HELPING YOU TO GIVE MORE ADVICE
So , just to kick off , tell us a bit about yourself , how you got to this stage and your involvement with Humboldt Financial .
FG
I started in the industry in 2010 . I did law at uni in
Liverpool but after the Great Recession there were just no jobs available . I was seeing a girl from Essex and she said , “ look , there ’ s no jobs in Liverpool , there ’ s a few jobs in London , let ’ s go down and see what we can do ”. So , we moved down , and I got a job as an AR with Zurich Advisory Network , did a few years with them and did my exams over a few years . Then , starting around 2015 , I was getting referred to a lot of tech-focussed people , people in Twitter , Deliveroo and WeWork . They were all in their 30s and making three or four hundred grand a year with loads of stock options . So , I approached my bosses to ask if I could have a real go at targeting these customers , and they agreed . However , after six months or so I didn ’ t feel I was really getting the support on that that I thought it needed , and so asked if I could leave to have a go at doing it on my own . To be fair , they were as nice as pie . They said they ’ re all your clients and you ’ ve gone about this the right way , so we ’ ll sign them over to you . We ’ ll give you ownership of them , crack on , and they signed everything over . I did a couple of years with Quilter , but by 2017 was like , look , I need to be Directly Authorised . I need to be independent . I want to control more stuff around what I do . I got referred into SimplyBiz and it has just been a dream working with them since then . It ’ s such a change in how they approach stuff and how they talk to you . Like compliance meetings are “ this is what you should be trying to achieve . This is what you should be doing about it ”. These are great ways of doing it that we ’ re seeing from other Members of ways that you can improve it , and that ’ s such a change from when you ’ re in a network and “ you need to do it this way , Francis ”. So , nothing but nice words to say about everyone and our experience with them so far . Their support has also allowed us to take on people . We ’ ll probably have 10 CAS advisers by the midpoint of this year . We take on loads of grads who don ’ t have client banks , who aren ’ t in the industry , and spend loads of time training them , which means they ’ re really au fait with technology . Loads of the stuff that we do is online and done through Teams or Microsoft Office , which , again , SimplyBiz is great for . Whilst I am CEO , I ’ m mainly just the lead adviser on most cases and they work in tandem with me , building plans , making sure stuff gets done , compliance , all of that sort of stuff . And the plan is just to keep going in that way . So , we ’ ve got four planners starting in June . Again , grads out of uni , but we ’ re open to probably take on another chunk again before the end of the year and just keep sort of growing by 50 % headcount as long as there ’ s a need there from the clients that we ’ re working with in order to keep growing and taking clients on . So that ’ s the plan really .
I THINK IT CAN BE EASY TO GET CAUGHT UP IN THE NOISE SOMETIMES , BUT OUR JOB REALLY , AT ITS CORE , IS JUST SOLVING PROBLEMS FOR PEOPLE .
So , you started in 2017 – it ’ s been a bit of a rocky ride since then . What ’ s contributed to your success despite the challenges ?
FG
I think it can be easy to get caught up in the noise sometimes , but our job really , at its core , is just solving problems for people . They could work it out for themselves , spending time doing the research and all of that stuff on the weekends , but they want to spend time with their kids . They work 10- or 12-hour days themselves . They probably could do what we do , but they ’ d just rather pay us a small fee than do it themselves . So , I think it ’ s probably a combination of being a nice person who ’ s honest and upfront , but also being really good at what we do . We say what we ’ re going to do and then we actually go and do it . I think for us the main reason for the success is just that , at its core . Showing up , being nice , putting a smile on , but then doing a great job for the clients and impressing them . Wowing them . What that leads to is future business from them and retention of clients . But they ’ re also looking at their own mates and , you know , they ’ re at dinner parties or at Christmas , their cousin or their brother ’ s whinging about pensions or whinging about performance and they ’ ll go , “ my guy ’ s alright . He ’ s an Everton fan , don ’ t hold that against him . Here ’ s his card ”. Then I get a phone call and someone wants to have a chat with me and it grows from there . So , it ’ s just that combination I think of being a nice person but being really good at what you do and just keep doing it and showing up every day .
Your firm clearly emphasises personal relationships but also embraces online tools . How have you approached modernising a traditional adviser relationship ?
FG
It ’ s hard to re-enact the feeling or the emotions of when you meet someone face to face . So , we know that the online thing is limited a bit . But , with that being said , our clients ’ average age is 42 . They ’ ve been on Facebook since 2010 . They ’ ve been on Instagram , they ’ re on LinkedIn . A lot of the stuff that they ’ re already doing for connectivity with their friends is done via an online presence . I think some advisers probably feel they need to hang on to that need to do it face to face or they need to be nearby . They don ’ t . We don ’ t think that at all . What they ( clients ) need is a slick system where they can see what ’ s going on with their pension , where they can get in touch with an adviser at the drop of a hat , where they can see what their retirement plan is looking like and where they can amend stuff . They want convenience as much as they want trust . Fintel get that probably more than anyone else in the industry , we think . Stuff like the CRM systems that they ’ re bringing out with Plannr , again , it ’ s all about how can we quickly and smoothly make this process easy for a client to give us all of their financial information , so that when we ’ re talking to them or when we meet them , we don ’ t need to spend 40 minutes asking them about how old they are and what their date of birth is . They can do that at their own leisure . They can do that on a Sunday afternoon or when the kids have gone to bed and they ’ ve got a glass of wine . They can do it in their own time and then it makes the client-facing stuff so much easier and so much smoother .
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