TRAP: The Real Adviser Podcast

75 - Building A Shit Hot Client Experience

• Alan Smith; Andy Hart; Carl Widger; Nick Lincoln

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In this latest pile of TRAP, the Trap Pack discuss

  • Topical Titbits
  • Meat and Potatoes: Building A Shit Hot Client Experience
  • TRAPist question(s) from www.twitter.com/Tom_Oates54
  • Culture Corner

Show links: http://tiny.cc/traplinks

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Unknown:

Now Welcome to The Real advisor podcast, T, R, A, P, T, please follow us and join in the conversation on Twitter at advisor podcast, where you can suggest ideas and themes you'd like the trap 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 pile of trap. Yes,

Nick Lincoln:

indeed, dear trappers, welcome back to what many people are calling episode 75 of the real advisor podcast, T, R, E, B, trap. My name is Nick Lincoln, and joining me as ever in the studio of doom, are the three other Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I had to think, then, is it three or four? I couldn't do my maths. Alan, let's go. Four. I couldn't do my maths. And the ultra heart and Carl della voci, the voice wiger is back, gentlemen, we have a show packed full of app, absolutely nothing. So let's start unpacking it straight away with a high energy review read from my good friend, the right honorable Mr. Andrew Usain Hart, the

Andy Hart:

good news is we've had a couple of new reviews here, but please do keep them covered. We're running out soon. This is entitled, A must listen. Five stars. Five stars. Again, from Mark Bell. The review is refreshing, honest and entertaining. Every episode leaves me smarter, slightly more cynical, and weirdly craving a pint. This is the only CPD I actively Enjoy. Thank you. Horseman, just on that. Do you think a lot of people actually submit this as unstructured CPD? Well, chuckle. You think? Yeah, they just, they're throwing it all in

Nick Lincoln:

one of the rag stars, money marketing or financial advice. They do a podcast. They say, if you listen to it, sounds it's CPD. We haven't had it approved by Did they say structured? Nick, I can't remember. I don't know it. Doesn't know what the enemy's doing, but I don't, um, I don't,

Alan Smith:

I don't know structure, but, yeah, but why not 90 minutes saying structure? That's decent. Let's move on.

Nick Lincoln:

God, listen to us for a year. What's that? 25 episodes. That's your CPD

Andy Hart:

done. Hey? Structured. Then we put it behind the paywa. Now we're talking. That's

Nick Lincoln:

a great review. Mark Bell, thank Mark. Mark with a C, my heart goes out to you. Yeah, great review. Love it. Love it. Love it. Okay, let's put a, let's put a topical times timestamp, even on the topical tidbits for episode, 7575 three bloody years of my life. Oh, where did that all go wrong? And it's me starting off with topical tidbits. So this is, this is an interesting little, little angle here. So pre the Wuhan lab leak, you know, letters of authority were a complete pain in the you know what? I know they apparently still are, because certain knacks can't stop going on about them. But with DocuSign, it's a way, way better than it used to be. And I know there are, I think, still, some outlier providers that need wet signatures on a bit of paper for the letter of authority, but most of them now are Docusign. Well, fidelity, to its credit, seems to go on one stage further as an advisor. Now you can, you can go onto their platform, not the client. You can go onto their platform, you put in the client's name, the client's date of birth, and their policy numbers, and then Fidel, she brings up a tick box saying, Please confirm you have the authority from the client on file for us to release this information. And Bob's your uncle, you do it, and then you can just immediately download a client. Wow. It's like, That is insane. That is insane. Because I I think it's brilliant from I think it's brilliant. And policy numbers, well, you wouldn't need, I mean, in the olden days, people don't get printed paper valuation so much anymore. But just imagine Mrs. Miggins leaves her fidelity statement on the train. You've got all you've got everything there. You can then now log in to her. You've got her date of birth. You've got her name, you've got a policy numbers. You can log into her account find out all about it. So presumably,

Alan Smith:

though, that Nick, you've got to Yeah, FSA number and advisor,

Nick Lincoln:

if an advisor finds it on Yeah, and Rogue gives you do about it. Yeah, there's a

Andy Hart:

system here. And I got my hand up, sorry, Nick, I'm assuming you need to be a registered financial advisor with fidelity, yes,

Nick Lincoln:

yes. You have to log into their account. Yeah, you're looking into your portal with them. That's the barrier. And that's the barrier. Yeah, I'm just saying it's, I mean, I love that. This is the client with a million pound pension lady, the million pound pension pot. And just, oh, okay, there's all the information I need. She's got fixed protection, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah. She's taking some money out.

Alan Smith:

She's got sorry, I think that's a sensible thing to do is entrusting regulated advisors who adhere to a high standard code of conduct, all the rest of it as yet exactly to be regulated, and saying, Look, we're going to assume that you are honest in accessing this information. I guess they'll find out if you're not, down the line and. Carl

Carl Widger:

say, What about an advisor who works for a firm and then leaves to set up his or her own business? It's this is that's way too loosey goosey for me. I'm sorry, yeah, but they

Nick Lincoln:

probably would have downloaded the policy information anyway before they left. I mean, let's be honest,

Andy Hart:

they're not gonna that's assuming. Nick,

Nick Lincoln:

come on. Okay.

Carl Widger:

Just you need a bigger hurdle for me to get information, and I think a signed a signed document from the client, whether it's DocuSign or a wet signature, I think you need it. For me, you just need

Alan Smith:

it. It's interesting that the fidelity obviously, are following the rules so that if anyone else says insist you need to have this a wet signature or anything you can say to them, Well, no, the regulations don't insist on it. Clearly, if one of

Carl Widger:

the largest fidelity just trying to make skip and big, huge admin burden on themselves, maybe

Andy Hart:

that's one of the outcomes, yeah, remove some of the friction. The two of the providers that I know are Vanguard and Hargreaves Lansdown, I think they don't even accept letters of authority from advisors. They say, Look, if you're dealing with the client, tell the client to just download the valuation statement. That's all you need, because they don't have any legacy guarantee. This guarantees, you know, all weird and wacky, confusing things. Vanguard just, do, you know, simple ISIS of pension, soda, HL, which is also good. So they've just cut that entire department from their business and said, Look at the client. Just tell them to tell them to download the transactions, the portfolio statement, the latest valuation. That's good enough, which I also think is decent. Yeah.

Nick Lincoln:

Okay. Anyway, it's a wrinkle. It's a definite ring on I love it, but you've got to be careful with it. Okay, ultra oh my god,

Andy Hart:

this is, I mean, I'm going to raise this topic, but it's for all of us to chip in. This is the topic du jour. Is the UK going to implement a wealth tax? And I'm sure Nicholas is far more experienced in answering this question than myself, but this is kicking around at the moment, and they're talking about, what numbers does it kick in at that they're sort of discussing assets above 10 million. They think it's going to catch about 20,000 people. Again, this is based on the ridiculous projections that they do based on the current situation, not when the, you know, the new wealth tax is actually implemented. You know, it's been tried and tested in many different countries, and I think, generally not worked. It's a thing that, you know, rears its ugly head every 510, 15 years in the UK. So, yes, wealth tax, over to you, Alan,

Alan Smith:

it's impractical, I think is a short answer, if they're just talking about this now, in order to get the legislation in place, to do the consultation, which I presume they'll do, and not just bring it in, the whole thing is going to be, you know, two to three years away before it's practical

Andy Hart:

that they can be millions wasted.

Alan Smith:

Watch point. Will be on the verge of and we'll be in the beginning of the next election cycle. Whether that becomes a rallying cry for that election, I don't know. I I think it's more just sort of noise. There's no question about it. There's a budget coming up in the autumn, and we are just in such a pickle financially in this country, it certainly appeals. I mean, did you see there was a survey? Even this just makes me smile as well. So 75% of the UK population would be happy for that.

Nick Lincoln:

Yeah, 10 million pounds. I'm

Alan Smith:

surprised it wasn't 99% wasn't 99% of people, yeah, as long as it's not taxing me of the

Andy Hart:

population that are going to be caught by on the proposed numbers, 0.04% so yeah, yeah, zero 6% or whatever

Alan Smith:

it's so, as you say, Andy, there's a whole host of countries that have tried this and that to reverse it over the years. We know that the second order effects and what happens and and also the I mean, how do you, how do you calculate this is the biggest thing. How do you calculate wealth you want a private

Carl Widger:

company? Is it? Is it going to be, is the suggestion to base it on your asset, wealth, as opposed to your income.

Andy Hart:

Yeah, they called it net wealth. Yeah, shoot. I mean,

Nick Lincoln:

what's happened is that Keir Starmer hasn't ruled it out. Yeah. I mean, we had so that we know we are this? Is this? Is this? This is very

Alan Smith:

conjecture. You know, one of the, one of the things this is happening already. I remember the lot the budget last year, it wasn't and there was three months between the general election and the budget happening, and the government's media and PR machine was just awful because it didn't say anything. They didn't refuse to rule out anything. And in the absence of clarity, people and all the press and media make up their own stories, and it's all sort of big news. And so people begin to take, you know, action ahead of it, you know, we saw some the beginnings of the exodus of wealthy people. Last year.

Carl Widger:

You've been speaking about that a lot that, that, you know, there is a lot of left. Accelerate

Andy Hart:

net loss of 16,000 millionaires, and now they're trying to go after the top 20,000 obviously, there's still a chunk, you know, between the 16,000 we lost, we

Nick Lincoln:

lost, we lost 2025, billionaires last year. And last time, there's something. I mean, obviously TRAPPIST should be Mumbai trust the thing. I think this is just wrong, even if it worked. The idea is wrong. We already pay a wealth tax in this country. The wealthy 1% I think, pay 30% of the tax take. We've been taxed more heavier than we have been since 1947 marginal rates of tax can hover around 62% not for the Mega wealthy, but just really for the strivers. We are taxed and taxed and taxed and taxed. And this is an insane idea, and it's not just this. You know, you're taxing on wealth. So someone who's got money, say, tied up in their private company, a very wealthy company, but it's not listed, perhaps, and the government said, well, we want 100 grand because of your worth it, where it's I mean, this is a liquid asset, and you want me to sell and now I'm paying capital gains. Are you gonna

Alan Smith:

that's the same with inheritance tax on farms and small businesses, family owned businesses. Same thing you die. This is an illiquid asset. We're gonna do, sell a field tax. There's lots of things. It'll

Nick Lincoln:

just be it's just another two fingers to wealth creation and entrepreneurial spirit. And more people will go. It'll raise nothing. It'll raise nothing.

Carl Widger:

There was a suggestion here the last election here one of the parties who are going for the populist vote, shall we say, we're going to put a kind of a wealth tax, but it was income based, so, and that makes no sense either, because, you know, there's a lot of obviously high earners, but there's a lot of very wealthy people who have, you know, their income low because they're doing tax planning, you know, so thankfully that party didn't get elected. Yeah,

Alan Smith:

income tax,

Nick Lincoln:

yeah, well, our high earners pay 47% tax because National Insurance is a tax. I don't

Alan Smith:

care what they say, 47% 60% in some instances, and more. Yeah, they're also talking about

Andy Hart:

potentially introducing, like, a one off levy tax that's spread over five years. It's never one off. Is it? The implementation of doing this

Nick Lincoln:

is it's never one off. Once it's in, it's in, and then they just, you know, just every year they raise it, or they lower allowances. The dividend tax that came in a few years ago had a dividend allowance, didn't it? Whatever was 5000 pounds. Now it's 500 pounds. Might as well get rid of it's a waste of time. Yeah, yeah. Well, let's hope it doesn't happen. But if it does, it's just we'll hit rock bottom bit quicker, and then we can rebuild. Watch, yes. Catherine, Carroll, have I said that? Right? Caitlin, Cathal, Carol, all

Carl Widger:

right. I'm sure Kyle is going to be thrilled with the chocolate here. He wrote a really good opinion piece, and it's kind of along the lines of what I've been espousing for the last while, which is apparently part of Donald's big, beautiful bill. He's introducing a one off 1000 euro for every citizen that's born in the States and that that's going to go into an investment account that's in the article. So I'm assuming that that's correct. So he call was basically saying that this would be a great way that we create a nation of investors and build wealth ourselves. And look, we're probably not in the pickle you guys are in at the moment, but we also are not stupid enough to understand, to know that these things are these are cycles, aren't they? And we're in a good spot at the moment. So how can we now build on that and create create this wealth into the long term? And the best way we can do it is by giving people the responsibility to do it themselves. And if the government have this extra tax, corporation tax that's coming in, well, wouldn't this be a really good way of doing it and making people, you know, he's, he's arguing for setting up kind of digital accounts, you know. So it's, it's, it's, you know, going to be future proofed, and that, you know, you you'd invest in ETFs going forward. Keep your bonds out of it. This is very long term investing, and this would be a great way of creating wealth. Well, I love the idea. It's very similar to the stuff that I've been saying. And we definitely should do it. Can't see us doing it, but he has done the sums that the cost each year. You know, it's kind of between 55 and 65 million. That's nothing, but you'll have a whole load of of, you know, youngsters who'll be interested in investing, and this is how we'll get away from having all of our wealth our you know, nearly 60% of our wealth is property, property, property. And can we create a nation of investors? Yes. Nickolas, yes. Very

Nick Lincoln:

interesting point. I think your point there, Carl, is very well made. Or the point in cottles article is that. We have to, this has to go into equities. We had something launched in this country in 2002 the child Trust Fund, where the government gave you 200 gave 250 quid for every child you had born after 2000 actually, my son didn't qualify, which pissed me off even more. But he was born in 2002 but a few days too early.

Carl Widger:

You're over it. No, though, yeah, I know

Nick Lincoln:

it's Gordon Brown. So the resentment seeds and Royals and most people just put these CTFs, these children, trust funds, 250 quid certificates into cash where they've since language, most of them probably have lost their logins. Can't remember. The thing is, the whole thing was catastrophically done. If it had been done properly, it would have been as as as you, as your suggesting come over the over the sea there into into stocks and shares and get investing habit. And we had,

Carl Widger:

we had something similar, back in the Celtic tire days, we had the SSI, a special savings incentive account, and you can put it into whatever you want it, and the government, whatever you put in, the government, topped it up by 25% every single person in the country had an SSI account. So these, these incentives, clearly do work. The problem is the SSI, you could do a deposit one, or you could do an investment one, or you could do something in the middle, and you know, too many people did the deposit one, and obviously didn't see any growth and just took the money out when the five years was up. But, yeah, I like, can we create this culture? It's God, it's going to be so, so, so bloody difficult. But you know, now that we're in a, you know, a sweet spot, now is the time to be brave, agreed and look to the long term. Can we get our politicians to look to the long term? Please? Oh, please. Oh, please. Well,

Alan Smith:

I've been following this, this American version of this. I don't know if you guys, you know Brad gertzner, who's sort of fifth bestie, this guy's own podcast. He's been behind us. I can't remember what they call it, but the American fund type thing, and it comes from a really good place in that you know us, maybe the majority of our clients, they are people with wealth. That's the whole point. They've got wealth. They understand the engage with with the markets. They understand that owning stocks is is a certain way to build and preserve your wealth. But they represent them. In the UK alone, there's only 8% of the population, of the adult population, receive financial advice. Most people haven't got but most of the population, and this will be the same in any developed country, are not engaged with the stock market. That's for rich people. That's for all those other people who've got money, because most of them just simply haven't got enough. And if you've got a bit, you probably chuck you know, there's reasons why people hold it in cash accounts, because they feel it's safe. They know it's there. They can check online, or they can see it, and it's there. When they pick it up, it's very little engagement. And when you see, like something you read in the newspaper, or you see some article about Amazon stock or Nvidia, you are not part of that story. So that's part of his thing they've gotten. You know, the American version, of course, is talking about, you know, we are the greatest wealth creation engine in history, and we're likely to maintain that position. And if we can get the rest of the population, the 90% who are excluded from this wealth creation, at least involved and interested, it's better for all of us. If you begin to track how Apple stocks doing, or the latest, you know, tech innovation or startup, because you've got some skin in the game. Might be a small bit of skin, but you are involved in this investment story. It's great for everyone. They've got some good rules around it. It is all equities, and you can get your money out at certain points along the way. You can't touch it, I think, to your very earliest age, 18. But if you wanted to buy a property, if you wanted to start a business, there was, there's two or three reasons that you could get access to it. Otherwise you don't, and it's a great idea and, and you're right, Nick, and I remember the day the child Trust Fund, people just didn't read and engage with it. We're in a digital environment now. So this, these sending out a letter in the post that I mentioned on this podcast months. You know, one of our early episodes, a story I had when I went to visit a client in their home, and I mentioned these things, and they found that, let's have a look. Looked in the drawer, there was this crumpled up envelope with their certificate that they just shoved away somewhere. But of course, with this sort of digital engagement, I've done the numbers, though, in the UK, I mean, you've with the benefit of Ireland is you've got us a high capita per person, and what have you with us, with a low population with us? Well, we got 70 million now and now. But I mean, my God, you know, we're in enough trouble as it is. Without saying, there's another x billion required to fund these things. It's a fabulous idea. I just don't think that our government are anywhere close to to doing anything about it. Andy, Andy,

Andy Hart:

my next point follows on from that, so I'll probably just start, you know, move on to it a couple of points. The new CEO of Vanguard, Salim Ramji, who's a close personal friend of mine, and eyes. I mentioned this piece. He was saying, if the UK adopted the same percentage rate that Americans invest in the stock market, an extra two $50 billion could be switched from savings to investing, which is obviously the name of the game. And then my main point was this talk of the ISA, the cash ISA being restricted. At the moment, a cash ISA and investment, investing isa in the UK has a 20,000 pounds limit. So you can do 20,000 into cash, 20,000 to investment, or 10 and 10 in each anyway, really, just thinking about reducing this down from 20 to 4000 I think this is a good idea. But I suppose it is forcing people's hands that have traditionally been cash savers. Yes, the discussion is, will the cash ISA be restricted to 4000 when the investment Isa will be left alone at 20,000 Nicholas?

Nick Lincoln:

Well, we have achieved the saver in a recent episode, haven't we? We kind of went through all the pros and cons of it isn't naturally a disastrous idea. And Mrs. Miggins, you know, Mrs. Miggins, who maybe has never invested in the stock market in their entire life, is now 83 and got poultry cash savings, and the cash is now being told she's got to stick it. It won't happen. All people do is stick the money in taxable savings accounts. Yeah. I mean, it's just correct. It's just insanity on stilts. Just to let you know, this is obviously coming out on August the 17th, and you know the results of the match, but I know, for the three of you very keen to know, the Indian need 59 more runs to win with two wickets remaining at North

Andy Hart:

and I can't believe it's three nil to the lions. It's been a staggering, staggering month of sport.

Nick Lincoln:

It's been absolutely, absolutely what a month of sport has been, right? I'll be done with cash? Is Andy? That was a Yeah, okay, right. Okay, another, another, Phoenix, disaster, looking like Smithy. What?

Alan Smith:

Yeah. What do you think about this? In the trade, trade press this week collapsed IFA director hired by national firm despite 10 million pounds FSCS, Bill. Story is Ken Simpson, former director of Glasgow based independent benefit consultancy, which collapsed in 2021 20, after losing its Defined Benefit Transfer permissions, went into liquidation. Basically. Firm did a ton of defined benefit pension transfers, most of them ended up in complaints. Most of the complaints were upheld. Company goes bust. Uh, compensation is 10 million pounds plus mugs. Who fund the FSCS? Yep, write the check to make sure the clients are made good. Direct to company joins another firm called Westminster wealth, and he's authorized and regulated and back in business again. I mean, would you make of that

Nick Lincoln:

it? Yeah, it doesn't, doesn't. It doesn't sit well with me, and I'm all for giving people another chance, but that's just

Alan Smith:

taking the piss. There's a thing called, what's it? Called fit and proper fit, and probably, I mean, God, how we've all had to do things. We got the stuff that we've got to go through. You've got to make sure him. You've got no, you've got no, um, credit defaults. You've never drawn in your bank statement. What do you call it? Credit card bills, and what have you? And I mean, we could throw a whole lot of stuff. And certainly, yeah, what was his role in the firm? He was a director of a firm which failed. He was a

Carl Widger:

former director.

Alan Smith:

Yes, he was Ken Simpson, IBC, yeah,

Carl Widger:

you see, they're not going to approve at that guy if he couldn't prove that he was not a decision maker. I'm surmising.

Alan Smith:

Hang on if you're a director of a limited company authorized business by definition, you're a decision maker. Can I quote from

Nick Lincoln:

the article the regulator says it will check applicants for connections to currently or previously authorized firms and individuals with past, existing or potential redress liabilities during an authorization process. However, it's understood the FCA had no involvement in authorizing Simpson at Westminster wealth and the firm was responsible for conducting due diligence book before authorizing him to be fit and proper. Okay,

Alan Smith:

nowadays, okay, isn't that? I mean, I'm out of touch with the day to day compliance reporting, but size it down to the firm themselves to sign them off as fit and proper.

Carl Widger:

That's what that sounds like.

Nick Lincoln:

Yeah, reading, reading what I've just read there. Yeah, exactly right,

Alan Smith:

yeah. Don't sign them off on an individual basis. They see a director of this new firm. No, I don't believe so. So they just got, I mean, it's obviously not a

Carl Widger:

controlled function. Inverted commas probably slipped through the

Alan Smith:

million pounds. That's not a small sum. How many?

Nick Lincoln:

How much? How much 7207 complaints,

Alan Smith:

complaints. I mean, we've talked about this before that there's almost, you know, a crime haze type thing in that, if you look at that, I mean, I don't know, but the amount of revenue that firm would have generated by doing these trials. Comes first, and then, yeah, they close the business down. It's a classic Phoenix type of operation. But the person, I mean, I've got nothing against the individual himself or the people of the company, but this is the system. The system doesn't work because again, what's to stop them doing it again, or him doing it or someone else doing it again? Just end up carry on my job, and I banked a few million quid of commish,

Nick Lincoln:

and we're nuts. It's quite it's quite time, because this is the month where we were certainly, I think everyone else gets there. We get our FCA levies, including the ombudsman. Part of the levy will be coming out this month. And of course, we pay for these people.

Andy Hart:

We're petrified. We don't give clients. So, you know, an investment fact

Alan Smith:

sheet that we've been looking after years,

Andy Hart:

rock up and just cause absolute havoc. And then, you know, rinse and repeat. Yeah? Phoenix, right. Bring

Nick Lincoln:

some Irish, bring some Irish positivity with your team culture. Yeah.

Carl Widger:

Look, I just thought, well, first of all, before I start this, I want to shout out to Patty Andrews, who replaced me in the last episode.

Alan Smith:

Yeah, I did in every way.

Carl Widger:

A lot, a lot of people said that, oh, the ROB Stevenson episode was amazing because he replaced me. And then the amount of people who said, Geez, Patty was really good on track. He's much more level head of the new cars. I'm less controversial. So Paul,

Alan Smith:

if you want to take another holiday, anytime you are, Don't

Nick Lincoln:

encourage him. But I look,

Carl Widger:

I just thought, middle of the year, we've kind of lots of Team stuff going on. We've kind of, we're going to be talking about client engagement later on, so we've a lot of client activities and that kind of stuff. We also surpassed a milestone number in terms of assets under management at Metis. And I just, I've been reflecting the last few weeks, because I've been away a bit as Nick keeps telling me, I genuinely think, after all, this is this, this, this podcast is aimed at financial advisory firms. You know, it is just so, so important for you to construct a team of people around you, who you who you know, who you like, who you trust, and then get out of their way. And I suppose that that's one of the things that when I started my business, I actually wasn't able to get out of their way, because it was like, this is this is the way we do it here, and that's it. But I've learned over the years, through mistakes, frankly, that my job really is to create an environment where, as I always say, this is a bit of a puke statement, but I repeat it a lot, and I do, I do genuinely, genuinely mean it. My job is to create an environment where high perform performers can perform highly, because there's no point in getting these people in and then telling them what to do and like at matters. Now we have so there's so much stuff happening, and people are doing so many things, you know, to try and engage with our clients, you know, to build that trust, to be that reliable partner. I actually don't know some of the stuff that's happening, so I just, I would urge everybody, you know, no matter how many people you have with you on your team, and if you, if you're you have ambitions to grow, it's to create a culture where you can just, you know, set the foundations, and then get out of everybody's way. And I think, look, middle of the year, it's a nice time to say thank you to your teammates. You know, maybe go for a few beers. Have a barbecue. These things do matter. And when the sun is shining, which it is in Ireland at the moment, for the last while, which is amazing, take a breather. Just take a take a couple of breaths. Remind yourselves as to where you've come, where you've come from, and where where you are at. And then, you know, set your set your big goals, set your big targets, and go on and drive them on, because there's a lot of business out there for everybody. If you do it right, your firm will flourish, I promise you, but you need the right people beside you. You're amused. Agreed

Alan Smith:

it wasn't working. Then I said, Okay, I'm just saying, Well, Said, Carl, there's. I was just sort of tuning into what you what you say there is, there's such a great feeling when, when you start a business, and then you've sort of Fast forward a few years later. And I remember doing this a couple of years ago, and I just came in to the office, and it was, there was about three or four meeting rooms I could see into them, and they were all busy. There was people doing stuff, and I had no idea what they were doing. I didn't even know some of the people that were in the rooms, but I thought they're all coming up with their ideas and their sort of, whatever they're doing, they're meeting clients and meeting providers, whatever it was, and it was the place was buzzing, and you're

Nick Lincoln:

talking about you, yeah, probably, yeah. He's

Andy Hart:

got an insides out his life there. Yeah, that's what companies going on. Who's there? What's going on,

Nick Lincoln:

even his companies. No, he. Is this guy coming in?

Alan Smith:

Well, yeah. But the point being, you get out of their way instead of Yeah, instead of meddling. I did a LinkedIn post a few weeks ago after one of our team meetings when some people were presenting things that I didn't have any idea what they would that would be had been working on it, they prevent presented it as a sort of a completed project. I was going, wow. And I like this phrase. Don't know where I stole it from, but I stole it from somewhere that you want to hire missionaries, not mercenaries. These people are missionaries. They get that. They get the plan. They get what they understand, the vision, and they're on the road to achieving that. Versus and I have hired people like this in the past, mercenaries that will go down the road if someone gives them throttens hate me, higher salary or something like that. You don't need people like that in your business. You can build a fantastic team, like you've done it matters, a team of missionaries on the way. Just believe, believe in the project, believe in the vision, and want to deliver that to their clients and to their colleagues. So well done. Carl, great news worth saying.

Carl Widger:

Look for me to take this moment and even to just take a moment and say it today is that's, that's, that's learning from me, because I was always right, what's next? What's next? It's like, and I've been sitting back, and I've been going, we've a few things. We Declan king and his wife, Lorna, welcomed a new baby, and we all celebrated like, you know, it's like, new person in the family. It's like, amazing. We were at a wedding on O'Brien got married last weekend. It's like, this is class, like, I'm just, you know, I'm genuinely getting a warm, fuzzy feeling from the whole thing. It's just, it's really, really, really cool, but you have to work really hard and looking after your people, you know, you really do. And that's what I that's my that's my job, and it's so far so good at the moment, I'm probably making bags of a no over the next couple of months. Reversion to the mean. Yeah, exactly, Andy, exactly. No. All good at the moment, really, really loving it. And just to go into the office and be inspired by people is, well, that's bloody inspiring. It really

Alan Smith:

is getting touchy. Good stuff.

Nick Lincoln:

It's all a bit fluffy. I was hovering over Kumbaya.

Alan Smith:

Hold there for a moment, an entry point in a little while. I did. I do

Nick Lincoln:

appreciate that I must have when I come into my office here. Look around the team I I realize I'm in the wrong building. Andy,

Andy Hart:

next up, talk about reversion to the mean. This is a website I have spoken about before, and I do get his weekly emails. I think they're decent. It's a guy called novel investor. The website is novelinvestor.com obviously, we're, you know, trying to be big picture clients, long term, etc. But every so often I don't mind diving into the detail, into the weeds, and he produces a q2, half year of 2025, what are the best performing sectors, countries, and a few other things. So I'll just mention a couple of the highlights, or low lights, depending on how you see it the best performing sector with the industrial sector, followed by communication services, utilities. Anyway, I'll give you the best performing top five best performing countries in the developed world. Spain was number one, followed by Austria, Italy, Ireland, Germany. So Ireland stock market did 35% in the first half of the year. Have you? Are you feeling that on the ground call I know.

Carl Widger:

I don't know how many ways I can say we are you're flying

Andy Hart:

at the moment, every list I see is freaking Island. Yeah. Okay, moving on to the eMERGE, again, reversion to the means. And emerging markets have had a bit of a storm in 2025 versus the US, which, again, on the portfolios we look off. I do have tilts to emerging markets quite heavily. So when this happens, I am pleased I'm creating more wealth for my clients as part of the plan. Anyway, Greece is the top performing country in the whole world, up until only the first six months, I've done 60% they're

Carl Widger:

not feeling that on the ground. I was just back from there. I

Andy Hart:

assure you, they're still angry and want the

Alan Smith:

money. But you must have helped their economy, though. Carl, when you're over there,

Andy Hart:

well, it's more the Dutch economy, isn't it the Heineken

Carl Widger:

stock, they don't do Heineken over there, guys, yeah. So

Alan Smith:

Greek Greece, number one, Czech

Andy Hart:

Republic number two, pilot number three, Columbia number four. Anyway, it's some of the people are into this deep dive number stuff. So, okay, that

Nick Lincoln:

was five minutes of annual reading out lists, quality podcast. Thank you. Thank you very much, very good, right? You've been to some Manchester. Is that? Hey, sir,

Alan Smith:

yeah, yeah, Northern, northern town, Nickolas, you didn't go well, I'll tell you the funniest thing. Yeah. So I want to talk about the next gen conference now known as plan X. They. The interestingly, they they killed their brand and their name next gen Andy, relaunched as plan X at the conference. Funny thing was backstory. I pitched up there on I got the six o'clock train out of London in the morning, got there in time for the start of the conference. People saying to me, seen Andy around. I said we saw him last night. They said he was he was partying hard last night. They said he's not showed up yet. I said that, no, he's not coming to the conference. He came up for the night before. He went the night before, one night only night, and then went home anyway. Somebody said to me, he went to the stag dude, but didn't go to the wedding.

Carl Widger:

Was there bingo? Because you send a voice memo to literally, I'm like, Jesus,

Nick Lincoln:

is that bingo?

Alan Smith:

Can you? Can you comment on the on the entertainment the night before? I didn't make it to the

Andy Hart:

full on, so I got to Manchester quite early and put a post on the next gen or plan X group with 2n someone spelled it wrong. It's plan x with two ends. Put a post saying we were at least an organ a pub called the orcubas around the corner for we were there for about three o'clock. So a lot of people came. It was really good. Pete Matthews came. Load of other people. So about 10 of us all having drinks. That was all fun and games. And we went to the venue at a big warehouse. We rocked up at six o'clock, loads of people there, very loud razz and the Taz. And then we had various different awards and various things going on. And then there was, you know, lots of music. It was food. There was, yeah, it was, it was superb. Lots of people there, lots of trap fans, discussing lots of ideas with a lot of people. Yeah, it was superb. I think I left, yeah, about midnight, maybe. And then, yeah, I had to go back to London the next day, so I am out there. I wasn't super and over, and I wasn't booked in. And, you know, yeah, so not what I've not missed the next gen conference since they've launched. And I don't think I will. I was quite surprised with this whole name launch.

Nick Lincoln:

You did miss it?

Andy Hart:

No, I went there for the preview the previous night.

Nick Lincoln:

You have now missed the Conference of the Next Gen is missed

Andy Hart:

anyway, so, yeah, the RE brand is interesting. Rebrands are ballsy, and it's a lot of

Carl Widger:

not a brilliant name. No,

Andy Hart:

I don't think they should switch to plan x. That's all right, sorry, they'll probably change it back. But why do you think it's a good idea then Smithy?

Alan Smith:

Because next gen is too defining. It's all, I mean, I've never really engaged with it, particularly because I thought was for the the ute, is for the youngsters who are in their 20s,

Andy Hart:

not an age. That's what, well, a lot of people, they, a

Alan Smith:

lot of the feedback they've been getting was that, oh, I didn't realize you could be over 40 and still in this this group. So it's part of a whole thing. I mean, they are building something very, very special. I think, you know, we hope we got a taste of what they're sort of rolling out to their to their community, building a really, really good, vibrant community. It was so it was, obviously I was there for the whole day. Didn't make it the night before. And what I'll say is, first of all, these conferences, UK financial services conferences have really stepped up a notch this year. No pressure in you, Andrew, because obviously we went to advisor 3.0 These are big things, big budget things, loads of razzmatazz, loads of sort of energy, loads of things going on there. I mean, these are such a world away from, you know, your traditional your PFS conference, and some of these other things just seems to have moved on the front. They're just more fun. Bottom line, lots of things happening. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Nick Get ready. Get ready with so the the talks that I remember which are really impactful were James Ashford was brilliant. Don't know if you know James Ashford? Yes, I'm aware of this kind of accounting tech business. He knows Adam Carolann really well. Think used to work together so but he really, really, really gets financial planning, understands it a lot. Good guy, good sort of business story. Talked about all his sort of business failures before he had a big success, and he's a 20 million pound exit. So well done to him. Talks all about that. Good speaker, the legend who is Pete Matthews. Come on and give a talk about, I mean, I didn't, I knew he was big, and his sort of content as YouTube or what have you, I didn't really like. Didn't realize how big it was. I mean, he has got hundreds of 1000s of email subscribers, people. I mean, he's turning over like, this is a significant media business. He's got, never mind, an IFA practice down in Penzance, Cornwall, so and he and he's just great. Anyway, I love, I love Pete and very, very, very humble, similar to the four of us on this podcast as well, he's got a great sense of humility. He has despite, despite his achievement. I mean, Pete, Pete's great and the they finished it off the whole day, the whole session, with a keynote by George kinder. Nicholas, George kinder, who was launching a new product. George is he's an acquired taste. I like him. I've been through his program. He's one of his books. He's relocating to the UK. He's moving back to the UK. I don't think he's a big fan of Trump by some of the comments that he made. I thought it's interesting. He's got a new product or service, which the fiduciary, something or other, f, i, a T, Fiat, which thought was an interesting name, because it describes a failing type of monetary system. There you go. There might have been better putting him on earlier in the day. I don't know, because it's a quite easy he's a gentle soul, is George. But, you know, it was, it was good for those who were interested. And the other thing that I thought was interesting about it as well was they had, there were people, including me, who were giving, you know, talks or panels, various things, and they were all on simultaneously. So you had to register for the one you wanted to attend, and you were sitting beside other

Andy Hart:

people. We're all brag people sold out. Yeah,

Alan Smith:

mom is the only one that sold out, but ours. But you, you know, you've seen this before. What did they call you got headphones on so you can only hear what's on, like silent disco type thing. So you can be sitting beside you can see other people on the stage, but you can't hear them because your headphones are on. You can still speak and whatever you so it's a way they can, I guess they can have simultaneous, yeah, it's difficult, because sometimes there were, you know, there was two on the and you would like to see both of them, really, because of it, because of

Carl Widger:

kind of similar explain that to me, does your stage basically, God, you what? Thank God you had the

Alan Smith:

call. There's, I was thinking, what? Andy explain it to

Andy Hart:

him. I'm on a stage. I'm on a stage, and 100 people in front of me. I've got, I've got a mic, and you've all got headphones on, so, so my voice is just coming directly into your into your ears with big Muffy headphones on. It's like a silent disco. So you can play different music in different people's headphones.

Carl Widger:

But is there other people on the stage talking as well at the same time? There's

Alan Smith:

three stages all side by side on at least. How do you get

Andy Hart:

engaged with the you guys? That's the problem. Carl, you don't to yours,

Nick Lincoln:

just sort of what you mean,

Alan Smith:

what you mean. What you mean? It's not that difficult to understand. You might imagine there was just three stages side by

Carl Widger:

side in their car listening to the radio like that's brain dead. You're

Alan Smith:

watching the people act in real time. It's like normal, except you can have a lot of speakers say

Carl Widger:

you don't know if they're listening to you or the other you do. You do because

Alan Smith:

you because the people that are listening to you in front of you? There's got all your audiences in front of you. Then, you know, 2030, yards along is another thing

Nick Lincoln:

Stop. It was really good. We can have one big room rather than have three rooms. What's the rationale for it? So

Andy Hart:

the talks don't interfere each

Alan Smith:

other multiple streams within the same time. Yeah, if you're interested, you've

Nick Lincoln:

only got one room. So that's why they do it, right? It's, it's an ad hoc solution to a problem. It sounds awful.

Alan Smith:

No, it really worked. And I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed it, as you say, Andrew, quite a lot of trap fans were in the in the area, in the vicinity, so huge fans, yeah, it was just Yeah. Met loads Yeah. Bumped into loads of people. We get the usual suspects that show up a lot of conferences. So all in all, I thought it was a great success. Well done to them, looking forward to see what they are doing next.

Nick Lincoln:

Okay, yeah. And so is it one end or two ends? You said two ends? Yeah,

Alan Smith:

how can I say this carefully, there's another famous brand in ex. Would you say Nick? Did you say something Nick? And the the logo and the branding is very similar, yeah, but there's another famous brand that's it's got a very similar logo engine

Nick Lincoln:

before you in the show notes. There we go. Two ends now. Okay, right. Moving on. So this is a brand that you introduced me to Andy a few years ago. Life quote, this is for so I don't write much protection business because it's a bit of a ball lake. And so I used to outsource the odd case I used to do to a company called Life quote, and they've been running for 25 years, and they would handle the case, and if you wanted it, they give you a share of the commission. Of the commission back. Basically, they would, they would place the case. They do all the blah, blah, blah, all the crud, all the app, and they get it on, on the books, and they've closed to business. They don't say why, and I've done a new search as well, and there's no, there's no reason why they've closed for business. But obviously it's not the profitable thing it once was.

Andy Hart:

I I've been using life quote, since I started doing mortgages in 2005 recently at Maven advisor, I've been using the service I recommended to you. Nick, and it's insanely amazing. So you go online, do basic details and then say, please call the client and run it, run through all the medical information. It's an amazing service. What's that? Fully outsourced? Sorry, sorry. Life quote. Nick, oh, sorry. I think. Mistake, yeah, I've been using that service in 2005 since I was a mortgage broker, but, but recently, I've been using the service I recommended you each is, what is, which is life quote? Sorry, it's amazing. Life quite amazing. But they're closing down for no reason now, but I would not just say

Carl Widger:

you use someone else. No, sorry.

Andy Hart:

Now I use life quote for 20 years, the same company life quote. When I started in 2005 we used to do a lot of the underwriting, filling in the forms, asking all the medical questions. In recent years, added this, you know, proper outsourced service where they call the client at a certain time, run through all the medical information, submit it to the provider, and then they take, keep it simple, 25% of the Commission, which is fine, you end up with 75% for not doing a lot of work. Obviously, you're advising the client, but you're not doing all the medical underwriting like now. You're using someone different. No, I'm not. So I want to, I want to, because they're closed

Nick Lincoln:

out. My request

Andy Hart:

to the TRAPPIST is, is there a service that is identical to life, quite, or even better, that you know about, because we have not yet found Nick, yeah. I mean, I did look, I've looked

Nick Lincoln:

at some YOU'RE A, C, u, r, A, but they don't really do it. They only deal with no massive cases. So it's a massive

Alan Smith:

this is this gap in the market business they were doing like, yeah, industrial scale of deals with, I can't remember, maybe harvest lands now, or something like that. Just huge organization, SJP, maybe people like that. We don't

Nick Lincoln:

know why close, closing both his protection portal and application services. Thank you for your support, and that's it. And you can't find any other reason why. Yeah, did not know that. Watch, do you have a similar kind of thing in your neck of the woods?

Carl Widger:

I don't know. Worry

Andy Hart:

about a similar service, but let's say I think some of your big insurance companies are like Aviva and Zurich. Let's say, do they have a service where, if I want to take out some life insurance, Aviva or jurick Call me as the end client and run through the medical questions. Or was always done by Metis, the broker.

Carl Widger:

I'm pretty sure it's honest. See, I suppose. Look, the thing is, we've, we don't do very much or any of this because of, I suppose this is gonna sound terrible, but because of the level of clients. So a lot of times they'd come with loads of policies. And we're like, you don't, you don't actually need that stuff, so, but

Andy Hart:

don't you do that estate planning. One. Carl, yeah, so I do know. I do know. HT, four, oh, it's a win. That. Win number section 72 Yeah, 77 to this one, yeah.

Carl Widger:

So okay, like we do, but we have to

Alan Smith:

sell in 72 corner. Yeah, yeah.

Carl Widger:

I don't really know how that works, either. So let's, let's move on.

Andy Hart:

So if any trawl a better service or similar service to life, quote, please email Nick, what's your email address

Nick Lincoln:

or post it in the IFA forum. Tiny.cc/email,

Andy Hart:

me. You know my email address. Andy humans

Carl Widger:

on the manager. The question we're going to answer today, that guy, obvious, clearly does a lot of this stuff as well. So

Nick Lincoln:

interesting. So there we go. All right market, and if they couldn't make it work, maybe there won't be someone else stepping into their shoes. Who knows? Oh, watch, you're the Oh, you are. You missed. You are the bit the Bitcoin shell on him, my friend. Go on for to call, yeah, I

Carl Widger:

just, I just said, it would be remiss not to mention the the Bitcoin bull at the moment, I think, has passed$123,000 which is all time high, and surging ahead. I look, I didn't mention it for that reason. What I what I was interested was the stripe guys bought this stablecoin platform, spent a lot of money on it, and they're now lobbying central banks, including the Central Bank of Ireland, to include this as a payment platform going forward. So look, you know, you got to look at at both sides of this coin. Forgive the pun, but I have been critical of it before. It's more and more in the news. Obviously, the Bitcoin ball is a different thing to stable coin, you know, because that's a little bit more stable by its nature. But these, this crypto thing, this crypto story, I would, you know, the more I'm reading about it, the more I'm seeing that it's going to be here to stay. Is it going to become, I always said, until it becomes mainstream, and not going to consider it. But there's, there's early signs that indeed it could become more mainstream. And look, this is the business we're in, the business of money. So to ignore this, and this is always my point, I haven't ignored it so that the haters would say, Oh, he just doesn't understand it. I'm reading and reading and reading with massive interest. Yeah, and I, I'm on record saying, until it's in the mainstream, I'm not going to look at it seriously from a front of investment point of view or using it. But I think that this could well happen. Now at this it looks like this is going to the central banks are no longer ignoring us. Put it in that way. So the moment interest

Andy Hart:

building, building, building, week after week,

Alan Smith:

there is, you guys are familiar with Rick Edelman, actual planner in the US, like, probably, I mean, he, I think he built a business bigger than the other guy that we like in Canada. Peter maluke, yeah, he built his, I mean, I think it's the largest RIA in the United States, you know, whatever, hundreds and hundreds of billions. Aum, he's just issued a paper. She's going, he's no dummy, right? So he's just issued a paper called, I just looked it up now, the death, the death of 6040, and why your crypto allocation should be between 10% and 40% that suit, I haven't read it, but it's very detailed. I probably pop a link in it, so you're right. Carl, whether you whether we like it or not, whether we embrace it or not, that's the direction of travel. Somebody said, Bitcoin. I think Michael Saylor, Bitcoin is either going to zero or a million, and I don't think it's going to zero.

Carl Widger:

Yeah, like, so just on that, right? So I'm listening to all these guys, right? The Michael Saylor is, like, I just don't get him at all. I'm sorry, right? I This is like, I've got the only fish. So I'm gonna say that everyone should eat fish all the time. It's like, the guy is, he does no balance whatsoever with what he's saying. It's just all, it's all, we're just going Ultra in on crypto. That's, that's never, ever, ever going to be the solution. My, you know, um, should we consider at some stage down the line, if this becomes more mainstream, an allocation? I struggle. I've said this to you guys when we, when we did the crypto episode, I struggle with it as an asset class is not a currency. And, you know, would I be putting a load of dollars or euros or yen into my portfolios? No, um, but look, I'm, I'm open, and it's, it's definitely, as you say, Alan, I don't think this thing is going to zero.

Alan Smith:

No. This. Keep an open mind, yeah, yeah. I think, I think the lot, when we did do that episode, I think all the hardcore Bitcoiners, I know they had a lot of respect for what you said, Carl, which was, you know, and if it does become micros, if you own stocks, you're going to own some of this, whether you like it or not, yeah. You know, as MicroStrategy, as part of the become an S and p5 100 company, etc.

Andy Hart:

I think as professional advisors, you should all listen to Michael Saylor talks. Yeah, you know, take, take from them, what you wish. I think they're insanely insightful. I think I've seen three recently, you know, keynote talks. And they're, they're actually mind blowing.

Carl Widger:

I don't know. I don't know. Everyone's different.

Andy Hart:

I like

Nick Lincoln:

him. What You Wish he sounds doesn't

Alan Smith:

go into the financial engineering in great detail, the one he did with Jordan Peterson about a month ago, Egypt. Because

Andy Hart:

Jordan just he's an he's a

Carl Widger:

normal. Did you sorry, Alan, for interrupting. But did you watch the Bloomberg interview? He did. I'm like, this is like a guy flogging stuff. Yeah? I want

Alan Smith:

to hear he's very passionate about this higher, new monetary system. He's a very, very experienced businessman, but it's in business for, I think that's the seven years. Yeah. Jordan Peterson story is great because he pulls podcast because he explains why he got he was, he

Andy Hart:

was very anti story. He just talks at Jordan, which is, which is fine. He is the guest. Well, it's unusual for Jordan not to Jordan. I

Carl Widger:

took a little bit of comfort from that. I said that to you guys, Jordan Peterson, just let him ramble right. Yeah. And I'm like, does Jordan Peterson not understand crypto, because there was no pushback at all on something

Nick Lincoln:

I think he does. And I think to his credit, he sometimes he can dominate. He can dominate his interviews. Jordan Peterson, somebody step back, because he's just out of his field

Andy Hart:

of comfort. It was business and finance range, you know, psychology and human

Nick Lincoln:

behavior. Guys, sorry, so we got one Well, Andy will hold over your valid pass one, but we will do the good news.

Andy Hart:

This is very brief. I talked about this a couple of times, so my dogs barking in the background. I spoke about it a trap live. This is the new regulation coming down the coming down the road, in terms of Companies House, forcing all small companies to basically submit a load more company information, profit, loss and all this sort of stuff, which I think is very anti business. You know, the the death of the young business, the move towards big businesses, over over small businesses. None of this fake it till you make it. You know. Every single person you know in your entire world knows your full financial details of the companies you run, it that you run, blah, blah, blah, it was. Meant to be Companies House, sent out millions of emails to all the people that registered with Companies House, which is all the business owners in the UK, telling us that on April 2027, new rules, full disclosure. Now they've paused it. So what I'm saying these government projects that get muted, and it's like, will they get off the ground? Will they not get off the ground? Some get off the ground some get off the ground, and they spend millions and millions and millions and millions and then decide to pull it, you know. So it's raising taxes to pay for things that is just an utter waste. But anyway, good news and sense has prevailed, and they're saying now nothing's going to change, you know, just continue to do what you're doing. So we can still submit abbreviated accounts if our turnover is less than, I think, 10 point 2 million or something like that, one, 5.1 Okay, so is that what it is, which is fortunate? Interesting? Yeah, so good news

Nick Lincoln:

company owners, it is

Andy Hart:

your father in law is not going to be crawling through your accounts and, you know, telling you to pick up the bill for some obscure reason, a restaurant or something, anyway. So, yeah, good news. I think you know, it's pro entrepreneur. It's pro young company. It's pro business owner.

Nick Lincoln:

Yeah, totally okay. Good stuff. Because, okay, so 56 minutes into Episode 75 of the real advisor podcast, and it's time. Let me move on to the meat and potatoes of the show. Now, storyteller, you went up to Manchester to speak to the play next conference, and we're getting it right so far. And your speech was well received by people listening to Radio two on headphones while they just nodded at you and nodded off. Tell us what your speech was about.

Alan Smith:

Well, it was a conversation, and let me give you some some background. Nick, get ready. Hop it with your finger, because I want to tell a backstory about where this came about.

Unknown:

Grab yourself a drink, a very long drink. It's story time with Alan Smith,

Alan Smith:

yeah, shoehorned that one in. It's been a while, so thank you for that. When did England win the Rugby World Cup? 2003 2003 correct? You're never gonna forget that year. Are you? I Carl's gone. That's all it took. That's all it took. So ring rose anyway, gone England, won the World Cup 2003 with, let's face it, a, well, I'll put it politely, a team that wasn't favorites to win the World Cup down in Australia, but they won it. So they were champions of the world. I started my business in 2004 and shortly after that, the England coach Clive Woodward wrote a book about how he took this ragtag team of mediocre rugby players to become world champions. But it was called winning. I read a lot of sports biographies, and I thought it was a fabulous book, and I began to adopt some of the philosophies that Woodward brought in. And I won't go through them all within the rugby team, but it's exact. Is exactly the same as some some years later Dave Brailsford, the British Cycling Team, brought in and took them from also RANS and really, really, really bad cycling team, to win, whatever it was, 12 gold medals. So

Carl Widger:

when I interrupt your story, because, yeah, like, They that is a brilliant, brilliant book. So anybody, if you're interested in psychology and the psychology of achievement, you should read that book and thinking clearly under pressure. But I would argue it was not a rag tag team. They had already gone, you know, to the southern hemisphere and one, one they were, they were on the up for sure, all credit to him,

Alan Smith:

because he created. But remember, they, they, I can't remember the games, but they struggled in the qualifying runs, the earlier games. They

Nick Lincoln:

actually peaked. They peaked before the World Cup. That was the year when they came to Dublin and gave your get the Irish. You know, the pummeling, wouldn't it? Yeah, that's flashy, yeah. And they were kind of coming through a comment.

Alan Smith:

So and he, and he unpacked a lot of the these small things that made the, if you added them all up together, made them far more successful. And Clive would refer to so if you know Clive Woodward's background, he straddled the profession of the amateur, professional era. And he was a he had a business. He was, he was working in Australia and living in Australia, and sort of semi pro. And he was worked for Xerox out there. And he's very interested in business, and so that's hence the sort of translation between business and sport. And he had come across somebody, a dentist, of all things, by the name of paddy Lund, who refers to in the book. And Patty Lund, your dentist in Australia. And I didn't know this, but dentists have got the highest incidence of depression and suicide of all the professions. It's just a job that a lot of people clearly do. You spend your life inflicting pain in other human beings with your hands in people's mouths, and then you're chasing the invoices for the rest of the month. And it's just not a. Rewarding. Apparently, that's what the data says. And paddy long was about to give up just chuck in the towel. Didn't like it, didn't enjoy it. Took some time out and effectively rebuilt his dental practice from the ground up, thinking of every single little thing you could do to make this a really, you know, positive and good experience in terms of going to the dentist. Fast forward, he became the most sort of celebrated dentist in Australia. He had a waiting list. People would travel from one end of the country to the other. And it's a big country to become one of his his customers or clients, his patients, I should say. And Woodward was very alive to that. Living in Australia, this became a big sort of story, and it was all about these things which paddy Lund referred to as critical non essentials. So it was the tiny, small things which, as I say, fast forward then Brailsford and a number of other sports teams talked about marginal gains. What are 100 things that we can do 1% better to deliver a world class service? And whether you go back, whether it's paddy Luna story, Clive Woodward in England, rugby team story, The Great Britain cycling team and a bunch of other stories. The end result was these, these all became hugely, hugely successful businesses or sporting teams. And again, so I was early days of my business, and I just thought, What could I do? What small things could I do

Unknown:

that just by themselves make no difference, but if you did 100 of them, or even 10 of them all added together, would make a significant impact on the customer and the client experience. And I often thought that our clients, despite our best intentions, our clients, have no idea about how we construct our investment portfolios. They haven't really got much of an interest in it, frankly, and it's but there's a lot of work goes in behind the scenes to do that, and how we build our our cash flow models, the assumptions that we make, and the detail and the analysis and all the stuff that goes into it. It's not clients assume you're doing a good professional job, but they're not in the weeds of understanding it. So what do they understand? They understand how they are treated. They understand all this kind of small things that every other human being can relate to. The other the other book of recent years, and we've mentioned in this podcast that talks about it, is, what's the one about the unreasonable hospitality? What about the restaurant? Will? God, yeah, yeah, yes. So again, same thing a restaurant. What does a restaurant do? So it's food, but food, but, but. So that was the, that was what I was talking about in Manchester. I didn't give the title, but it was called How to Create a shit hot client experience. And so I shared summary, Planet very, very shit hot client experience. I call it world class how to create a world class client experience, and it is focusing on the small things. So, and I'm just going to give you, I'll give you, I'll give you two or three, then I'll sort of throw it open if anyone wants to to talk about this.

Alan Smith:

Another book is, is influence, Robert Cialdini, you know Cialdini, and a fantastic book, and he talks about the six, six aspects of influence, and one of which is reciprocity. So you get, you do someone a favor, give somebody a gift. They as a human beings, normal, rational human being, the kind of duty bound they want to help you pay back, you know, owe you a favor, or whatever. Nick's shaking his head, normal people. I said, Nick, normal. Sorry, yeah. And so I mean, this is not the reason that we do that in isolation, but it's one of a dozen different things that we'll do from an early stage of engaging with a client. So we have that first engagement, cup of coffee conversation, Zoom call. What have you we would give them. We will always aim to give them a book. We'll hand across a book. The book that we have defaulted to over the years is called enough by Paul armson, and it's a quick and easy read, and it kind of very simply articulates what proper financial planning is all about. Gives it tell. He tells his bit of his life story in it, and it gives a few case studies. And what I know is people don't throw books in the bin, even if they don't read it. It sits around. It sits there, and it's a nice thing to do. So the client is warm towards you given a gift before you're even engaged, before you're working together. The other thing that we've, we've done, and this is maybe going taking it to the nth degree, but we have,

Unknown:

we spent a lot of money on a very high quality coffee machine. People come in, people want a cup of coffee, and days gone past, it was sort of out of a kettle with a instant coffee. But we invested a lot of money in a high grade coffee machine. So the quality of the coffee that people have when it comes to the meeting is very high. But we've been one step further in our company. We've got a brand, a logo, and it's five petals. And there's reasons for those petals, which I won't go into, but when you serve a cappuccino, which a lot of people ask for, and you get that chocolate shaker thing in front, and you shake the chocolate such that the cappuccino arrives, Nick but it's this tiny, tiny, small thing, but it arrives and the client looks at that, and they go, Oh, that's quite nice.

Andy Hart:

Of copies delivered. What percent? Percentage of coffees are delivered at Capital towers with that chocolate leaf on it. You said, 100% Alan, well, the people who

Unknown:

asked for a cappuccino, but sports quite interesting, black. What is quite interesting is that sometimes we've had this quite often, but people say, No, I'm fine. Maybe cappuccinos one of one of a couple says, and sometimes we'll say, we'll encourage them. Do you want to How about cappuccino? We will encourage them because it works. And we had, I remember, I was in a meeting cappuccino. I was a meeting a little while ago, and let's say the The wife said, other cappuccino? The husband said, No, I'm okay. I'll just water. Thanks. And the wife's cappuccinos showed up, all looking lovely and frothy in a glass cup with a thing of chocolate shaker on top. And the husband said, Oh, that looks nice. Can I have one of those after all? So it was, it was quite a nice experience. Anyway, tiny, tiny, little thing, but it cost, cost you nothing. You can buy these things on Amazon, and it's a small thing. And the last thing I'll say is part of that kind of early stage onboarding client journey. We talked before in this podcast about the importance of having welcome meetings. So all this stuff, all the kind of paperwork, is done, they're engaged. Everything's up and running. But that might have been months since those early stage meetings. So we want to get back in the room, ideally face to face, do a bit of social meet up with these people, just confirm everything, give them a bit of a demo of where they are, the data, the portal, how they can look things up, what the next 12 months is going to look like. And we like to give them another gift. Then by that time, we really know what what interests them, what their hobbies are, if they're into golf or sailing or something. What a really nice book at that sta really nice gift at that stage is a nice coffee table book handwritten with an inscription, but they don't just say, look, welcome to The Club. Just we're delighted to be working with you. And you give them another small value, I mean, for 5050, pounds, we get your fabulous coffee table type book on the subject which they've identified as a real or you've identified is a real passion of theirs, and that we've got dozens of things like that. If you run through the whole the whole client experience and client journey, and the challenge is to just systemize these so no one has to think about it. Just because if you have to think about each and every one of these is difficult, the point of that whole process and exercise is going back to the original, critical non essentials, marginal gains, the clients. Then they may not know exactly what we do behind the scenes, but they know it's a nice experience. They know that they enjoy working with us. They know that we understand them, we get them, and that we pay attention to detail, and everything is good, and therefore that's what that's what I was talking about out there, and it seemed to go down quite well.

Alan Smith:

Carl, you're probably the best person on this panel to talk about things like that. Do you do anything like that? Do

Carl Widger:

you pay attention to like rather than kind of repeating some of the stuff that you did? Like I when we set up metas, I kind of met you pretty shortly afterwards. And, yeah, I went over and I experienced that and like, it was influenced by it. I was inspired by it. And one of the things that we Well, we definitely did in our Limerick office, and we've just completed our Dublin kind of upgrade, is a client once said, I go into my private bank once a year to be made feel stupid by the content of the meeting, but then that that the actual feel of the meeting room was intimidating, the mahogany tables and the leather chairs and all that. So we've worked really, really hard, and Alan, you've been in our office, and our whole environment is a bit funky, right? So we've white tables. We do not do mahogany tables. So that's one thing. It's what? They're white glass tables. Now they're, they're expensive tables, but, but they're that you don't have this private bank feel. There's no mahogany paneling. There's no big, huge leather chairs. It's, it's a really cool space. We've lots of, you know, big posters with cool quotes and all that kind of stuff. So it's to try and be welcoming. You know, when, when the clients come in that they can kind of go, Okay, this is this, this. This feels okay. You know, a couple of books in our on the in the reception area, and it's bucket list items. They're, the books, or it's like, you know, 100 great world trips, this kind of stuff. So it's to try and get people into the zone of, okay, yes, you are going to be talking about finances, but we're going to try and match them with your goals, dreams and ambitions, and at all points, try and bring those two things together. So, you know, the books, we would do that for sure. You know, I suppose the one thing that we found when we were doing some of the client service that we did was that the experience was really good. They felt that this is really professional. Yes, you know, there are. Coachable these people, and they're humans like ourselves. And that the initial couple of meetings were, you know, were, oh my god, what a feeling we got out of it. But there was a bit of a lag, okay, so that we had delivered everything, and then we had to go through all that paperwork and blah, blah, and it wasn't fantastic after that. So we've actually put a lot of work into, well, what's, what does our client engagement look like after we've onboarded a new client, so after you've actually secured the business so that, that, you know, in terms of survey results, we're going to get net promoter scores of eight and nine, as opposed to seven and eight. Or, you know, worse. Now, we don't get worse, but seven isn't a promoter. They're not promoting your business. So you want to get them into eight and a half plus. So we, that's why we do some money events, right? We do loads of different like, literally, we are, we are the event kings. Now that costs an absolute shitload of money, but that's our investment in our client.

Andy Hart:

You say cost, yeah, yeah, getting back long term, yeah, 100%

Carl Widger:

Andy. And then if you make sure that the onboarding experience was awesome, of course, it's not awesome every time, right? So let's not anybody fool anybody. It's, you know, sometimes we miss the mark, right? And we we don't engage as we would like, but mostly it is really good. And then it's, how do we make sure that those clients are telling their friends? And we have built the business one family at a time, like we've only started taking, I suppose, digital marketing seriously in the last couple of years, and we're only seeing the results of that over the last little while. Other than that, it was referral. It was one family at a time. And we do it by, you know, the events. And we did a small golf event last week. And, you know, not everyone there was a client, so we'll say, Bring a buddy along. You know, we've gone to we've gone to the theater, we've gone to music events. Anyway, I can't name them all up. There's just so many different things. And that's the that's the joy of having the team now, because every private client manager will decide for themselves kind of what suits their vibe, but also what suits their clients vibe. So we joined the three arena, which is the big music stadium we're in that private members club now cost a few quid for it. But, like, we've used that to great effect this. This year you could only get eight tickets, eight people sitting around. You're like, you walk, you don't queue up with everybody else, and then you're, you know, you get nice food and drinks to your table, and then you walk into your seats. It's a really, really cool experience. So, and when you only eight people, that's intimate. So you can have four couples, or else, you know, if there's, I don't know, pulp played recently, and it was like seven blokes who were all same age as me. And it was like, you know, reliving their, their their youth, right? Really, just really cool experience and different than just playing golf, you know. So I would say to anybody, you know, nail that first experience, but don't the next the next 24 months are key to the longevity of your relationship with your client, and it's hard enough get them in, so when they when they come in, don't just flash yourself in the in the initial couple of months, right? Because that's kind of easy. And I just reiterate a point you make Alan, no one. They give a shit, but they don't focus on the construction of the investment portfolio. It is definitely not the most important part of the experience. So don't get into the weeds or the detail too much, because you could actually lose people. And the financial plan, the cash flow modeling will do it's talking for you. They'll be blown away by it if you do

Alan Smith:

properly. Yeah, totally Andy, there's, there's, there's. Just before we hear from Andy, there's, there's a something I read the other day, which, again I mentioned in Manchester, I thought was just really good statement, which is 80% is a classic 8020 rule, 80% of your perceived accepting the word perceived value. 80% of your perceived value is delivered by 20% of your activities. What is the 20% and how could you have an extreme version of that? So whether that's the coffee that the delivery, the meet and greet, the events you have, how can you go amazing on that? Because the other 80% that is the it's just an assumption that it's been is being done. It's not perceived as being the most valuable. Yeah. Andy, what's your thoughts?

Andy Hart:

Yeah, just to slightly tweak the subject matter. I mean, you guys mentioned some amazing points, but a lot of it was physically present stuff. So the client journey now, even if you work in large businesses and organizations, a lot of it will be digital. So how do we now make the client journey, client experience in the digital world, less painful for clients, more enjoyable. I used to have an office. I think Nick used to have an office as well. Now I've moved pretty much, you know, 95% on Zoom. I still go and see clients potentially on the initial onboarding stage. Uh, I've sent books out to clients over the years. The number one I used to send was simple wealth, inevitable wealth, which was, uh, by Nick Murray, I think it's every single touch point you have with a client needs to be thought about. I mean, your initial emails, your initial phone call, when you, you know, arrange the initial meeting. I've got a lot of hidden links that I share to clients. So when I having a discovery meeting, it's Maven advisor.com, and then a link. I say, This is what the meeting is going to be roughly about. They click on it, and it's, it's quite simple, and just out late, sorry, yeah, outlays how the meeting is going to go. When a client wants to become a client, I've got another hidden link. I explain all the steps that we've got to go through. So there's lots of movement, but I'm also, we're also talking about our client journeys and how we create these we work with end clients. So it all depends on how proactive and organized they are. You can have the most amazing systems and processes in place and onboarding, you know, process, the client gets involved, and they're, you know, unproactive. They're not really engaged in the process. You're chasing stuff for months. So, you know, it's a two way street, isn't it, when you're onboarding clients, I mean, when they are organized, motivated, proactive, it's a joy to onboard them. You know, when they're just a complete and utter nightmare, don't reply to emails and don't fill in a DocuSign. You're just pulling your teeth out, and then the whole you and the team are just spin around for months. So I thought I mentioned that. So yeah, a lot of people listening probably do work in a digital space. They are trying to service more more families, but I don't know if they'll, they'll get to the point where they've built their business to a certain level, then they want to get it, get a physical space. I'm just saying we don't know exactly,

Carl Widger:

yeah, at the moment. You know what? It would have been stupid to have this conversation without bringing that up. It's, it's a, it's a very, very valid point, but, but one thing I would just push back on a small bit, right? So we'll send out. We've got the getting to know you links that we'll send out.

Andy Hart:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Videos and Yeah, and if

Carl Widger:

the client's not back, the private line manager is getting in his or her car, and they'll go out with a paper version, and they'll, if it's worth it, they'll go through it with the client, you know. So we see the clients where they are at, and I see too many firms are, you know, no, this is exactly how we do it. And I know, much easier for you guys as so, so, but it's easy as solos Nick, because you're determining, yeah, I could imagine Nick and I very scale of the business is not the most important thing, whereas for us, you know, we are on a growth, tragic trajectory, so that's really, really important for us. We'll meet the client where they are at and if it's older clients who are not very tech savvy, sure. So, okay, we'll find a way.

Andy Hart:

I mean, from traveling around the country and asking advisors, what split of their life is physical meetings and digital? My God, is it is massively going towards the digital. You know, some some people in the room. It's like 80, 85% Yeah, big organizations,

Alan Smith:

that's, that's, that's something that in our firm, we've lost an element of because we nailed that in person. See, Carl. Carl went through it. Lot of people went through, yep, and we just, and I was just sweating over every last detail, you know, what happens when they arrive at the door, or everything, the communication, all that. And then we go zoom call, yeah. I mean literally, just the smells of the other things, a candle was all sorts

Andy Hart:

of stuff. Joe knows, diffuser, yeah, everything.

Alan Smith:

And then we got them your zoom calls. So,

Andy Hart:

yeah, so we so now it's about your zoom setup. Yeah, for sure, how you sound, it's lighting, it's all other touch points you're

Alan Smith:

dealing with, attention to detail, to use Zoom, setup, or whatever it is, we do our best to try to, at least at the front end, have that because that's when the relationship is built. That's when the trust is created. Do that in person. Once you've got that going, then they don't have to, you don't have to meet in person all the time going forward, but it's good to sort of, you know, press the flesh see the whites of their eyes.

Carl Widger:

We won't do it if we don't meet them,

Andy Hart:

right? Fine. So your your face to face is the trend,

Carl Widger:

and go, no, no, I agree. If you're gonna, if you're gonna entrust us with your life savings, well then we want you to come in and see our environment we want to press the flesh

Andy Hart:

absolutely ME and ME and ME, Nick, are okay with it, but that's the beauty of all these different business models. You create your own nirvana. That's why you start your own business. Yeah,

Alan Smith:

come on, Nick, you must have something to say. I

Nick Lincoln:

don't really have a lot to add. You and waj are the two guys who have the bigger vision and the more lavish client experience. I take clients on board, give them a fantastic financial planning service, and then, once a year, send them a birthday card. And that's it, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's,

Carl Widger:

don't underestimate the that your hand write a birthday card so we have handwritten thank you notes that we do you know. And.

Nick Lincoln:

We got three here to post this afternoon.

Carl Widger:

They are not getting any other birthday cards in the post, but they're getting one from Nick and they like it. And, yeah, no, they genuinely don't like that's a like. If people only did one or two small, very small things, right? Get birthday cards and guess Thank you, right? Thank

Nick Lincoln:

you, Carl, for that. I appreciate that. I I'm one thing I'm very good at. Well, one thing I do religiously is I pick up, if I can pick up someone's birthday through whatever I put it in my calendar. Yeah. So I've got, like, I must have, like, 700 800 birthdays

Andy Hart:

in my calendar for other people. There's no way. You know that many people.

Nick Lincoln:

We've got that many friends, Nick not saying their friends, that people are just after the second meeting. But dear

Unknown:

listeners, you could divide that by 100

Nick Lincoln:

what say happy birthday at the blue you know? Because I think this is yes, but I'm a very stripped down business. I don't do that kind of I don't do cappuccino Coffee. Coffee is meant to be had black, by the way. Don't put milk on it. Spoiler, yeah, I don't, I don't see clients to put to give them fancy cappuccinos and that kind of stuff, I mean, but it's a different meat of potatoes we have talked about, I think, the onboarding process, which is not the same as the client experience. Yeah, they're sort of, they're sort of merged somewhere, as you guys know, and the TRAPPIST might know, I've got a very flow chart, very process driven onboarding experience, where I try and minimize the pain for the clients. And, you know, yes, exactly, tell them up front, this is going to be painful. By simplify, I'm not sending anything. I send you. I'm not sending it because I'm nosy. I have to send it to you, and I need it back. And it's, you know, I'm very efficient at that, but, yeah, but that's a different piece of potatoes. I haven't really got much to add. I'm conscious about 80 minutes into this. So

Alan Smith:

let me just give you, as we, as we time on this whole thing, some are going to give you three very quick, practical things that you could do, any any advisor could do. First of all, often you will know the have the client's passport details. When you take them on on board them, you just automate in your system the expiry date of that passport and 12, six to 12 months prior to the expiry, do nothing. Just send out a message, just to let you know your password. Passport expires in six months. Here's a link to get a new passport. You might have forgotten about it, but just just start so you could do that. Number one, magnificent. Number two, and this is for all the men out there, without being too sexist about it, but we often will. We will do our best to find out, because you wouldn't normally get a marriage certificate when you are taking on a new client, but we'll find out, when did you guys get married? Oh, it's the 31st of July. Noted interesting pop that in your calendar. You send that out to a husband. And, you know, hesitate to be sexist, but it is usually you men who forget about the other half special day just just just to remind you, it's you and Julie's wedding anniversary on Friday. Here's a link. Send us some lovely flowers. But her husband is very grateful for you doing things I wouldn't like that one you wouldn't now you well,

Unknown:

Carl, whatever, go and buy yourself a drink. But the last thing that any, anyone can do you've had all that onboarding stuff, is just send a put a calendar note, try to automate this 9090, day check in. They've been up and running for three months. It kind of forgotten about it. Life's moved on. Yeah, just an outreach called now this is, this is called systematic spontaneity. In other words, they think you just thought about them, but you've known it's in your calendar. Three months on board, just checking in everything. Okay, can I do anything else that's just a nice touch, something simple, effective, that anyone can do?

Carl Widger:

Just a tweak on that? Adam, we send a letter that all new clients get, a letter from me at that point to say everything, okay. Alan is delighted to be dealing with you. And you know, here's your team, but here's my mobile number if you want to call me. And nobody, oh, that's

Andy Hart:

decent. That's decent. No, we, yeah, we've done that. Okay,

Nick Lincoln:

all right, yes, thank you. Thanks guys for that. Thanks. That was a decent

Andy Hart:

meeting to 11 or eight. Well,

Nick Lincoln:

cross and he just unpacked. Okay, talk under me four minutes. Keep him talking. He's a

Alan Smith:

good boner, that's for sure. Yes, I am right. What's next? Nicholas, now I'm watching the cricket. Let's move on

Nick Lincoln:

right. Let's go on to the TRAPPIST questions, because post has been waiting outside my front door for ages, and there she goes suddenly, pressing my front door bell, she's dragged the bulging sack of TRAPPIST questions up the drive to Lincoln Lodge. If you want to leave a question, go to the pinned X on tweet, the pinned tweet on X, whatever, leave a question. We will get to it. We're still answering questions from last year. There's also a link to the to where you can leave questions in the so called show notes as well. And let's have a look and see who this letter is from. I can never find. There we go. This is from no nice Manila paper, good quality paper. This is from Tom. Oh, who's on x, at Tom? Underscore, oats, 54 Oh, God, another time. Time to grab a long drink. This question might be a bit long, only recently discovered the podcast, apologies if it's been covered before. Everyone says that my question, how would you recommend transitioning? Towards a real financial planning service. I recently joined my family firm where my dad, who has been running the firm since the 1980s has been operating on the more policy slash transactional basis. I've recently done my CFPs, and want to transition the business into the financial planning space. We are launching a new company going from sole traders to limited so it could be the ideal time. But there are a large amount of existing clients, mostly older clients, who will be used to the existing process. Plus there are too many to offer full financial planning too. We have over 600 individual and two group schemes, which I would have to service myself as the old man isn't going to be offering full fat financial planning. Old Dog, new tricks, etc. Yeah, get that. Okay, my thoughts are to onboard new clients as financial planning clients, but then I'm getting into the issue of having different processes for legacy clients. Carl, do you want to lead off on this? But

Carl Widger:

I've got a bit of input, yeah. So being there, done that. It's not easy. It's really, really hard, actually. First thing in case I forget, get rid of the group schemes. Just sell them. Ditch them. Resign for them. They're gonna lead you nowhere, other than into big, bad admin holes that you don't need to be into. Second thing is, yeah, do set your stall out to have two news two different services for for the first couple of years, I would say all new clients go are on boarded via financial planning, and don't take them on if they won't do financial planning. And if you find your experience that there most people are a lot of those people that you're meeting are not willing to do financial planning, you've got your systems and processes wrong. You're explaining it more poorly. So you got to figure that out. Then go, I'm not sure you said that your dad won't do financial planning, let your dad service the clients that are there already if he's staying. But then you mentioned something, so maybe he's leaving, if he's leaving, what you could do is you could, you know, hire a service advisor or something like that, but it within those 600 clients you're going to have, I don't know, 20, 3040, 5060, clients who will be advocates of your business. So will have been with your dad for a long time, and you can go and explain to them this new service and that you'd like to run it by by them. Now, the difficulty in that is, you know, been there whereby, you know some clients. I had a very wealthy client, and it was like, you know, I used to go in and tell him why his fund was doing X, Y and Z, which was, I actually believe that was doing the right thing. But I then realized afterwards, okay, this is absolute bullshit. But then I went to smoke, to smoke, to him about his goals, dreams and aspirations. And he was, he was worried about me, like he was like, holy, you're right. Oh, yeah. What's wrong with your man waiter? He's been talking about fluffy stuff, like, I just want to know how the pension is doing and what it's going to do for the next two years, because that's what he always told me. And so, so it will be a bit tricky, and but some people will absolutely love it and will jump on it, and you'll go, we're going to transition you across to this new service, so you can go that way, and then over time, because, look, you got to be commercial about this. If you, if you're moving from sole trader to your limited company, you're going to need those clients come with you to pay the bills, I guess, right. So be commercial about it. And over time, maybe you'll have moved. You'll have brought on 50 new families. You'll have moved across 50 families. There's 100 families, and maybe you could wrap up and sell off those other clients at some stage. And that's the kind of thing that we did, and we did that in tranches. We didn't do that in one fell swoop. We did it in tranches as we went. But, yeah, I think you know, you're taking over your dad's business. So you got to be respectful of your dad. You got to be respectful of those clients that have been with your dad for a long time. So I don't think you can, this is a, this is a one and done it. I think your new company gives you a lovely opportunity to do a bit of marketing around the new service. And, you know, we're moving into a new age, and try and, you know, digitize as much of your service as possible, to Andy's point, but look, it is not easy. You're probably lucky in that you have a lot of the clients that will kind of pay foot the bill for your transition to your new service, because that's going to take a time, a while to build up. I I've often said this. I nearly bailed a couple of times along the way. Stick with the plan. My friend, just stick with it. It will work. And even the fact that you're asking the question, you're willing to

Nick Lincoln:

learn, okay, I think Carl has given a magnificent answers, unless you've got something different to add, not just repeating what he said, Can we move on?

Andy Hart:

Very briefly, I can't. I can't believe still running the sole trader with that many clients, and he's got a whole heap of pain ahead of him, so good

Alan Smith:

luck to him. The key thing is to reverse engineer what your ideal business looks like, and we're back from there. As you say, I want to deal with the. X number of clients delivering this service, because you quickly arrive at the minimum, the minimum compensation fee level that I need to have in order to deliver this service, because it's going to be more time consuming, more more complex, etc, is x. And then you've got to look at your clients. You've got to look at your this client base. And it is tricky, as Carl says, because, as your dad's business probably been running it for decades, but you've got to, you do have to provide have a look through a lens of the commercial aspect, and say, of these 600 How many would fit this model, and how many could pay the fee relative to the resources, assets, etc, and you'll find it's quite a, probably a relatively small number. But yes, there is. And having done it, like, like Carl said, I've done it myself, is quite emotional, actually, because when we built our service, we said, this is what's on offer. Some of you will have to pay a lot more for the fee. Quite a few said, don't want to, so we had to park company. There are a surprising number of firms out there that will acquire client banks. And then again, this, this,

Carl Widger:

we've done it. Yeah,

Alan Smith:

well, we've both done it, but, but what I had, and I don't think you have had either Carl, I didn't have the additional kind of emotional aspect of It's my dad's clients and probably his mates and people he plays golf with that have been sold to another firm. But there are other firms who are better suited to service those more transactional type clients, and that's we found one, and they were great, and they would send people around the people's houses, and they had a different sort of model, but

Andy Hart:

good. I think, I think, I think we've covered

Nick Lincoln:

luck. Okay, good luck. Tomo, good luck. Mr. Oaks, okay, right. 91 minutes and counting in let's go on to what many people call culture corner. I

Carl Widger:

am I first? It ain't me. I was laughing

Alan Smith:

This. This is a little bit of a blast from the past, but there's a reason linking all this stuff together, we don't just make it up as we go along, do you boys? When I was at plan X conference, one of the many people who I had a conversation with was a young fellow by the name of respect song, because bloody business card. He needs to make his business card bigger. Simon Warner, Simon Warne, who is a financial planner at a firm called New World, New World Financial Group, World Financial Group, and Simon came up to me and said, like to pick your brains, but don't mind. I've got a number of clients who are going into retirement now, which I guess all advisors do. I'd like to give them a book. I'd like to what book would you recommend clients going to going into retirement that would find useful. And now we have talked probably quite a lot about other books on this podcast before. There's quite a lot of them out there. I reflected on the book that I've the one that I've read and got good feedback from clients, and it is called the new retirementality. New retirementality by a guy called Mitch Anthony. And I mean, we all know him. I think we've met him and Carl, I think you've engaged with Mitch in some level.

Carl Widger:

Yeah, I did, yeah, paid him hefty fees to speak at an event in

Unknown:

Dublin, yeah. But that's just, that's my culture corner. If you've got clients going to retirement, that is not a bad book to hand to them, because it does cover all the kind of mental health, physical health, financial health, aspects, which is

Carl Widger:

brilliant. He's the greatest calls ever that applies to our business, that our job as financial planners is to hold our clients feet to the fire of their best intentions. Yeah, he

Nick Lincoln:

does have a way with words. Another phrase to stop with me is it's not, not what you're telling from what are you retiring too. Yeah.

Alan Smith:

And another one he's got is, top 10 is, is, yeah, is continued

Andy Hart:

retirement well

Alan Smith:

enough money to sleep well at night and enough purpose to get out of bed in the morning.

Carl Widger:

Yeah, if you want a guy to talk to a bunch of clients who are about to say, in five years out from retirement, right? Is it? He is expensive, but my God, he was amazing. Yeah, absolute. I've never seen a guy to have a crowd in his hands the way he did. He's a great talk. He made me look like the total amateur that I am. He was amazing, amazing. Great stuff. Very good. I've got two

Nick Lincoln:

culture corners this week because I didn't have any for the last episode. So Yahoo sucks to you. The first one is a book. And full disclosure, I was given a free copy of this book because I bought from this brand before, and they sent me a PDF to read and then place a review on Amazon. But it is a very good book. It's called putting it through the company. There's a link to it. It's from the tax Cafe stable. And putting it through the company is about all the things that you can run through a limited company, and it covers it all in a very readable fashion. It's quite a sure book. Obviously, there is some arcane accountancy stuff in there, because you can't avoid not discussing that, looking at numbers and so forth. But it's a book to have if you've got limited company. Obviously, as we talked about the start of the show, with the wealth tax and the fact that we're just getting, you know, you break wind now, and you get a tax bill coming through the post the next day, putting it. Through the company. Really good book. I mean, you haven't got a bother accountant with with endless questions, you can just pick this book up and find, oh, yeah, if I have a company car, that's a plus. I talked about pension contributions, which is obviously a good thing for Joe Public as well to know about. But a really nice book aimed at limited company business,

Alan Smith:

small business owners, trips to Portugal through it. Well, it

Nick Lincoln:

does talk, actually, it does talk about that. And yeah, we might just struggle anyway. We come back alive. We have a file some accounts for bloody accounts. And our second one is very quickly, Jordan Peterson and had Scott Adams on his show. Scott Adams, the creator, Gilbert, written some really good books as well. He's got, he's got terminal prostate cancer. He's not in a good way, but, but he, he's, he's very positive. He's very light hearted, as we know, Jordan Peterson can be a little bit intense. And he was, he was, he took on Scott's persona. Is a really, really good interview. Scott Adams is taking what he called, what they call, a castration drug, which basically gets rid of the testosterone in the body, because prostate cancer feeds off testosterone, so and this is giving him, like, an extra few months of life. And he say, positive. He thinks, with his extra few months of life, he says, I think AI will find a cure for prostate cancer. Now he's obviously reaching, reaching with that one, but it's just an amazingly positive interview, and I would thoroughly recommend you give that some time from a man who's looking at life with a very, very short perspective and still retaining an incredible matter of positivity. Very good.

Carl Widger:

Dr, Mark row, things your future says, I thought it was last you get no help. So you know, you changed the agenda. Dr Mark Rowe, things your future self will thank you for. It's a little bit like, I don't know, it's a kind maybe, along the same vein as atomic habits, which I've spoken about before. But this is about stuff to do for yourself in terms of your your health and your general well being it's a really easy read. It's tons and tons of common sense brought together in one book. I needed to read it after my my excursions away on holidays and

Andy Hart:

stuff that's gonna say, Did you read that while you're on holiday? Yeah, I

Carl Widger:

read 84 pages on the plane and the way out. Okay, I better get back to this. So back to this. But it's really good, easy read, really well written and just kind of broken down into small, bite sized chapters. Really, really good stuff. Dr Mark Rowe,

Nick Lincoln:

okay. Section, thanks. My wishes. Okay, I can't see anything be on the agenda. Ultra

Andy Hart:

doesn't mean for me today. What? That's why. Okay, he's waiting for

Nick Lincoln:

it. Okay, okay, that's why. That's why. Once again, you

Alan Smith:

just mentioned a book that you haven't read yet, that you normally

Carl Widger:

do IKEA or something like that.

Andy Hart:

Yeah, I didn't want to bring the standard

Carl Widger:

I actually looked you at some Yeah.

Andy Hart:

Okay, goodbye, everybody. Good luck the lions. Good luck the lions. The British and Irish lines, mostly

Carl Widger:

Irish lines,

Nick Lincoln:

yeah. 98 minutes, Scotland. Let's draw a close to Episode 75 of the real advisor podcast. Thank you, dear Trappists, for your time. We do appreciate it. Please do leave a review on iTunes, and if you can on certain other podcast apps now you can leave reviews as well. Thank you for your precious time and input to the show. It's adios from us, take care out there. England need one more wicket to win. India need 43 ones to win. So it's embarrassing towards England, but from the Track Pack, adios, take care out there, and we will see you on the other side. Goodbye.

Unknown:

Bye bye, bye bye. Oh,

Alan Smith:

that wasn't bad. It was good. It's about an hour and a

Nick Lincoln:

half, right? No, an hour 40

Alan Smith:

All right, spent 10 minutes longer than normal, okay,

Nick Lincoln:

it was decent. Yeah, it's good. Thank you.

Alan Smith:

Okay, got a title. I just got that boring world class client

Andy Hart:

experience. Oh, is that a rumor?

Nick Lincoln:

What's that?

Unknown:

No, you haven't.

People on this episode

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Nick Lincoln

Host
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Alan Smith

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Andy Hart

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Carl Widger

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