Crafting a Legacy Beyond Profit: The Ethical and Community-Centric Approach of Altor Wealth Management

Discover the blueprint for a financial firm rooted in ethical values and community impact as I chat with Matt Pitcher from Altor Wealth Management. Matt takes us on his odyssey from a corporate cog to the architect of a B-Corp-certified haven for equitable financial planning. We delve into the fresh terrain of flat fee subscriptions, the gravity of true independence in advising, and how embedding core values into a company's framework resonates deeply with clients and employees alike.

Imagine a financial planning industry that thrives on mentorship, knowledge-sharing, and a philanthropic heartbeat. That's the vibrant tapestry we explore in this episode, highlighting the mentorship of industry mavens like Alan Smith, the camaraderie within Next Gen communities, and the altruistic pulse of the Outlaw Foundation. Our conversation traverses the landscape of how these rich interactions and our B Corp journey attract kindred spirits looking to use their financial acumen for the greater good.

In a world where technology's tide is relentless, we confront the challenges and the imperatives of digital integration within financial services. Listen as we discuss bridging the technological rift to enhance client relationships, creating bespoke digital portals, and selecting growth strategies that elevate service quality. We're also sharing a glimpse into our own aspirations and the collective mission to steer financial planning into a force for good, because, at the end of the day, it's all about crafting a legacy that outshines the bottom line.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello everyone. It's Alayna back for this week's episode of the Financial Planner Life podcast, and this week I'm joined by Matt Hitcher, managing partner out-all wealth management. I'm really excited to be sat with a B-Court financial planning firm as part of B-Court Month. We talk all about the process, why he decided to become a B-Court firm and what it's like going through that recertification process three years later. But this episode isn't solely about B-Court. We talk about how Matt created three really strong pillars when he founded Out-All Wealth Management and we discuss how he's carried these pillars with him moving forward. We also discussed how Matt's relationship with technology within the financial planning profession and listen to this episode if you want to hear what Matt did to make his relationship better. So it's the first question that I like to ask everyone, Matt, when they come on the Financial Planner Life podcast Can you tell me a little bit about your career journey to date and how you've got at the point that you're at now?

Speaker 2: 1:09

Yeah, of course. Yeah, so I joined a one. Actually, initially I joined a bank, of all things, back in 2000, but very quickly after that progressed to a firm called Terry Law, which doesn't exist actually anymore, but was a national IFA back then Started off as a telephone based advisor and then went out seeing quite space to face and actually stayed there for 15 years. Wasn't necessarily the intention that I joined them and have a career quite that long, but it's one of those things you get stuck in with a firm and 15 years later you find you've had a long, long, long period of time with them. So, yeah, worked all the way up to Executive Partner, so we had about 200 advisors. There were four Executive Partners nationally, so I was one in the South and we ultimately got bought out in 2016 by a very big private equity firm and that was the nudge to leave and set up my own thing.

Speaker 1: 2:16

Yeah, and obviously going from having a really long career, very corporate career, into doing something yourself. You said that you very much had a clean sheet, so I guess what were the foundations then of the business that you decided to build?

Speaker 2: 2:32

Yeah. So the nice thing? I mean the Terry Law was a great firm to work for and it was a huge learning experience for 15 years, so it picked up an enormous amount of knowledge about the clients, about how to deliver financial planning. But, starting afresh, you get the opportunity to either go and join another corporate and do the same thing again, or to start your own thing. And I decided, along with my wife, that we were set up a new firm which is out all the way we're running at the moment. And so the nice thing about starting out is you have there's nothing that you have to do outside of regulation. Obviously, you've got to stay within the boundaries that the FCA expects, but actually, beyond that, you can start with a completely clean sheet paper. We did exactly that. We sat down and said, okay, how do we think we would want to be advised and charged and dealt with as clients? So, from a client perspective, what do we think is the right way of running the business? And then also, how would we ideally like to run the business from the business perspective as well as the clients? And so that's great as an academic exercise to do your crayons and your pad of blank paper and obviously implementing that is harder.

Speaker 2: 3:54

But we decided from the outset that we wouldn't take any percentage charging at all. So we've done the operator on a flat V basis. So we have a monthly subscription. That's the same monthly subscription for everyone essentially and we make that very clear on our website. So we're like a Netflix subscription and all the other subscriptions we're all paying for. Now Everyone's paying monthly for everything. You can get your raises delivered for a monthly subscription now.

Speaker 2: 4:26

So we decided that was important from a client point of view. So we just felt that was fairer, that everyone paid the same amount and got the same service, rather than any cross subsidies. So that was an important thing for us. We also decided which was very easy to do when we didn't have any income coming into the firm. We decided that we'd give away 10% about gross income. So before any tax or deductions to charity and to facilitate that, we set up the Outlaw Foundation. So it's our age Charitable Foundation that runs alongside the business and, as I say, giving away 10% of income. We even got any incomes easy and we knew psychologically, if we set it up from day one, then it was. It's a little bit like boiling the frog we're boiling ourselves. Essentially, we knew that and we'd be able to carry on doing that If that was what we were doing from the get go, whereas obviously much more difficult to introduce that to the later stage. So that was very important From our perspective. We set up as a partnership as well, so we were flexible and we made sure that we were completely independent.

Speaker 2: 5:34

So the evolution of Terry Law it started out as an independent financial advisor when I first joined, and then it had brought a lot of what it did in-house, so ultimately, it was running investments itself in-house. We felt, starting again, that we didn't want to do that. We wanted to be able to have clients purchase and have a range of of solutions that we could offer them, rather than just saying, well, this is, you know. Whatever your question is, the answer is one of our five in-house models, which is unfortunately the common it's the most common way of doing things in our industry now. So, yeah, some quite big decisions on day one which we've stuck with all of, and the nice thing about that is that, tying all of that together. Then, in 2020, so about three years into the firm we went for our B Corp status Because we thought actually that's a really good way of tying all of those aspects together and just really testing whether we were doing as well as we could be.

Speaker 1: 6:42

I guess Three really cool pillars, then. Really that have you know, carried your business moving forward. I think there'll be lots of individuals out there that have had really long successful careers, you know, in established businesses and they'll be. I'm sure there are lots of our audience that themselves would like to create their own thing. At one moment in time, when you sat down with your wife and you go out that pen and paper and you thought, okay, what are the key points for out-of-wealth moving forward? Was it like a collaboration of your personal ethos and your professional ethos? How did you come down to those three? Were there other things that you were potentially thinking about pushing at that moment in time as well?

Speaker 2: 7:23

Yeah, that's a really good question. So it is definitely a combination of personal ethos and what we felt clients would want. So the idea of FlatBees came from clients. Clients were starting to push back a bit against percentage charging. So they were saying, why am I paying a percentage and trying to get particularly the bigger clients, trying to get you to discount the percentages? So it was actually.

Speaker 2: 7:52

It was a couple of our clients who had given us the idea when I was working in Terry Law not too many years. It was towards the end and so that was definitely client-driven. So the independence was client-driven, the fee charging was client-driven and then the foundation was very much us. That was very much our take. There wasn't a client that was suggesting we give away that amount of our revenue and we just thought tying those three together is important. When you're setting up your own business, it's important that you've got a reason for getting up and going to work in the morning, so you've got to believe in what you're delivering to clients. That's super important. You've also got to have something else, I think, anyway another reason for doing what we're doing, and so that very nicely gave us both of those. It felt like a good balance when we first set up.

Speaker 1: 8:48

Yeah, fab and also the subscription model is more common nowadays we do see it more, but still it's very much at its rarity. I know we've had further conversations in the past where there's sort of you can connect with other businesses that set up in the industry and they are still for more, fewer and far between and especially, giving 10% of your gross income to charity is a massive thing and I don't know any other business within the profession that does that that I've sort of had communication with. How did it feel like when you were starting your own business going again to the grain a little bit, because I think it's easy when you're starting something out and starting something yourself, which is a big challenge to sort of, I guess, play a little bit safe. So how did it feel to take your ethos but go against what the general patterns within the financial planning profession?

Speaker 2: 9:40

Yeah. So it wasn't straightforward Because initially when we made those decisions we thought, well, actually that probably are others that are doing this. I mean, we quickly realized actually there weren't very many, I have to say. You know, our profession is great for people volunteering and giving up their time to speak to new beats who are trying to build something new.

Speaker 2: 10:04

I was particularly fortunate to be given some time by Alan Smith, the Capital Asset Management in London. He is sort of the Godfather of flat fees. He's been doing it for a lot longer than we have and he was very generous with his time, still is very generous with his time in, and I guess it's that validation, isn't it? It's that reassurance. I wouldn't have minded if we were absolutely the first firm to have done it, but I would have been much more nervous if there was only ourselves, and so that was incredibly generous of him and hugely supportive and we've tried to do that.

Speaker 2: 10:42

Now. We've been running up and running for sort of six, seven years now. We've tried to pay that forward and be available to other advisors who are setting up from scratch if they want to ask us about the proposition, how it works and just the practicalities of how you go about charging. We're very happy to share that now because we have the benefit of Alan's wisdom in the day. So the nice thing is, you don't I mean, okay, maybe we're unique because of the combination of all of those three, so that's probably true, but you still find a firm generally that is doing at least At least they're doing one of those and you can go talk to them about their experience. So that was huge for us.

Speaker 1: 11:29

Yeah, and I think if there's people in the audience that are listening to this and have got their own ideas I think you obviously alluded to that talking about Alan but generally, from your experience, have you found that other people within the profession are very happy to help and give advice where they can? If there's someone that's listening to this and thinks I've got this idea that I really want to push forward, but they don't know how to implement that or how to bring that into fruition, do you find that there is often people within the industry that are doing something similar that are very often happy to help?

Speaker 2: 11:58

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the best way to find those people is to and please don't know Ron, but I'm going to go with Ron because he'll come over again but the best way probably is just to get those obvious networks and they're out there. If it's Next Gen, there's OptoMembers, there's lots of study groups, network groups. I'd like to think it's a profession where one of the better ones at just being supportive of the wider community and so there are some excellent places to go and, generally speaking, in one of those communities, Next Gen is a very good example. If you're a member of the Next Gen community, you can ask a question. Someone will come back. Typically two or three people will come back and say, yeah, I've done that.

Speaker 2: 12:44

Drop me a message, I'll talk you through it. It's just about making those connections and finding your tribe. I guess, with planning profession and that will be different for different people There'll be some people who want to set up firms, very different to ours, but they will be able to find their tribe just by asking.

Speaker 1: 13:48

Yeah, I think we're big fans of the Next Gen community here, so it's always nice for them to get a little bit of a shout out. But I think obviously we got in contact by me posting on LinkedIn, wanting to reach out and speak to other B-Court financial planning firms. So I think that in its essence, just shows that there's always people within the community and within the profession that are happy to point you in the direction of other people that they think will be able to support you. But I think that's just a really nice golden nugget to shine a light on, because I think this industry is full of people that are very ambitious and very motivated and want to do something for themselves, but very often that element of fear of failure or not knowing where to start can hold people back.

Speaker 1: 14:26

So I think, from someone that has set up their own business and done it themselves, I think it's really good to point people in the direction of like well, if you need a little bit of support, speak to others, because we are a very welcoming profession, which I think is one of the best things about it. We're naturally sort of in competition with each other, but also always happy to put an arm around each other and help where we can. I think, going back to one of those pillars, the Foundation, I think our audience will be really intrigued to know more about that and how it looks, how it looks all the wealth and sort of what that involves. So can you talk about that in a bit more detail for us? Yeah, sure.

Speaker 2: 15:02

So we set the Foundation up entirely separately from the business. We have one external trustee just to keep us on straight and narrow with it. The Foundation essentially is there to receive the first share of the income of the partnership and it does essentially it operates. It does two things it's building up half of the income it receives. It's building up a longer term endowment. So once the main business has broken away at some point in the future or if someone else takes over, it doesn't want to carry that on.

Speaker 2: 15:38

I can't advise for everyone. Someone can't be running the business forever, so the idea is that it will have sufficient capital to sustain itself, and in perpetuity really. So that's the idea of that half. And then the other half of the revenue comes in, goes straight out to grants given to UK registered charities to support various projects. So we support poverty alleviation globally, do a lot of environmental work as well and some work supporting mental health locally.

Speaker 2: 16:10

So we have a range of local, global and thematic things that we support. We tend to commit to supporting set charities, sort of the same amount, regularly, and then we'll make a commitment for a set amount of time, just so that they know they've got the stability of the income, that they know what to expect, and that's been fantastic and, to be perfectly honest, that's become a big driver of the way we run the business, the reason for running the business, and gives us the energy, hopefully, to carry on running it, because it's a big motivator for us. We also do match if our staff are raising for their own charities. You know, as long as it's a cause that's within the boundaries of what we will look at foundation, then we'll match one for one if they're doing their own fundraising. So that's led to some really, really nice initiatives as well.

Speaker 1: 17:12

Yeah. So I was going to say, obviously you at like founder level, it's obviously something that you've been really passionate about and your perspective on ethos has made that you can incorporate that within the business. But is it something that the wider staff, what wider employee body is really brought into as well?

Speaker 2: 17:31

Yeah, I hope so. I hate to talk for them, but yeah, I like things. I think it does flow through what we do as a business. We're not perfect as a business. We've got things wrong. We're founders and we're first time founders. Sometimes people In the past within the business forget that, that we are to a degree to get doing this by trial and error and hopefully there's been less error on the client side. But internally we haven't always made the right decisions. But I like to think that it does underpin that ethos of the firm, not only the B Corp status, but also the fact that there is that focus, there's that charitable focus, the fact that we will support staff to fundraise themselves and support the causes that they care about as well. Hopefully it's something that they find meaningful?

Speaker 1: 18:28

Yeah, because I was going to say for me personally, I think everyone has their own individual stories, their own causes that they are passionate about for different reasons, and if I was part of a business that I knew would match my charitable contributions if I wanted to do something, that would really encourage me to run that marathon or I can't imagine myself ever running a marathon but run that marathon or climb that mountain or do whatever it was and push to raise more money, knowing that my organisation would be able to match that. And I think it works really nicely. And if you're passionate about supporting these causes, it gives the opportunity for other individuals in the business to support the causes that they're passionate about, also backed by the business. So I think it's a lovely story In terms of our tool wealth. I know you do have the statistics on how much money has been donated to the foundation today.

Speaker 2: 19:24

I think if you don't, make a fairer than that would be great. Yeah, no, no, no, no. Of course I mean anyone who's listening to the podcast will be able to do the rough mental maths and calculation. So we're up to we've gone past half a million in donations to the foundation since we started, which was 2017. So sort of six, seven years ago. So, yeah, it's about half a million, obviously because the business has been on an income growth rate. You know it was much lower in the early years, whereas now it's reached a level where it's pretty stable and coming through at a good level. So things are certainly accelerated in terms of donations. But yeah, that's that's the sort of total so far and I would hope over the life of the business and we can go on and donate, you know, many multiples of that more and the foundation to give the foundation really solid basis to grow from half a million is a lot of money.

Speaker 1: 20:25

So I think that's you know that and that money can make a massive impact. I think it can very be difficult with these charitable projects to know exactly how your money has impacted certain causes, but do you have any stories from like the charities that you run really close with in terms of what this, what your donations have funded?

Speaker 2: 20:45

Yeah, absolutely so. There's various things we've done over time. So we've planted seagrass off the Welsh coast and so a lot of people don't know but seagrass actually sequesters carbon and much faster rate than trees do on land, and we've lost a lot of our seagrass globally just through dredging, fishing industry and also climate change and change in water temperature. So we've been supporting a project that is reseeding seagrass in a little place called Dale in Wales to try and just capture that carbon again, and that's something that once planted, obviously, you know, as long as it doesn't get destroyed again, will you know, is a sort of an evergreen, I guess, in terms of carbon.

Speaker 2: 21:35

We've supported a charity locally to here that provides mental health support to people who can't afford private and counselling sessions and can't realistically wait for the NHS waiting lists. Currently they do require a small donation because they want their clients to value the sessions, the mental health sessions, the counselling that they have. So they ask them to pay £5 for a counselling session and so our funding has essentially allowed them to pay for their rental costs because, of course, although they've got people who volunteer, who are trained psychotherapists and counsellors, they still got the premises costs and if people come to them for sessions, say we've been able to support there and then to be able to afford to rent the and the offices that they've got or the treatment ribs they've got. So I was just a couple of examples and we'll respond to crises when they break out, and, you know, globally as well. So it depends a little bit what happens in a year, but they those are probably two of the ones that are getting more practical and closer to home.

Speaker 1: 22:46

There's some great examples and some really nice stories in terms of how your donations have made a real impact in today's world, and I think it definitely goes to show that financial planning firms can be a force for good and generally, in the wider picture, you know, companies can be a force for good, which I think ties us really nicely to sort of the the beacorp element of this. So you mentioned that. You know that sort of was something that came naturally and sort of underpinned things. So was there ever a moment when you really decided to go be called? Tell me a little bit about that initial journey for you.

Speaker 2: 23:18

Yeah so. So when we first approached be called not know very much about it we thought, well, look we're. You know we're donating to charity. We're doing what we can in terms of our common footprint. You know we we feel we're running the business in an ethical way, so it felt like a sort of an obvious next step. What we haven't fully appreciated with be called is quite how rigorous the certification process is. So we started in 20 late 2019, I think on certification. Any company can go onto the be called website and plug their, their numbers or answer the questions to get an indicative score. We did that for well, that's a pretty good score. It's above sort of the minimum for be called qualification, and so so that's progressed this. What was fantastic about that process is it isn't just a tick box exercise and then you pay your fee and you get the badge and what it does. It highlights where you could be doing better, and so we were quite surprised. We found that because we don't control our premises, for instance, because we're in service offices we found that actually our environmental footprint was higher than we expected, and so we've been through the process. So that's led to engagement with the landlords.

Speaker 2: 24:39

Try and get a few things improved with the building. We don't have full control over that, so that's still one of our lowest. They put five pillars is one of the lowest scores we've got and what we're doing what we can to to improve that. And actually I guess that has a multiplier effect because we're one of many businesses in the building. So actually we've improved things for all of the businesses in the building just by being those advocates. And it also highlighted that there were a couple of gaps in terms of our staff proposition, because people is a big, big part of the big core scoring. And it was really helpful actually to be asked the question you know, do you watch your policy on this? Do you offer this? And you know, for a couple of those questions we have to say, well, no, actually we haven't got a policy on that, no, we don't offer that. So let's go and discuss it, decide, we're going to do it, implement it, ready for our first three year review, which is what we're going through at the moment.

Speaker 2: 25:41

So it started out as a that's going to get the badge because we think we're brilliant, turned into slightly humbling and more humbling process where actually we were showing all the ways in which we weren't doing as much as we could and we were able to improve. We got a good score first time around. We've managed to improve the score through the three years first three years. But again, I'm with mid-recertification at the moment and it's making it easy, which is great.

Speaker 2: 26:09

You know, in a way you don't want it to be easy because you know then it's it's value less really, and we're we're still doing a frame with our assessor at the moment over a couple of last items. But we've had to prove everything again, which is great actually. And there are some firms that have been kicked out of being B Corpse because of takeovers or bad behaviour. So you know it's a genuine, it's not just a free badge. There's plenty of those. You can get financial services to be honest and we can sponsor a table and win an award, but this feels like something that's genuine and hard to obtain.

Speaker 1: 26:47

Yeah, I can fully say how rigorous and in depth that process is. It's one of those things where no stone is left unturned. You know every little bit of area of your business is sort of nitpicked and, you know, looked at under a microscope, which I think does, as you said, then make the B Corpse certification, when you do have it, Something really to be proud of, because you know that you've gone through that really thorough, in depth process and I think now that we're B Corpse certified you pick up on all the other companies that are B Corpse. You know, I now buy B Corpse Cronola, little things like that and I'll pay them 50p, to know that the company that I'm funding is a force for good.

Speaker 1: 27:30

But I think obviously you said that you found it sort of surprising in the initial how vigorous the process was and how it really did go into exploring all those avenues that maybe you hadn't thought about, like, as you said, you know, being in a serviced office and the impact that that has on the environment. But were there any other parts of the initial process or going through that journey that sort of you did surprise you or you didn't expect.

Speaker 2: 27:55

Yeah. So I guess the other one which we just hadn't thought about at all was the pillar of community. So it's your local community and what you're doing in the local community. I mean, for us we're all sort of coming into a central office from a range of places and a range of so one person walks to the office, there's one person who's got an hour hours drive to get into the office, and so really we didn't, we didn't have a local community as such or not one that we were really involved with. So that was a really interesting one. It drove us to think about how we can get more involved locally, how we can get the whole team more involved locally, and that's another thing as well.

Speaker 2: 28:39

I think when we started out it was like founders were going for B Corp and through the process we realized actually you can't do that, it's got to be everyone.

Speaker 2: 28:48

Yes, there's going to be someone internally who's filling in the questionnaire and go through the process, but you've got to have the whole team engaged with that, Otherwise you're just going to miss out on several elements of the process. So that was probably the other one. I think maybe we were a bit naive when we first deployed that it would be easy, but I'm pleased that it's proven not to be actually because it's improved what we do hugely and, like you, I go and have a look on the B Corp map and find by B Corp so it can do various things. We've just shipped off a load of electronic devices from the office securely to go to a local firm for secure recycling and they're a B Corp and found them via the B Corp Mac. There's subgroups with B Corps as well, so there's a B Corp financial services group that meets semi-regularly and it just is just interesting to hear what other people are doing and discussing. It gets support from peers really who are interested in the same stuff.

Speaker 1: 29:55

Yeah, I think, going back to that point, I completely agree with you. It's very much often the decision makers or the directors and founders, because they have that influence, that go OK, great, we're going to try for that. But also then you do need to get everyone engaged. So how did you have different people within the business that you sort of got involved with the B Corp? Did you just sort of keep them updated within the process? You know, the same as not, both for the UK financial plan of life and yourself, not being extremely large businesses, it's not, it's not necessarily that difficult, but how did you get the whole staff body involved in this process?

Speaker 2: 30:34

Yeah. So it's been more of a case of keeping people updated as we go. I mean, like you guys, we're a small firm, so it's. We're not in a position where we can take everyone out of the firm for a day and say, right, this is, you know, this is B Corp, we're going to work on all five of the pillars and do it all together. We just, you know, we don't have the capacity to do that. So it's more about keeping people updated through the process and getting them to understand the bits that had changed I guess is the most important thing, particularly for the trainee or review that we're just going through at the moment. So you know, it's about communicating that out and just letting them know look, this is, this is where we were, this is where we got to and these are the improvements we've managed to make along the way, and obviously any, any improvements in that sort of worker column. They will have felt the direct impact of that anyway. So they'll be fully on board with that and yeah, and how is the recertification?

Speaker 1: 31:30

Nothing, you know. We are certified and now that next step is to go through that process. So what are the similarities and the differences? I think generally, we're very keen to get as much insight and hints and tips as possible. Really.

Speaker 2: 31:47

Yeah. So B Corp have haven't fundamentally restructured what what they require, although they are looking at a more serious review of the standards at the moment. But for our recertification it was. It was a lot of the same areas, but this time the big change was that they had some subjects, experts that they'd brought in, particularly in financial services. For us, you could tell they had a whole new question set around ethical investing whether we offered it as an option to clients, whether we offered social impact investing and it really dug down into the percentages of clients who were ESG screened or impact investing. We don't insist on a client being ethical or non-ethical. That's the clients' preferences. They need to make those preferences, not us. We don't force that on them. But it was an interesting process to go through. There's a whole other level of data around how we approach that area and how many of our clients are adopting that as an approach. They're definitely starting to get expertise in-house which is industry-relevant or profession-relevant, which again is a big thing, I think.

Speaker 1: 33:19

And then in terms of moving forward, obviously you've now got the Beacop certification. You've got everything that you do with the foundation like a really strong set of personal ethos that underpin what you're doing. Do you find that people approach you as a business due to this?

Speaker 2: 33:37

Yes, they do. I don't want to present it as this big new business opportunity. We did Beacop for ourselves. We have had clients approaches because of Beacop status. Absolutely, they tend to be people who are very motivated to be there. They're coming at it from a particular point of view, so they're either ethical investors or they've got a particular ethical specialism that they're looking for, or their social impact investors and that will be their first screen of advice companies. There are quite a few really good advice companies now who are Beacops, so you've got quite a good range of options. So that type of client, which is quite niche, quite small, is applying that as an initial screen and then going to all of those firms within the Beacop certification to decide which one fits them. So yes, we have had clients come to us. I think it probably has more of an impact on recruitment than it does on clients. Yeah, I think it doesn't necessarily drive new applicants to us, but we do tend to find.

Speaker 2: 35:00

So we are part of the Reading University internship programs. We have interns come and join us every year and we do have staff join us from time to time and when you're interviewing several candidates you will often see more energy from the ones that have gone and looked at the website found something that really resonates with them from a culture or a charity point of view, and they'll bring that to the interview. And so very often we will often recruit based on cultural fit rather than technical knowledge. Technical knowledge can be gained and trained. Cultural fit, you can't train that in someone. They've either got it or they haven't.

Speaker 2: 35:45

And so why? The first question we asked is was there anything on our website that resonated with you? Some candidates will say no, we've been there for a great start to it. Some will say, oh yeah, I was looking at the B Corp and actually wanted to be looking to B Corp, so I'm really interested in that and talk about that. Some will say the charity. Some will say you know ethical investing, whatever it is. They'll pull something out with issues of relevance. So I think it's probably had more of an impact there, maybe, than new business.

Speaker 1: 36:17

That's really interesting. So I was going to say that's a bit of a double-edged question because I know I've asked you that before and it doesn't necessarily mean that it's brought in new clients specifically due to that. We've had conversations about how people have come to you guys as a business because they resonate with some of the things that they've seen online. But that's really interesting from a recruitment perspective. I think, just going back to that, any candidate that's going in there and says that they haven't seen anything that resonates with them on their website has not been dealing with a consultant of recruiting UK, because we were just….

Speaker 2: 36:52

That's the standard training, is it? I'm?

Speaker 1: 36:54

sure that they definitely did their research and found things that resonated with them. But I think that's really interesting because, especially if you're hiring from a perspective very often of cultural fit and you feel like people that buy into your business I guess you feel like projecting your resource and being really strong about what you stand for and what you align with means that the individuals that you're getting in the business moving forward also align with that message, which generally means then is your business keeps on moving forward. You know she said yourself. You know you're not going to be able to advise forever, but if you can get people that are bought into the business, you know, while you're there, that buy into that message from what you're projecting out there, it means that I guess in the long term you hope those values will be continued moving forward, even if you're not within the business at that moment in times.

Speaker 2: 37:43

Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. We think that fit is crucial. We are very open and we're very clear and hopefully not preachy, but bordering on that on our website. We're very clear about what we fundamentally, the way we fundamentally believe things should be done, which I hope we're not critical about alternatives and we wouldn't ever be. You know, there's many different ways of setting up a business, running a business and advising, and we, you know, we're not particularly negative about a different way of doing it. We just believe in the way that we do, and I think that comes across through the website, I think it comes across through the blog, through LinkedIn, and so I would hate to think that any candidate would end up talking to us. He didn't have a sense of who we were and maybe that screened some people out. I don't know. You know people are most fascinated by different things.

Speaker 1: 38:44

Yeah, and if it ultimately, I think if you're projecting a message by your website or your media channels or whatever sort of you use as a business, if it doesn't resonate with people and you know it does screen people out there obviously not the right fit for you guys. It almost does some of the hard work for you before someone set the foot in the door. I think, going back to that be caught process and being certified, you are obviously a business that has got really strong ethos and values. Do you think? If individuals and the wider scale of things do want to be a purpose for good, that B-Corp process is just such a great thing to do Because, as we said, it shines a light on the things that you're good at, the things that you're bad at, but just generally, in terms of the theme of this B-Corp month, allows you to push forwards.

Speaker 2: 39:28

Yeah. So, zaini, I'd encourage I mean, to be honest, I'd encourage any business. I think it's just good business practice to go and look at the B-Corp assessment, answer the questions and just get an indicative score, Because you don't have to be giving a temper of your income's charity to be a B-Corp. That's not a B-Corp requirement, far from it, and in fact it doesn't really gain us any more of a score in that element of the B-Corp assessment than other firms who are doing much less. And we are stronger, maybe in one area, weaker, as we've already talked about, weaker in others. So we're far away from being the perfect B-Corp company, but other companies will be stronger in those other areas. So I wouldn't want it to come across that you have to be donating to charity.

Speaker 2: 40:18

That's not what B-Corp's about. It's about people, planet, it's about community and it's about the ethical side as well. So if you are passionate about your team and your people as an employer, then actually that's the actual strong pillar that you go into the assessment based on. Maybe it will help you on some of those other elements and maybe you'll be high scoring on workers and it might encourage you to do a bit of work around environment and some of the other aspects of community. Equally, if you're a firm who's really working heavily in the local community and that's a big part of what you're doing, great, that's your actual pillar. That's going to be your strong pillar for B-Corp. I just think it's a great sanity check Whether you take it forward and get official you know sort of wooden plaque or not. It's relevant. But it's not the only thing that's important about the assessment. I think it's just a great assessment of where you're at as a business.

Speaker 1: 41:19

Yeah, I think I completely agree with you A great assessment of where you're at and, as we said previously, it doesn't leave any stone unturned. So no business, no person is perfect. But B-Corp if you want to be a business which is moving forward and doing the best for the people, the planet, the community, all of those pillars going through that B-Corp process allows you to shine a light on what you're great at, but also what you're not so great at, and move that forwards as well. And I think you know we've had multiple discussions about how the B-Corp is something that can really progress businesses and progress financial planning firms. But we've also spoken about one of the things that has held financial planning firms back is technology and their relationships with that. So do you mind elaborating on that, on a bit more detail for us?

Speaker 2: 42:04

Yeah, so say technology is a bit of a bug mirror. I mean it is for most people and most financial wise. As I talk to you, just despairing with the state of technology and financial services I say financial services Actually it's the IFA world, the financial planning world, whereas weakest probably and I guess I've said this to you before the frustration for me is, if I pick up my phone I can do pretty much anything in my life very smoothly, very easily. You know, I can be sat here in the office, I can switch the heating on at home by a nice little lap on the phone, you know I can. I can see what the car is doing and check whether it's been next. And there's, there's so much that's been built in King the world that can now be done very simply, very easily from one device.

Speaker 2: 42:50

And yet when it comes to financial advice and engaging with a financial advisor, it's still not brilliant, it's not at that level, and I think maybe that's partly because people are building tech or dealing with we're still quite a cottage industry. So the majority of advisors by number are still in sort of two person or smaller firms. So that does make it quite hard for software firms to break through and you know there's a couple of big players, but beyond that you're dealing with lots and lots of little companies, micro businesses really. So maybe that's where that comes from, but it does feel like we're behind and I think clients is a real risk for financial planning firms because if clients can do things quickly and slickly via DIY platforms we all know the risks of doing DIY and I would not suggest to anyone they do it but the slicker those things get, the more we lag behind, the more risk is posed to our existing clients going off and going down that route or just not attracting a new generation of clients. I think it's a big issue for attracting clients who are in their 20s frankly, in their 30s as well, although, having said that, we've got some clients who are retired in the 70s and 80s, who think tech is pretty boring internet services. So we are poorly served at the moment.

Speaker 2: 44:20

There's some big incumbent technology firms who should remain nameless and we are getting away with really old fashioned technology, really really old fashioned software that's horrible to interact with, based from the advisor and done the client end, and they're getting away with it because they've captured market share and they're being lazy with that and I am slightly encouraged if I'm having a positive day. I'm slightly encouraged there's people coming through here building some good technology Timeline car building, some really exciting technology. At the moment it's not quite there at the moment but it looks like it could be a real breakthrough technology, I think, for financial advisors lots coming down the pipe from these guys. There's some stuff being built in the CRM space as well which looks more exciting than the existing incumbents.

Speaker 2: 45:14

But I just think we've got to have a client experience that is as good as every other sector in a client's life we can't be relying on. Well, if they want to know something, they'll pick up the phone. I think those days are gone. That was, those were the days I was operating in 20 or two years ago when I was first advising. People would pick up phones you if they wanted to know something. I think the minimum requirements of most clients have risen substantially since then.

Speaker 1: 45:46

I think in terms of the user experience, I fully appreciate that on the recruitment and that end side of things as well. I always mentioned this to you previously again shall name nameless, but some of the automated systems we have used to upload to interact with clients are really perhaps to interact with and that then means that we're having that negative experience. But also, if the potential candidate needs to interact with that as well, they're having a bad experience which almost sets them up for a bad presence without with the about that business, without even having met with them. So it really negatively impacts things on both sides. It makes your job harder and it can really affect that in terms of the clients and I fully appreciate what you're saying, especially in terms of if that is out there in a more accessible way for individuals, that can stop them from being attracted by using financial planning in the first place.

Speaker 1: 46:43

I saw on Instagram actually last night targeted advertisements, obviously knowing something about what I'm doing, talking about online trading, and it was saying don't use these guys. So many people are on here not knowing what they're talking about. Use us and I was thinking, god, you just pick up the phone and speak to an advisor if you're really that interested in investing, but if it's that accessible for other people to start dealing with those kind of things themselves and using new technology. You don't want it to detract from the value that financial planning and financial advisors can add. And yeah, as you said positively, there are people that are doing great things within the space. But, building on that, I think this will be very interesting for our audience. You obviously were a bit disillusioned with technology, so what did you decide to do then, matt?

Speaker 2: 47:31

Yeah, so good question. Bring about painful memories. So we decided that we couldn't find anything that would fit us. This was a few years ago now. So we decided actually we would get a firm. We're not software developers. So we went and found a firm that would build a client portal for us from scratch.

Speaker 2: 47:52

So, with respect to build for our clients, because we just wanted it's sort of like the swan along the surface, isn't it From the client's point of view? As long as everything looks clear, smooth and is beautiful from the client's point of view, great. If we have to do the swan's legs under the water and we're running around trying to fix things, actually that's fine. I don't mind that. Ideally, longer term, tech will help us with that bit as well. But the primary thing is a client will be able to log in and see everything they need to see, message us securely. So we had a firm build that for us, the first firm we employed. Unfortunately, the end result was pretty but it wasn't secure. We did some security testing with it. It just wasn't good enough for our clients and the security of their personal data, so we parted ways with them. That was quite an expensive process, hence the bad memories. We went to a second firm who were really good, built us something really quickly, much less expensive. That's the solution that clients are using today. We have made up a push through the upgrades to that system that we were looking to do. So I think the thing about software is it's a massively fast-moving sector. So if you can't upgrade what you've got, then at some point you're going to have to pivot and put something else in place, and I think that's where we are. Probably by the end of this year we might need to implement something different because the market's just moved on in terms of what's available. So yeah, it's a hard lesson to learn.

Speaker 2: 49:36

If I may have a, I've got many flaws. But if I have a major flaw, it's getting attracted by sort of shiny new things and some type. Fortunately, I've got partners in the business who don't let me do every good idea or run with every good idea I have, which is just as well, but sometimes I will spend a lot of time and effort running down a cul-de-sac. Generally speaking, I'm just burning up my own time with that. We've implemented a few things internally that have come as a result of that, but I've been down more cul-de-sacs than I have come up with good ideas which we've ended up with it complementing. So I do have one of those brains unfortunately, that does sort of get attracted by a fire for nights. And you need that balance of business. You need someone who's just a bit more practical, a bit more balance sheet driven, who says, okay, matt sounds exciting, we're not doing it. I do, I'm unfortunate. I do have that in the business.

Speaker 1: 50:37

So Good, I was going to say Sam, our director is such an innovator. I feel like he'd definitely resonate with you on that side of things. He's such an ideas man. Every time he speaks to them he's got a new idea and they're all great. But it's all about knowing which ones are actually worthwhile for us and which ones are worthwhile Just sort of what we can get back to that.

Speaker 2: 50:57

We'll get to that, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 50:59

It still seems like a great idea in a week's time. Do you feel like it's then just having that, and I think lots of people in our audience will resonate with that? I think naturally, a big hurdle is that if you are someone that is progressive and wants to keep moving forward, there is always like a new shiny thing that you can run towards. Do you find like it's just the balance of bringing in the right people in the business, or how do you navigate that hurdle?

Speaker 2: 51:22

Yeah. So we've been through a process of quite regular change I wouldn't say constant change, but quite regular change as things. And I'm not talking here about the core philosophy of flat fees, evidence-based portfolios, cash flow planning that hasn't changed. But there's lots of things you can do, sort of the satellite things around the business that you can do, and if we think there's a way in which we can improve the client experience, then we'll do that. So it's all very client-focused with us, because our clients pay the same amount every year as flat fee. It's a really good discipline because it means that every year we've got to tell them why we're worth that amount for the following year. So we're constantly trying to improve and expand the proposition that we're offering to them to help them in more and more aspects of their finances. And really that's then about what can we do without breaking the systems and without breaking the staff, I guess.

Speaker 2: 52:27

So the pace of change has to run at the collective capabilities of the team, because having a founder who's running around like headless chicken pursuing 10 different things is not good. It's not healthy actually. And if then you're trying to get the team to change 10 different things that they're doing because they've got a day job to do well as well. So it's a big deal. It's about finding balance. It's about prioritization, really, and if a founder wants to get his or her own time looking at, you think it's great and they can do that and that's on. Then Implementation they have to take some responsibility for the impact of that within the business. So that's where you get down to needing other people, other decision makers in the business, to balance you out a bit.

Speaker 1: 53:22

And Matt, you've come across someone that you've got those core values, those very core foundations of what our tool wealth is. Obviously, these other bits can fluid and the only thing permanent has changed. So everything is constantly sort of evolving. But I guess, just to round us up for today's episode, in terms of the short medium term definitely aligning with B Corp months and being a purpose for good and pushing things forward what's something that you would like to see develop or change within our tool wealth? What impact would you have liked to have had in the short medium term?

Speaker 2: 54:00

Yeah, that's a great question. So I think for us, we are not pursuing growth for growth's sake. That's not what we're about as a business. We currently have four advisors. We're in the process of recruiting a fifth. We have our advisors looking after a relatively small number of clients compared with the industry average, because we want to keep service levels high. We want our advisors to be contactable, available to clients and constantly coming up with value-added ideas for clients.

Speaker 2: 54:38

If we have a motivation in terms of expansion, it's really just. As we grow top line revenue, we grow the foundation. So that's important to us, but not at the expense of burning staff out who have got to do the implementation, got to do the day job. So at the moment, our thoughts are all around how do we grow in a sustainable way that's fair to the staff we've got and allows us to just I wouldn't say slowly necessarily, but allows us to gently maybe grow or sustainably grow revenue and grow the foundation. So that's what we're working on currently. All that looks like I don't know. We work very closely with the FTSE 100 company. We're on their employee benefits. We're one of the elections they can make on their employee benefits system to get cash for their planning from us. That's had a big jump in uptake this year, so that's been an interesting process and we're just trying to navigate whether that means that we will grow it slightly faster rate than we were planning for this year.

Speaker 1: 55:51

So we'll see how that works its way through Any particular personal professional goals that you're really keen to help.

Speaker 2: 55:57

Well. Personal goals yeah, we went away on safaris in Barbeau for Christmas. Oh wow, thank you. It was lovely, lovely to do as a family. I do have some in Barbeau and wait to shift. So I need my personal goal. I've been waiting for all the people to join the gym in January and then quit by February 1. I've told myself February I'll be rejoining the gym. I had to shift some of that. Five, six meals a day on safari. I'll probably not have caused myself. So that's the personal goal. Professional goals I think if we can grow the team of people who are directly looking after the clients in a way that means they're all feeling like they're still getting the input in the development, then I'll be happy. I think the worst possible thing you can do is recruit and they're not developed. So if you end up with people who are feeling underdeveloped, that's not a good place to be in and that means you've got to just be careful about bandwidth. So that's our professional ambition, wow excellent.

Speaker 1: 57:05

Well, thank you very much, matt, for spending time to speak with me today, and I'm sure there's lots of helpful hints and tips within this episode for our audience, and it's great to go into depth with another BeapFoom about that process and why it's important to yourself. So thank you very much.

Speaker 2: 57:21

Pleasure. It was a lovely to speak to you, thank you.

Speaker 1: 57:24

And then it will cut somewhere about here. But yeah, thank you very much. You were great All right.

Speaker 2: 57:28

Thank you, I know I coughed over one of your questions. Oh no, that's fine. I apologise to your editing technique. That's absolutely fine.

Speaker 1: 57:36

I think, emily, is there something that you want Matt to say?

Speaker 2: 57:45

Okay, Is she in the background saying you've got to say Recruit UK are the best If you?

Speaker 1: 57:56

want to say so. You've already said it though there.

Speaker 2: 57:58

So I'll just cut that out. You've got it on audio now you can click that out.

Speaker 1: 58:03

We're just in terms of the marketing campaign for this. Emily has asked me whether you can look into the camera and say, very slowly or moderately slowly, make financial planning a force for good, if that's okay.

Speaker 2: 58:20

I can give it a go. I'm trying not to sound like a robot.

Speaker 1: 58:24

I think we're going to cut it up and get different people's words. So if you could, just say it you'll only be a little snippet, just clearly.

Speaker 2: 58:34

Make financial planning a force for good.

Speaker 1: 58:38

Excellent, you've got a bit of like a high five movement from our colleague Charlie. That's in the room.

Speaker 1: 58:45

I'm telling you Well, yeah, thank you so much. We'll now go off to our editing team. They're not going to be put out till March, obviously in line with B court months, so they won't go live till then. I'll obviously reach out to you. I normally find out on the day when they're going to go live, but as soon as I find out I'll obviously reach out to you to know that it's all on socials and things like that.

Speaker 2: 59:07

Yeah, that'd be great. It'd be great to you know. We'd love to promote it and repost, etc. So yeah, if you give us a shout, let us know I'll definitely tag you.

Speaker 1: 59:18

I'll tag Alt or Wealth and everything so, but I'll still reach out to you when it goes out. But yeah, this has been an absolutely great episode. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. I really appreciate it and, if you can, give any help in the future, you know, please do let us know.

Speaker 2: 59:32

Really lovely, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1: 59:34

Matt Speak to you soon.