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.
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. We welcome back G Footed from the St James's Place Academy and we take a deep dive into terms five and six. You may have watched the Ultimate Guide to the St James's Place Academy, one of our top podcast episodes. We have a recap on terms one, two, three and four, but we hyper-focus on five and six and the reason being is the importance of mentorship, training in development when you are a financial planner and St James' Place go at it like nobody else. You're going to love this episode if you're thinking about becoming a financial planner and looking to join a leading academy.
Speaker 1:So, g, welcome back to the Financial Planner Live podcast. We had huge success with the St James's Place Ultimate Guide to the St James's Place Academy, so anybody listening or watching right now, if you go to the show notes, you can click on the link and you can go back over the ultimate guide to the St James's Place Academy, one of the most downloaded podcast episodes, and it gives a real overview of what to expect in year one sorry, not year one in term one, term two, term three and term four. But today I invite you back on. We're going to look at some of the things that have changed in the St James's Place Academy. Have a recap of the Terms 1 to 4, but we're going to look at Terms 5 and 6. That's something we didn't cover in the Ultimate Guide to the SJP Academy. But first off, g, how are you?
Speaker 2:Very well, thank you, good to be here. I'm in sunny Bristol today, so I've done the travelling.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, yeah, absolutely 25 minutes down the motorway for me. I still hit traffic which is a bit of a pain in the arse, classic on the old M5. But really pleased to be here today in St James's Place offices one of many obviously in the UK. I did see some of the SJP Academy delegates out there in the hallway. I noticed one of them from the picture that was put out on social media yesterday. So fantastic place, obviously a hotbed of activity, training and development here at St James's Place. So before we actually kick things off, if anybody's listening to this podcast or they're watching it right now and they are thinking I need to kick off a conversation about becoming a financial planner I want to become a financial advisor, I want to find out more about St James's Place and the Academy what should they do? Just to give them a bit of a call to action.
Speaker 2:Brilliant. So before we jump into the detail of that, sam, I'm going to start with an analogy, and I know that we're going to put in the show notes lots of links to different podcast episodes. So I'm going to start with one that's an external one. I recently listened to Diver's CEO, stephen Bartlett. I know that most people will be familiar with that. I listened to a really good episode recently with Daniel Priestley. So the first analogy I'm going to use I stole from him, but it's a Lego analogy.
Speaker 2:You've got a daughter aged eight, my daughter's aged seven. So Lego is something I'm sure that's in your household. It very much is in mine and I recently got back from California and went to Disney World and there's an amazing Star Wars section within Disney World. So let's imagine a Lego set, that big Lego set of the Millennium Falcon. It starts with a load of messy bricks on the table and it takes, following the instructions, step by step, brick by brick, but you can turn an absolute mess into a success, into a Millennium Falcon. But let's bring it down a step or two back to my daughter's kind of level. So what we're building at home is a panda tree house from Minecraft for age seven-year-olds, but still the bricks of the Lego. Let's call them knowledge blocks. What do you do with them all? You need to follow the instructions. My daughter is able to do that now on her own. So I just want to suggest that the Academy is pretty much like a Lego set for financial advisors. You can build your knowledge blocks, get the qualifications, get the skills, but that's not enough. You need then a blueprint to follow to become a successful and profitable business. So the Lego set for financial advisors is the SJP Financial Advisor Academy.
Speaker 2:But why should you listen to us? Well, we've been running the academy for over 12 years and we've had over 1300 people join our partnership in going through our training. So we take it really seriously. We want to grow our own business, but we want to also contribute to the profession. It needs more financial advisors, which is why we're here talking to you today.
Speaker 2:But back to your question. If somebody is interested in joining us, what's the first step? How do they engage with us? How do they start a conversation? So the simplest thing to do is go to our website. It's wwwsjpcouk. Forward slash academy and on there, on the right hand corner, there'll be a contact us or start a conversation button. You can pop in your details there and somebody will give you a call.
Speaker 2:Alternatively, I would encourage anybody whether you've engaged with us already and started conversation with us or not sign up to one of our events. So if you go to the same website, there's an events tab. You can click on there and you can look at where the events are. They happen across the country. You mentioned we're in sunny Bristol today. Well, we've got 22 offices just like this across the country and on a monthly basis they'll be hosting open evenings and there's also a virtual open evening if getting to one of those is tricky for you. But I would encourage people to go in person because then you get a real feel for the business. Like you said, you've bumped into a handful of academics in reception. When you come into our building you'll meet, you know, people from sjp and I think you get a real sense of who we are no, fantastic.
Speaker 1:I think that's absolutely sound advice. Always good to have a bit of a quick, kind of almost virtual coffee chat, I find sometimes. But going face to face is a completely different experience. Whenever I meet people face-to-face it's not the same as online what I love about getting online.
Speaker 1:Maybe picking up the telephone is if you've got a burning question that you need to ask and you don't want to take yourself up to London or you can't get out of work, for example, but you want that question answered. Just to kind of take you to the next step. It's great that you are able to jump on virtually on a telephone call. You're accessible, yeah, and then you roll out the red carpet and invite them along to a face-to-face meeting.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. In that face-to-face meeting, we want them to meet a range of different people that they'll likely meet on their academy journey. So they'll be one of our development managers there. Typically, there'll be lots of our recruitment managers there, but they'll also be an academy graduate there and I think that's really important and they're really the star of the show. So, yes, we can tell you all about SJP, we can tell you about why now's a great time to become a financial advisor, but ultimately, you want to meet somebody who's been through the training. What was their lived experience, like you know? Actually have a conversation with them and ask them lots of questions. So that's what we provide.
Speaker 1:Yeah, between the financial plan of life and you good people there at the St James's Place Academy. We are interviewing people over the next 12 months that have gone through the academy and are now part of St James's Place and they're going to sort of share their journey, their experiences, the highs and the lows, the reality of actually going through it. So, again, if you're listening to this and you want to know more, go to the SJP playlist. Have a little look. It's a fantastic episode.
Speaker 1:Natasha Percy Baxter, part one, part two. Have a good listen to that, because her journey started by listening to the Financial Planner Live podcast, phoning me up and saying I want to be a financial advisor. Three years later, she's a partner at St James' Place. So it's a fantastic testimonial, a fantastic story, and she shares lots of hints and tips on the most recent episode about what she does and how she does it and the success that she's having, along with the challenges, which is really, really important, talking about those challenges, not just the wins all the time, right? Okay?
Speaker 1:So somebody has shown an interest in thinking about joining St James's Place Academy. They've had a chat with someone like yourself or you know one of the recruiters, let's say out with someone like yourself or you know one of the recruiters, let's say some of the academics that have gone through it. Now they actually want to join On the ultimate guide to the St James's Place Academy. We didn't really talk about what that selection process is like. So what should somebody expect to happen when they're going through the selection process? Do you take everybody on? Is there an interview process? Can you give us a bit of an insight on what to expect?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So what to expect is a very human experience and I think that's really important to share, because some people might feel intimidated about maybe haven't done an interview for some time and I think walking into a structured interview straight off, when you're having a conversation with a business, is quite intimidating. So we have lots of engagement with somebody prior to a formal interview. So the formal interview is the very end of the selection process, where you will have had numerous conversations, numerous interactions with us and our people, and you'll also have done some homework.
Speaker 2:Now again, I don't want that to sound intimidating either, because the homework is really there to help people make a very much informed decision about. Is this for me? Now you said does everybody get through? Well, often people self-select their way in or they self-select their way out based on the information that we share with them. And yes, there is a final stage, interview, and not everybody gets through, but obviously we've done a lot of work together before that point, so hopefully by that stage, we're all confident that this is a good option for that person.
Speaker 1:Great, and I think what's really important for anybody who's considering going down the route of becoming a financial planner that if you're going to go into a role where you are a partner running your own financial planning business, you're going to be wearing a business owner hat and a financial planner hat. Right, it's a big, big responsibility, and you've got to also think about what does year one look like? Am I in a position within my life to be able to stop what I'm doing, retrain and go out there in year one, year two, year three and build a business in financial planning? What I like about St James's Place is that you're not trying to rush people along the process. There's a selection process that means that you and your investment in those individuals and how much do you invest per person when they go through.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for the first four terms. We've already discussed on our previous episode. We didn't include the costing in terms five and six in this, but it's typically about 65,000 invested in the training in that individual over the first in terms five and six in this, but it's typically about 65,000 invested in the training in that individual over the first four terms.
Speaker 1:Which is absolutely huge. I spoke to Scott Stevens recently. It was coming close to 30 million a year as a business unit that you put through to cover the costs of the training and the development of individuals that are going through the academy. So it's a big investment for you as a company. You're not under pressure to push people through it. So when it comes to selecting the right person, you need to think about A are they good for St James's Place? But B is it good for them?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Is it good for them is the most important question, and that's why there's a bit of homework and a bit of due diligence on both sides, really. But it's really for the individual to say is this opportunity a viable option for me? Can I see myself being successful? Do I understand what that first 12 months looks like in terms of the financial aspect as well? So, ultimately, let's recap exactly what the outcomes are.
Speaker 2:So there's two outcomes. It's either being successful within an existing St James's Place practice as an advisor or starting your own business. So those are the two different options that people have when they join us, and you don't necessarily need to know which of those two options you're going to go down when you start the conversation with us. You might have an ambition of being a business owner. It might be right to start a business from the outset. Or, after having conversations with us doing your own homework, you might say, actually, I'm not ready to start my own business yet. I'm going to start within somebody else's and then eventually in the future, I can have my own business. So there's lots of flexibility in those two routes, but those are the ultimate routes that are available to people.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, and you're not going to know until you have that conversation. And what I hear time and time again is that you do challenge, you do push back on people. You do want to see things like business plans, because if they're going to go down the route of running their own business, you need to see in black and white how are they going to generate that business with the support of the St James's Place partnership? And if they're in a position where they don't feel quite comfortable, are there other options within existing partner practices where somebody could actually slip in there? Whether they're self-employed and whether they're employed, it's completely dependent, isn't it, upon the partner practice that they would join. So lots of options for people. Get the conversation started. There is a selection process and you make it easy and challenging for the right reasons.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. If I share with you a little bit more detail, then because we didn't go into it in detail in the previous interview. I recently met with a candidate who's in term three at the moment and she said I thought it was too good to be true. I made SJP introduce me to a couple of people who'd been through the program just to ask them all the questions that I was thinking about, to make sure that what I was being told was true. Now it does sound too good to be true but, as you said, it's not easy. If it was easy, everybody would do it. What I would say is if you're willing to put in the work, you can have an outcome that people can't. So it's two ways. Yes, it's amazing, but yes, it's also hard work.
Speaker 2:And yes, you need to be in a viable position to make it work for you. So we'll go into what that looks and feels like. So just to give a little bit more detail on SJP's partnership model, it might be helpful, yeah, please. Businesses and those businesses range in size, from one person doing everything themselves, including the advice, and then, as their business grows, they might need to employ more people. They might need an administrator. A power planner is somebody who writes reports on your behalf, and then you might get to the point where you've got too many clients to service all on your own. You need to build your business and take on another advisor. So we've got businesses with one person in, we've got businesses with one advisor in but numerous people in, and we've got businesses with, you know, 50 plus financial advisors in. So what that means is, no matter what your ambitions, they are possible. Here at SJP there's no cap on what you can personally achieve. But saying to somebody at the beginning oh, do you want to build a business with 50 advisors? It's a step too far, You've got to start somewhere. So those early years when you're with SJP, launching your business, becoming a financial advisor for the first time, are very much high touch, high nurture, and that's what we want you to be a successful in your own right before you're thinking about building. So it's really important that people understand. You've mentioned a business plan. Again, I don't want to scare anybody off saying I've got to write a business plan. I've never done that before. Well, 95% of the people that come and speak to us haven't written a business plan before and they certainly haven't 100% haven't written a business plan for a financial advice business startup. Now some people might be thinking well, if I'm just going to be a financial advisor, do I still need to do a plan? And we encourage people to do that because, ultimately, you're a business within a business. You've still got your own clients that you're going to be looking after within a bigger infrastructure. Now, what might the benefits be of joining an existing business? It is that infrastructure, so they might have an administrator that can support you, whereas if you're starting your own business, you're going to wear all those different hats.
Speaker 2:We were talking about running a business just before we started filming. You've been running your own business for 15 years and, yes, there are parts of the job that you enjoy, but also there's all the other jobs that need doing too. So you do have to take those things into consideration. But what people most often ask is how quickly can I earn X? I'm earning X in this current role or my previous role. How quickly can I get to that? And the answer isn't straightforward because it's different for everybody. So I can't give you a straight answer today.
Speaker 2:But what we help people understand through the business planning is what X funds under management means in terms of revenue for you. And then you want to break that down. Well, x funds under management might mean 50 clients, but to a different person it might be 70 clients, depending on your personal network and the types of people that you know who you might think can become clients. So the homework is very much to help you understand what it takes to build a client bank from the people that you already know. If you come to us and you don't think you have a big enough network to start a business, then perhaps joining a practice who has access to some clients for you is the best place. Or they have also a marketing function that can generate clients. So again, there's lots of flexibility. But the homework is self-led for a purpose that you come out the other side confident in your ability. Yes, I can do this. I can start a business and I've got the resources and the help and support from SJP to do that.
Speaker 1:And what I love as well and we spoke about this off camera is that someone can join St James's Place Academy, go through that early stage process and actually know what their exit value of the business could be at the end. So you are thinking about the end, thinking with the end in mind. If somebody wants to see that, but most people are going to want to know right, well, what does an exit look like for me? So if I'm 40 years old, I'm 42 years old, if I'm thinking I want to retire at 55 years old, then what would my plan look like? What would it potentially make me in respect of a sale value?
Speaker 1:And you can do that because the ecosystem of St James's Place is built, isn't it to be able to provide evidence, because other people have gone through it? But there are people there able to buy your clients when you exit. We're sort of pushing ahead a little bit here, but it is worth bringing that into the very beginning conversation because, with the goal in mind, you're a lot happier and a lot clearer in the direction that you're going in and you support them in the beginning to see what the value of their business could be in the end, and I love that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. Let's think about that ecosystem that we have. In the partnership. There's two and a half thousand business owners. The average age within our partnership is 47. The average age in the profession as a whole is 57. So there's lots of people retiring from giving financial advice. Now SJP thought about this 12 plus years ago when we launched our academy, which is why our average age is lower, because the average age of people coming to the academy is early 30s. So what we now have is a perfect ecosystem where we've got people coming in and training. They want to grow their business and what they have the opportunity to do when they reach terms five and six which we'll come on to later is acquire or buy clients from a retiring partner.
Speaker 2:Now I mentioned that episode of Diver's CEO with Daniel Priestley. He was not talking about financial services in the episode, but one of the things he said to Stephen Bartlett was, if I was starting again from scratch, I would buy a retiring person's business. And I thought, well, this is exactly what SJP does, this is what you have access to, and actually it's even more a great opportunity because every part of that business sale and purchase is considered and taken care of with SJP support. So it gives you comfort that, yes, you can have a successful exit strategy, but in your early years. It gives you comfort that I can have an opportunity to buy some clients from a retiring person's business and I think that is a wonderful opportunity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it. I love his book Key Person of Influence yeah, it's fantastic. I know Kerry Griffith, who's on the podcast later, is a big, big fan and she got involved in the coaching and the community side of it and she's implemented it into her business and we're going to find out later on because she's niched right down. She niches um, the type of client that she deals with is women divorcing multi-millionaire ceos. So the minimum a client needs to have who's female is two million. That's super niche and when I kind of probed her on it and spoke about it and we find out on the podcast episode, so so look out for that one.
Speaker 1:She didn't come from a background of wealth either. So for me it was really interesting to hear somebody that hasn't come from a background of wealth giving advice to people who are divorcing multimillionaires and she's done it and she explains on the podcast episode how she's done it on the back of the Bruce Lee examples of key person of influence and niching down and standing out. Within financial planning, one of the biggest struggles I think financial planners have is standing out and she does it really well. So it's a great episode and a great example again of somebody that's come through St James's Place, right, right, beautiful. Any changes happened in the St James's Place Academy? Is there anything different since we last spoke on the ultimate review?
Speaker 2:So we have won a couple of awards, which I'm very pleased to tell you.
Speaker 2:So, one of the awards was to be the very best financial advisor academy out there, which we're super proud of, and the second award was for the quality of the training. So that's testament to all of the hard work that goes on behind the scenes. The team at SJP in terms of our learning and development team and the academy team, we believe, is second to none, and just the scale of our operation internally as well is second to none. So the scale of our operation internally as well is second to none. So the level of support that you receive when you come through our academy isn't rivaled anywhere else. What other things have changed? So we've already discussed terms one, two, three and four on our previous interview, so I'll touch on those. But the second thing I think that I really want to highlight in today's interview is the financial support. So we haven't gone into too much detail about that, but when we last spoke, sam, there was financial support in place. Now what I will highlight here is come and have a conversation with us, because the financial support can be quite bespoke to you, and it is different for somebody who's starting a business versus joining a practice. So the reason behind that is, if you're starting a business. Sjp helps you to launch the business from a financial perspective. If you're joining a practice, it's between you and that practice to negotiate what you need. So we will be there the recruitment managers to help you, facilitate and find the right opportunity for you. So if you are joining a practice, you don't need to worry too much, we will help.
Speaker 2:But let's talk about those business startups then. So prior to recently, we paid for your training. So the training in term one is three months, that is, get qualified, so you're going to get the exams. Term two is skills, also circa three months. Now the funding during that period, if you're starting a business, is £2,000 per month. So that could be for either three or six months.
Speaker 2:Some people join us at term two because they've already got the level four qualification. So there's two start points. Then we're going to continue to fund up to 12 months £1,500 per month. Now all of that is normally payable to SJP. So that's a big change. What used to happen was you'd come out of training and then you're able to start giving advice and effectively able to start generating fees. But what we have experienced is obviously that turnover takes a little bit of time and momentum. So, yes, you can be really active seeing clients, but you need to meet with a client usually three times before business is written, so it might not be until month two, three, maybe four that actually fee income's coming through the door. So to make that transition easier for people, we're now funding them up to 12 months.
Speaker 2:If you join us at term one, you'll get another six months at 1500. If you join us at term two, you'll get an extra nine months at 1500 pounds per month. What we've always had is access to a working capital allowance. Now this part of your cashflow is repayable to SJP and that is still available as well. But what I would highly recommend if you're concerned about the financial support you're going to receive. There's no payment to SJP for this, so I love that we give this away for free. There is financial support, but we do still need to understand your personal circumstances, your whole household's personal circumstances, to make sure that, with the support of SJP, you can still make your essential commitments.
Speaker 1:Fantastic Good. Well, that's really great to hear, and I think anything which lessens the financial burden for people is really important. Yeah, again, it comes down to personal circumstance, doesn't it? Because that amount of money might not be enough for somebody to cover their mortgage, for example, but for some it is, yeah. So again, it's like a great reason why have a conversation. Let's take a look at where you are in your current life, where you're going to be in the next couple of years, where the financial support can actually help you on that, yeah, and how the partnership as a whole can place you within the business. Maybe it's in the partner practice, maybe it's running your own business, but there are lots of options. All the more reason to have that initial conversation, first of all, to explore what the options actually are. But great to see that financial support is in and also it's great to see as well it's non-debtable.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, there's nothing worse than saying I'm going to do something and oh and, by the way, we're going to create a nice little debt for you as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, so now there's two options.
Speaker 1:So there's a certain element that isn000 per month for the first two years. Up to £2,000 a month for the first two years. Yeah, and that's like a loan.
Speaker 2:Yeah, effectively a loan. So if, let's say, you said, oh I cash flow this month, I need an extra X thousand pounds, for example, you can dip into your working capital allowance. You don't have to take it every month, you can just use it as and when you need it and effectively, what we would encourage people to do is invest that money in their business. So it might be investing in a member of staff. As the years go by, it might be investing in lead generation. Whatever it might be, that money is there for you to invest in your business, but it's also there for personal cash flow, should you need it.
Speaker 1:A bit like having a startup kind of investor within your business, exactly Like a bit of an angel investment, really. Exactly when you can dip in and out of it if you need it, so you're not under pressure to take it. Yeah, how do they pay it back?
Speaker 2:So they pay it back for a percentage of their advice fees that come through, and so if there are no advice fees one month, then there's no payment. So it's very flexible in that way.
Speaker 1:Brilliant, great stuff. Well, thanks, gee. Look, some great changes are happening there, making it easier for people to go through the process being recognised for the great work that you're doing with these awards. Coaches, mentors have we increased those within the academy to be working alongside the new academics?
Speaker 2:So yes, they have. So why don't we start talking about the different stages? So terms one and two are effectively your training period. So, as I said, there's three months in term one, circa three months in term two. So you're in your training period for a maximum of six months and what we have done is slightly changed how the support works.
Speaker 2:In term one and two you'll have two people assigned to you to make your life as easy as possible, so an academy relationship manager and a support operations manager, and they're there to really help you navigate those training periods. So first of all, it will be accountability helping you through the exams. Also, there's navigating SJP how you're understanding who to go to for what and when you need it. There's also when you're doing the exams and then you move to the skills in term two. So skills in term two, you're understanding the SJP proposition. You're understanding the soft skills required to do the job and also you're preparing to be registered with the FCA, the Financial Conduct Authority, ready for term three, when you're out there giving advice.
Speaker 2:So term two is building on your skills. I think there are 17 or 19 in-person days throughout that training. Seven of those are shadowing somebody actually doing the job, sitting in front of clients, so there's lots of real world access as well as that Netflix style learning as well, and lots of role plays, because obviously we're training you to be an in-person financial advisor, so you need that in-person training too. And so, with navigating to be registered with the FCA, we have internal accreditations as well as the external exams. You'll have done internal licensing and the FC application, so our relationship manager is expert in all of those things. They've done this many, many times before and they're your point of contact throughout that term one and term two, so that's been a change. Also, pastoral care, should you need it.
Speaker 1:Lovely, so what was that?
Speaker 2:last bit Pastoral care. So if anybody has an issue they're facing in their personal life, they're there to pick up, help them navigate that, what it might look like for them. It might be they need to delay an exam, for example, or whatever it is that they might need.
Speaker 1:So a bit of emotional support as well, absolutely, I think emotional support is really important when you're doing a career change.
Speaker 2:You know, as I said before, the Lego blocks are the knowledge. So you're starting with no blocks. You've got to build those individual Lego blocks. At the moment you don't even have the pile of Lego in front of you. So I think there can be lots of things that happen along the way. You know, life is life. We're living through lots of change at the moment, externally from SJP, so helping people navigate their personal circumstances as well is important.
Speaker 1:I think that's huge. I think that's massively important. I sold my recruitment business recently and the transition from running a business as a business owner for 15 years, stepping away from having a business that I ran with people and people supporting me, into being a solopreneur solo, as I just say has been crazy and the transition was so different. It was so, so different and it did cause me a lot of emotional stress. Yeah, put me, you know, to stress state of mind. I got a bit depressed around it. It was, you know, it's really, really difficult. Luckily, I had a really strong network around me that I could lean into and get some guidance and some help and some support. So to know that it's there at St James's Place for them to lean into it's massively important because it can be very scary when you make that switch and you make that transition.
Speaker 1:You know, as outlined on your own podcast, the Switch Well worth people listening to. By the way, if you haven't, g's got her own podcast at St James's Place called the Switch. People talking about those life changes, career changes and you like to call them the switch. Really really good episodes, fantastic. That's good to hear. I love that. That, to me, is massively, hugely important. So people aren't left on their own.
Speaker 2:Really good.
Speaker 1:Perfect. Any other changes that have happened in term one, term two Because we're doing a recap at the moment because people can go back and listen to the ultimate guide to the St James's Place Academy. So any other major changes in that term one. Term two that six months where you do your qualifications and you do your skills based training.
Speaker 2:So let's really quickly touch on term two. In term two you move from your academy relationship manager. You'll still have them as a point of contact They'll probably be a lifelong friend, to be honest, because they're going to start that journey with you but you then get assigned an Academy Development Manager. Now all of these people are CF30. So that means they're registered with the FCA to give advice and they will be holding their hand throughout Term 3. So Term 1 and Term 2 is Academy Relationship Manager. When you move to Term 3 and 4, you get an Academy Development Manager and they will be out there observing your client interactions and signing you off as competent advisor. So I think that's important to understand the difference in the skill set. I suppose, of the person who's going to be looking after you is really dedicated to the exact moment that you are in.
Speaker 1:Okay, fantastic. So yeah, sorry, term one, term two we're talking about qualifications. We're talking about skills-based training. A lot of theory, a lot of practical to get you ready. Three to four is get out there, start learning by doing. It's an activist role. You have to get out there and see people. You have a development manager who will take you through that and support you on that journey. Hold your hand, as you say. Are they there for feedback, observations? Because it's things like competent advisor status that we need to get sign off to say that you're a competent advisor. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:So absolutely In term three you start to be client facing. Now that might seem terrifying for some and others might be chomping at the bit to get out there, but absolutely In the early stages they're going to have their academy development manager in the meetings with them and they will need to be observed in X number of meetings before they're signed off as a competent advisor. Now that is an industry-wide terminology, competent advisor status and that effectively means you can go and conduct client meetings on your own in your FCA registered. So your development manager will be working really closely with you. You mentioned feedback. Absolutely, after every client interaction you're going to get some feedback. After every client interaction you're going to get some feedback and really you want to just turn those client meetings into in the early stages you're going to be thinking of lots of things you need to do. So you need to say your regulatory terminology, you need to fill out a fact find. But what you don't want that to feel like to the client is that you're filling in a form. You just want it to feel conversational. So you'll hone your skills in the real world over time and people choose to have their first clients in different ways. We've already done the network analysis with you before you've joined.
Speaker 2:Some people really lean into the people that they know and love very well, so it could be friends and family or their first clients. Those first meetings where they're being observed in Other people find that really uncomfortable and they don't want to go and see their friends and family. What I would encourage people to do is start with the people that know you well, because they care about you, they know you, they like you, they trust you already and they might give you feedback afterwards as well. But those people that want to start with cold clients first might find it a bit more challenging. But there's no right or wrong way. People can do whatever they wish. So once you've got to competent advisor status throughout term three, we then move into term four, where we're building up to having 50 clients, and I think it's really important that people start to feel like they have a client book, they've got a business before they leave the end of term four.
Speaker 1:Well, fantastic, great stuff. 50, the magic number. Any particular reason why?
Speaker 2:Well, by the end of term five and term six we want you to have a sustainable business. You're going to be moving into our partnership properly and so through term five and six we're building to 100 clients. So in terms three and four, half that, 50. But there's also opportunities to work with existing SJP clients. So we have an opportunity that we internally call client share agreement. So that might be I'm a business, business owner and there's another business owner within the same location as me.
Speaker 2:So we, like you know location, businesses or offices look after people around their geographical area. So there might be another business who says well, I've got 200 clients and I know I need to service them every year, but it'd be really helpful if somebody did you know 30 client reviews for me. So they'll have an agreement with me in place and we'll split the fees and what that gives me is opportunity to sit in front of an SJP client and that's a great experience because our clients are really loyal to us. We have a 95 plus retention rate and that includes people taking their money, drawing it down at retirement and people passing away, so really high. People really value the service that they give and I think that gives people confidence Once they've sat in front of an existing SJP client and they understand the value that we provide. It builds confidence. So there's opportunities to work with existing clients and existing practices and I think that's a great learning opportunity.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. I know someone's going to be listening to this and it all sounds quite structured and there's a time scale attached to it and it might feel a little bit like there's pressure from the business to deliver 50 clients by a specific amount of time. Just talk to me a little bit about is there any pressure upon people to hit specific targets by certain times?
Speaker 2:No, so the timelines are movable and you work at your own pace. So the average numbers I'm giving you is the average. It takes people on average 18 months to go through terms three and four. Some people are in terms three and four for a little bit longer. Some people might zoom through it a lot quicker. So there isn't any set hard targets, if you like, or set hard timelines, but we're looking for ambitious people. We're looking for people who want to be successful.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. So term one and two we're looking at qualifications, we're looking at the skills-based training, behavioral training. Three and four we're getting support from a development manager. We're out there sitting down with clients, we're developing those relationships, we're bringing some assets under management and we're building some clients ourselves, right, and we're building our business with an aim then of letting go of the hand a little bit still with the support of the partnership, but going into term five and six so something we didn't talk about last time, on the Ultimate Guide to the St James's Place Academy. So let's just have a bit of a recap then on what the well tell us a little bit about terms five and six.
Speaker 2:Start wherever you want. So what they do focus on in terms five and six are six key pillars that we know drive success. They are building a community and developing relationships, client proposition and identity, client acquisition and servicing, including referrals, running your business, professional excellence and personal effectiveness. So terms five and six are an additional up to two years. So, as I say, these are just average timelines.
Speaker 2:So in terms five and six, we want that road to a hundred clients, because we know that's when people become very much self-sufficient. But we want to have that continued high touch, high support environment around people until they reach that point. So term five and six is about revisiting some of the content we've already been through throughout the four terms before, but we've got a couple of internal taglines that we have. One of them is every day is a learning day. Getting better never stops and everybody will be at different points in their personal impact, if you like. So I might be really good at one part of the client onboarding process and you might be really good at a different part. And in terms five and six, we can really hone down into gaps, if you like, in people's skill sets and make sure that they revisit content if they need to or discover new content as and when they need to. But again, we're going to give people a very much bespoke level of support.
Speaker 2:So all of the development managers within term five and six we call those two terms growth and development, if you like. It's a business accelerator program. Now to get to 100 clients. They are all externally qualified coaches, ilm5. Now if you were to hire an ILM5 coach externally, minimum it would cost you about £500 a day and probably who you'll get is very much a generalist, a coach who isn't necessarily specialist in a financial advice business. And what you're going to have in term five and six at SJP is an ILM5 qualified coach who's an absolute specialist in exactly what you're doing at SJP. So they are going to work with you hand in hand for another up to two years, which I think is unbelievable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's huge. Having your own personal coach when you're setting up your own business is a cost. It costs a lot of money, as you just said, up to £500 per day. There's a few things that stand out on this journey. It's one knowing that you've got a strong business plan from the very beginning. It's getting your qualifications and the right training and development around that. It's learning the behaviours. It's learning of what to expect and preparing for those meetings. It's then going into those client meetings, building client relationships, but having the support of somebody next to you to help develop you. Continual development and a coach and you can draw down on some money if you need it to help you develop and build your business. So if you do get really busy and you want an administrator, if you want to invest some money into some marketing because you've got a marketing plan, there is money to draw down on for you to do that. So it does sound incredibly supportive.
Speaker 1:One of the big things that I come across a lot and it gets talked about a lot on LinkedIn is A we've got a distinct lack of people coming into the profession. But those that are coming into the profession, are they being supported? Are they being mentored. We touched on it. The average age of an advisor is like 57 years old, and I think the average size of a firm is about 10. The average age of an advisor is like 57 years old, and I think the average size of a firm is about 10. So are those firms really in a position to devote time to training, development and mentorship?
Speaker 1:St James's Place, separated into a complete role. It's a role within your business of which a partner in the early stages of their career can instantly tap into a coach. I mean, that's phenomenal. No one is really offering that out there, yeah. So that is a huge benefit to anybody's wanting to accelerate their career. So this isn't like a sales pitch right now. I know the market, I know what it looks like and there isn't many people offering that Very, very, very, very few.
Speaker 1:There's some exceptional advisors that give up their time, yeah but there aren't still advising yeah, there aren't dedicated coaches, you know, that are going to give you that true, honest feedback, but also that are experienced in understanding the highs, the lows, what works, what doesn't work, because they're doing it with the rest of the business. Yeah, it's an ecosystem, isn't it? It's an echo chamber of productivity and self-development, and people need that. Because if you're moving into the financial planning world and you're seeing a lot of people doing on a self-employed basis and you're hearing, oh, there's a massive lack of advisors out there. There's loads of clients, there's a great transition of wealth, there's all this money out there and no one's no them advice. I'm going to be an advisor because I know I can earn over £100,000.
Speaker 1:If you're hearing that, you kind of think to yourself wow, brilliant, I'm going to go in there and make a load of money, but you 100% need to be A the right person, right mindset, right frame. But you do desperately need that support. So that, to me, is a massive plus. The mentorship side of it. Tell us a little bit about that five and six term then. So I've gone through my academy, I've gone through my training and development. Does it just stop there? Because, yes, we've got the coach. Is there anything else I can? Can I get continual learning?
Speaker 2:A lot of the training in terms five and six is actually peer led, and our Island Five coaches are also brilliant facilitators, so they'll get a group of people together who are in a similar place or want to achieve similar things in their business. But what they'll also do is invite a very experienced person from that location into that meeting as well, so you won't all just be newbies. They'll have some, you know, some knowledge and some experience in the room too, and they're, as I say, expert facilitators, so they'll make sure that they get the most out of those people's time together. Of course, there's also access to all of SJP's learning and development programs. We have a whole team of people in L&D. We've got a house app which is all of our online learning library, which is a bit like Netflix, if you like and also lots of other training facilities in person.
Speaker 2:So each location is 22 location offices across SJP. You will be part of the closest location to you from day one in the academy, and the academy relationship manager will make sure you feel part of that location. So what happens in the locations? Location events. So again, you're mixing with all of the other people who are partners and advisors within that location you get to make you know peers and friends and friendship groups. There'll also be some structured groups. So we have an example we've got a women's network called Unity, so we'll introduce this, and Academy Unity. There's a location Unity in each location, so there's lots of opportunities to mix with people and learn best practice. So everything and all the infrastructure that somebody needs to run their business effectively and efficiently is all provided for them.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic to hear. You talked a little bit about the referral side there. It's worth noting as well that Natasha Percy-Baxter on her episode, does actually talk about term five and six and we go into detail about networking. We go into detail about the client meeting and how to position referrals. She didn't find it easy, but she shares some of the hints, and some of the tips that she shares will be valuable to anybody listening to the podcast. Really absolutely.
Speaker 2:Natasha is standout person internally and and she comes to lots of our internal meetings as well just to share her personal journey because she is somebody that got out of her own way. She was terrified initially of going networking but she just ran into it and she did. I think it was 70 plus networking events in her first year. Now she's got that knowledge and experience. She knows which type of events suit her, which I think you only learn through experience. So, yeah, she's a shining example of getting out of your own way, getting out of your comfort zone. So definitely go and listen to both of her interviews because they're brilliant.
Speaker 1:Brilliant, Fantastic. What I'm hearing a lot of as well is that during term five and six there's something called BSP. Can you tell us a little bit about that and how that might help a new person coming into St James's Place as a partner or an advisor?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I'm smiling because SJP is full of its own language and acronyms. We have lots of them. So BSP stands for business sale, purchase. So we already touched upon this at the beginning of our conversation when Daniel Priestley was saying I would buy a retiring person's business and that would be how I would start out. So our internal community of 2,600 plus businesses, we have some people that want to retire.
Speaker 2:We have people coming through our academy in term five and six who may want to buy a client book, and so what SJP help both parties do is value the business, borrow the money to buy it etc. And just make sure that every part of that process is seamless and beneficial to everybody. So if I was coming through the academy I might want to grow my business organically. Now I know that you recently interviewed another academy partner Actually I'm not sure if he came through the academy an SJP partner, oron Coyle, about his social media strategy. So there's lots of ways you can grow your business organically and there are lots of people within SJP that can help you to do that. But a way to grow a business is by acquiring an existing partner's clients if they want to retire.
Speaker 2:So a business sale and purchase is a way to do that. So part of the training in 10.5 and 6 is understand what a business sale purchase is, understand what to look for, what makes a great purchase, but also understand what you're taking on. You need to understand what that looks like. What does the income tax circumstances look like on the book of business? What if interest rates were to rise? Is it still affordable? So we really do a lot of due diligence with people and about 25% of people in term five and six decide to do that for themselves, having gone through the training, having fully understood the process. But the really good news is the people that do take on a new business, sale or a sale, are 40% more productive than those who don't.
Speaker 1:So it's a great opportunity, but only if it feels right for you. Oh, fantastic. It's good to hear about the due diligence side of it. Again. You've done many bsps with many partners, so you've seen the good, the bad, the ugly, things that work, things that don't work right, so that knowledge again being passed down. You are treating that individual. You're not shoving it in their face. Are you saying here it is, buy it? You're saying look, this is actually, um, a tricky can be tricky. Buying a business can be tricky. No two sales and no two purchases are the same, are they? Yeah, so you are going to kind of give them the experience, give them all that due diligence and training and development to educate them on how best to spot the opportunity, what to take on, what the risks are. I think that's a really, really important one is what are the risks? I love that you talked about things like the income tax and also the interest rate. You know it does change and what does that look like in two years' time?
Speaker 2:Let's stress, test that against your affordability, and it feels a little bit like the Academy onboarding process. Let's help you make a really informed decision about this. That's what it's about, and actually I know that you recently interviewed Matthew Fowler, one of our academy partners, so he came to the academy in 2016. He's done two business sale purchases in his time since then and now has an extremely successful practice. So I would certainly listen to that episode for anybody that was thinking of doing one, because you quizzed him about what did you learn from the first one and then what did you apply from that learning to the second one, and he was really open and honest about that. But, yeah, absolutely Every business sale is going to be different, but the good news of doing it within the environment of SJP and the ecosystem is there's a team that deals with this solely, like you said, with our development managers. It's their sole job to help you specifically with this. So, yeah, it gives you confidence that all the box will be ticks, all the I's will be crossed and the T's crossed.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, yeah, great reference there with Matt Fowler's episode and we'll put a link to that in the show notes. What I also really enjoyed about talking to Matt was he wanted to grow a business. He likes growing the business side, so he talks about the business owner hat and then the financial planner hat. But when he talks about the business owner hat, the background that I'm in, which is recruitment attraction I've built a business myself and hired people. I know how tricky that can actually be and how to a attract talent but also how to retain that talent as well. And one of the things that really stood out was he said to st james Place, I want to build a team, but I need a talent attraction strategy and I need a career development plan that works. And he was assigned somebody who came in to build a career development plan that was specific to his goals in his business. Again, that's that kind of coaching element he lent into the partnership. The partnership provided it St James's Place. It was part of the deal and he loved it and he got such a huge amount of value from it.
Speaker 1:Now would you get that elsewhere? So if you're that entrepreneurial individual and you want to grow your business, terms five and six. You might be starting to think about that. If you're getting great success and you have the entrepreneurial mind of wanting to grow a team but not everybody does do they you can be a partner on your own, doing your own thing. But if you want to grow a business, the conversations can start to flow at that point and you can start to think about how you're going to do it, how you're going to attract them and, importantly, how you're going to retain them absolutely.
Speaker 2:I think it's super important and we're talking about internally. We call the first four years when you join us through the academy your early years, and now that's nothing to do with somebody's age, it's your first early years of becoming a financial advisor within the SJP structure and it's very much high touch. And we've just mentioned in term one you're a relationship manager. Term three and four your development manager, ten, five and six your growth and development manager. Once you leave those early years, the support doesn't fall off a cliff. You then get a business partner and, as you said, they'll support you with whatever stage your business is at. So if you do want to scale your business to having five advisors over three years, you'll be assigned a business partner who's done that with a numerous number of businesses before. So it just gives you that extra layer of expertise, gives you an extra thinking hat to think of the things that you might not be able to see yourself.
Speaker 1:Great stuff. Well, chi, thank you so much for covering everything here in terms one, two, three, four, which is a great recap. We've got a completely separate video, the Ultimate SJP Academy Review, and people can watch that by clicking the link in the show notes. But today you've dug a bit deeper into terms five and six, giving us a fantastic overview of what to expect after you've gone through those four terms. So thank you so much for sharing that. Is there anything else at all that you want to add?
Speaker 2:There's a couple of things. So, first of all, your environment dictates your performance. So, coming into the SJP Academy, you're around other people on the same journey as you, which normalizes all those fears or those challenges that you might be facing, and I think it accelerates your success. Being around people, having access to experts, will no doubt accelerate your success, but the thing I wanted to leave you on was actually a testimonial or a thank you email that we received. The management team received about one of our growth and development people and I think it just highlights the level of support and care. One thing I do want to say is the level of support is unrivaled elsewhere, but the care people genuinely care about it. So let me read this email to you.
Speaker 2:Our journey through growth and development has been somewhat challenging. The business plan was drafted during 2019, ready for start in November 2019, which was quickly put through the shredder in early 2020 as COVID engulfed the world. Since then, we've hit many hurdles on our growth and development ride Me being personally hospitalized by COVID in October and the recovery process, volatility of markets in 2022 and 2023. However, throughout this journey of ups and downs, we have had one constant who has been there through thick and thin tears, laughter, and I feel we would not be where we were if it weren't for the support of Rose. When I first met Rose, I was unsure how the relationship would develop, being two strong-willed individuals, but I soon realised we were there to achieve the same goal success. I feel the working relationship has been second to none, even on a personal level. Rose supported my wife through the horrific period when I was contracted COVID in the hospital with her, and she was there to support her too throughout our journey, with her words of support and lots of information. If Rose didn't know the answer, I knew that she would eventually.
Speaker 2:And now, as I enter my 50s and I look back over my career, which has always been in financial services from leaving university in 1996, I've met many people on all levels. There have been ones that have given me the skills and knowledge that I still use today and others that I don't even remember. However, none have left me with the feeling of gratitude and thanks like Rose has. I've never met anyone who goes above and beyond as much as she does. Nothing is too much trouble. She always puts her team first, always. Rose is a huge asset to SJP. She's an absolute diamond and must be treasured. I felt compelled to send this email to you and the wider SJP community to know exactly what you have. Both my wife and I wish Rose every success at SJP. We know we've been blessed to be a member of her team and wouldn't be where we are, or as strong as we are, without her what a fantastic testimonial.
Speaker 1:Get some golden handcuffs on rose, keep her in place. It's always good to hear a testimonial people who have gone through the journey and are speaking so positively again about that support, the ongoing support and the mentorship that the partnership provides those planners that are going through, especially on their early stages of their journey, when it can be incredibly difficult, like people experienced during COVID. Right, it was a tricky time and I bet the St James's Place team were on high alert high alert dealing with all the pressures that people are under and the support that people are under. Now I know that the financial planners that didn't have that in place out there were shitting themselves pardon the French, but they were struggling were shitting themselves pardon the French, but they were struggling. So to be able to have that network of support that's there, as expressed in that testimony about Rose, you know that to me is an absolute game-changing winner.
Speaker 1:Gee, thank you so much for sharing everything about the St James's Place Academy today, really really appreciate it. And if anybody's interested in joining the St James's Place Academy, it starts with a conversation and it starts with you clicking that link in the comment section below, or if you even want to have a quick chat with me. You're more than welcome to chat to myself. Drop me a message on LinkedIn, or even G. Drop G a message on LinkedIn. She'll 100% talk to you. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2:Thank you.