This week is a talent partnership special with St James's Place
Ever wondered how financial advisers can make a monumental impact on women's lives, particularly those navigating high-stakes divorces?
Listen as we sit down with Ceri Griffiths from Willowbrook Financial Planning, who has carved out a unique niche advising women divorcing multi-millionaire CEOs.
Ceri’s journey from a broad clientele to a highly specialized practice offers invaluable lessons on the power of niche marketing, strategic networking, and mission-led content.
She shares her experience and expertise in financial abuse, narcissism, and conflict-free divorce practices, shedding light on the complex dynamics of high-net-worth divorces.
Discover how Dan Priestley's coaching transformed Ceri's approach to business, helping her identify and target the specific needs of her clients. Ceri talks about the unique challenges women face divorcing wealthy and powerful men, and her mission to eliminate financial vulnerability and empower women to become money savvy.
The discussion highlights the importance of finding a target market that aligns with one's personal and professional goals and the role of impactful content in articulating a clear vision.
Learn the nuances of navigating financial advisory relationships, especially in cases involving narcissism and financial abuse, and the supportive role advisors can play in these difficult times.
Ceri also delves into her innovative approach to business development, moving away from traditional networking to building a strong online presence through LinkedIn and other social channels.
She shares insights on creating meaningful connections with like-minded professionals and the value of being "Googleable" through strategic content such as podcasts and blogs.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone in financial planning considering niching down, as it is packed with actionable advice on specialization, client relationships, and building a business that not only thrives but also makes a significant difference in the lives of its clients.
If you are interested in joining the St James's Place Academy - Click here
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.
This week is a talent partnership special with St James's Place
Ever wondered how financial advisers can make a monumental impact on women's lives, particularly those navigating high-stakes divorces?
Listen as we sit down with Ceri Griffiths from Willowbrook Financial Planning, who has carved out a unique niche advising women divorcing multi-millionaire CEOs.
Ceri’s journey from a broad clientele to a highly specialized practice offers invaluable lessons on the power of niche marketing, strategic networking, and mission-led content.
She shares her experience and expertise in financial abuse, narcissism, and conflict-free divorce practices, shedding light on the complex dynamics of high-net-worth divorces.
Discover how Dan Priestley's coaching transformed Ceri's approach to business, helping her identify and target the specific needs of her clients. Ceri talks about the unique challenges women face divorcing wealthy and powerful men, and her mission to eliminate financial vulnerability and empower women to become money savvy.
The discussion highlights the importance of finding a target market that aligns with one's personal and professional goals and the role of impactful content in articulating a clear vision.
Learn the nuances of navigating financial advisory relationships, especially in cases involving narcissism and financial abuse, and the supportive role advisors can play in these difficult times.
Ceri also delves into her innovative approach to business development, moving away from traditional networking to building a strong online presence through LinkedIn and other social channels.
She shares insights on creating meaningful connections with like-minded professionals and the value of being "Googleable" through strategic content such as podcasts and blogs.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone in financial planning considering niching down, as it is packed with actionable advice on specialization, client relationships, and building a business that not only thrives but also makes a significant difference in the lives of its clients.
If you are interested in joining the St James's Place Academy - Click here
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 Kerry Griffith from Willowbrook Financial Planning. She is a partner of St James' Place and today we talk about her target niche client, which is women divorcing multi-millionaire CEOs. This is a super niche episode and we talk about all the training, all the coaching that she has received through entrepreneurial communities to hang a hat on this niche. We talk about developing client relationships. We talk about the client journey with these women who are divorcing the multimillionaire CEOs. This is a super interesting episode for anybody plucking up the courage to niche down within financial planning. Kerry, thank you so much for joining me today on the Financial Planner Live podcast. How are you? I'm great. How are you? I'm very good. Thank you Still sort of really super impressed with your business from our pre-podcast chat a few days ago and for the listeners who weren't present for our chat, can you just say a little bit about your business, Willow Brook, and who you look after when it comes to clients?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is really distinctive. So I give financial advice exclusively to women who are divorcing, ceos and millionaires, so very super niche. My aim is to remove the financial vulnerability and disadvantage that they face. So that's what it's all about. And then the vision is a future where it's easy and attractive for women to be money savvy. So that's the concept behind everything that I do.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. So, just out of interest, how did you fall into, or decide upon, the niche of women divorcing multimillionaire CEOs? So it's really evolved. It didn't start there. Obviously it's been a journey to get there the niche of women divorcing multi-millionaire CEOs.
Speaker 2:So it's really evolved. It didn't start there. Obviously, it's been a journey to get there. So the business started about four and a half years ago and I had a lead up. I knew I was going to start a business, I was starting from scratch and I could design and create what I wanted it to do. And so I took a piece of paper you know the Ikigai stuff where you actually look at what is it that you really love, what is it that you can really add value to and where can you make money? I considered those. I had three columns and literally wrote down okay, who are all the people that I could really add value to, who do I love working with and where can I actually make a business that makes financial sense? And Divorcing Women came out on top. So that became the focus of the business to start with, and it flew. You know I started in October 2019.
Speaker 2:I was really poorly. Actually I had sepsis and so I didn't launch the business properly until 2020 in COVID times, and the business flew and really quickly I had to reassess where I was, so working with divorcing women, getting too many inquiries, getting really busy and really starting to establish. Actually, this is where I can add more value. This is where I'm not adding value In the divorce world. What's really interesting is a lot of the concepts are financial, but financial planning doesn't necessarily add huge amounts of value, specifically where we are talking about smaller net worth scenarios, where paying for financial advice doesn't change the outcome for them. So I started to realize I'm not adding as much value to these clients as I am to the wealthier clients where I can truly use my cash flow forecasting. I can help them with visualization, I can create the knowledge that they need because their scenarios are complex and actually add in that financial advice side of things. Plus, on a personal level, you know, going back to that IKEA guy stuff, I wasn't loving working with clients where I felt, god, there's just no solution. You know they're divorcing, there's not enough money to go around. This is like personally impacting me. I feel really uncomfortable that I can't solve and have great solutions.
Speaker 2:So I started to move the bar. Um started to communicate in my social networks around who it is I'm working with, gently moving that bar. I'm specifically moving it where there was a power dynamic and talking about clients who were divorcing at that point. Wealthy and powerful men. That's what it used to say. On LinkedIn, I give advice to women divorcing wealthy and powerful men. Linkedin, I give advice to women divorcing wealthy and powerful men, and it was really, really interesting the kind of eyes on that, the conversations that came off the back of that LinkedIn profile and that evolved over a period of time. I had a lot of clients coming through and it got to the point where every time I picked up the phone, I pretty much knew what my client was going to say that she was divorcing a CEO. This was the scenario, and so I just aligned my profile then to the clients that I was working with and that were contacting me, so that when they read it, it is them that it resonates with them really, really deeply.
Speaker 2:Now, along that journey, there's been a lot of learning as well. So, alongside working with these clients from a financial planning point of view, I've gained a lot of qualifications to help with that power dynamic and to understand the depth of what's going on. So I hold financial abuse and narcissism qualifications. I also hold a qualification from resolution, which are part of the. It's a community of divorce professionals, family lawyers, looking to make sure that people can divorce really amicably or as amicably, as conflict free as possible, and I hold their accreditation, of which there's only 38 of us in the country who hold that accreditation. So it's been a journey, it's evolved. It isn't like I woke up day one and said I'm going to actually give advice to these people, but each situation just quite gently edged me into the right direction.
Speaker 1:I love it. That sounds amazing. So starting out divorcing as a niche but as a whole, yeah absolutely so the funnel was very wide.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and to me that feels like a really wide funnel. But that still actually really scares some people to just say divorce.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's crazy, isn't it? It's like when people say they just want to be a financial advisor to women and I often think, wow, that's like super niche, do you? But it's not.
Speaker 2:And it depends where you're sitting, isn't it Because? Somebody says that to me and I'm like that's half the population. Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, right, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Right, great. So let's just kind of you progressively moved your way up, let's say, the economic ladder when it came to clients.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Or the net worth ladder or the potential net worth ladder. Yeah, when you were talking to me on the Zoom call recently, you talked about Dan Priestley I did and the impact that going through his coaching and his training had on you actually hanging your hat on the niche that you've actually gone through. Can you sort of give us a bit of an overview of that and how it impacted and what part of Dan Priest's work has actually influenced you in your journey?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I came across him really early on in my journey. So I mentioned that I started the business kind of October 19, january 2020. It's properly launching and I joined Dan Priestley's course and he runs a number and the one that I joined was called Chaos, which is concept, audience, offer and sales and the whole idea being around knowing what your clients need so that you can present it into a way for them to easily be able to find you and then work with you. That's the essence of what we were doing. So I did that course for a year, I then did his KPI course the following year and now I'm currently in his alumni. I had a gap of a year, but now I'm in his alumni course as well.
Speaker 2:It's been a huge influence because what it has allowed me to do is interact with, create communities with, and be inspired by, people outside of the financial planning world, and I think that's absolutely vital when you're starting a business, and I think a financial planning business needs to have inspiration outside of just financial planning. So it had that huge impact from that perspective. Now, the things that I did, based on the work from Dan Priestley, but also based on some other courses I did because that wasn't the only course I did, based on some other courses that I did around creating my niche really came back to understanding what I was going to be passionate about. So I described, you know, just having that piece of paper and writing down. But there's a lot of deep work that goes into knowing the stuff that you love and that you want to do and having a real connection. And Dan spends a lot of time getting you to really look at your past, getting you to really dig into your history and find out the elements that have happened and he says they normally happen kind of really early on before secondary school that have driven your story and driven the direction that you go in. So a lot of work around gaining that picture.
Speaker 2:What is it that's happened in your past? Now, for me, I am not divorced from a CEO. Just laughed about this. You know I probably wouldn't be doing this if I was divorced from a multimillionaire, um.
Speaker 2:But what is aligned, where the similarity comes, is this power dynamic.
Speaker 2:My clients are in situations where they are exiting spaces where they haven't felt seen, they haven't felt heard that they felt very much that he is holding all of the cards and a lot of women listening to this podcast will relate to how that can feel in life in general as a woman, feeling that you are surrounded by really articulate, really successful, really direct men who just get it, who are able to position what they want and why they want it and have these really successful careers and as women, and me specifically I often felt like I was faking it to be in the same space as them.
Speaker 2:It was an energy was having to bring to the table. My perspective was it was a man's world and I was really trying to adapt and get into that space. So there's this real alignment between what clients have experienced and what I've experienced, and finding that depth is then what drives the passion, because when I'm meeting with my clients, what we're specifically talking about is creating a space where you can be truly who you want to be. So it might be divorce, but there's so much more that goes on behind the scenes I love that.
Speaker 1:Getting to know yourself better allows you to be better at sitting down with a client and digging deeper around some of the things that might be troubling them yeah, in their relationships, or their vision of the future, and what that might look like. So identifying those fears and helping them to kind of bring them to the surface and be honest with you so you can provide a deeper level of service when it comes to the long-term financial planning can I ask you some questions around some of the specialisms, then because?
Speaker 1:you're super passionate about this yeah and I think that's hugely important to be super passionate and interested hugely in a subject matter and then attaching financial planning to it.
Speaker 2:I think that's the key. I think that's the magic to start with. When you are passionate and you are on a mission, it changes the direction of what happens. So when I show up on social media, I am not showing up because I want to find a client. I'm showing up because I have a story and I have a message and I want to influence and help other people see what is actually happening in their divorce, what is happening with the finances. I've got more of a picture that I want to actually paint than just I want to get a client, and so one of the other courses that I did that I would highly recommend actually was from a lady called Lisa Barry. She runs a course called Mission Led Content, and it is about truly knowing what that passion is and then being able to write from a place where you are on a mission and you're clear about the change that you want to see.
Speaker 1:So what is your mission?
Speaker 2:I said it at the beginning, it's to remove the financial vulnerability and disadvantage that women divorcing wealthy and powerful men face, and the vision, because there's two different things. Mission is like what I'm doing here in the now. The vision is a future where it's easy and attractive for women to be money savvy, because I don't think that's the case right now. I think we're making it easier for women to be money savvy, but we're not quite nailing the attractive bit, because it's not about just painting something pink and giving it a nice font.
Speaker 1:Do you think men talk about money more together than women talk about money together?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I don't know, because I don't sit with men talking about money. I don't think any of us talk about money enough. You know, I don't know, because I don't sit with men talking about money. I don't think any of us talk about money enough, you know. Do you know what your best friend earns?
Speaker 1:my best friend.
Speaker 2:Yeah, uh, yeah, do you yeah I don't think there's many people who could literally say okay, that's what my friends earn, this is how much their mortgage is what debt they've got.
Speaker 1:I think men talk about money and earning more than women do that's really interesting talk about their emotions, more and more vulnerable around their emotions than men are I'm really interested in that because it is literally a conversation.
Speaker 2:Even with this, knowing that I have, I still don't have those conversations around a table with my best friends about how much they're earning, etc. I don't think in any of my social groups talking about what we earn is really particularly common and I didn't realize that was a male female thing, so that's quite interesting.
Speaker 1:I read it quite recently um men are more inclined to be opening up to each other, men to talk about money and that's a really good thing, and again. It's kind of like a. I think there might be a bit of male bravado in it as well, like my investments are doing this, that and the other and I've got this and this is how much I'm earning, and this is what I'm going for when it comes to my career, because it's going to take me here.
Speaker 1:There is a bit of a competitive bravado yes, I think um around it and such an ego a competitiveness, yeah, yeah um, but perhaps also minimizing other other issues that they might have in their life, and using money as an example of success and power.
Speaker 2:And whatnot that resonates?
Speaker 1:Emotionally, perhaps being less aware, whereas women tend to be more emotionally connected and more aware of how they're feeling, and that's where the kind of divide tends to be.
Speaker 2:Hugely so, and I do think that we could both learn from each other. It'd be massively useful for women to talk more about money, to actually have conversations about where are we investing, how are we investing? Who's helping you do that? Where do those conversations actually start? And if we're not having them, that's what can lead to people feeling particularly isolated when they separate because one person has been having those conversations and the other one hasn't, and so there's suddenly a lot of catch-up and vice versa. Like I imagine, there's a big space for actually creating that more emotional tie to money. Money, ultimately, is just the tool to get to a set of outcomes, and when we focus too much on the tools rather than what is the life that truly we want to create, you know, getting back to the nuts and bolts of the fact that we actually are more inclined to focus on the hows rather than the whys, and it's the whys that's where the magic is.
Speaker 1:You are focused on a micro niche. I am. That would scare a lot of people. Yeah, you have admitted that you don't come from a wealthy background.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:You haven't divorced a multi-millionaire CEO, unfortunately.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there we go.
Speaker 1:So not only have you had to step into a world that perhaps you don't quite know because you haven't lived it, you're also choosing a very narrow niche, aren't you? Yeah so where did that confidence come from?
Speaker 2:so I have always been a risk taker. I think the greatest entrepreneurs are risk takers and you only ever get amazing outcomes if you're brave. So absolutely being brave is part of that. I want to just talk a little bit more just to.
Speaker 2:One of the reasons that I came on this podcast, sam, is because I did want to share this story. You know, I am a really ordinary girl living in a cottage in Wales. Nothing extraordinary about my background at all. I might not sound Welsh, that's just because my dad was in the army. I'm not from a wealthy background. I might not sound Welsh, that's just because my dad was in the army. I'm not from a wealthy background. I'm not privately school educated, I'm just a really normal state school girl. And I work with some of the wealthiest women in the UK who are divorcing Genuinely, the wealthiest women in the UK who are divorcing Based in London, based in the southeast. And I wanted to share how that has come about Because I think, exactly as you described it, for a lot of people it would feel like, well, that's an impossibility.
Speaker 2:And it absolutely isn't, because when you create and when you are completely aware of what your audience and your client needs and you provide it and you get the specialism and you get the depth and you make people aware of what you're doing, anything is possible. I think being micro niche is magic. I know it scares a lot of people. It is absolutely the thing that gets me noticed, it's the thing that gets me on people's radar, it's the thing that resonates and actually remains with people. When I leave the room I still get calls from people who I have met at a networking meeting, which I used to do. I don't network anymore, by the way, and that'd be worth talking about, but I used to network. I used to go and meet lots of lovely people in a room. Um, my networking is so evolved from that and that will come back to that, but I used to go network and I will get a call from somebody that I was doing that with four years ago. I cannot not only remember them, I can't remember the meeting, I can't remember the scenario, but they have remembered me so well that they have referred a client to me four years later. That's my cronish. That's because when they meet somebody and they said, oh yeah, I'm getting divorced, and they're like, who's divorcing a CEO, somebody, and they said, oh yeah, I'm getting divorced and they're like who's divorcing a CEO? I know who you need to speak to and it's just there and that's the power it's being memorable and specific.
Speaker 2:Along with that power, then you also have to be able to back up what you're doing, seriously. Back up what you're doing. You know I have a level of qualification that is unmatched. There's 38 of us in the UK who hold this divorce specialist qualification. But in addition to that, the financial abuse, the narcissism qualifications, I'm also a real expert in how these CEOs earn. I. You know LTIPs are complex. Private equity is complex. Understanding that and being able to describe and not only to my client but to their solicitors is really, really important. So there is risk, but it's controlled risk, it's considered risk. Um, and I think it's a bigger risk to be a generalist and just hope. Hope that you stumble across some clients, hope that you create a business that you like, hope that you enjoy working with the clients that walk through your door so it's a specialism, isn't it?
Speaker 1:and it's enjoying the topic that you have chosen to invest your time, energy into, and the problems that you're looking to solve. I love the fact that you also understand how these CEOs are remunerated.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a massive part of what I do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so really digging deep, because then you understand fully what say the wife might not know. So I'm guessing they don't really have a clue about that type of thing yeah.
Speaker 2:So the women that I work with are very highly educated. They are normally university educated, they had careers, but they've had this journey of um being an expat, typically because to get to a ceo position, you normally do travel internationally and so she's given up her career. She's traveled with him. So they are bright, bright women. The reason that they don't know how he earns isn't because they're not bright enough. It's because they've not been exposed to it, because they have had a trusting relationship. He's gone off and done his thing. She's not needed to learn, and at the point where she needs to learn, the relationship is broken down and the transparency isn't there and the fear kicks in and she really just needs somebody at a point where she's feeling quite ashamed of the fact that she's maybe dropped the ball here and she didn't keep up with her finances somebody to actually bring her back up to speed really quickly. And that's what I do, literally just make sure that she's like okay, I've got this, I'm back on board.
Speaker 1:Can you just like tell us a little bit about the journey then? So if you're sitting down with a client, yeah, who's the courage to pick the phone up to you and speak to you, because perhaps they've been referred by somebody? Or seen your great content that's out there, or heard from you from a four year ago networking event. You sit down with them to the point of where you invest money.
Speaker 2:How long does that take? Years, absolute years. So I work with my clients typically for two years, um, before the point of investment. It's probably the most enjoyable two years of all the time that I work with clients, because I am truly adding value. I had this perception, um before I started the business, that I never wanted to be sitting across from a businessman saying sell it to me. I didn't want to be part of a beauty parade. I wanted to be wanted and needed by my clients. That's a personal thing for me, knowing that that client is actually taking huge value from what I'm doing. So that two year period is really important to me. That's the period where I'm just like I'm showing up and giving in droves and she's really getting a lot from what I'm doing. There's a specific four stage methodology that I developed as part of the course that I went through with Dan Priestley the initial one, so that four step methodology is called WISE and I covered that through the two year period. So WISE tells let me start again.
Speaker 2:Why stands for wellness, intent, stress, test and evolve. So wellness is all about making sure she's feeling financially literate, confident and clear um that she's she's on a level playing field, um, financially. Intent is where we explore how much does she actually need to have the life that she desires? So we explore it's a lot like coaching what does a full and beautiful life look like? And then we cost it. I cost it at a level that many financial planners don't. I'm looking between now and age 100, how much her costs are now when the children leave home early retirement, late retirement, really analysing what that could look like incomes and outgoings and we'll get essentially to a place where we know what lump sum or monthly figure she needs to be able to maintain their lifestyle. Stress test is when there are offers being made through the divorce and we are using cash flow forecasting to see how they work. Are there gaps? How could we fill them? How could we be creative?
Speaker 2:And then the last stages evolve, and this is about making sure that she is able and ready to make the financial decisions that she's going to need to when she receives a lump sum. How do investments produce income? What are her investment options? What? What is at you to risk? What is capacity for loss? Teaching her all of that stuff that she hasn't had along her journey so that she's in a place of really been able to make the decisions she needs to, and at that point she normally gets a financial settlement and we move forward with what would be a more typical financial planning relationship. You know, I'll do a presentation meeting, we'll make the investments, we'll start doing our annual reviews and it will kind of mirror more normal practice it is really like a beautiful coaching journey, isn't it?
Speaker 1:yeah, on an emotional, life-changing journey. My brother's going through a divorce at the moment. Um, I told you about that. It is a journey. It's a really up and down journey and he's not got anybody that's going along with him apart from me. Really, yeah, I'm there with him on the journey. I like that.
Speaker 2:It's meaningful it's meaningful, that brilliant word, yeah. And when you show up and you are doing something that is meaningful, it gives you passion, it gives you direction and that comes across to clients and that is self-perpetuating, you know. That actually then feeds into the energy of having more clients approach you and kind of that ball rolling.
Speaker 1:It's the uncover, discover, build, trust yeah you know, you can understand why, if someone's going to go through probably one of the most traumatic and stressful life changes, that the person that goes along with them and coaches them and helps them uncover and discover and come out the other side in the best position they possibly can be, they're only ever gonna refer you. They're only ever going to refer you.
Speaker 1:You're only ever going to be in their telephone book or recommendations for somebody who's held their hand during a period which has been the toughest of their life right.
Speaker 2:And the referrals that you get are they just blow your mind? And again, it gives you more sense of purpose. You know, when I read what my clients say when they refer me, yeah, it makes my heart sing. I'm like this is why I do it. This is the purpose behind what I do, because I know I have that much of an impact on the clients that I work with.
Speaker 1:Dan Preecy. Key Person of Influence was a book that I read. It helped me with my journey about being a key person of influence within the financial planning profession as the talent attraction specialist. So I created a persona and a solution to a problem that was affecting everybody, which was the advice gap, and then positioned myself as the person who can solve the advice gap by interviewing wonderful people like you about careers to attract more people, and therefore I became the known person when it came to talent attraction.
Speaker 1:I wasn't a demon recruiter, exactly yeah, it's a nice way to do it.
Speaker 1:I love that. So, key person of influence that. So let's look at one of the biggest struggles a lot of the financial planners out there have. Not only are they kind of here, there and everywhere, not quite hanging out on something that defines them as a solution to a problem, yeah, but they are struggling with marketing themselves to get in front of clients, to win those client relationships over. Now you alluded to the fact that you did go around networking events. Not so much now. Key person of influence, I can imagine probably took a a role in how you marketed yourself. Could you give us and our listeners a bit of an overview then of where you are now, how you generate clients, but what that kind of journey has been like to support a micro niche service like yours?
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is something I really want to talk about because I think it is something that you can replicate and is easy to actually do. I started this business and had a perception of what marketing looked like. I was really nervous because I'm an introvert, I'm not the type of person who comfortably goes networking. At the time my little boy was seven and I knew that I wasn't going to be able to kind of go out to all of these networking events in the evening. You know, based in Wales, wasn't going to be kind of in the hub of things. So I had all of these reasons why what I thought typical financial advisors do was going to be really, really tricky for me and I wanted to find a different way. I knew that there were other advisors.
Speaker 2:I, previous to starting Willowbrook, I was a coach and mentor for advisors at SJP, so I was a partnership development manager. So I was seeing other advisors coming through, doing things in new ways, doing things innovatively. And I got introduced then by a colleague to key person of influence and read the book same as you and was like, okay, yeah, this guy is speaking to me, I can see how I can, with authenticity, influence and read the book same as you, and I was like, okay, yeah, this guy is speaking to me, I can see how I can, with authenticity, show up in those ways and actually feel really comfortable. And I think that's the key when you find an environment where you are really comfortable, you can promote it and you can push it. So for a lot of advisors, those networking events absolutely work because it is their comfort zone and they are really good at it and they love going out and having drinks, which sounds like hell to me, but it is absolutely a brilliant way to grow a business.
Speaker 2:But what I wanted to share is that there is another or other ways of growing business and it's finding the ones that work for you. So the way that the key person of influence kind of positions itself is exactly as you say creating enough depth and knowledge and specialism that what you are doing makes you stand out, and then using different platforms to make sure that people know you're there and that they are aware of you. So that does look like me using social media. We talked previous to this about how I use LinkedIn, and I use LinkedIn extensively. It's a place where my network is. You know I'm not out having drinks, but I know so many legal professionals truly know them and they're really similar to me, they don't want to be out having drinks.
Speaker 2:So you'll find your people, the people who also enjoy those environments. So using LinkedIn, using Instagram, typical social media stuff. But there are layers beyond that that are really important and ultimately, it's about becoming Googleable the way that did you have a question, sam? No, the way that most clients would actually find me is through a referral from their solicitor, and a solicitor will tend to give three names. That's how they work. In fact, that's how I work. If a client needs a solicitor, I will kind of shortlist three that I think are going to work, but let the client ultimately make the decision, and I think that's pretty much how legal professionals work on the whole. And so when that client has those three names, the first thing they're going to do is put you in Google. They go, ok, who's this person? Now they put my name in Google and everything that comes up is divorce, divorce, divorce. They can see my specialism immediately. They can see that I know what I'm talking about. So that looks like me going on podcasts. You know, I've come here because I've got a message to share and I'm really passionate about helping advisors become really good at this, but also for my own business. It's another market point for my clients to actually access me and actually see okay, who is she, what's she about? So you're going to appear on my Google list. It's about writing blogs for different companies, but then it's also about raising your profile.
Speaker 2:So I have won a number of awards and I'm not the typical person who would normally have applied for those and it it again has been a journey.
Speaker 2:So it started with the women in finance awards and I won financial advisor of the year for Wales, which was just like the biggest thing that ever happened to me.
Speaker 2:At that point, I'd been running the business about two years, it was new and you know it was COVID and I had kind of all this recognition. So it feels amazing, but it wouldn't have been something I'd automatically have done, and I did it because it produces credibility, it makes me more referable by solicitors, and I've won a number of awards since, the last one being I just won Spears Wealth Management Private Client Innovation Award in 2023. Now, to me, that blows my mind. You know Spears Wealth Management recognized my wise methodology and the work that I have done to create this niche, that is. You know, people in my category were like JP Morgan and HSBC and I'm just a girl sitting in a cottage in Wales and so that's kind of like that was in October. So that's at the end of four years of really raising my profile, being on podcasts, writing blogs, using social media, getting other rewards, being really prolific and taking lots of action.
Speaker 1:Lovely. I love that Time and energy being put into content creation, but with a thought around evergreen content as well starting.
Speaker 2:So so, interestingly, that isn't what I used to do, but starting to think about evergreen content, um so, um, there was a really interesting journey here. So how I used to write content. So, going back to mission led content with Lisa Barry. She teaches you how to get your message across and how to talk really passionately about your story. And the way that I specifically used to work is I would wake up and I would say, okay, what does my client need to know today? And I would spend the first 10 minutes of every day. Okay, this is what I'm going to tell her. I would literally just write onto LinkedIn every day. So it wasn't a huge amount of work, it was 10 minutes every day onto LinkedIn. That's what I did for a number of years and then, as things have evolved, I've had different social media managers involved, some people writing content for me.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I write content all in a day. It kind of changes, but it doesn't need to be complex. You can just literally take those actions and be visible. But from evergreen, um, yeah, all those podcasts and blogs. But also I started a youtube channel, and that youtube channel did a couple of things. Firstly, it created evergreen content. But secondly, allow me to have conversations with really interesting people, um, and that was, yeah, pivotal that's how I sell podcasts into financial planning companies.
Speaker 1:So one of the things we're doing here at the financial planner life now is trying to convince financial planning companies to use podcasts as a means to having really interesting conversations with influential people who can pass your business exactly. It's a door knocker, it's a door smasher, you'll get you through the door. Hey, do you want to come on my podcast? This is my area of specialism. You've got this. I'd love to talk to you and most people be like, yeah, damn straight, I'd love I'll talk about my life.
Speaker 1:It's pretty good, it's my business, my expertise, what I'm doing. Yeah, they want to share what it is you're doing and especially if you then turn around and say like, I get you this many views or you know these types of people in my audience, so they're going to get to see you, you're going to benefit as much as I can. And, as you say, when you sit across the table from somebody, when you jump on a pre-podcast call with them, each time you see them you get a deeper relationship with them. So by the end of one touchpoint, two touchpoint, three touchpoint, four touchpoint. When you release it, five when you do something, all of a sudden.
Speaker 1:You know that person exactly you know, you can put the phone up to them. You've had an intimate conversation with them and you know they're going to pass and refer business on to you. Yeah, I think that's one of the areas where financial planners need to wake up a little bit it's such an opportunity.
Speaker 2:It's a huge opportunity.
Speaker 1:It's a great opportunity. Not only that, we touched on, it's evergreen. So when it's out there, it's constantly being listened to. I look at my stats. It's like thousands of hours a month. I'm in somebody's ear thousands of hours, so when I'm sleeping away someone's having a little listen. Two people out there recognize me in norway today. It makes me laugh.
Speaker 2:It's really the dream it's good quality content.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it gets listened to and gets you recognized and builds that profile, especially when you've got a specific little niche like you have. Can I ask you some questions about linkedin? And I want to ask some questions about your ability to generate clients through introducers, traditional what we call introductions. Okay, you might want to call them partners, I don't know what you call them. I think we could change the name of professional connections professional connections.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you mentioned that you're not a natural extrovert. You would put content out on linkedin which sounds more text-based content, unless you were sharing, like your podcast, or yeah, so you surround yourself on linkedin, you can you consider it a network? Yes, human beings right, I do and you surround yourself with the human beings that will bring you into an environment that will refer or introduce the target client that you're looking for.
Speaker 2:So your audience, essentially, are solicitors absolutely, and I think, taking it back to kind of a more simple place, um, because I am still uncomfortable with it seeming like a sales technique or sales method that doesn't resonate with me. Um. So so when I think about my network, it's, it's the group of people that serve the same clients as me. Yeah, you know who else can I partner with that can also support and is also interested in what my clients need and want, and that I think that energy is really important, like if you're approaching it from a perspective of I can educate those solicitors, they can educate me, I can give them clients, they can give clients to me. Fine, it's a really different energy than actually, how do I create a network of people that I can ask to introduce to me.
Speaker 1:That feels really so, okay, okay, this is good. I think we need to kind of explore this because I think lots of people don't use linkedin correctly so one is that you know you don't surround yourself with, you don't go on linkedin and connect with 7 000 financial advisors no no, because what's the point of?
Speaker 2:that. So this is a really important point. When I started, I deleted all the financial advisors I was connected to. I think that's really important. I was really scared for them to hear my voice. Now I let them connect with me Now. I never used to for years, but I think you need to create a space that you feel really safe to use your voice and if you are connected to those other financial planners, you might not feel safe to do that because you might feel really judged for doing something different.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I did when I started and we are going off down the tangent here, but it's a really important one I hid from the financial planning world for around two years, like I literally didn't attend any conferences with financial planning, no training.
Speaker 2:I didn't come into SJP for anything because I was finding my path. I was finding my voice, I was finding my vision and it wasn't concrete, it wasn't cement, and I was really scared of being knocked off that path by other people's strong opinions. I surrounded myself with entrepreneurs who were doing new and exciting and inventive things, who were using podcasts, who were using LinkedIn in this way, and I think that's really important Surround yourself by people doing the things that you want to do, rather than people who've always done things how they were. So create, going back to LinkedIn create a space where not only are you connected to your partners you know people who also work with your clients but also people who inspire and who push you and kind of it is your network and if you are seeing people show up on there in ways that you want to show up, you're more likely to do it.
Speaker 1:So the content you create on linkedin and put out, you are writing it in the way that your perceived your preferred target client I do, but for the benefit of the um, say, legal professional, seeing your value and knowledge in what you know, therefore they think well, that's the type of thing that I talk about, or need to understand to be able to deliver a high level of service to my client during their divorce and therefore they see you as a value add yes and a reason to connect because you are going to improve the chances of them securing clients, retaining clients, becoming an expert in the divorce sector.
Speaker 1:Because, as you kind of educated me on the zoom call we had, there's lots of different people in the divorce space yeah so when we talk about niching again, I think, solicitor niche, you know that's it. All you're doing is this, is but there's more people all doing different little things in the space of divorce, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's actually, when you scratch the surface and you get a bit deeper, it's like going in the microscope, isn't it? You look at the microscope, you think you can only see 10 things. You go a bit deeper and there's billions.
Speaker 2:I think when you scratch it enough, you get to the point where you then realize where the community is.
Speaker 2:There is genuinely a group of us who all know each other, know of each other and are really, really connected in the linkedin space, you know.
Speaker 2:So if I want to go on linkedin and um, create some noise and actually have some really deep conversations, I can pretty much guarantee the people who are going to comment on my stuff and they're the really active people on linkedin and we're like a little group who all know each other. So you're not only just kind of finding the wider spider web of, yeah, it's divorce coach and it's lawyer and it's actuary and it's the accountant. It's not just looking at that, but but it's oh, these are the ones who are engaged on LinkedIn and actually, because that's the place that I'm active and that's the place that they're active, we're a good community to work together. Now, I've no doubt that there is a whole load of solicitors and coaches and accountants that I don't know because they don't use LinkedIn. That's not my problem. They know because they don't use linkedin, that's not my problem, they're the ones who are going to have drinks with barry, the financial advisor.
Speaker 1:You know that's yeah his, his field it's funny because I've spoken to financial advisors who are uber successful and they're not on linkedin interesting so it's not like the be all and end all of life, but where you?
Speaker 1:but it's finding the thing that you are really good at and doing it really well I love making content yeah, I like trying to inspire lots of people yeah I don't like going to networking events it's not my cup of tea and people kind of find that a bit odd. They think I'm quite extrovert. I'm quite an extrovert introvert, you know I need. I like the idea of I love talking to people one-on-one. I'm intrigued and interested from a place where I know that I could educate a thousand people tomorrow about your conversation if I asked the right questions on their behalf yeah and I enjoy that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I enjoy being the person who asks the questions on behalf of the person that doesn't know. I like that, yeah, and I like I like that and that's how I can be of service. Yeah, if I can inspire a thousand people by talking to you, then how many of those are going to join the profession or take a take a chance on establishing a niche or moving forward their career and getting out of a shit place in their life, for instance?
Speaker 2:yeah, or get recommitted and repassionate about what they're doing, something that feels stale and difficult, because I think they have to go to the networking, suddenly seeing a different path and the huge amount of success that you can get out of it. Now it does cross over into the real world. So I don't do typical networking events anymore. I think you need to surround yourself, as I said, with the people that you actually are inspired by and who motivate you and kind of a step ahead of where you are Going to, a local networking event is going to get me clients who are small business owners and that isn't who I work with. So where I network now is a much higher scale.
Speaker 2:So I go to a lot of the Spears events at the Wealth Management Awards recently. So that's a room of the highest net worth advisors, ultra high net worth advisors, and it was the awards and it was all really busy, loads of stuff going on, and I walked into that room and I stopped. I talked to person after person after person who I knew and it really was a wake up call for me because I was like I don't live in London, I am not a part of the social elite, yet I know so many people in this room, so much so that my SJP colleagues were there and I didn't even get to see them. Because I didn't get to them? Because through the walking through the room I just had to keep stopping this solicitor, that divorce coach. It was just a room full of people that I knew. Now, that's from LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:Do you find that you get approached directly on LinkedIn by people that tend to be what I would consider watchers, so those that are on LinkedIn but don't engage? Oh, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes, yes, I do get that, um, I think because of what I do specifically, so we haven't touched on this, but I do get clients from LinkedIn Clients directly contact me on LinkedIn. Clients contact me directly on Instagram, um, and they might never have engaged with my content, liked anything, because they're not letting the outside world know that they're getting going through divorce.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I get lots of watches there was a poll put out quite recently from a chap called rob atherton.
Speaker 1:He's quite um yes yeah, you know rob um, so he put a bet on with me and I said about we talked about LinkedIn, how many financial advisors generate business on LinkedIn, and I said I reckon 75% of them generate nothing, whereas he said 100%, because I reckon 100% generate nothing on LinkedIn. And I said 75% Came in at 76% of advisors that are using LinkedIn aren't even generating any business. Aren't even generating any business and I think I got near that figure in saying if there was some training and development for you to generate business on LinkedIn, would you take it? And about 70% said yes.
Speaker 1:So there's, a desire and an appetite to want to be able to use LinkedIn properly. But I think people get confused by LinkedIn. They kind of almost treat it like Facebook or Instagram.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree when they connect with their peers. Yeah, I agree, and they connect with their peers?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, and I think there's this kind of echo chamber of just advisors chatting about advice on each other's posts. And no one's really no one.
Speaker 2:It's just noise.
Speaker 1:If you're going to go on there, you need to do what you do, which is pick your audience. My audience are financial planners, of course, yeah, or those that want to become financial planners or administrators or power planners, not recruitment consultants. I don't have any recruitment consultants connected to me. I don't because I don't want them. You know I don't want them seeing my content and whatnot. You know, the only people I do is recruiters in the financial planning space because their network of financial planners yeah, so I've moved beyond that.
Speaker 2:I said I didn't have financial planners in my network because I didn't want to be seen and it was nerve-wracking, um, but now I have them there because I want to inspire them. You know, one of the big things that also comes from LinkedIn is financial planners contacting me saying oh, my God, wow, how have you done this? Can I speak to you? And I think that's a really important conversation to be having. For all the reasons that you do this podcast, it's also as, as financial planners, kind of motivating and inspiring that generation by them seeing what we're doing.
Speaker 2:So I do let them, I do let them know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I think that's part of your journey. I think you don't put that energy and effort into being coached and mentored and trained through your down priestess, etc. To keep that information yeah, I agree I think we we learn something to inspire and teach others further down the line yeah, it becomes part of our innate human nature to want to help.
Speaker 1:You have that anyway with wanting to help your clients on a much deeper level and on a much more emotionally connected level, because you see the benefit of taking somebody through a period of time which is difficult to overcome. I went on a 12-step process for my drinking years ago. Part of that is in the 12 steps is you have to take somebody else through the 12 steps.
Speaker 2:So when I took them through the 12 steps it was like doing the steps again yeah, as I took them through the steps again, I learned a completely different way of doing it so I have a number of kind of colleagues, like people that are running their own business, but I have a good connection with and we interact and you know we kind of bounce off ideas and absolutely I teach them this stuff like and they teach me their stuff and we're kind of constantly kind of evolving um, and when I am with people, I find it really hard.
Speaker 2:When they ask me about a niche, I find it really hard not to find theirs, like it's a game yeah, I think they all say, well, how will I find a niche?
Speaker 2:I'm like, okay, let's go, let's like dig into what you're good at, look, dig into your background and kind of find things. And there's so many niches like I think people think that I've picked the niche and that's it, like there's nothing else left. And actually there's we talked about this. You know like, where are the financial planners for soap opera singers? Well, so proper, kind of singers were amazing.
Speaker 2:Opera singers would be one. But soap opera, you know actors, where's the financial planners for them? Like imagine how amazing that would be. It's like all these niches that you could go and create real amount of noise, yeah, and interest and deep, deep specialism, like I can imagine if you were working in a soap. Why do I want to call it a soap opera?
Speaker 1:it is a soap opera. It is a soap opera, just not singers, unless you're neighbors yeah.
Speaker 2:So imagine if you're working in that environment and you you've got a certain set of difficulties, a certain routine, um, the exposure that you're getting is creating its own set of complications.
Speaker 1:And if you knew that, if you knew that inside out and you could mirror it back to them, you're going to become the advisor of choice so I love that and I think it's something that should be talked about at the st james's place academy, because we just went to a room of people a second ago and in there was a guy who um captain yachts, and then there was a chap who um was a pilot yeah so you've got all these different people coming into the st james's place academy from all different walks of life and all that level of experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, why not hang your hat on the niche that you're in? And because you understand what the troubles and problems and what life looks like for those types of individuals, there's company like wesleyan, isn't there, that?
Speaker 1:look at teachers and lawyers and doctors, you know, and um, they've niched down and made a business out of it, so every single advisor really could take a look at the bits of, take a look at their lives. What have they learned? Learned about their lives and also, what I also liked about what you said is, when we go in, we start to look at our intrinsic values, don't we? Things that we care about, yeah, things that matter to us, and then if you are unearthing those and then again aligning them to your specialism and your niche, and that you understand and you're passionate about, it's just happy days, isn't it? Life becomes a lot easier. You don't have to be fighting for something because you know it or you want to know more about that subject matter. You're, unless you've got anything to say on that.
Speaker 2:I just spot on it. It doesn't become work.
Speaker 2:You know, I show up because I'm interested and I'm passionate. I want to help these people, but I show up because I'm interested and I'm passionate. I want to help these people, but I am learning because I want to know the next thing and the next thing because it's coming up for my clients. So it just naturally evolves in a way that is just not work. Life just becomes absolutely a dream, and it's not difficult. When you show up with that energy, clients are just attracted to you. And I think I said to you this on the call I have more clients than I can work with. Clients find me through instagram, through linkedin. I don't go and find clients. I don't. There's no part of me that, at any point, at any time, thinks oh, where's my next client coming from? The clients find me, and that's utopia. When you, as an advisor, can be attracting the clients that you love working with and that's all you do every day, there's nothing that needs to change we're going to bottle this up and sell it.
Speaker 1:You and me, let's do it, let's do it, um. There are a couple of things I just want you to just go into a bit of detail about, because a I'm interested um and b I think it will inspire individuals to perhaps seek a specialism and do some study around it.
Speaker 1:You talk about narcissism and a narcissism qualification and you talk about financial, economic abuse. Yes, can you just give our listeners a bit of an overview of what they are, but also how they are important for you to understand in your specialist niche with your clients?
Speaker 2:yeah. So my clients are not necessarily divorcing a narcissist. They may not have ever even heard of that word, but there's a definite power dynamic. There's a definite strategy and awareness that is needed so that you don't inadvertently take actions that could create outcomes you don't want. So a big part of understanding narcissism is knowing how people are thinking so that you can know how not to trigger them. Now your client I'm talking as if you're working with this my client, um, is an expert herself in her own partner's narcissism. They might not use that word, but they know all the things that trigger and so creating a space where you have the specialism to have the same conversation. Let them know that you understand narcissism, let them know that you've done all the work around it so that when they talk about their triggers, it's really clear about how you're going to take the next steps, that they feel heard and they feel seen and that it's really clear about how you're going to take next steps. So some specific examples of how that shows up If you are working with somebody whose ex has had a history of coercive control, if there's been a power dynamic in which she hasn't had her voice heard and you put them in a mediation situation, the dynamic is such that she's unlikely to end up with a result that reflects what she needs. And it can easily be resolved by having other people in the room and that isn't me, actually, I'm not, I'm never in the room, but having her solicitor there, having a financial neutral there, that's another role that's really useful. Um, and actually creating that third party. One of the really interesting things about narcissism is if you can convince the other person it's their idea, then they normally run with that, and if you can convince the other person that they're gonna with this certain types of narcissists which most of my clients are divorcing if you can convince, if you can make it seem that they are the knight on the horse and they are the one who's actually saving and is the savior and kind of how brilliant they're looking after this person through the divorce and how they might be perceived, you can get certain outcomes. So the narcissism qualification has allowed me to understand the strategy that might be useful and then have strategic conversations with my client and with their lawyer.
Speaker 2:Financial abuse qualifications is about helping my client recognize where things might have gone wrong. You know they're really subtle things that can happen during relationships and actually there is a point at which is really normal for you to not know about the finances, because one of you is just you're a busy family, you got all these plates that you're spinning, and one of you is managing the finances. The other one is managing the children and things are really healthy and there's not an issue. But there's a point at which it switches and it becomes more around control and understanding what that switch looks like, specific things that might happen around.
Speaker 2:You know, I had one client whose husband would hide the keys so she couldn't find the keys and she'd be late to work and it always resulted in her having kind of really difficult conversations in work and losing jobs etc. And she just thought she was going mad. Like she just thought constantly like I never can do this and I'm always, but it's economic control, like he was the one wanting to earn the money if he can reduce her ability to earn money. So it's about understanding. You know, those qualifications have increased my depth of understanding and it's just interesting. Like it's fascinating stuff.
Speaker 1:It's not like sitting down doing a trust module yeah, very interesting, so that gave you a further, deeper understanding of humans yes also gave you an ability to signpost people to probably the help that they actually need because, although you've hold a qualification in financial abuse, it doesn't mean that you're a counselor or something along those lines right, not at all.
Speaker 1:So it gives you the opportunity to signpost them to the right help, and I guess as well if financial planners are listening to this and they're used to sitting down with couples it also gives you an opportunity to recognize if financial abuse perhaps is taking place or if there is a narcissist in the relationship, or because you can see two people sat in front of you and the way one person might be dominating the conversation or the fact that that person might not know something about one area. You can kind of probe and ask questions and even potentially recognize an opportunity to help somebody by having a private conversation with them about something that really that they should know. My mum and dad went into the bank and my dad's quite a controlling type individual, quite dominant type guy anyway, the bank.
Speaker 1:They were talking about the bank, banking and everything. My dad jumped over. My mum started speaking to this, but I wasn't there, by the way, my mom told me just spoke over her. I spoke to the bank and he turned around and said excuse me, I'm talking to mrs oaks. This is about hers, not yours, so if you could step away. My mom was like yeah like you know, christ my dad was like jesus, off he went.
Speaker 1:But that's a prime example how it is being brought in in the banking, in the financial services, that it is a thing you know, that people need to recognize the fact that you're speaking for yourself, because it's your money yeah, I do know.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I still see time and time again are clients who have pensions, who have ices, who have a whole load of financial products and I will say, okay, what's your relationship with this financial advisor? This is early days and I'm trying to work out have they got relationship with another financial advisor? Where do I step in? How does this look? And they'll say I've never met them. How can you never have met this person? You've got an ISA. How can you never met this person? You've got a pension, I've signed the forms and they have a zero relationship.
Speaker 2:That is a huge risk on so many levels from consumer duty perspective, but also like as a business person. You only know 50% of your clients. It's a huge risk to you if your client divorces because they're taking 50% away and if you have no moral obligation. You should have a financial perspective on what's going on here, because there are still still far too many advisors who advise the husband and the wife is either there, not there, or there is a token. In an ideal world.
Speaker 2:I think all couples should be also expected to have a separate financial review with their advisor so that you can identify financial abuse. Now the practicalities of that are tough because so many advisors have so many large volumes of clients. That would be. What good looked like to me is that you actually get to a place where those risks are eliminated because you do sit down with somebody, say, okay, what's your understanding? What's going on here, what have you got what? I sit with clients. They have literally no idea what they've got and there's a form that you have to complete through divorce that lists all of your assets and they fill in what they know and then have to ask their ex, and it's outrageous just out of interest.
Speaker 1:Do you know any stats around this? But do more women divorce multi-millionaire ceos than men, who are multi-millionaire ceos divorce women?
Speaker 2:I don't know. No, I don't know where I find it out either it's not like yeah yeah just interested so actually, so are my clients divorcing their ex, or vice versa it is a mix.
Speaker 2:There is a real mix because with narcissism you get to a point of power of which you feel like you don't need anybody, and so they will often drop their wife because she's fulfilled her part, she's raised the children. You know it's typical my clients children are kind of 18, 19, 20. They've raised the children, you've got the role that you always wanted.
Speaker 2:Um, there are some really deviant behaviors that come with narcissism. Um, around the kind of sexual practices that they have, you know, they're far more likely to have adultery, far more likely for the moral line to not be there. So there are a lot of my clients for whom I would even say the vast majority, it's the ex who's brought the divorce to the table, not vice versa. And then I occasionally will have women who are the ones who have positioned it because they feel quite abandoned. Um, and it's rare that it feels like a meeting of minds, you know they've decided that this is the right thing to do. That's where it's normally kind of a real dynamic of one of them wanting it and because you've got the financial abuse content, because you put content out there about that right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I attract those clients for sure yeah yeah, there's a definite, and I am. I do say this on my social media. I am aware that I am self-perpetuating the type of clients that I get, because you're going to work with me if you're seeing these things and therefore I'm going to see more of them and talk more about them, for sure do you sometimes feel like some of these people are not experiencing it and be able to have that where you kind of oh, I've had um a thought of oh, are you the narcissist?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I mean, yeah.
Speaker 2:I have, um, and I actually um, I am really conscious of that. I, you know, could be a good fit and how that might transpire. And I have had cases where I've thought this, this just isn't landing well with me and it's normally quite easy to not present yourself as well as you should do and therefore they don't choose to work with you. And that's what I would tend to do is kind of not make it massively compelling, um, if the energy doesn't feel right to me is narcissism higher?
Speaker 1:is there a higher account for narcissism in men than there? Is yeah yeah, and is there a higher account for narcissism in men who are successful?
Speaker 2:successful than the average? Yeah, absolutely. They think it's one of the very drivers of somebody reaching those levels of success. Is these traits within their personality?
Speaker 1:they're like psychopathy as well, isn't it? They believe that that's quite a driver yeah interesting. Hey, meet some interesting people and I bet sometimes you're sitting on the other side of the table. It's an eye-opener it's an eye-opener.
Speaker 2:I mean, when I said about the sexual deviance, it wasn't, it didn't come up in my narcissism training at all and I had client after client who would share these stories and I got to the point I was like there's something in there. And then I went, did some research and I was like, oh yeah, this is like a massive part of narcissism that isn't massively talked about is that they're normally very sexually deviant. They have really different morals around it and I have masses of clients who tell me these really deep, intimate things that are going on, yeah, that you wouldn't expect to actually come across the other side of things that we haven't touched on actually. Is that?
Speaker 2:So there's trauma in the work that I'm doing with my clients. You know it is heavy, high, emotional, heavy hitting stuff. Um, the reason that it lands well with me, the reason that I love this and I still do it, is because after the divorce ends, that woman rebuilds and the hope that comes from that and the journey she then goes on is so inspiring. So getting those balance of things is just such a brilliant myth, because you see somebody really really come through and out the other side and I think it must be so hard to be a divorce lawyer because you're never getting that other side. You're never getting that like hopeful story and these clients are with me for life in the happy period that's a really lovely way of putting it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it's not transactional at all. It's a lifelong journey but you're seeing yeah, you're seeing complete and utter transformation, aren't you?
Speaker 2:yeah, the chrysalis to the butterfly type yeah, absolutely, and a real sense of community. That's the other thing that comes from having clients who are really similar to each other. So, for example, one of my clients has an art exhibition soon and shared it amongst my group of clients because we want to be there supporting each other. You know they want to support somebody who is self-starting and who's having to rebuild. They want to choose services and providers that kind of align to that as well. So the sense of this group of women supporting each other is something new. I ran recently a client focus group. I brought some of my clients together. I wanted to hear from them their own words of like, their experiences and what worked, what hadn't, and what I hadn't anticipated is what they would gain from being brought together and how much those women just getting those chance to meet other women now on the other side how valuable that was to them the community, the community aspect of community aspect of that's a great area for you to step into
Speaker 1:yeah, building your, building your online community, building a community like um, do you? Know her that leia turner she's like a linkedin trainer no so she charges 500 pound a year to join a community, but it's always a wait list.
Speaker 1:I mean she's got like um, I think she's closing in on like 500 people in her community, but within it are specific experts around helping new businesses start up and then each of those specific experts deliver a presentation, for instance, and then people come in and they can lean into all the different people who are classed, I suppose, as master, master, um classes or something within the group and then the community helps. The community creates a kind of pump group really, which is a bit obvious on social media because you can see that like 300 people, like one of the new entrances you know, post or something along that. I said that's a bit obvious. But the concept of it all, no one's really doing it.
Speaker 1:Within the financial planning space you've got like next gen planners that are geared towards really the next gen who perhaps aren't quite getting there yet. Octo members were trying to do it around the networking of, I think, what really looks like kind of established advisors and no one's really in that sweet spot space between where you are, you know, where you, you know. I think you could do that for financial planners. We talked about that. This is me pitching you an idea?
Speaker 1:But on the other side is you and your network and bringing those people into it. And how new, many new people could you bring into your network to inspire? Yeah through that online mentorship side. It's worth you kind of looking at it because you're there anyway.
Speaker 2:It's a nice um financial planners don't create other revenue streams no I, what we do is complex you know, so a lot of what I'm doing outside of the stuff that you're seeing is really deep, complex stuff. I was saying to geek earlier I've got a client, tomorrow I've got 19 trust forms to complete. You know, there's a huge amount of work that I'm actually doing in the day-to-day. So I think we often don't create other income streams because the the actual financial advice part is time consuming.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I gotcha Right. We're coming to the end of the podcast. I could talk to you all day long. It's really, really interesting. I've got loads of questions I would like to ask you, but probably not suitable for the podcast. Actually, let's just leave it. On a note of if someone's sitting here right now they're thinking about becoming a financial planner, yeah, or they're in the early stage of their career. Maybe they're not. Maybe they're knocking on doors. That's not going anywhere. Let's give them a couple of examples of some niches that they could, that they could start into or how to at least explore it.
Speaker 2:So this is when we talked about. I think we need financial planners for WAGs like. I think like that would be amazing yeah.
Speaker 2:I quite fancy that one. Actually, that would be really interesting and really inspiring. Um, so, definitely financial planners for WAGs. Um, it's what you were saying earlier, though it's going back to kind of, what is it that you are passionate and focused about and can you create a niche around that? So it could be something as simple as that. You are the financial planner for xyz company, where your husband works and, like you, know everything about their pay scale and exactly when they're going to get promotions and how that's going to impact them and how they buy into being part of that company, and knowing inside out exactly what that looks like.
Speaker 2:Um, so, yeah, kind of looking at your personal network and seeing where that, exactly what that looks like. So, yeah, kind of looking at your personal network and seeing where that is. What else would be really exciting? Like I'm trying to think about ones that I would love. So I'd quite like to be, I feel, like, a planner for vets. I don't know how your pet experience is, but vets just seem to be going from one network to a new network to a new network.
Speaker 1:That, like, I feel like there's like a whole business model there that he saw him with that to be a really good one no one's doing that it's really interesting because I always think about when you talk about a niche, talking about the things that vets are interested in animals people love animals oh I know I'd love that so day in day out. You're taking photos of animals. You're talking about animals. You're talking about, yeah, like. That's a good. It's like chefs as well. So high-end chefs like food. Instagram is full of food pictures. People love food, yeah, right.
Speaker 2:So, like you know, you can entwine food into your financial planning journey and the pressures and the stress that they go under as chefs, because that's a high pressure for financial planners for, for influencers, for podcas, because the way that you are working is not standard, like your money is coming in in ways that actually does need some really good planning and influencers and podcasters can earn mega money, so like that could be like a really interesting route.
Speaker 1:Streamers and you would learn loads from them, yeah.
Speaker 2:Like you would be win-win because you wouldn't just be doing your stuff. You would learn off the other person.
Speaker 1:Streamers and gamers. Yeah, gamers make a load of money, yeah, and they're like some of them are like 16 years old and like a million quid to be like e-gamers yeah so there's loads of areas if people thought about oh, hang on, that's not too, that's not too bad.
Speaker 1:I think the inspiring bit about this podcast is look, it may feel like it's a really narrow niche, but if you're interested and you're passionate about it and you can offer a level of service to those individuals which ultimately, at the end of the day, is financial planning but if you get it and you understand it and you can inspire them yeah then why not go for something you're interested in and trying to go the same path as everybody else, where you don't quite understand the intricacies of everybody's different type of job role?
Speaker 2:I think, make it easy for yourself. So either you can go down the mass market route and have high volumes of low value clients, and it is. You know it's like walking through mud. I take on 10 clients a year. Finding 10 clients that's not a huge ask, you know. 10 clients finding me is really simple, really straightforward.
Speaker 2:I think the thing that I would like to kind of leave with people really is it's hard, whatever you do, but choose your heart. Now you can either choose to go out and do all of that networking and kind of be in that environment, or choose to show up on social media and get outside of your comfort zone and use it that way, and that, oh. There was one more thing I want to say, which is and this is, I think, what I reached out to you when I said I want to be on your podcast, sam it was this thing I think being a really good financial advisor is 50% being a really good entrepreneur, and if you're not really good at being an entrepreneur, the 50% of you who's a financial advisor doesn't get to be, and so that should be your focus. You know what are you consuming?
Speaker 2:What you know? What podcasts are you listening to? What are you reading? What courses are you doing? Are you listening to? What are you reading? What courses are you doing? Are you truly developing the entrepreneur side of yourself? And if you're not, that's where your opportunity lies.
Speaker 1:Love it Brilliant.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, kerry for sharing your journey today, thank you. Thank you, sam.