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In this latest pile of TRAP, the Trap Pack discuss
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Music, welcome to the real advisor podcast, T, R, A, P, T, T, 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:Yes, indeed, dear TRAPPIST, welcome back to what many people are calling episode 47 of the real advisor podcast, tr, AP trap. My name is lick nincom, and joining me once again in the digital studio of doom are the three other Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the ultra heart, Alan, the storyteller, Smith and Carl delabot. Now, without any further ado, I'm going to hand over to my right hon friend, Mr Andrew Hart, some more high energy review reads, go Andrew,
Andy Hart:yes, welcome to the Digital Studio of doom, and it's the most glorious summer's day out there. For the love of trap. First review is from AJ from Melbourne, I believe, called What a load of trap has anyone done that gag? Yet love the banter, particularly when Andy loses his call and goes F bombing. Now I'm a different man. Now that's the entertainment side, but you also deliver great content for the industry from the heart genuine curiosity in competitive business is rare. Well done, lads. Next review. This is a good one from Fabian Taylor, greatness and five stars when they're not talking over each other, taking the out of each other, heavy breathing or talking when the microphones are muted. There's some absolute gems in this podcast. It's given me some great ideas since they started recording it, and I'm just about to re listen from the beginning through all the talking over taking the out of each other, heavy breathing and talking whilst our microphones are muted. An absolute must listen from modern day financial planner back to you boss.
Nick Lincoln:Great, great stuff. Thank you for those reviews. Trappist do. Please keep them coming in. They give us a little Philip every time we read them, and a chuckle as well, because they're generally right back on the mark. And we're guilty of everything we're accused of, more or less. Okay, let's put a quick topical timestamp on this episode with some topical bits. What's going on at the moment in this thing of ours? Story, storyteller, you've been there's something going on in Germany.
Alan Smith:Indeed, there is you. You may or may not know this Nick but the European Championships, the famous euros, are on the top soccer teams from Europe gathering in Germany to, you know, to play out this tournament. And I've just come back, you might tell from my slightly raspy voice. I just spent a couple of days in the heart of Germany, in the town of Munich, cheering on my compatriots, Scottish lads. Unfortunately, the result, to say the least, didn't go as we'd hoped. It brought it down. We got absolutely we got a known goal in the 87th minute, which we cheated on Chamberlain,
Nick Lincoln:even Chamberlain left Munich with something, the crying out loud, little piece
Alan Smith:of paper. Yeah, we did, but no, we left with our heads held high, still smiling and slight hangovers. The point I wanted to say, though was on this was I had this in my mind. I saw, I saw the tournament, didn't get tickets, didn't get anything, and I was literally so this is going out on Thursday, right? The Scotland, Germany game was the opening game of the tournament, for those who don't know, which was last Friday night. I was at home on Wednesday, actually Tuesday. It first started home on Wednesday, and I was just sitting there of an evening at home, and I would message this my other group of friends, my real friends, my my Whatsapp group was a bunch of pals. I still friends of mine from my school days, and I just sent a message out. Said, no one's got any interest. Have they of jumping on a plane last minute and getting across to Munich? And most of them said, No, I can't got this. I've got work or I've got something else going on. But one person who you guys have actually met, we did all Oh
Carl Widger:yes, oh yes, we have met him, the famous
Alan Smith:my schoolmate is actually an ex. IFA, would you believe? And he's, he's graduated. He's now works from corner control,
Nick Lincoln:taxi tales from Paris.
Alan Smith:Pitz, yeah. Anyway, he came on our when we all went across to Paris for Scotland, Ireland, Ireland game. Anyway, so he said, Yes, I'm free. And so we just got last minute for. Lights. Somebody got accommodation. We didn't have a ticket for the game, but we thought we'll find when we get over there or go to the fan zone. And I think I'm really glad we went. As I say, the result went against us. There was at least 50,000 Scots in the heart of Munich, and it was people from every nationality. There we were singing and dancing. We had just a fabulous time. And it really was one of these things, if you work out just briefly. You know, shoehorning a financial planning reference into this, you know, life is for living, money is for using for to enjoy experiences and to bring to create memories, one way or another. All of us on this group, we are one way or another. We're sports fans. Some description. Doesn't really matter who's your country is but you want to go and participate and enjoy sports, live sport, which just a fun thing to do. And I was working out, Scotland don't always qualify, to say, to say the least, for us just to qualify for a major tournament is a big thing. I thought, when's the next one? Well, the next European Championships after this is back in Britain again. So he's no, there's no sort of seeing a team playing abroad, unless you count Ireland has been abroad. And the one after that, I think it's Turkey, just,
Carl Widger:just Ireland isn't in Britain, clearly, just just, well, Britain
Alan Smith:and Ireland is really swearing. It's where it is. This way, it's Britain and Ireland, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and Ireland, I believe, is when the 2028 is held the World Cup. Think the next one us in America or Canada, and for non footballing countries. Anyway, I was working out these. This was an opportunity that I should grasp last minute. Cost a few quid. Jump on a plane. Go there. Enjoy it. You hope your team wins. If they don't, they don't, but you should go and do these already. Can we you should go and do these things. You should go and cap you should go spend time, have an experience, enjoy yourself, make the most of it. You never know when your next opportunity
Carl Widger:will come. The next time Ireland qualify for any football tournament, all 5 million of us are going because we've been waiting around for so long. Yeah,
Alan Smith:but it might be the one after that is in Saudi Arabia, the one after that. So that
Carl Widger:might not 5 million
Nick Lincoln:Irish in Saudi not enough money on the planet to get me enough. Okay? Well, made good point. We don't create wealth just for the sake of creating it because that's a that's a that's a road to misery. We create wealth because it gives us choices and and wealth helps you buy money and just enjoy things and take advantage of of life while we're on this planet. Good point. Alan, so a very dull one for me. Actually, I was just my typical tip that my first one is I was having a bit of old man brain fart thing the other day because I just couldn't remember if capital gains tax if it used the personal allowance, you know, had no income, whether the capital gains fell into the personal allowance, it doesn't. And that was confirmed by Hargreaves Lansdowne. Some of you might know this out there, dear trappers, but they actually have a very good range of online calculators and tools their pension tax relief. One is excellent. I've used that actually with clients. It's very, very clear. It's very curious, tax calculator and of other stuff as well. So I'll put a link to that in the so called shares. Any free resources are good resources, and if we can, if we can lean on those, it's going to help us be better financial advisors. Capital Gains Tax. That's something some of the news, isn't it? I'm not, I'm not going to then the political rabbit hole, but if they bring it on your primary residence, there's going to be, there's going to be some anguish there. Okay, watch Central Bank of Ireland.
Carl Widger:Yeah, conscious, I'm sounding like a broken down record, but it seems to me like we are getting better here in terms of regulation. So the Central Bank of Ireland wrote to all ifas, as you guys would know them, financial advisors basically saying, we've done kind of thematic reviews on general compliance standards, and it's not good enough. It's not nearly good enough. And they were very specific in terms of standards amongst one man shows smaller firms was poor, to say the least. So look, as you all know, because I'm talking about it a lot, we put an awful lot of time, effort and resource into regulation, corporate governance, etc. So I think it can only professionalize us as an industry as it is now, if we're all honest with each other. Interestingly, brokers Ireland, who are the representative body for the vast majority, if not nearly all, of the financial advisory firms out there, were very critical. Strangely enough, of the Central Bank report, um, Turkey's voting for Christmas and all of that kind of stuff. Again, I'm not going to make myself very popular saying this, but look, it can only be good if we up our game in terms of what the standards, what, what, what is required. In order to deliver the best possible and the safest possible outcomes for our clients. So I was very encouraged by this dear CEO letter from the central bank. I'm probably amongst a very few that was very encouraged by this. So more to come, I would say, I'd say, We're beginning our journey to professionalize what we're doing here in Ireland.
Nick Lincoln:Well said, well said. And we look forward to the update in two weeks time. And yeah, right,
Alan Smith:well done. Just got a quick, a quick follow up on that may mention. I think I mentioned this to you before Carl, this idea it was, uh, or a four men should be mentioned them, I think, last time on the podcast, but the foul mouthed Aussie, otherwise known as Brett Davidson, I remember years ago, he talked about this, use compliance as a tool to create your own unfair advantage, if you like. These are the rules, the rules, the rules. And there's a bunch of people, Ireland, UK, probably around the world, that stand there, kind of raging at the moon and saying, This is outrageous. This you know, these regulators don't know what they're talking about. We're great, we're honest, we're ethical. You can just quietly. It's like, again, sports analogy, if you understand the offside rule, if you understand this play the game play to the referee, understand them, you will get significant advantage by doing that, as opposed to standing there shouting and screaming, you can create significant competitive advantage by understanding the rules, delivering upon them and being better than most other firms. So I know that Metis Norway has been doing that for years, and he said, and we'll continue to
Carl Widger:be fair. To be fair to Bret Davidson. He was in Dublin in, I would say, 2015 or 16. And he did the talk, and he said exactly that. And I met, as was started in 2014 and I went, it was only beginning to ramp up in terms of the regulation. And I said, You know what? Let's be the standard bearers here, because this will be important if we want to scale this and be around for a long time, it's really important we get it right from the start, but also from our clients point of view. If I can put everything in place to show that we're taking this very, very seriously, sure we probably, you know, take a little bit longer to put stuff in place, because we will not take any shortcuts. But yeah, it was 100% inspired by the talk from Brett Davidson. So thank you for bringing that up. And I should give credit where credit is due.
Nick Lincoln:Excellent stuff. Great stuff. Okay, we'll go on to you Ultra with your bits of housekeeping Andy is your doorbell turned off?
Andy Hart:No, it's not turned off. So if neither everybody's come, they come. Okay,
Nick Lincoln:delivery will you another? You know what? And for those watching on YouTube, have a good look at how storyteller spells the word story. I'll leave that at that. Okay. I
Andy Hart:don't think you can change the spelling candy.
Carl Widger:My brain is still in Munich. off. Oh, dear God, the fact that I haven't noticed until you pointed it out says everything about my brain.
Andy Hart:You can't unsee it, can you? Okay? So, yeah, my two little Rugrats have been investing since they were very small. I say they've been investing. I set up some JIS for them, and I set it up with a random company that I don't normally use for various reasons. I'm not going to bore you anyway, they sent me their annual investment review email the other day that they're now forcing me every year to go online and update the investment profile for my three and a half year old twins. If there was ever an example for when attitude to risk questionnaires are brought to light in, you know, just being ridiculous and you know, intellectually bankrupt is when a parent has to fit in an attitude to risk questionnaire for a one year old, it's insane. 10 Questions. They're obviously written in a way that they think are appropriate and people will understand they're not. The language they use is terrible. This is a famous company. It's actually slightly better than some of the ones that we've seen. They are talking about risk and return, high return, low return. So they would that adopted that language. But anyway, long story short, it's dreadful. Nick question, thanks,
Nick Lincoln:Andy, that is awful. I mean, two quick you don't want to name the company. You've been very cagey about it for various reasons. Okay, all right, okay, okay. And why did you choose them? I'm interested
Andy Hart:again, for various reasons that I want to get into due to the situation that I need the give and take. Right? Let me get to my point. Let me get to my point. So this is because I believe they sort of run, not DIY port. Vote. What I'm saying is financial admin is just upping with everyone. KYC, know your customer, if you've got any money with anyone, they're going to email you every year and get you to refill in some surveys, some investment profiles and things like that. So anyway, I went online and followed the link to fill in the investment profile for my two, three and a half year olds, they're obviously invested in 100% global equities, the highest returning portfolio I could find on the platform. I filled it in as if I was an investing illiterate and I was scared of everything, so I tricked the system. Next minute, I'm getting emails, you're coming out my ears, telling me that there's a misalignment between their portfolio and what I'm what I told them on the annual assessment review. I've then got to go on an online investment course to go through how investing works.
Alan Smith:No, you don't. You're, you're three and a half years old. My three and
Andy Hart:a half year old does, yeah, so it's basically robots. You know, the bots are emailing me to update my profile. I've updated my profile, then the bots email mode that I've got to go on a course. It's just, it's insane. What is going on. So
Alan Smith:you that must be some sort of semi advised thing you've got. That is what I'm saying. Alan, there's a lot you've actually ticked they're giving, they're giving you advice, or some sort, my children are on Vanguard, direct platform. Have been for lot for
Andy Hart:they would ask you some questions. When you said, yeah, it might be tighter now, yeah, ask you some questions. You set up, but yeah, they never ask you again. Is the point? But yeah, but no, no, but some of them now need to do it annually. So anyway, a couple of points financial admin has just been ramped up everywhere. KYC, know, your customer compliance departments all over the world, certainly the UK, are, you know, increasing the amount of stuff that they're asking for, I've got a source of wealth form to fill in with another well known bank that is just insane the level of detail they're going into. So it sort of pulls back down to financial admin in your life. And I think how lucky our clients are. We don't have to put them through all of this total BS. They become a client. We try and remove all the dribble from them. Get them on an investment portfolio, set them up in the right, you know, portfolio from day one. Don't, you know, patronize them every year with the ridiculous stuff that you know this company is asking me anyway, I could go on and on, but that's my my final point, just be careful the financial admin that creeps into your life, luckily, luckily, you've highlighted this, Andrew, because
Nick Lincoln:other people now won't use that platform you haven't mentioned. And that's good that you brought it up.
Andy Hart:They're all similar. They're all similar. I might
Nick Lincoln:get the hum sponsorship page. We could probably work it out by the juice, right? Andrew, it's the next one. Is also you, I'm afraid, cause I couldn't mix up all the notes, because it didn't quite work out that way. And this, yes, this, this, this story that you're now gonna talk about does get my blood boiling as well. Okay,
Andy Hart:so we mentioned before on the show, and people familiar would know that there's been a British isa that's been muted, and it's an extra 5000 pounds that they're forcing you to invest in UK companies, generally, FTSE, 100 FTSE, all shares, etc, etc. Some bright spark has done a bit of digging and realized that the MPs, in their own parliamentary retirement fund, the allocation to the UK stock market is less than 1% or round about 1% so it doesn't reflect what's going on globally in the MSCI sort of World Index. I think we're about three and a half percent, or something like that. Come down from eight, nine at our peak. Weirdly, we've just overtaken France as the biggest stock market in the UK, just by point 1 trillion today, actually. So UK has gained Europe in Europe from
Alan Smith:Are we the biggest in the UK? Though?
Nick Lincoln:Don't make any worse. Okay,
Andy Hart:go on, right, and that's it, really. So the MPs are not practicing what they preach funny that. What should the MPs be doing? What should the MPs be doing? Should they have 10% of their money in the UK companies? 5%
Nick Lincoln:my friend, I tell you what they should be doing. They should be in money purchase parts like the rest of us, money purchase players. And I'm not going to go any further than that. Andy, I don't really want to think about it, because it just I can. What does that mean? Just I can so, oh, sorry, yeah, not DC.
Unknown:Is this the defined
Alan Smith:benefit scheme that they are? Yeah, what the underlying fund is invested in
Nick Lincoln:it? Yeah, right, yes. I think it's 1.3 it's very big scheme. I
Andy Hart:thought it's about 800 million. So I don't quite know what it's protecting them. A bit confused with it. Anyway, no practice
Alan Smith:what they preach. But obviously they're they've got some consultant they've got some investment consultants that they pay millions of pounds every year to tell them how to invest. And that's that's Sure. Say we outsource the advice to these specialists. Let's move on,
Nick Lincoln:because it's too it's too depressing, and I don't that's a sewer, that whole area sewer, right? I've got my next topical tidbit. It's quite a decent one. This one, I think, anyway, it's in the Wall Street Journal. I think I've managed to give you a free link, because the Wall Street Journal is normally behind a paywall, but they do let you share some articles. So that's in the so called show notes. And this is a horror story our nomination of beneficiary forms. I think it's something that's quite easily overlooked, making. Sure these are always up to date. My preferred platform transact now. You can actually do that. You can confirm each year that the beneficiaries on on fire are correct, and you do that electronically. But this is a story from a guy, an American guy, and I think that what happened in this story would apply here as well. He had a workplace, a 401, K or whatever, a workplace, money, purchase pot in the late 80s, he was going out with a lady, and he nominated the the fund to her. They subsequently split up in around 1989 and the poor sod died in 2015 single, no children, no dependents. And now this, this lady, is coming after his pension pot, because he she still, when he passed away in 2015 he she was still the sole beneficiary of his pension pot, which is now over a million dollars, by the way, and he never changed it, and his two brothers are contesting her claim on the pod. But it's just an example there of just just a little admin detail not being done. So just make sure that your nomination of beneficiary forms are reflect your client's wishes. Reflect your wishes, guys, but reflect your clients with clients wishes as well. Because the company, I can't remember the provider, it's in the article, obviously, I think it's Wells Fargo are saying, well, we're pretty much, you know, we are pretty much bound by this, you know, this, he didn't even really, he's got no other sort of dependence that, as far as we know, he wanted to go to XYZ, who he last saw, you know, four, three and a half decades ago. There you go. There's my story. It's quite a good read. Any thoughts or comments? No,
Alan Smith:it's a good one. Is Valid, isn't it? It's just a basic, simple admin thing. It would be part of our annual planning meeting checklist. That's what we do, and we should do, but you can do a lot of other fantastic work, but a small slip up like that and the impact that could have on a on a family, and they're right, if he signed that document all those years ago, and nothing ever, he's never overridden it or changed it. Who's, who's anyone to say, Oh no, but he, you know, yeah, he wouldn't have wanted it. How do you know if he's not, there's no other
Nick Lincoln:Yeah. Well, that's why they, they evidence. I can see what, Wells Fargo provider would stick to that line, you know, which this
Andy Hart:is. There might be working some changing there might be some change in legislation that's going to up the financial admin that needs to be done at least every five years, or something that they might introduce something I know the UK,
Alan Smith:as I understand it, in UK, at least pension legislation. This is a trust thing. Ultimately, there's trustees, sort of pension fund trustees, which generally the minister. They're generally the administrator, aren't they? So the transact, presumably, or some of that is the kind of, the actual but they rely upon, it's an expression of wish, isn't it? It's not, yeah, it's not completely blinding.
Carl Widger:They Well, the trustees have to follow the wishes well, but they do have the ability
Alan Smith:to override it if there were reasonably, I mean, if he, if he had, like, minor children, for example, that you know, the trustees could make a if there's legitimate evidence provided to them. But it sounds like he never got married, didn't have kids, didn't have anything else, and the brothers are just saying, Well, hang on, he would have wanted it
Andy Hart:to go to us. I think they're also brothers. Yeah, look, I
Carl Widger:think the overarching point here is it's, it's a, it's a small issue that can create. I had this conversation with someone only in the last couple of weeks. It's, it's something that everybody needs to be very mindful of, for sure.
Alan Smith:Yeah, a lot of di DIY, some DIY investors not advised. Investors could just easily overlook this and create problems for themselves because they didn't want to, you know, pay a fee to an advisor, which, in itself, if that ever happened, would pay the value of the fee for, you know, the entire lifetime. Andrew, also,
Andy Hart:I'll try. I don't on the expression of wish. You can't just say again, I know you can't just say, follow, will, can you like? I don't quite know what the moment, I think then, but in the future, I could think a different situation, like, follow, obviously, again, it's like, it needs to be legal, needs to be tighter than that, but, but there should be some, I don't know. There should be another option. I mean, I've certainly,
Nick Lincoln:you know, with and I this has been the takeaway for me, and I already do it, is that in my part of my annual planning meeting checklist, the things I'm going to talk is, like, you know, are your wills, you still got your wills? Like, they still valid, okay? And also, let's just confirm, you know, Mrs, if you predeceased husband, it goes to you, and then if, when you both pass, it goes down to the children with your pension funds. Are you happy with that? Certainly. But just have it built into that trap is just have it built into your system, your checklist, every year, when you, when you're when you're doing the planning meetings, because we know you're doing them, because you're the good guys have that, have that built in, because it's and
Carl Widger:I wills thing like to make sure that your will is updated every kind of three, five years, because, you know, things change, and even if it's just a review of it, to say, yeah, it's still fit for purpose. Make sure you actually do do that.
Nick Lincoln:Did you know this room. We've the changes we've had in the last five years, you know. And there's a big one coming your way on, and I'll talk to you about that afterwards, right? Let's move on to the next story.
Alan Smith:It is the back to me with the Vanguard trap webinar. Just why? To shoehorn once again, referring back to the famous live event that we had, seems like a lifetime ago, trap live. And the follow up to trap live, one of the sponsors or business or partners for the event, Vanguard, world's second largest asset management company, put on a bespoke event for Trappists. I just wanted to, I couldn't get on that. I think it was traveling to Munich. I think one, at least some of us here went, went on it. But it was, as I understand it, that it was all about, there's kind of the focus on advisor alpha and demonstrating value to your clients and prospective clients. I got some feedback from our contacts at Vanguard, saying that over 300 people registered for it, which I thought was a fabulous result for webinar. 300 registered and 200 turned up, which, again, I think is pretty good because, you know, often on the day people can't make it, or they register so that they can watch it later on. So 200 people on this live webinar event, went went through it. And if you are interested, and you do want to catch up with it, we have posted a link to the recording of the event in the show notes, so please go and check that out. And if you are interested, learn more from Vanguard, you know, because they are a very solid organization, and we can learn a lot from them. Do a lot of kind of behavioral stuff, and a lot of research goes into demonstrating the real value that financial planners had call.
Carl Widger:I was on it. It was bloody brilliant. Really, really good. The content was fantastic, really well delivered. Short and sweet, it was kind of, I think, 30 minutes I loved. I hadn't seen it before in the format that they did. So they had their kind of slides, but down the other side you had, you know, download the copy of the slides from today, but then they had other kind of associated documents. I have them all downloaded, and it was really, really good, and some of the slides were absolutely brilliant that you could definitely use in client presentations. So big, huge round of applause to Vanguard. There was obviously an awful lot of time and effort went into it. And the content was, it was all about advisor alpha, you know. And it was really, really good stuff. And yeah, and yeah, I'll definitely be following those webinars going forward, for sure, really,
Unknown:really good.
Nick Lincoln:I also sat in on it, and it was very, very good. Alan, you were at your MBA mini master course, whatever you deliver that on that Wednesday morning. I was, have you got a mention? I didn't. So I had to, I had to fill my own question live to get my name mentioned. This is the desperate state of my life, okay, thank you, Vanguard. That was a very good watch. Convenience is a form of wealth.
Carl Widger:Yeah, this was a blog with an associated video from Ben Carlson, who has a wealth of common sense. So if you, if you don't subscribe to a wealth of common sense, do, because that's bloody brilliant too. But I love this one because it was, it was about, he kind of tells a story about some of the Uber wealthy people in the states not flying across state lines for tax reasons, and circling in the air before they go from one state to the other and and he going on say, you know that, um, convenience surely is a form of wealth. And, you know, circling around in your private jet and not going into another state and missing your daughter's, I don't know birthday party to avoid tax. Well, that seems a little bit brain dead, quite frankly. And goes back to my old saying, If you don't know what the money is for, the answer to how much do you need is always going to be more. And I couldn't help think that a lot of people in Ireland in the last decade have moved to Portugal to be, you know, non residents and all that kind of stuff. And it's to save tax. And I've only had a few of them, and a few that have had all ditched it as a plan and came back, because in the two or three instances I had, they were missing out on grandkids, communions and confirmations and birthday parties and all that kind of someone went, Ah, here, this just isn't worth it. And you know, I would urge everyone you know to have that deep conversation with their partner in life, or just reflect yourself. You know, what actually is the money for and is saving tax when clearly, these people who are flying around in private jets, right, are not flying across state lines. They cannot possibly spend all the money that they have created. And for me, it was a brilliant blog. I thought, really, his couple of stories are really well made. And you know, it's one. What we're trying to encourage all of our clients to do is to, you know, live the life that you want to live, but it's now, as well as not just, you know, 2030, years time. It is now. And if you have the resources to go and live that life, and for some reason, you're doing something that doesn't fit with your lifestyle, to save tax, well, sorry, that's, that's, that's just a poor life plan that you've got there.
Nick Lincoln:Good, good point. Tyson with storytellers,
Alan Smith:yeah, no, I completely agree. I didn't realize you were posting that car because I read that that came out like a week or two ago. Remember reading it and yeah, nodding my head vigorously, because you're right there, that sitting on the I think, I think in New York state, it costs a certain tax a certain time, so they're out of Newark or jersey or something like that, and they can't come across till midnight. And got to count all the days, it seems so much hassle in their life. And yet, there was a time a few years ago, the first, I don't know these things coming up, but Belgium was the tax exile place. And we, I remember we had a client who relocated, sold a business for a lot of money, relocated to live in Brussels, and you only had to live there. Rather, it wasn't a lot. It was like two years or something, to be sort of exempt, and everything. Gave up. He said,
Andy Hart:live it in Brussels, rise. Yeah. Where
Alan Smith:do I just going to pay the tax? I just want to come home. I want to come home. I want to live in the UK. I want to be my family and stuff. And it's going to be more defensive,
Andy Hart:even if the amount of tax you save worked out to be something like five grand a day. It's like still five grand a day. Back to Carl's point,
Alan Smith:I've got enough. I've got enough. And the interesting thing dealing with a potential client at the moment talking about tax planning and stuff, and he just said, Do you know what? We do have a moral duty. We don't have to overpay tax, but there's a sense of moral duty. This was just an interesting take. Not everyone is trying to squeeze and dodge every last tax dollar or tax Euro a pound. Some people think it's not unreasonable, because I've had an education in this country, and I've created wealth as a result of it. So my kids have been born here.
Carl Widger:Look, I'm all for financial engineering, to pay the least amount of tax. Yeah, possible. But when you're altering your lifestyle and not doing the things that you want to do in your life, that's a very poor strategy. Or
Andy Hart:living in Brussels or
Alan Smith:living in Dubai, I mean, to buy is an inch. A lot of people moving out to Dubai, like, tax free. I understand too much about to understand everything. You know, the property prices and everything is very expensive there. So it's kind of almost, you pay less tax or no tax, but you pay a lot more in living expenses. But, yeah, some, I mean, I don't know, up in Dubai, but not for a long time. But it's just, God, this, you know, it's just, you're either going to live in the baking hot or ice, you know, air conditioned. Now there's only
Andy Hart:three months of the year it's unbearable. So you've got nine months of pure beautiful sunshine, amazing beaches, amazing everything. So it is a massive pull when the place is amazing and the lifestyle is fantastic, and you you can save 50% income tax or something ridiculous like that. So in a million definitely. But you're,
Alan Smith:not relocating Ultra. Are you anytime? I'm
Andy Hart:looking at options when the kids are a little bit older, 100% or I won't be spending too much time here. Certainly. You know, it's been it's just the weather kills me here. We've had nine months of crap weather, haven't we? It's been horrendous. Try
Unknown:living in Ireland. I'm
Andy Hart:not complaining. I'm not complaining.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, righty. Tighty, so Mr Hart credit, Suisse, yeah,
Andy Hart:I don't know if we've covered this, but I think JP Morgan do very extensive research on historical returns on the market. Barclays, something, report credit. Suisse also have one. It's one of these, you know, chock full of information about 50 pages long. The highlight of it is the real returns over the last 122 years, real returns in US equities have been 6.4% a year versus bonds being 1.7 so the returns from equities, real returns are the only returns that you really care about have been about 3.7 times the return equities versus bonds, basically three to four times returns, real returns, equities versus bonds. We know that anyway, again, these studies come out by all of these large asset managers that all have people down the corridor trying to outspark the markets, even though the reports come out that says the market beats everybody long term. So it's all a bit contradictory, but anyway, it's a relatively decent report. I don't know if we've spoken about it before. Credit Suisse Global Report, bankrupt. Yeah, they got bought by UBS.
Carl Widger:Yeah. They wrote a lovely report, though, before that,
Alan Smith:just investing, don't invest in us. Press companies. Press
Andy Hart:public, terrible history. Credit. Suisse. I
Nick Lincoln:mean, there's so many things they've done wrong, yeah, just financial disasters over the history. And it's amazing. They've lasted
Andy Hart:so long. But anyway, they've got you to write reports. You posted a link to it
Alan Smith:because I quite like. Looking at those things. Did you post a link?
Nick Lincoln:Yeah, the so called show notes. Very good. Okay, okay, great stuff. Thanks, ultra me next. Oh, here we go. This is a recurring one. So the comic sections are, what, what are actually officially called the money supplements in the weekend rags, always having it seem to have a celebrity, they ask about their investments, what's been your best investment decision. And, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. And invariably, when you get people from the acting world, sort of Thespians, it's just seems to be a horror story. I mean, actors seem to work all their lives. And I'm sure a lot of them must say, well, it's for the art, dear boy, it's for the art. No, I think it's mainly because they make catastrophic decisions. They probably haven't got a pot to piss in, even as they get into the later stages of their lives. And Adrian Edmondson, that is a technical term called Adrian Edmondson, famous for the young ones. And, you know, with the late great Rick mall and filthy rich and cat flap and all those things. And this is, I know Alan, you mentioned it on LinkedIn as well, but I saw it via Kusal area once. I hope that's all right, Kusal and he posted this article from The Sunday Times comic section and into a puff piece interview. They're always puff pieces as well. These things, the journalists never push back. And I know it's just supposed to be easy reading, and it's but he made this thing saying, Oh, my best investment has been my house, the classic disastrous mindset, and it's doubled in the last 15 years, he reckons, doubled in the last 15 years. And I told my grandson to avoid pensions and go into property, because my house has doubled in the last 15 years. Is that? What is that? The article said, wow, yeah. And you're screaming, I'm screaming any you know, this isn't a money section of the paper. You know, you're a finance journalist, you can push back at some of these misconceptions. And you know why the journalist isn't saying, you know, the great companies of the world have quintel quintupled over that period five times, five times. They don't they just let it ride. So Adrian Everson said the stock market's too risky. It's where money goes to die. I don't believe in pensions. My house has doubled in the last 15 years when there's this asset class, the great companies of the world, that's gone up five times in that and that. And again, it's not about creating wealth for its own sake and just dying with the largest pot of money. But what it means is, 15 years ago, Adrian Epperson, or Edison's grandson, now could be investing in the great companies and have a transformative amount of money that he can do stuff with, maybe give it away to charity if he doesn't want it all. But it's just this, this this deep, rooted ignorance, and it's just not, it's just not challenged by the journalists. I just, I find it frustrating, and it just does seem to be creative is a right side brain? Is that right creative seems to have real issues with money and concepts of finance and so forth. So I just thought I'd put that out there and any thoughts or comments.
Andy Hart:One of my clients was featured in the Sunday time, so I read it with a great interest. One weekend, there was a lot of contradictions between what we do, what he's done, and what was written. So yeah, a lot of it is, take it with a pinch of BS from the from the journalists. Yeah. The only
Alan Smith:other thing that I led is, if you read the article, it's very damning. He's just, he's a non expert, he's an actor. He's a quite a successful actor with a long career, just giving his honest opinion. And one of the things he said was words to the effect, I just don't trust the pensions industry. They all seem to change their name every five minutes. One of them buys another one, and then I don't know it. You're you said you just have an, always, an underlying sense that you're being ripped off. And it's a sad indictment on the view from non experts on on the entire sector. After, you know, decades of regulation, of, you know, billions of pounds spent that the average punter, non expert still has an underlying sense that they're going to get ripped off, compared to the property market.
Andy Hart:Amazing returns. Alan, some of some of these people have got pensions that put two grand in 100 years ago and forgot about it. They get a statement that sent to their house that says, now you got 21,000 pounds. But don't look at it and go what I put 2000 in now I've got 21,000 I've done nothing here that's gone tenant, you know, is he still married to Jennifer Saunders? Yes, yes. Okay, so surely there's some money intelligence in the house. Well, it's a point out, and
Nick Lincoln:I take your point, but it's like, how do you that level of ignorance? Is it the fault of the pensions industry? Because actually, we know that it doesn't rip people off, and we know the scandals make the news, and they're so rare that personal pensions are brilliant for people.
Alan Smith:He just clearly hasn't got a financial advisor or a half decent accountant, for example, that's what I'm saying. Just educated him and just told him every now and again, you do get a good one on that, because I read them most, most weeks, very rarely. Sugar was, yeah, didn't even otherwise, he's, he was all property. He's got his own property Trading Company whilst I get that, but whilst we're on the subject, the other one, if you read in the press again, timestamp was, you know, multi gold winning Olympic cyclist Bradley Wiggins, bankruptcy. So you, thank you God, he must have earned millions of sponsorship deals that he did and everything else all his like, huge success. Dominated his sport for several years now. Is what was
Andy Hart:the reason? Alan, do you know what the reason was? No, just
Alan Smith:bad advice, bad investments. Bad investments didn't pay his taxes. Bad investment realizing to pay tax, a bunch of other things. Did you think? Well, who the hell is advising these people? Why is it? Because it's just seems to be almost every you know, there's the data coming out of the US, but we also see it in football in the UK.
Nick Lincoln:Craig Bellamy recently was, if it's not super liable, but I mean, what it was?
Alan Smith:And Welsh, yeah, I think his was investments as well. You know, investments gone bad, they seem to attract or the other way around, just bad advisors that put them into all these weird structures and complex investments. And obviously, I've got sophisticated, yeah, if all you've got, if you measure a Premier League football, the money you've earned, if you just put it in every month for, you know, 20%
Andy Hart:of your earnings in some simple index, yeah. I mean, it's staggering. You would never
Alan Smith:need to worry about money for the rest of your life. But the number of stories like this is just, it's ridiculous. You need
Andy Hart:to make one decision,
Nick Lincoln:okay, right? I'm just conscious of time, guys. So the final topical tidbit of episode 47 is ultra and the C word. So brace yourselves, listeners,
Andy Hart:yeah, the C word, cancer, not the other one. This is a blog. Humble dollar Jonathan Clements, who's a financial commentator, and he's just basically written a blog. It's quite a sort of hard hitting blog. Long story short, he's been diagnosed as quite a serious cancer, and he thinks he's got, you know, very, very short period left to live. And they list quite a lot of things, because he's an insider in the money game. It's quite interesting his sort of thoughts and how things have changed since he's got this news. So it's worth a scroll through it, but basically repeating quite a lot of the things we talk about here. You know, money has a purpose. You know, tick off things from your bucket list a load of other stuff. It's worth a worth checking out. But as I say, when one of our one of our own, has some very bad news, it hits me a little bit harder. So check it out.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, great stuff. So 42 minutes in, and we've given the topical tidbits their fair share of our precious, precious time. So let's move on to the meat and potatoes of episode 47 which is on the subject of, well, we got the, apparently, there's a soccer tournament going on on the continent. And this meaty potatoes of this episode is going to be about tournaments and trophies and winning, winning awards. The whole award industry, and it is an industry we're all going to give our little talk on this, but we're going to lead off with storyteller telling us his his journey through the award maze.
Alan Smith:Yes, thank you, Nick. Yeah, we did think it would be topical right in the midst of a tournament right now, you know, winning medals, winning awards, winning trophies. So, by the way, Nick, I'll give you a nod for if you, if you need to, if I need to tell a story. But this is just, I'll just briefly rattle through this, the journey. This is not the story, but when. So when I got started in business, I just had, I had a feeling that, how could we How could we differentiate? I was like, one man band them in, like, two or three of us. How can we differentiate? And I started, and this is not it.
Unknown:I don't care. I don't care. Grab yourself a drink, a very long drink. It's story time with Alan Smith.
Nick Lincoln:Andy made me. He bullied me into it. Okay,
Alan Smith:yeah, well, I've got a story, but it will come later. So no, I decided to enter awards. And as we know, there are lots of industry awards, and there are a lot of the publications have their own awards, and we started to enter them. And it's hard to talk about this without coming across as a completely arrogant cock, because we won and we won, we won pretty much. We won a lot of awards, right? I've got a trophy cabinet, and we're in the office now behind me, which is groaning under the weight of these awards that we won, and maybe the first 10 years of being in business, because we entered a lot. Now, people might say, you know, there wasn't, was less competition around those days, but we won quite a lot of these awards, and it was great. And we used that to, you know, we self promoted. We told our clients, we told professional connections, we just, you know, I mean, we promoted amongst the team and colleagues. We they ended up, you know, there are, I just say there's all the various publications. But there was over, there was two, there's two industry bodies, really isn't there. There was the PFS to get in time, and it was the IFP would now part of CISI. And the IFP ran a run their own award. They had their absolute award for the best firm in the IFP. And if paid 10 to two. Attract all the better firms anyway. So they had an award, and it was called the David Norton Award for Excellence, named after the late David Norton, who apparently was before my time, but was a complete, you know, absolute legend in the origin story of financial planning in the UK. This is the story, very briefly we entered that award. I didn't realize how long it would be the whole process, because I get a note saying, like, you've made it through to the next round. Could you now provide this lots of other information? So I go, Yeah, fine. Then about months later, you've made it through to the next round. You're now in the last 10 or something. I thought, God, how long is this going to go for? No one has had to provide all this information that might not have entered in the first place. And on it went, and on it went, and it said, right, eventually you are in the last you're down to the last three or four. And the winner would be be decided by a one to one interview with our panel of judges. And it's on this specific date. And I've looked at the date and I thought, Oh my God, that's the date. I'm going on holiday. I'm away for two weeks. I literally leave that day. So I go back to them and say, Look, I won't be around that day. Can we do another day? And they say, No, it's that day or nothing. So I've had this, honestly, this whole process is taking months. Oh my god, from the last part of it. So they said, but you can send, you can send along colleagues, if you are any colleague. I thought, I mean, my colleagues didn't even know I've entered the award. Didn't know much about it, but I said to Graham and Charles boys, and shout out to you boys if you're listening to this, because you'll remember this story. So I sat down with them and said, Guys, there is I've entered this award. We're through to the last it is the most prestigious award in the industry. It's wonderful. And when we're down to the last three or four, it's an interview panel, interview, actually, Brett Davidson was one of the judges on that day, and a couple of other, you know, notable high profile people from our sector.
Carl Widger:Anyway, these your, your, your good, personal, close friend. Brett Davidson, yeah, was one of the judges. He was, although
Alan Smith:he was less of a close person friend at the time. It was a long time ago. I
Carl Widger:think I know where this one is going. No,
Alan Smith:so, so Graham and Charles, and they're literally
Andy Hart:paying you Australia dollars, or
Alan Smith:you can't, you can't say that, but they were what? They were literally walking along to the and they didn't quite know what they were doing. They were falling back the office. Where are we going again? What is it? And I'm meantime on holiday. I'm lying on my sunliner. I'm calling them saying, right, say this and say that. So they arrived at they told me it's like UBS office in Finsbury Square in London, for this is where this interview is taking place. So bear in mind, it's called the David Norton award for excellence. And these two jokers pitch up, go to a reception desk, and they say, Oh, hi, good morning. We're here for the Graham Norton awards. I And he said, You mean David Norton? Oh, yeah, sorry. Anyway, so the the subs, so it's clearly it was the blind leading the blind didn't know what they were doing. And anyway, long story short, Tara, we won, we won the award, and it was wonderful. And I went up to Cardiff and picked up the award, and it was, and it was, you know, and it was super. Couple years later, we enter the Chartered Financial Planner of the Year Award won, and we won that. The point of this saying is, when, by the end of winning that award, I was really questioning, because I will now say full disclosure, I don't believe that we've ever picked up a client as a result of winning all these Awards. The awards now seem to be, there are more of them than, like, you could begin to count. There's awards, but
Andy Hart:there's always just on that, Alan, just on that, just to sort of be pro awards. Is there anything subtle going on, like you mentioned on your emails, your website, there's trophies that they conveniently have to walk past by, you know, walking into the office, etc, you know. Is there like this? Yeah.
Alan Smith:I mean, there might be. What I do know is, I mean, I it's depending on, and this is one of my other my points, because you're right. We were talking about this offline, because I've started off saying I was pro awards. We entered awards, we won awards. And now I'm saying I'm not a big fan of awards now. And I think that, I think the world has changed, and I think, but you know, the example I gave you, there was so much effort entering awards. There were just a lot of stuff we had to do in these panel interviews and provide data and information client surveys, a lot of stuff we had to do. And then I think, well, what's the point? You know, what do you get if you actually win an award? And I think, also, I think from a client's perspective, there's no one really understands the difference between, let's say, the David Norton award or the Chartered Financial Planner of the year, and like the financial planning equivalent of the the auto glass trophy or something, you can now get awards and there, I mean, there's a lot of controversy around this, but there definitely is pay to play. You can pay for certain awards. You can get there. I mean, I was, we were shortlisted, shortlisted for one award. I won't mention it was one of the major publications, finalists for it, and they said, like to come along. How many seats? How many seats do you want at the table? I said, much? Are they 300 pound ahead? I say cheap, 300 pound ahead that they. It was Disney Concert for intermediaries, and they want me to buy tables, a table for 10, three. And honestly thought, from a team event viewpoint, if I was to take my colleagues 300 quid behind the bar or whatever, each we would have a better night out than going to some, you know, West End hotel, just a bit at least. So I, I declined on that. And he said, Well, but, and then I was told, well, we might have to, you know, review your finalist application. I thought so it is if I pay and but they're very, very clever about saying that. They weren't completely, they completely didn't say that exactly so many words, but they said, No, we couldn't say that. However, it's those who pay and have a table are more likely to have a chance of winning. I just thought, Man, this is an interesting thing. And now you, as I say, you seem to get so many different awards that every advisor, so many, every advisor is a multi award winning, uh, advisor, and there's no different as I say, there are some awards that are difficult, like winning Champions League is difficult, but winning, like the, you know, a small, a small trophy that you just there's only four people enter. Isn't quite so difficult. So I've evolved. I'm not a big fan of awards. There are some companies out there who are just brilliant businesses, and they're great, and they never enter awards. They say, Look, we go near. The only thing that we care about as our clients, our clients seem to love is we seem we're doing really well, not fussed about it, and it's become an industry. And you do say to see the same names now entering awards and winning them most, most of the time. So look, we just thought in the midst of a tournament, we'd sort of start having a chat about, is it worth entering awards? What's the value, what's the benefit, what's the upside, and what's the downside? I mean, Andrew, you must have won a few awards, swimming badge, bronze medal.
Andy Hart:I won that. I won the Conquer championships at beavers, age eight. That's my biggest life. Cubs
Alan Smith:conquer. I thought you said something else, but God, anyway,
Andy Hart:I think your story. Alan might be quite typical of firms. I think when they're in their early stages, they're a bit more gung Can be asked to fill in 100 page form. Got no clients, got a load of time. When you get busy successful and have clients, you don't want to be around spending hours and hours doing admin for some obscure publication. So I think that's probably quite a typical route a lot of people go. I mean, the awards we see now are ridiculous. It's like wealth management, administration awards, back office, front office awards, and they're just making them up for the sake of it. There's almost like more people at the award show than there is in the whole industry that they're trying to award. I think that's the point. Isn't the head around it.
Alan Smith:That is the point. I mean, one of the awards it did go to, and when they've got awards for funds, and if you do like, you know, European emerging markets, small cap, blah, blah, blah fund of the year, and by the time is that you like the 72 awards. And the one I was like, the second last award on so you'd like dying, you know,
Andy Hart:and there's always a comedian that's, you know, semi famous, doing the old hosting which, which is normally quite funny. I don't know if you saw the other day, but, like, I'm gonna name them, because it was a public tweet. Scottish Widows got awarded for something, and some bloke on Twitter said, Yeah, I've already put in three complaints to them this week. You can imagine, the best administration award, and they've got like, 46,000 complaints or something. He just
Nick Lincoln:Ross sharp at that on Twitter because he's got an ongoing beef with widows at the minute, our friend. No, it was
Andy Hart:Elliot. Elliot someone who's a listener. I think he was okay in Edinburgh. You know that? Dude? Anyway, No, I've never really entered awards. I don't think I ever really will. I find them quite painful. I see them online all the time. Obviously, it's quite a marketing thing. I sort of understand why people do it. And you know, firms certain stage in their development. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of pay to play tables cost a lot of money, but I think people are impressed by them. Like a family member of ours won award recently that was just like, but all the whole family were just like, Isn't it amazing, wonderful. Have you heard the news? So if a firm wins an award within a family that don't quite they're not insiders, they they're impressed by this stuff. I was just, I couldn't think of anything worse, but I played the game and congratulated but inside, I'm thinking, it's a total waste of waste of time.
Carl Widger:But does that not talk to the point about clients, might think that that's
Andy Hart:exactly that Carl, that's what I'm saying. So being receiving a family member won, like a marketing award, it was like the biggest news ever in our family. So the same would apply on the financial advisor side. Sorry,
Carl Widger:yeah, I think, like to Alan's point about, you know, nobody, no, we've never won one client? Well, maybe not, but maybe the social proof of you winning the various awards helped you get clients across the line. I know Alan when I met you, you had just won the financial planning firm of the Year Award, and I thought, Wow, that's amazing. Or whatever, right? So, and we have entered awards before, and we've been delighted when we won them. And I think Andy's point is really well made, that you know, if you're a kind of firm starting out entering these things, I don't think is a bad idea at all, and giving your best shot to get a couple of them under your belt so that you can say that my peers have voted us the best in whatever, um, we don't have the amount of awards at all that you have over there. And I do see all of the ones that are over there, and it's like, as you're saying, what you know, we can, we'll, we'll niche down all the awards. So basically, there's one for everybody in the audience. With full disclosure, we've just applied for the Irish Times, great places to work, award. And I would really like to know that's a proper application. And we're, I think we're into phase two of that at the moment, might go nowhere. So if you hear nothing from me about that, again, we didn't get it right, but, uh, but that one would matter to me. And I would really, really like to get some acknowledgement that we're looking after our team and we're trying to as best as we possibly can create a great culture and a great place to work. And so I wouldn't dismiss them all, the one, the one award that I love out there right is a fully independent financial planning firm of the year in Ireland, or Ireland, UK, or I don't know, and somebody like, I don't know, avoid, or somebody like That to sponsor it and have maybe an independent board and have an application, you know, process, and maybe if you win it, then part of winning it is that you sit on the selection committee for the following year, or something like that, and that doesn't exist. And I'd like to, you know, I love to see that, and then say to all of the providers out there, if you believe this is the way this profession, profession should go, you are going to cough up. You are the ones that are winning, because financial planners are doing great work. So we're not going to charge anybody. We're going to make this free, because the providers who are making all the money out of the financial planner is actually placing the business. You're going to sponsor this, and you're going to make this work, and then you take away, well, you gotta pay three grand to play. It's then, okay, this is a really prestigious award, and it's something that everybody who's very serious about doing real financial planning that you know, this is something at some stage in our firm's career we're going to go for. And you could have large firm, medium firm and small firm, or something like that. But you could also, right, and I think this is important, right? You could also have para planner of the year, you know, because I think it's really important to acknowledge the work that is is involved, but you're very specific that this is about financial planning, and people who are doing great financial planning, and it could evolve from there. It's not going to happen, though, because unless we do it, nobody else is going to do it. So I'm probably talking through my hat, but that is one that certainly I'd like met as Ireland to be said, Yeah, you're the financial planning firm of the year,
Alan Smith:no. And I think you're absolutely right. And we do have versions of that in the UK, and the ones I mentioned, I mean, I only speak from my experience. No doubt someone listened to this and say, Oh, you forgot about the XYZ Award, which is fabulous as well. The two main professional bodies, CISI and the PFS have got their own version of it, and it is a proper submission, and it's loads of work, and it's interviewed by people and loaded if you are, in fact, if you just gotten shortlist, if you've got the last 10 or something of that, you're a bloody good firm. It's some of the others that we're aware of. I won't mention any
Andy Hart:names, but so much selfish one, I think the third biggest one, I don't know exactly where it ranks, is new, modern advisor awards. They're they're very big, right? We've all been to them, but they are the years, if I understand it correctly, they are self submission. So
Alan Smith:you put all your data in, there's no audit trail. There's no Be careful what I say. But I've looked at some of those numbers, and I've checked across with their accounts, and I've said, Hmm, interesting. So I would rather have one where there's rigorous auditing done of your information. Obviously mission where you where you're asked to prove you can, just say, Our clients love us, but show us your last client survey. Show us your personal development program for your team. Show us the work you know. Show us examples of the work we do. And let's have a panel of experts interview you rigorously about it with a bunch of other people. You come through that and win those Fair enough? Yeah, I think that's, that's well, the outside people may not know. Well, he won charter financial planner of the year, and he won, you know, the auto glass. And rental trophy financial planning of the, you know, the equivalent, yeah, so, but it's just, but he's a multi award winning, or she's a multi award winning,
Carl Widger:yeah, look, that's, that's a fair point. Just on the, like, the great place to work, right? That, that one they, we had to send an anonymous link from them to every one of our team members who sent it straight back to them. So, like, you can't hide from that, obviously. And it's like, yeah, all our clients think are great. Well, maybe, you know, a survey to your clients, or something like that. Yeah, look, it's not, it's not perfect. It's never going to be perfect. But, you know, it is interesting, Alan, to say that, you know, at the outset, you guys went after all the awards, I think that was a really good strategy, so I wouldn't be telling somebody it's a bad strategy. Yeah, way less of them. I think it'll be good because it'll make them more prestigious. And point,
Nick Lincoln:though, is that the awards thing has just mushroomed from when he was doing it. It's become an industry. I
Alan Smith:mean, the real winners of
Andy Hart:the event organizers and the five star hotels in London, that's pretty much where most of the awards are.
Alan Smith:I think it's the same for every sector as well. But I said, Oh, every sector. I said, This drove
Andy Hart:the house every single day, yeah, Monday to Thursday. Penguin suits walking around an awards factory. It's an event awards factory, and all the hotels do it. So yeah, I
Alan Smith:said someone recently that I would rather enter that Small Business of the Year, not financial services, yeah, and, you know, come eighth in that versus some beautiful boutique hotel and some other and then be told why we didn't get through the semi final, why we didn't win it, and just and learn from that. Because I now want to be compared with the best small businesses, as opposed to be the best IFA firm, for example, because it is all about progress and learning. And, yeah, I think if you, if you started in just, you know, you could just accumulate a lot of awards, is the thing, and keep accumulating them and showing up. Because I think there's a bit of award fatigue, and there's less people into them now, I think overall. But I know Nick's has a comment on this thorny subject. Yeah, a couple of things. I think you many.
Carl Widger:Have you many awards? Nick,
Nick Lincoln:I just don't count them anymore, because I'm just not that kind of I'm not wired that way. No, I don't know. I put it this way, I'm not in every competition I've entered for I've won, if I ever entered them, which I haven't done. No, I, I mean this, this, this CIS i and the PFS. I'm treading carefully here. I'm sure they're not pay for play, okay, but any ones that are pay for play sound like fraud. I don't give a damn. That's just you buying an award, and it's wrong. And if they're a Trappist suit on here, listen to this. And have done that. I'm happy to have a dialog. Well, to me that is, that is just rank that is rank behavior. And we all know firms that have got these, some of these awards, and who we wouldn't refer our family members to. And I think it's, it's a it's the cognitive dissonance of saying you're a financial plan and then doing the pain to get the water, paying to get a table, doesn't sit well with me at all. And I think, you know, we, I'm going to bring out some horror stories here from the past, and this is the past, and this is all in the public domain. Alok Danda, the who was the new modern advisor firm of the year for the North in 2006 was jailed for five years in 2014 for defrauding his close so he's out now. Alok dander, hope, hope. Life's streaking you Well, I look now you're out back on the streets. Award winner, big fraud. And the second one, this is, this is, this is more recent, and this is, this is a tragedy of rare levels. And again, this is in the public domain. And I'm not saying this lady's name to knock her. This is just simply a record of fact, of what happened. Kerry Nelson, Portsmouth based IFA very prominent loads of awards news of her doing financially nebulous things in in March 2023 it broke. She was declared bankrupt in February, 24 February this year. But as recently as july 2022, she was winning the professional advisor women in finance awards. And then, on the Portsmouth news of the 11th of November, 2022 she Nexus, her firm was sponsoring the large Business of the Year category in the new business, excellent awards. 2023 while she was doing what she was doing, she was entering these awards. And it's just like, I don't know the dissonance, and I for me, I thought I have no, no appeal, no, absolutely zero appeal. And I think the paper play thing is, is really, really poor behavior. Just just, it's just, it's just outright skanky behavior, and I wouldn't want to be involved with it. Yeah, that's my
Alan Smith:thoughts. Off the fence sometime, Nick, and just say what you really think. Come on, I
Nick Lincoln:think the IFP one, CIS, i One is, I know it's, you know, we know, quality advice, yeah, haven't won it. And David Hearn won it. I think last was the might be the current holder of the and he's a proper, you know, he's, he's, you
Alan Smith:can't just get that by writing a check or getting a buy. A table, you can't either. Neither. The charter planner,
Andy Hart:a client who's not an insider wouldn't know the difference between any Exactly. That's the trouble a lot of us are saying, which a lot of us we
Nick Lincoln:know. We know that you get the sissy award, the CISA or the PFS one probably you've done a lot of work and you're bona fide and you're good, but you're right. Joe Public wouldn't know that those brands from Auto Glass to go emerging market, small cap value fund of the year, exactly. Yeah,
Alan Smith:we should have our trap awards, shouldn't we? We should just have a trap. 1000 pounds a seat. Come on Yeah, come on down and then go get everything we say review of the year, just so they send you reviews in six star reviews of the year. Yeah, so maybe not to
Andy Hart:finalize, are you pro awards? Con awards? So yes, no, or on the fence. Carl,
Carl Widger:pro, generally speaking. Alan,
Alan Smith:it's hard because it's not, it's pro good awards. I am proud Pro, I think two con or maybe, right, and that because it's because it's over where I Oh, pro corner, maybe I'll take a maybe, then
Nick Lincoln:I'm a maybe Nick con, given, given what it's morphed into now, I think it's a con. I think it's a con, not withstanding the good work done by the entrance for the the CIS eye in the in the PSS, great. Round a con. Okay, we are at 66 minutes in, and I can see walking the way up my enormous drive is Posty. She's hauling the bulging sack of TRAPPIST questions. There goes my front doorbell, and it's time to pull out a question from our beloved Trappist. If you want to submit a question, it's in the it's in the pinned tweet on X, whether you want to call it the top of our timelines, also in the so called show notes, we will get round to them. This question today is from Christmas, 2023 so you can see we've still got some to get through. I need to open it up, actually, before I tell you who it is, don't I? So I need to find the letter envelope sound which is there. So this is from Tom Tom n, so Tom, you wanted to be anonymous, but then you put your LinkedIn profile in there as well, which gives your full name, but I'll leave it as Tom Tom n, but your LinkedIn profile will be going out and so called show notes. Tom N, who's um, currently a teacher and digital marketeer, said this, I recently don't
Andy Hart:ruin his career. Oh, I
Nick Lincoln:still okay, maybe, maybe I won't post a link, but he put it in there. I recently found the pod, and absolutely love it. My question, I'm looking at both the SJP Academy and the quilter Academy. I know SJP is the more established Academy, but keen to get your thoughts. Thanks and Merry Christmas. That's from Tom n with the LinkedIn profile that gives away surname. So what do we think about that? I would, I would have said probably, you know, go back two years, I probably would have leaned towards the SJP one. But there's been, I don't know it's they're definitely not the flavor of the month. Are they? I haven't got any gone. Who wants to lead off on
Andy Hart:this? I know the SJP Academy quite well. I sort of do some training with them. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I'm very pro the SJP Academy is very well organized, well run. And a lot of people go through it, and they very pro it. I believe they're a little bit it used to be originally all face to face. Now a lot of it is online, and the people that went through the face to face say it's a bit of a shame that a lot of it's now online. Quilter I don't know anything about the quilter Academy, but I generally come across quilter and quilter firms, yeah, so I'll not say too much about that. So I would, I would favor the SJP Academy, Alan
Alan Smith:to my understanding, there are three main academies, SJP, quilter and M and G, mg, aka as well credential. I mean, talking about the scaled industrial kind of, yeah, that's right,
Andy Hart:I joined Newmont, sorry, next gen planners. P Tom, N, yeah, next gen, for sure. That's like a community, 12 pounds a month. You meet other people, read stuff online that will connect everything. That's the the center, the
Alan Smith:challenge here is all these things are leading to a job, right? That's, that's one thing you're not just doing the academy. There's, there's a quid pro quo you do the academy, you expect it to work for that organization, or one of their branches, or, you know, franchises or models. But I think, if I think for any of them, because you you're effectively getting significantly discounted training. So I don't think any of us know whether one is bet one training is better than the other. I'm going to say it's probably all roughly the same, one way or another. I'll just give you, and I've got to be a little bit careful what I say, but just some real life is kind of anecdotal, but it's really some conversations I've been having recently, because as we all know this, we do get a few calls and direct messages and things from advisors going in particular journeys and and two, two conversations I've had recently. One was going to SJP Academy, one was going to mg Academy, and both of them, last minute, decided not to, not to pursue E. There, but to seek out a more, to find an independent firm, knowing and I said to them, I suspect that the training that the smaller, boutique type of an IFA type firm would provide you won't be as rigorous, won't be as good, but they just felt they'd rather do that, because we've had we're not going to go do this again. We've had our SJP conversations in the past. A lot of them do really good work, but some people are saying, I'd rather just, if I have to recommend products and services, I'd rather stick to more an independent option, knowing that I'm maybe going to compromise on the quality of the training. But if I sign up for next gen, if I sign up, I think is it verve, the cold. We mentioned that before, a lot of resource, right? There's quite a few bits and pieces, if you can patch it together, won't be as sort of comprehensive as these other training academies. But I think there's an increasing number of people who are just preferring to retain the independence route. They'd like the knowing that it might cost them in terms of quality of trading long term, that's just, that's just real life feedback I've had in the last I
Andy Hart:think we may interest on that point. I think may maybe the destination could be argued better, but the journey is going to be a lot tougher, a lot more windy, a lot more lonely. But yeah, each of their own cool I would
Carl Widger:say asking us is pretty pointless. I'd go and ask somebody who's been through both Yeah, and see what they say. But I'd also give them at the end in mind. So where do you want to get to at the end? And then to Alan's point about, you know, there is an expectation that you join the firms or whatever. So what kind of lock in periods? And if you're going to work for them, what kind of client banks, what kind of you know? So I'd say begin with the end of mind and find at least one, if not two or three people who've been through both systems. And then make your own judgment. And
Andy Hart:to find those people, I'm pretty sure you can join nextgen and then ask in their forum. I'm pretty sure there'll be loads of resources for that. So there you go. The big Domino is join next gen planners ASAP. Anyone listening to this is thinking about getting this into this business, you know, loosely or seriously, that is your number one stop. Then everything else falls into place.
Alan Smith:And also shouting, if you are in financial services, shut up for Nick's at your IFA, IFA
Andy Hart:email form, if your couple of years in the business, yeah, yeah,
Alan Smith:but that's Yes, very good.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, thank you. Have I mentioned it before? We're at 540 members
Andy Hart:now, soon to be renamed the trap forum.
Nick Lincoln:No. Andy, that's just something you say, and I just discount immediately, right? I think you've given question. Tom N, anonymous with a LinkedIn profile that gives away
Carl Widger:your full name and address full name. Don't put in
Nick Lincoln:his full name. No, before I forget. I mean, I'm going to circle show notes now, so I'm deleting your LinkedIn address. There you go. Tom Nesbitt, you'll never it wasn't Nesbitt, okay, right? Let's go on to the next part of the show, because we're like 73 minutes. What the hell are we doing? Ask jabronis You. Beautiful sunshine outside Cole your podcast.
Carl Widger:Excellent, Rich Roll. Alan Smith introduced me to was it Tim Ferriss and Rich Roll. Brilliant, brilliant. Yeah, that was so if you're only gonna listen to one podcast, get the Tim Ferriss interview with Rich Roll. But as a result, it kind of followed on and off, dipped in and out of rich rolls own podcast, and the one he did recently with Cal Newport resonated with me. Cal Newport is the kind of guy. He's like, he's no social media presence at all. He's he's got some great ideas about kind of slowing down in order to get to where you want to go, actually, more quickly. Stuff like doesn't respond to every email. In fact, doesn't respond to most emails. It seems you'll all love this one, guys. So we've got, we get a lot of requests via this podcast about picking our brains, and I'd like to apologize to everyone who sent me to pick your brains, one because I've ignored them all. But I haven't ignored them all because I'm rude. I've ignored them all because I'm really, really busy, and I need to prioritize and focus on my own business, basically. So he never, ever replies to pick your brains. I thought that was interesting. Never, ever has a full diary. Do. But that was also interesting. And back to, Didn't I mention Andy Farrell's thing was, the main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing, right? Yeah, focus on one thing you know, and that, you know, the universe has a habit of reconfirming messages you need to hear. And I've heard that, I don't know how many times over the last while I mentioned it. I mentioned it to my own team. Last week we had an away day, and it's very, very relevant to me and to met us Ireland at the moment. So yeah, it's a brilliant podcast. And Cal Newport, I never heard of him before, really, really good guy who's got his shit together and knows what he's about.
Andy Hart:His famous books called deep work. Yeah, years ago, he's
Alan Smith:got another couple since then,
Andy Hart:there was, there was a sort of theme around that time. Wasn't there? There was essentialism deep Yeah. And I think it was called The One Thing as well. Yeah, all three decent books.
Carl Widger:He's actually written a new book, Andy that I can't remember the name of, but that's why he's doing these podcasts.
Alan Smith:Both of those guys are great, Rich Roll and, yeah, Carl Newport and,
Carl Widger:yeah, really good. Highly, highly recommend. Great,
Nick Lincoln:great stuff. Thanks. Watch so mine next, and mine is from the billions podcast, which is a series that sort of tracks the ETF market around the world. And the last episode is entitled, can an outsider fix the house that Bogle built? Because for the first time in its history, Vanguard is bringing in an outsider to run the firm. They've always they've always brought people in from in. They've just trained their executive team from within and promoting from within. But there's a sense that van got, okay, it's the second largest asset manager in the world, so it's not struggling, but it's a kind of a sense it's treading water a little bit in the US the UK platform seems to work very well, because I've got a tiny bit of money on the UK platform just to see how it works. And it's apparently the US platform is just a nightmare, and they've got a lot of disgruntled people in the fire movement who are quite, you know, want to use Vanguard, but go do it through fidelity or some other platform, because they're just the tech is outdated. There's a perception that Vanguard, the branding, hasn't been changed for ages. It's not resonating with with younger people. So they're they're bringing in outside of someone, a guy called Saleem Ramji, who was head of blackrock's ETF business. And obviously BlackRock and Vanguard, they are the two biggies. And here you are taking someone from your arch competitor and bring them in. So let's see how that sits. It's been interesting. It's shortlisting, I think if you're in thing of ours, it's worth listening to
Alan Smith:guys. Who is head of blackrocks, yeah? Business. What did you say? Head of the ETF business, head
Nick Lincoln:of the ESG, head of Blackrock ETF business, yeah. ETF business, okay.
Andy Hart:He's not actually on the podcast. Is he Nick? Are they just talking about it? They're
Nick Lincoln:talking about him. So it's two. It's two. Two. American Finance
Alan Smith:journalists. Okay, interesting, okay,
Nick Lincoln:yeah. I mean, they're just such massive brands on it. Okay, next culture
Alan Smith:corner, talking of massive brands, we're all in the kind of podcast zone this week. I listened the other day to and I get another one. I dip in and out of, Barry Rick Holtz, founder of Rick Holtz wealth management. And he's, he's got, he's got my three podcasts himself alone, but he's got his one that he does through Bloomberg, Masters in Business, Masters in Business. And he interviews all sorts. I mean, half people you haven't heard of. Some you know us, fund managers and things, but any he interviewed Peter maluk, who we all have heard of, Peter maluk being the founder creative, creative planning. And it's a brilliant for anyone who's in our game, and they're aspirational, and they want to learn from someone who's achieved what he's achieved. I mean, it's Wow. So his firm, which is an RIA, which is the, you know, American version of an IFA. They are over $300 billion assets under management. So they're getting on for twice the size of St James's place, for example, by far the biggest in the UK. And they are Wow. And they remain an independent they use low cost index funds. They're one of dimensionals, biggest advisory firms. They use proper planning every time, every client, cash flow, the whole thing. They are just doing what we do, but at ridiculous scale. I mean, ridiculous 300 billion fastest growing our RIA in the US, and it just goes through how he did it. I mean, they've bought a lot of firms in the last few years, but they got to, I think, 150 100 and 80 billion organically. And guess, you know, and where are they based? They're not in San Francisco and New York. They're in Kansas, right? Exactly, not exactly, Dorothy, yeah, but it's just, it's a, it's a really good interview. And he they talk, and for those of us. Who are a bit older into their music them in the last 10 minutes, they're just sort of swapping about bands they've seen and then under favorite music. So as you see, a bit of the personality behind both BARRY RITHOLTZ and Peter maluk. But you know, take my hat off to what maluca has achieved. Obviously, obviously us is just a different market altogether from Europe or the UK. But oh my god. And he's saying the final thing I'll say at 300 billion. Now, when? When are you when you going to hang your hat up or just chill out a bit? He goes, No, compared to what they call over there, the wire houses, you know, the big, the more the Morgan Stanley's and all these other firms. He said, they're in the trillions. We're going after that. We want to be a trillion, trillion dollar RIA firm, because they are making a big impact. They're, you know, he is driven by high quality, independent financial planning, fueled by low cost, sensible investment propositions. Sounds great. I was very inspired by worth checking out that
Nick Lincoln:yeah, in the last episode, Episode 46 I referenced a Peter Malik interview on a different show. And he's very, he's a very engaging he's very, yeah, there's something about him, obviously, but he's saying about
Andy Hart:the way he talks as well. He's on Twitter. He's on Twitter. He posts quite a lot. He's got, like, very low, low, low followers, so you get a really good insight into it. Yeah, check him out on Twitter. Okay,
Nick Lincoln:next point, I've
Andy Hart:got two points. I'm breaking the rules, so I'll go for my first one very quickly, not for the first Morgan hat, Morgan Housel knowledge project. Again, it's another Shane Paris, something he's called on the knowledge project. I've done the YouTube link in parish, parish, Shane, parish on the knowledge project. Yeah. And my final one is business related. Rory Sutherland, his podcast called on brand. He's He's pivoted the podcast. He's basically just interviews business people. It's freaking brilliant. Not rory's knowledge of wide knowledge of various different businesses and industries is insane. But he interviews the founder of ao, which is appliances online, a guy called John Roberts. It's one of the best business interviews I've heard in a long time. He set up io.com online because he had a bet with a mate in a pub a pound the bet that said he wouldn't be able to set up an internet business anyway. It's a great story. He talks about lots of other stuff. He's doing lots of stuff with other privileged kids, and he talks about Council finance goes off on a tangent. It's an amazing podcast. I can't recommend it enough, and I listen to as many Rory southern podcasters at podcasts as I can find. But if you're, if you're into Rory Sutherland, and you just want to get an insight into his brain on various different topics, he interviews a lot of good people. It's called on brand. So that's my final
Alan Smith:I tell you that his, his boss, is my neighbor. I've ever told you that? Yes, she
Andy Hart:is, yeah, yeah. We bumped into a few times in the hallway. Oh, god,
Alan Smith:get on with it. Well, you're the
Nick Lincoln:one bringing your bloody neighbors into the conversation. Okay, we're 182 minutes in, let's, let's draw an under that is a wrap for episode 47 dear TRAPPIST, thank you for your time. Please, please, please, do leave a six out of five star review on iTunes. Make sure you subscribe as well. That way, every other Thursday morning, you get a fresh load of traps sliding into your phone. You don't need to do anything at all. And also check out our YouTube channel. Like and Subscribe to there. Click the bell thing, and then you'll be notified when we put another pile of this out. But until, the meantime, it's adios from the Track Pack. Take care out there, folks, and until the next time. Goodbye.
Carl Widger:See you later. Goodbye, bye.
Nick Lincoln:All right. Yeah. I.