HELPING YOU TO GIVE MORE ADVICE
What really do you stand to lose ( embracing technology )? You might send the client a link to log into something or do something and they might turn around and say , “ look , Francis , I ’ ll be honest with you , I couldn ’ t click the button or I couldn ’ t do that , do you mind if we just have a chat over the phone or pop in and have a chat face to face ?” Of course ! Yeah , alright , if you ’ re very far away , it ’ s gonna prove a bit more difficult . But for the vast majority of people that we already work with , they ’ re local anyway . So there ’ s always that backstop of being able to drop in . That level of convenience I think is underappreciated by most people in the industry , but not by Fintel to be fair , and I don ’ t think by us . That ’ s really what clients are after .
WE CAN LOOK AT THE DATA AND SAY : “ THESE CLIENTS DON ’ T FEEL LIKE YOU ’ RE DOING ENOUGH IN THAT MEETING TO GET THEM ON BOARD AND TO BUILD TRUST ” AND SO WE CAN CHANGE OUR APPROACH AND OUR PROCESSES .
Looking at growth in 2024 , what advice would you give to advisers ?
FG
Do a fact find on yourself . Stick to what you are good at .
Have a look at what your day is actually about . I think the starting points are the easy wins , the low-hanging fruit . You ’ re probably doing a lot of manual stuff that can be automated with technology or with someone junior or who ’ s hungry , wants to be in the industry and wants to have a career , and would be happy , for a fair cost , to take it off your hands . I ’ m a financial planner . I ’ m not very good at most things , but I am alright at that . For us , the most valuable thing I can add to my business is being in closing meetings with clients . So my job then is to make sure that for the vast majority of the day I free up my time so that I can concentrate on the things that I can add the most to the bottom line with . So I ’ d say it ’ s a combination of those two things : what can I do just to get some easy wins to begin with , and then where ’ s the best use of my time ? For most advisers that I ’ ve met and that I work with it ’ s been in the closing meeting or being in the advice-giving meeting that is the most value added . So , can we automate the fact find ? Can we make sure that everything ’ s done compliantly without me having to do a manual suitability report ? Costs are likely to go up a bit , but if you know that you can make four or five hundred pounds in each of those meetings , it probably doesn ’ t take long to work out how many meetings you have to have before you can equalise it out . Then there ’ s stuff like Upwork and Fiver . There ’ s loads of freelance marketplace places online where you can get someone who can do administration stuff , who can do paraplanning stuff online and at a pretty reasonable cost without you having to take someone on fulltime or work it all yourself . I think that would be the two things . What you do well and where ’ s the low-hanging fruit ?
I ’ M A FINANCIAL PLANNER . I ’ M NOT VERY GOOD AT MOST THINGS , BUT I AM ALRIGHT AT THAT . FOR US , THE MOST VALUABLE THING I CAN ADD TO MY BUSINESS IS BEING IN CLOSING MEETINGS WITH CLIENTS .
Looking wider , do you have any other recommendations for advisers ?
FG
I had a chat with VouchedFor just before the end of the year , and they ’ ve got some really interesting stuff around automation . So , you have a first meeting with the client , then they drop them a quick note saying how was it ? What ’ s the feedback ? Are you likely to work with this adviser ? That ’ s amazing for me as someone who isn ’ t in the meeting all the time with the advisers . We can look at the data and say : “ these clients don ’ t feel like you ’ re doing enough in that meeting to get them on board and to build trust ” and so we can change our approach and our processes . That ’ s again completely automated , all done by a third party . It ’ s not expensive to do it but it ’ s things like that that we can add most value to . The thing that we ’ re experimenting with now is , with some of the junior guys , putting those pieces of tech in place to go “ look , I ’ m not in the meeting with you all the time , but here ’ s some training points and here are some things to make sure we ’ re closing more of what we ’ re getting ”. If I ’ m being completely honest , I don ’ t really take on that many new clients myself . I get stuff through from clients and then I ’ ll work with one of the junior guys on onboarding the client and then the junior guy will tend to take over the relationship from there . So I ’ m always in the background if the client wants a bit of FaceTime with me , but to be honest , I don ’ t really take them on myself . I just get the referral and then pass that through to the team .
Any final thoughts or messages for the industry ?
FG
I think there could be more openness between firms in a lot of areas . So , for example , if there are people in the industry who are working for someone right now and it ’ s maybe not quite working out , or they want to work with different styles of people or different niches , my view is I ’ d rather they go and work for another SimplyBiz Member firm if they don ’ t wanna work with me ! Also , there ’ s not enough ethnic minorities and not enough women in our industry , so if they come in and it ’ s not the right fit , how can we all work with each other to try and make sure they stay in the industry ? If anyone out there has a situation like that , I ’ d love to have a chat with them to see what we can do .
20 | the adviser