19 - Onboarding Pt1 - Getting To Know You

and style. Three more reviews of crap.

thank goodness for that. Let the truth out next up is Toby Heinz who I've met in person, I think a few other people on the call have golden nuggets in every episode five stars as a relatively new advisor with a real passion for full fat planning. I'm finding the content of this podcast, invaluable, knowledgeable, experienced guys doing the job for the right reasons, and doing it in the right way. There are always a few nuggets that I take from into my own work. Finally,

it's from Duncan go. Essential five stars. Thanks, guys for a great podcast and essential for all financial advisors. Back to you, Nick Lincoln.

episode 19. In the show notes, I did ask who this was from and no one's come back to this a thing about the ONS people population and community someone will talk about that. This is why the preparation that way you guys just go the extra mile. Just passing

actually is it then? So it's a conference whereby it's run by a bunch of accountants called Fitzgerald power, and a corporate finance house called rhinitis. And they basically just get a bunch of successful entrepreneurs, business owners

to tell their stories. And you have tons and tons of great people and all of the I suppose business people who are who are serious about business in the wider Dublin area around it, and it was just something that it was just great to be back out there and talking to people and really well Ron. But but my my big point here is I love hearing stories from people who have been there and done that and

Arthur so many. I know you call them knacks in our industry, Nick and some are obviously very, very good at what they do. But you just can't beat hearing from people who've had experience and that was the reason I wanted to put it in there.

You'll have to be competent with a microphone competent with the camera.

step up. We've already got double digit number of people who want to do it, just add yourself to list and somehow by fair means off our will pick will pick who that person is going to be given notice, and we'll walk you through I will walk you through the software. So you're not just coming in cold to record the episode.

there's a range of awards. And much too, I think all our surprise, we saw that posted on Twitter and LinkedIn last week that we've been shortlisted, there's a number of other, which would appear to be very good podcasts for the financial planning profession. And we are in that little list. So if any of our listeners any of the trap is listening into this one, I don't know what the criteria is.

I don't know how they're gonna choose who the winner is, is it just a judging panel who decides what the best podcast is or what their specific decision criteria is, but if anyone's listening to this and want to give them a nudge, by all means, post something on social media, give us a shout out and give the judges something to think about because it would be quite nice to win, I must say. And, yeah, just

the paid version. I'm on the paid version. I don't quite know what the difference is. But yeah, huge shout out to those guys and girls and nextgen that did some good work. Anyone else?

and all that sort of stuff. But nevertheless, we find ourselves now, Nick, you and I were speaking about this recently in terms of the category, because this isn't really this isn't a personal finance podcast. Specifically. It's more designed for people who are in professional and people who've got financial planning businesses or aspirations to

have it. So we find ourselves yes, we're in the broad business category, but pretty much everyone is in and then but this sort of subset is entrepreneurship the entrepreneur category, which is which a lot of it the conversation is around. And that and in that category, I know there are things that literally 1000s and 1000s of podcasts that fit into that entrepreneur category. And yeah, I mean, I just happen to look at it maybe once a week and I most found we were number 15 in the UK.

Podcast charts under oath and yeah, and you're right so Stephen Bartlett's The Diary of a CEO. That's always number one. That is an it's a huge business. He's publishing a podcast At least twice a week, sometimes three times a week, but I listened to it the other day. He's got 30 full time staff three zero full time. So that's a real business. Just just on the podcast Darcy, you're 30 full time. So and then, you know, people like Professor Scott Galloway and Tim Ferriss,

and Alex are Mosy. We've mentioned this before you these are all the top top top podcasts in the world. They've got businesses that sit behind it, they are publishing two or three episodes per week. And ask jokers pitch up, you know, doing it ourselves one episode every two weeks, no budget, no absolute shambles. And you just to be on the same page as those guys that was is amazing, frankly. So I posted that on Twitter. I tag Steven Bartlett and he Yeah, he did he give us a

shout out. He just he replied said you know, well done. Congratulations. And he said, Just keep going because the the main success criteria for this is consistency. You just gotta keep going. So that was a nice little boost for us to remind ourselves. Just keep going. Thank you, Mr. Bartlett. Mr. Witter. Your hand

that. But for me, that means is there are financial advisors out there in Ireland, the UK in the US, and probably South Africa and further afield, who are actually listening to this. Clearly, not everybody is going to agree with everything we say. We don't even agree with each other. But like, thank you so much to everybody who tunes in. And it is nice. There's no point in saying otherwise. It is nice for to bump into people who say Oh, I listened to the podcast and I thought that was great or

are I disagreed with that. It's just it's, it feels like we're having an impact. So thank you to everybody who has downloaded an episode so far. And please do keep doing so.

prospective client. And we're just looking through it as a colleague of mine has shared this with me, and looking through all the information that they have been provided by their

existing advisor. And I'll I won't name the existing advisor, Don't think I don't think that anyone's interest to do so because I think this is kind of commonplace, but large national brand, they get a full detailed documented annual report, which is sort of similar, it's very, you know, nice and shiny and professional looking for similar to the sort of stuff that we do, and we're required to do for clients. But there is absolutely zero reference to fees and

charges disclosure. Now, my understanding of the regulatory regime in the UK is that you are compelled to give a full detailed breakdown of all fees and costs both in monetary terms and in pounds and pence, at least once a year to your clients. And what I've discovered since we had a look at this, and there's nothing and the client said this is all I've ever got, you know, this is everything I get from the my

existing advisor every year. And then that that sort of spurned a few other conversations, and it seems that the rules are being interpreted entirely differently. Because I tell you, we probably go too far, I think on reflection with our fees and disclosure documents. And every if there's ever a change, or a client asked for some income withdraws, or there's a small top up or anything at all, we go again and we we continue to sort of put fees and costs and charges and repeat ourselves

multiple times to clients. I'm not sure if it's of great value to clients. But the difference between that and having zero disclosure at all is quite marked. And I'm just wondering if anyone else's got any views or their own experiences? And what do you guys do? And also of the view from Ireland bear and he was What's your take on fees and charges disclosure on an annualized basis?

And even the disclosure we see is sometimes not full disclosure, I have seen D FM's have like a 28 page report and section nine is about fees. And honestly, it's blank, I go to section nine and it's blank. Or they might say we charge 1% plus VAT and levers that, again, it's just, it's a little bit

details. And again, just the friction and the barriers that are in place, because who met how many people are gonna actually phone a number and get I don't even understand once they have, indeed that they get through. So it feels to me and I agree there is a balance, you should disclose your fees and

charges. But you but I think we've as I said gone too far as a colleague of mine said the other day, imagine that you got to full disclosure on owning a car right now, every every month or every quarter every year, you depreciate depreciation on your car, the petrol you put in everything, and this is all the cars you would never own a car, you'd say this is just so expensive. But you're right. But

there's a balance. It just seems to me that there are some organizations just kind of playing a little bit fast and loose with the rules and just doing as little as they can. Whilst the rest of us good guys are doing the right thing. And I must admit it just it doesn't augur Well, to me in terms of the consumer duty rules, which are about to be enacted in this country in July this year, I believe and I just think it's

gonna be more of the same. We'll be we'll be sort of belt and braces doing everything we're supposed to do and others will just kind of broadly ignore it. Call what are the what are the rules of it in Ireland in terms of ongoing fees and charges disclosure? Do you have to do it every year?

get away with that. So I think that would that's a big, you know, massive, massive difference. It's grown and telling the client, you know, to half percent of your million quid as opposed to five grand and gone every year, we're gonna take five grand. So look, I think that is a big difference. But do we a little bit like what you said, Alan, if there's if there's kind of top ups or anything like that, we have to go again, right? And tell them

again? Yeah. But we have a, I suppose you've heard me say it a million times, right? We're trying to get ready here for RDR, which were bloody well open might bring in might be brought in at some stage. So we were aligned. And then also, they'll also see that I was deeply uncomfortable with the content of some who today's always to the Irish and versus UK cultural differences.

In case people think that I kind of think these things through at the end of Ireland's for a segment he said I'd be interested to get the view from across the sea in Ireland and I went, Oh, Jesus, I haven't listened to or it's been. So I had to listen very intently to what Andy replied. Thankfully, Alan then jumped in again and went okay, I know what they're talking about.

with you. You know, you're inferring that it's a shame your existing advisor doesn't like it kind of it's just a way of separating you I think I think it can't, you know, in that sense, it's got it's got to augur well for the advisor that does come up from with the fees saying this is what we this is what we're going to charge this is what you're gonna get. And how do you feel about your existing advisor you're assisting DFM note never telling

you what the fees are. You don't know what you're paying them and we're quite happy to tell What we're paying. So now you can make a value judgment Mr. prospect, Mr. Prospect? And

every single year. Where do we get where are we getting when they're sending them a video screaming at them a monetary number? And they've got a sort of, they've got to say, Yes, I proceed. They got a they got they got to consent. Here's a loom video 1004 to 75 quid this year. Are you okay to proceed next year?

three elements. And typically, if you invested X amount, it will be this and people can see it, you know, it's just you don't have you know, so yes, and I'm one of those advisors who does put their fees on their website, but I don't make a big song and dance about it. But it's there for people if they want to look doesn't make me better than anybody else doesn't make me worse than anybody else. Right? I think we've done that

sufficient justice. So two episodes ago, Episode 17, I spoke about how the UK stock market as in terms of capitalization in global terms is just shrinking and shrinking and shrinking. It was double digits 20 years ago, that was 12% of the market. Well, market

cap. It's now just about 4%. And this week, I saw a tweet from a respected financial journalist, one of the better financial journalists, Marin, Somerset web, and she was tweeting about a UK tech firm, I can't remember the name of it, sorry, but it's decided to go and list in the

USA rather than list here. And Somerset Webb said, Imagine you had a firm to list, you can do it in the UK, get half the price on listing, get half the CEO salary, spend most of your time talking to compliance, and then get chucked off your own board after nine years. Or you can list in the US we need reform now. So there's obviously a problem with entrepreneurship in this country, and a complete disregard for the private sector

and business. And it's starting now to impact it's really starting to impact then in the comments from you guys. So you got something to add, we can move on to the next thing. Okey, dokey. And what else? Yes, just just add, I think I saw a good website and American website. It's the kindness financial planning run by a guy called Elliot apple. And he's a virtual

financial planner. So for those of us who are moving to a virtual world or near virtual world, he's got this great website, they'll be linked to it in the so called show notes. Just just talking, it's client facing. So why you should use a virtual financial plan and why you shouldn't and how I work and of course, being American there, they stand to the nth degree

very slick. So if you're thinking about doing that, and being able to communicate the merits, and the disadvantages of being a virtual financial planner to your target audience, is just you have a look at his website, and there's nothing new under the sun. Take some ideas from that. Now. Oh, Andy, Andy, you've had even a love fest happening in the last few days go on Berkshire Hathaway. Let's do it.

meetings going back to 1994. And I have listened to all of them. And they're about six hours long each one of them. So if you're as sad as me, I want to overload on the Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, I do recommend checking out this podcast feed that is absolutely awesome. My next topical tip bit is just gone from that.

some See's Candy. If anyone knows anything about Buffett, I'm very excited to be in that.

bounce off each other. And he said something at the beginning doesn't because obviously it wasn't a day of putting a title again is of the Royal the coronation King Charles and yet Buffett says we have our own King Charles here. Look at Charles Munger, Charlie Munger got the audience laughing along

That was quite interesting. And a couple of other things. But yeah, going back to the whole sort of back catalogue to 1994, and a podcast. Feed is absolutely brilliant. And you go through all the different stages, like the tech crisis, the financial crisis, and then a COVID. All the other things that we've gone through. Yeah, absolutely brilliant, superb. So yeah, do check out certainly the latest one and then also, if you like them, check out the back catalogue, a couple of other

quicker updates. The hum conferences are selling well, South Africa, huge chunk have gone I think we've got about another 100 left tickets, so please do buy one there. We've got Bruce Whitfield, who's a big speaker in the in South Africa, and we've got our very own Alan Smith making the trip out to Cape Town, leaving Paddington to go on a good show. In Kilburn south

yeah, Lisbon is fantastic. And I'm going to be going to Porto as my next European trip, which I've heard is potentially better than the Lisbon which I'll, I'll be the judge. That's it really.

to you on the water. By the way this if we go on for a long time TRAPPIST with this, we might split this over two episodes or so because this is a big subject, essentially, the client journey, Mr. Smith?

started. So started the business, every business whether it knows it or not, whether it's kind of thought through or whether it just happens by accident has a you know, a new client process, whatever we you want to describe it, how you engage with a potential client when they first make contact with you. You have a meeting or a series of meetings and we're all doing a variation on the

theme. I don't think anyone is doing anything dramatically different but I'd like to and it's a kind of a follow up to some degree on the conversation that we had last episode, which was a focus on critical non essentials. I'm really trying to get into the weeds somewhat and hopefully offering some insights and thoughts and some experience to the listeners about a good

kind of new client. I don't like the word there's no there's no better word but onboarding, onboarding new clients, how you take new prospective clients through your journey, how you work out whether they are a good fit or not. How you politely disengage if the answer good fit and how you take clients on so some years ago, I went I'll tell you just a brief a brief story which will take you back sorry, Andy, we're gonna say something before we go through to this No, put your hand up

of how to do good things. And in that vein, in 2000, late 2008, nine, around that time, I was I came across a firm, I think I've mentioned them before one of the previous episodes, but there's a there was a firm called CEG worldwide in the US, who are offering coaching consulting courses, what I'm what they refer to as being for the elite financial advisors, elite Wealth

Advisors of the world. And the backstory of this, the founder of this organizations guy called John Bowen, who himself was a was historically was a financial planner, and, you know, started off relatively humbly and then grew his business and grew his business and grew the firm. And he was in the West Coast of America, he was based in sort of Northern California, he merged

with a firm in Los Angeles. And he disclosed and it's all public information, he's happy to share it, he's disclosed that their clients included Tom Cruise, Oprah Winfrey, David Letterman, some of this, some of the biggest, you know, American football stars, basic basketball stars, all that sort of stuff. And he said, We got to a point where a minimum entry level to

be a client was $25 million. So I thought, I'm gonna listen to this guy, if he knows how to grow a business like that he must know what he's talking about. Because he sold eventually sold his practice, sold his business, obviously hadn't more money than he could count or it ever needed and created this consulting coaching business called CG worldwide.

And I got to the point where I was going to travel out, they had this wet ran for a year, you go for a quarterly meeting in San Diego, I think it was I was all ready to go buy my ticket and travel out there once a quarter to learn from these people. And lo and behold, through a partnership, they had agreed with dimensional fund advisors, they came to the UK. And would they ran the what would be a one year program, they ran it for a week. So five

days pretty intensive. And as a number of people that are there are still in our financial planning community. Today that we're on, we're on that same course, I believe it's the only time they ever came to the UK. And it was very profound. And it was very kind of life changing and business changing for my company, because we adopted so many of the practices that went on that they shared with because they said this is how this is what the best firms in the world

do. So I'm a big believer in replicating, finding best practice and just copying it rather than trying to invent it myself. So in terms of your when you first meet with a client, assuming that they meet your criteria, and you go into what they call what is generically known as a discovery meeting. So this became quite interesting, because they said this was the key to everything. So they created they have a 62 question,

discovery meeting process. And I'm sure that your nick is probably looking at eyes rolling right now, I don't know. But they, they effectively gave us a script. And we just started doing it. And it was quite different. And maybe a lot of these, these things are adopted. Now, but I think a lot of this, most people still don't go through this. But they they start a question, they start talking about the seven key subjects they talk about. Right.

So the opening, this is the first meeting that we always aim for, if it's a couple partners, you know, husband and wife, partners, spouses, and they would always do things that very specifically identify who is the least financially dominant partner. So you ask who takes care of the family finances? Usually, not always, usually it's the man. So the return to the least dominant, so be the woman in this case. And they'll start asking questions, and they start asking about what the core

values questions. And they do ask questions like, what was money like growing up in your childhood? You know, what does money mean to you? And they say things like, Tell me your story. Tell me Tell me now. And then they go through a whole range of questions across seven key subjects, as I say 62 different questions. Some of the questions, frankly, were bizarre, and we didn't adopt all of them. I mean, they, for example, they say, Do you have any pets? They want to know do

you have any pets? You want to know the one of the questions because they would also be potentially exempt transfers. No, I mean goldfish, horses, dogs, cats. But they said there's an impact because some people if you had in some of this sort of very high net worth people had horses and stables of horses or some people theater, the dog was the part of the family so it was all quite rare.

It was really kind of out there and very kind of California for a bit and so we We had to apply our own credit, almost sort of UK a fire to some extent. But as a result of you go through this, and the meetings would take two and a half to three hours, very pretty, you know, quite intensive, we'd record the meeting. And you come away with that with what they called a total clients profile, which is

effectively a mind map. And if you can get the client's entire life on one page, across their values, their goals, their important relationships, their interests, their hobbies, and it's not until you're probably an hour into the conversation, you're even talking about money. I thought that was quite interesting. And you know what, so we ran that for many years, really successful. People liked

it. And I've just realized, like a lot of things in life, we probably we stopped doing it to the same degree, it was so successful that we stopped doing it. Yeah. And that's one of the processes we use. So we've got a bit of a refresh going on right now. Does it still make sense? Should we go back to it should be freshen this up a bit, because I think we just diluted it, we've gone. We've kind of short circuited a little bit.

But that's, that was quite a dramatic change to anything that we were doing before that which was more traditional IFA factfinding, which went straight into, you know, assets, liabilities, income expenditure, this was a much higher level and as much long, much more long winded, I suppose. But it didn't have good engagement with the right prospects and right clients. So throw that out to anyone who'd like to comment in terms of that first kind of discovery fact fun, wherever you

want to call it meeting? Who's got any thoughts like to share in that?

it different differently. And I'm not sure I've ever done a discovery meeting that went over, say, an hour and a half. So clearly, there's an awful lot more depth in what you're, you're talking about doing. But then again, do I think that we don't have good profiles in our heads on good relationships built up with our clients after the initial discovery piece? I think we do. Right? So I'm not sure we need to extend it any

more. Where we've come to Ireland on this is we've done a, we've a getting to know you questionnaire, which is basically like you're all fat find. But we've developed that it's an online version. When you click It's a hidden page and are on our website. So we send that out to anybody who's looking to get a financial plan starts off with a letter for me or message for me as to here's, you know, we do it differently. And we're going to answer the answer the questions like Are you going to

be okay? And we're going to try and deliver a plan whereby it's designed around your goals, dreams and aspirations, etc. And then we go through it. So we start off with some of the software questions, you know, your first memories of money, that kind of stuff. And then we get into tell us about your assets and liabilities we do. There's no point. So in other words, and then we try and finish with some of the software

questions now. I think if the some of the softer stuff at the end are really, really insightful for us. One question, if, in 12 months, time you were to review this relationship, what would success look like? And then in three years time, same question. What's your experience of financial advisors before? So you're getting an insight into, you know, what their expectations are, and what their experiences are already.

And, you know, I saw something on Twitter recently from the our American, thin twit friends about, you know, Oh, you don't really ask people about their goals. Do you? That's so tweet. And that's so you know what we do? Right? Because we need to know, like, I'm not embarrassed ever to say I, we have three words, right? So three words that we drive home. And I always say to the guys, if you're not using these three words several times in the initial couple of meetings, it's a fail, goals,

dreams, aspirations. Keep using them, keep using them, keep using them so that the clients you know, will feel that this is different now. I had I did one on last Friday in our Dublin office with Simon Ross or financial planner in Dublin. And we opened the meeting to try and give the client a sense of this is going to be different with what's the video Andrew, you did it first. It's absolutely made Think your life Life is a journey or something like that. And it's about living your best

life. So I said, Look, were different than what you've ever experienced, this meeting is going to be different. It's going to be around your goals, dreams and aspirations to set the tone of that, can we watch a video together? I think it's two and a half minutes. I love it. I've told you all so many times, I love it. It's a It's sorts to try and you know, get away from the private bank, you're coming in here to feel stupid to be afraid to ask questions, all of that kind of stuff. It's how can

we change the tone entirely? So that's how we do it.

view was just do it. Don't mess around. Don't try to do a watered down version of it. Just go straight into it. And you'll you'll learn from your feedback, and you'll change it. And we had to change, you know, because we were having I remember one of it was like one dark, wintry Monday morning, early, early Monday morning. And this guy, a very successful entrepreneur, and he just wanted to come in and he just wanted to review his finances. And he there was no, there's no setting. We hadn't

set it up in any way. And I remember sitting I just thought it was a carry on. I sat down with this guy. And I just said tell me what was money like growing up and even what you want to borrow? I said what is what is what what does money mean to you? What you and he was just really incredulous. He thought wonder what the hell,

and all that sort of stuff. When he calls his clients that he's had for like, 40 years and rings up, usually the wife picks up the phone, and then she she shouts that the husband, oh, it's blah, blah, blah, the insurance salesman. Although it was funny, like now he's like, a lifestyle, financial planner. Like, how could you possibly call it the insurance salesman? So that was the first thing

right? It's just a bucket list book. Right? And we're not expecting anyone to read it. We're just trying to set the tone of what happens in our office and too many people have these bucket list items of the never get around to and all that right? So are the stuff we can identify early on. Why Why aren't we doing that you have loads of money in the bank wire to do not just go and do so.

answer. It's too vague to say but what do you mean you mean goals today, tomorrow this week? The rest of my life? I don't know. I think it's quite in my experience. It's quite common people say, I don't really know. Yeah, boy, sort of push a bucket list. Do you want to go and visit the Taj Mahal or so No, whatever,

softly with you. And you will you will, they'll start it will become apparent, as opposed to actually having to ask the questions. Right, I

time. But do we have a sort of a,

place on it. I think the the following years that they go through the same process back to Carl says to sort of setting the tone, they then become more future focused, the longer they work with you. That's what I've generally found that and they become more engaged in the whole process over Tzedek.

this? Because we put money aside for it this, whatever it is this, you know, cliche thing, this fantastic one off holiday to the Taj Mahal or whatever it was that we talked about five years ago? Well, it's coming up now. So you know, how do you find the booking process? Well, we haven't done it yet. Nick, we're going to come Okay. Well,

the money's there. Right. So I think it will, it should come up organically as part of the annual planning meeting process, because it's in their financial planners, as a cost is now going and we're here to make sure that the money is there for those things when it's needed. That's really our role. Just look at the question side of things. I'm not i Yes, my discovery meetings are normally 15 seconds. Now it's virtual, I can just

disengage them. I mean, I, yes, I use a three year question, you know, for it to be a success, what it really three years hence, what does success look like? Look like? I think that's it. That is a good question. I try and avoid the tree hugging stuff. And I think there's, there's maybe it's a cynical side of me, I think there's an awful lot of money's been spent on that kind of stuff. And I'm not sure it's totally appropriate. And maybe that's an American English, psychological

difference. And the other two questions I do ask them the three year question. The other question, and Carl mentioned this one is, have you used a financial advisor before? And what was the experience and listen really carefully to that, whether it's negative or positive? Because if they say it's true, if you say it, it's conjecture, but if the client

says it, it's true. So so when you're following up that meeting with them, you say, Okay, well, if they had if they had a negative experience with an advisor, because of X, Y, Zed reasons, you in your follow up email to the client, or what have you, or your loom, you say, and by the way, we take a lot of time and effort to make sure that we do this, this and this the exact opposite of their

experience. And the third question I asked my clients who referred so I will say to prospects, listen, you've come to me from from Lucien Graham, tell me in your words, what Lucien Graham said, I've done for them. And then they'll they'll they'll tell you talk about the graphs, and it's sort of financial planning and cash flow, and you kind of sorted them out and put them on the

straight and narrow. And again, because they're saying it, it carries a lot more resonance than if I say, I'm going to do a cash flow graph, we're on the straight and narrow, which should just go you know, over the heads in one ear and out the other.

two questions? The next question is quite important. Do you currently have a written pounds specific financial life plan? We know the answer to that is going to be no. Some of them say yeah, I've hobbled something together on Excel but yeah, not not not to detail. And then I put what your hobbies, interests or passions again, just to get an idea for them. I then asked them a sort of financial planning question again so that I'm preparing them for what we're

going to be doing. If you were to retire next month, approximately how much monthly income would you require to maintain a dignified and comfortable retirement? Assume your mortgage is cleared. Again, I'm wanting to or wanting to get a grasp of, you know, 2000 pounds a month, 1000 pounds a month, 10,000 pounds a month or something like that. And then ask them a couple of questions about where they live. I've got a disqualifier question actually, on my discovery form.

And this is what it is, how many personal finance slash investment books have you read? None, one or two plus? Two plus is a huge red flag for me. So, yeah. Why? Because often, it just is going to cause some problems in the relationship potentially, from my experience.

it on the table. And he says, or he or she says the adviser says I'll just say no, I've just got a list of interesting questions here. Like you just call it out. I've got a list of interesting questions here rather than just trying to pretend it's all natural. Okay, yeah, that's good. So yeah, your relationship with money, no siblings like looking. It's just, it will just look very unauthentic. So yeah, just just call it out and say I've got list of interesting questions. Yeah.

thing. Shit, I can't do anything but these people. So that's just the end of the day. And the second page is the more questions are there the open questions? Why do you make contact with me? What are your concerns? Do you have any high level aspirations and people generally will open up with that because although and I get that, but I don't book in the discovery meeting until it comes back. So I'm not chasing them

ever. The day before the meeting, the meeting does not I say to them, I'll send this out to you get it back to me when it's back to me, then we'll do

the discovery meeting. And because I've got that high level financial information, I can then do you know Armisen bucket, I've got enough to do a personalized bucket based on that Word document for them, which I either draw on the board behind me or I've got a Google Slides and PowerPoint style presentation, which I'll do for them as well but because that information is come back to me I could do a bucket that is about them, you know, there's no point me doing a bucket with bite and

let's on the outside of the bucket if they've got both, let's say but if they got a limited company, you do that you do the factory icon or what have you. And that's how I do it. And I would say it probably takes people about 1015 minutes to fill out the Word document. You know, it's it's, but I think I get and I mean, I love I love having hidden pages on my website if I want really detailed information on certain things, you know, and I do use

that. But I think the word documents just kind of open you know, they can just find you around with this as they want as long as they get some if idea who they are before we actually believe we had the first proper meeting with them. That's That's my process.

done at first hit. So it's a nice way of kind of just getting taken care of some initial stuff at the outset. Yeah, that's, that's,

been them off by that stage. And I don't the risk assessment questionnaire comes right at the end, because they have to have a bit of a bullying session for me where we talk about risk. And what were the real risk is, you know, I think, if it gives you a public receptive question that they're going to answer it the way they think you want to, you know, they only get the answer they think you want to see, not the answer they need to be giving. So I that's interesting

lifestyle is gonna triple. So we're all we're trying to do when we do financial planning for people, like good folks like you, is to minimize the chance of you running out of money before you run out of life. Because that's the biggest risk and and how we're going to get you through this. financially secure within that with a dignified independent retirement is by giving you chock full portfolio is chock full of the great companies of the world.

Now, that's going to be countercultural, you weren't here and blah, blah, blah, you know, you know, the lines, and then we go off that, and then if people then start just to say, Well, I still don't want to go down that I don't want that, you know, then okay, well, then we probably can't work together. And you know, and I haven't given them a successful questionnaire, I haven't given them a compliance thing as yet. We haven't done any regulator device, so they've just disqualified themselves.

So it's kind of because it's a kind of a cool document that hopefully sets us apart. That's why we introduced it at the outset, the mumbo jumbo questionnaire, I just haven't found a good place to do that. And the client journey, we just got it done early as kind of a review on that.

doing the cash flow. And it's painfully obvious that they if that if you put them into the normal shit, actually really high risk to their financial health, four out of 10 portfolio, they're going to run out of money, then you then you have the conversation and you would

Honestly, Nick, we don't we have probably pre qualifiers in our on our website. So we tend to get more high net worth people than not. So it tends not to be a big issue. That's not to say, have we had a couple of issues? Of course we have. We just talked to the clients.

with them. So at that point, we've gone through the discovery, initial phone call, sort of question, sort of a meeting. They've got an idea about the fees, charges structure and process. They've got an idea about the investment portfolios that I manage as well. And then obviously, the strategy meeting is building their financial plan. And then after that we do all the compliance regulation to get them on boarded as a new client.

A little bit of a story about that I'm taking on a client at the moment that just got one investment company involved, I thought this was gonna be a walk in the park, they completed my fact find with their address as they put an extra new digit in the address. So basically, we copied that and put a letter of authority together to this new new investment company trying to get the information back from

them. Client and then also the client said, Oh, by the way, my email address linked to that investment company is not the email address using at the moment. So the DocuSign needs to go to the wrong the other email address fine. So I went to another email address came back as an extra digit and we sent it off to the provider two weeks later, they said this is wrong, and they highlighted the

addresses wrong. I went onto Royal Mail found the address found the extra digit, I thought sugar, this is a mistake I've done. Then I went to the back find that they filled in and they put an extra it's just it's just a it's just an a complete enough faff. So you've got to get the right email address right for DocuSign linked to the certain company that's involved. You got to obviously get the

address right. That's like, ridiculous, but it was two digits but you put in three digits was very hard to spot.

because we talk about this. But a lot of when I've talked to other advisors, they that what they want knows how just you run your meet your planning meetings, what goes on. So if we focus on the first strategy meeting, how we set it out, what we do beforehand, the parameters, the messages, we're trying to get across to the client throughout that initial meeting, and yes, we could talk a bit about the tech but I mean, that's not really Yeah, okay,

let's do that. So, if we're happy with that, gents, I think it's time for us to consider moving on to the next part of the show and it's always there on time. There is posting hauling the bulging sack of practice questions. Trappist if you want to post a question to the real advisor podcast, please do so in the pinned tweet,

there's a link. There's also a link in the show notes and open up a Google Form put your question in there we are going through them as much as we can but loads to catch up on we really do appreciate your input. It's your show and you shape it as much as we do. So let's have a look at the questions we've got here. Who's this? Okay, this is from someone called Tom RS not on Twitter. Having trained with a restricted advice firm, what advice would you give someone who wanted to set up on

their own? A one man independent advice firm? Do you think it's necessary to get experience within an independent firm? First I'll have a quick stab at that that's okay you guys because one of the meat and potatoes subjects that wasn't discussed today, but was this thing about tired versus independent? So I would just go back to first principles Tom are and question whether you need to go independent. It's easy to say so I suppose because I'm not

gonna do it. But if I was starting out again today, I might well look at the restricted model. The only thing wrong with the restricted model is the horrible word restricted. It's a terrible adjective if they call it focused. It'd be independent or focus that sounds far more restricted is awful. But most of most real financial advisors in my experience Tom are restricted. Then their trade, appellation might say independent financial adviser, but they're all restricted.

They'll the real financial advisors will use one or two platforms. They'll have one or two Investment Partners. they'll have a process that all clients go through to get each unique client to their financial, financial salvation. But it's this throwback to the days when we were product brokers. And I think the regulator's still viewed us as product, you know all the regulations about the product all the time, isn't it? And that's why they put a lot of

a lot of heat on it. So I would say if you're going out on your own fine. There's no difference between independent and restricted, you might have to do some more compliance stuff as an independent friend. But I would just go back to first principles, as I said, just that, you know, what do I need to be independent, if it's that more, but that much more

burdensome? And there are more compliance regulations being independent, then just think you know what, just think about going restricted, because most most of us are in reality. Okay, guys, but

investments. And if I'm restricted, I can't give any advice on those whether to keep them, shut them do anything else.

financial planner. And to me, there's a there's a checklist of things. And we've sort of debated and discussed it in the past, but you'd be in financial, financial planning lead, for certain having a robust, sensible investment proposition that's defendable, and evidence based so on, I obviously would say being a chartered firm is another tick in the box. And obviously, being an independent

is a tick in the box. Now not everyone's gonna agree with that, of course, and people who aren't those things we're not going to agree with if I were starting from scratch and say, I'm going to optimize this is the optimal Gold Standard Model, there's five or six key points. You know, I would defend that all day long, why would you not I don't believe that the the the barriers to independent versus restricted are significantly

bigger or greater. And yes, there is an extra bit of friction, undoubtedly, there is. But I want to be able to stand in front of my prospective client, my existing client saying we are an entirely we're not only are we independently owned, we're not owned by third parties, or banks or stockbrokers. Anyone else pushing that agenda? And secondly, we are independent of thoughts of mind. And we are not, we don't have a restricted range of products and services

that we can offer to you. The reality is in the UK, the vast majority of the big national brands are restricted. And I think that's a competitive advantage for small independent boutique firms.

about product. I say to clients, I'm independent in the broadest sense because as you do and I own No, nobody's got to share in my business there's no bank or building society or insurance company prodding me to sell a particular brand or product I am independent of mind as you'll find out if you come on board with me. But I just I this whole thing about focusing about the product is just just just drives me nuts. Andy,

flows will have lost already. I understand that you will argue this is an excuse for ESG investing and an excuse for active management. I also have my own reservations about ESG. And I'm sure Nick will concur. But I also believe there is systemic risk to passive investing. Am I have a lie down? Please refer to Mike Greene's comments the last five minutes on the trigonometry podcast at the end of January I think which I'm sure Nick will be familiar with. Just quickly interjection

here. I get my breath back. I do listen to trigonometry. I can't believe I listen. I don't think I listen to that episode. Back with the question. PAGE 17. He expressed real concern about the systemic risk of passive investing. Surely this is worth serious consideration to not actively consider the fundamental allocation of capital seems to contradict the very nature of capitalism itself. Surely at times, it's

amazing. Oh, god. Yeah. Okay, long story short, there's no, the quest side of things is, is passive investing. This guy can't be an advisor in the marketplace. Basically, I

yeah. So it's still a significant minority of the way their assets institutional and retail assets are. Just that's what that's the first first point. And the second one is, there is no such thing as passive anyway, we're all taking decisions at a high level about, you know, geography or asset allocation, new

you got to go buy and sell. I don't know where to start with that. Because all the evidence is weighted against me in order to do that. So just estimate the power of the dark side. If so, it feels to me that, you know, whatever shade or variation of passive that you tend to employ is, yeah, it's the least bad

option. It's one that is the one that is the science and evidence would say your, your positive outcomes and more weight, they're more likely to have a positive outcome at this moment in time, maybe in 50 years or something, if it becomes a bigger thing that goes from 16% to 36% or something, but that itself creates more, but well that but that creates more opportunities for active managers. If everyone is slavishly buying the market. Then for sure, there are some

arbitrage opportunities. There are some sort of price seeking opportunities for active managers and then the wait might fall back But it tends to just you just rely on the natural order of things. And passive investing or factor based investing or Evidence Based Investing is the least bad option for me to day

well. But as I say, I prefer to go to an active advisor, that's 100% global equities, and the passive advisor that's 5050. The 100% active equity portfolio, things going to hammer the 5050 passive, so again, the guns are facing the wrong direction. In my opinion, it's all about the asset allocation. Yes, we want to keep the fees down. But the asset allocation is going to move the needle far more than active versus passive, and also

fees of the funds. So the asset allocation, I think is absolutely central to all of this.

last 20 years. Did you do any of you guys know anybody who's who's done this with a passive approach for say 15 years and then gone back to active I don't know anybody, it really is a switch you make that change? It's a site it's very hard to see the compelling evidence for going back and so hard that no one ever does it in our experience. Okay, let's move on to culture corner. Okay, so the first culture corner is a book just asked by Graham Eisner.

for us. His subject matter is all about referrals. We've talked about referral strategies on this podcast before. But for most professional services, and particularly for financial planners, it remains the number one sort of opportunity to grow, grow your business through word of mouth and having existing clients refer you to their friends, family and connections. But no one in my experience has ever nailed this stuff. No one

has got it, right. No one has had that I've ever sort of met, you know, any listener, by all means, you know, get in touch with us if you haven't nailed this, but a systemized, repeatable, scalable referral type structure model that is followed by all everyone in your company and is generating great opportunities for your business week after week. Graham Eisner has kind of done that. And he's built it in a clearly legitimate, successful wealth management business at

Goldman's. And he's written a book about it, and the book has just asked, and he unpacks the whole thing. There's seven key components to it. It's a very readable book just recently published, he's done some trading for us in our firm. It's good. It's worthwhile by the Book link in the show notes.

So Paul Ehrlich wrote the population time bomb in 1960, or 69, said that millions and millions and millions of people will be dead by the end of the 1970s through famine, where there's just too many people on the planet. Paul Ehrlich is still alive he has been wrong about pretty much everything is one of these Malthusian prognosticators Of Doom is loved by the New York Times and The Guardian. And this guy, Julian Simon in this in the 70s said,

Okay, let's have a bet. Paul Ehrlich you think everything's going to hell in a handbasket that we're going to run out commodities and food and and they picked up five or six commodities, you know, silver, metals, whatever, iron and said copper and silica by the end of the decade, will these things cost more or less? And by the end of the 1980s, and Julian Simon said they're gonna cost less Paul Ehrlich said, no, they're gonna be way more and Julian Simon won this bet

between them. It's kind of you know, but it's just this ongoing thing that we have to be optimistic about the future because we have to be a fountain of optimism for our for our for our clients, right. You can't let you cannot be a successful investor. If you're a pessimist, it just cannot be done. And the books will entertaining It sounds quite drab. It's quite good and it's quite as fun bye.

into their life to Julian Simon has passed away they were these two academics were just bitching at each other in their papers and so forth. It was just super productive. Sounds

perceived slight. And they just thought that you know, that tramp that lubes knew you use the railway bridge, who smells of Oui oui. I am familiar with that person. That's your best ever girlfriend.

engineering. He's got a great tale in there about building the ventilators, for the lockdown bedwetting episode and how the civil service just don't have a flu and change the rationale almost daily for six weeks before telling him not to bother. But I'll close with a comment from his wife who says optimism has to be the most loving and supportive attribute that James has. He doesn't just hope for the best. He simply believes that everything will

work out. And again, it's tying in to this thing you know, as financial advisors, our clients are bombarded with negativity all the time, everything is worse than it ever was before. We've got to be that well that they can draw on for optimism. We have to remain optimistic and give some of that to our clients. And those two books. Just you know, Ehrlich is wrong about everything. James Dyson, just crack on. Version 5126 Didn't work. Let's try version one. Oh, now it works. And now

I'm multimillionaire. And now I'm doing all kinds of things like opening up universities and encouraging engineering in this country. Just a great a great, great guy. Mr. wager on healing with Brendan ring.

support work for that. Anyway, listen to the podcast, because we've all often set it to each other about how lucky we are. We all then five minutes later, take it for granted. And we all need reminders all of the time. And listen to the podcast and listen to what Brendan has been through. But listen to what little bit like what you're saying Nick what he turned it into, he turned it into this thing. I'm going to I'm going to be it's going to be himself and

Terry his wife. If this is going to be a force for good in in the in the memory of cleaner. It's an inspirational podcast. Olivia does a great job and talking to Brandon because I know Brandon wasn't very comfortable going in to do the podcast. Please, everybody have a listen and then realize after you finished it, how lucky you actually are.

his latest one. His famous one was liars, poker flash boys. Superb at sort of narrative and stories. And the three series that he's got all three seasons that he's got against the rules of first seasons all it was all about the roles that referees play in, in sort of life in America. Season two is all about coaches. And season three is all about experts. It is absolutely

awesome. So if you're into your podcast into good stories, the Michael Lewis against the rules podcast is massive, strong recommendation from me.

about it. So to study a subject, he learns around the subject, and he knows that he's not going to use any of that in the book, but he just needs to get closer to the subject. So so he talks about this whole sort of process of put stories together. It is awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. Check it out.

thank you. For your precious and your input into the show rate isn't even six out of five star review on iTunes. We do love them. We'd love the kind remarks. It gives us some just amazing Phillips. Of course like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. But until the next time from the trap pack, it's at the OS and take care of their folks. Goodbye. Cheerio.