How Tim Brienza Built a £50M Client Base Through Financial Planning

For most financial planners, the point of entry into the industry is either from an adjacent field or by working up from admin through paraplanning roles.

But not Tim. His route stands out as unconventional, but it's far from hindering his professional success. 

Law school. A year in Swansea chasing training contracts that never materialised. A sales recruitment firm. And then, a client engagement role at a financial planning firm in Cheltenham, a job he recruited for without really knowing the industry. 

On day one, his main question was: What exactly is financial planning?

In this episode of Financial Planner Life, Sam sits down with Tim Brienza, a self-employed financial planner with Montpelier Asset Management, to trace the full arc of his career, from that accidental entry point to managing close to £50 million in assets under management as a chartered fellow in his mid-thirties.

Tim talks with Sam about how the unique first role that gave him a bird's-eye view of the profession, before he ever gave a piece of advice, how he leapt into advice and got chartered within 12 months of his first client meeting, but most importantly, his deliberate approach to networking that built his client base over a decade without him ever chasing the wrong people in the wrong rooms.

He also breaks down the reality of going self-employed and what it's like to help build a firm from scratch. He shares the tips and ambitious approach he’s adopted to propel him into a career as a financial adviser, now managing £50AUM. 

Tim also explains his voluntary role with the Personal Finance Society and how their inaugural New Gen programme aims to bring more young people into a profession he believes is one of the best-kept career secrets going.

The episode's key takeaways 🔥

• Why an unconventional entry into financial planning can be a career superpower
• How Tim built a £50M client base through patient, peer-level networking: not chasing senior partners
• Why learning on someone else's time and money is the smartest move any entrepreneurial adviser can make
• The reality of going self-employed: the J curve, the squeaky bum moments, and what comes out the other side
• Why the relationships you build before you need them are the ones that build your business
• What it takes to get chartered in 12 months while managing 200 clients from day one
• Why financial planning doesn't need a degree: and what it can offer people who don't know it exists yet

Whether you're a young financial planner trying to figure out how to build a client base, someone considering the move to self-employment, or just curious about what a decade of unconventional decisions can produce, this episode is worth your time.

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

Why The Profession Needs New Talent

SPEAKER_02 0:04

And today's guest on the Financial Planner Live podcast is Tim Brenda. He is a financial planner on a self-employed basis for Montpellier Asset Management. And he is also involved in the PFS. And today we talk about his career from start to where he is currently now with 50 million AUM. It's not been an easy journey, but he shed some absolute gold about building a network, building up a client base, and pushing forward in your career as a young financial planner. You're gonna love this episode. So, Tim, thank you so much for joining me today on the Financial Planner Life Podcast. How are you? Good. Yeah, very good. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

I moved very quickly because we started talking a couple of weeks ago. You had some ideas around how to attract the next generation into the financial planning profession. And we were talking more about people in school. How do we get people in school interested in a career within financial planning, but also probably to understand the value of financial planning in your life journey? And it's something that I think everybody in the financial planning profession is very passionate to get behind. It was one of the major reasons why I set up the Financial Planner Life podcast. My North Star was to create a talent attraction tool for those interested in the profession to hear amazing stories from people like you who've built a career within it and hopefully that attracts people. But school, different kettle of fish. And I think we both agreed on that. Yeah. How do we get them interested? Yeah. But Tim, before we kick into this, because today we're going to turn, you know, we're going to find out about your journey. You are a young financial planner. It's been a bit up and down along the way. It's never linear.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

No, never. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

But you're in a fantastic place right now. And you are also a volunteer with the PFS, the Personal Finance Society. And you've got a lot to share with our audience. So I'm really keen to kind of dig in and just find out a little bit about your journey.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

But so first off, Tim, just tell us a little bit about your how did you get into the financial planning profession, first of all?

From Law To An Accidental Start

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Probably in a similar way most financial planners do, which is which is not deliberately. Yeah. So I going way back, wanted to follow my dad into civil engineering, architecture, was terrible at maths and physics and and those sorts of things at A-level. So I just changed direction. Really enjoyed law at the time. So I studied law, followed that through university and into work. So worked at a law film for just over a year in Swansea. And tried to find training contracts all over the place, but very difficult to find. I mean, not the best place to be looking for training contracts in Law. Swansea is a bit sort of on the edge of existence. And yeah, I just I just kind of took a big U-turn. I was quite young, didn't know really what I wanted to do at all. So floated around a few different things. Um and then eventually uh I got recruited through um sort of like a high-end sales recruitment company in Gloucester. And they specialized in sales roles with sort of blue chip companies. So they put you through this sort of long interview process, like apprenticeship style group exercises with other guys they're trying to sort of weed out, and um graduated through them, so then got put forward for my first role, which was with FedEx. And I remember really, really, really wanting that job, and uh didn't get it, got to the final two out of about 12, didn't get it, so a bit deflated, but I thought, right, on to the next. And the next one was um a client engagement manager role with a financial planning business in Cheltenham. Didn't really know what that meant, but I thought, well, I'll go to the interview anyway. And the interview is quite generic, so again, it's more like um aptitude stuff, group task interviews, um, and got the job. So at the end of the two-day interview process, they sort of said they said, Oh, thank you all for the day. Pointed to me and they're like, Oh, there's a bit of an issue with your CV, could you just stay behind? I was like, Oh god, what we're done now, and uh went in and they were like, That's not true. We we we just really like you, we like you to uh take the job. So yeah, that was my introduction to it. And then first day, it was literally like, what is financial planning? What's a pension, what's an ISA, like all this stuff that I needed to learn. The the role itself was focused in the MA side of things, which was actually accidentally quite a nice segue from law because it was a lot of corporate finance, it was a lot of contract, it was um yeah, negotiating with retiring advisors looking to sell their business, trying to work out where there was a good relationship, where there was a good fit for their business to sort of be integrated into ours. And I worked as as part of a very small team that did those initial meetings, the negotiating, the contracts, the due diligence. But the thing that was great for me was we'd also go and see every client. So we'd see every single client from that client bank, and you talk in some years it was seven, eight, nine businesses that we'd buy in a year, so thousands of hours in front of clients doing basically um soft fact finds, uh, introducing them to the business, trying to sort of welcome them, feel comfortable, and uh those skills honed were I think what sort of fast-tracked me once I got myself qualified, which came about a couple of years after my boss at the time was sort of trying to get me out of this rut because I wasn't sure whether I was going to sort of go all in on corporate finance and MA or go down the financial panel route, which was was really attractive to me from the very first day because the advisors they were the first individual like people that I'd come across in the world of work that I was like, that's what I've been looking for, like that's what I want to aspire to, and they were right on a pedestal for me,

M&A Work As A Client Meeting Cheat Code

SPEAKER_00 5:48

like right from the beginning. So I thought that's yeah, that'd be that'd be a good career.

SPEAKER_02 5:51

I love that. In respect of this, look, I I I I ran a recruitment business, so we would look at the market as a whole within financial planning, and we would talk to business owners and decision makers within firms. I also set up Gunnering Co. which is still going actually. It's a it's uh it's a uh a brokerage, it's a acquisition brokerage for financial planning. I know the guys that work there. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. So ease, isn't it? I think she runs it now. Um what's her name? Yeah, yeah. So I got into that space and and and and obviously sitting down with business owners and being able to open up business owners teaches you a lot. And I always look at people that have worked in recruitment or in that space and saying, look, your skills are so transferable into financial planning.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

They really are. Because a massive part of that is prospecting. Yeah. And once you've got somebody on the phone, it's relationship building and it's fact-finding. Yeah. It's really trying to establish a need, isn't it? Yeah. And trying to get them to understand it. But also, what I think as well, where you spend a great proportion of your time dealing with business owners, it opens you up to the business owner market, yeah, which is obviously great to get in there to then deal with uh the employees within a business.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

But also where you're like in the recruitment world, maybe not in your world as such, you're almost dealing with the candidate side of it as well. But in mergers and acquisitions, it's a very emotional journey selling a business.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Hugely. That that's something I didn't really consider when I first started it. Like it's it's like letting go of it's like letting go of your child when they go to university or or leave home. It's they feel so attached to their business, particularly the sort of smaller businesses, the ones that have been one-man bands for most of their careers and maybe had a couple of employees. Yeah, it's part of them. So um, yeah, that was that again helped along the journey of like understanding empathy, people's perspective on things.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

Um holding their hand through something which is quite a difficult change in their life. And when people said about post-sale depression, I didn't quite understand. I was like, Well, you're riding off the sunset, you've got a load of money, you can do all you want now. That's what you did. Yeah, but often it's the journey that the thing is the thing that you enjoy, and your identity becomes so wrapped up in the business. And when that business goes, and if the business goes and not in the way that you want it to go, it can create a huge amount of uh emotional toil and worry and trauma. I experienced it. When I let go of my recruit UK business, not on my terms. I spent two months in a state of utter depression. Yeah, I couldn't work it out. It's like I'd lost something, and it was my identity.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Yeah, I think for most people the goal is the goal isn't to start something that they have a passion for just to sell it at some point. They do it because they enjoy doing it and and and that you say they enjoy that journey. So to the point where they come to sell, it's probably because maybe not forced, but maybe time's caught up with them, maybe they're struggling with sort of increased compliance and regulation, not always like picking that particular time. So it's it's often forced upon them.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Um, and that you've got to deal with that and like you said, hold a hand through it.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

It's interesting, is it's how many people are working within a role, could be a business developer role, yeah, account manager position, uh, for a product provider or a service provider that offer services and products to the financial planning profession. There's a huge amount of people aren't there that would be really suited to financial planning because they've got a kind of bird's eye view, like you and I had, of all the different types of firms out of there, the different shapes and sizes, what they do, and you kind of do dig a little bit below the surface. I suppose the thing that you kind of lack is the hands-on experience of client um meetings and all of that kind of thing, and that's something that you're gonna have to learn along the way. But did that experience prepare you for that journey? Did you feel like that?

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Yeah, 100%. And I think both of those things were taught in that role because yes, there was the bird's eye view, big picture you're talking about, which is an unusual entry into the profession. Like I'm fully aware of that. For most people, it's kind of from the other side. Entry jobs, um, whether that's administration, stepping up into power planning, stepping up into advice. You kind of get a little bit stuck in the weeds there, I feel, when you're when you're coming out and zooming out and having that big picture approach. But I also had that slightly more granular day-to-day seeing clients all the time. So, yeah, one day would be seeing a prospect, another day would be going to Guildford to see three or four clients back to back. And that that was the job. And it was a really unique role. I haven't really come across that in the industry that well, if if at all, but amazing school for me to get into this profession.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

Yeah, so you'd agree, like getting yourself that client exposure, regardless of what really it's in. You were lucky enough that you were talking to potentially a market that you weren't even sure you're going to work in, right? Yeah. But it's nice to have that exposure of face-to-face meetings, fact-finding, target-driven, yeah, emotional understanding of the journey that somebody's on to be able to hold their hand and support them through something that they don't quite understand. That level of experience when it's transferred then into a financial planning role is kind of like a step, it's like um like a superpower, right? You're kind of cheat code. Yes, cheat code. It is a cheat code. It's like sales, right? If you work in sales for so many years, it is a cheat code. People say sales is a dirty word within financial planning. No, it's not. It's like what you do every day. Yeah, you have to sell yourself, don't you? You have to sell your services, your business, um, everything, you know, and we sell every single day. I sell to my child every single day to put her clothes on and go to school. You know, we have to sell things to them, don't you? Um, fantastic. So you're in that role. You were lucky enough for that role to be within an existing financial planning business. Yeah. Okay, then what what

Pick A Lane Then Sprint The Exams

SPEAKER_02 11:14

happened next?

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Yeah, so that that that was the the the point where I had the crossroads of doubling down on corporate fines. Actually, one of my team members at the time who became the head of that team went up went on that route. And he ended up going to Gunonco.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Um, and then I went down the the planning route. So um yeah, I just remember having a call from from the boss, and he was like, just bloody pick a lane, like just do it. We've got a few different options available. Um, some businesses were interested in in taking on guardianship for, and you'll be great for a couple of these. So I just almost just made a decision there and then. I was like, this is what I'm gonna go for, and just went hell for leather on getting all the exams done, got qualified pretty quick. Um, he also sort of fast tracked me, sort of knew that I could swim if he just threw me in, and uh, so I didn't have to go down that I think they had something like 12 months in admin stage, two years in power planning stage, and thankfully I was able to sort of fast track all that. So technically, that sort of probably initially set me back a little bit. Um so I always felt like I was playing catch up a bit on the technical side, which is probably why I just crash course through all those exams and textbooks and qualifications and got it.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

So it's about that. So when you say you crash course, you know, you say how long did it when you took that approach to the exams, yeah. What did you do? How long did it take you? How far did you get in what time scale?

SPEAKER_00 12:47

My own structure really, I think it was quite soon after that the company put in place like an academy and a whole system and a timescale, and they they they joined up with the local college and that sort of stuff. I was just before that, so I just winged it basically, and I thought, well, what capacity do I have? And I just pushed it to the limit, and so it was very, very intense day-to-day work. You know, you get you get thrown right in the deep end as an advisor there, and you're dealing with I think I had about 200 clients probably pretty much off the bat. So that's full on. That is 70, 80 hours a week work, and then on evenings, weekends, I would just just hammer the books, and uh yeah, I didn't see I didn't see friends for a while. Yeah, but I kind of at that point I decided like this is this is what I'm gonna do. Just give, just give everything to it for for this short period of time to get I was really, really laser focused on getting chartered. So from getting qualified to sort of having my first client meeting, I was charted within about 12 months. Wow, okay. And then I think I mentioned to you the other day, like at the end of that first year, I I'd done really well. Um good good sort of feurner for the business. And I sat with my manager at the time and he was like, right, next year, got your targets, what are we looking to do? And and I said, uh I want to get a fellow, no, I want to become chartered and a fellow, because I was just on the brink of being chartered at that point. I want to become chartered, become a fellow, um, be the highest feurner in the whole business. This is a national firm, and uh be the financial planner of the year. And um he sort of sort of laughed and was like, you know, slow down. And uh yeah, I remember that. And I said, Oh, okay, well, let's give it a go. And I did all of those, all of those things. Um, I left just before they they had the awards ceremony evening. We got into COVID, so things sort of fell off a little bit. But um, I do know they did a revote after I left, so um I'm I'm taking that as a DLC. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

That's amazing. So you visualize yourself being a super success and achieving some goals. How important do you think that was in the early stages to have some goals that were set?

SPEAKER_00 14:59

Uh really important because I think it is quite easy um to sort of drift. Um, you know, we're lucky in this industry that it's it's well paid, even entry-level financial planners get get really well paid. And I think unless you've got some sort of drive inside you, it's quite easy to just think, well, you know, don't have to become chartered, like doing well, can drift along. Um, but for me, and I think it's a combination of a few things. One, never really growing up in wealth or being around that, it was always something I was always reaching for. Um, but also my that entry point into the profession of of working with retiring advisors gave me like that acon straight away, and it was like, that's how to that's how you really make the most of this career. You need you need to own something. So that was there from the beginning, and that I I knew that if I'm gonna be successful, like as successful as I want to be, I need to upskill everywhere. And um yeah, it was a will-win couple of couple of years to begin with.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Very, very interesting. So you always had a an ambition with inside of you to be able to own something, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Okay, and that was four ways from the start.

University Versus Apprenticeships In Advice

SPEAKER_00 16:10

From from from a young kid, really, but yeah, um, yeah, yeah. And it was and maybe that's why law always felt a little bit out of reach because it just felt so just doors doors closed everywhere you look. Whereas financial planning was like, this is a really dynamic industry.

SPEAKER_02 16:29

And but yet so many people go to university to become lawyers or accountants, and there's doors shut and around everywhere. Um, we're not shouting loud enough about financial planning as a career. No, especially within universities where people can two pee across, even do a qualification now or do a degree in university. Some of the universities offer the degree in the university. Yeah, so I'm doing that. I don't know. Manchester might do that. Yeah, and I know someone over in um uh uh Titan Wealth, yeah, and she did that. She was in an accountancy one. When did she go? Oh, I can't remember now. Can't remember. But she twopied across, did it, so did a year in accountancy, two-pied across into financial planning because someone came in and explained the opportunity to her. She was like, Wow, that sounds really nice. Two be across. Now she's chartered uh fellow working over into Bayern is a super successful individual. Operational runs power planning and everything, technical, really all good technical knowledge. Um, so that does work, these university sort of roots, and it's just trying to create uh trying to create a structure that can be put into each university, or even it doesn't it does it have to be university focused? No, no, it doesn't, does it? I you know, looking back on it, do you feel like university actually added the value that you has it given you skills today, or did it put you in debt, or did you think, God, if I'd have known that there was an apprenticeship within financial planning, because there were apprenticeships within financial planning, you could have gone into that business and and and started without university. What do you think? Do you think university is a necessity to become a good financial planner?

SPEAKER_00 17:56

No, no, not at all. Um particularly because most universities don't don't offer that as a as a course or a degree. I think um university teaches you other things. Like I was fortunate I went to university just before the tuition fees went absolutely mental. And I went to a Welsh university as a Welsh student, so I had a grant. So it didn't tuition fees didn't cost me much, plus maintenance. I was lucky enough to be able to um pay off my student loan within the first year or two of being an advisor. I realised that's not the case these days, uh, so I probably would think about it differently if I was born five years later. Um but my course was I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed studying law. Like I'm I I I know I've got an aptitude for academia, but I from a young age always had that sort of entrepreneurial spirit, and uh I like working with people, and and this role I think is just one of those things that all all of those things are mashed together. So for me, it's a it's a perfect blend of what I think are my skills. Uh but to go back to university I think it teaches you um people skills to a point, you know, you're thrown in at the deep end, and you you've got to handle living away from home and and dealing with your peers, and that's helpful to a point, but uh I don't think you need university for that.

SPEAKER_02 19:20

No, I think also it teaches you like independence and deadlines, yeah. Working independently, you haven't got mum and dad there or whatever, yeah, living with other people, so it teaches you life skills by living in like shared accommodation, paying the bills, having to manage your life basically. Yeah, getting stuck into the freedom of going to the pub and knowing you've also got to get up and go and do a course or something like that. Yeah, and if you can survive that for three to four years and get a qualification at the end of it, fantastic. Yeah, one of the things I always say to people is look, there aren't there are jobs out there in the world where you do not need to have a degree. And I think some people put so much pressure upon themselves to get qualified from the schooling system because they think that that's the thing that's gonna give them a step ahead. Yeah, but it's not. And financial planning is a classic case because financial planning, you don't need a degree to become a financial planner. I know financial planners who left school at 16 years old and are multi-millionaires, yeah, earning considerably well. In fact, a lot of financial planners earn more than a hundred thousand, yeah, and you can earn more than a hundred thousand within a couple of years of becoming a financial planner. Yeah, yes, you've got to do your financial planning qualifications, but guess what? You don't need a degree to do those qualifications.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

No, you're just doubling up on qualifications. Exactly. You're doing all that study, which is I think my law degree, I think it counted like the 20 credits towards my diploma, something like that. Yeah. But you know, I would then sit a relatively straightforward RO one exam, which was the same amount of credits as a three-year law degree. Gotcha. So it's like, yeah, you know, they're not really that they're not equal.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

Um so sitting in a business where you smashed it, set goals, smashed it, top advisor, internal entrepreneurial

Startup Life And Learning Real Networking

SPEAKER_02 20:56

itch still. Yeah, what was next?

SPEAKER_00 20:58

I knew that that that was never gonna be possible where I was. So um yeah, I remember sitting down with with them again, and it was like, well, what you know, what's what's gonna come down the tracks next year? What we didn't see coming down the tracks was COVID. Um, but before that it was more about you know generically um for me, target-wise, and it was just kind of do more of the same, deal with more clients, um, look after a bigger book, and it just was very, very uninspiring to me. So I uh again we're quite lucky that if you're at the time I was a bit older now, but young enough that if you're well qualified and young, you get plenty of people approaching you and other firms sort of asking what your plans are and things like that. So I I'd always just sort of ignored anything, and then I just made a decision well, just be open to it going forward. And within about two weeks, I had a chap with um a guy who I knew in the in the industry who who was like, There's a new project going on down in Bristol, which from what you said to me sounds like might be. Interesting to you. So I thought, well, I'm open to opportunity. So I went to go and speak to them. Basically, a startup firm, um, skeleton business, no clients, no income, backed by um a larger company. So we could kind of build the business the way that we wanted to, and that was you know, although I I thought, well, this could be my entry into sort of owning something, but even if it's not how to grow a business, how to build a culture, how to run a team, all those things I would learn, and um building your own network, which I know we'll come on to in a sec when I come talk about the PFS, but all those things would things that I hadn't quite done as much of where I was previously. So I knew that worst case scenario, I upskilled myself to maybe the step after that. If there's going to be one, I'll I'll feel like I'm really ready. So um, yeah, I was there for four and a half years, uh, worked with some great people, had a really good time, built a business that got to quarter of a billion assets under management pretty quickly. And um yeah, it was it was it was great. I think the the personal development was probably more what I took away from it. Uh networking, to be fair, was something that in that first role in my first company, as part of mergers and acquisitions, I was sort of asked to do. Yep. And I I honed my skills in networking there because it's not networking, isn't it about going to a networking event is not networking. Networking is like what you do when you're there, and it's and it's finding people you've got commonality with at probably ideally a similar stage in career as you. If you've got commonality with them, you will want to deal with them, you know, you'll want to go and go for a lunch or or play around a golf or whatever it might be, and that's how you'll form a genuine relationship and trust, and then that hopefully leads the business down the line, but you just gotta be patient with it. And that's what I did. I didn't really have a playbook for it, that's just what I did, and it it does it works.

SPEAKER_02 24:04

Okay, so that's like the networking side. So the networking side, because your career, how long has it been now? 10 years, okay. So at what point would you say in your career did networking really start to take shape?

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Year one, year two? Um, it took shape. Yeah, the plan was sort of laid year one, year two. Yeah, right. Find not loads, because you can't have great relationships with loads of professional connections. Um, find people that you want to spend time with that the technical technical thing is with technical ability, if I meet somebody like a solicitor who specializes in something, I assume they know everything about that subject. And it's someone I've had to sort of teach myself because I I I I I as I'm sure everybody does like feels like sometimes uh imposter syndrome kicks in, but I always then have to remind myself, what do I think about someone I meet who doesn't know who I don't know really what they do? I assume they're an expert. And then that is how people would see me if they started talking to me about financial panic. So that side of it is I'm not even asking them about that technical ability, it's just like, do I get a do I feel like there's a connection there? Is there some commonality? Could we get on? Could I see myself still talking to you and dealing with you in 10 years' time? And and then there's just a close-knit group of people that you know we all grew from sort of associate level up to associate director level and then director level and then business owners and decision makers and interesting point.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

So the people that you were networking with and building relationships with were on the same level in their sub uh their their career as you essentially. Yeah. So you grew with each other, yeah. And as you grew with each other, you shared experiences and shared clients.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

You've got to be patient with that. Yeah. There's no point going to a networking event and going, right, who are the partners in the room? I'll go speak to them. I'm some 25-year-old kid new to the profession. They're just not they might be nice to me and lead me down the path a little bit. Yeah. And I've done I've I've done that, yeah, and I've chased it. And it does it that doesn't work.

SPEAKER_02 26:09

I think that's superb advice. You know, don't aim straight for the top if you're younger. Use your use your youth to your advantage by building a relationship and a network of people that are around your same age on the similar journey. Yeah. Time flies really quickly. I'm 44 years old, it scares the shit out of me. Yeah. Like it really does. And before you know it, those people are going to be on the same journey as you, and you're going to be working with them at a level when they're saying running their partner practices if they're sisters or accountants. And is that is that what's happened?

SPEAKER_00 26:34

Exactly that. And it's what they did. Yeah. You know, the the the when you're 25 and and around that age, and you're looking at people to connect with and you're thinking about going for those 45, 50, 55-year-old partners, they did that. Yeah. They did the same thing. The people that they're dealing with and that they're referring business to each other are all their age, their level, and they did the same thing. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

So these individuals then would pass you business. Uh, you build relationships, you would um I'm gonna ask you a question about your qualification at this point, okay? Working with lawyers and working with accountants, being a chartered fellow, does that go down well? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

They've never asked. They never this is it. I mean, they might know, yeah, and they might they might sublimally be like, well, yeah, we can trust you. In the same way that I come across uh someone in a completely different sector to me who's got some letters after them. I don't mean I don't know what they mean, but I just think they know what they're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 27:26

But do you think it gives you an advantage being Chartered Fellow in respect of your knowledge when it comes to working with legal and accountancy professionals and their clients? Yes, it opened doors for you.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

Yes, I think it does. Um I've been a bit flippant there. No, no, no, I get I get what you're saying when I come onto that because I think there is truth to it. There is truth to it, yeah. But there is also truth to the fact that the more upskilled and the more qualified you are and the more experienced you are at dealing with more complex areas of financial planning, that they're the type of advisors that you know partners at law firms will be looking to deal with. Yeah, because of the knowledge you have, right? Because of the knowledge base, exactly. And then you work with them on a couple of cases, they realise, yeah, this guy can yeah, he can handle this, and then uh then it it sort of snowboards from there.

SPEAKER_02 28:08

Ultimately, if you meet somebody, the first thing you're you're gonna say is, hello, I'm a chartered fellow. You know, it's you're not gonna say that because I think what does it mean? I don't think I've ever said that to No, you're gonna build a relationship with them. Yeah. I suppose in the digital age, um having some letters at the end of your name or an explanation of what that means within your profile, uh, maybe it's LinkedIn, maybe a business card or Facebook or Instagram, wherever you market yourself and as a personal brand, I feel like that's a value add. So being Chartered Fellow and being able to elevate a pitch what that actually is very, very quickly, it's just like, okay, that's what that means. Yeah. And that's a qualification to me. That's a qualifier to the person's level of experience. I am level seven, which is the top level.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Yeah. Yeah. Particularly being chartered. Yeah. I think chartered is a slightly more universal title across lots of different industries. Yeah. So if they see I'm chartered they they go right, gold standard.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

Yeah, people do, I associate chartered with gold standards. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

So it's a good thing to have. And then fellow, I have to sort of explain. Yeah. If anybody asks what that is, I say, well, actually, that's higher than the gold standard.

SPEAKER_02 29:07

But does subconsciously, though, as a person, once you've done it, does it give you more, did it elevate your confidence?

SPEAKER_00 29:14

Um, good question. Possibly not the way I thought it would. I think it was one of those anticlimatic things where I got there and it's like, oh, I got a burgundy card instead of a gold one. Yeah, yeah. And and that's kind of it, really. It's nice. I think, well, I probably don't need to do any more exams now. Yeah. Other than just continued CPD and those sorts of things. Um but no, I don't think I don't think it really improved my confidence. I think the confidence comes from just doing it over and over again and like constantly getting sort of evidence-based reaffirmation, feedback that you're doing a good job. Love that.

SPEAKER_02 29:59

When you say do it over and over again, did you ever set yourself any kind of weekly goals for first meetings, second meetings, or networking events? Did you have anything that you would set yourself to uh be consistent and learn through uh experience?

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Um not really. I think the closest I came to that was probably uh in my first job, uh where it was slightly more sort of numbers driven.

SPEAKER_02 30:25

Because you had a client bank to manage. Yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So do you feel like if somebody's looking at becoming a financial planner and there's the go down and build your own business route, which you always had that in like in entrepreneurial thinking, and then you've got that go and work for somebody else and get exposure to

When Age And Experience Matter Most

SPEAKER_02 30:41

clients. Do you feel like the getting exposure to clients on your own personal journey, even though you're entrepreneurial, was a good thing? And do you recommend that to somebody that's also gone entrepreneurial streak? Million percent.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

Okay. I I think even if you know exactly what you want to do and you know you're gonna run your own business, I think learn on someone else's time and money. Yeah, I love it. You know, yeah, I I don't I think there's um I think age and inexperience are factors when you're dealing with high net worth individuals. You just you just can't get around that. And um I think if you can if you can build up your experience, your knowledge base, your your network and everything, whilst knowing you've got a salary coming in, you're being paid to build your own network and brand. That's to me, I that I I can't imagine a scenario where I would say, yeah, do it the other way around.

SPEAKER_02 31:34

Okay. Interesting what you just said there. Part of the PFS, big passion in attracting younger people into the financial planning profession. And you very honestly said that age and experience is a factor when you're dealing with a certain type of client. Yeah. Yeah. Elaborate on that and what's your experience of that? Because someone might hear that and think, Oh God, you know, I really want to be a financial planner. What age is the right age? And let's talk about your journey, your experience, and how you come to that conclusion that actually, through your own personal experience, age is important.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Yeah, I think from my own experience, now don't get me wrong, I come across a young advisor every now and again, and I'm just blown away. I'm like, you are streets ahead of where I was at that age, in which case, yeah, you were maybe you're a special exception. But for the majority, and I I'd put myself in that, I'd say when I was a younger advisor, my appetite for sort of knowledge and qualifications sort of it sort of don't know if it affected meetings, but I was so keen to sort of throw up knowledge on clients, relevant or not to them. Um and I see a lot of younger advisors doing the same thing. You just want to impress, yeah, so you exactly, yeah. Because subconsciously you're like, he knows I'm only 26, 27, and I think he's probably judged. So there's like there's those sort of um tricks your mind sort of plays on you, which affects then how and that that takes a while to learn yourself and and realise no no no you need to everything you say to a client needs to be specific to them, listen to what they've got to say, understand exactly what you need to talk about based on what their needs are, and then rely out to them and you have much richer conversations. So I think it I think for me anyway, I became a better advisor the older I got, and I think I think in any walk of life experience matters. Uh I'm not saying you can't do it, I'm not saying you can't start off as a business owner and just graft and and go and get clients and you'll get yourself a climate. Some people have done it, done it really well. Um, but for me, this this this worked, and my experience is that experience it starts to attract more quality clients, more quality connections as you as you move down the down the road.

SPEAKER_02 33:49

Love it. So you you you left the employed role where you you learned your trade and you got in front of lots of clients. There's some great you know, it's great advice there for anybody listening is get stuck into a business where you're gonna be put in front of clients because you're only gonna learn more, more, more, more, more. The more you do something, the better you're gonna get, right? Quick exposure. Yeah, it's gonna get you through the door. Then you had that confidence then to go, right? Well, I'm gonna go off and I'm gonna be part of this startup.

Choosing The Right Self-Employed Setup

SPEAKER_02 34:13

How did that go? Did the did you did you ride off into the sunset and make a lot of money or did you leave? Was it enough for you?

SPEAKER_00 34:19

I left. Um, it just wasn't quite enough for me. And I think for a lot of people, that might have been home for them for for life. Um, and there's some good people there who I think it will be, uh, and they'll they'll have a really good career and they'll do really well, but it it just wasn't for me. Um, so I started exploring how the next stage would look. How do you go about going from employed to self-employed? And that's quite a journey in itself. So speaking to quite a few different um networks, there's lots of different ways you can do it. You know, obviously you can go directly authorised with the FCA, do everything yourself. There's some really good companies that might help with that. Um, that kind of thing. Simply beers, that's what I'm gonna say. Yeah, they're very good at that. Um, there's networks at varying degrees of sort of involvement. Some provide, you know, forward proposition, um, an opportunity to either operate under their name or under your own name, uh a lot more support than other networks that might go, right? You've got sort of blank canvas, we'll authorize you, we'll help you with compliance, the rest of it's down to you. You send us your proposition, we'll sign it off, and and and you're off on your way. And then there's slightly more hybrid options where companies like Continuum, uh one of the larger operators that where you would operate as a continuum advisor, but there's a lot more structure. You can go down the route of having full support, admin, and power planning, that sort of stuff. I I didn't really want to be part of like a huge organization. Um, I'd I'd been at a big company in my first role, went to a smaller company, really enjoyed that sort of boutique feel, really enjoyed, and actually think that attracted better better connections. It's a little bit more difficult when you're a larger firm to sort of get your get on the list of like approved referrals with other firms, and so uh yeah, I went on with the with a network initially and I went quite far down that road of application stage and sort of uh understanding how everything would work and went to a conference day and um yeah, that was what I thought I was going to do. And towards the end, um a couple of things happened, but I ultimately ended up taking one more meeting with uh a local firm, directly authorized firm that had it was like a exactly like I said, I was looking for a boutique, small-sized firm that was centralized, directly authorized, and had sort of satellite advice businesses that operate around that. So the advisors run their own businesses, they run their own client banks, but they have admin, power planning, proposition, back office, physical office. You don't need to really worry about anything other than looking after your clients and going out and getting your business. And I over the previous nine, ten years, I knew I'd built up a fairly loyal client bank. I knew that I'd probably start with a relatively decent level of assets under management and client numbers. So I thought I'd probably need something that's full support from day one, and so that's the option I went down. Uh so that that that company's called Montpelier Asset Management, they're based out of Cheltenham. Um, brilliant team, like fantastic people, really top-level support, some of the best power planners I've ever worked with. And um there's no way that I could be at the stage I'm at now if I hadn't done that. If I'd gone on my own or gone through a network where I'd still effectively be on my own and have to bring in my own staff or outsource power planner, whatever that, however, that would look, I just don't think I'd have been able to work as as much as I've done or build the business in the way I have done. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 38:17

There's lots of pick apart with that because there's so many different angles and so many different routes you can go down to being a self-employed advisor. And you did a really good job there of explaining that. So I'm not going to go back over that. But what I'm interested in is like, you know, when you went to that business in between, you're always you're a part, you're all like a partner, aren't you, in it? You're a part of something and you're growing something, right? And I feel like sometimes does that really scratch the itch of the entrepreneur with inside of you? That where you've got to talk work with other people who might have a share in the business or whatever, right? It's it's quite tricky to work with people you've never worked with before to build something for the long term.

SPEAKER_01 38:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:51

And often we find it tricky to navigate. We want control of our own way of living, working. We want to answer to ourself and our expectations. Yeah. We don't really want somebody telling us what to do when we've got a plan in our head of what we want to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I can relate to that. And how you described it there with Montpellier that are, yeah, there are firms out there that are directly authorized. They have all the branding and they're a business within their own right.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 39:20

And they've got a little centralized support and registered individuals that are working there as advisors. And they've gotten to a stage where they've thought, well, we don't want, we don't need to hire advisors, but we've got an amazing support mechanism here. We're a directly authorised firm. We're not a network. Yeah. Um, why don't we allow people to um bolt onto us? Yeah. We'll take care of their compliance. And if we've got a good strong brand behind us, good team, good operations, then that's only going to benefit those individuals. Yeah. Everyone wins. Yeah. And everyone wins. And the risk is less because it's self-employed. Yeah. They're not paying you a salary or anything along that. It's a great deal for them. It's a great deal. Yeah. And and and just for the listener who doesn't understand that, they you would pay away a percentage of your uh fees. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:03

So my gross fees get um, yeah, uh a percentage of that goes to them, which that's all my business costs. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

Yeah. And then what we also need to take into consideration here as well is what they do for that. So it's kind of like a menu of services. So anybody who's thinking about going self-employed, when they go out to the market, you're going to go directly authorized. You're going to go, apart from if you go through a simply biz or whatever, they might help with the compliance aspect of it all, you're going to get very limited help and support. Therefore, you're going to have to build the website, yeah, you know, everything marketing, email, admin, power planning. And if you stationary, like just stuff you don't think about. Gabriel returns, all these things that the FCA require you to do. And if you're an IFA, it's even more stuff.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:44

So being able to and some people go, I don't care. I want to do that. Yeah. That's what I want to do. I want complete and out of control. Go for it. But there is it's a lot tougher if you don't have, I would say, a good idea of the levels of AUM that you're going to attract within the first 12 months. Yeah. And it can take a lot longer to go through that process as well. Yeah. Whereas quickly bolting onto a business like what you have, you very quickly adopt their branding as well, their operational structure, and you plug into it.

SPEAKER_01 41:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:14

And that's what you felt, yeah?

SPEAKER_01 41:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:16

And then you running your own practice, which is your own limited company. Yep. Yep. It's your responsibility to do your tax returns and all those kinds of stuff. They don't do anything like that. Do they, out of that percentage that you give them each month for the fees, potentially the fees, do they take out of that? Do they charge you extra for anything else? Do they charge you for things like power planning, admin, nothing? It all comes out of that.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

All comes out of that. So nice and clean for you as well, innit? Incredibly clean. The only thing I paid for, and this was like in the first week, I think, uh, they asked me, they said, um, oh, do you want some business cards? I was like, Yeah, great. Yeah. And they and they'd like these really nice sort of gold leaf business cards. Oh, yeah, lovely. Yeah, thank you. How much do you want? I was like, I'll take 500, please. And then they sent me an invoice for 500 quid. I was like, Oh, I forgot I'm gonna pay for this stuff now. But that was actually the only thing that I've paid for in the and that you travel and food and that sort of stuff, obviously. Yeah, run your business then.

SPEAKER_02 42:12

I've got to ask those well, because different companies have different contracts, and it's something I always say to somebody if you're gonna join anybody on a self-employed basis, right? You're taking on most of the risk.

SPEAKER_00 42:20

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 42:21

Therefore, really the relationships with the clients need to be with you.

SPEAKER_00 42:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:24

So if anybody doesn't um uh live up to the expectation of the contractual agreement, you should be able to walk away without any problems, and we can experience problems where these things absolutely happen and destroy careers, right? Does that mean that you looked at that and made sure with your legal eye that you are in control? So are you in control of the clients? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:47

Yeah, I mean that was a big thing for me. The first conversation I had with him was around um the control of clients. Um, what happens if someone else in the business exits, what happens if he sells, and all those questions came up very, very early on. And we have quite open and honest conversations quite often around how I might want to structure my own business within the business, you know, bring in bringing more advisors on whether they be employed by me as trainees, or if it's simply an introduction into Montpellier, maybe some sort of different type of arrangement, but they would then effectively just be another me operating as a satellite around their business. Um so yeah, we've been just pretty open about that. And he's he's always just said, look, whatever you're thinking, just have a conversation. Have a conversation with me. Yeah, we're everything's on the table. So I love it. That's been that's been really good.

SPEAKER_02 43:43

So do you have aspirations to grow your your business within a business?

SPEAKER_00 43:46

Yeah, I do. Yeah, I do. Um I s I mean, certainly the way things have gone, uh probably this year I look to bring on a trainee, financial planner, that I can look to hand some clients over to. Yeah. Um also sort of coach, I guess, like teach to to to become a good financial planner. Obviously I would I it I don't need a power planner, I don't need any admin, I don't need that level of style. Because that's covered by Mongo. Because that's covered. Yeah. I just need someone who can who can help me manage more clients. The more you earn in respect of fees, does the split get less? Yes. Okay. Yeah. So once you get to a certain point, the the the percentage tapers uh at the at the at the most generous part, it's 80% of all the fees go to me.

SPEAKER_02 44:35

So a segment of what you would generate at the top end would be the more generous split. The rest is still the original split, for example.

SPEAKER_00 44:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then once you once your business gets to a certain level, and that's why for me I would rather add more people into my team. So strategically, what do you think is a good hire for you? Someone who is uh great. So I mean that I've got some people I've spoken to already about this sort of stuff who are really keen. Someone who's great um at the technical side of things, so I don't need that. That's one thing I don't need to worry about teaching. I don't want them to be needing to do more exams, I want them to be ready. Potentially someone who's been a power planner but is good with people and wants to make a step into advice. Yeah. Um, I think anybody that is already an advisor and maybe has their own clients, probably better off just going directly into plug into Montpellier as you are. Um, but somebody maybe was looking for that next step into advice and thinking that I could do with some sort of mentoring and tutorship into that bit like you did the next phase. But like you did in your first role, yeah. A little bit, yeah. Um, and isn't afraid to sort of have to use their own initiation initiative and um yeah, that's really interesting to understand type of person I'd be.

SPEAKER_02 45:53

How would you approach that though? So if you've got six, I don't know, if you let's say you you next in six months' time you take on your first person. Yeah. Okay. What do you think is the most important thing for them to do within their first three, six, nine, twelve months if they're working for you? What would you get them doing?

SPEAKER_00 46:07

Um I'd get them in front of clients pretty quickly. Uh I'd I'd sitting with them initially, I'd be really sort of going, let's let's see how you are. Uh give them constant feedback um for those first three, six months. Hopefully see those improvements show in as the weeks and months go on. Um but by the end of for me, by the end of six months, I'd expect them to be standing on their own two feet, starting to get themselves involved in different strategies to bring in their own clients and be on hand to support me with the larger client bank as and when as and when needed.

SPEAKER_02 46:50

So teach a person to fish type mentality, right? And get their fishing and eating.

SPEAKER_00 46:54

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:55

When you take that plunge, right, and you and you go fully self-employed, you give up your salaries and all of that, and you back yourself. Yeah, it's quite terrifying. Scary. Scary. Yeah. I've done it recently, like fully 100%. I've always been a business owner, but I've always been a partner with somebody. Yeah. I've always felt like I was employed, if I'm honest with you. Yeah. It's really weird.

SPEAKER_01 47:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:13

When I went and did that plunge, your gut just goes and you think, am I going to do this or not? Is it going to happen? You have that nervousness, right?

SPEAKER_00 47:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:22

But you've got to take that risk. Otherwise, you're never going to get a return.

SPEAKER_00 47:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:26

So, how'd that feel for you, that

The Cashflow J-Curve Then Breakthrough

SPEAKER_02 47:28

part? And was there any scary moments? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:30

Yeah, there were. Um, yeah, that was tough. Uh, I mean, luckily I had a partner or have a partner who we're getting married later this year, actually, and and she was amazing because it was it was a difficult, really difficult period. Because you you go through, you you do all your planning, you think, right, I've got enough. I I was talking to you earlier about their new house, and I'd sold the house, had some money aside, thought right, I'm actually not gonna buy a house right now, I'm gonna use that to to fund me for um for the start of this venture. But there's so many other costs that are just not factored in that just get thrown at you, and the time delay is longer than you anticipate for fees to sort of start coming through. So remember very clearly, and we're literally pretty much 12 months to the day that I remember that inflection point where for those first five months it was just money just flying out the door every month, nothing really coming back in. I got to sort of January, and it was like okay, the the the the the the coffers are pretty much spent now, so you go into the red and you start using credit cards to to pay for certain things. I always knew and believed in myself, so I knew that inflection point would come, and I it was so clear to me that it it would come, it was just could I could I outlast it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh yeah, it was it was the end of March. I remember something had to go out the door um Vise and yeah, and sort of putting it on across a couple of credit cards, thinking squeaky bomb time now. And um, yeah, then March was my sort of first large income payment into the business, and that that helped settle things, and then that was the the turning point, so the the bottom of the J, as as you might say, and then hockey stick, yeah. And then literally as we sat here today, as you know, I completed on house, which I a sort of house I never thought I would live in growing up, and um it's quite a nice, a nice full circle moment.

SPEAKER_02 49:29

It's a hundred percent a full circle moment. I've gone through the same process myself. I I want to talk about this a little bit because your journey has taken 10 years essentially to get to this stage, right? Yeah. The earnings that you had throughout that period of time up to this point were probably nowhere near what you're earning right now. No. It took the self-employment to get to the level of earnings that far exceed what you thought you were ever going to earn in your life. Yeah. Okay. Just let's just give the listeners some context around that. Of what it goes back to what we said earlier. Yeah. Don't need a degree, it's a it's a salary, it's a it's a career that you can earn considerable money in. Yeah. Right. Are you okay to tell us how much you've got under management and how long it's taken you to get there?

SPEAKER_00 50:06

Yeah. Um, so assets under management moved a little bit last few weeks with going on. Cheers, Trump. Um yeah, somewhere between 40 and 50 million assets under management.

SPEAKER_02 50:16

And that has been since you're an appointed representative for Montpellier.

SPEAKER_00 50:21

Yes. Which which might sound like 12 months, but it it's 10 years. It's 10 years. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:27

So all that energy, all that effort you put into your networking, building relationships with people your own age throughout that, and then leads being passed to you, introductions being made, the energy effort into qualifications, the experience within an employed role, the experience within that startup business, it all comes together to be able to give you that ultimate confidence of being able to start on your own. But when you did, at 36 years old. 34. 34 years old, right? And how old are you now? 36. So 36. 36, yeah. You're in a situation right now where you've got between 40 and 50 million.

SPEAKER_00 50:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:59

So that's how quickly it can go like that when that level of experience you've got is put into the right environment and the right structure.

SPEAKER_00 51:06

Yeah, it's that classic sort of 10-year overnight success thing. And it's like, you know, there's there's actually a long journey there, and you've got to eat all of that information and advice along the way. And yeah, the the referral side of things doesn't happen for you know, five, six, seven, eight years, really. And then it gets to a certain point where you can't really mess it up from there because it just snowballs, and you just keep doing what you're doing. And I I I was told at the time when I was going to go self-employed that you know, you'll find that people who you know maybe you not you don't feel like you've got a very strong relationship with people will want to help you, people will just come out of the woodwork, and um that is exactly what happened. Like, so it's so much support from people I've met along the way, people within the industry, people outside the industry, my own clients. Um, it was really like I had some lovely moments along the way, and then all of a sudden, yeah, it just I call that the entrepreneurial energy.

SPEAKER_02 52:08

I think one entrepreneur respects another. Yeah. So, like, for example, um my relationship with Luke, who's the videographer in the corner over there. Bull chap, good guy. Yeah, um, we came together as a partnership and he supported me in the stage where I was transitioning out of a business. Yeah. And we did deals and we worked on clients, and over time, we've built a lovely relationship, we help each other. Yeah, but it does come from two people who are on a similar journey helping each other. And I think there is a level of um respect and trust built when somebody um puts it on the line. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:45

I think you you send out a message that you back yourself. Correct. Confidence. Yeah, yeah. And I I think whether you feel it all the time or not, that's how that's the perception you give off.

SPEAKER_02 52:54

And you're going to absolutely shist yourself in the beginning. And it's gonna be horrendous and you're gonna have sleepless nights. Yeah. Something beautiful happens that when you break through and you start to see the income come in and you start to see the impact you're having because you know you could anyway, right? When it starts to actually fall in, confidence goes up, but you kind of you also remain humble.

SPEAKER_01 53:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:13

Like I'm not I'm not arrogant. No, you don't come across as arrogant whatsoever.

SPEAKER_01 53:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:17

But when you start to do good things, you're like, oh, it's like almost like your body catches up, or things, something catches up.

SPEAKER_00 53:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:27

Like you are what you were meant to be.

SPEAKER_00 53:28

Yeah. I think, yeah. And I think because you for so long I always felt like I was chasing another version of myself. Yes. And then, yeah, you're right. There is a moment where you kind of catch up with that person. It's like the shadow they talk about the shadow self.

SPEAKER_02 53:40

Yeah. It's like the shadow all of a sudden comes on top. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, that anxiety that you were feeling, that fear of not getting what you want.

SPEAKER_00 53:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:48

All that resentment about what you didn't get, loss and all of that, and the people you've worked with it didn't work out, all becomes this beautiful tapestry of where you are right now. And you're like, I am so grateful for my past, yeah, and I'm looking forward to my future.

SPEAKER_00 54:00

And all the people that were part of it. Yeah, because it's it's and I think that's when you said about you know humility and stuff, it's you really very, very I'm very aware that there's countless people that helped and mentored and supported along the way.

SPEAKER_02 54:16

And um and it's important that you take that energy and give it back. Yeah. And let's talk about that. Yeah, nice ego. Yeah, nice ego.

Giving Back Through PFS And Content

SPEAKER_02 54:25

In respect of your giving back, yeah, next generation.

SPEAKER_00 54:28

Yeah, tell us a little bit about what you do. Um, so I'm a volunteer first and foremost with the local Bristol Challenge PFS Committee. Uh, that's one element of it. Um, I am also an education champion with the PFS, so that involves uh going into schools, communities, giving workshops, talks mostly to students, children. Um, and I'm also part of the inaugural PFS New Gen program, which they started this year. So start of last year, they released applications for this program, which the CIR had been doing for a while, but in the sort of insurance world, it really successfully they just basically put forward, I guess what they call the sort of future leaders of the industry, and they want to put you on like a fast track program to get leadership training, media training, exposure to uh the FCA or parliament. And so that's the program that me and and a small group of advisors have been on. We're about six months in now, so working with a team of 10 other young advisors, all amazing people, like people that I know I'll stay in touch with for the rest of my career in the profession and beyond. Really bright minds, um, loads of ideas, passionate about trying to make change in the professional or leave some sort of footprint. Um, so yeah, those are the three things that I'm doing across the PFS. I think it it ties in a little bit with my own um sort of financial education side of things. So I make my own content, I do that on a few different platforms, which is largely around, as you say, the giving back side of things, which I've really ramped up since I've been self-employed because I do feel like I want to do that. Yeah, um it doesn't pay anything right now. There's obviously the element that understanding where future clients are going to come from is gonna be through the use of social media mostly. So you need to be present on there and building a community that feel like they know you before they approach you to maybe five, ten years down the line and say that I'm of age or of wealth now or I need a financial planner, you're the guy I've been watching for the last 10 years. So it the the best way you're gonna generate leads will be through people that don't need to be qualified because they already know who you are. And I to be there, I learned I say learn, I I got a lot of that from listening to your channel and your podcast and things that you've said around brand building, and it's um yeah, been something that I've really doubled down on in the last 12 months or so.

SPEAKER_02 57:04

I love it. Thank you for that feedback as well. Uh to me, social proof is one of the most important things. Whether you walk into a room and someone walks up to you and shakes your hand and says your name before you even introduce yourself. I have that now. I was in the opticians at Saturday, sat down, like giving this optician a load of grief as to why my daughter needs glasses. And he said, I've got to stop you. Are you Sam Oakes? He's like, I listen to your podcast. I'm training to be a financial planner. And he was and I loved it.

SPEAKER_01 57:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:29

I went to Titan Wealth last weekend to their last week to their summit. I could just walk around that room and every like 10 minutes, someone would come up and say, Oh, hi, you know, I listen to your podcast. You're the reason I got into financial planning. I was at the airport and someone actually said to me in an American accent, Sam, Sam's. And I was like, what the hell is going on here? God international. Yeah. But that day I had someone in London stop me as well. Yeah. So it's like I think social proof is so powerful, but it also ties into your networking thing as well. Yeah. You can walk into the room and they might know who you are before you walk into the room. Or if you make an impression and walk out of the room and they Google you, what are they finding? Yeah. Are they finding something that reiterates and confirms and proves that you deal with the type of person that he is? So if you're dealing with legal professionals, you might have a legal podcast called Legal Life.

SPEAKER_00 58:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:16

You know, or you might have some uh legal content that's gone out into money marketing or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 58:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:21

Or it might be a client story. Social proof is so important.

SPEAKER_00 58:24

And that's and that's the because the the social side of it and and the outreach side of the business is very much always going to feed back into the business. At some point, I want people to um you know reach out to me. All of that has to be super authentic because that has to match with exactly who I am and how I work and and how I come across. So that's also something that it's hard to begin with because you're not natural, you're very different in front of like a camera, but you do get used to that quite quickly. And I think any any young advisors that are looking to thinking about like how do I future proof my business, creating a load of content is probably the number one thing I'd say they should do.

SPEAKER_02 59:08

One of the stipulations for me, when if I ever look for somebody now to work with me at the Financial Planet of Life, look, we are a brand media agency, right? And I look at people who are comfortable in getting on camera off their own back. So Kerry Plum, I was about to say Jazzynski then, she's been married. Kerry Plum uh has worked in travel. So she gets on social media and talks about holidays and packages and she sells for her travel services through social media. She's now come to join me as somebody who's going to go out and start reaching out to clients and opening doors and booking people into podcasts and stuff like that. So I like the fact that she's got the confidence to be able to put herself out there and build her presence because it's super important, right? Yeah. Um, and then we've got Hannah. Hannah's joined us and she's our operations manager, but in the background, she's building out, you know, her own personal brand about her journey to become a financial planner. She's coming on the podcaster share. Her journey just yesterday, she passed her R01. So we'll be recording a video and we'll be putting it out there and showcasing it. But I don't have to don't tell someone to do that. No. They're doing it because they see the value in it. Yeah. And that's the bit I feel that is so super important. I want to be able to, like, if you look at the PFS and my my my relationship I can have with them or any training organization, Red Mill Advance, I'm happy to train people around any kind of media. Um, because a lot of it is just schedule, it's it's about planning um and doing. Yeah. As soon as you start, if you go back to the episodes that I released very first of all on Financial Plan Life, my microphone ran the wrong way. My friend said, like, you do realize your mics around the wrong way. And I was like, oh god. So like it looked terrible. But I tell you what, I had a bloody go for the budget that I had. As time progressed, it got better and better and better. And my confidence now is so different to what it was when I very first started.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:48

Oh, yeah. And if anybody is starting that journey now, don't look at your setup and go, well, that's what I need to be like showed away, because that's completely unrealistic.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:59

This is Luke. How much do you think this whole setup costs? This is Luke's first appearance on the Financial Planet Light Podcast. Prices on, Luke.

unknown 1:01:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:16

So you're looking at about 15 grand's worth of kit just here right now today. Yeah. If you say lights, camera, everything, then you've got to take into consideration that two people are operating those cameras, you know what they're doing. Yeah. Setting it up in the correct way. Yeah. Right, which isn't cheap, trust me, because I they invoice me. And then obviously they edited it as well. Yeah, cool. So you're talking over 20,000 quid here for an experience. You know, it's it's you don't it's a lot of money. Yeah. So definitely don't look at me. If they want the professional element, you come to me.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:43

But you can you can like you just said, you know, you can go back and see your first episode. You can go back and watch Joe Rogan's first episode, and you know, yeah, everyone's at a start.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:52

Yeah, yeah. They must die so listen. Absolutely amazing talking to you. Let's finish on. Where are you going? What does the future hold for you? Obviously, get picking up your keys today, I hope, for your new home. Yeah, I did that this morning. Did that this morning? Fantastic. Well done. What's next? What's the next? I always think I don't like saying what's next for the future. I like to know what's next in the next three months. What are you doing in the next three months?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:11

Next three months, um, putting on an event for the PFS for young advisors, um, focused around soft skills. I know we touched on that already. I I think, yeah, when I was a younger advisor, I was so fixated on becoming the most qualified person in the firm out of anybody I was gonna like that was what I thought set aside a great financial planner. As as I got more experience, you realize actually, no, that the key skill is relationship management, it's how to build trust with people, um, not just clients, but professional connections as well. That's how you you can grow a sort of a sticky business over a long period of time. Um, so yeah, we're gonna be doing that. Um, I'm working on the the project with the new gen guys, which is how we get involved in that. Yes, yeah, I know we're gonna do a little bit with that. So that's essentially we're looking to bring more people into the profession. You know, there is an issue that there's an aging population of advisors, um, there aren't enough young advisors coming through. Combine that with the sort of advice gap issue we have, where there's a whole load of the vast majority of people can't really afford financial advice, but probably need it more than the people that are getting it. So it's trying to make people more aware that financial planners aren't 55-year-olds, pale, stale, white guys. It's it is very much um it's a diverse profession, so we need to show that. I don't think we do a great job of doing that. So I think that that messaging is needs to improve. So we're gonna be working on making some content, which I know we've spoken about, um, and pushing that out there as much as we can, trying to showcase that this is and I I I believe this so much, it's a great, great career. Like it's it's changed my life to something that I just never thought possible.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:01

Like, yeah, and in reality, like you're careering towards, and this is why I want to end on this actually. Uh you go self-employed, you've basically got a skin in the game and you're building something that one day you can sell. Yeah. And at the moment, the average is about three to four times the recurring income. Yeah. So you've got 500k's worth of recurring income. Let's say your business could be worth two million quid if you exit it. Yeah. And people will buy that. Yeah. So this is what people need to understand as well. Yeah. So you can go on the employed route, yeah. That's for you. And a lot of people like to be employed. But if you're the entrepreneurial itch, there is a proven, tried and tested blueprint for building a business that you can exit out of and have a cashier ban.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:45

Uh yeah. And like I said, I was I was exposed to that very early on in my career. So I saw that happen time and again. And it was not only does your ceiling just disappear from an like an ongoing earning potential, but yeah, the the the character at the end of your journey, there is something there that you can and I'm pretty open to how that looks at the end. It's just to just kind of answer your question again about where I'm headed. I don't really know in the next three, five, ten years how that would look. Um, but I'm fine with that. Yeah. You know, I'm I I I love the day to day, I love the journey. I've enjoyed everything all the way up to this point. And um yeah, obviously I know that there's value now in the business, and that's come from the the decisions I took and the risks I took. But um yeah, I I don't I don't really know, and I'm absolutely fine with that. Good man, excellent.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:37

Tim look, look, absolutely pleasure talking to you today. What an amazing journey, and thanks for sharing it. Congratulations, give yourself a massive pat on the back. Thank you. Because that person that you thought you couldn't be, you are. Yeah. And you're about to smash it even further. So well done, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:51

Thank you, Sam. Appreciate it. Just