In this latest pile of TRAP, the Trap Pack discuss
Links referred to in the show:
England captain Stokes seeks edge with launch of venture fund | Business News | Sky News
=========================== ===
Take part in the conversation! We want YOU to suggest topics and questions you’d like the Trap Pack to answer. The best way to do this is to ask them here.
Help us to help you! The more followers we have, the more we can do stuff going forward. So please:
In this latest pile of TRAP, the Trap Pack discuss
Links referred to in the show:
England captain Stokes seeks edge with launch of venture fund | Business News | Sky News
=========================== ===
Take part in the conversation! We want YOU to suggest topics and questions you’d like the Trap Pack to answer. The best way to do this is to ask them here.
Help us to help you! The more followers we have, the more we can do stuff going forward. So please:
Welcome to The Real advisor podcast, t r a p twerp please follow us and join in the conversation on Twitter at advisor podcast where you can suggest ideas and themes you'd like the truck team to discuss. Also remember to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel and leave a six out of five star review on iTunes. Doing all this really really helps us which means we can do more to help you. Now let's head over to the studio for the latest pilot trap
Nick Lincoln:yes indeed, dear TRAPPIST, welcome back to what many people are calling episode 27 of the real advisor podcast T R A P trap. My name remains Lincoln and joining me as ever are the three other Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Andy Hart, Alan ill nallah Torrey Smith and Carl della Bochy, which are now gentlemen We have a show packed full of absolutely nothing so let's start packing it straight away
Unknown:we know
Andy Hart:counting on me for to
Alan Smith:carry me Oh, swing we'll see the rugby the weekend called Do you see any rugby that weekend?
Carl Widger:I saw a little bit but what I what I did actually see was the Rugby World Cup or the rugby rankings rankings. So yes, fascinating few movements they're very very proud moment for Ireland to maintain their number one status going in right
Nick Lincoln:now how are you number one? How are you number one the way you're playing
Carl Widger:12 wins in a row and all that kind of stuff.
Nick Lincoln:Up in England that's not a win.
Carl Widger:Series win in New Zealand. Grand Slams. Anyway, the list goes
Alan Smith:on for the jingle Nick. Yeah. Interesting. Let's get
Carl Widger:Interestingly though, back on track on the on the Rugby World Cup, right. So England, England are number now below Fiji. And just for our listeners
Andy Hart:the sevens rankings are the fifth
Alan Smith:there's no big tournament starting anytime soon. So it's
Carl Widger:taking the Six Nations group hardtops lagging very well. Are you?
Nick Lincoln:I think I've given you can say what you like most Yeah, I agree with you. I have no defense. I have no defensive England whatsoever. So how about it I'm looking forward to seeing garland hoist the World Cup.
Carl Widger:Not exactly what you said in the WhatsApp group last night. But anyway. Yeah, we should see. I did however, watch South Africa play in New Zealand and demolish New Zealand including bringing on seven exactly seven new forwards after 45 minutes. And the seven new forwards were better than 704 fresh legs top seven. Wow. Oh my god. So first time ever a 717 forwards and one back split was done. Everyone said his madness.
Nick Lincoln:that separate the bench would start for most teams Razzie knows
Carl Widger:what he's doing. For me, watching the rugby that South Africa have to be hot favorites. Fortunately, unfortunately, they're in our group. And even if we do get out of the group, we have to play to France or New Zealand. So I think doing the draw for the World Cup three years prior to the World Cup is absolute madness. It's
Alan Smith:great to see.
Carl Widger:Whales or even worse than England with
Alan Smith:their top seats. Yeah.
Carl Widger:All right, because then our goal well, we need to move on. Okay, right.
Nick Lincoln:I'll give you four minutes to enjoy your peak form before World Cup. I'm looking forward to the Irish slump that always happens during the World Cup. Okay, Andrew, some highenergy reviews of the show, please that don't involve rugby.
Andy Hart:Okay, I'll try and avoid rugby number one five bars from Rob Nick. Keep it up guys. You are bettering the IFA sector one episode at a time when a new pod drops it's an immediate listen six stars. Next up MJ financial planning concise, informative and considered and considered listen five stars. I decided to listen to the podcasts for the first time this week primarily because of the subject matter being SJP. I've been in financial planning for over 30 years, but I've only had a practice in SJP for the past four. During that time, I've listened to and read countless defamatory comments made towards SAP. So when I saw the subject matter of this podcast was always expected much of the same. It was therefore very refreshing to hear logical conversations about SJP and I found myself being very much in agreement with all the points raised good and bad. This concise informative and consider listen is now clearly marked on my podcast favorites to download each week and look forward to listening to many more In the future, that's the boss.
Nick Lincoln:Thank you very much, Andrew. Thank you as ever for your reviews they do give us a shot in the arm. Yeah, shot in the arms what the worst shot in the head actually building a rugby team. Okay, we have as crap as the real advisor podcast somehow scrapes our way to 50,000 plus downloads. In fact, we're now at about 65,000 downloads, which is pretty remarkable for a niche podcast aimed at a very specific audience that only comes out once every two weeks. It's thank you to all the Trappists and we've also got I think, what is it 13 odd 1000 views on YouTube as well, which is, which is fantastic, if not a little bit bizarre. So just want to say thank you. And as ever, just a reminder next year around episode 50. So it'll be useful July ish kind of time 2020 forward, we're looking to do Christ knows how we're ever going to get this organized without killing each other. But we're going to do a trap and live event of some sort and there is there is significant interest out there. We have we have tested the waters on this. So that will be happening. So just keep an eye out for that as we get nearer the time. Okay. Okay, let's start with some some good news because it is easy to get mired in negativity, some sometimes in what we do in financial services. Because we're, we fail sometimes as financial advisors, such as real financial advisors, we kind of get dinged from all corners, but I've got some I've got some some good news and you're the vibes. You're the vibe, that three questions get the clients cry, okay, that's in the room, that the FS CS and the FCA fees call is not your you might get a comment as well from the Irish perspective. But across the board, the levees are hitting our emails, and they seem to be down by around a third, which is very good news, and will certainly tell you that doesn't mean the SCA can't hit us with interim levies. But in our experience, and with the with the peer group that Andy and myself belong to the ideas exchange, that seems to be the common theme that the fees down by a third. So don't necessarily to comment on that gentleman unless you wish to. But it's nice to be able to report some good news out there along with that continue. The Voice, watch Meister Zoom is asking employees to return to the office, which I find sweetly ironic. Tell us a bit about that.
Carl Widger:Yeah. Well look from a PR point of view. First of all, I think that's a little bit of a disaster. The news on that gets out. So the the main COVID Now COVID-19, online, messaging for forum zoom, have has said that this whole working thing doesn't work. So that was that was kind of interesting. And I think they handled that PR wise from a very poor point of view. But I was in a big tech firm in Dublin a couple of weeks ago. And they were telling me that they've also insisted that everyone comes back to the office with an optional two days working from home based on hitting KPIs. So look, it seems like the working from home paying certainly for the bigger corporations doesn't seem to be working. I know there's kind of different viewpoints on in this group about that. But but I've always had the view that look, yeah, we need to be kind of drawn up about it and give people an option of a day or so. From home. And we do have, you know, maybe one team member entirely remotely. But my my strong thoughts on this are that you've got to be in the office like, especially when you're kind of a small, medium sized firm, that the whole team ethic, learning from each other those infamous water cooler moments, they actually do matter to do work. So yeah, I think it's it's nice to kind of get some confirmation from from bigger firms out there that that maybe this is this is the thing, and maybe it's the the slow death of the working from home.
Alan Smith:Let me come in, if I may on that one. You have seen this a source? Yes. Isn't it said sweetly ironic, zoom, the big brand behind the work from home and telling everyone to get back into the office, as are many others. Interesting, isn't it that a lot of its big tech companies is that are saying this. You know, Tesla's talking about Twitter, Google, all the big, big, big companies to get him back. So my take on this is that it's a it's kind of immature of the management of the organization to demand this is smacks of kind of a question the culture in an organization that has to insist on his employees and where they actually work from where they do their best work. So I just didn't take the view that people should do their identify what sort of work they're doing a particular day, a particular week and find the best location to deliver that work. Some work is best done in a collaborative format, in an office environment amongst other people and Some is absolutely best done. And the quietest place you can be if that's home or somewhere else, then that's what you should do. So we remain very flexible on our sort of working practices. And people tend to come in the office probably two days a week, on average, and and work from home, the rest of the time have worked from somewhere else. And it seems to work. In our line of work. I think it's very, your outputs are very known, you're expected to do certain things, you go client meetings in the calendar, you got things to deliver upon. And it's very difficult to avoid that. So my view is treat people as grown ups and let them do what they want.
Carl Widger:Yeah, valid points, Alan. And what I would say in that is, look, I suppose we've a lot of new starters happening, already has have happened and will be happening over the next few months think for starters, it's really difficult to kind of train someone in and bring them into the culture of the business when they're doing it from home. Number one. Number two, I would say in Ireland, we're definitely not at the levels of online client meetings that you guys are at. I think that's actually a good thing. And that means obviously, we need to have people in the office for those client meetings. And, you know, we don't, you know, we have always two people in each line meeting. So look, there's, there's pros and cons, I haven't entirely made up my mind on it. But I'm comfortable with what we've kind of landed on, which is a semi flexible outlook. And that's what we will continue to do.
Andy Hart:I'm a massive fan of the flexibility. Obviously, it allows us before this quarter meeting my accountant, I just thought I'm probably never gonna meet my accountant face to face again. And he lives in London, I used to see him face to face quite a bit.
Nick Lincoln:So when it's a win win for both of us.
Andy Hart:i The hybrid is fantastic. So two days in the office or three days in the office, I think employees can answer anything better. Yeah, it's a big challenge when you're, you know, onboarding new staff members remotely. Yeah, that that's, I suppose the biggest challenge, but once they sort of bedded in and they know everybody, yeah, it's given them that that flexibility. Obviously, again, clients, a new client contacted me the other day, and said, he wants to potentially become a client, however he wants to meet face to face. And I said, Oh, can we not do it via zoom? And he said, Oh, yeah, it's fine doing it via zoom, I was thinking, I didn't quite know what he was what he's up to. Anyway, I find it way more efficient, especially in London, it is challenging, if you've got, you know, a couple that both have jobs and kids. And, you know, I've taken on loads of clients during the COVID times and I plan to never ever meet them. And I know Nick's pretty much 100% Zoom. So yeah, it's a it's interesting, that Zoom are insisting on some of their employees being a bit more present in the office. I'm pretty sure they won't say in five days, but they will certainly try and try to ratchet it up. That is the general sort of flow, isn't it? A companies are insisting that more time is spent, you know, in physical offices. So yeah. Interesting. Factory boss.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, good stuff, Alan, just well, we this, we will keep this in the show, but just check your speakers. Yeah, because I've got your speakers coming up as the real tech. So your headphones might not be your active speakers. So if you can meet yourself and sort that out, we'll, we'll crack on with the conversation. So okay, news item that I saw, which just kind of blew my mind, really, especially for you know, as we call it, we we call ourselves real, real financial advisors where the real advice podcast because we think that financial planning is paramount. And the investment solution is just the end result isn't it's not what we're about. That's just one of the moving parts. And so we all of us, and I think a lot of the trappers who listen to us are kind of refined and honed our investment proposition over the years, to really cut back on the number of funds, we're offering to have streamlined portfolios that give you broad global exposure and the Trappists. And you guys know that I've gone taken that to the nth degree. Now I have the one fund for my equity exposure. And I saw this article in the New Model advisor, and I had a look at the headlines twice, and Scottish Widows is cutting 180 of its life and pension funds, there's not an I'd have to look at things to mean they're cutting some of their 180 life and pet No, they're cutting 180 pension funds, leaving behind God knows how many, and a lot of these, of course, are mirror funds. There'll be some there'll be the the extended life gars range, which there are loads of different iterations, but 180 life and pension funds, I mean, you know, to have that, to have that money to cut in the first place. It's just, it's just a different world out there, isn't it? The old school industrial manufacturing, so, you know, imagine you were an advisor and you're trying to you know, you've got to climb at the Scottish Widows pension and you know, force your 50 funds or something, you just want to justify your existence. I mean, just just brought it up because it just seems to be sort of, in contrast to to how a certain segment of the advice community is moving eg you know, what we were calling quote, real advisors, which I know gets people's hackles up, but we don't really care about that, guys, there'll be a link there's a link to that in the so called show notes that city wire article but not and something else that I thought was nuts is a Capitan and no one seems to have a good word for capita and not all shaycarl capital exist in Ireland are they are they? Okay? Well capital are one of these sort of scheme, DB scheme trustees slash actuary slash admin and they just uniformly get slagged off by anybody who comes into contact with them. Anyway, it turns out that capita a few years ago, when the transfer value market from db to DC was was all the rage because transfer values are very high capital being capital cocked up the transfer values and quite a number of these transfers and paid away too much. And then now actually going to these people to the people that receive these DB transfers and say we need some of the money back now Good luck with that. Good Good luck with that from the from the fair. No, I haven't looked I don't know the weeds about this. I don't know how you get the money back. I mean, just because obviously you might have seen 1 million quid in a pension but 10 quid in your bank account. Where does that money come back out of the pension and and what are the pension is gone? Well, if it's tied up in property, well, it was in some garden or you know, some dreadful Cape Verde scheme that suddenly lost all his money since then. I just don't know how they can do it. Surely capital have their version of professional indemnity insurance that covers them against these kinds of cockroach, you can't go back to people 3456 After the event, and say we gave you too much. It's it's it just seems to me that's that's an incredible so and it's not like this is not like one or two, this is apparently hundreds and hundreds. And it's not just capital as well. I don't know if you guys have any thoughts on this. I've had any other who had spoken to any other ifas. But, you know, the whole the whole db to DC thing was it was it was a bit of a shit show anyways telling us a bit of a show anyway. But you throw this into the mix, and it's like, wow, wow. And of course capita been capitalist saying to their writing to these people and saying talk to your advisor about this. They're trying to shunt it back onto the advice to say, you know, inferring was the advice correct? Because we cocked up the transfer value as if advisors are supposed to understand how transfer values are arrived at and I mean, that's not that's, that's proper smokes and mirrors stuff. Okay. Voice again, sports stars start a V. C fund.
Carl Widger:Yeah, I just saw this. This is actually on Sky News. So I've put the link to this piece of news. So there's kind of a couple of cricketers who you guys probably know who they are. But there's football ORs and there's, there's other sports stars, they've started this VC fund. And they're going for early kind of tech startups. And I think wellness startups, that kind of stuff as well. And I just reminded me of our previous discussion, where by I think the rules were changing there that people you know, that your your regulation said that you should be investing in kind of VC funds and that kind of stuff. And I just thought back to, you know, the so many stories from kind of famous people, sports stars, going into investments that have gone pear shaped, and I think the ones that you'll see in the news are probably famous footballers, predominantly, but you know, going back to real financial planning, it doesn't really matter how much money you have, what you need is you need a financial plan to tell you how much money you need. And you need to dedicate your resources then to investments, pensions, whatever, in what has always worked. And we have spoken before about having that kind of playpen for you know, very wealthy people who go off and do some stuff that kind of floats their boat, shall we say, but it's not integrity, or it's not that important. So it's money that that you know, they don't want to lose it but you could necessarily lose it I just I just hope that all of the the sports people who have been named in this all have their own financial plans, and they're only putting in money that they can afford to lose on this because this is high high risk stuff. And it doesn't matter how famous you are, you know, if you're investing or early stage startups, they unfortunately have a propensity to not return any money of course you could be lucky and shoot the lights out. And that's what played playpen money is so look it's just a note that I thought I'd put out there because too often we come across maybe ultra wealthy people stroke famous people and they're doing stuff that just doesn't make any sense. Nick
Nick Lincoln:interesting way last week you and I can't we went out for Sherry didn't we and in that day we I'm with you I met one of them you met to to ifas who specializes in the field of advising sports sports people you know have this incredibly short credibly short careers with incredibly loads of money. It's a different way of doing what we do and that's for sure interesting people in the classic example of just be careful what you're doing and have you got a financial plan and why on earth you're doing this is and I know you guys aren't into American football you but you know of Tom Brady right, who is the greatest quarterback to ever play the game and isn't Not even close in the, you know, had this idyllic lifestyle. He was married to Giselle bunch and and he's got more money than he can possibly ever spend and yet he got involved in promoting Bitcoin or one of these Bitcoin funds, I believe in FTX Yeah, FTX money he didn't need. And now he's been, you know, litigious Americans is kind of being countersue by people who, you know, who went into the unknown whether he'll, he'll get he'll lose money. I don't know. But it didn't need to do it. It's just like, you know, your brand is everything. Your brand, you know, your reputation is everything, just just what it is just, it's the magpie thing. It's the shiny new thing I want to be seen. We want this guy to be the face fit. Agent says, Will you do it? So I'm he goes. And then of course, when the blade doesn't know what he's talking about, really, he's just a pretty face.
Alan Smith:Like once about the fundamental challenge, Nick is confusing, you know, long term strategic investing for sort of personal financial security, for growth of wealth, confusing that with entertaining entertainment. And these people come from the world of entertainment, and whether it's sports stars, movie stars, you name it, that's the world the operating. And the challenge that we've got, the challenge we will always have is, frankly, the work that we do to the outside world, at least is dull is pretty dull, because who wants to build a plan that in itself is pretty boring. And also I've sort of dabbled over the years, not not for a long time, but in the world of professional sports people and trying to get professional sports people to consider a 3040 50 year financial plan. Those people don't know what they're doing tomorrow, never mind 30 years from now. So it's a chance. It's a real real challenge. And of course, when you say we'd like to, we'd like you to invest your money in low cost global index funds and leave it there for 30 years is just what that's just boring. I want to get crypto, I want to buy I mean, watches is all a thing. You know, you're trading, you know, high end watches, all that sort of stuff. And so it is a perennial challenge that anyone who works in our game has dealing with anyone like that. The last little anecdote I'll throw in, I spoke to somebody last week who's preparing to sell their business for significant significant sound, we're talking about potentially 100 million pounds next year. And we're talking about how they might invest their money. And he said, Yeah, and I'll do your boring stuff with you. But I really want to put some money into something that's interesting, and keeps me interested and engaged. So are you prepared to lose all of that money? You said, Yes, I am. Because I have plenty to go out. And I think that's one of that's one of the issues, isn't it because it's just this idea of using your wealth as an entertainment vehicle rather than you know, go to the casino or go horse racing or do something we can have a real bit of funds putting into markets, companies structures, whatever, you know, that it's just, it's vaguely interesting is is dinner party conversation. Maybe you lose it all it's just it's an interesting dynamic.
Carl Widger:We've had this chart offline I love that you know, but that is relevant though for that guy with that amount of money you know, make sure you've just got your future secured at a very high spending level and all of that kind of stuff. And if it he that that gentleman or lady wants to invest in stuff, you know, stuff that is of interest, knock yourself out, just go for but make sure you have all the other stuff parked for so I think that's the main thing that I wanted to get across here about these these kind of footballers and cricketers, and I didn't realize cricketers actually make a lot of money that's hard to leave. But anyway,
Nick Lincoln:what top top like they do it? So it's cricket and Wales? Yeah, they do. I think it's pointless. But this comes to some of the ad is quite strong. And it's just letting clients if they really want to scratch the edge, let them crack on and scratch that edge. Right? It's better if it means them following through on a financial crime where most of their money is invested in boring, buy and hold, staring out the window for the next three decades kind of portfolio. Give them some giving them a little playpen they can play with, as Alan said, on the strict proviso that you know, you could lose all of this. You're okay with that. And if you do, it won't ruin this financial Pammi bill, but let them scratch that itch and, and get on with whatever they want to
Andy Hart:do. I've heard different names for this over the years. I mean, yeah, investing paper, and I think I got from Alan. I've also heard of it as a ROB account, which is like a rush of blood account as your Rob account over there. I prefer Alan's latest one the dicking around fund or the dicking around. I think he's absolutely brilliant. Like yeah, you can have a dicking around pot mate. No problem
Alan Smith:that you DAP just did that.
Andy Hart:And then who wants to own a dicking around the fund. But he's just right. It's framed perfectly. But oh my god like but I think it's brilliant.
Alan Smith:Thank you. You can have one on the basis that you also have your
Andy Hart:database find out your family, family fortress and family fortress fortress,
Alan Smith:you only see the left. Yes. Now you don't Eat it. Trust me this this. X superfluous. superfluous. That's the word. Next move on
Nick Lincoln:to are you chewed a thesaurus? Both of your well done active using a knife and fork. Okay. It's the heart employing professionals.
Andy Hart:Okay, yeah, somewhat allow me a brief story. But yeah, I've moved to a new house that sort of been consuming my life over the last few months. So I actually viewed this house at over a year ago. I want to viewed it, I liked it. But I thought it was too expensive. I put a lowball offer in and then I ended up, someone else bought it for a higher offer. And then I was viewing other houses. And I was always referring back to this one that, you know, it's the one that got away as such. And then the person pulled out that putting the higher offer for what I thought was a sort of pointless reason. And since I've owned the house, I've realized that it was appointed as reason. But anyway, so I got a call from the estate agent, I think in March, to point out you want to buy it, it's reason
Carl Widger:no toilet,
Andy Hart:it was an access reason, but I won't bore you with it. So then he said, it's available, do you want to buy it, I said, Yeah, I'm gonna buy it. And then obviously ensued, the painful process of dealing with lawyers and property and all that sort of stuff. Anyway, I completed in May, and I decided to do the place up. So for the first time, I employed an interior designer, which I've never done before, I'm a single bloke divorced, obviously, I want the house to be nice and nice. And my kids, I've got a few quid to do it up. So I employed an interior designer. And I basically got out of the way, you know, I allowed her to just send me links by staff, and do it in the style that she thought would make sense. There's obviously a few, as I say, if I did it myself, I would have done it, okay. But you know, it wouldn't have been as nice as it is now. So, the point of the story is, if you're going to employ professionals, you know, let them do their work. And, you know, in the end, the result will be fantastic. So the result is great, the journey has been a little bit rough, because obviously, you're dealing with other people in the mix, and then you've got builders and all that sort of stuff. But the destination is, is good in the end. I mean, it's sort of funny story to it. I ordered these tiles online, I thought they looked horrendous, I thought, Really, I'm gonna put these tiles into my kitchen. The tiles arrived, me and the builder were looking at these tiles thinking these are these are horrible. How are we going to lay them out. And he said, it was two options. And he laid them out like bricks. So he just laid them out like straight. And then we contacted the interior designer said, you know, these, these tiles have arrived, she said, right, the way we're going to do them is herringbone. And his face dropped, he thought I've never done herringbone tiles before in that order. And then he said, I'm gonna have to charge you more, and he's just gonna take a lot more time. You know, I'm very used to doing the bricks. So anyway, he sort of tripled the amount of time he's going to put these tiles and He charged me a lot more money. And in the end, the tiles that, you know, amazing, and they make the kitchen. Whereas obviously, if I had that option myself and choice myself, I would have made a complete balls up. So the point of the story is if you employ professionals get out of the way, you know, too many people employ financial advisors and then want to dabble and you know, blow up the plan. So the key is clients getting out of their own way, you know, so I could potentially have been a bad client, obviously, you know, I'm rather disagreeable. So yeah, long story short, employ professionals and then get out of the way. My final topical tip that is this episode is going out on Thursday the 31st. And yesterday was Mr. Warren Buffett's 93rd birthday. I'm a huge fan of Mr. Warren Buffett. So Happy Birthday, Mr. Buffett. 93. Let's hope you get to at least 115 and continue to share your wisdom with us every year. That's it back to your boss.
Carl Widger:That's probably hear that right.
Alan Smith:That means that means Do you know that? Assuming he lives to be there on January 1 coming up in a few months, Joe is his psychic Charlie mangas 100th birthday. Yeah, I believe be 100 on first January. So don't forget to send a birthday card
Nick Lincoln:or what am I asked him to come on as a special guest.
Carl Widger:I think that's a great idea. And he will even after that. You take
Alan Smith:care of it because I know I know. I know how you how good you all get Nick Murray to attend. Six degrees of separation. We
Andy Hart:said this business separation surely there's someone out there who's listening to this that know someone who's listening. This that knows
Alan Smith:who's joining. It's got to you've got to Charlie Munger has a close personal friend. He must be somebody
Nick Lincoln:close personal friend. There we go get it in. Okay, good stuff. I think we've given the topical tidbits a damn good thrashing. Let's move on to the meat and potatoes of this show. We're already half an hour in. So this is a question that's been in our hopper for quite a while from Amon Prendergast a Trappist, who's on Twitter as at financial 118. And I'll read out his question because this is going to take up the next part of the show and it's it's a subject that does need addressing mostly most of you have experience of organizing events slash seminars. I'm interested in one Finding out how you would set up a seminar for say 50 accountants from cradle to grave. This may include how long the seminar should be best way to invite attendees were to post the event, the structure of the event topics you would focus on. We're looking to add additional speakers which accounts since would find interesting. How would you follow up after the event? Thanks, Simon. So multiple questions and they're basically and it doesn't have to be for accountants. I think that the the lessons and when I speak about this, I talk about this the lessons of how to organize them follow up in a seminar apply to whoever your target audience is, but just addressing the accountants part first, because that isn't a question from Amon Cole, you have experience of a organizing seminars for Metis, Norway and also organizing a seminar for accountants tell us with your typical honesty, how that went.
Carl Widger:So we did a seminar event for accountants, it's it's ages and ages ago now. So maybe 2016 17, something like that, right? On the basis that let's gather a lot of accountants centers of influence, and then we'll get a lot of business out of that. That's, that was kind of the name of the game. And then we, I took a bit of advice from somebody else who had done stuff like this. And the kind of theme of it was there was new pension rules, I can't even remember what they were. But we were going to talk about the very, very technical stuff about that. And we got a kind of a well known tax guy to do that part of the talk. And then we did, the second part of the seminar was an investment talk, right. And we didn't do anything about financial planning. And we didn't go into the boat, cash flow modeling, or, you know, stuff that probably most of the people in the room wouldn't have seen before. So we did that. We got a big because I think the technical piece was new, and that the speaker was kind of well known to all of these people, we got a good crowd out of now when I say good crowd, we got maybe 30 to 35 accountants in the room. And for me, of all of the events that we had done, it probably just turned out to be the biggest damp squib it was it was the energy in the room wasn't good. We had zero questions at all. And for me, then afterwards, it wasn't that it wasn't that bad now, right? I look, you got to here's here's one point that probably didn't think about when I was going to talking about this, this is all learning, isn't it, you got to make the mistakes. And you know, your first event of all of these kinds is never going to be you know, you're going to be a little bit embarrassed looking back. So you just got to make the mistakes. So look, it probably did help get the metas name out there. But what would we have done differently? We'd have definitely done some financial planning stuff, and I'm not sure the investment piece was relevant, was needed. And however, looking back, do the accountants want to ask questions in front of each other? I don't think they do. For fear of, you know, looking like, you know, Jesus, I should have known that, or what's a really
Alan Smith:good point? Really? So it's a really good point. Yeah.
Carl Widger:So what what we have done instead is we took a different note, we don't run loads of other events, which I can talk about if we have time that are on right. But for the accountants in particular, what we've done instead is we've gone to the one one on one, okay, and we've said, look, we've got this Metis life plan, this is so for everybody else, that's cash flow modeling. Let us do one of these for your biggest client or one of your biggest clients, or someone who's maybe coming to a transitionary point, ie Selling A Business etc. We can do it, you just give us the details, but blank out names, we'll do it and then we will present it to you. And almost all of the time the accountant goes, whoa, Jesus, this is brilliant. Can we do this for the client, I'll just ask the client, can I have permission to blah, blah, blah. And then we go and do the presentation to Metis, Vice President Metis lifetime presentation to the client and the accountant. So that's one thing that I would strongly recommend. And I think really, really, really does work. Of course, if you offer this to 10 accountants, you might get to do two or three presentations. So this is a numbers game, because accountants, after all, are very, very busy. And also they don't necessarily think do we do the great work that we actually do? So that's our challenge is to actually show them so telling them I don't think is any good, you got to actually show them. And that has worked spectacularly well for us with a number of accountants and we have lots of centers of influence. Now, in the tax advice accountancy firms who just turned we need to go get a financial plan from Metis Ireland. So that's one thing. The other thing that we've done as well is the old entertaining. So asking an accountant to a really nice golf course and say bring two clients are bringing six clients and we'll let's just all get to know each other first. We won't talk business. And then you know that that kind of positions it better for the client for the accountant to be able to say to his or her client to say, Hey, why Carlos is financial planning, I've seen it, I think you need it now that you've met him, you know, he's not an axe murderer are are for any of the other matters people in the in that that might be playing golf. So that's worked really, really well for us. Now we are looking to try and kind of bring that maybe not necessarily exclusively to golf courses, but to do other events. So we have other things happening on that front as well. So looked at that's kind of my experience on it. I would say spending a lot of time, money and effort into doing a big accountancy seminar might not be the best way forward for you. But hey, that's my experience. I'm sure there's plenty of other advisors out there who are going to tell you that that's all they do. And they smash it out of the park on it's absolutely brilliant. So like, it's this is the thing, you got to find your groove, you got to find your way forward. So in summary, amen. If you were if you are going to run this, definitely do a piece about financial planning, but link it to a technical piece that they do like but don't expect a lot of engagements. That's my final point. So Andy, you're obviously doing mega events in terms of humans under management, probably the best known financial adviser event in the UK. So what's your take on this and running events? In general? What are the main themes people should be looking at?
Andy Hart:Your last statement will definitely be a YouTube short thanks for that car. Just a follow on from a point that you may call about showing your work to accountants I used to do I don't it's about three or four times. So I'll take on a new client, I said you have an accountant, they say yes. I said, What's the details? Are they quite proactive? And then I say can I contact the accountant and say like, we're working with you collaboratively. And I asked the client permission to share the financial Master Plan, which is the sort of cash flow output. And I've emailed it to accountants. And it's like, I think it's like the most beautifully presented 15 pages of pure financial planning wonder the countered is zero interest in it. I don't know if they feel intimidated. You know, you expect them to see it and go, Wow, this is fantastic. All of our other clients need this. I need this. I've had not too good success with that. So if anyone's thinking about doing that tread carefully,
Carl Widger:just Can I just jump on that one before Nick has a point to make as well. But I wouldn't I think that's pretty pointless sending it out sending a 15 page document out because if I got that I'd probably deleted
Andy Hart:it. But what lots of beautiful, what I'm saying is, I'm doing that work with that client. Anyway, I'm just involving the accountant to be collaborative with it to show that this is the overall situation and you know, invite them
Carl Widger:invite them to the meeting, Andy Yeah, I can have collaborative HSE consultant and his wife has been a client of mine for years and years and years. undiscounted came to the meeting. And it's amazing. Like we just I think the client now has a lot of trust built up and both of us. But a lot of the meeting is me talking to the accountant with the client couple are beside us and they're just delighted that, hey, I've got these two guys. Yeah, brilliant in my in my corner. When I say show the work, you know, emailing a presentation or you know, sending screenshots from void. That's not going to work. But anyway, sorry for the introduction. Nick, what was your point on that?
Nick Lincoln:No worries called. Yes. My point is that I think a static financial plan doesn't ring anyone's Bell really. And if you're going to get cash flow across two accounts, the I mean, I've got one accountant introduced this this this lady in Berkhamsted and she you know, like of course, accountants deal with limited company business owners and for me, that's the ideal target market Limited Company. Business owners ideally husbands and wives, right. And if you're working with those kind of clients doing cash flow, get as as one of the to be leaders who they get the client get the accountant in on the annual planning meetings and this lady, this accountant, she loves it she if she can see the cash flow modeling happening in real time because we share the screens and everything then then they they are getting the counters get engaged, I think I think a flat PDF necessarily won't do it. And that's definitely something I would do if I was running a seminar or webinar with accountants, as the audience, as you said called Give them all away some give them some technical stuff, they can go and use, you know, remind them about the lifetime allowance going remind them about the annual allowance in the UK now being 60k because some of them won't know talk to them about relevant Life policies, you know, just as just give him some stuff and then do I would then for the second half of the seminar, I would pivot to a live cash flow demonstration of Mr. And Mrs. company owner, because accountants are new And we're obviously and the better accountants will will. There'll be doing cash flow for their clients, businesses. And all we're doing is saying we're doing exactly the same for the for the business owners themselves. We're doing the cash flow and build a plan live. That's what that's what I would say. If an accountant doesn't respond to somebody sit in the flesh and a plan being built for their clients, then I would suggest that accountant, we should probably get
Alan Smith:back to seminars and webinars. You talking about just dealing with accountants?
Nick Lincoln:Yeah, but the question was about your Weetabix in Ireland? No, it's not spoken potem. And it's just having withdrawal symptoms. Okay, fine. Seminars, to me, okay, so, events, that sort of business to business, don't use a token, organize business
Andy Hart:to business or financial advice. I've never done a client event and I probably will never do one. I might do an event with Maven money, which my podcast but anyway, so I've done events for sort of two different brands. So the voices User Group, which started in December 2011. And then I've got humans under management. We started in November 2017. Just a brief sort of story about this, like business stories. I remember I sat down with a, it wasn't really going to be a potential client or prospect, but I pretty much knew I wasn't going to work with him. Anyway, he sold his garden maintenance company for 45 million. And he was a slightly older gentleman, I think it's about 75 years old, the company. So I sat down with him just have a general chat and things to avoid or whatever. And I thought it was gonna be quite confident, quite arrogant, or whatever. He said, Andy, I set up this business 50 years ago with a one lawn mower. And it just hit me like the start the meeting, you know, he was very humble that you just built this business over time, over time over time. And it was the same with the sat down the lady that sold a load of nurseries. And she said, Andy, I set this business 30 years ago, and I started off with, you know, one kid, and I've just built it up and it was in my house. And then I rented it, you know, a local place. And then the built it built it built it. So I love the stories of businesses started off with, you know, humble beginnings as such. So my tenuous link to setting up events, the first event I ran that, weirdly, Nick Lincoln was at was in December 2011. In my old office in pinner, Evan Taos. And I think there's about 10 of us there. And I've got the list of attendees actually, because I quite keep, keep quite good notes of things. So anyway, the people that were there, I'm gonna read them out now. was me, Simon graves, Nick Lincoln. Let's Conway Stewart poonawalla, Bob Freeman, grim Foster, Tony Clarkin. And John scoles. Do you remember this event, Nick?
Nick Lincoln:I do. I do. Indeed. Okay, can we get back to seminars? Because otherwise? So can we talk about seminars again, quick cold,
Alan Smith:we were not invited to that event call or do all we were and we said,
Nick Lincoln:these are the good days. These are these are the these are the these are the clean days anyway.
Andy Hart:Okay, moving on. He was still finding his way some further information. So yeah, I've been running financial advisor events. And the main thing I run is humans under management this year, in SA coming up later this month is the 12th show of run. And in London, it's going to be the 13th. And events are hard and challenging. Um, you know, they're expensive. There's a lot of work that goes involved in them. Since I've been set up teams on the management I've booked 150 speakers. So you've got a book speakers, which is, you know, challenging in itself. You've obviously got to sell tickets, you've got to find a venue got to worry about logistics. Timing is important. Some specific points to his question. Yes, I use Eventbrite. Yes, you should use LinkedIn. Yes, you should use Twitter. I use Pay Pal on the back end. Yeah, events are challenging, but rewarding. Yeah, so I'll continue to run event is over to you, Nick.
Nick Lincoln:It's over to me, I think Yeah. Okay. Thank you guys for your input into that. So I don't do I don't do seminars. I don't I haven't organized a seminar for either my clients or for other advisors. Really I get involved with Andy with the voices user group to an extent and that's now a webinar and that's really well yes, I know I can't I can feel a part of you dying inside and maybe you as well. If I was to do anything I would now do it as a webinar not a seminar I think the days of unless you you know bigger firms maybe you can do something you do golf days totally get it fine. But I think for the for the for the lifestyle, financial planner, webinars are the way forward. And Phil Bray who's who does listen to the show runs the yardstick agency, a well known marketing brand in in front of UK financial services. He's written two really good long forms on how to organize a, a webinar. Not a seminar but a webinar. And I'll put links into them. And actually, it's an object lesson in content marketing from Phil, what you'd expect because he's a marketing expert, because he's given chapter on verse. The first piece is how to organize a webinar. Everything you need to do so he mentions Eventbrite, he mentions LinkedIn he mentions upgrade In your zoom package, don't run it as a Zoom meeting, you have to buy the webinar package, which is about 600 quid a year. It just it just works way better if you do that. And then the second long form piece that he wrote is the 10 mistakes that you should avoid when doing a webinar, which is really the same article just rewritten. Really good. And you read this thing, crikey, his Phil here has given away everything I need to organize a webinar. But it's subtle content marketing, because I think a lot of people will look at this and think Jesus Christ has a lot of moving parts of that can go wrong, I need to turn to an expert to organize this webinar. For me, who's the expert, he's just demonstrated his expertise. It's Phil Breyer, the Arctic agency who makes one oblique sales line in it and says, of course, this is too much for you, you might wish to outsource the organizing and running your webinar to people that know what they're doing. So it's very subtle. So I would, I would look at that, I might, I'm just country with the idea, I might run an annual webinar for my clients, which will just be to talk around the investment, fun running the portfolio, and maybe do it in January, if you're looking back over the last year. But of course, as a one man band, I would need to get a third party involved the one if you're doing webinars, don't do it by yourself, because you've got enough going on with the presentation, you had to have someone looking at the chat, looking at the questions doing the housekeeping and so forth. So I don't know if maybe dimensional would step in and would give a 10 minute overview of where the markets had been over the last year or so. And I know you're thinking, Nicholas, that's that's kind of counterintuitive to your core message, which is don't focus on the investments. But I just think once a year just saying, Well, what's happened? Where what just just just going through the portfolio screen through the 13,000, great company, I don't know, I'm just throwing it out there. It's probably because I read this article, it's front of my mind on how to do a webinar. And I haven't done a webinar, and I want to do it i Yeah, I'm just
Carl Widger:I like that idea, Nick. And look, there's no part of me thinks that it's not the way to go is to do webinars going forward. We're definitely looking at them. And throughout COVID, we did a number of webinars that I hosted. And we got actually loads of people on them. So I'm not against that idea at all. I just a little bit old fashioned, and I love pressing the flesh. And I love just meeting people face to face. So you know, but I do understand that there is another way. And I'm not convinced it's a better way. But there's another way. And of course, we should be exploring all of the ways. So yeah, I like that idea. And I do like the annual seminar about investments. I think that's a really good idea, actually.
Nick Lincoln:Yeah, and so I know we have some SJP listeners to the to the show some to SJP Trappists. And of course they are they are the past masters are organizing physical seminars. That's that's, that's one of their caches, isn't they'll, they'll, they'll hire a country pile. And they'll talk about inheritance tax plan and get a third party in the kind of octopuses of this world. So they'll they'll, they'll know it, they'll they'll have it nailed down. But with SJP it'll be a manual everything we process driven, you know you if you want to organize a seminar, practice, head, this is what you do. And this is how you do it and you do not do not deviate from that. So there's different ways to do Allen, you don't particularly or or shoot me down if I'm wrong. You don't organize seminars per se for your clients, but you attend them. What are your takeaways from a good seminar and or a bad seminar? What would you avoid? Or what would you say? All right,
Alan Smith:I mean, just just some some random thoughts is listening to you guys. Just chat this through. Interesting just one thing, Nick on the SJP. Thief, famously, and I hope I'm not miss remembering his name that probably that I think I gathered. The most successful SGP advisor ever is a guy called John Krause, who famously we just had a chauffeur to us drive around is in the back of his Bentley. And if you're sitting on his phone, you know, arranging appointments, and he was the seminar king. He would just organize seminars. In fact, I think at a podcast we've met we've kind of chatted about this briefly before in a previous episode, guy called Colin Lawson learned a lot from him. This Ken Coleman also runs a firm equilibrium up in the northwest, hugely successful firm. And then Colin jumped on that particular bandwagon became and built a lot of success as an independent practitioner through seminar selling. And you're right the hook. The interesting thing is finding a hook. What's going to be interesting to get people to come along to and what we recognize is middle England hate inheritance tax. That's just the thing. So doing a seminar on financial planning, no one really knows what financial planning is or investment management. Well, it's vaguely interesting, not really. But inheritance tax was a great way of getting people along and they organized a lunch. And it was a pure numbers game. And again, this is public information that I'm gonna be sharing this because I heard Colin speak about it. We cost about 10 grand a an event. But you know, you play the long game and you were making whatever you make your money back. What I have heard, again, anecdotally that I'm sure there's exceptions to the rule. What I've heard recently is doesn't really work so much that that is a process has been really exploited over the years and now you know, those kind of middle England people In a nice postcodes up and down the country have painted so many rubber chicken lunches that they've probably had enough and they've been sort of, you know, the probably engaged with the financial advisor, the you know, the majority of people who whoever got to do it probably have by now. So there's a definite move and it's still expensive though to you know, in person physical events are still pretty expensive to, you know, delay on to rent or, you know, rent a nice place to lay on food drinks, all the follow up. So I gather that is moving increasingly to a digital outcome, which is, of course, the costs are a fraction and you still get quite a few people showing up. So that's quite, quite interesting. Yeah, I think a lot of these things are personal views. And I just personally I'm not somebody that attends live webinars very much and and so then I think that no one else does. Although I have participated in I was in we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I was in a live events with Stuart down in Australia, and I think it was 60 odd people, the other advisors, I did one with Lee Robertson of October last year, there's 120, something advisors live on that particular time. So people so obviously, as a medium webinar, like live webinars, and again, the article which I read briefly before that you share it, Nick, Phil Bray talks about is you definitely going to do a webinar do not do a pre recorded the temptation is to do have to pre record it, and then just publish it. But you said that that's that's missing the entire point, it needs to be live. So you have people asking questions live, and no one wants to show up at a particular time to watch a video which they could have watched on YouTube, and anytime that they want. So some people will some people do? Not particularly for me, I think going back to a man's original question, when he talks about he just is looking for the kind of cradle to grave with a soup to nuts idea. How would you set up a seminar for say, 50 accountants? The first question I'd be asking is, what are you trying to what are you hoping to achieve?
Nick Lincoln:Right? What's your what and 50? is where you start?
Alan Smith:What exactly that's but what what are you hoping? What is the actual desirable outcome of doing this? Because to my mind, when I see that I just think God, that is just a world of hurt in terms of work, organization, reputational risk, but getting it wrong, where you're going to get the people. So what are you hoping to do that you couldn't do? On a one to one, just just kind of tying a bow on this going back to Karl's original point. And I think Andy mentioned this as well to some you, Amon specifically mentioned accountants, accountants being professional advisors that a lot of our clients also have, as well as us. A classic thing is, you know, question to everyone listening to this, if the practice practitioners, you're practicing financial planners right now, or they're working in financial planning practices? Do you have a list names, contact details, email addresses all sorts of points of clarification of every single one of your clients, accountants? Do you have that on a database on the schedule? And are you communicating with them on a regular basis, because I'd be doing I would just setting up a specific targeted newsletter of some description, finding high quality, relevant information and just drip feeding that no less than a monthly basis to all the accountants have. And you'll determine over time, if you check your downloads, check, check your open rates, check your things, your click through who's actually reading this stuff, you will automatically identify accountants who are specifically interested in the work you do. If you do like a mass market, blood shotgun style approach, I'm gonna invite 50 Random account has or 100 or 200 Random accounts, it's going to be a mixed bag. And as call experience, you might get a bunch of them show up on a day and they might not really be engaged, you might think, you know, get free CPD, or free lunch or free breakfast or something. So I'd be trying to identify those that aren't, you know, in any group of accountants group of anything, there'll be some who are specifically interested. So I think that's what I'll be doing. First of all, what is your desirable outcome? And I presume it's to open up professional relationships with third party professionals? Who can you can mutually refer clients across? So I think I mean, the simplest way you're doing is having a high quality communication process. And maybe then once you've identified those, and you've been communicating with them for six months or so, then do a poll. If we organize a webinar, would you be interested? What are your key subjects that you'd be interested in? You know, what sort of time of day would you like? Would you like an in person event? Would you like a webinar? And you and you get you the feedback before you actually do it? You kind of sell them sell the products before you actually create it. I think that would be one of the things I would do.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, that's Yeah, interesting. I think that the webinar thing you can expand out I know you and Phil Phil Barry mentioned this in his in his piece is that yeah, you're doing a client webinar, I'd say it's about just just looking at the one font and looking under the bonnet and getting a third party in to talk about it because you don't you can't just be you talking in a webinar. You have to have at least one other third party, if only because it breaks up the monotony of your voice. And so you get dimensional and then later but and you put the invite out your client bank that you put it, he says, put it out to everybody on your MailChimp database. And I've got this newsletter that goes out once a quarter. And I've got a few 100 people on there who aren't clients of mine. They're just people who've subscribed to it and their accountants have clients just just put it out there because the webinars that you're actually going to talk about the investment, but you're going to tie it into the fact that investment just drives to financial planning and your maybe just do a quick run through the financial planning software, just show a graph or two on the on the webinar, because some accountant might be looking at thinking Blimey, that's really good. I didn't Yeah, this guy is not just flogging pensions or what have you. And the theme of the webinar is you can put out a million invites it cost you the same if you put out two invites, it doesn't matter, they all turn up but they don't all turn up the cost, you know, the cost is going to be capped. Whereas with the physical event, I've got the grove hotel at the row, which is lovely, right? It's a proper, proper swanky place with a with a golf course that has been on the PGA Tour. I mean, so so a bit crashed as well that will cost to book you know, I mean, I would just be, how would you get the return back on that? I do not know, and how do you measure it? So I'm definitely on the web. And I think Andy, you're you had a digit we having a fit, or was your digit rose?
Andy Hart:Are you still banned from the growth nook?
Nick Lincoln:No, they've they've given me as long as I can't wear that dress. It's got to be longer. They this Hamlet is the hem length was the profile. Thanks for the map. Yeah, the grove
Andy Hart:is wonderful. I would say to the Amon, don't think of this event as a one off, that will be disaster, like your first event will be probably terrible. So you've got to think this is now your new way of operating. So don't think of it as a one and done. Your second event will be will be way better than your third will be better. So yeah, I would I would stick to this rather than just thinking this as a one off. So maybe even your first event maybe try and get 10 in a room build up to 50. Yeah, so try and embrace this as part of your new marketing strategy rather than a one off
Nick Lincoln:50 Nicholas D is 50 is brave as well. And if it's getting 50 clients in a room is Brett 50 accountants. I mean, I doubt there are 50 accountants in Hartfordshire that you really want to deal with. So I would say Get 10 Get 10 Yeah, that's gonna be a real work of luck, guys. We've given Damon's question a damn damn good thrashing there. Are we are we comfortable to move on to the next segment the show because I can see in my little nest camera on my screen that post is slogging up the dimension to the drive to Lincoln to Lincoln Lodge and she's she's got a bulging sack of crackers questions. So let's have a look and answer two more from our beloved Trappist. And who is this first one from let me quickly open this up. This one is from Mr. Nick miles. He's not on Twitter, but he's on LinkedIn. Nick miles and he says I've got consumer duty, just been to a money marketing interactive event. I'm sorry to hear that. Nick. I hope you're recovering and obsessional consumer duty by simply biz. Having worked on this for some time the simply Bruce presenter said he has a refined consumer duty proposition for member firms for the implementation in July. This question was obviously posted a few months ago. He that simply this guy is on version 27 of their consumer duty proposition 47 pages long and 13,000 words in length. Is this long enough. Do you think joking for the tension of lighning can a really great podcast he has surged TRAPPIST the last nine shows in reverse order over four days and cannot get the nd heart tune out of his head.
Unknown:And the the ultra grabber Darien Andy. He knows about everything and he can't be told anything. His name is Andrew Hart.
Nick Lincoln:There you go, Nick. There's like a one party once again written in the back of a taxi on the way to a restaurant just outside of Cape Town. Because humidity is kind of it's embedded now. It's been gone. I do think there's a lot of grift around it. Like all of these things you get the Grifters coming out with their 13,000 words on consumer duty. I can see if you're if you're a brand or a fund manager, you probably do need a 13,000 pound consumer duty manual because I think consumer duty hits you straight in the nuts sack. If you're if you're an IFA and a well run IFA firm. I don't think you need to be spending that much time on it. He said once again poking the bear and asking for the FCA to give them another visit. I'm happy to move on to the next question if you are generous unless you have something to add. Okay, silence is golden. The next question Who is this from? This is from a guy called Joel doesn't give us doesn't give a surname. I suppose that it could be any job for another piano man could be a Trappist. He's on Twitter as at G EU Jews you ju 19850 God feel free to paraphrase what I've written the paraphrases are written as I'm not professional. I am a teacher. We have a teacher listener. I am a teacher and I have a buy to let I have an accountant that sorts out my self assessment and manages the estate agent manages the property over the last seven years with my various expenses I paid little to note Tax. A friend colleague is moving schools and wants to rent his current home out. As I think you've got confused with an accountancy podcast. Yeah, but we'll crack on he wants to rent his current home out as the new school is going to provide accommodation for him. He's spoken to an IFA, who was a friend of the family, who has said he should set up a limited company to get him tax benefits. I did ask him did the IFA ask about his aims, goals and aspirations? And he'd hoped he would apparently not the if he did not do this. I said, as a lowly teacher, he should just do what I did get an accountant and you don't need the hassle of a limited company for your property, since his main tax salary would be teaching. And if he keeps good records near the end of the tax year, if he's guessed to high tax, he can put those up as pension. So the question he's asking is, if you have a what if you have one vital left property and maybe even two, do you need to set up a limited company to manage the so this really isn't a counselor question and just I'll go first and you've got to chip in rule of thumb seems to be if you've got like five or six pipe let's the tax situation tends to favor having a limited company and putting the properties within that frame for various reason. I'm not going to go into the corporation tax versus income tax and everything else. But if you've got one bite to lay, I don't think you need to set up a limited company to have to put the bite let within guys, any any views and you've you've kind of dabbled in property to a degree.
Andy Hart:Yeah, no, I agree. If you just got one, it's massively over complicating it, especially if he isn't too financially savvy. So yeah, probably against his not advice, but proceed with the way that the questioner was recommending anyone else.
Alan Smith:It's a strange one. I'm just reading through the question that he asked. He asked a question right at the end, talking about the setting up a limited company or not? Was this relatively sound thinking? Are you what Joel has said? Or are my suspicions that this IFA was trying to get a quick buck falsely hurled? I don't know what quick buck the if he was gonna get by suggesting setting up a limited company, there's no sort of quick win on that particularly limit setting up a limited company doesn't cost very much to do and you can do it yourself, or there's generally the remit of an accountant as opposed to an IFA, you know, the big the bigger question is, it's a strange one, because the question is really around a transactional issue. Sure. I've got this asset, how should I own it? Now, the bigger question is, why do you want to own it? What in what what context? Do you continue to own it and all that, which is a proper, you know, a real lifestyle, financial planner type question, but it's really, it's just, I'm a teacher, I be given a property to live in. And I've got my house and should I just rent it out? And what should I do? So that's, that's fine. So it's a transactional question. And there's a far bigger issue around the role of an IFP if at all in this particular issue or question. So I try and keep it simple basically. Keep it and exactly right and that's the and I hear this quite a lot and this whole buy to let thing in from what I can see it's just kind of collapsing in the UK we've not seen the start of it everyone I know right? It's going to be an absolute Shambles is gonna be horrendous. Everyone I know that owns by to that property, or the majority people are just trying to get get rid right now. And so owning one come, which is actually the whole other thing with that is that was his principal private residence by the looks of things as well. So he owned that as his where he lived. So setting up the limited company, no, don't bother wasting time. But I think that is a big there's a bigger question there about the role of advisor and the role of an accountant,
Nick Lincoln:Carl, while you chuckling Come on, it's the Chuckle
Carl Widger:Alan is talking away. They're kind of not really answering the question then the back in the background, Andy has gone. This is horrendous. This is going
Andy Hart:we've not seen it. It's just anyway,
Carl Widger:my solution is that we no good a very good advisor called Amon, who is very well connected to loads of accountants. So I think we should put Joel in touch with Amon. There's a solution and there's the answer to the question.
Andy Hart:He can go into the first seminar it can be one of the 10 He just needs to find nine now.
Carl Widger:No. Joel is a teacher not an accountant so he won't be wandering the tank and broke the program or you're not listening. Come on.
Nick Lincoln:Right good stuff and dad and den TRAPPIST if you've got a question as ever do post it in the pinned tweet. There's a link in the pinned tweet, we call tweets anymore. The pin decks at the top of our x profile, you can submit your questions there and we will get around to answering them. We still got about 15 in the hopper to get through. So just bear with us. Okay, we're now God help us 64 minutes in let's move on to culture corner. Okay, Mr. Hart, sleep. I watch God go.
Andy Hart:Yeah, this is sort of like a tech culture corner. So I've just become a lot more intentional tracking my sleep. I've had an iWatch for years. But I haven't activated the sleep app. I think Alan's done this. And he spoke to me about it.
Alan Smith:So what's what's an iWatch? Should you be an Apple Watch?
Andy Hart:Yeah, it's called an iWatch. No, an Apple Watch. No, it's not. Right. Watch. Okay, so I've got an iWatch I've activated the sleep app via the health app on my watch. So now sleep with it and I track my sleep. I think it's bloody brilliant. I basically got a sleep coach now. Yeah, digital sleep coach activated it I recommend doing it it means you change your behavior because you got charged your watch we got to bed and all that jazz but yeah, it's all good. You've been tracking your sleep having the island by the way. I have
Alan Smith:fought for years. Yeah, but I've got an app I just trying to look it up
Unknown:a separate episode to it.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, so you're tracking your sleep. So what was good
Alan Smith:was good useful you? Yeah, you check out Yeah, I mean, it has a bit single biggest impact on how you how you operate through your
Andy Hart:life. Yeah. And obviously if you go to bed with lots of stuff in your mind that will come out and you sleep I've got this Oh, etc. It's,
Alan Smith:I've tried, I've tried, I've tried loads of them. Sleep Cycle is the app and it is linked to your link to your watch and all that stuff. And it becomes a bit of an obsession because you wake up in the morning. First thing I do in the morning is check how good to see. And then you get nervous about how if you didn't have a good sleep, or share I'm gonna have a bad day there so that that creates sleep anxiety, then you don't sleep properly. And
Andy Hart:if you if you have an Apple Watch and I watch and you've not yet done this, I recommend doing it so you have to go out of your way it's a little bit of a setup but once you've done it is basically seamless. It's absolutely so you sleep with the watch on the watch on it so you're not doing it on and it's an app that I used to put on the my pillow now this is all done seamlessly via the watch. It's that it's working brilliant. So if you haven't done it, do it and I know
Nick Lincoln:having a good night's sleep because you feel shit
Andy Hart:it's just data you want you
Alan Smith:want the data to be telling you Yeah, yeah. But but it is interesting every time a split anytime that you boys if you if you consume any alcohol this
Andy Hart:is nuts. Yeah. So that's a subtle person is telling me to live a good life. So I go to bed and get good sleep and wake up and confirm that. Yeah, it's I find it interesting. It's data. It's health stuff, if you're interested in it, that my two packs.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, fine. Thank you for that, Addy. So Kitsis you know once in a once in a blue moon Michael Kitsis releases something of interest. And his episode 347 was the story of a lady who sold her RIA business RIA is broadly equivalent of IFA in this country, she sold her business to United capital. And then United capital sold on to Goldman Sachs, which has all been a bit of a shit show don't really care to take them down all the better. And this episode is about her experiences. And trust me not good. You know, once once you sell to Goldman Sachs, you're in the Goldman Sachs, mincing machine she was she was quite an advocate on social media. She had a brand on social media she was on on American Finance TV shows on the web a lot. And Goldman Sachs had no stopping all that. So she's trying to extricate herself now from Goldman Sachs. It's quite interesting how the United capital sale has all unwound, as they often do these massive companies buy up raa firms by IFA firms, and then back two years later, it's just a complete shit show. You know, and I think what's happened in the States with this is a lot of advisors are leaving Goldman Sachs and taking their clients with them. There's been a massive hemorrhaging of assets, even though they've all signed these non compete clauses and what have you. It's an interesting link back to what we another put a link to in the show notes. Also in the show notes from episode three of trap, where we discussed United capital selling to Goldman Sachs at that time, I think all of us took a somewhat less enchanted view of Joe Duran, who was the CEO of United capital and all about the clients clients. First, we're not the big Wall Street enemy. And then he flogs himself and his brand to Goldman Sachs. And
Carl Widger:interestingly, the next part of that story, Nick, is that Joe Duran is now launching another Ria and the fin twit community in the US seem to be pandering once again. So that story is I was a fanboy. Not anymore.
Nick Lincoln:Let's add as this I mean, just United capital what he built up was a fantastic business there's no doubt about it and this lady who joined said it was just the best place to be it was a really really good fun company. So that's you know, that's his immense credit but once you once you've once you to sell yourself to Goldman Sachs or Blackrock or one of these institutions, good luck with that. Okay, my next culture corner just quick shout out into commerce and the boys but Debbie Condon runs a firm called intuitive supports like outsourced admin outsource paraplanning she has a fantastic guide, which he updates every quarter or so on the providers and how they handle letters of authority. Okay, very mundane down the weeds but it's a brilliant thing. If you need to know the Scottish widow take DocuSign you look up this guide they do and she gives you the email address you send the DocuSign to I put a link to in the so called show notes. Thank you Debbie for that for that. Yeah, just
Andy Hart:to hammer that point home, Nick, if you don't have it, do download it. It is absolutely brilliant. So yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely download that.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, Mr. Smith, Rick Rubin, the creative act, a way of being.
Alan Smith:Some of you be familiar with Mr. Rick Rubin, one of the most seminal music producers of all time, really, having produced everyone from Beastie Boys, Eminem, through Adele, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Johnny Cash, you know, a really, you know, thoughtful creator. And so he and for many, many years, you know, he's never produced any of his own stuff. But he just recently, earlier this year wrote, as written the book, the book is called the creative act, a way of being, and it's, it's, I think, it's a great read, he just talks about the, the, you know, the very art that the concept of creating the content of creating art, and he's making the point, that it's not about, you know, creating a song or music or a painting, a lot of stuff we do in the way I read it. without stretching the point too much. Creating a real life, you know, financial plan is a is art is a creative process, which is, you create something out of nothing, you create something which exists where previously it didn't exist at all. And it just the way it's a really poetic kind of is quite deep, quite soulful. And I really, I would spend most of the weekend reading through and it's well worth checking out. All of us are artists of some sort. And it's a useful reminder of just create your best work, create your art in a way that only, you know, the unique way that you can bring it to the world and be sort of be proud of it and take your inspiration from so many other places. I really enjoyed reading the book. And I'm going to chuck in it into my culture corner, something else which is a bit more direct, a bit less kind of ephemeral and kind of out there and arty but is our old friend, Mr. Nick Murray, and his book called The craft of advice essays 1995 to 1998. Now this is an interesting one, because Nick buries Nick Nick Murray's books are notoriously difficult to get ahold of. In our group a couple of weeks ago, Mr. Hart posted something about this boot. Dynjandi you said this craft of advice essays like yeah, you've got it there. So immediately, you posted that I thought I've never heard of that before. Go online. And it's really it's real hit and miss. It's available. It was available on Amazon. Right, it's available on Amazon secondhand for about 20 quid so a bike came from the United States so I buy it gets delivered about a week later. And I mean, it's another sort of side story because when you buy the secondhand books, I've got always got a backstory and there was a bookmark in Princeton New Jersey
Unknown:grab yourself a drink a very long drink. It's story time. ALAN SMITH
Alan Smith:know I love the fact that buying secondhand books, particularly Nick Murray books, they themselves I've got a story. So this one did have it had a bookmark from it's called macabre books. Sudden, Nassau Street Princeton, New Jersey's although I wonder who's been in the past, I've had them with highlighters and people got scribbled notes, the points of this being it's a great book, it's a it's a they've captured all he was writing I think monthly essays for a publication during like between 1995 to 1998. So obviously, these are like 30 years old, some of these essays, one of the early, the early ones, he was predicting the demise of commissions and predicting the demise of so many things. He was very accurate in his predictions now 30 years later, and lo whatever we say and people got different views, but the writing is sheer poetry. It's timeless. Just for fun I go I went on again looked at see if it was available again and it's still available on Amazon second habit now 60 quid someone else's posted of 60 quid. So when you come across every now and again you get inspired to check out Nick Murray booth. Just go online look on Amazon look at eBay and you might get lucky you might find one there. And then because there's no chance of you getting that and the normal circumstances, you know, get speaking to Nick Murray International, whatever his company's called and trying to get get them shipped through the normal processes. No chance. And then he email again, dear Nick, how do I get access to your book? You know, it's not. So it's a fabulous read.
Andy Hart:It is a great book. It's a great read a good friend of the show. Groeneveld in SA bought, I think three or four Nick Murray books and that one arrived and it was signed by Nick Murray. So again, somehow signed by him originally what I've
Nick Lincoln:got what I've got is signed by a Francois tremolo. I mean, there's a whole story there's a cult thing.
Andy Hart:You need to sign it when you sell it on Amazon.
Nick Lincoln:Lick lick Lincoln.
Andy Hart:Thanks so much. You're chapters so I just read like one every lunchtime. It's brilliant. I thought you're also going to mention the podcast that Rick Rubin and Rory Sutherland are on. Well, I've
Nick Lincoln:kind of done this a bit that I have put out there there is Rick Rubin has got this podcast. I can't it's quite a long name. I can't remember. But the last episode was our telephone le gammacore. Rory Sutherland. It goes on for three hours. You know, Rick opens up with an open question. And then with Aurora, you know, you just post once you ask them open question, you go away, you prep a casserole, you cook the casserole, you eat the casserole, you have a brand needs to go and you come back and ask the second question. And it's a bit like that, but it's really, really good. Really fast. And Rick Rubin what I mean, crikey. He's talking on the podcast. It talks about Run DMC and walk this way. And Aerosmith in 1986, I think it was, you know, just as this introduced hip hop to the rock world, and it's just use the rock world to hip hop and it just that one track with some editing. Rick Rubin is legendary producer in that year, of course, he did produce the best ever thrash metal album, which is slayers raining blood, which still sounds absolutely fantastic. And it comes in at 28 minutes. I wouldn't. If you're going out for an automatic meal. Don't put that on the background, you know, because it's over by the time the terrain is coming out. But a great guy. Okay, what else we're doing here? The voice della Bochy, Dan Sullivan. Benjamin Hardy. Yeah,
Carl Widger:so I didn't put the book title in the culture quarter, cuz you would have made a smart comment about it, you're gonna love what the book title is. 10x is easier. So, Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy wrote this book. I didn't love it all. But there are definitely nuggets in it. And I did, as usual, the the audible version of it. Some of it's not great, but there are some really good stuff. But one little nugget I loved, you know, the way I think we all kind of have come up with our kind of explanations as to what does true wealth mean or whatever. And Dan Sullivan says, freedom of time, freedom of money, freedom of relationships, and freedom of purpose. And I just loved that. And he kind of he goes into the detail around that, and I'm definitely going to use that again. But I think it's probably more relevant, honestly, for someone looking to build a firm, as opposed to Solo's bush. Having said that, there are there's stuff in there for everybody. Yeah, so check it out. 10x Nick, is easier than 2x
Andy Hart:I think Solomon's got a load of amazing content. And he is a close personal friend of yours and he's in the island.
Alan Smith:Obviously, yeah, he is.
Nick Lincoln:Okie dokie. Good stuff. Okay, I think we're there aren't a chance. I think we're clocking in as ever at the sort of was that just under the 80 minute mark. So let's let's tie a bow on this thank you as ever to TRAPPIST for your time. If you'd like to leave a review, that'd be absolutely fantastic on iTunes is six out of five of course and on YouTube where you can subscribe to us. But for the moment, I think we're done. From the trap pack from the three other Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It's good bye and take care out there folks until the next time. Take care.
Carl Widger:Bye. Enjoy the World Cup. Even the English people