98 - TRAP: Taking Stock and Looking Forward

In this latest pile of TRAP, the Trap Pack discuss

• Topical Titbits
• Meat and Potatoes: TRAP - Taking Stock and Moving Forward
• TRAPist question from beloved TRAPist Tom Goodwin https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-goodwin-992b24a8/ 
• Culture Corner

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

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Transcript

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Unknown: 0:08

You welcome to the Real Advisor Podcast, T R A P trap. 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.

Nick Lincoln: 0:42

Yes. indeed, dear trappers. Welcome back to what many people are calling episode 98 of the Real Advisor Podcast, T R E P Trap. My name is officially Lick Lincoln, and joining me, as ever, in the digital studio of Doom are the three other horsemen of the bucket list: Andy Ultra Heart, Carl Della Vocci, the voice Widger, and Alan the storyteller, Smith. Now, gentlemen, we have a show packed full of app absolutely nothing, so let's start unpacking it straight away with another high-energy review read read out by my very good friend, the Right Honorable mr. Andrew Ursaine Hot.

Andy Hart: 1:17

Seems like it's been a long time since we've been back in the studio, so very excited for today's show. The review today is from Harry Sims on the Apple Podcast platform, entitled Full Fat Financial Planning. Been a listener for a long time, love the show, the wit and honesty. I look forward to listening bi-weekly on Thursday, often listening to it twice. I've been working in this profession of hours since I was 16 years old, 11 years now. It's amazing. This podcast has certainly made me reflect, and I've learned bucket loads. Cheers, boys. PS, I think you should copyright Full Fat Financial Planning. It's part of my vocabulary now. Back to you, Nicholas.

Nick Lincoln: 1:53

Excellent stuff. Thank you, Harry. Well, youngster, good stuff. Yes, yes, I should copyright Full Fat Financial Planning, but I won't give stuff away. Okay, let's put a timestamp on episode 98 We had our Trap Live event last month, a great success. We'll talk about that more in the meat of potatoes, but following Trap Live, there was what's this timeline? They have, they have something, don't they? Some of you went to Advice 3.0 Talk to us about that, guys. Okay, I didn't go, and I'll talk about it. Is that easier?

Alan Smith: 2:25

I thought you were going, Andy. I see our absence from the studio hasn't improved our professional presenting.

Andy Hart: 2:32

Well, you're the list, but hey,

Alan Smith: 2:35

there's a lot of issues wrong with a list today. No, it was.. it was the day after Trap live, which we'll speak about later on. Advisor 3.0 is a, it's a fantastic conference, probably the biggest, arguably the best in the, in the profession. Full day, you mean top, top speakers, full day packed. I did a little thing, which was a bit of a stretch after the night before, but I did a presentation or a talk in the morning with a few others, but it was packed, and I think it was just there was so many, I don't know, there's 800 people there, so there's a lot of people, you constantly just bump it into people that you know or know a bit, quite a few Trappists, few Trap fans in the audience coming up, but I just got to tell you, one, the one thing that I remember from it, even though there was, you know, a lot going on, lots of speakers, but the one thing that just made me chuckle, although get ready, get ready, Nick, with Ultra, Ultra Crepidarian, because this is a classic Andy Hart story, so keynote speaker was the one, the only legendary Morgan Housel,

Andy Hart: 3:42

close birthday friend,

Alan Smith: 3:43

so you know, top, top, top sellers, he's got it's got three book, three books out now, just sort of published his more recent book, which we've mentioned on this podcast in the past, The Art of Spending Money, and anyway, so me and me and Hart will wander up to him after his talk for a bit of chit chat, because we know him from the past, and the first thing Andy says to Morgan Housel is, "Mate, you've kept me off the top, the top slot, the top best-selling book slot. I can't believe you've knocked me off the top spot.

Unknown: 4:15

Andy, the ultra-creprida in Andy, he knows about everything, and he can't be told anything. His name is Andrew Hart. Andrew,

Alan Smith: 4:31

so funny. He just said, you know, as a fellow author, Morgan, what do you think? I mean, to be fair, your

Andy Hart: 4:37

top two books bugger off. I'm sat solidly at number three for a couple of months. Thanks, thanks, Morgan.

Alan Smith: 4:43

Yeah, he did, and Morgan just.. I'm so sorry.

Andy Hart: 4:47

He wasn't.. it was a little star strike when he met us, though, wasn't he, Alan?

Alan Smith: 4:51

He was a little something for 10 minutes. He got both barrels from us two. Just, it was.. it was. What do you think about the conference? Andy,

Andy Hart: 5:02

brilliant, amazing. I've pretty much been to every conference that Abraham has run. It is enormous. It's very razzmatazz. I watched back to a couple of the speeches, actually, that I missed. I thought Abraham was quite really good, very detailed, worth watching. I think they got a relive link, if you can find that, check that out. Yeah, huge event, great speakers, mainly for the networking, I obviously run conferences, so I like to go there and pick up ideas. Yeah, it was cracking again.

Alan Smith: 5:27

It

Andy Hart: 5:28

was a great confidence pills this morning. Ravi,

Nick Lincoln: 5:33

it was,

Andy Hart: 5:35

it was great. It was mainly the network, wasn't it? Really, Alan, that we. well, this, that's actually one of the, that's one of the people

Alan Smith: 5:44

challenges, Andy, is that you sort of, you in a break, you sort of get into a conversation with some really interesting people, and then you realize you just missed one of the talks, so that's, you know, this,

Andy Hart: 5:57

but most of the good stuff you learn in this profession comes from someone else you're talking to, you know. Obviously, it's great that you've got good content, but you know, some of the key insights I've learned from this business are just sitting with people in between breaks, going for coffees, beers, etc. So, and we are very open, we do share our best ideas. So, yeah, it was a cracking show, and they're also putting on their show in 2027 the day after Trap Live again. So, we're doing that sort of double hitter, so yeah, all good. Who was

Carl Widger: 6:24

the, who was the best speaker? Who was the best that you attended?

Andy Hart: 6:30

I think Paul Klee West talk was really good if you are a solo advisor practice and want to grow a real firm and a real brand, if that makes sense, or a more mature brand. I thought that was really good. I thought Abraham's was quite good. Morgan Housels was was okay, but I've seen a lot of his content before. It was a good mix of speakers, but they do this slightly odd thing where they've got four sections in a large room where the delegates have to listen on headphones, so it is quite hard for speakers. So, Carl, for example, if you were speaking, you'd be speaking to sort of a silent room with people with headphones on. The keynotes are obviously like normal talks as we know them, but a lot of the breakout ones. So, Alan, you did a talk about that? Yeah, I did it. And so you're

Alan Smith: 7:10

speaking as a speaker, you've got the headphones on as well, the kind of.. and you.. so there's other people in the in the area who are not listening to your talk, and there's some who are. So, you don't know the headphones on

Andy Hart: 7:20

feedback of your talk, you might still crack joke. Yeah, it's not, it's not big rooms, so it doesn't interrupt all the talks. Yeah, I

Carl Widger: 7:28

was saying to you guys, like one of the things we changed the chairs slightly, so that we could interact, you know? So the interaction is important, isn't it? Yeah,

Andy Hart: 7:36

they missed that on the bulk of their talks, and some of the speakers said they do find that quite challenging, but in those enormous rooms I don't think there's any way around it, so it's almost like a silent disco type. Yeah, that's

Alan Smith: 7:45

what it, that's the, that's the idea. These, the in addition to the speakers Andy mentioned, I like there's a guy called Greg McEwen. Don't, if you've mentioned, I think I've mentioned him in the past on this podcast, I've read, I think all his essentialism. I just really, really like his message that comes out about just distilling everything down to just only the important stuff, essentialism, and really good book. Yeah, he's, he was good. So, you know, there's some some big names in there, which I guess cost a few quid to get those people in, but good to know it's on again this year.

Andy Hart: 8:18

It was just a good vibe, wasn't it? Everyone was in good spirits,

Alan Smith: 8:21

yeah,

Andy Hart: 8:21

and everyone was, you know, open and honest with everyone, so yeah, it was a yeah, cracking back to you, Nicholas, good

Nick Lincoln: 8:26

stuff. Okay, well done, Abraham and team watch open, I open AI launch,

Carl Widger: 9:04

yeah. So I thought this was interesting, is an article I saw on, I think it was the FT, was it? Anyway, I've shared the article, but yeah, look, it's.. we all know this, don't we? We know it's coming, but I think it's really important that we really hone in on the value that we're offering our clients, because if you think it's the stuff that you know.. well, I think we're all sold in the fact that it's not actually the investments that's not the value that you give, right, but now there's more and more AI possibilities around offering financial plans. So this is a this is a financial planning tool that AI, Open AI are doing in the States. If it's starting in the States, you can be absolutely sure it's coming to a shore near you, so I think you know anyone caught out by this in a year or two, and it might not even be that long, is you know, I think you're fooling yourself. So really deciding where you add value the best, I think in Ireland we're probably, it's probably going to be a little bit easier, because we're still in the, we're a little bit slow to adopt the latest technology, and people still seem to want to talk to, especially people with a lot of money, they seem to want to the comfort of meeting the human advisor, but there's an awful lot of people roll this thing off. 510, years, there's an awful lot of people who would be very comfortable popping it into the financial planning tool and Open AI, and getting their financial plan done, and then implementing exactly what Open AI has said, and then I'll talk about later on, there's serious competition coming to the investment world here in Ireland, you, you guys probably already have it, but that will only increase. So, look, just thought really interesting. Nothing new that we didn't know that was coming, but now it's already here. And if it's already here, like, you know, the speed of these things is just a million miles an hour. So, I thought it was interesting. Andrew,

Andy Hart: 11:06

yeah, there's going to be 10s and hundreds of these services being offered by various different AI companies, a bit of clarification on what the term financial planning means, because I think they're just talking about account aggregation, you know, insurance updates, but you can imagine the just the millions and millions of questions and prompts that all these AI models are getting all around finance. The other thing, as well, is in your AI chosen model type your own hometown. So I'm looking for a financial advisor in my hometown, see if you come up, because this again is how people are searching for financial advisors. London is obviously awash with it, but smaller towns will maybe identify yourself and your firm, but it's worth checking out, because a lot of people are doing searches for financial advisors on AI, and then the final, I think that's yeah, that's it. Anyone else

Carl Widger: 11:58

just to come back, that's a very fair point, that it is the kind of a counter aggregation, right? Yeah, yeah, but that's actually very helpful for people, right? So to find out what's in your bank account in one place in a financial planning tool. Go on.

Andy Hart: 12:12

Sorry, the final thing I was going to say that I forgot this will play into the hands of full fat financial planning. I mean, I've spent a lot of time on AI, telling it about various different financial planning concepts, and I want to find a financial planner, et cetera, et cetera. And it always leads to what we and lots of other advisors talk

about: 12:28

the financial plan comes first, the portfolio funds the plan, and your behavior is important, and it also leads to index investing over at overactive. It's never going to say a financial plan is not important. Find the most expensive fund you can find, and your behavior won't determine anything. So, it is going to play into the hands of what we have been telling clients is the right way to sort of approach your finances. So, so if you are doing full, full fat financial planning, AI will confirm your story. It

Carl Widger: 12:57

should make it easier, but I suppose one of the things that we're always talking about is, you know, trying to get all the various pieces of tech to talk to each other, and now there's like Open AI is coming out with exactly, you know, the account aggregation for clients. Never mind my advisors trying to figure it out for the last decade, how to for all these things to talk to each other, and there's no doubt that cash flow modeling is not rocket science, it's just a bunch of spreadsheets talking to each other and putting it in a beautiful chart, so that will be coming as well. I should say to your point about, you know, are you coming up in searches? I subscribe to a newsletter from Samantha Russell, which comes in every Saturday, is really, really good, and it's exactly about that. It's about exactly to be

Andy Hart: 13:38

found on AI platforms,

Carl Widger: 13:40

and she's doing great, great work on that. Our old friend Samantha, so well done, Samantha. And I would encourage everybody to to engage or subscribe with our newsletter on that,

Andy Hart: 13:52

and also Phil Bray did a great presentation about this. So, if you can contact Yardstick and find that presentation, it's brilliant. It's about how to be found on AI models. It's all about adding loads of frequently asked questions to your website. There's all these sort of rubs that you can do that sort of play into the hands of the AI models. Anyway, yeah,

Carl Widger: 14:09

and there you go. There's huge amount of value if you just subscribe to Phil Bray stuff and Samantha Russell's. I think that will help you get on, you know, the train that you need to be on, and if you don't get on the train, you will be left behind at the station. I'm afraid.

Alan Smith: 14:22

Quest, question with this Open AI financial services thing, which did have a lookout, would you, would anyone here add all your personal banking details to a large language model and share it with them to aggregate. Right now, I've,

Andy Hart: 14:38

I've faffed around with account aggregation software in the past. I used to use money dashboard. There's a load of new ones out now, like Emma. So, in answer, direct answer to your question, no, I wouldn't. My personal financial life is a bit of a mess. I've got loads of business accounts, loads of personal accounts, so I don't just have one personal account, one business account. But if I did, and my life is a bit simpler from a financial point of view, I may do it, but at the moment, no, I wouldn't. I wouldn't want AI. I'm not, I'm personally, you know, an account at the moment, and I'm pro tech. Yeah,

Alan Smith: 15:09

I'm a big advocate for AI. I wouldn't upload. I mean, you're talking about your in order to aggregate, you need your personal bank.

Andy Hart: 15:16

Yeah, it's just outnumber

Alan Smith: 15:18

sort code balance everything. No way, right? No way. You know, and what you know, what are the protection? Where is the data kept? You know, is it hackable by somebody else? I wouldn't do that right now, but

Carl Widger: 15:29

maybe. In the future, okay, maybe in the future is right, but it's coming,

Nick Lincoln: 15:34

as you said, Carl. It's a movable feast, this thing, it's changing every second. It'll change in the 15 minutes of this recording. 15 minutes in, guys, we're on the third bullet point, just subtle passive aggressive jab. Okay, Smithy Zurich, high net worth, make it interesting, make it short.

Alan Smith: 15:51

This is just for you, Nick. We've talked in the past about life cover protection, the fact that most of us don't do a great deal of it. Every now and again, we have a need to do it for specific reasons, for specific clients, and coincidentally, at the same time, when this client situation arose, I got an email from Zurich, and which I thought was quite interesting, because this, the cover, the level of cover that we are being asked to review for a particular wealthy client is significant, about 9 million pounds worth of cover, and I thought it was interesting, because immediately I see things like that, my heart sinks, because I just think this is just going to be a mess of complexity, time, you know. Then you can be just begin to imagine the amount of financial underwriting,

Nick Lincoln: 16:38

medicals, chasing surgeries, all

Alan Smith: 16:42

that stuff. So I was pleased to see that Zurich, who, you know, one of the main players in the protection market, have launched something, they've got two levels about this, so for the use of non-routine, this is, you know, if you're doing a regular, like 300,000 life cover, this is not applicable, but they've got two levels, they've got what they call a high net worth, which is above 1.5 million some assured up to 5 million, and then they've got an ultra high net worth, what they call in their private office, above 5 million, some assured, which this case, you know, does fall into. So I contacted him, had a had a good conversation with the guy who runs that there, Zurich, and it's really, it sounds really good. We were yet to test it, we're early stages of this, but it's what they call a kind of white glove service, in that they, you know, got you have a named individual, proper underwriter, the senior underwriter who discusses it with you. You get a private medical, you know, they'll send, you know, potentially send transport, they'll allow you to go to a medical in Harley Street, top, you know, and make sure the data and the information is returned successfully, and it's so set the recognizing that the higher cases, the higher sums assured, the more complexity it needs a different level of service, like we, some, you know, we can potentially do for certain client situations. So we're just beginning to embark on that process, but I like the fact that it's not going to go into this bloody great big black hole of a life insurance company, get lost in there, have a call center, try to chase up, because particularly with this type of client there tends tend to be, you know, busy successful people, and they don't want to get messed around. So I'm hopeful that the Zurich high net worth private client service will be as good as it sounds right now. That's my first point. And I do have a follow up to this about fees and commission, but Nick, you've got a point.

Nick Lincoln: 18:28

Just a quickie, I mean, when so Zurich was formerly Allied Dunbar, and when I worked out Alighiled Dunbar IFA division in the 1990s they were renowned for being really, really good at protection. That was our sort of USP, really. And back then, you had access to the underwriters, under life insurance underwriters, are treated as like they don't let them out in the sun, don't let them speak, you're kind of clustered away, and you never Ali Dunbar back then, 30 years ago, you could actually phone up the underwriter and talk through a case pre-application, speak the actual people who would make the decisions, and it was a brilliant service. They kind of, I think, gone off that little bit. Looks like they're trying to get back to their roots, so you know anything that makes this getting life insurance on the books and issued easier and better. I'm massively all for that, because it is, as you said, Alan, it's a heart-sinking moment when you, when you think of these multimillion pound sum is short, watch,

Carl Widger: 19:13

yeah, just isn't this reiterating the point, right? That what you don't want is to be in the system that's probably driven by AI, and he'd be at the back of the queue, and call centers and bots, or whatever, that it's what's really valued is the white glove service. Yeah, so I think that's what we should be aiming for in everything, and I know, like, we have been speaking to one provider here recently, and maybe we hadn't a load of business gone our way, so we were in our normal service, and they were like, yeah, but you're in the normal service, that's just run by, you know, the system, you're never going to get good service there, so there you go, there's the answer, but, uh, yeah, fair play. That's

Alan Smith: 19:53

interesting. Yeah, we can elevate in the age of technology, elevate ourselves and our services to our clients. Exactly, good point. Through

Carl Widger: 19:59

the humans, yeah, dedicated account manager, we look after you.

Andy Hart: 20:03

Did they use that phrase, Alan White Glove Service? No, I just

Carl Widger: 20:07

gave you that one, Andy. No, I said it. I said it as well. I can't remember this.

Andy Hart: 20:12

Use that phrase.

Alan Smith: 20:13

It's hang on, let me.. let me.. I've got the thing here. Okay, I put the link. I can't remember what is that, but they talked about high net worth and ultra high net worth. They call it the private client team. I don't know if they actually say the word white glove, but that's the well-known phrase, isn't it? For high-end.. you just. Concierge type service. Okay, we're getting

Nick Lincoln: 20:31

down a kind of little rabbit hole here. So, what's your next follow-on point?

Alan Smith: 20:36

Yeah, it's an interesting dynamic around commission and fees, because when you go back into the life assurance world, you get a bit of, you know, the old commissions come up. What, 9 million some assured? Whoa, come on, boys, but of course,

Carl Widger: 20:52

Target done for the year. Yeah,

Alan Smith: 20:58

you'd be surprised. Actually, it wasn't quite that. It was, it's a term assurance policy. It's not quite the number, however, we've always whole

Nick Lincoln: 21:06

of life, Alan, his whole of life.

Alan Smith: 21:07

Yeah, no, that's that's next. This is a particular situation, but we've always been well, for at least for a decade or more, when we have done protection, we've aimed to do it on a fee basis, so you do, you take the life insurance policy on a non-commission basis and charge the client, you know, a professional fee, which is how it should be done, and again, I never really understood this. If we're all talking about since 2012 2013 we've been in a proper fee profession, and commissions were dropped for investment and pension products. Why are we saying, well, the other part of our sort of product toolbox is

Andy Hart: 21:45

sold, insurance is sold. Yeah, I get it, I get it. But nobody wants to buy it. You need people to be aggressive. The end,

Alan Smith: 21:51

by and large, but no, I'm making the point here. So, we, this is an existing client working with.. hold on. Can I finish, Andrew? Can I finish? Jesus, so the difference, the difference on a nil commission versus on this particular policy versus a full commission. So, we could take full commission, or we charge the client a fee to cover our time, effort, energy, professional advice, etc. And our fee would be a bit lower than the commission otherwise payable. The saving to the client would be, in this particular case, is 18,000 1000, in this case, 18,000 and I've seen them where they've been 30, 40,000 pounds, so, and that's the way we're providing it. It's where we're offering, and so therefore we don't need to worry about things like charging commissions and getting commission claw backs, and being in that world. So, basically, charging a proper professional fee for the work undertaken, and we're not taking any commission on it at all. And I think that's quite an interesting dynamic. Clients, clients quite pleased, very pleased to be saving a ton of money. Obviously, he can afford to pay the fee.

Andy Hart: 22:54

Yeah, at that level, Alan, I think you've done the right thing. But mass affluent commission is just the easiest and simplest way to get more and more people to take out, you know, this vital insurance that one day might hugely save their family. It needs to be sold still. If it went, if it went full fees, the protection gap would increase by five fold overnight. I think,

Nick Lincoln: 23:17

yeah, I think you're probably right on that one. Okay, moving on. And kind of a following on from the earlier AI point, Saturn, who I use, and I know Alan uses presently, have rolled out this new feature called Co Planner, which is embedding AI into Saturn, and I had a run through it with it yesterday with Rohit and a lady called Finn. She actually called Finley, she was christened with a boy's name, Finley, and it's been a bug brother of hers, but she's getting over it. And I had this meeting with Finn, and we talked through, oh, by the way, a habla espanol, she speaks Spanish, so that's quite good, because I'm trying to learn that she spoke Spanish. I mean, I didn't understand a word she was saying, and Finn said she wouldn't listen to this episode of Trap 98 So I'm going to test you on this film when we next speak. The code word you've got to mention to me, Finn, is Manchego. Anyway, Saturn launched this co-planner function within their software, which is really good, and what they've done is the point they make is, and I think it's valid, if you use AI for like financial services related questions, and so forth, it may get it right, but you're never too sure, and you still have to run it through various AI models to make sure the answer is actually correct. So, Co-Planner, which sits within Saturn, is their AI thing, and what they've done, they've uploaded the whole FCA, all the FCA rule books, and all of the HMRC tax legislation into Co Planner, so it's a financial services designed AI model that you can then ask interrogative interrogative questions of based on the client meetings that Saturn's already got recorded, and I've looked at that and done some stuff on it, it's absolutely amazing IHT questions, you know, mr. and mrs. Blog stick them into into Saturn, and then you say, okay, what IHT planning should we be doing, and it comes back with this stuff, and it is perfect, and it's client-facing as well. If you want it to be, you can obviously download it, attach it to whatever client document system you use as well, and over time this will just get better and better. So I'm trying in co-planner, and I'm looking forward to having a follow-up with the with Finn, but it looks, looks really, really promising, and if you want to get a link, if you want to get involved with Saturn, the link is in the so-called show notes, but Manchego Finn, okay, Manchego three times, okay, yeah, it's good. Any thoughts, comments?

Andy Hart: 25:22

That's staggering. It's amazing. Do you still check it, Nick? Check the checker. Sorry,

Nick Lincoln: 25:28

I, I went through, I did this. Problem is that it gives such an extensive answer that if you want to check it properly, I need to have the trial yesterday, Andy, but I'm gonna use it for the next couple of weeks and just see it. That's amazing, it is, and it's just coming back with stuff, thinking that is incredible. It's nice to know that it's got the FCA and the HMRC rule book embedded in it, you know. So, is there is

Alan Smith: 25:50

a no point in putting our hands up anymore on the digital, so couple of points. First of all, I mean that I haven't looked at that yet, Nick. That does sound amazing. I was posted something on LinkedIn, I think this week or last week, about just complexity around inheritance tax planning now, and all the what ifs, and the, you know, the residence rate band, and, and what, and it's just mega, you know, for you know, not a super wealthy client, but a client with a property worth say one and a half or 2 million, 1 million pounds, and a pension fund, two children, the interaction and complexity, and the what ifs, and if you just change one thing, the sort of downstream effects are having super, super complicated, so any help and support we can all have as part of that would be brilliant

Andy Hart: 26:37

with it. If the

Alan Smith: 26:38

Saturn tool sort of overlays HMRC rule books, regulations, plus the FCA handbook, that's going to be fantastic. The other thing to say is, I, I went to a Met Rohit last week, I went over to they've got a new HQ, it's called a Saturn Dome, and it's, it's five floors, fantastic building in just behind Liverpool Street in the city, and this, you know, they've just gone in there, they're just getting all kitted out, but there's going to be on the ground floor a kind of advisor drop-in area, coffee rooms, sort of, you can do some work from there, etc. And then we've got a roof terrace of Sandy in the good weather last week, standing up in the roof terrace, having a chat about life, the universe, and everything with Rohit. So, you know, there really are, you know, growing and becoming a force for good. So it's great news to hear about their ongoing progress.

Nick Lincoln: 27:28

Okay. Fantastic stuff. Okay. Okay. There was this next point. It's an interesting point, and it affects all of us. Watch DFA,

Carl Widger: 27:36

yeah. This is on City Wire, wasn't it? Could be totally unfounded, could be the rumor mill, but City Wire reckon that DFA, Dimension Fund Advisors, have engaged with a firm called Moelis, I think, in order to explore basically selling themselves. Look, I would say these conversations are probably happening all of the time, but I think one of the interesting parts of this was that they seem to have some facts that in 2020 and 2021 DFA had extended discussions with JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs about maybe going in under their umbrellas, so look, you know, it could be pure speculation. Who knows? I'm sure that's what DFA are saying, and it probably is right now until they sign terms and whatever, but the only constant is change, and anyone thinking that you know it's going to be the way it is now forever. Well, it's just not the case. So, how would you feel, Nick, if Goldman Sachs bought Dimensional Fund Advisors? Right, it's a genuine, it's a genuine, it's a genuine question, because you know it's, it's, I love one firm, but I don't like the other firm, and now the other firm that I don't like is,

Nick Lincoln: 29:06

yeah, I mean, you'd hope that anyone acquiring DFA will be doing it, because they want to maintain the ethos, because DFA is such a unique, you know, they are, they have their views, don't they, and they're very, very dogmatic about it. You don't think that if a Goldman Sachs took over DFA, they would preserve that. So I just be a watching brief watch, you know, I just, you know, watch it, could be really good, it could be they pushed down DFA charges, for argument's sake, you know, just the scale of being owned by a bigger company that would be great for customers, but if they start interfering with it or diluting what we like about DFA, then I, yeah, I'd obviously be keeping my eye on it, is what I can say, but there are other alternatives, thank God, you know, and we, as we said before, the whole evidence-based investment field is there's some really good players in there, obviously Vanguard, as well as Dimensional, and other ones as well. So, if I had to walk away from Dimension Lookers, because, because I didn't like the way it was going, I would do so. And there are really, really good alternatives out there, but we'll just keep in mind, I don't know whose hands up first. I think it

Alan Smith: 30:50

is huge news. Dimensional do have a very, very strong culture, so obviously whoever buys them needs to obviously factor that in. Schroeder has recently sold, and they've got similar AUM. Schroeder's might even be slightly more profitable if I was to hazard a guess. They sold for about $10 billion I think. Schroeder's did, so it's going to be a big price tag on DFA. Yeah, it's gonna be very interesting, Alan, you. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a fair point, Nick, about if, depending on if you know a, is it true, and you're right, Carl, at a local level, I actually was having breakfast with some of the senior people there the morning that news broke, and they said it's, they just, they denied it, they said these rumors are always kicking around, it's not on the agenda, but fine, you know, we'll see, of course, they're going to deny it publicly, we'll see. I'm reminded, I've got nothing. I've got nothing personally against Goldman Sachs, for example. They would seem like a potential natural buyer. I'm always reminded, though, that one of the best American RIA independent firms I'd ever seen, called United Capital, remember Joe Durand, I think his name is, who sold for them, and he sold to, and it was, they were so ahead of their time with the technology and everything else, you know, go back 10 years ago, and I used to follow everything that he, they did and said, and they had an exit, they sold to Goldman, and I don't think that business even exists anymore, or certainly not in the format that it was when they

Carl Widger: 32:14

rebranded it, but Joe, Joe Duran left and started again, so yeah, that tells you, well, you know where he

Alan Smith: 32:20

is now, Carl. He's advising that firm, Domain Wealth, that you've mentioned in the past, that kind of new AI platform is he's trying

Carl Widger: 32:28

to, he's trying to get a conglomerate of very large advisory firms together and scale it big time, and then obviously sell it again,

Nick Lincoln: 32:36

just so

Alan Smith: 32:38

the last last thing I would say on this, and I'm just joining a few dots. Did you see Jamie Dimon the other day, CEO of JP Morgan? He just said he said we've got about $20 billion that we need to use right now, we need to acquire something. I thought, hmm, interestingly in

Nick Lincoln: 32:56

the City Wire article that you referenced, their car that Dimensional did did look were sort of touted themselves a few years ago for sale, apparently, and that came to nothing. So, these, you know, these things, these things happen, don't they? And it could just, if

Carl Widger: 33:06

you were listening to the start of my topical tidbit, I did say that,

Unknown: 33:09

yeah, yeah, hopefully that's a big

Andy Hart: 33:13

independent, I think

Nick Lincoln: 33:14

I've just been busted live a Okay. Christ, ultra.

Alan Smith: 33:24

Oh, here we go

Andy Hart: 33:25

onwards. To this, this is a story about a gentleman who is in our business, who close personal friend. He is a close personal friend of mine, Peter Rosengard. He had an article in The Times this week, so he is, he's famous for booking a table at Claridge's Hotel until a day after his 100th birthday to continue to sell life insurance to the good and the great of London. He has three meetings a day, three breakfast meetings. I was one of the three breakfast meetings four years ago. I tried to pitch him to speak at my conference. He politely turned me down. He's had a total of 10,367 breakfasts at Claridge's, and when you sit down, he basically says scrambled eggs and bacon, and then they run off and make it. So, this is, is he a legend or a loser? And I say that in the nicest sense. He's nearly 80. Is this is this enviable? Is this what other financial advisors sort of aim to achieve, or should he have hung up his life insurance prop books?

Nick Lincoln: 34:37

It's definitely, it's very

Andy Hart: 34:38

unique. He's written two books. One book is really good, called Talking to Strangers, which is what financial advisors do, is talk to strangers. It's really good. It's very open. He's lived an eclectic life. He's got a new book out that I haven't yet read. I think you can pre-order it. I think it's called They Only Call Me When They're Dead. He was, he's broken a couple of world records, ish, in the life insurance game. I think he sold the most amount of policies in one month. He sold over 120 but another friend of mine records that he's beaten that, and he's also sold the biggest policy to Geffen, who's the Museo. Yeah, so yeah, I thought I'd highlight it. He's been highlighted in the time, so if you go to Claridge's in the morning time, which you would never, Nick Alan, you might end up there. One of your open of opening of envelopes, invitations, I go to the Wolsley,

Nick Lincoln: 35:34

I don't go to colleges for break, go to the wall, make a point.

Andy Hart: 35:37

Yeah, Cole,

Carl Widger: 35:38

yeah, whatever gives the guy energy. Who, who are we to judge what pods good or bad? It's like, rock on, dude. If that's what we do all the

Nick Lincoln: 35:45

time, we judge, we judge. He loves it.

Andy Hart: 35:50

He obviously loves it. He must do exactly

Carl Widger: 35:52

so. Why were we even? Who does he work for? Because

Alan Smith: 35:56

he was Ally Dunbar, I think he was.

Andy Hart: 35:59

Yeah, he works for a similar organization like that, SJP Life. He was happy life for years, Abby Life. Someone else, one of the others, not going to do

Carl Widger: 36:06

that till he's.. he's not going to do that till he's 80. If he doesn't hate it, or or he hates it, exactly. So, like rock, I think he might be

Andy Hart: 36:14

working due to personal circum. Dances involving women, but anyway,

Alan Smith: 36:20

chestnut. I've seen him. He's, he's quite, he's quite slim, considering he has like four, four lots of bacon every morning, every day of his life. I mean, I love

Nick Lincoln: 36:34

bacon, but for Christ's sake,

Alan Smith: 36:36

for breakfast today

Nick Lincoln: 36:38

10,003

Alan Smith: 36:40

three, okay, let's move on, was inside for 35 minutes,

Nick Lincoln: 36:43

and we're, we've still got way to go, so we, as the trap pack, we all in our various ways get get contacted by the Trappists who tell us that they're good stories, and sometimes they're less good stories, and this is a less good story, perhaps Carl might have a bit of pushback on this, but let's just read out this email I've got, I've redacted it, obviously, it's from, it could be a lady, it could be a man, but I've decided to call him or her Henry, and he has decided to leave a firm that we're going to call ABC, so this is Henry's email to me, I've decided to leave ABC and take the loan repayment plan on the chin, we have sadly had much of our autonomy stripped in the last quarter to the point of having to be available for three pre-planned evenings a week, meetings a week in the evening, hit certain conversion rates, request minimum fees with no wiggle room, and worst of all, have communications sent out by ABC as if they are from us. Our protests fell on deaf ears. We're self-employed in name only, no salary, no holiday pay, no pension contributions, and so on. And our agreement has us paying 660 pounds a month in a fixed retention fee, 45% of our initial fees for ABC provided leads, 35% of our initial fees for self-generated leads, and 55% of our ongoing fees. We also have to pay for our own software, which is rubbish, and we get no administration support. Yes, February of paying to work. I'm now looking for a role with a smaller independent firm, where I'll be able to learn more and give proper, full, fat advice, copyright claim, and many, many others have done the same. You'd be surprised how few of us are left. I'm surprised ABC haven't ripped up our contracts and begged us to stay. There's simply no way of any of this is profitable for them after the exams and FCA and training fees are all paid, but alas, time will tell the longevity of the academy. It's gotten me my start in the industry, and for that I'm grateful. But the way it's marketed to young people, saddling them with debt on a sink or swim contract, where swimming really means making ABC a shit ton, is hideous. I love to update you again in 12 months. So, okay, lesson learned there, Henry. Yeah, I think Carl, you're going to just expand on this bit more, but if you work for these big companies, you know it comes with a price, Della Boccia.

Carl Widger: 38:47

Yeah, okay, so I don't know all of the background about this, but I have read the emails and tying in with a house view with a preferred provider script with systems processes extra compliance that just comes when you work for a big organization, so again, not knowing, so let's not talk about this particular case, but it's up to you to do your due diligence to understand exactly what is the requirements going forward, and not just for the next three months or six months, it's into the long term, and the only constant in big firms, by the way, small firms also, so I shouldn't have said big firms, the only constant is change, and resisting change all the time, is you know, and wondering, oh, why has this happened? Like, the ABC losing money hand over fist, or whatever phrase he used, right? ABC have looked at this as a project, and they're going to see if it works, and if it doesn't work, it doesn't make any difference to ABC, so you know, worrying about them begging you to come back is, you know, is just not the case. And I would say, like, if you want to go and work for an independent firm, like anybody on this call here, you ain't going to be just allowed to do it whatever way you want, no matter where you go, you're going to have some guardrails, you're going to have some confinements as to what you can and can't do. So, the only way you can actually do it entirely the way you want to do it is set up a business on your own, and otherwise there are restrictions that you might not entirely love. So, yeah, I know you guys were all saying, oh, this is terrible, and the poor guy, and I just had a slightly different view, but, but I will say, I don't know the entire background, but do your due diligence, folks, it's really, really, really, really important.

Alan Smith: 40:50

The only thing I would add, I mean, you, you're right, I mean, there is, there's no such thing as a free lunch or a free breakfast, unless you go with Peter Rosengard, but the they've, and there's, there's lots of these, a cat, not lots, but there's, there's harder, no, half a dozen, I've seen of academies, all right, so it's, it's an, it's an entry route for younger people to get into the profession, so. You covers the cost of your exams, your training, and all that sort of thing, but these organizations aren't a charity, so they aren't going to do it for free, and I think when I read the email, I thought, yeah, it's tricky because they've changed the goal post, moved to goal posts after it, and now there's a whole series of other things are expected, and the sort of the fees or the commissions or however it's organized, but unfortunately, and I spent more than a decade at a large company. The rules change, they do change, and, and you're right, Karl, do your due diligence, but you could, you can do your diligence as much as you want, but three years into that, the rules of the game can change, and I think that's, you've just got to be prepared, everything in life is a trade off, it's just, if you, if you can, if it's an entry route into the industry, and it gets you that pathway, recognize that down the line you might not love where you've ended up. So, the alternative is, it's easy to say, set up your own business, that is much harder to do than many people I know. But it's

Carl Widger: 42:11

sorry, Nick, I just jump in there before you come in. Like, like, I appreciate that, Alan, but, but that's the only way you're going to get absolute free rein. Otherwise, true, there are going to be some rules, and, and look, accountability in any organization, small, medium, or large, increases when performance is lower. It just does. You got to suck that up. Yeah.

Nick Lincoln: 42:35

Okay. Just close on this, and this, and Henry would have known this when he went into this, so you know, take this on the chin, Henry, but you know these haven't changed, but I am astonished at how much of the fees were taken by ABC. I mean, that would just suck the life out of me. To 55% of the ongoing fees go to ABC, you know, a good chunk of the initial fees, plus that's.. I would just.. that environment would.. would they've got to get back their

Alan Smith: 42:57

investment, though they've laid out 1000s to

Nick Lincoln: 43:03

whatever. Absolutely, they want to recoup it, but I, you know, that's to me that would just be anathema. There's got to be a better way than that. Okay. Okay. So, Smithy robo advisor to the wealthy,

Alan Smith: 43:15

this just a quick one. I noticed an organization that we've probably mentioned here before, but I sort of tracked them from a distance. Net Wealth, Net Wealth was set up a decade ago, 10 years ago, and that's why they were promoting their sort of 10 years in business just this week, and they were kind of pitched as then talking about Goldman, I think the lady who set them up was ex Goldman Sachs, and sort of put forward as a sort of robo advisor to the ultra wealthy, so you can cut out all your sort of usual private client wealth management type companies and go straight and get a sort of a digital experience at lower cost. And I was just tracking them through them when they announced their 10 year anniversary. I thought, wonder where they've got to, but and their accounts are fully available, publicly available. 10 years in, first they've raised 50 million pounds, not an insignificant amount of money, 50 million, and they've just gone through just about 1 billion of AUM, and bearing in mind one of the sort of key selling points is lower costs, so they are lower cost than a sort of a full fat financial planning experience, although this is not comparing apples with apples. If you do that comparison, they've made losses every year. In the last business year, I think the losses were about 4 million pounds and a bit, and I just.. it's just I don't want.. I never want to criticize these. I'm all for innovation and new ideas and new companies, but a decade in with raised 50 million pounds and you've only got to a billion AUM. I'm doing, I'm beginning to say, if I invest in a raging boom, let's call

Carl Widger: 44:50

us VAT as made, that's entirely shit. Yeah, all right, yeah, you said it. Yeah,

Alan Smith: 44:56

it's not great, is it? And they've just, they've just wasted. We nearly did

Carl Widger: 44:59

that out of Limerick with no. So there you go.

Nick Lincoln: 45:04

Just, just quick aside, just haven't.. it's not the show notes, but I just read it this morning. I think that's a nutmeg who was sold to JP Morgan. Yes, correct. A few years ago, that make another. Yeah. Anyway, and JP Morgan now are not paying any interest on cash only pots on that platform. They've actually not forget taking a margin, they're just not giving any interest whatsoever. So that's another, you know, these things live their investments. Okay? Right? Are any of us in the top one? And sorry, fella,

Andy Hart: 45:36

yeah, the total losses of that firm, Alan, obviously reflect the amount that they've raised. So, the total losses currently sit at 48 million within that company. The public numbers for 2024 were two and a half million pounds turnover and a 7 million pounds loss last year, 4.7 and a four two and a half million turnover.

Alan Smith: 45:54

10 years in, raised 59

Andy Hart: 45:55

years in, that was the 2024 so the total loss on the banks, the moment is 48 50 million, 50 million, just been completely wasted. If that makes sense, there is a value to the business, if they look after a billion, it is, you know, JP Morgan, or someone

Alan Smith: 46:10

will come in and buy it. Well, there's probably the best exit, they're

Andy Hart: 46:13

already, they're already minus 48 million, so. Some would have to come in and buy it for 100 and then be a profit of 50. Yeah, but a

Carl Widger: 46:19

little bit like stories that you told before, the investors are getting wiped out if they're selling that company now. So, the investors are 50 million bucks. It's

Andy Hart: 46:26

not great, but it shows that you cannot do this, you know, at very low cost. You know, there's a reason why a lot of these, you know, services, private banks, wealth managers, discretionary fund managers, they charge a lot of money, because obviously it costs a lot of money to run these organizations, but the thing is, as

Alan Smith: 46:45

you've said in the past, Andy, people don't want cheap, they want safe. If I, if I've got, if I'm a high net worth 10 million pounds investor, I want a bit more than an online robo platform with my multi million pounds, and I'm prepared to pay for it. I think you know, wealthy, wealthy people, which, this, this is the thing, this was different to a lot of the other robos, which were targeted, kind of the non-advised kind of low portfolio sizes. This is for designed to be for multi million pound portfolios, high net worth, wealthy investors. Yes, and they, and they, those people, in my experience, really value a human being, an in-person meeting, a conversation, the White Glove Service, the White Glove Service, exactly right. So, yeah, a decade in there, we go. Good luck.

Andy Hart: 47:25

Okay, all right. So, ultra, I'll ask again, are we in the top 1% Any of us, you let me know. This is a very detailed article. I don't know if you guys scroll through it, but it's in The Times, it's called, Are You in the new top 1% so nearly 400,000 people in the UK now more than 200,000 pounds

Alan Smith: 47:43

a year,

Andy Hart: 47:44

and they're also saying if you've got a net worth of more than 3 million, you're sort of technically in the top 1% This is this whole sort of movement in the UK about attacking the wealthy, VAT on private schools, increasing in income tax, increasing in business tax rates, etc. etc. etc. and it goes through a whole amount of information about it, and shows that, yeah, the top 1% currently you need to earn over 207,000 pounds. These are, you know, straight up the clients that financial advisors seek. Is it 8% of the UK get financial advice, and obviously the top 1% the high earners, and the people that have assets are the people that want the white glove service. It goes into a lot of detail, actually, about ethnicity, about where the wealth is, and ages. The highest earners age bracket are basically 44 which was weirdly my age, just knew that I just, it's just, it's just very odd high earners, but obviously we've got high expenses and all that jazz, and then it breaks down the different, the different income levels and where they get their income from, is it, is it employment, self-employment, which I'm assuming is businesses, is basically just saying the business owners are the highest earners, so again, this is nothing, let's say, new to us. We know, obviously, you know, people that seek financial advice are high earners, slightly older, usually business owners, and have assets in terms of the total income tax paid by the top 1% Top 1% currently pay 27% of all income tax, the bottom 50% only pay 10% There is, you know, Jeff Bezos was saying that that should just be wiped out for low earners. Low earners shouldn't be paying any income tax, it should all come from the top in a, in a slightly more, you know, workable fashion. So, yeah, I thought was quite an interesting article. As I say, these are the clients that financial advisors seek to work with region as well. Obviously, the wealth is concentrated in London, so 40% of the wealth is concentrated in London. Yeah, it just goes into a whole host of information around it. Any thoughts? Comments?

Nick Lincoln: 49:54

Not from me. Okay. Cool. Okay. Watch,

Carl Widger: 50:01

is this the Interactive Brokers one?

Nick Lincoln: 50:03

Yeah, since the trouble I get told off by Andy, but don't lead in each article, because people.. and then I don't even.. the article people hang about. Yeah, I don't

Carl Widger: 50:11

have any. I don't have any notes. So, yeah, look, this would be very quick. Interactive Brokers, massive firm who offer online trading platform, they set up in Ireland a good few years ago, but they, their ambition was to have 30 or 40 staff in their Dublin office. They now have 140 for two reasons, they're getting ready to attack into Europe, but also they see the new investment plans that are coming in, Ireland, in Ireland, and trying to get there was another different article that only one in 10 Irish people are investing, which is obviously very, very low, I would say it's probably even less than that, so there's opportunity in Ireland coming, which will be, we'll know what the plans are in the budget later on the year, and kind of October, so we're all probably very excited about the proposition of what's coming, and how the new doors that will open for us, but don't underestimate there's a big and serious competition coming our way too, which I think is good, because it. Will, if there's more and more firms out there, and see some really serious firms out there extolling the virtues of investing. I think you know, I've been on record saying, can we set ourselves up for success into the next generation, never mind the next few years. I think that's we're on the cusp of really good things here. So, whilst the competition might be great for the people listening to this podcast, I think actually, if you take a step back and take a very long term view, I think it is probably a good thing.

Nick Lincoln: 51:47

Okay, good stuff, good stuff. Okay, on to Smithy, and a tool from one of our Trappist friends, and a friend of the show.

Alan Smith: 51:55

Yeah, just briefly, just want to do a shout out to a friend of the show, Mike Legacyk, successful IFA down in the West Country. Mike is one of these people who's been just spending a lot of time in the world of AI, and he's he's built some tools, you know, himself specific to the specifically for the financial planning profession, you remember, Mike, we mentioned him before. He's got a, I think he's got a couple of books out, but he put a book out last year for advisors, which is very good. But he's been sort of beavering away and built this tool, is called A Letter from Your Future Self, and I had a demo. I met him a couple of weeks ago in London, and he showed it to me, and it's brilliant. Actually, first of all, considering he just spun it up at home using various sort of tools, it's a workable app. It is very, very comprehensive. It's like Ware describes almost like an advisor's toolbox, just tools, things, presentational materials. He's got his thing about a letter from your future self that's his version of a mumble jumble questionnaire, trademark Nick Lincoln, just done in a much more conversational way, something that clients can understand. The great thing about Mike, obviously he's a practicing advisor, has been doing so for decades, and he's applied his knowledge and experience to the sort of modern AI technology type tools and blended all those things together, and it's a workable app. I believe he's speaking to a number of organizations to see if it can be kind of embedded into whether it's a platform or a CRM or something, but it's, it's available. You can go on the link to it is in the show notes, but worth, worth checking out. Have a play with it, and let Mike know what you think.

Nick Lincoln: 53:43

Okay, I will. I

Carl Widger: 53:44

definitely will check that out. That sounds brilliant. And it reminded me, Alan, of this book that you gave me, and I reviewed. I actually was sold. Read it out for

Alan Smith: 53:54

people who are listening. Carl,

Carl Widger: 53:56

it's a well, I'll read this bit out to my friend Carl. Good luck in your future endeavors, and remember, there's more fun on a sledge than an investment portfolio, whatever that meant.

Nick Lincoln: 54:10

But people listening, what book you,

Carl Widger: 54:12

where will you be in five years from today? But yeah, and I don't like it's not really, it's a workbook more than anything, but that's what it looks like, a big, big red five on the front of it, by the way, I completed it, guys, and Alan gave it to me in 2017 maybe 18, you might not want to remember where you were in 2022 2018 but but it's amazing the amount of things that, when I wrote them down, they actually came through. So I'm a huge advocate for actually sitting down, taking some time to do that, and I've just done a similar exercise. Yeah, it does. Yeah, exercise. I'm in the middle of a similar exercise myself for the next five years. So yeah, and that five year plan took me seven years, but there you go, that's okay. Yeah, but it's,

Alan Smith: 55:01

it's like a financial plan, it's not, you know, it's not going to be tablets of stone, but it's a track to run on, it's a road map, isn't it? And I'm glad, I'm glad you did, I'm glad you did that. I gave that shortly after we first met, and that's, and if you remember, you gave a talk at the at the famous Hum Dublin conference, and you were saying something about the content you created, and you were posting on some social media, and you were doing all these like really to you interesting investment posts, and it was like Tommy

Andy Hart: 55:28

did a scheme, you did one

Alan Smith: 55:29

about you and a sledge with your kids or something, and everyone that's brilliant. So that's what that insightful little inscription was all the funny thing

Carl Widger: 55:36

about this book is I was talking to Alan, then a couple of years later, and I said I was trying to hire a guy, and I was trying to get him to, you know, look at, you know, full fat financial planning, and so I sent him, I was in, you know, we were kind of, he was thinking about it, would he move, so I posted, I got his home address, and I posted the book out, and I said, never guess what I did. I posted out the five year book, and Alan said to me, that's a fantastic idea. Where did you get that idea from?

Alan Smith: 56:05

I've got so many, I can't keep counting myself,

Nick Lincoln: 56:08

mr. MacMahon. Okay, anyway, right. Sorry, an aside. That's great. 55 minutes in, so we had Trapped Live recently, and Trap Live, we tried. Would have been, you know, we try and keep it upbeat and positive at Trap Life, because it's almost like a celebratory evening. So, this story I didn't mention at Trap Life, I didn't have time, I didn't want to bring the mood down, particularly. But this is a horror story, I think, from HSBC, and if I'm wrong here, please don't sue me, HSBC. But this is from the IFA forum, one of the members to it related this story, where a divorced client got from my settlement, got about 400k paid into her HSBC account, and her advisor wanted to put it onto a platform, Fundman. Funny enough, and you know, because that's part of a plan to invest that 400k HSBC, now this is a couple of weeks ago, so it might have been resolved since then. HSBC would not release the money until the lady went in and had an interview with the wealth manager, they would not forward the money to fund them, and I just find that staggeringly bad practice. If that's, if that's the outright truth, it flies in the face of forget TCF and treating, you know, all this other, all this other consumer duty stuff, because that's it. Just flies in the face of being decent and good practice. How on earth can you have a system whereby if you've got money in the bank account, the bank won't release that money unless the client goes in physically to a branch and has an interview with an HSBC wealth manager. That just, I, that's something like 1983 I just find that absolutely staggering. And she's given the, she said, she said to HSB,"Look, I've got an advisor, this is his FCA reference number, he's given me this advice. I want my money, and they, at the time of this email coming in, I just - a horror story for me. I guys, I don't know as much to add to it, really. I just want to flag it. It's extremely bad. It's illegal. It's illegal,

Alan Smith: 57:48

Nick, isn't it? It must be illegal. It's gonna be

Nick Lincoln: 57:49

illegal. It's illegal. It has to be illegal.

Alan Smith: 57:51

So HSBC

Andy Hart: 57:52

wouldn't be illegal.

Alan Smith: 57:54

What to not release funds unless there's there's a suspicion of fraud or something else. My own money in my own bank account, I'd like to release them to invest, and you say no.

Andy Hart: 58:04

Well, as they say, it's not your money, try and get it out. Yes, I realize it's not your money.

Alan Smith: 58:08

Yeah, well, that's a whole other story.

Nick Lincoln: 58:10

Shocking story. What I might do is go back to the advisor concern, just see if there's an update for the next show, and just say, anyway, there you go. Stuff does go on. Okay, we close off. You've

Andy Hart: 58:17

done it. Would you have gone in with a client? I would have gone in with the client. Right, when's the meeting next Thursday? Yeah, I would have probably gone with

Nick Lincoln: 58:26

my.. yeah, I probably would have gone in looking for a fight, and I would have gone in. Yeah, I think got

Andy Hart: 58:30

in with the client. She's divorced,

Nick Lincoln: 58:32

she's emotionally probably, you know, projecting here, perhaps, but she may be a bit vulnerable. She probably defers her decision, you know, the financial decisions to the financial advisor, and now she's in this position, you know. I just think it's just shitty behavior, if that, if that, if that is, as it's read, that is, that is, that is top class wankery by that particular bank. Anyway, let's close off, that's a new word, Carl Adams, 57 minutes in, and Smithy,

Alan Smith: 59:02

yeah, this is another one in along a similar theme as we've been discussing today. We received an email from a Trappist, and let me just bear with.. let me just read it out. Hang on a sec with me. We

Andy Hart: 59:24

should we do this next show?

Alan Smith: 59:25

No, no. While you

Carl Widger: 59:26

do that, I'll just tell all the listeners that there was a big huge fight about this before we came online. Well,

Alan Smith: 59:35

it's quite there. It's quite contentious, right. You've added back to the show notes. I'm going to be careful what I say, because I wouldn't mention any names. Let me just read out. This is an email that we received from one of our audience members, and it says, I thought you might find this interesting as a potential topical tidbit. Our firm is part of the ABC ABC network, and our fund proposition includes a fairly broad range of options, indexes, ethical, managed, and sector funds, plus the obligatory garbage in-house portfolios that the network encourages us to use. Last week, there was a sudden announcement that they're doing away with virtually all the passive index funds, like Vanguard Life Strategy, and so on, and the whole wealth proposition will be built around the new client preference questionnaire, which is essentially a flow chart where 99% of the outcomes lead to investing in the in-house portfolios. There was no advisor consultation on this; they simply dropped the change on all of us. There's been a huge backlog on this, and many firms, including ours, are planning to leave if the change isn't reversed. I thought you might clash. Interesting discussion. Yeah, backlash has so far removed the big wigs are from good client advice and positive outcomes. All they seem to care about is the potential to skim a bit more from the clients by investing them in the in-house portfolios? Is absolutely abhorrent behavior, as far as I'm aware. This hasn't been publicly announced, so I would appreciate that. And the last thing he says is, I'm a huge Trap fan, and you've done such great work for the community. And my investment philosophy owes a great deal to you all, so there you go, and it's another major firm who are effectively shoehorning clients of members of that group that network the advisors into their no doubt quite expensive and underperforming in-house portfolios with all the legislation and treating customers fairly and everything we've had, consumer duty. I don't know how companies get away with this.

Andy Hart: 1:01:39

Just clearly that they

Alan Smith: 1:01:41

are, they're trying to,

Carl Widger: 1:01:43

yeah, no. This is, this is really bad. Like, so if you, if you're taking away the option of people doing index funds and you want to go into your own model portfolios to get extra fees from the clients, that's not okay. That is not okay. This one is really, really bad. There are.. I think

Nick Lincoln: 1:02:00

I'm going to put it on record. I think this is the next.. this is the next scandal coming down the line. There's going to be a review of these consolidated models, these vertically integrated models, these consolidated models. I mean, the consolidators are doing as well. They're buying firms and then putting them into their shoehorning clients into their own funds. Yes, it might not be legal by the, by the definition of, but it's certainly the wrong thing to do, and it's, it's, you know, again, for younger advisors, just going with your eyes open to these situations, you know. We, I think, a lot of the value of trap is, we tell, we, you know, we bring to light these horror stories, not because we want to cast a pessimistic shade on this thing of ours, but people need to know what's going on, right, and you need to know when you join these big firms exactly what's down the line, because younger advisors won't know, they won't have made the mistakes, they wouldn't, you know, those,

Carl Widger: 1:02:43

yeah,

Nick Lincoln: 1:02:50

you know, they're young and they're naive, and we're trying to steer them on that one inside, Kyle, you're gonna say sorry,

Carl Widger: 1:02:57

yeah. The one thing with that, what you said there, you know, go in with your eyes wide open. Well, it sounds like these firms did, and they had, you know, other alternative options in terms of index funds, and now that's just been pulled without any consultation. Yeah, what I'm

Nick Lincoln: 1:03:12

saying is, I go in, go in, knowing these firms will have to have a predilection for doing this kind of thing. You might think it's all great now, but just as you said earlier, with the earlier thing I read out, you know, just understand they write the rules and they will change the rules to suit what's

Carl Widger: 1:03:24

possible and what's not, yeah,

Alan Smith: 1:03:26

but it's really difficult, these again, certain networks and the various the groups and the company you mentioned before, Nick, God, you know, the end result is the only way you can control your future is by setting up on your on your own, and even because historically we've been saying, well, that's quite difficult to do to get direct authorization, and so we've been supporting some of them because we had some generally good feedback from one or two network groups to at least get you up and running, get you authorized. I think the key thing here is there's different definitions of the network relationship. I think, again, no expert on this, but I think some of them allow you kind of autonomous around your investment solutions and choices, and some say no, even though you are, you're part of, yeah, it's kind of you're like employed by them, even though you're not. You know what I mean. So, they make it obligatory and essential to use their in-house portfolios. Yeah, some allow you to do what you want. So, just totally get

Carl Widger: 1:04:24

a house view, like you have to. There has to be some semblance of a house view, but the house view going from you can do index funds, and we have our own stuff over here, and then you just pull all the other stuff, and you have to use that. That's, that's not okay. That is definitely not okay. If you, if you have the client's best interests at the core of everything you're doing, you're not ever going to do that, are you?

Alan Smith: 1:04:48

No. Well, you're, you're not. And I'm just going to relate this back to the survey that we did, and that we discussed at Trap Life, and the general sentiment amongst the advisors working with it looks like some of the aforementioned firms is not great, and you know, if you dance with the devil and all the rest of it, some of these companies, they do not look after advisors and clients as well as an independent firm might do, and that is the feedback from 440 advisors to participate in the survey, so look, there's a lot going on, there's a lot of M and A activity, there's lots of consolidation, there's lots of things, and I think the moral of the story is really, really, really slow down, ask all the questions, do your diligence, know that what what is in your control and what is completely out with your control, and honestly expect change, almost expect the worst if you're going into one of these things, because these companies, again, they're not charities, they need to recoup their investments, and there's multiple only costs. I don't know if

Carl Widger: 1:05:45

you need to expect the worst. I think you can do your due diligence, and I'm probably defending myself here, like you know, like I can tell you anything that we're going to do at NFP is going to be in the client's best interest, but I can also tell you we're not a charity, so we're going to look to make profit. So, there you go. Fair. Yep,

Nick Lincoln: 1:06:03

yeah, good point. Okay, excellent. Really good topical tidbits in episode 98 of the Real Advisor Podcast. Do like and subscribe. Do you like and subscribe to our YouTube channel as well? Please do leave a review, six out of five stars. Okay, this is where we move on to the meat and potatoes of. This particular episode, and because we're an hour and five minutes in, this won't be a particularly long meat of potatoes, but we just want to go over our sort of flagship event, which was Trapped Live, held last month in this new venue, 229 Great Portland Street, great venue, just a really good evening, fun evening, just it's amazing. It's the just I people talk about community brands talk about community. We have really got a community with the Trappist when we get together for this live event. It went really well, but let's just recap it and discuss the way forward. So, ultra, your, your mr. Analytical with these kind of things, what was your, what's your considered view of Trap Life.

Andy Hart: 1:06:58

Well, it was our third event, so third time lucky as it were. The first event was brilliant at the casino downstairs. Second event wasn't so good, because it was in a sort of corporate environment. This is the third time we did it. You boys sourced the venue out. I think Alan went there for a rock concert or something. It was a little bit like best way to describe it is sort of like a student union, but a decent one, you know, very, you know, well decorated inside, good proportions, great massive room, all the chairs laid out as a bar at the back, and the bars open for the whole event. So, yeah, it was third time, third time lucky near Great Portland Street. I thought was a superb event. Again, we've learned from the timing, so we've got the timing right. People arrive at six drinks for an hour, then we kick off, then we have a break, then we do a closed Q and A. So, Chatham House rules, I think that worked very well. The AV was good, the room was set, it was.. I'd give it a solid sort of eight and a half out of 10. I think people loved it. There was a pre-meet that I rocked up to and said hello to a lot of people. Everyone was just in good spirits, and as you say, the community was literally strong, very good spirits. I mean, a couple of minor points from our point of view. Next year we're gonna have a cloak room, we're gonna have more bar staff. I think we took something like seven and a half grand at the bar, which is an insane amount of money with two bar staff. If they have four bar staff, we can obviously take a lot. I spoke to a friend of mine who runs a pub in Islington and told him that the weekend. He said, 'Jesus Christ, that it's a lot of beer to be, you know, drinking in a couple of hours at a corporate event. So, yeah, we did really well on that, and we're gonna have some food, and we're gonna have something simple, like, you know, burgers and chips, you know, after the sort of, sort of main event, we had a lovely green room. The muse, it was great. Yeah, it was, it was perfect. We couldn't ask for more. It was our absolute perfect venue, but obviously we'll tweak and make it better for the fourth year. So, your

Carl Widger: 1:08:51

mic was terrible, though, Andy, wasn't it?

Andy Hart: 1:08:54

I did have some mic problems, that was a bit annoying that that was a genuine issue, because they didn't have the right mic, so yeah, there was a couple of TV, the

Alan Smith: 1:09:04

rest of us were fine, we

Nick Lincoln: 1:09:07

hit and miss as well,

Andy Hart: 1:09:09

we had our country flags draped over our chairs, yeah, it was good, good laugh, I think it's over to you now, Carlos. Alan, sorry,

Alan Smith: 1:09:22

not a ton extra to add on that. I think this is the point we, everything's about mini experiments, you know. We, we didn't even, when we started this podcast, we'd even consider a live event, and I think a few people said, oh, you guys should do a live event, because that's what some other podcasts do. They get the audience together in a room. We thought, "Oh, okay, we'll give that a go. So that was that was after a year of having of launching the actual podcast. So, year in, then we had the first live event, which was great, as you say. And we're just trying to make them a bit better every time. The idea is to learn from each one. We certainly learned from last year in that the venue wasn't ideal, because the very nature of these live events for us is that it should be loosey goosey, and a bit, you know, people can get up and go to the loo if they want to go and get a drink if they want, and that wasn't possible in the last place, so that's why we moved on. Yet fine, the venue, in many ways, is ideal, and I think we'll go back there again, we'll get back there again next year, and again, you know, it is like it is a student union, that's exactly what it is, is the international student something or other, which doubles up as a, as a venue in a concert place, and everything, but it's also, it's a charity as well, and they were just the keen to raise money for it, and they were, they weren't, they thought that our audience wouldn't spend any money, so we had to guarantee, they were like lots of book, well, no podcast, no, we need to

Andy Hart: 1:10:36

have to have minimums, and everything was a question about money, and then we were like, that's fine, we'll cover it, we'll cover it, recover it. They absolutely love us, the best takings

Alan Smith: 1:10:44

they'd had.

Andy Hart: 1:10:45

They're gonna think folk to these bands, they're a nightmare, everyone's tight. Let's go personal finance podcast. No, no, it was great. Changed overnight after Trap Life,

Alan Smith: 1:10:56

it was great on a personal basis. I must say, I find I always find it a little bit awkward. The four of us sitting on, we're just talking like we're doing now, and people are watching us talk. It's a bit weird in my, in my head, which is why I think the, the actual content itself is maybe 20% of why you'd show up. It is literally just a rut and. Now, there's there's a bar there at the back, so everyone goes up, gets a drink, complimentary drinks, when you arrive, and everyone's just mixing and mingling, and you end up in so many conversations, and I loved it, you know. There was, there was some guys across from there's Louis from Germany, he was there, who'd come in with his mate all the way from Germany to arrive at there, and obviously people from, yeah, people don't, I mean, they did come just for that, but others are coming in to go to Advisor 3.0 and people from, you know, dirt from South Africa, and Richard from Hungary, George from Bulgaria, and it was just people from all over, you know,

Nick Lincoln: 1:11:47

Budapest,

Alan Smith: 1:11:48

decent, yeah, decent Irish crew there as well. So it was very, it was international and fun. The point being, it was just an energetic, uplifting. There was a lot of doom and gloom out there, and we've sort of mentioned a few things in this episode today, but it was just fun, it was positive, a couple of beers in your hand, and just everyone having a really interesting, engaging conversation. So, I loved it.

Andy Hart: 1:12:08

There was one scholar there, I can't remember his name, but he delayed going to his mate's wedding in the Canary Islands, so he had his full travel bag with him. He was going to Trap Live, coming out with us, and he was getting a flight at 3am in the morning to go to Lanzarote to his mate's wedding on that day.

Alan Smith: 1:12:26

That

Andy Hart: 1:12:26

was very..

Nick Lincoln: 1:12:27

yeah, he had a suitcase in the green room, didn't he? Yeah, amazing. So, yeah, the evolution of Trap continues, I mean, sometimes we take two steps forward and one step back, and it's always quite fractious, but we're looking to do things, Trappist, the next day. Oh, by the way, 12th of May is the date for the Trap Live next year, Trappist, so put that in your diary now. Okay, Wednesday evening, 12th of May, Abe's timeline advise the 3.0 is the next day, but put the 12th of May in diary now, no excuses for not coming, no things like family holidays, bereavements will accept, but they've got to be close family members. Okay, otherwise you're coming, and we're evolving the Trap, the Trap brand in various ways. We just relaunched and refreshed our website, it looks fantastic. Have a, do have a look at that, The Real Advisor podcast.com You know, I've had this thing in the background, the IFA Forum, which is a Google group, really, really popular, people love it, and where you can ask your peers a question, and you get a response from the hive mind. The trouble with it is, it gets unwieldy. These Google groups have a kind of a sweet spot, I don't know, maybe 200 people, it's now 800 people, 794 people, to be precise, in this group, and it's just unwieldy. It's not easy to search back on previous subjects. So, one of the common questions posed is blah blah blah blah blah. I've have looked for this in the.. I can't find it, so I'm going to ask it again. You get the same questions coming up. So, what we're doing via something called the Trap Forum, which we're launching. The Trap Forum is a closed, walled-off area online, a secure community where you can ask questions of your peers. It's got the Trap ethos running through it, it's Trap branding, but it's totally confidential, totally secure, and it's easily searchable. There are various categories you can post questions in and just have at it. And we think this is going to take off, and it will replace the IFA forum. We're going to launch it in the next hard launch, it in the next week or so. We're still bitching about the price, and there will be a price with this, because you know if you give it away, it's not valued, and we think this is of tremendous value to the Trappist community. We want to enjoy it. There'll be a trial period, so you can kick the tires on this thing, but if you do join the Trapp forum, you're going to get a bi-weekly newsletter, which condenses all the best bits from each podcast. You're going to get early access to Trap Live tickets and the super early bird discounts that we offer, so it'll pay for itself multiple times over. Really excited with it, and just look out for an email if you, if you're on the Trap email list, you will get an email about this, but it looks.. I know that I know Alan's had a look at the forum, it looks really, really good. And just closing on this, this could be the precursor as well on that same platform. We could then roll out the Trap Academy as well, which will be a premium service that we talked about, and maybe we'll only ever talk about it, but where we have a completely designed course, and you follow module by module by module, where each four of us contribute videos, scripts, whatever, we might have some live town hall meetings as well, but that's down the line. But the trap form is the initial thing. Love it. Love Trappists to get involved with this. The more people that join it, the better it will be. And there's nothing like it. I didn't want to migrate the IFA forum to Facebook. Facebook groups is horrible. Facebook itself is horrible. And if it's free, you are the product. This is not the case with this. You will pay for this, but it is completely confidential. Your information is not sold on, and it works, and it's highly searchable, and it looks lovely. And this could be a mother load of really good information for Trappists of all ages. So, Alan, what was your view of it when you had a look around?

Alan Smith: 1:15:43

Yeah, I loved it. I'm in your IFA forum email group, but I just.. I can't keep up with it, and you're right. You try to search for something, something comes out, and you know you've read it somewhere before. Shit, where is then? You go back and you can't do it. Then you end up really sorry. I know this has been mentioned before, but what is the answer to this? So the idea is great, and you know the theme running through this that we often say is advisors are very collaborative, we help each other, we give up, we share our best ideas, we're not in competition, and to have access like to 800 Other peers who, and it's a kind of self-selecting audience, because anyone who's not interested doesn't join these groups, but people are helpful and collaborative, but it's just a bit unwieldy. The current group, so if you can create, and I have looked at the how it's all been set up, it's been set up in a technology platform called Kajabi, which is very sort of useful and customer centric, and the sort of user experience is very nice and neat, and you could just search across different subjects and topics, and so, so far, I only had a first look at it yesterday. He's still in kind of beta mode, not formally launched yet, but I think it looks great. It would be a really valuable addition to anyone who's, you know, he's got queries and questions and wants to, you know, wants to find out about a specific topic, because someone else of the however many, hopefully there will be hundreds and hundreds that will join someone else somewhere at some other part of the country has probably experienced a similar thing that you're going through now and can share you their thoughts and ideas, so yeah, sign up for it, get involved, and it's only as good as the community, so hopefully many will join. Yeah,

Nick Lincoln: 1:17:16

Rod,

Carl Widger: 1:17:18

yeah, just going back to kind of trap live, and just a couple of comments from me. So, like, look, the buzz in the room was incredible. When we kind of had a peek out before we came out onto the stage, it was like we were all looking at each other, going, 'How the hell did this happen? So, look, we have to be so thankful and grateful to everybody whose support was not only on that night but all the way through. Like, look, I think we didn't do our best show right in terms of our interaction with our with each other, but the second part, which is unfortunately not recorded because maybe that's what works, was just the questions from the audience, and one thing I think we should ask, you know, the people that attended, well, what would you give it out of 10, and what would you change, and like, should we maybe drop the show and just do Q and A? I don't know, that would mean that we can't record it, or whatever, but, but maybe there's, there's merit in that. What I would say, as well, there was loads of people, there was loads of people over from Ireland, and just hand on heart, like, thank you so much for coming over and supporting it. But at the end of each segment, there was a lot of people kind of milling around just to kind of come over and say hello, and you don't get to say hello to them all, so sincere apologies from on my behalf, because after a while I just went, I just can't get to it, and, and, and then, because there was like a free or not free bar, but partially a free bar, and there was a bar at the back, there was a few people, perhaps inebriated, and hey, let he who hasn't sinned cast the first stone, but they would have taken up an awful lot of time, and probably precluded me from talking to some other people, I know you guys had the same experience, so yeah, look, it's bound to happen in a night like that. Just if it was you, don't let it happen again.

Andy Hart: 1:19:03

And the night did continue. About 40 of us ended up in the local curry house near Euston, I think. You were there, weren't you, Nicholas? You boys, you boys couldn't find my pin for some reason,

Carl Widger: 1:19:15

you, because you guys didn't tell us where you were, so we went across to the Albany, and we had a fine night. Thank you very much. We did tell

Nick Lincoln: 1:19:20

you, we tried to ring you, and we did tell you, and you just didn't look at your phones. It was the usual

Alan Smith: 1:19:24

absolute shambles at the end. I couldn't find out where you boys were, TLP.

Nick Lincoln: 1:19:31

It was a two Cobras or something on the receipt. Yeah, it was good, good fun, yeah. And that belaboring this point, Carl, you're very well. It is, it's really, it's so, it's such a lovely evening for us, and it is a bit overwhelming sometimes. I mean, we are conscious people, for God knows why, they want to talk to us and just tell us this, and we love it. But I, again, like you, Carl, I couldn't do speak to everybody I wanted to speak to, so don't think that we're the thing, the thing is, though,

Alan Smith: 1:19:58

Nick, as well, I've heard some people say to me afterwards, oh, I met, I met an advisor from Bristol, or someone from Newcastle, never, they've never met before in their lives, but they're just at the bar, and they just say, oh, what's going on, and yeah, there's been a few, a few connections have been made, so people say, WhatsApp, you tomorrow, and they will catch up with such and such

Andy Hart: 1:20:16

a warm crowd, and immediately they've got that's that's that's the real

Nick Lincoln: 1:20:20

for me, that's always been the value of these events, and that's why we made a point of talking, getting the scholars to stand up and just look at these people and check out their faces and go and chat to these new, these newbies, because they're, you know, forge these connections at these events, and we're such a sharing profession, I've said it before, I don't know if accountants do the same thing, I don't know if lawyers do the same thing, they don't, I can't, don't, there's something about financial advisors, we want to give as much as we want to, you know, get back as well, and it's such a giving community, so it's a, let me,

Alan Smith: 1:20:47

can I, can I get us back on track, because you, because we're talking about Trap Live, you didn't, so Carl had to go back to that, but in terms of the future, what we're doing with the new website, Trap Forum, the newsletter. Carl, what are your thoughts on that? What are your thoughts for the future of Trap?

Carl Widger: 1:21:08

I think you're all doing great work, and you should continue doing it, and I support every endeavor. Yeah, you're welcome. That was an old exploit. Thanks for your help. I just going with the flow here. There was a big argument this morning about about pricing, and I was like, yeah, he

Nick Lincoln: 1:21:25

hasn't got much to add, so let's not put them straight on that.

Unknown: 1:21:27

Yeah,

Nick Lincoln: 1:21:28

on the spot, on this. Okay, look, we're one hour 20 minutes in. I'll be happy to draw this to a close and move on to the next section.

Andy Hart: 1:21:34

Yeah, okay,

Nick Lincoln: 1:21:35

fine. So we got Trappist question here, which I'm sure none of you looked at, so I can read it out live, and this will be good. So, this is a Trappist question. So, for new, for new listeners, this is where we take a question posted by the community, indeed, and we, and we answer it, and there's Posty at the door. I can see she's delivered the post, she's all the bulging stuff up my drive, and now I get to open this letter, we see who it is from, and look at this quality envelope, nice manila beige, good handwriting. This is from a mr. Tom Goodwin, whose LinkedIn profile will be in the so-called show notes. Hi, all very much enjoying the podcast. Good start, Tom Solis. A couple of questions, please. Best books on financial planning, sorry if you've done that before. Asset allocation strategy and drawdown. Do any of you use cash flow ladder strategy recommended by Pete Matthews? Evidence around keeping a 6040 or 8020 and drawing evenly across throughout drawdown. Thanks, Jesus. Wept, Tom. There's a mother load of questions in there. Nick Murray books, I would say. Okay, hands are raised. Everyone first talk,

Carl Widger: 1:22:37

that's the best book for financial planning scripts by Nick Murray, and I'd say that's the only one you need to read. And the other question we've answered that loads of times,

Andy Hart: 1:22:49

I would say the best book you want to read, if you've not read it yet, is Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins. It's amazing, ideally listened to it on Audible, wrote by the author.

Nick Lincoln: 1:22:58

Okay, not your book, Andy.

Andy Hart: 1:23:00

Obviously, no bullshit money advice. Nick goes without saying.

Alan Smith: 1:23:04

Just checking, just checking. Although, although, Andy, that's not necessarily a book for financial planners, is

Andy Hart: 1:23:10

correct. Correct, it's this personal finance.

Alan Smith: 1:23:12

It tells you about personal finance. So, I think the question really is, if I'm, if I'm an early stage financial planner, or any stage, and I really understand more the art and science of financial planning, and I'd be thinking of other books. There's loads on my memory, just trying to remember the mob. The one I would recommend, in addition to anything that Nick Murray has, is Carl Richards. Carl Richards' book is called The One Page Financial Plan, and it's just.. it's a.. you don't, you don't love it, but I just thought, and some of my advisors have read it before. It's very practical in terms of it's through storytelling. It explains, because you know, Carl was a financial planner for many years, real-life CFP financial planner, and the kind of the art and science of asking great questions, and how the.. there's a brilliant story right at the beginning of that book about a couple that you start talking to, and if you'd done the traditional IFA kind of much, have you got what can you invest in? The outcome would have been entirely different. I won't spoil the story, but it's pretty meaningful for this couple that he advised. So, it's really it teaches and educates people about asking great questions, and be prepared to go, you know, one or two layers deep when you get the response. So, I would recommend Carl Richards, the one page financial plan.

Andy Hart: 1:24:20

About 14 years ago, I gifted a book to a young whippersnapper financial planner, and it changed his life and business. And that book was called The Behavioral Investment Counseling by Nick Murray, and that young gentleman was Nicholas Lincoln, and I gave it to him, and he said, "What am I going to learn from this book? 14 years later, it's changed his life. So, purely financial planning, the best book on financial planning, I think, is The Behavioral Behavioral Investment Counselor by Nick Murray. Carl's book scripts is quite good, but it's quite short. But Behavioral Investment Counseling is the whole.. you've got no idea how long.

Nick Lincoln: 1:24:52

Dear listeners, I've got the power to mute the track pack, and I've been hovering over the mute button on Andy's face for the last 30 seconds, but I didn't know that book is very good. It just is basically my thoughts in print, but I've got Nick Murray, Nick Murray got there first

Alan Smith: 1:25:07

in terms of prints in the book. Just, just to briefly answer the second question

Nick Lincoln: 1:25:12

briefly.

Alan Smith: 1:25:13

No, no. Do you use cash flow ladder strategy. No, we have talked about this many times. Back to those magic

words: 1:25:22

financial planning is an art and a science, and it applies equally when you're investing and saving as it does when you're spending. Same same skills apply, and any sort of.. I mean, I don't even know what it is, but I mean, Pete's absolutely legendary, and I'm sure it's really, you know, good and thoughtful, but there is much more to it than that. Every client's individual, every client is has got their own specific circumstances, and I think applying this financial planning skills apply throughout the client's lives.

Nick Lincoln: 1:25:50

Okay, and I would say, Tom, Tom Goodwin, we have discussed it, as Carl said, we discussed this, so you've got to go back, my friend, and listen to the previous 97 episodes, because in there will be all the information around how we do that for people in the saving, sorry, in the spending stage, not accumulation, that terrible word. Okay, so we're now 84 minutes in. Somebody please shoot me, and I think it's time for us to move on to what many people call culture corner, I.

Andy Hart: 1:26:18

Okay, I am first up. The this is Stripe Sessions 2026 The Stripe Boys, the brothers put on a, an event, a live event, you know. We run a podcast, we put a live event on. They run a global payment platform. They put on a live event. I think they've been doing it for many years. It's in that famous sort of theater in Silicon Valley somewhere, I think, where they launched the iPhone and various other things. I think there's about six or seven live talks that you can take a look at on YouTube. Yeah, it's very well professional event put on, and they interview some amazing people, so yeah, check it out. Stripe sessions 2026 Nick, okay,

Nick Lincoln: 1:27:02

very good. My one is a slightly sad one, but it's uplifting as well. It's the Masters in Business podcast, Barry Ritholtz is a thing, and on it recently they had Jason Swag and Bill Bernstein, two really good writers about money and personal finance, and they're remembering the life of Jonathan Clements, who passed away last year at the age of 62 from lung cancer. I heard Jonathan Clements, because he used to be on Peter Maluke's podcast down the middle. Peter Malouk seemed to be a close personal friend of the show, we believe, but we'll move on to maybe discuss that in due course of time, and it's a really nice podcast, remembering this guy's life, he was apparently really just a really positive guy. He was British. He moved to the New York in 1986 and he worked for the Wall Street Journal. And back then, you know, active fund management was the thing, and you know, if you even looked at Peter Lynch, you could get a flogging. But this guy, very quickly, he was an early propagator of a proponent of indexing at a time when it was deeply unfashionable. He wrote over 1000 articles for the Wall Street Journal, and he, a lot of them were pushing Vanguard and index investing. And on his obituary, The New York Times said Clements had done more than anyone who didn't work at Vanguard to bring index funds to the masses. So it's just a nice podcast. I remember in this guy's life, it's a.. it's just, yeah, he left his mark, and Jason Spike and Bill Bernstein are always worth listening to on their own, anyway. But when they're talking about one of their peers, I think it's worth half an hour of your time.

Alan Smith: 1:28:31

Very good, very good. Talking about index, index investing, my culture corner is the acquired podcast. I do like acquired podcasts. They're basically business stories, any sort of business that you might have heard of. They talk about the origin, how it got founded, this, you know, and how it grew, etc. So I find them very interesting from a business perspective. So they did a bit of a monster on our friends Vanguard

Andy Hart: 1:28:59

deep dive,

Alan Smith: 1:29:01

quite recently it is a bit of a beast. It's nearly three hours long, so it was, it was consumed by me over several long walks, but it's brilliant when you hear about, you know, look at Vanguard now. What are they, like $10 trillion AUM business, something like that? Absolutely massive. But how they got started, the back story, Jack Bogle, the original founder, just his, you know, they take the view in this podcast that Jack Bogle is the biggest philanthropist in history, because of his strategy, his approach, his philosophy that he's given, he's effectively allowed over a trillion dollars to be distributed to Main Street to average punters to retail investors, because he, he didn't do the, you know, traditional route, and of course, this is decades ago, this is 50 years ago, when he was getting started, when indexing was considered to be just really weird and out there, and one of the many stories in it that I just took some comfort from, when you know, when your early days at any point in your business and life is looking difficult, you don't quite get what you want. One of the first funds that they try to launch, they wanted to raise $100 million to make this so they could sort of pay the bills and make it make it operationally viable. Couldn't get it. They only raised $11 million Imagine early days Vanguard trying to launch a fund and they got 11 million, which just wasn't enough, and all the things they had to do, and Jack Bogle's own personal story, and you know, and he unfortunately suffered from quite bad health, he had a dodgy ticket, he was quite unwell a few times, but he kept going, as you know, he died what, six, seven years ago, I think, in his late 80s or that sort of age, but what that man has done, and obviously the culture, and it still is a mutual company. It's a very unusual sort of corporate structure, corporate setup, the and everything that they do. They're not trying to squeeze the an extra pounder as they grow and grow and grow, they reduce their fees. There are some funds in the US, Vanguard funds that are three basis points. I mean, that is just free, that's just a free, free access to the greatest companies of the world. It's incredible, but if you, if you like business stories, if you like origin stories, and how companies overcame adversity and challenge, and as I say, they were very much the disruptors of the time. There was little and no other companies trying to do that. He was accused of being a communist, you know, because you're trying. You know, you're distributing all the benefits and the profits to the masses instead of keeping them from Wall Street, but I just find it, I find it really interesting, and a fascinating story. You listen to it, Andy.

Andy Hart: 1:31:26

I listened to the first hour, yeah, yes, it's amazing, yeah,

Nick Lincoln: 1:31:32

yeah. So it's an amazing, it's an amazing business, and we're not just saying that because they're friends of the show Vanguard is truly an amazing concept. Okay, last one,

Carl Widger: 1:31:42

Mountain Queen on Netflix, it's documentary about a Nepalese lady who has summited Everest 10 times, so if you're facing a challenge, you should go and see what this particular person overcame to so much Everest over 10 times or 10 times, it's really good. I'm a little bit obsessed with Everest and everything to do with Everest. We're going

Alan Smith: 1:32:05

next year, Carl, aren't

Carl Widger: 1:32:07

we? We are. Yeah,

Andy Hart: 1:32:10

quit. Have you off to Everest?

Alan Smith: 1:32:13

Have you seen what's it called, 14 Peaks on Netflix? Yeah, I mean,

Carl Widger: 1:32:18

that these, these, yeah, unbelievable.

Alan Smith: 1:32:20

I'll check, I'll check that out. Thank you. And

Carl Widger: 1:32:22

we're like celebrating 10,000 steps a day, really, 14,000 It's, it's not really pushing the human body to the extremes like these people are. But anyway, yeah, I think it's really good. Just shows what's possible if you put your mind

Nick Lincoln: 1:32:39

to it. Okay. All right. Good. All right. Brilliant. So, what about 91 minutes? I think we've given that a damn good flogging. Episode 98 of The Real Advisor Podcast is coming to a close. There you go, dear Trappists. As it slides down the U bend of Father Time, please do leave a review on iTunes or whatever app lets you leave a review. Like and subscribe on YouTube as well, because some people like to watch us, some people like to listen to us, some people don't like to watch us or listen to us and send in shit reviews, they're fine, we can live with it all, but until the next time, Trap Pack, it's Adios from us, take care out there, and we'll see you on the other side, thanks a lot for your time,

Carl Widger: 1:33:11

bye bye.

Nick Lincoln: 1:33:19

Oh, another bloody cat. More

Carl Widger: 1:33:20

and more people who don't like us to watch us or listen to us. Nick, you forgot to say that. That's good rowing band.