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Well, yes, indeed. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to episode four of the real advisor podcast T R A P trap. My name is Nick Lincoln with me as ever in the studio of doom are the three other Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Alan Smith, Carl Witcher and Andy Hart. Just want to say a quick word at the start of this before we get into the meat and potatoes. We launched last week, episodes, one, two and three came out, boom, boom, boom early on a Friday morning
sequentially. We've had a brilliant, brilliant reception. I'm speaking on behalf of the whole track team here. The production staff, the marketing, the people who run the canteen for us. We are just so grateful. The responses have been brilliant, way too many to go through individually. But we really do appreciate it. Lee Robertson at Octo members published a nice long form piece that was put together promoting us as well. Thanks for that Lee.
We may come across as highly attractive, sexy, successful business entrepreneurs, but actually we're raging insecurity driven people. So the more the more praise you give us the benefit everybody that's helped us it gives us that little oomph to do this show. So thank you. This is your show as much as ours do. Trappists. Great stuff. Thank you. Right. Without any further ado, young Mr. Andy Hart is going to lead us off with the
first topic of discussion. But before we do that, and just a quick thing you went to the ci si had its annual shindig last week in Merseyside at the Maritime Museum. How was it? How was the vibe, but most importantly, how was your train journey getting there?
Yeah, I went to the CSI annual conference. I went last year at the Red Bull HQ. And this year it was in Liverpool. A bit of a nightmare because it was on Wednesday, and there was a train strike on Wednesday. So everybody was trying to find different ways to get there. So I booked my train originally on Wednesday afternoon, I then thought I'm gonna have to go Tuesday night. And then I booked Tuesday night and I thought I'm gonna be in Liverpool Tuesday nights or Friday morning, like What
madness is this? And obviously booked a hotel on Wednesday, the Thursday and then some Brightspark so why don't you go on Thursday morning, book a train. I was like, Okay, fine. I'll book a train 527 Train on Thursday morning. I booked it. I was in the taxi on the way to Euston at five o'clock. I checked my app and it said train canceled. Like you are joking me. So I had to go back to where I was and came back two hours
later. Got to Liverpool. So I got to Liverpool somewhat a little bit late, as did everyone. It was very funny. Abraham, who we all know, flew up there. He flew from London to Manchester and then got a taxi from Manchester to Liverpool. Someone else who was talking on ESG investments, believe it or not, had to fly from Exeter to Belfast, Belfast to Liverpool. Two flights. Yeah. To talk. Yeah.
I think that ESG saving that
was the ESG keynote speaker. Two flights to get to Liverpool. There was a good bunch. There was a lot of consultants and professionals that I know and also, you know, financial advisors are good mix of presentations. Lovely venue. And the evening was good. It was in the St. George's hall with you know, Liverpool. It's a wonder building, you know, wouldn't be out of place in any major city, you know, London, Rome, you know, New York. It's a very grand building. That was
great. That was fun black tie, or was interested in getting dressed up these days? Because we didn't do it obviously for a couple of years. Yeah, it was it was decent. Yeah, I recommend it. It cost me a few quid. I think I've booked three nights, hotels, three trains, etc, etc. I had to buy a pair of trousers last minute from Zara because the current ones are a little bit baggy. Yeah, all in all, it was a good trip. So I recommend it. You know about that.
You left school my friend.
Right. Can we ask questions, Nick, please?
Yeah, cool. Yeah, go for it.
What was the best presentation you saw?
I met a guy that runs an awesome business called change please. As in Chang, c h a n G, E, please. and which is what they do is they reach retrain homeless people to become baristas. And they also sell coffee. And it's sort of also social enterprise companies, but it's a big company turnover, you know, 10s of millions. And then, you know, expanding globally. Yeah, it was an awesome company. And he was
talking all about that. And I put him in put me in contact actually with someone at the venue that does impact investing, that's got a fund and he's looking to raise money. You know, I had a 10 minute phone call conversation. I said, like this one guy here, you need to meet. And I spoke to the one guy and said, You need to meet this guy. They both spoke to each other and said, right, we're gonna meet up in London, hopefully gonna do something. Yeah, that was an awesome
company. And then I got on the train on the way back to London. And the lady sat in front of me with the change, please. Coffee Cup in front of her. I'm just sort of smiling. Yeah, that was a that was good. It was couple of other financial planners talking about, you know, coaching and various other things. Yes, that's the highlights.
Are you? Are you a member of the ci si.
I'm not a member of the ci si. And it's a nightmare because I can't scan him with the app. So I've got to send them an email. And I don't quite know, because I'm not chartered, obviously, proudly not chartered. We could talk about the show. Proudly not chartered. That's the death knell to your career young advisors listening don't take that seriously. And, you know, I'm a member of the CIA and the PFS, and that's where I do my stuff. I I'm not charted. I've not done CFP
proudly. So yeah, no, I'm not.
There's probably another, it's probably another conversation for another time because we were members of both. And because we are chartered and the company is chartered. And then we had to make a decision. It was like to, to professional bodies, and you end up having to do your CPD stuff to both of them. And it's just about twice eventually. And they're all kind of the same, really, and it's, you know, the Monty Python.
One had to give.
Yeah, exactly. So we were like you with PFS? That that body is like that. It's like the Judean people from other people's front of Judea. That's a different conversation. Right? What else do you got? Andrew?
Is your topic who Who makes the best clients? What makes a good client? What do you think, Andy? Yeah, I mean, because this is
an advisor focused podcast, we're going to be talking about things that, you know, advisors to the fat on, you know, when we meet up in private, I suppose. And obviously, we have to be conscious of how we straddle certain topics. But this is yeah, what makes good clients? Is there a certain makeup of your top three, five clients, I suppose we're going down the niche. You know, I like to work with sort of nice kind, family orientated decision makers, I don't really have a direct
niche. It's a bit of a mix sort of my clients, because they come from sort of here, there and everywhere. I know, we focus on retirees and the approach to retirement, and then business executives and high earning professionals and all this stuff. But I think most people end up with a bit of a mix of a client bank. I've got a few sort of widows and widowers that I deal with. And I generally say, older ladies make slightly better clients than older men, you always got that sort of type
A ego situation going on. Yeah, so I just thought I'd open up that subject subject, because I know this is things that other advisors think about. Yeah. So is there any defining characteristics? Is it more personality traits? Is it more background, slightly older clients who are a little bit more wiser, a little bit more calmer and a little bit more open to professionals, and let's say younger clients, again, it's massive overgeneralization is on a note is going to be anecdotes
to everything that we say. So that's it really opened in that subject matter. Yeah, what makes good clients, you know, we want clients for life set for life. So we don't want to be taken on clients and then running into a bit of a personality clash and then having to disengage them or they disengage us. I've lost five clients in my life. I've disengaged four ones disengaged me. And it was painful, those five disengagement, but it's not the end of the world. You know, considering how many clients
I've dealt with. So yeah, there's a bit of a background into this. over to Carl. Yeah. What's your thoughts on that?
Yeah, it's interesting. Like, we would have started up and we were a much younger company than we are now. Everyone was the client. And we'll be honest, and I'll show you that right. And as we've kind of matured a little bit, we have done a bit of work around this. And the latest iteration of our website, which was done maybe two years ago, we did try and nail this down a little bit
more. No one When I say nailing it down a little bit more, it's certainly not the niches that the marketeers would like you to have. And that's kind of me just thinking, Well, look, Ireland isn't exactly a massive market. And I think niching into too narrow niche is would be would be foolish. So broadly speaking, the three, kind of where we, where we add the best value to people we work the best with Andy is kind of how I would describe it. And they are
business owners. And it's honest, I can narrow that a little bit down, right? It's kind of business owners who are now starting to think about what's gonna happen when or if I sell. So that might be 10 years out five years out. Yeah, it's people, as we described as
succeeding in your career. So that's like, we've a good few kind of senior VPs and multinationals that kind of stuff, people who will have the maximum pension pot, and who, funnily enough, build wealth almost in spite of themselves, right, because they don't look at it, and they don't intend to engage. We found too much with financial planners, but kind of a couple years out, they're gone. Okay, maybe we need to
start thinking about this. So we have a good few of those, that's definitely a big growing market for us, actually. And then we have people who are kind of ash are in retirement, so it might be people who have already taken the plunge, and are gone. Okay, we need to, they all have that question that we've spoken about before, are we going to be okay? And, and where their intuition
might be telling them? Yeah, I'm going to be okay, I'm going to be fine, we have enough money, that maybe a year or two into retirement to go on, hold on, if we if we keep the current burn of our cash are we going to run out of cash, and we'd love a plan, we'd love somebody to kind of keep us accountable, make sure that the plan is is correct, is everything is in
order. And I found, for me, that's probably the most interesting bunch of people, because they're a little bit like what you said earlier on. There, they're mature. So they've been around the block, they know what they want to do with their lives. They know what's most important to them. And they've figured all that stuff out before they've come to us. So talking to those people about goals, dreams and aspirations and bucket lists.
They're kind of easy conversations, whereas other people who haven't even ever thought about it, you know, it's, it can be trickier to, to kind of get into that interesting stuff. And that's the stuff that, look, it's easy to say, but it's really exciting as a financial planner, to, you know, sit with people and start talking about goals, dreams and aspirations. You know, that's inspiring for the financial planner as much as it is for the
client. So you know, they're fantastic conversations to have. So So broadly speaking, they're kind of the three clients segments that we work best with. And really what we ask ourselves and Mattis all the time as if they're outside of that, those three groups, which are broad enough groups, well, we need to be asking, why are we doing business with people? So I know, Andy, you and I have spoken
about this. But you know, and I think you mentioned at one of the previous podcasts about maybe doing business for children, off clients, so we will obviously do that kind of stuff. So it's not as if we turn people away if they're if their parents or friends.
And we'll go into Alan so the other thing I look for is being organized and motivated. And they have to be good at Tech. I mean, nowadays, it's just painful the amount of tasks need to do with clients from sussing that out early on. Again, it might sound a bit odd but it's just you know, you've got to have a smooth process of all this stuff so organized motivated is the key thing and
you're gonna take we've seen We've seen your frustrations this morning when I couldn't get my marketing on the tech we don't do we don't we do not demand such
well. It's it's reading writing arithmetic and technology when we say I'm not good at technology it's like someone saying the I can't spell I can't add up I mean it it's important they
might be plenty good at technology just are not as good as you at technology
and try to get that but they need to be able to do relatively simple things like send me an attack anyway sign something scan a document. I mean,
Sherman Nabis entre visa
I would just I would just say I did recently. Sack sound such a horrible phrase and I did part company with disengaged for years who just don't don't don't use technology and it's just driving me scatty and they were, you know, they were nice. I liked them. They were good fee earners for my practice, but it was just becoming an absolute drag. And I just thought, you know what I
like too short. And I said, you know, you're better off finding an advisor who's local to you, who will give you the home visit so that you weren't here we were the paper life that you want to document and I'm transitioning. Not in that sense, but I'm transitioning away from the traditional way of doing things to the more zoom based. Electronic. Sorry, right. ALAN SMITH gosa.
It's interesting listening to their call, because your niche is business owners, employees, and retirees. So pretty much everyone. Everyone with a few quid basically, yeah, a few quid. Yeah, it used to be if you could breathe, you're in now you got a few quid you would? Yeah, like you. We've done a lot. I say that, you know, in jest and tongue in cheek as we were until quite recently, in fact, probably our collateral materials doesn't, hasn't been updated enough yet.
Because we were kind of at that as well. We talked about entrepreneurs, senior executives, and retirees, those are the three sweet spots for most of us. And we've done a bit more work on this. And of course, we're in London. So there's there is more opportunity. There's a there's a bigger pool of potential clients. And we created something like a you know, like the marketing people would have you talk about a persona, an
avatar. So we've got this couple capital, Chris, capital, Kate, and we and you go into some detail about you know, their lifestyles, their ages, their children, all that sort of stuff. And through that you can identify where their pain points
are. So we know that the more specific and targeted you can be in any walk of life in any professional services walk of life, you know that the more response you'll have from that target audience, but you've got to start with identifying Are there enough, you go back to you to begin with the end in mind? How many people like this
actually exist? There's an increasing amount of data available for you and say, Well, if we got, if we captured point 5% of that market, for example, would that be enough to defeat us if you like, so you can go niche and super niche, but there has to be a big enough pool of potential clients to do it. So an ideal clients like that, you know, that there are there's a sort of profile about let their position in life merely the
ages. But ultimately, we all want to deal with people, I think all of us have got mature enough businesses, that we're no longer desperate for the next potential clients to sign up to pay the bills. So you're being nice, being engaging, being responsive, I think is part of it as well. And it's sometimes you do have to, we've done it not often, but a couple of times, just professionally in a friendly way, part company is
still very awkward to do. But if someone's not engaging just makes all our lives far more difficult. So good. Yeah, good conversation.
It's the All Blacks rule was in the no dickheads rule. I try and employ it in my entire life, really. And it's the whole Nick Murray thing, isn't it? Clients become friends, friends become clients. You know, you're taking on these people, they're going to come into your life, and they will become friends over time. That's a good thing. Because friends listen to each other, and that they can be, you know, brutally honest with each other, which is also a good in this mighty
profession. Nick, anything on this subject?
Yeah, a couple of points are. You talked about clients becoming friends, I had an annual planning meeting yesterday with clients. And I've been working with them 13 years. And I now do the financial, they send me their updated financials each year. And and what they think they're going to be spending going forward any one off projects, and I do the financial plan in my office. And then I go, I yesterday went and saw them for lunch. I didn't even do the financial planning
with them. I said, I've done it. They know me now. They trust me. Because they're friends. And after a while you become the message. You know, it's not what you say. It's how you say and who's saying it. That's what people buy into eventually, once you've got that report going. So I didn't even take my laptop and my Catherine modeling software. So listen, you told me you want to spend 60k on renovating the house, I've run the figures, and then you're going to be fine.
And the nice thing is they're bright, right? And they've got money. They've got wealth, but they just needed somebody to sit on their shoulder and give them permission. And I'm saying to them as friends, I'm giving you permission, go forth and do what you want to do an hour that you intuitively know you can afford this and it's not going to put you in financial peril later on,
crack on and do it. So that's the thing about clubs becoming friends, it's I have such an informal way of just having a nice meal, just joking and chatting with them and everything else. And the other thing I'd say about the ideal clients, and I would trust on this, okay, you've got your client personas, and you've got your niches that you want. Just but the most thing is go with
your intuition. Intuition. Just you'll know within 30 seconds whether or not you can work with these people for the next 30 years. And it the gut feel thing is so strong and you ignore it at your peril. If someone comes across as a mucker or a waster get them out of the door, politely get them out the door and you know, Nurse bring the next patient in. That's Jim Yeah, trust you. This this is this is what's happened. This is
the evolution of the last sort of 1010 to 20 years or so in our profession that because it used to be much more transactional sales driven experience. So Canada didn't matter if they were going to buy a policy doesn't matter. But now that every client, you sign up now has a unique place in your life and your calendar. Yeah. And they're in your calendar every year. You ask yourself at that stage, do I want this post one, two or three hours of my life every year, for the next 10
years with this person? And that's, you know, that's that's quite a defining decision
to make. And the trouble is, it won't if you bring a mocker on board, it won't be three hours. Well, it'll be 30. Exactly.
Yeah, yeah.
We do. Yeah, we do talk privately amongst ourselves. Don't worry about red flags. And, you know, yeah, your intuition is you saying that
he's got yellow cards and red flags, suddenly, you get you get a yellow card early, early on, and then a red flag.
We talk about this privately, don't we? But yeah,
very, very, very trigger happy with his yellow,
red cards. And there's, there's red flags for clients, which we all know what they are, but you can maybe talk about them and not so there's Amber flag, you think they don't quite know about it. So just a little bit of their sort of inexperience or if they don't know, and then there's obviously green flags, I want help. And I'm happy to pay fees, I've got loads of money, you know, all that sort of stuff that we know, tech. But the other thing is?
Well, back to Allen's point, I found in recent years, when people haven't gone on the quest to find a financial advisor, they think financial advisors are desperate to take them on. So they'll call up one person and be a little bit rude and be like, well, I've got this. So you're going to come and see. And the advisor might be like, we don't really do that. And they think, Oh, my God, I got
pushed back there. And then the next person they call, there are a lot more, oh, I'm looking for financial advisors, or any type charts, you can get, you know, they're a lot more sort of cordial to the process. And they might have got pushback from about three or four financial advisors. And then they bring up the fifth one, and they'll go, what have I got to do to get financial advisor like I thought it would be easy, and you guys and gals will be clamoring to my
door to sign me up. And we're all sort of screening them going, No, I don't want you from a sort of personality point of view, I don't want you from a wealth point, if it
surprises if we describe at that initial conversation with a prospective client. And we say, the purpose of that is just to identify if you're a good fit for us if we're a good fit for you. But sometimes we eat people that aren't a great fit for us. But we you know, we'd happily send you to somewhere else, and we might be a better fit. And all of a sudden the dynamics change. You're right, they go hang on your every thought every advisor wants my business, well, maybe
maybe not. And that's that's the thing. Once you've been in business for a while you've got a mature business,
you definitely you definitely know, considering I haven't gone full steam ahead with it. But I think some people call them client interviews. You know, like a discovery meeting. You know, we'll have an interview to see if you're a fit for us. And immediately the framing of that is, is Jesus Christ. I didn't realize you were interviewing me. I mean, it's the whole Nick Murray, isn't it? We're qualifying them. They're not qualifying us.
I heard one of your on your latest podcast on the guy de depressant trainer guy that you interviewed was really good. And he does propellants market marketing on his website. So he's kind of pre screening people saying, if you're not x, y and Zed basically don't contact we're not gonna get on. Yeah. And I thought it was, you know, maybe not quite as harsh
as as how he puts it. But you know, your your marketing messaging can help in terms of screening people before they even come to you for that first meeting. So I think to focus in on that would be would be a good idea for everybody. Tell people in your messaging
call. You're given that. Good. We've got a good going over, I'm gonna draw a line under it because we're temperatures fugitive as we speak. So you mentioned that the vetting process that discovery meetings, the client thinks they're interviewing you, you're interviewing them, and that is a Nick Murray ism. And on that note, Nick Murray had his annual behavioral conference last week. He used to do it in in Manhattan. And he certainly been I think, Alan, you might have
been I can't remember. I never had the chance to go he's not doing the physical meetings anymore. It's all online. I attended that online thing last week. And it was you know, I know some of us are a little we raise our I can feel people in the in the trap studio raising their eyebrows. I think my a little bit. Yes, he does say the same thing. Pretty much every year, he finds new ways to say it and invent new words to say that go on and his new word list that he's, he's building up in
the background. And he talks about get dispensing the vitamin C to clients all the time. And when I listen to Nick Murray, it's dispensing the vitamin C for me, you know, it's just Oh, yeah, you know what he is right. And that's a nice turn of phrase
and the stats do add up. It was very good, the best part he that he does three sessions and then a q&a session at the end, which is about overcoming objections that he will he wouldn't call it He slapped me if I said overcoming objections, and that the q&a bit is very, very good. You know how when when somebody He has an objection to a race.
Someone just asked what the real just keep on Ask the question asked question back and find out what the real issue is because people prospects will ask a question, but that's not actually the question they're asking. They, they they just, but there's something else going on you used, you just got to peel the onion very slowly. So that was very good. I don't have much more to say on that, except to say that on the back of the whole behavioral thing, which I think we know, we're all wedded
into, right? That's our value proposition really is here's Mr. Mrs. Client, here's your plan. Here's the next 30 years of your life, we're going to keep you on this plan, right, we're going to stop you blowing yourself up. And we're going to save your tax and costs and expensive fees along the way. But we're going to stand between you and stupid. And Alan yesterday on Twitter, I saw you put a story out there about floundering robo advisors.
The fact that these robo advisor platforms that have no human element have no behavioral element, it's just the investor and a cell and a buy button online. They are losing assets hand over hand over fist in the current climates. And I just one quote from the article and I put a link to the article in the so called shownotes. Many investors are facing extreme and complicated market conditions for the first time causing some paralysis and panic. Thank you.
That's why we're here. So that's my if you've got any thoughts on that, I'm happy to move on to the next comment. The next juice just on the
Nick Murray conference. Nick, can you explain you Bob probably didn't know the story better. You're in the you know, this is a football and the coach that that's attributed to do you want to share a little bit about that?
Yes. So you know, with Nick Murray is often just go back to basics, right? Let's just start from first principles and every behavioral conference, Ed, that he Latinized the principles, this is a football Okay, so the I'm an NFL Santos, you can you can make your own judgment about that. But there was, there is a franchise and there was a franchise called the Green Bay Packers, and it's
still in existence. And in 1959, it was an awful franchise, it just couldn't win a Mac had a very good roster of players a very good score, but they couldn't win. They couldn't win a game. There's only 12 Getting 14 games season then and they only finished two and 10 in that season. And then they hired this
guy called Vince Lombardi. Now, even people that don't know about the NFL have probably heard of Vince Lombardi because every when the when the each season the NFL, when they're the one who wins the super bowl holds up the Vince Lombardi trophy. That's how big this guy is. And Vince Lombardi is is.
I'm trying to think about it. So I mean, I suppose Alex Ferguson would be the one in in, in football, I mean, Vince Lombardi, he turned around the Green Bay Packers, and he went back to first principles with them when he took over in 1959. And he held his he got all these these squats about 60 You know, these, these, these young men, and he said, he held up a football, this is a football. And our goal is to get it from this end of the pitch to the other. And this is how we're
going to do it. And it was just okay. It was like fundamentally one of the Wiseacres in the room said Can you slow down coach you've lost me factor but you know, there's archetypal genius of American football, who's still us who's who's plays and schemes are still used today. He started all over the transformation of green did Green Bay Packers into this in this magnificent franchise by saying this is a football and that's what Nick Murray was alluding to with this
wasn't wasn't wasn't out of the 60 players, there was a future Hall of Famers in that bunch of see right. Yeah. Terrible in 1959
Yeah, yeah. So they had everything there but a good coach, and the good coach came in and and transformed them and yeah
it's amazing. So there's some great books written about Lombardi and you know, he just inspired your generations but isn't isn't that very representative of our industry, our profession where people try to complicate and complicated over and you know, it build in different investment propositions and alternatives and you name it No, just get back to basics. What are we trying to do? We're trying to get you from here to there safely. And there only are a handful of things you ought to
do consistently. But the industry looks to complicate things
oh my god, you just nailed you just now again, we could talk about this forever how and you know that these we know who they are, they're out there that these these brands that overcomplicated justify their fees, and it's an absolute curse on our on our profession. We learn about the more you unlearn and you strip back to the bare basics. This is a football show. This is the real
kittens. You're going to run out of money in retirement unless you do this and this and this is how we're going to get you there play by play by play and we'll win your Super Bowl for you. Okay, I'll be coaching you to your Super Bowl success. And now for the torturous analysis or analogies even Mr. Smith, you've got a topic you want to talk about, which is mastermind groups.
Right Okay. All right. Do your jingle then I'm gonna start with
grab yourself a drink a very long drink. It's story time with Alan Smith.
All right, thank you, Nick, when I came into this illustrious profession, or when I set up as an IFV, I started meeting a few other ISVs. And there was one, I'm gonna give them a name, check here shout out. His name is John Joseph, who is just kind of going into retirement now and it but his son, Jimmy is taking over his business. He runs a good financial planning practice in North London. But John was super kind as many other people were at the time when I was sort of a
young, aspiring IFA. And John says to me, who at the time ran a really successful, you know, busy firm in the West End of London, and I knew him of old and he said, Look, when you get started being setting up your own business, or almost any financial planning business, even the bigger ones are pretty small businesses, but I was sort of a sole trader, one man band, he said, You got to get into a network, you've got to meet other like minded advisors,
like, like you. So he invited me into something back in those days, which then was called the West End Breakfast Club. And it was a group of probably about 1820 advisors. That mean, told you how long ago was because I was the youngest or one of the youngest going into that group. And the rest of it was there was there was seasons professionals, and we'd meet for breakfast and a hotel in the West End of London. And they would just share all their ideas, insights,
experiences. In those days, we used to have somebody come along from an investment company, and who would present their products or services just they would cover the cost of breakfast. But we've moved on from that. And it's certainly the the London based people on this on in the trap group. I think all three of us and the Nick and I still continue to go I invited Andy into join this group because I still go every month is now closed. years ago. Yeah, no, no, because we managed to get Nick
in. And it was a tough because we use the vote where the new members can come in and not and I can tell you, it was the vote it was
it was the highest blackball we've ever had. It was
who needs enemies.
It was seven, seven black, they
asked, they had to look at the club rules to go what do we do in these situations? Majority thing surely three black balls and you're out regardless of how many? You know.
I honestly there was, it was an Off the record conversation I had with the chairman of the group. This is a you sure about this guy. There's loads of people don't want to be in trustees, but he's value for money. Get him in. And he's thrived ever since.
So this. He turns up every single month knowing there are seven people here.
know who they are.
Right? Yeah, he's one of them over he's totally they love it. They told him sorry. Yeah. But let's
see the point of this. So this group now is called Ideas exchange. We meet for breakfast once a month, usually the second Wednesday of the month, start about kickoffs at eight in the morning goes to about 1111 30. Sometimes as a theme, sometimes someone comes in, but we don't get any fund managers or anything like that some, you know, interesting people. I mean, I don't think
it's secret. But we had people like Tony Adams came in and gave a talk about mental health and his personal journey with a number of really, really interesting characters have come in. But probably the best part of it is the ideas, the you know, the experiences, we all, you know, people within the group, yeah. But within the group, and obviously there is it is confidential within the group. There's a sort of safety
net within the group. But there's some fantastic practitioners, business owners, they do range from sole traders to quite large companies within the group. And I, you know, I've been going for best part nearly 20 years now, and I still show up every bump and I think it's great value. And the reason I've raised this as I had a couple of months ago, another advisor contacted me saying because I think you or I Andy posted something tweeted about this group. And someone else said they were
loved my lovely idea among a monthly FOMO post on Twitter, don't worry. Yeah. But so someone
contacted me and said, love this idea gonna kill me. And I got on a call with him, you know, how do you set up a group? Because I don't know what what if you do anything in Cairo, what the market is like an Ireland call about these groups for getting together with a number of, of, in theory, competitors, but in reality, sort of peers and allies. And I know that, you know, Andy in particular was, you know, Amber flags is red flags, and so he wouldn't show up every month if
it wasn't any value. And similarly for Nick. So I guess we're all getting a lot of value out of it. And I wonder, I shall invite you, maybe Andy, just to say because you're sort of you've been in it for quite a few years now. And you still show up? What's your take on mastermind groups
and the the Andy then call Yeah, well, it's
it's a wider issue, isn't it in the whole personal development and life development? I think it's thinking grow rich. The book talks about masterminds. So masterminds are incredibly important. I'm sort of part of quite a few in the financial advisor community I'm sort of I don't know, the leader of the Void tester group, Nick's got a sort of separate online mastermind group that he runs called the IFA forum or
something. Yeah. In terms of my networking with ifas, the ideas exchange is definitely the best thing I do. I fall in and out of love of it every so often I have good meetings and bad meetings. But overall, I'm still turning up and I'm still paying my money. And the knowledge in that room. If that room doesn't know an answer to a financial adviser question, then no, no one's going to know the answer to it. Basically, it's a mix of enormous businesses and little old me and then everything in
between. Yeah, and it is all business leaders and decision makers. masterminds are absolutely brilliant. We went virtual during COVID Like everybody did. Now we've gone back to face to face. And as I say, people within that room know pretty much everything you're going to come across business wise. Yeah. So I'm a huge fan of it. We're sort of at capacity at the moment, I think of that ideas exchange, I think
we're up to about 40 people. And yeah, it's once a month, which is great, like, weekly is relentless. I used to be part of them. BNI when I was fresh into the business, which was great. I learned so much from it, but weeklies. Yeah. Yeah, it was, I need to learn how many, how many of these things we've got 555 years
is that for names F, A, B, and B, and I, it was
for B. And to be fair, I think we've all I got value from BNI at the start, but the weekly thing and you have to bring it up, you got to Oh,
yeah. Yeah, so monthly is pleasurable. If that's the right word, or pleasant. We, I think we meet 11 times a year now we cut the August off, and sometimes we have a Zoom meeting. So I think people are unofficially in mastermind groups being financial advisors, and they just communicate with their peers, or they're officially in
mastermind groups. And sometimes we've done in call a mastermind, they just like say like there's a meeting I'm part of, I think there's definitely value of setting up something in Ireland car, but I just don't know, who would run it and how often it would be. But I mean, you can just clone our format, basically. And I think you'd get a shedload of value from it. So yeah, over to Karthik is next.
Yeah, I'm very interested in as one of your formal tweets did inspire Dave Quinn to contact me and say, Hey, Cara, we should do something. And Dave runs a really good financial planning business. So I 100% would be interested in talking to other firms in Ireland who do real financial planning that the problem is are there enough out there? And is there an appetite to do it because the spirit of collaboration that you guys have? I think it's probably easier because there's a much
bigger market being fair. And I'm not sure that same spirit of collaboration exists over here. Maybe I'm wrong, though, right. So I'd be definitely open to exploring that more. I suppose my mastermind group is is this as
I was gonna say, this, you know,
I've got yeah, I've got so much really, really good stuff. Like we have a WhatsApp group and there are 100 messages about nothing and then there's always that there's always that one right that you're going to add is really good.
Yeah, WhatsApp groups a digital mastermind groups, aren't they?
Yeah. I when we when we go out. Okay, like
we get the points. On loop. Yeah. literally frozen. God. Go ahead. Go ahead call.
Yeah. I think when we when we go out for our beers, once every few months, as long as ideas. There's always ideas on that. And I do if I'm flying back. I just do voice memos to myself. Right. And then I you can remember them after the beers. Now. I have to sometimes go to the go. Go to the toilet. Good luck with that. Remote remember tomorrow? This is a great idea. Oh, is
that what you're doing? I wonder?
Genuine. This is great. It's a great idea. And I'm all for it.
I think so. If anyone because this podcast has it's been quite successful in our early stages in Ireland. So if if anyone is interested in connecting with you, they should buy this method and start virtually
Yeah, and we get Nick to organize that as well because I'm definitely Nick Nick and
he's got he's very popular.
Started to share to get started on the Irish mastermind. I think you need 10 advisors And you're right, Carl, you want them to all be similar, but you don't just be an echo chamber. So you don't mind somebody who's sort of transitioning, it's not pure financial planning, but still their hearts in the right place. We've got a bit of a mix in our one and there's a couple of sharks swimming around. And then there's, you know speeding boys say no,
I disassociate myself from that comment. Completely.
It's a bit of an extreme comment, but you, you understand what I'm saying,
No, don't go.
Looking to wrap this up. So the most recent meeting of the ideas exchange, we didn't have a guest, we just had in house, the advisors that were there, sharing and talking for the best part of two and a half hours. And I thought it's the best one I've been to. Mainly because I spoke quite a bit. That is a joke. I I like having the external speakers, but I love it when when you talk to your peers, it's like we all
say the same thing. When you go to a conference, the best bits generally aren't the speaker, unless they're really fantastic. The best bits are the bits in between the seminars and bits at the end over a glass of wine and maybe half a sherry and some food. That's and somebody somewhere one of your peers is going to say something and you're gonna think that's paid for my day. Bang, that's that's literally both my day. Yeah, absolutely. Right. And that's why I my 51 weeks, when we're
talking. So Alan, are you done on that subject? So that's very good. Um,
thank you. Thank you very much.
Yep. Okay, well, we are we are cracking on now. We've covered the topics for this week, we're already over 40 minutes since I think it's time that we maybe go and deal with some listener, audience questions. So I'm going to fire off the first one. This is from a lady called Kathy Brennan. She's on Twitter as at women finance, n is in Northern Ireland, at women, finance, and I I hope you're including women in finance. When you chat, ask
Kathy. Yeah, we will include women, when we chat, Kathy, we will include anyone when we chat if they are of interest to us. And in that sense, we are truly inclusive, what we won't do. And what we will never do is focused on someone just because of their
immutable characteristics. We don't care what gender you are, we don't care what race you are, what religion you follow your ethnicity, what abilities or disabilities you have, we will discriminate purely on whether or not we think you are a person of interest. And whatever you're in the news for is of interest to the trap audience and if these people happen to be female, fabulous, that is the end of that. Next question that Karl will take is from
Trappists. John Doyle, he too is on Twitter at Juniper underscore John, John spelt without your
good firm, good guy runs.
He's a good guy. And John's question is what are the essential elements required to make a financial plan a comprehensive financial plan? And how must this be presented to a client to warrant it being called a financial plan? Or to put it another way, what elements when removed from our financial plan? Keep with me, leaves it being just a recommendation with objectives.
The physical financial plan appears to be often talked about at a high level but rarely spoken or debated in detail, which I think leaves people either producing endlessly complex plans with unnecessary detail. Amen. In the pursuit of perfection, or the other extreme, where I know advisors who pay lip service to financial planning, but wouldn't know it if it snapped them in the face. Yeah, amen to that as well. Carl, what are your views on that?
Sir? Yeah, it's a great question. And I'm so with him on that. John, as a John John. Yeah. There are so many advisors out there who say they do real financial planning, but they don't at all. So look, to answer the question for me, I think if you can get away from this idea that a financial plan answers all the questions and start thinking about it in terms of it's a process, and that goes all the way back doesn't it to about us working with clients over a number of years, so it's
not a one and done. So if you can establish what your clients from the outset that look, we're going to we're going to put this plan in place, but there's absolutely nothing Sure, then it's wrong. You can't get a 40 5060 year plan, correct. You just can't. What you're trying to do is get on track. And as you said earlier on Nick get from A to B over a long period of time. But things are gonna have to change. So you got to I
think, absolutely. Make sure integral and central to everything you're doing and you're speaking to the clients voters, you know, especially The at the at the implementation stage that look, we're just setting this up, but we're going to review it on an ongoing basis. And that's why the annual meetings are really, really important. And the second thing, I'd say, what makes it rather than, you know, I kind of jumped up just recommendation and I love the way he said that,
right? It's, it's, it has to be goals based, it has to be life, you know, lifestyle based. So, for me, I say it always a malice, you know, if you're not talking to your clients about three things at every meeting, goals, dreams and aspirations. You haven't actually bought into the matters way. So that's what differentiates us from I know, what's the best pension fund? No, we all know, nobody knows that, right? What we do is we help our clients to establish what they really want to do with
their lives. And then to bring them on that journey over time to use the resources to actually match the lifestyle that they want to live. So for me, the two things in summary are, it's a process, and a has to be lifestyle, goals, dreams and aspirations lead all the time. We're very interested to hear what everyone else thinks about this thing's a brilliant question, by the way.
Okay, I'll go and then maybe I'll bring in Alan. I, yeah, so the financial plan, the financial plan, and I'm talking here real down in the weeds stuff here. Okay. And stuff that most of our listeners miss the audience will know, as to and incorporate clients goals, aspirations, and then all their incomes, current assets, and what their future incomes and future assets matched against their current lifestyle and their projected lifestyle for the next three, four
decades. That sounds Elementary, right? But if you haven't got that stuff, then you're not even at the at the races. And then you then you have a basis of a financial plan. And if people don't know what they're going to spend in retirement, then the the the answer is, well, they don't want to spend any less than they've got now. Right? So if the lifestyle cost is 50k now, but they can't see what they're gonna spend in retirement, assume it's gonna be
50k per annum going forward. But the financial plan is done with the clients. I mean, this is this, you know, and certainly initially, you do the financial planning with the clients, you don't send out this awful reports, these tomes and nobody reads. You keep it very simple, stupid, you maybe have two or three sort of what if iterations in the financial plan, but it's fluid, you're doing the plan, the power of the plan is in the
planning, right? And it's the chance for the client to say, Well, Nick, what if we do this, what you can't do if you've got an a4, leather bound thing, slamming through your letterbox, you can't look at that and say, Oh, Nick, what if we do this, but you can if you're involved in the actual planning meeting, the graphs are on screen and you're working it through, but there's got to be a certain level of information, incomes, assets, future incomes, assets, you can't get away from that
stuff that is without that without and the most important one is knowing the lifestyle cost, right? Because that's what you're looking for. To protect. We do all of this for all we do it for ourselves for all of our clients. We're answering that question, Have we got enough? And what do we mean by enough we be enough to reasonably be sure we can fund our lifestyle without fear of later on running out of money. That's That's the Gospel according to what to all
of us. Really. Alan, what do you think?
Yeah, there's there's few few subjects that there's been more navel gazing in our industry about and sort of hand wringing and working out what's the best thing and I'll funny you say these sort of leather bound huge documents. When I got started. We used to have we used to call them dog killers. They were like 100 pages long. And when the postman post them through the letterbox the poor dog sitting underneath the letterbox gets landing on his head, knocks the dog out, because
where's the applause? Sound? Nick, dog killers? were laughing. New information.
Yeah, it's Yeah, dog killers. And so we've learned over the years that was the work. I think the biggest one that we did is 132 pages long, a4 bound and
either either for this day, the pages six options
to this day client never read it, but you're engaged and so on. And so that there's this kind of modern approach about can you distill your I agree with what everyone has said? It's an experience. It's a process, it's what you do, but how do you distill it all down? And what is the deliverable? Ultimately, other than when the client when you sitting across a table or having a nice lunch? I thought that was really nice. We have described that earlier, Nick, because he just didn't even bring out a
financial plan. But they got planned, if you like, and you just said I mean, your trash is in. You've earned what you've
learned. Absolutely fine tune 13 years in exactly.
This, but this something of you, you might be aware. So the stuff that I look at now there's loads and loads of new examples on one page, two page three page plans, and the full of nice images and graphics and pie charts and So one which is going to look pretty, and colorful, but I'm not necessarily sure that the deliver what you need to deliver, I'm reminded of an Amazon, they they've done away years ago that you've read about
Vsauce. And what he's done at Amazon, they did did away with PowerPoint presentations years ago. And what they have is just like a one page, a narrative people who describe exactly what you want to talk about. And I think there's a version of that in facts core, which is produced something a while ago, just a one page and it's written document. And it's just got a paragraph about values and
goals. And then it's got next actions just got the three things that you will do, or I will do in order to achieve the things you've identified. There's no pie charts or graphs or anything. And the third part of this is just when we next reassess, and it's either I'll see you in 12 months, or something's coming up in six months, we'll have a further conversation. Now, that's my mind is something you could print off and put beside your desk or have in your wall or something if you're a client,
and that's engaging. And I'll read that. And I will, I will see what I have to do as part of the process to to make sure I achieve what's what's been identified in literally one or two lines at the top of this one pager. So I think we can post an example of that on the show notes because I just really liked that it's just written documents is on one page. Andrew, you are the king of financial plan planning? voyant? Blackbell?
Yeah, that stuff.
Yeah. What's What's your deliverable to a client?
Well, I've um, yeah, I've built 1000s of financial plans live for clients. I've been training advisors for 12 years. I live sleep and breathe financial planning, that the old sounds on, Nick, first and foremost, financial planning is a completely separate skill. There's three there's three skills the advisor needs to learn. The first one is finance.
He's been he's been left out. He hasn't he has that doesn't have as yours anymore. Yeah.
The throat is still not not not fixed. Up. Yeah, there's three throat? Yeah. How did that how did that happen? Tell us a little bit of maybe COVID. Actually,
we're on anyway, we're gonna have an X rated version of this.
Right by the Patreon subscription one, yes, you've got to learn financial services, which is basically financial rules, admin and tax, you've then got to learn Investment Management, which is managing money looking after clients money, asset allocation. And the third skill was financial planning. People think they're by default financial planners, because they've done the CFP, because the written on their website, because they understand
Investment Management. They don't it's a completely separate skills. And the only way you can, the only way you can do it, is using proper, sophisticated financial planning software. The market we work in is incredibly complicated tax financial rules. It's a mess. So I have a piece of software, it needs to be
pretty comprehensive. Back to what Nick says, yeah, it needs to be income expense, income expenditure forever, every single year, and assets and liabilities and what that looks like you need to be building it live with your clients. It is fluid and collaborative. Yes, it will be wrong, Kyle. But I'm 12 years into building real plans and real people. And where I told my clients 12 years ago, where they're going to be in
2022. We're not that far off. I know, as every year goes, as there's a bit of a gap, but it's scary how accurate I've been. I've had a look at that I've mixed on this as well. I've had a look at the assets, liquid assets and go, I said the liquid assets are going to be x and x minus a couple of 1000 pounds. And I'm like, is that real is my guesstimate has been that
accurate? Again, people that don't build financial plans that just slate financial planning software, have never done what I just explained and seem like the continued journey of and financial plan that's that's been built. Yeah, it's, it's I think it's the only fun left in this business to be totally fair financial planning. All the other stuff is plumbing and admin. Yes, a great question, John, you need to be using sophisticated software. There's a few options out there.
Obviously, I'm hugely pro voice. And I think it's still the best on the market by country mile. But there's a few others that can do it. And back to next point, you know, we are the financial plan, we are the attitude to risk. You know, we you know, the message is the messenger and all that. So, yeah, that's my two cents on it. But yeah, financial planning is
a separate skill. And yeah, the the definition of a financial planner, is if a client couple rocked up, sat right in front of me now and said, Andy, I want to build a financial plan, I'd be able to go absolutely fine. Let's go through that and build that live. Now. If you can't do that you're not a financial planner. So that's
right. The reality is is very, very few people are going to do that. That's fine. But the bigger def on the hands of somebody rushing somebody rocks up to you off that same cup of rocks up and says and the can you help us review our pensions, and you go into a financial plan. That's that's the pivot that a you should be able to do, as opposed to just, you know, focus on the initial thing. If
you call yourself a financial planner, you need to be able to build financial plans. If I call myself a bricklayer, I need to be building walls. So I'm calling myself a financial planner, I could build financial plans.
And exactly exactly like that. It's all it is very nuanced. I have met people, we've recruited people into our team here, and I've interviewed them. And they've come from firms that if you if you've heard about them, it looks at their website, planning, planning, planning. And you speak to these obviously, no names mentioned be speak to some of the people who've been working there. They say, Well, we do it now. And again, if a client asked for it, what client asked for a financial plan?
Yeah, so yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot of waffling and talk about this, because the actual definition, this is John's original point definition is well, it's loose, isn't it? Alright, Nick, I'm getting I'm getting the hand wave.
Okay. So Carl, you said disagree to tell us briefly why you disagreed? And then we'll we'll draw a line under this topic?
Well, for a couple of reasons. Number one, I've never built financial plan in my life. But I'm heading up, I think, Ireland's best financial planning firm. So I don't think you actually need to do it. You need to have people around you who can do it. And number two, yeah, I just, I think there's an awful lot more to you guys have all focused on the was certainly Nick and Andy on the kind of nuts and bolts of this. I'd much rather be delving into the whole the softer side of this with the
clients. And that's the bit that inspires me. So I don't think you know, if you can't actually use voyant, you're not a financial planner. I don't know there's there's power planners out there that can do that stuff for you. I think it's a lot more about interviewing and discussing and teasing out goals, dreams and aspirations. And I'm sorry for using the three words again, but I passionately believe that that's what real financial planning is,
is a great point. Because it lets you do that. You're not gonna go to the next part. Yes, yeah,
that's what Listen, this is this is this is why we this is why we tend to get on because we agree on lots of things. But we also have areas where we do just do things differently. And it but all of what we do, I think is is right, that set that discussion. So the way to close that sounds right to me. Okay, I think it's time with for us to move on to what many people call culture cooler.
Now, I did have a culture coordinate item, I think I'll hold on over to the next episode, because we've we've had a real humdinger of a Shermer at the hour mark already. Mr. Smith, you have a couple of culture corner things to discuss crack on sir.
Yes, just a couple of an interest of time. Very quick ones. There are two, what are called papers, white papers, documents that have been written in very recent times. One is from Vanguard, the big asset management company that we all know, it's called Vanguard value for advice model papers is very new. Many of the listeners be aware and I've we've all seen this stuff in the past the advisor alpha, a document they produced a number of years ago, I always thought it was a bit
weak. Honestly, for some of the the signing basis points for portfolio rebalancing, and things like that, I thought, well, you can get that machine does that. This is far, far better. It is a fantastic document, they've gone really scientific. They've got PhDs, crunching the numbers. And they've identified the value with lots of examples of the value of engaging with a real
financial planner. And they come up with them figures between 83 basis points, or 280 285 2.85% a year in terms of additional value they can specifically it's not waffle, there's evidence and science behind it. So So if anyone is having conversations around value for money definitely check out that paper. I enjoyed reading it. And the second one was called again, Alan, what's
it called again? What's it called? It's
called the Vanguard. Was it the value for advice model? Alfred Weissman. We will put a link to in the show notes. So people can go download it,
I'll just leave it down, believe Alan and it's, it's opened up. You don't need to be at the end to be registered with Vanguard. I mean, you just I've got a PDF here on my screen. It's
obviously it's a US thing. So there's all quoted in dollars and so on. But this stuff is obviously International, but it's one of the better ones I've read many, many a year. And the second one is someone who is well known, I think to all of us and most of the audiences Well, certainly in the UK. Brett Davidson, Brett Davidson, I've known for donkey's years as one of his first clients. Because as you know, I'm a consultant junkie sign up for all these people.
Brett, Brett's fantastic, I think when he first came to us, from Australia to the UK, you know, we engaged with him, and he's, he's produced a new paper. See, I don't know it's always called them some of that needle in the haystack. And again, it's very timely, a lot of stuff. A lot of times I read Brett stuff, and I think well, I've just been thinking exactly about that. So he's got You know, he's very tuned into what the kind of the Zeitgeist and what people are
talking about. And here's his interestingly just joining a few dots in our earlier conversations, this paper is around niching getting very specific around your client base, and then building a service proposition that solves the unique problems that your your niche has got. Some really good papers actually got downloads and links and templates built into it as well. So if anyone is interested in progressing, a unique niche focus, it's well worth reading. Great, great paper by by Brett.
So that's mine for this week. Thank you.
Great stuff. Thank you for that Alan talking of niching Mr. Witcher, you got a culture corner section about Mike your your episodic promotion of Michael Kitsis starts right now young man,
Michael Kitsis as the Kitsis financial planning value summit on Thursday, the eighth of December and you can buy tickets online. The reason I'm mentioning this again, I'm Michael is that
Michael Michael, surprise you not wearing a
shirt? There I actually is
royal blue.
Anyway, this this goatee is there are seven practicing advisors speaking out. And as you guys all know, there is nothing like listening to people who have been there and done that. And that's why I put I'd recommend people check this out. We'll be attending from a Metis point of view with the client journey project that we're going to do in q1 at the back of our minds. And then the second thing we are recording this today after World Mental Health Day, so check out Insight Timer and have a go at
meditation. If you're not already I like Sarab London's meditations. So, look after your mind everybody really, really important, especially if you're running and owning a financial planning business. It can be stressful. We don't have fun all of the time. It's just most of the time. This is
true. We carry we carry the weight of handling future expectations on our shoulders and don't don't miss audience. Don't underestimate how much you can privileged. On that note that the great work that we do, which is why we said we invented trap because we want to just get our voices out there not just our voices but the voices of the people. The Spartans out there who will resonate with the show are TRAPPIST and I think we're already off to a flying start. Okay, I think gents we're at the
one hour two minutes mark. I think we will tie a bow on that. We'll say goodbye please follow us on Twitter at advisor podcast leave a six or a five star review on iTunes. Like and subscribe on the YouTube. Goodbye. Thank you gents. Love you. See you next time.
Thanks, boys. See you. Bye bye.
Bye bye, everybody.