD proposition, even just from a learning and development perspective, they've been doing it for years, decades. Um, they're so good at what they do. And the teams that sit behind operations and support are so good at what they do as well. And that matters to clients. You know, they want to see that people are financial services experts, technically capable, but that structure exists within the business that it doesn't matter if the MD doesn't make it home from this trip, you know, that we're still going to be around and we're still going to serve them well. And actually, sorry, not to labor on, but one last thing, um, because it is a a personal mantra of mine and something, a philosophy that we stand by, is that as an organization, we put people before profit. Obviously, we're a for-profit offering organization, you know, we're we we are seeking to make money, um, but we do put people before profit. And actually, I believe that if you provide an exceptional service, if you look after your clients, everything else follows. And that's really, really important to us as an organization. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

And a big one as well, you're agile, right? We are, yeah, absolutely. 100% we are, yes. You can roll with the punches. Yeah. There's not an abundance of trainers that are out there in the marketplace. In fact, it's very, you know, we've both worked in recruitment. When somebody wanted to hire an internal trainer or TNC manager or whatever, yeah, it's a bum fight out there.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

Oh, it's it's it's incredible. And actually, thanks for bringing that up because I'll use this um medium to say that we are currently hiring as well. Um for very good trainers. So um both on a contract and permanent basis, um, if anybody's listening. But you're right, it is really hard. You know, there's um there's not many of them out there, really, really good trainers. Um, I'm happy to say that I believe we've got um some of the best working with us now.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

I love it. Right, let's bring this back to careers, okay? People at different stages of their careers. So they could be part qualified administrators, they could be power planners, could be qualified financial planners that are level four qualified, perhaps, maybe chartered. Um and you've got these um these people running their own businesses. Yeah. Yeah, they could be small to medium enterprises, they could be very large firms, lots of different stages of a career within financial planning. So, how does Red Mill turn up for them?

Career Pathways: Self-Study To Chartership

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Yeah, so I guess if we look at the individual learner um, first of all, so if it's as simple as someone wants to run through the regulated diploma and financial planning and they want to self-study, said it before, you can go to our website, right? You can take a look at our content and they can buy that. And obviously, if you're sitting in a small business, your employer can buy it for you. I'd like to hope that they would if they're trying to progress you through um, you know, the diploma. So, from an individual perspective, um, a self-study perspective, you can access that content. Um, from a larger company perspective, look, companies, we have an advice gap issue at the moment, right? We've all spoken about it. There's um a retiring demographic of financial advisors out there. I haven't looked at the statistics recently, but I'm fairly sure it's still 55 plus. Um, and many of these large companies are trying to grow their own, right? New blood, new people into the industry. Um, so we obviously support that as well. So that part of the life cycle, if you're uh you know an organization that's looking to grow your own, that's looking to run your own academy, this is bread and butter stuff for us, and we can support that. Um if you're in uh the part of the journey that you're in is you are qualified, but you want to progress to chartered. Again, we can support that. As simple again as going in, you know, self-studying. We obviously have chartered content, level six content. Again, if it's an academy, what we found um over recent years is some of our um level four academy partners do seek to progress their people to chartered. Really important, actually. And um, again, I've not looked at the statistics recently, but the last time I looked, I think something like only 15% of the market, something like that, sits at chartered currently. Though stats may have changed, Sam, but I'm pretty sure I won't be far off with that. Um so again, I've seen a trend towards some of these organizations looking to actually support their individuals in progressing towards chartered. So again, we can do that fully blended with our chartered experts or training, our trainers, we can support that. The other thing that we do, and a big part of our proposition that's probably not spoken about as much as our exam piece, is that advisors do need to maintain their CPD. So, from a learner's perspective, they can do that via ourselves, right? We've spoken about having all of this really good CPD content under the one roof that's accessible and it makes their life easy because it automatically records and reports into a very visual, very nice CPD recording and reporting tool that's proprietary. We've built this from the ground up. And so it makes their life really easy. It segments it into IDD and PTS and core and mortgage and it does all of that for them. So I guess any part of that advisor, that user journey, that individual's journey, and whether it's their new to the industry, their self-study, they're part of an academy, or they're looking to remain at the top of their game through really good quality CPD, we can do that. From a client's perspective, um, of course we do all of that. Um and that's really important to those uh clients who are seeking to um support the employees, the advisors, the individuals within their business. But our proposition goes a step further for them. And when you look at our um systems, I guess let's think about it this way that the learner sees one thing, which is the shiny front, the UX, the really nice experience for running through learner. But our clients see the back end of the system with all the really good reporting sets. And it's that reporting, right, for those clients that is really, really important. Because if you're a compliance individual, a senior compliance individual within an organization, you're going to want to be able to evidence that your people are competent. Spoken about this before. Of course, you can do that within our systems. You can run those reports, you can understand who's done those regulatory modules or who's done that quarterly competency testing. But not only that, you can not only see who's done it, when they launched it, when they started it, when they completed it, if they've passed, if they've failed, you can actually dig right down into the questions that were asked. You know, what are they getting right? What are they getting wrong? And look at that really good information because that's going to prompt you and direct you towards, well, what's their development need. And a good example of that, right, would be if a business, let's say, has a number of um investment individuals within their organization and they're running an investment competency test and across a group of people, and what we can see is that they're continually getting esoteric investments wrong. So EIS and VCT is a problem. Well, good data is going to signpost them towards that, and it's going to prompt them to say, right, well, clearly there's a gap, there's a need there. And that's then going to point them towards the great CPD we've got, right? So they'll go and they'll run the esoteric investment modules, the EIS, the VCT CPD, and they'll learn that and they'll upskill. So for those corporates, you know, having access to that really good management information, that really good data, not just allows them to ensure that they're ticking those compliance and competency boxes, but actually really allows them to understand the development needs of their people as well.

MI, Competency Testing, And Closing Skill Gaps

SPEAKER_01 30:49

Love it. So we're talking about sort of board level senior management problems of understanding where people within their business are in respect of their qualifications and CPD. So when it comes to actually working with those businesses and a business using Redmill Advance, you should hopefully be delivering a to somebody within the business, a board pack that's going to put their minds at ease.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

Yeah, I mean, like generally what happens whenever you know we engage as an organization with a corporate, with an with our organization, um, we do. I mean, obviously we have. If you're talking about a board pack, we're giving them information on a proposition, we do that. What tends to happen, Sam, to be honest, if the question is, you know, how do we present our solution is we tend to do it online, you know, we tend to do it via demos, we tend to give them access and let them touch and feel it. Do you know a great example of this actually, and it's why, you know, you talk about why we haven't gone out to market and really, you know, started telling our story in terms of who we are, and why we haven't done that today. And I spoke around is because I really wanted to be able to evidence it. A really good example of that actually is recently there's a new client that we're currently um onboarding. Um now they have a team of or a headcount of 500 people within their business, um of which I think about 350 are advisors. What we were able to do as part of that, they came along and they said, Well, look, this is the problems that we're trying to fix. Um, we need to have really good quality CPD that we can distribute across all our advisors and keep them, you know, their 35 hours and make sure that they're achieving that. We need that to be consistent so they're not cramming it in at year-end. So we need a system that allows us to roll it out in a very controlled manner. We need to be able to tick all the boxes that they're doing all their compliance stuff and that they're doing all their testing. We need to be able to evidence that. You know, I was able with that client to say, sure, no problem. Well, why don't we do this? Why don't we take 30 people? We'll give you access for a month, we'll roll it out for you, why don't we let them feed back to you rather than me just telling you that it works? And we were absolutely confident to do that. So we gave them access, we let them run with it for uh four weeks with uh evidence to them that it truly solved the problems um at board level that they were trying to solve. And they were happy, right? Out of those 30 people, um, 29 of them fed back that it was excellent. One said it was good, we'll forgive them. Um but 29 of them said it was excellent, and we pushed on with the client. So, yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, at a board level, at a senior manager level, um, you know, when clients come along and talk to us about these problems, compliance, evidence and compliance, evidence and competence and competency, having really good CPD and being able to take a very, very deep dive on the management information around it, we're more than happy to give them access and let them see it for themselves. Love it.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

I just want to push back on these um academies and individual learners and the difference between, say, the two. Redmond Advance work with businesses of all shapes and sizes, but I've had the privilege of working with St. James's Place Academy for quite some time. It's not just qualifications training that you're delivering in exam support, you're helping them pass, hopefully first time. High pass rates, I believe. What's the SJP one?

SPEAKER_00 34:01

Um so SJP is mid-80s. Um, I don't have the stat off the top of my head, but it's certainly above 85% first-time pass rate across R01 to R05.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

I just want to just dig on that a little bit. Pass rates in academies tend to be higher than say standalone individuals doing it in a back bedroom. Is there a way to monitor that?

Proving Impact: Pilots And Pass Rates

SPEAKER_00 34:20

That's a great question, and we do monitor it, yeah. So look, I mean terms of yes is the answer to that. Um, and you would expect it to be the case, right? Because um, within the academies, the structure is that you have access to our expert tutors on a you know week-to-week basis. Um, cohorts are engaging, they're learning in surgery sessions each week. Um, they are having classroom time, virtually speaking, but they're having classroom time at the end of their digital self-study. So those pass rates do tend to be a little bit higher across the academies. Part of the other reason for that is that all of the academy structures, whilst we are there to get those individuals qualified in the shortest time frame or a time frame that suits the client, there's a lot of support internally within these academies as well. You know, SGP is a great example of that, but equally so Quilterd and Benchmark and these other academies that we run, the support ecosystem inside those businesses are great. There's always someone for those um delegates, those students to be able to get expert advice from people that have been there and done it within those businesses. So, yeah, the past rates do tend to be a little bit higher, um, but not hugely. So, our um self-study material when people are buying digital content and they're self-studying, you know, you have to remember that um there are we are taking into account those learning styles that we mentioned earlier. So, therefore, um it's not just print this book and learn from it. There's videos, there's constant testing of where are you against the knowledge of what you've learned, those little weekly tests, modular tests, and there's full mock exams, etc. So when we look at our pass rates overall, both academy and digital self-study, we are still in the 80 plus percent range, um, which is significantly above market average.

SPEAKER_01 36:03

I love it. And one of the big things that come up as well within financial planning, especially in early careers, and more often than not as well, with people that are actually fully qualified out there delivering financial advice, is the qualifications don't make you a financial planner. What are you doing about the behavior training? Yeah. I like to call it soft skills, but I don't really like that word. Yeah. So behaviors training, what makes a really great financial planner when they sit down with a client and open them up to the opportunities that financial planning can give them? How are you helping somebody, I dare say it, uh, sell their services to a client or a business when they're a financial planner? Are you leaning into that type of training as well?

SPEAKER_00 36:41

We do, yeah. So soft skills and behaviors is part of our proposition, absolutely. Um at an academy level, we do that. I mean, one of our large academies, we actually train soft skills and behaviors as well. And we actually do that for three segments of their particular population, which is advisor, paraplanner, and administrator, and because the soft skills required for each of those disciplines are slightly different. But the types of soft skills and behaviors that we have, and this is actually available to all our clients as digital, and we can train it live in the classroom as well, is things like that you would expect as an advisor, you know, active listening, ability to ask the right types of questions. So, you know, probing questions, appropriate closed questions. I'm fortunate to say you haven't asked me any closed questions today, Sam, but sometimes they're appropriate, right? Um, you know, those softer skills, those behaviors, um we do have uh both digital and we can train live as well. And they're really important, you know, qualifications alone don't make a good financial advisor. It's a bit like, you know, when you're achieving your level four diploma, it's a little bit, it is a little bit like getting your driving license, right? It doesn't and day one make you a fantastic driver. You have to learn those skills um over many years. And soft skills and behaviors is is definitely part of that, and we absolutely do have them in our armoury. Love it.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

We spoke a bit earlier about the psychology of learning. Um I struggled when I was in school. Um, I've always struggled to do any tests um or coursework. Yeah, these are things that I struggle with. Yeah. Um I've recently been diagnosed as ADHD, which makes a lot of sense. What do you do to support these different learning styles and delegates who perhaps are brilliant for financial planning but not confident or great when it comes to exams or coursework and the typical type of book learning that's required to become a financial planner, that tends to be a big barrier. It's a barrier to me. Yeah. And it has been a barrier in the past when I did my FPCs.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

Yeah. I did those as well, FPCs back in the day.

SPEAKER_01 38:49

Yeah.

Beyond Exams: Behaviours And Soft Skills

SPEAKER_00 38:49

Um, mid-90s, I think I did mine, something like that. So um it's a really important question to ask, actually. And it comes back to so within our team, we have I mentioned we have people who are NLP experts who um, you know, are PGCE, so understand from a teaching perspective. But actually, we also have trainers who are neurodiverse and actually um specialize in neurodiversity and understanding how the brain works. Um so we do a couple of things around this. Um, so first of all, when it comes to our digital self-study or our academies, um, before anybody um actually starts their technical learning, we try and understand what type of learner they are. So if you're accessing our digital content, the first thing you'll see in all our programs is a 30, 35-page document. It's not technical, it's not talking about the qualifications you're learning, but rather it's talking about um the psychology of learning. So it's saying, well, actually, what type of learner are you? Um if you're this type of learner, have you thought about this? You know, the little tips and tricks, right? Around it's better to, you know, study in blocks of forty five, fifty minutes and give your brain a rest. you know, rather than um you know trying to study something for hours and hours on end. So we have these documents that allows um individuals to right off the bat um learn those tips and tricks on how best to apply themselves to study, but also to understand well what type of what type of learner am I? And it's interesting for me. Like I used to think that I used to think I was an early bird, right? I used to from my own study, I used to think that I had to get up at five o'clock in the morning you know before the kids were up, before everything else, you know, open the books, start studying, watch a video. And I'm dreadful at that in the morning. I just don't operate like that. And actually I realized that um what works best for me is 10.30 at night, the kids go to bed, the house is quiet. I can sit for a couple of hours and really absorb information. And it's these little things we try and help people understand. With the academies that we run, the first thing we do and before we enter any technical learning is we run a how to study session. So for the cohorts that are coming through these various academies we say here's how you should think about studying. Here are the hints and tips. This is how you might want to apply yourself. This is what you want to think about in terms of your learning styles. And then you mentioned around ADHD and yourself and your recent diagnosis. If there are individuals that are really struggling and we will support them and we will give them information and help around what the regulator will do because there are options there from the regulator when it comes to exams around additional time and things like that in the exam itself. But we'll actually point them towards the right individual internally who has lived experience around that stuff one of our trainers who can really help as well. Does it determine the qualification route that the person goes down as well do you think? Well in academies that tends to be determined by the client so um it tends to be that clients will choose a particular route for those academies from a self-study perspective it's a really interesting question that um that I actually don't have an immediate answer to I I've not experienced one route as a preferable route over another if you're neurodiverse. But that's probably quite a good takeaway for me actually Sam to go and explore.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

Love it okay so I want to finish on the everything you're talking about sounds brilliant on a podcast.

Supporting Neurodiverse Learners

SPEAKER_00 42:19

Sounds great in theory what evidence suggests that everything you're doing is actually working for the learner but also for the businesses you're working with yeah so the easiest thing to go to on that is talk about pass rates I guess right that you know I we can we do and can evidence that the learning content that we have achieves you know 80 plus percent pass rates across both our self-study and our academy tracks. That's that's the first thing and we constantly monitor that feedback we constantly seek that feedback because it's really important to us to work in partnership with our clients and try and improve upon our content where we can the other thing that we do is from our training perspective is we do survey the audience and we look at that trainer feedback and where we can improve that. I'm happy to say that I can tell you because I did look at this stat we are 4.8 from five in terms of our trainer feedback so that's a really good one a really good stat the evidence is that we're getting it right but I think a big thing actually a really clear data point for me and for us as an organization is that we don't lose clients. So since inception of the business um we have had less than uh five percent I'll say client chance a horrible word but client loss um less than five percent clients come back every year they renew um they want us to work with them they want us to continue training their people they want to utilize our systems they want to um you know partner with us and that's a really clear indicator to me that we're getting it right the fact that we don't lose clients and the fact that that client loss is so low over the last you know eight nine years that we've been operating is probably one of the biggest indicators that we're getting it right.

SPEAKER_01 44:06

I love it. Well David you've had a phenomenal journey so far in training uh history and recruitment yes even financial services yourself yes um I always love to know though apart from working with those clients that are coming back to you those businesses within financial planning within insurance what's next for RedMid advanced what's what's the future hold for you?

SPEAKER_00 44:27

Well part of it's this right is telling our story because it's time um you know we we're able to evidence our successes over the last eight years we're able to confidently say we've got something that is right for the market is right for those organizations that are looking to be able to run good management information, evidence um, you know, where the gaps are in their people's learning organizations that want to provide their people with the ability to professionally progress and maintain their CPD we've got all of that right. So now it's about telling our story um you won't obviously the audience won't see this but sitting behind the camera is um our uh new head of marketing it's a really important step for us um we are uh going to really be pushing our brand out over the next 12 months the next 24 months we're going to be um talking about our brand and who we are and the problems that we solve in the market. This forum is part of that Sam I'm I'm really I'm so delighted right the fact that um we're partnering that we've become you know your main education sponsor that we get to do this and obviously there's more of this to come right we're doing 13 of these I think 13 yeah 13 episodes 13 episodes so more to come on that and it's a great forum right for us to really start singing about who we are and how we solve our clients' problems how we help address the advice gap how we ensure that advisors can meet and maintain their 35 hours through really good quality content that we provide to them in a very tech savvy way. But aside that it's about our next phase of growth right um we're hiring um we are looking to bolster our team with really good people and we are looking to scale the business to you know the the next part in terms of what that looks like. I don't want to kind of dive into numbers I guess around that but you know we're a seven figure business we're looking to to really enhance that um and drive that forward. So I'm really excited about you know the next 12, the next 24 months I think that it's time for us to really sing about our proposition and this is definitely the right medium to do it and let the market know that we have a solution that is really meeting their pain points.

Evidence: Outcomes, Feedback, Retention

SPEAKER_01 46:34

Love it. Well listen we're super psyched to be working with you this year in 2026. It's great to be working with a sponsor that can add value to our listeners as well at whatever stage of their career they're actually at and we're going to start to dig deep into some of those qualifications. What are some hints? What are some tips on how to pass those, how to approach those so it sets people up for a very successful and strong career within financial planning. We want to continue to educate those firms out there that really do want to deliver a higher level of CPD, a higher level of training around behaviours and also exam support. So we're super proud to be working with you David of Red Mill Advance. And if anybody wants to find out more about how to get involved maybe some exam support maybe how to use them within your business check out the show notes and uh you'll find a link there and you can just reach out to yourself on LinkedIn. I've got a feeling you're gonna be very popular on LinkedIn too. Well I hope so absolutely yes please link in with me 100% fantastic David thank you so much for uh explaining your journey to us thank you very much thanks Sam cheers