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With limited entry-level job roles, giving yourself the best financial planning career education, will not only kick start your financial planning journey with relevant qualifications and skills, but it’ll also help you achieve success much faster.&nbs
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Begin your financial planning career journey today
Whether you are looking to become a paraplanner, administrator, mortgage and protection adviser or financial planner, the Financial Planner Life Academy is for you.
With limited entry-level job roles, giving yourself the best financial planning career education, will not only kick start your financial planning journey with relevant qualifications and skills, but it’ll also help you achieve success much faster.&nbs
Be sure to follow financial planner life on YouTube for extra content about a career within Financial Planning HIT THAT SUBSCRIBE BUTTON!
If you're looking to start your career in Financial Planning, check out the Financial Planner Life Academy here
Reach out to Sam@financialplannerlife.com in regards to sponsorship, partnerships, videography or career development.
And today's guest on the Financial Planner Live podcast is Paul Taylor. He is a certified coach and a chartered financial planner. What I love about Paul is his passion for the next generation of financial planners. He doesn't put any punches when it comes to delivering advice on what to do in those all-important client meetings and how to generate new business through business development. He's a massive advocate on mentorship, training and development, and he can prove it. He cold-called himself to 100 million of assets under management, has sold a big chunk of his business and is now working in the world of consulting financial planning firms of how to turn their employees into fee-earning happy ones. I hope you enjoy the episode, paul. Finally, you're on the Financial Planner Life podcast with me. Sam Oakes, it's great to have you today. How are you Never better?
Speaker 2:Sam, never better. How's the business of life with you, by the way? How's my life? How's the business?
Speaker 1:of life with you. By the way, how's mine, how's my life?
Speaker 2:how's the business of life?
Speaker 1:business of life is business of life is quite good. I just come back from dubai, uh, exploring some of the companies that are out there, understanding why the uae has such a bad, bad rep when there's such good companies out there training and developing their staff in the right way. I've learned a lot about the bad side and I've started to see a lot of the good side and I must admit it's really piqued my interest the businesses that are out there and I'm looking forward to creating some content with them. Uh, I'm releasing it so everybody in the uk gets a bit of a better understanding, um, and I'm also interested in getting out there myself potentially. So there, you heard it here first, sam might go out to Dubai.
Speaker 2:Well, good luck to you and if you do just engineer a reason that I can come out and see you with my golf clubs in Tullis and I must say I was very jealous. I was working hard in the Northwest last week. You know my usual pottering around the industrial towns, decent weather today, but not last week and, uh, you annoyed me, so you annoyed me.
Speaker 1:it's not fair I think I annoyed a lot of people. Actually. I put a few posts out saying how good the advice is out there and everyone was like you're a crook. I was like, oh god. I think the thing is, when you put stuff out on social media, right, you've got to make sure that you word it in a way where it's going to please everybody. Unfortunately, that's very, very difficult, so you always end up upsetting somebody along the way. So I've gotten used to that now, and as long as I don't upset everybody, I'm happy.
Speaker 1:So, fingers crossed. I didn't upset everybody, but I get it. You know, the offshore market has had a really bad rap, you know.
Speaker 2:Even the greatest, most successful election victories of all time still came in with polling under 50 cents. So if you're only offending five percent of people, you're doing an amazing job perfect, paul.
Speaker 1:Give us a bit of an introduction to those that don't know you well.
Speaker 2:Do we know ourselves? That's the question. Um, yes, paul taylor, chartered financial planner for many years, uh, coaching more recent years and, yeah, just, I think like we were talking about before, just approaching an age where you have a look around, you stop planning your own furrow and and being a busy beater and traveling down the same rabbit holes every day. And I don't know how long I've got left as a financial planner. It is not long, and all my clients know it is not long and they know the reasons why I do not want to leave an industry or a profession or whatever label we give, without feeling like I've done my bit before I go.
Speaker 2:And the bit that I've picked up on is through my own experience and more likely in my conversation with lots of planners that are younger than me is support could be better. And people like me need to ask ourselves what are we doing to provide a stable base for young financial planners to build on? What are we doing to ensure there is, you know, a financial planner for society in the future? And I feel like I've just got to do my little bit and try and make sure that some other people in my position do their bit before I, you know, depart the industry. I think I owe it that, and I'm not saying I've got much to give, but I just need to be able to give what I can. I guess that's the reason I'm going to shoot from the hip today.
Speaker 1:Well, paul, the first time you introduced yourself to me, we had a conversation around training, development, mentorship, coaching the things that are really lacking within the financial planning profession. We also talked about things like business development. There's a lot of financial planners that are coming through, they're passing their qualifications and they're walking into financial planning companies. Maybe they're going in as a trainee advisor. But what we're distinctly lacking is this ability to go out and win new clients. So they're hearing, oh, this great transfer of wealth, all these clients out there that need financial advice.
Speaker 1:But more frequently I'm coming across people that struggle to build those relationships, struggle to business, develop and actually bring those clients on, regardless if they're going through academies or not. Now, for you, that was a big passion piece. You want to be in, and what I liked about you was one you gave me a book which I read and I give it to a few people as well some of the younger advisors just to kind of give them some insight into it. And you know, when it's ready, I'm sure people are going to be able to download that um and receive that book um, because it's very, very good read.
Speaker 2:But what really interests me about you was you we got to the, we got to an idea of what should we call the podcast and I said you know, paul cold called himself to a hundred million aum yeah, and it's um, yeah, and I always get and I and I did put that on linkedin today for the first time ever and I've always been insecure about it because this, this name, this notion of FUM or AUM or whatever we want to give it and can have a negative connotation to it, and I totally get that.
Speaker 2:So I think I'd like to say that we did it the right way and hopefully, if people ever spoke to my clients, that they would back that up. We, you know, I'm a big believer in never leaving an engagement without agreeing actions and I'm quite passionate about ensuring my clients take action and not just plan to, you know, move towards the, the desired future self, a desired future life, and I like to think, regardless of the aum, the reason we were able to create impact and action um was for the right reasons and nothing to do with a yeah, yeah, that that is. That is a fact.
Speaker 1:I'll be honest yeah, but I don't think you should be embarrassed. You know why should you worry about putting it out there on social media? Why should you worry about being proud of the fact that you did that? That's probably one of the toughest parts of the job is winning new client relationships, which is evident in the new people that are coming through. I think people should talk about that a hell of a lot more. How difficult it is.
Speaker 1:But what are the strategies of actually being able to business develop properly in the correct way? That's going to get you in front of clients and, most importantly as well, build that trust, build that relationship and get them to use your services. So today I do want to focus a little bit on strategy, a little bit on the processes that you think that you can pass on to other people right now listening to help them with their ability to generate new clients and do a better job and hopefully attract more assets under management as well. So let's just go from the very, very beginning. I know that you're a strong business developer 've got a lot, a lot of things to say about business development, so let's just start there. Is there any kind of tips or um processes or a guide to business development that you could share with our audience today yeah, I hope you've got a bit of time.
Speaker 2:Uh, sam, I think the one thing I'm dead keen, dead keen for young people to understand is that the first thing we've got to do is create conversations. That has to come first, and after that is, how can you be a compelling communicator when you're in a conversation that inspires somebody to act in their best interest and inspires them to maybe tell other people about their interaction with you? But that takes time. First things first is the skill set required to create conversations, and many of them over a sustained period of years. And I want to tell the truth because I see so much on. I've never really been on social media. I don't have a Facebook account or Instagram or anything like that, and I've only been on LinkedIn, you know, a good few months now, and there's things I'm seeing which is young people not quite being told the truth about what it takes to create a lot of conversational opportunities Prospecting, for want of a better word and Nick Murray famously said that success is the refusal to stop prospecting.
Speaker 2:And the problem is most people stop because they've not been told the truth about how hard it is. So I think the first thing I want to get out is. The truth is this To be successful at creating conversations and a lot of them it's not easy. There are common traits that appear in all great prospectors they are imaginative in how they create conversations, they are brave in how they go about it and they are very persistent. They recognize there is a prospect in the lag and they are very persistent. They recognize there is a prospecting lag a significant amount of time between the effort that you put in and the feedback that you get. And the feedback is defined by getting people to act in their best interest on what you've got to say. We don't respect the prospecting lag because we haven't been warned how difficult it is. Respect the prospecting lag because we haven't been warned how difficult it is.
Speaker 2:If somebody said to you I know you do a bit of running, sam. If somebody says to you you're going to run tomorrow and you better down, finish, right, you better down, finish to get the outcome, and they don't tell you how long it is and it happens to be a marathon, you won't finish because you've not been prepared to how difficult it is. And if somebody tells you it's going to be a marathon, you know you can buckle yourself up, you can get the right support around you and you'll get it done, because you were told the truth about how hard it is and before I tell you my own journey to highlight how important these truths are, that you need persistence, bravery, imagination, you need to respect the length of time it takes. I'm going to pick on a guy that was on your podcast recently, a Northern Irish fellow, oren. I think I thought he was a very impressive individual. So what Oren did?
Speaker 2:he used his imagination and he went down a particular route and it took him a long time for it to burn through. He had to be brave in the way he was doing it. I pick up on a podcast I watched three years ago with a US financial planner young one, thomas Kopelman. He was called if anybody wants to connect with him and he started writing content for a particular demographic and was hearing nothing back a year. In 18 months. He kept at it and at it and all of a sudden he hit a tipping point and now he's an incredibly successful, widely recognized financial planner in the US, and he's still in his 20s.
Speaker 2:And these guys, they stayed the course, they ran them a marathon and now they're reaping the benefits of it. And the clients that they engage with are reaping the benefits of it Because we can have all the skills, knowledge and experience and the desire to help people. But if we cannot create conversations, then our knowledge has no power. Right, and I think it's important people accept that. If that's not for you the difficulty of running that marathon, then go and put yourself in an environment where somebody will create those conversations for you If you are going to be selfing. Well, I think the fact is there's less than five advisors in 90% of financial services firms in the UK, so the onus tends to be on most planners that they've got to generate conversations, and I think the bit that I want to share is I want to give away how I did it, because I've never really given it away before and it can still be copied.
Speaker 2:And the analogy I want to give before I do that is that all prospecting is a bit like a children's playground. You've got a children's playground. You've got different stations. We all know what they are. Some require more bravery than others, others and the ones that don't require much bravery. There's always a big queue. You've got a queue up behind a lot of snotty kids to get your little kick, to get your little payback right, and the slide and the swing would be typical ones. But if you look at a climbing frame, there's always just one kid at the top of the climbing frame surveying the whole thing, feeling pretty, pretty proud of himself. He hasn't got any competition.
Speaker 2:Competition is not healthy, it's unhealthy. Removing the competition leads to immunity, and to actually remove the competition you've got to hop the fence of the playground, you've got to go in the woods and you've got to bring it to life with your own imagination. And maybe think about what are my peers not doing, what are they not brave enough to do, and what will they not put enough time in to see it through? And when I think about Thomas Kopelman and when I think about when I watched Oren on your podcast, they hopped the fence, they went and played in the woods, as I did 20 years ago. And, yeah, I'll share that journey away. It'll still stand the test of time and I'll give it away. But I really want young people to recognize that that is the truth. It's not easy. Nowhere worth going is, and if somebody tells you it is, I don't believe them it's definitely hard.
Speaker 1:Prospecting is hard, you know, I've been prospecting my whole time working in recruitment. I've been prospecting my whole time working on the financial plan of life. I think people think sometimes that when you start something it happens straight away instant gratification that you're going to nail it within the first couple of months. It doesn't. It can take a long, long time. You've got to keep at it. You've got to keep failing to win. That's one of the things, isn't it? You know you keep failing, you keep turning stones over until you find the right one. And usually when you find the right one, you haven't won.
Speaker 1:You've just found another way to do something a bit differently that takes you closer to the prize. And then you've got to try and remember that and put that into your process. So you do it again the next time. And then you're kind of building and developing and finding your way, and it's a. It's a never-ending sort of process, but at some point it does click. And it's when it clicks. Then you rinse and repeat, don't you? You do rinse and repeat. So I'm interested to hear about your method.
Speaker 2:Let's go, come on, yeah let people know what the method is, and you've got to wait for the click. That's the thing. It takes a long time. Uh, in my experience now there might be people that come up with quick ways. I know you quick ways. I know you're looking ahead and you're going to come up with better ways in future to make it easier than the path that maybe I've tread or other people have tread.
Speaker 2:Every penny I'd earned on frivolity and you know, and I set about as a self-employed advisor with, you know, some notion of freedom, and it suddenly dawned on me on my first day well, how am I going to create conversations? We want to help people, we want to make a difference. How do I do that? And the reality was, when I'd exhausted my non-existent circle, we looked at who can we actually ring up, who can we get in touch with, compliantly that you're allowed to do it, and I felt it was business owners. And somebody gave me the idea of well, paul, why don't you walk into business owners and tell them what you do?
Speaker 1:And I thought I don't really know what I do, yet I'm a bit young, but go on, I'll have a go.
Speaker 2:And you know, so I'd go out dressed like a walking bank, thinking that was the right thing to do. And, you know, wandering to shop fronts, so you'd have, like your carpet shop owners, your plumbers, you know that kind of thing. And, yeah, terrifying a little bit. And it was worse when there was people in there, lots of customers. So you walk in young, fresh dressed like a walking bag. That was pretty tough, but we generated conversations. It's a shame I can't remember my script, but there's only so many shop fronts to walk into and we did get clients, some that are clients to this day, but it was a tough road to follow. And then I, you know, started to read. At that point in my life I recognized and hopefully we'll get on to this what are the skill sets that allow you, um, to be a compelling communicator, that get people to act? What are those skill sets? Something I'm quite passionate about, which hopefully we'll cover.
Speaker 2:And I was starting to read at that point. Well, I had no money. So where did we read in those days? We went to a, a public library, didn't we? I was in the public library one day and I spotted this business director and, as you can tell, I'm from the same. I went to the same school as Peter Kay in Bolton and this business director was every business that existed in Bolton. I'll tell you what I don't have to walk into all these places why not send them a letter? And obviously I learned that you had to have a letter that was compliance approved. And we'd get the letter out and boom, then we started to make the calls. But, more importantly, I then stumbled across and this is the important bit a Dunham Bradstreet business directory issued by Gap Books. Now, these things were costing me about 200 quid back in the day, so we had one in the public library photocopying for cheap. Now they're about 330 quid. Now these books will contain every business in your county. Uh, it will tell you who the directors are, the net worth of that business and the amount of employees in them. So I had every single business in lancashire and then greater manchester and then cheshire, the counties around me that we could go through pretty much for a decade.
Speaker 2:And what happened was I stumbled across something called Credit Safe. So when we used the word cold call, I felt it was a warm call. We'd go on to Credit Safe. We'd get the first name of the director. We'd look at the other business interests, the balance sheet, what it was made up of. So it allows us to personalize how we think it could add value and have an impact and hopefully lead to mutually beneficial action. And so, yeah, we would handwrite an envelope, you know private and confidential, and we'd get it out there and then I'd give them a call, I'd create the conversation.
Speaker 2:Now there is never a point unless you are clinically insane, where you pick up the phone in a warmish or coldish manner, where you do not feel a little nervous, a little uncomfortable, right, but you've got to have one foot out of the comfort zone. You've got to be braver than your peers and I reckon I made 25 000 calls over a 10-year period between 2006 and 2016. And that number that you cite, you know I would say 85% of it, you could trace it back to one of those 25,000 cold calls, whether it was a referral from somebody, that's where it came from. And we became pretty adept at being able to be compelling in that short conversation, whether it was with the gatekeeper, the secretary and be compelling when we spoke to the person. Through trial and error. We weren't suddenly compelling on day one. We had to practice like Oren or we had to practice like Thomas Koppelman. You know we had to refine and get better and pretty soon it was a win-win for everybody. You know I knew that if I got through to a certain demographic that looked a certain way, we would be able to have a conversation that facilitated meeting and I felt I could add value.
Speaker 2:We also spent some time studying things that your peers don't study. I became quite proficient at understanding the benefits of holding companies for protecting what you created. I became proficient in property structures, llps. I became proficient in explaining how to function with company cars or R&D tax allowances. I just spent a little bit of CPD outside of the areas that you don't get a badge for and obviously we got so busy that in the end I couldn't cope and I've not made a call like that for eight years.
Speaker 2:Part of me misses it because I was braver then than I am now. Maybe I've lost that bravery, but it showed persistence, bravery, imagination to hop the fence and go and play in the woods and I feel like we helped a lot of people. And if you aren't brave, as I said, your skills have no power and the onus is on you, young financial planner, to get out there and make a difference in society. And to do that you've got to let go of your ego, let go of your fears and just create conversations. You've got to develop a strategy to it and you're probably going to need support as you navigate the difficulties and the obstacles of bringing that strategy for it to bear fruit. So I never thought it was easy. I've never met anybody who's had an easy ride. When I listen to R&R Thomas, I don't think they've had an easy ride, but there was common properties to how they created a lot of conversations and then referrals come after that, don't they? It gets easier.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. So just summarize these traits then, these traits that successful people tend to have, that you've come across, that you've displayed in yourself as well, and you've seen in others, especially with your training and your development of new advisors. What are these common traits do you think that people either have or need to work on?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we all have fear, Sam. We all feel uncomfortable at times. Do I come into this podcast and feel 10 out of 10 and oh yeah, I can't wait for this? No, we all have a bits of imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is really healthy, really really healthy. It tells you you've got one foot out of the comfort zone. If you go through a day and you don't feel imposter syndrome, you don't feel nervous, you don't feel you have to be brave, then you are in your comfort zone and the results that you see and the effect that you have on society is going to be less than if you felt those fears.
Speaker 2:And I always say to my children you know, fear is fine, but you've got to be brave enough to act. And I think what separates successful people from others is they still wake up from the same fears every morning. But they act, they act and you know, but they act, they act and you know. Even they've got to be brave and I think it's easier to be brave when you've got support.
Speaker 2:And I think one of the things that I felt in my career when I was younger that I've sought as I've got older I've literally sought it out, sought support. You know, quite often I've got to pay for that support. Don't get me wrong, but I think it's really important that a young person has somebody that they can really trust, that has no conflict of interest in them, in supporting them. And the noise that I want to make for seasoned you know financial planners, you know you've got a duty of care and I wouldn't be giving out chartered status badges to anybody who cannot demonstrate that they are spending a little bit of their time helping young people in their profession to sustain it because they need support. So, yeah, people need support, but we still need to be brave.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of conversation on LinkedIn about the mentoring and the training and the giving up of time from existing advisors to deliver that to newbies in the profession. It's something that you've championed. Have you had much support from other advisors around this?
Speaker 2:I don't think I'm being conscious about other advisors and what they're doing, and I don't think other advisors should be. We have this, and the bit that I forgot to mention is when we're talking about thriving in future, it's about your skills development and being compelling in your communication. We'll get onto that. But as for that question, it's a complex problem. If we've got 2,400 advisors under 30 two years ago, that's it. And we've got 1,800 now, that's it. That is a complex problem that requires complex solutions and sometimes when you get that complexity, people don't act because it's too complex. And it's the same with the financial planner dealing with a client. It's okay to have a grandiose vision of your desired future self, but it can be difficult to act because of the grandiose nature of it. And this is a grandiose problem, you know, solving that very thing that you've said. So the bit that I feel is I forget what everybody else is doing, I've just got to do my bit right. You know, whatever it is, I've not got time next week, but I know I've got three or four calls coming in and I'm doing the four 90-minute coaching sessions that I promised on LinkedIn for free. I haven't got time to do it, but we've got to do it because we've got to do our bit. So I don't care, I'll make a noise.
Speaker 2:But it's not for me to interact with other advisors. That's a waste of my time. Any spare time I've got I've got to interact with young people and do my bit, and that's all I'm encouraging other people to do. It's just do 2%, 3% of your time. And if everybody who's been in the job for more than 10 years gives that 2% or 3% up on a pro bono basis, it's going to have a compound effect over time and only when people start doing that will they recognize the problems that young people face and the support they need and the solutions that are required. And maybe at that point some of us could come together to try and solve the complexity. But for now I'm busy, like most of the financial planners, and I'll just do my bit with the young people, because I haven't got too much time to think about it. I've just got to do and I want other advisors to do so. You touched on the skills.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I get it massively. Yeah, you touched on the skills a second ago. You wanted to talk about the skills. Let's, let's dig into that then. How can we improve these skills? What are the skills required? What should people be focusing their attention on?
Speaker 2:I think if I was a young person now coming into the industry, got all my career ahead of me, I would be questioning um, the traditional way we learn? Uh, as a financial planner, it's not changed in my 25 years. In essence, we are focusing on IQ development, developing the left side of the brain and learning about technical stuff. And technical competency is an important competency, but it's the be all and end all for getting your badges, for getting your diploma, for getting your chartered. It's all IQ based and technical. Now you could be the most technical, skilled financial planner in the world and still have an incredible level of bravery, desire, passion, confidence, a real desire to help people. But it will count for absolutely nothing if you don't work on the skill set that we miss, nothing, if you don't work on the skill set that we miss. And the skill set is this it's to be a compelling communicator. It's to be able to understand how you connect human beings with the human nature of what matters. It's to create a meeting environment where you can elevate somebody's thinking away from what doesn't matter fund performance and soulless money stuff and create an environment where they can connect with that which we don't know, which is where all great insight and thought comes from. There's a way to do that, to be a compelling communicator. I've had to learn to do that myself. I've had to go and take coaching qualifications. I'm off to Henley Business School in October to deepen my understanding of how we become a more compelling communicator so people can get insight on themselves and their life. And if it's their insight, it will be their action, they will act.
Speaker 2:So how do we? Advice is one thing, planning is another. But removing the obstacles to action and getting people to act, that improves their life, that's the real skill set and we're not taught. So where's the ro exam? Or where's the af exam on human nature and understanding it? Where's the ro and af exam on being a compelling communicator? Where is it on removing obstacles? So somebody acts.
Speaker 2:Obstacles are typically defined in what I call a fred analogy f for fear, r a lack of responsibility, e for ego and d a lack of discipline. 90 of obstacles to action are in that area, that fred area, and we need to have the compelling communication skills to build a bridge to jump over it so people act to improve the situation. But we're just not taught. As financial planners, we love advising, we love planning. What the action? What about making a difference?
Speaker 2:So our skill set, our skills development, hasn't changed in a quarter of a century. And I think if I was a young person now and I was thinking what skills do I need to really add value to the future consumer, who's more self-empowered, who's about to inherit $60 trillion globally, what skills am I going to need? We seem to have a rear view mirror about our development. It seems to be the same exams year after year. We've got to mix it up. We've got to focus on BQ intelligence. We've got to increase our BQ, which is a balanced intelligence, a holistic approach to dealing with people and what it takes to get them to act in their best interest. That's what's missing. And any young people that come to me, I tell them privately what I think and what I think they need to do nice, I'm not gonna have to say that.
Speaker 1:You can see, I'm pretty passionate about no, absolutely well, it's the, the human connection part, isn't it? It's the ability to build a relationship really really quickly, the ability to to build trust and to get buy-in from from that first initial meeting. And no book, you know, no study around financial planning, is going to create the connection. It's a human connection. It's, um, it's a you're making me feel good connection and I think, um, if you spend your whole time thinking, the more that I know about a certain subject matter, the more someone's going to take me seriously, then you're barking up the wrong tree. Really, pretty much what you're saying, um, it's worthwhile having it and you have to have it and you have to kind of understand it. But do you need to be an expert in that? Or is it worthwhile being an expert in, I don't know, behavioral science or the ability to build relationships?
Speaker 2:You made me think about something there. Teddy Roosevelt once said nobody cares how much you know until you know how much you care. And all our skills development is about how much we know. And then we're so eager, particularly as young financial planners, to impress upon people what we know. Let me fix your problem. And we try and fix it too early. They don't care how much you know, they want to know how much you care first, and therefore most advisors don't get up the ramp of trust.
Speaker 2:So when I work with young advisors, it's all about how can we get higher up the ramp of trust than our predecessors did, using things that really connect human beings to each other and to what matters. So your client will elevate their thinking and take action, and that action will be in their best interest. You know when they're dealing with great financial planners will, and it takes a particular process and a particular meeting environment, from the second that meeting starts to the second it finishes, to get high up the ramp of trust, to create value, impact and action worthy enough that your client's going to tell somebody else about it Everybody's talking about. How do you get referrals Dead easy. Do a F-bomb ing good job, and you do that by being a compelling communicator that truly puts your client first in a meeting. So I take you know I've had to learn this the hard way myself and I take you know any young people I engage with now. We take people through that process of what really matters and it's amazing how many of these young people that go.
Speaker 2:Why are we not taught this? Why do we not get taught this? If you're a chartered financial planner, you've got all the knowledge in the world but you haven't got the ability to get people to act in their best interest because you're not a compelling communicator. Why are we not focusing on that? And if you think about where technological developments are going, they are going to dominate technical competency. They're going to deal with that. You know, the bit that no bit of AI is ever going to deal with is really creating an environment that elevates another's human thinking, that really connects that person to what really matters and what really connects them to you. And we like to measure things, but some things can't be measured. What matters can't be measured, it's intangible and it's those intangible skills that create those intangible feelings that lead to tangible actions. That's the bit that's missing from our skill set. And before I bugger off, I want to make a noise about that what about first meetings though?
Speaker 1:yeah so a lot of, a lot of planners do struggle, don't they um with with the first meeting, and I think the first meeting can be probably the most impactful meeting you're going to have. Just something is whether or not someone wants to continue working with you. Could you kind of give a bit of an outline of what you think would be a quality first meeting where somebody should focus their attention, what they should be thinking about, how perhaps they might deliver that to get the best chance of actually turning that into a client?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll struggle to get it all in today's podcast. So you know we liked it to make it, but maybe we could take some action, post the podcast for more detail, but we'll cover it. I think I want to use a baseball analogy. I think I've been to two baseball games in my life. They were terrible. What a boring sport. You know apologies to all baseballers, but the only thing I took from baseball was that no good can come from anything unless you get to second base.
Speaker 2:So your first meeting you've got to get to second base, life enhancing actions, adding value, it's never done in one meeting, it's done over a series of meetings that are, you know, all life enhancing stuff is. It takes time, but you've got to create enough value, impact, connection to create the action of getting a second meeting. So one of the things that I focus on with young financial planners is from the second of the meeting starts the second it finishes. What do we need to do to get so far up that ramp of trust that somebody is definitely going to let us come back for a second meeting and the skills required to do that, as he, as he probably gathered, I don't feel I talked to financial planners, but we talked to coaches. Coaches are tested on this. Coaches are tested on the real skills that connect people, that get people to really think in meetings, that get people to walk away from meetings and go. I can't explain why that was so good, but it was good. So I have a process from start to finish.
Speaker 2:And if I was to split it up, if you ask a financial planner, how do you prep for a meeting, well, you know I'll get the numbers, get the data. I've just, you know, fallen asleep already. You know it's important from a human connection perspective to go into a meeting not in busy beta mode. That is how me and you operate. During the day we normally are busy beta, but when I go into a meeting, I've got to take time before that meeting and I've got to become a cool delta. I've got to become a chilled out theta. I need my brain to be operating on those wavelengths, not busyness. That's the first key preparation point that creates a meeting environment which is likely to get somebody to think about what matters, that is likely to get them to connect with what matters and not connect to busy, ego-based, fear-based, money stuff. So that's the type of preparation I'd be focused on the young planners doing. I'm getting a lot of good feedback on that.
Speaker 2:But then we've got to start the meeting, and I saw something on linkedin recently, a spat by two unnamed financial planning global powerhouses, and I wrote an article on it. Um, I felt compelled to do that, uh, last week or two weeks ago, so I'd encourage somebody to go and read that article to save me regurgitating. But you've got to start a meeting in a certain way that puts somebody first, their brain first. Yes, you've got to do your normal contracting stuff about confidentiality, and I like to basically soft-land to people that they're going to be doing all the thinking and all the talking and straight away. We've got context from our previous discussion, but I am a believer in a staple question, provided it is be delivered in the proper context of your previous communications. So, mr clint and you we've talked about abc before the meeting just want to hear in your own words today. You know what you'd like to get out of today. I think that's a great way to start a meeting, which some people don't. What it allows somebody to do is vomit money stuff, vomit soulless money stuff. We want to let him get him out and it allows us to demonstrate what a great listener we are.
Speaker 2:So I use the magic circle for questions.
Speaker 2:The magic circle is this you ask a question, you say absolutely nothing. If they've been to Tenerife, and you've been eight times, you don't even mention it. It's all about them, not about you. The magic circle is you ask a question, you get completely out of the way and even when they've finished you stay silent. It's always in that silent space where the real important stuff comes out, where the client, without even knowing, will gravitate to what really matters, even if they've not had that previous insight. And then the next bit of the magic circle after a question is anything else, oh yeah, followed by silence. And you only stop that circle when somebody is completely exhausted their thinking, and then you reflect back in their words at their level of literacy not with your CII trained level of literacy, and that is.
Speaker 2:You can get up the ramp of trust very early in a meeting, but we must acknowledge that the client is likely to vomit soulless money stuff. So in the next stage of the meeting I want my young planners of the future to ask a permission to pivot question. Now I know, mr Client, you want to talk about ABC, soulless, money stuff. But do you mind if I ask you a few questions about you, your life and your future first? Well, first thing is you've been so polite by listening with incredible integrity, in a way that nobody else does in their life, and then you've asked permission to take this meeting in a different direction, and you've taken it in a direction where answers that follow are likely to be more soulful and less ego, fear, money-based type stuff.
Speaker 2:And then I would typically ask a future based question. So, mr Client, five years time, it proves to be a great period in your life. What have been the highlights? And then you've got to repeat the magic circle silence, anything else, reflection. And I use a coaching model, a grow model, in this middle, in this middle part of the meeting, where you pivot into what matters.
Speaker 2:I don't have any models in financial services, we're not very good at them but I use a coaching model called the grow model, which I think would be so powerful for young financial planners to adopt to really help the clients think really well and feel like they're being listened to, and that help the planner get up the ramp of trust. So I use a grow, the grow model, which I'd encourage anybody to look up. But it takes time to practice and that's the thing about how would you be effective in first meetings? We don't practice right, so coaches have to practice. They have to have a coaching buddy so they'll practice their meeting environments time and time again. We don't do financial planning. We practice when we're playing. Well, as I've learned, as I've learned with golf, if you practice while you're playing, you're probably practicing your faults. So that's how we become more effective.
Speaker 2:in first meetings we have a process that allows the client to control the content. But we still have a process and we practice that process not when we're playing. So when we're going to play with a client, we increased our probability of getting to second base, a second meeting, because we've had a lot of practice and we bring in meeting environment principles that aren't taught in our ci exams, that we need to go and get them elsewhere to get us up the ramp of trust, to get this person to unconsciously, without knowing why, want to have a second meeting. But we get to a point, sam, where you're so far up the ramp of trust.
Speaker 2:Your compelling communication is about giving them the space to elevate their thinking. But there comes a time where you've then got to ask permission to tell somebody what you think. Now, we don't ask permission as advisors I'm a financial advisor, I advance. No, you ask permission to tell somebody what you think After you've asked them what they think they should do. That gets you up the ramp of trust. But when it's your turn, when it's your turn to tell them how you think you can help, you've got to be compelling in the way you communicate. So there might be five, 10, 15 core things as financial planners that we typically discuss in many meetings and we need to be compelling in the way we communicate those. For somebody to go, I get it to turn complexity to simplicity, to pitch it at a level of literacy, to personalize it because of the depth we've created in the meeting. How much space do we give to that in terms of thinking about how we communicate things in a compelling way? How much space do we give that as financial planners in terms of ourselves?
Speaker 1:Nada.
Speaker 2:Nothing, and that's what I want the future financial planner to recognise. Where do I get these skills? How do I get them? The CII's not going to give them to me. My industry's not going to give them to me. Where do I get them? Because without those skills, my technical competence has no power. I'm definitely not good at that.
Speaker 1:So where do they get them?
Speaker 2:Well, unfortunately, they are forced to work it out for themselves. If I could make one suggestion, I think a good place to start is take a coaching course. So the one I will promote is by the Mole Foundation, moe Foundation. It's really cost effective because it's a charity, and it's a charity that was formed by some of the founding people of modern coaching really, and everybody I've sent on that course and I've done it myself has gave me tremendous feedback.
Speaker 2:I noticed a post on LinkedIn yesterday from Ian Richards about the tremendous insight that had come in his coaching practice from Leaving Silence. These are the sorts of things that are taught in coaching, and so that would be the first place to start, because that will then give somebody the basic building blocks of what truly will help them be a compelling communicator that will truly put the other person first. And then there's the reading. Now, if you read but don't act, you're illiterate. You've got to read and you've got to act.
Speaker 2:So if we're talking about giving two or three examples of great books that will help build a coaching mindset that will turn you into a compelling communicator in your meeting environments, I like Time to Think by Nancy Clang absolutely outstanding book about putting people. First, the new One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard. Audio books fantastic, really short, and you know for the ones that once you've read those two. Coaching for Performance by Sir John Whitmore. So I'm going to keep it simple and if any young financial planner is listening to this, the way you can be better than your predecessors is to bring the skills that are taught in a coaching environment into your financial planning meetings and watch the elevation, the impact and the action that results from those meetings nice, I like it.
Speaker 1:This mo foundation I've never heard of that. Is it mo m-o-e?
Speaker 2:yeah, and don't ask me what it stands for, because I think I've learned it 15 times and forgot it 15 times google mo foundation and strong recommendation for me and all other financial planners I've sent to do that course. It's only going to require about 50 hours of your time over eight weeks and I would strongly encourage any financial planning business owners here that employ people I would strongly encourage to make that small financial but more significant time commitment to allow your staff to partake in something like that. As I say, I'm off to henley in october expensive. Will it be worth the money? I'm not so sure, but I can tell you know the mole foundation course sure is I'm a big fan of coaching and um.
Speaker 1:I think bringing coaching into a um I'm going to call it a sales process, so bringing coaching into like a sales process or a prospecting process or a client acquisition process in whatever line of work that you do, I think is really powerful. I think the things they teach you in coaching is incredibly powerful, but not as powerful as actually coaching and mentoring somebody. So there is still a transactional approach to this. It's like there's more energy and effort. That happens, I believe, really, in the financial planning upfront. There's upfront time, energy spent in the upfront part, and then later on down the line, you do your reviews, you keep in contact with them, happy days. Hopefully you're building in a bit more of a long-term relationship with them. Hopefully you're building in a bit more of a long-term relationship with them.
Speaker 1:I've always found, though, whenever I've coached somebody now I did 12 steps. I've made it pretty obvious on my podcast why I did 12 steps in the past, which is like AA, right, and in AA you've got 12 principles and you've got to work through these principles and at the end you've got to take somebody through the principles. I've still got the lad who I've taken through the steps. As my sponsee, you know I sponsor him regardless if I don't even do 12 steps anymore, but I still sponsor him, so he still phones me up. We still go through the process of style 12 steps and I still have these conversations with him and I still ask those open questions and I listen to what he's saying and I challenge him on his thinking and all those difficult types of things. We look at the fears, we look at the resentments. It's the ongoing coaching that really drills it home and then it becomes just what's that? Unconscious, what's it called? Again conscious?
Speaker 2:unconscious competence, unconscious competence yeah, unconscious competence I'm not very good at remembering the terminology of things. Yeah, yeah, and, and it's I'm not very good at remembering the terminology of things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm not very good at remembering the terminology of things, so if someone wants to ask me to quote something from a book or whatever, it might well be I'm terrible at remembering things right. But one thing I definitely know is the more you do something over and over again, the more natural you become, and I find myself in meetings now just naturally building rapport and interest literally within the first 15 minutes. Whenever I have a conversation, I'm not being egotistical or arrogant, I genuinely do, and a big part of that is by getting yourself out of the way and finding out who the person is in front of you and very quickly establishing what their worry is and what their problem is, because everyone's got a worry, everyone's got a problem. Am I going to earn as much money?
Speaker 1:Can I look after my family in this job? Am I going to get that promotion? Am I going to be able to take my business to 10 million quid? Am I going to make a profit this year? How am I going to beat the next financial planning company around the corner and hire the most staff? So everyone's got a problem and it's about quickly establishing exactly what that problem is and getting them to open them up and getting them to get vulnerable. To me, it's about being vulnerable. The quicker you get someone to be vulnerable, the quicker you've got them on side and the quicker you've got that ability to build that trust. And if you can guide them in their vulnerability and not tell them, and allow them to get to a place where they're creating the solution for themselves and they've come up with the answer, that's even more gold 100%.
Speaker 2:There's so much, so much rich. Sorry, go on, go on.
Speaker 1:So I'm finished and that's what I love, and that's the bit that I, yeah, and that's what I enjoy. I enjoy that bit of it no-transcript ego, it's all bollocks, and the quicker you can break that person down by pushing back on them. Yeah, push, push, push, push book. And when you ask a question and they just open up for five to ten minutes, you realize you've got them in the palm of your hand because they've got something to say and they've been holding on to it, if you like. And then once you start scratching away at it, more and more of it comes out and what you realize is the more they're giving you in that conversation, the more you have to take control of the conversation. I know that sounds a bit creepy but it does work.
Speaker 2:There's so much richness to what you've said and I'm just going to try to pick up on some key things. They're giving because you've given, you have taken your own agenda away.
Speaker 2:You've taken your own ego out of the situation. You have taken your own agenda away. You've taken your own ego out of the situation. You've truly put that other person first, despite how they are at that juncture, and you're giving, you're removing yourself and, as a result, almost unconsciously, they will sense that their ego will melt away and they will connect to their human nature. And in life people don't truly listen to each other. So there's a lot of things out of our control as a financial planner. But in our meeting environment, the person that comes into our meeting environment, they can be listened to by us in a way that nobody else in their life ever has and ever will. And they won't consciously know it. At an unconscious, deep human level they will know it.
Speaker 2:So I'm a believer in a situational leadership model, which is there's a time to direct somebody. When somebody's level of literacy or competence is so low, there's a time to coach, and most of the time is a time to coach, which is I'm not an advisor, I'm not going to tell you what to do. Right. Coaching is about getting straight in an environment where somebody can air their problems, maybe even problems they didn't know they had until your elevated meeting environment and before you advise, coaches would ask somebody what do you think? Followed by silence, followed by anything else, Okay, and only when they have exhausted their own thinking do you then have you earned the right to tell them what you think to advise. But before you do that, you've got to ask permission. Mr Client, can I tell you what I think? Of course you can. You've been so polite, you've listened with deference and you've asked permission. Mr Client, can I tell you what I think? Of course you can. You've been so polite, you've listened with deference and you've asked permission. Even though you're a financial advisor, you've still asked permission to advise. These little things we are not taught, but they are so important to the integrity of relationships between human beings. They are so important to create an environment where people will overcome fears and act.
Speaker 2:And again it's going back to the situation leadership model. You know what comes after coaching is support. You know some people need support. You know, and we've got to work out whether it's our client or a young financial planner. Where are they? Do they need directing? Do they need coaching? Do they need support? Or can we just delegate? Go on, get on, go on, get on, go on with it.
Speaker 2:But to do that your meeting environment has got to be all about them. And it's easy to say. But unless you're tested on it you don't realize how unconsciously incompetent we are. Because we're not tested on, it's not part of our technology. So I want to get young financial planners the ones that I work with they are unconsciously incompetent of what it takes to be a compelling communicator, to truly put somebody else first, and they realize it when it's pointed out. We want to get them from that position of unconsciously incompetent to unconsciously competent or consciously competent. They're just doing it on autopilot, consciously competent or consciously competent, they're just doing it on autopilot. They are truly putting somebody else first, elevating their thinking, removing obstacles to action, doing it unconsciously through their meeting environment, process and structure, and we're just not taught it.
Speaker 1:I'm dead passionate about it and again, before I bugger off, I'm going to try and make sure we let a few young people know how to do it and point them in the right direction to learn how to do it. Paul, I think it's great. I think you've got a wealth of knowledge to pass on and I think you've shared. You know small little tidbits that we can fit into you know a 50 minute episode on the financial plan of life tidbits that we can fit into a 50-minute episode on the financial plan of life. I believe it's enough to give somebody some intrigue into doing things a little bit differently. Now it definitely needs to be passed on. You want to pass this information on.
Speaker 1:So I think what we're going to do, you and I, is we're going to get together and build a training program for free. So we're going to give a training program for free to our listeners who want to develop their skills when it comes to developing business and building relationships within financial planning. So if anybody's listening, watch this space and do drop me a message or leave a comment to say that you are interested in this training program and if you are, reach out and we'll add you to the wait list, but we will record something. We'll put it out there on linkedin let everybody know when it will be and everybody will be invited sounds like a plan to me, and I don't like leaving meetings with clients or potential clients.
Speaker 2:Never, ever leave a meeting without any action points. So at least we're leaving this one with a really good one. And yes, I do, I'm not got anything against people promoting subscription models, and but we just need a few more of us to just do things for, you know, for nothing, and just a little bit time. And that would be my call to action from experienced planners just to do a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, brilliant. Well, I'm happy to get involved in that. I've always been a podcast that's been free and we've always had some brilliant guests on here sharing insights and the feedback we get out here on the financial power life podcast, that it's valued. It's become a top 10 podcast, which is pretty cool, on the careers chart on Apple, which is pretty impressive, and we're going nowhere and we're going to continue to invite guests like you onto the podcast to share that knowledge and, if we can create some training programs as well for free happy days. So, paul, thank you so much for joining us today, thank you for sharing your knowledge and we look forward to developing.