Financial Planner Life Podcast
Welcome to The Financial Planner Life Podcast. We cover an intimate and honest account of what it’s really like to work in the financial planning profession.
Our guests share their stories of success, failures and learnings, as well as what to expect from a career in the financial planning profession! We host guests at various stages in their careers, as well as multiple roles to ensure that our audience has a variety each week.
Financial planners, business owners, paraplanners and back-office staff all have their own story to share, and The Financial Planner Life podcast is a platform for them to talk about their personal and professional journey. The podcast covers a multitude of topics, from mindset and motivation, health and wellbeing all the way to diversity and inclusion.
We approach each episode with the idea that it is going to educate and spark a conversation within the industry with topics that may not be openly discussed. So, if you are thinking of becoming a financial adviser, or you’re curious about learning more about this brilliant sector, we urge you to give the podcast a listen.
The Host: Sam Oakes is the host of The Financial Planner Life Podcast. since 2008 Sam has been supporting leading national and global financial planning firms in finding the best talent, he was the director of Recruit UK, a 7 figure turnover financial planning recruitment company that he successfully exited in 2024, Sam now works as the Head of Creative for Hoxton Capital Managment, building out podcasts, YouTube and social content for this fast growing fee based international financial planning firm.
Sam has always had a passion for financial services, starting out as a trainer for leading product provider in the UK, he has been in the industry for over 20 years.
He sees himself as a partner to the industry and wants to contribute useful resources such as this podcast to educate those further who are seeking advice and help about how to push their careers forward in this amazing profession.
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Financial Planner Life Podcast
How I 6x My Turnover as a Financial Planner - Tom Schofield of Foster Denovo shares with Sam Oakes
What happens when an aspiring professional rugby player swaps the field for financial advising?
Join us for a conversation with Tom Schofield, a partner at Foster Denovo, who shares his compelling journey from the highs and lows of sports to carving out a successful career in the financial sector.
Discover how his father's influence and the rigorous training at the Quilter Financial Advisory School played crucial roles in reshaping his career path.
Tom Schofield walks us through the essential building blocks of a thriving financial advising career. He opens up about the perseverance required in the early years, from tackling insurance and mortgages to expanding into comprehensive financial planning services.
Gain valuable insights into the snowball effect of client referrals and understand the immense value of financial protection and planning. Tom shares heartfelt stories illustrating how life insurance and financial safeguards offer emotional and psychological security, bringing peace of mind to clients during life's unpredictable moments.
Learn how the supportive and flexible work environment at Foster Denovo has been a catalyst for Tom's business growth.
Tom discusses the benefits of mentorship, collaboration, and delegating tasks to focus on client acquisition and management. Understand the significance of learning from high-performing peers and harnessing company resources to scale a business effectively.
This episode is packed with practical advice and motivating stories for anyone in the financial advisory sector or those contemplating a career change, showcasing how resilience, support, and a commitment to learning can lead to remarkable success.
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And today's guest on the Financial Planner Live podcast is Tom Schofield. He is a partner at Foster De Novo and he has had huge success. His need for achieve attitude and the ability to learn off of the most successful people in the business has seen him six times his turnover since joining Foster De Novo. You are not going to want to miss this incredible episode. Tom, thank you for joining me today on this special with Foster De Novo. It's a talent attraction special. So it's all about your career leading up to joining Foster De Novo and what it's like since you've been here. So if you could, for all of our listeners, introduce yourself and how you got into the profession and how you ended up at Foster de Novo.
Speaker 2:Brilliant, yeah. So firstly, thanks for having me on. Obviously great to be here. Yeah, growing up I suppose from an early age, I've got a sporting background, so any sport I could possibly play rugby, cricket, football, you know. Everything that there is was. Life was sort of I was predominantly spent doing that, and it was just.
Speaker 2:I went off to university, played rugby there for various different teams, started taking it really, really seriously and that was my whole sort of ambition and goal was to play professional sport. Didn't quite materialize for various reasons. Had a year playing over in Australia, which was amazing experience. Came back, tried to play again. Didn't quite work out. Had a nine month stint in Los Angeles playing over there, which was certainly a good laugh, if nothing else. And then came back and thought, right, right, well, I've got an economics degree, I need to get into the real world and sort of made that switch from thinking that I was going to play professional rugby for the rest of my life to, or the rest of the next 10 years into, what am I going to do as a career?
Speaker 2:My dad's a financial advisor. I had, for the first 26 years of my life, told myself I was not going to be a financial advisor because my dad was. But when sort of assessing all of the different career paths that I could have gone down, I think the mixture of you know needing some sort of academic background and that sort of skill set, along with the people skill set that you also need to be able to talk to people, resonate with people. You know, understand what makes them tick, all that sort of stuff. So I think when we sort of sat down and looked at it and had a good conversation with him, it seemed like a natural way in. I think I mean, my mum's a nurse, my sister's a nurse, my dad's a financial advisor, I'm a financial advisor. The apple doesn't seem to fall far from the tree in our family, but yeah, that was how I got into the industry. I went applied to the Quilter Financial Advisory School. They put me in touch with a firm in London, joined the firm in London and we went from there, fantastic.
Speaker 1:So you went through the advisor school, did your training and development into a firm at Quilter Right brilliant Couple of questions, right Interesting. Your dad was a financial advisor. You didn't want to be one because your dad was one. Out of interest, though, because we're trying to attract young people and trying to get people to understand what financial advice is. What did you perceive of financial advice when you saw your dad doing that job?
Speaker 2:So it's quite interesting because my economics degree at university obviously there's the sort of macro piece that we did which is transferable into the industry, but there isn't much more than that.
Speaker 2:I mean, like from an economics, you know, point of view, he was he's really trying to understand more about what he did, and my perception of what he did before it probably wasn't anywhere near as sort of detailed or sort of clued up as it was. It was only really when we started having some more further conversations about it that, um, you know, we went into the depth of you know what he actually does on a day-to-day basis, how he works with clients, you know the sort of initial meetings that he has and then the ongoing support and help that he gives them. So it was those conversations that then really gave me more of an insight into what the industry is like. Before that I thought I had an idea, but I didn't really it was was, you know, probably my idea of it was probably more of like a stockbrokey idea, where they're, you know, picking individual stocks and companies to invest in for people.
Speaker 1:How did you cope with not pursuing your dream of being a professional rugby player?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it was quite quickly shifting on to something else. So it's right, if that's not going to be the thing that I'm going to do, what's the next thing? And just throwing yourself into it, you know, a hundred miles an hour, certainly not sitting around licking my wings for too long, going well, this has been my goal and ambition for, you know, probably from the age of 14 through to sort of 25. So it was quickly, you know, very quick, very quick, to go right. What's the next thing we're going to do? And it was that switch between sort of sporting life to professional life.
Speaker 2:I knew I had to do something. So, you know, there's, you know, a life that I want to live. There's a lifestyle that I want from that. Well, what's going to help me do that? What am I going to do that I'm going to enjoy. So I think that was the main thing, was that realization of I'm not going to do this thing that I want to do. Well, let's not sit around and wait, let's just get straight into the next thing we're going to do. And I thought I would have to probably try a few different industries and a few different jobs before I settled on one that I wanted to, but I didn't. In the end, I don't think.
Speaker 1:from what I know of you so far, I just don't think you're that type of person. I think if he'd have thrown you into a job you'd have made it work. You have that kind of natural ambition and we're going to get into that, I think, because you've been quite a success in your career in a very short period of time and we're going to lead on to that a bit later on in the podcast because I think people would be really interested to hear how you did that. So advisor school at Quilter went into advisor. What was the first period of your financial planning career like?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So they sent me a list of five firms in London. I had a look through and had a sort of you know, did as much of the background information reading as you can with the firms and chose one, joined the firm in November 2017, I think it was and alongside working on the job was the sort of Quilter Financial Advisory School 18-month programme to take you up to level four. The firm that I joined is a really, really interesting firm and my sort of memories of that firm are, generally speaking, very positive ones. What they were very, very good at was, I mean, selling, and sales is often quite a dirty word in in various different industries but they were very quick to help you understand that if you want to take on new clients, you sometimes might sit with somebody who they don't come to you and say, right, tom, I want to invest this money over here, right, sometimes you've got to speak to them and and help them come to the conclusion that this is the right thing to do. And they were very, very good with the training and sort of skill set and building that up, which I didn't really have. I might have had, naturally, somewhat, but I'd never really understand the sort of logic behind it. I never really, you know, had that sort of training before because already, you know, I went to university, learned the academics behind what we were doing, um, and then played. But I think the main thing with the firm that I joined was the hours that they spent with us on case studies. Take a fact, find right. This is what I'll do. Client in this sort of situation. It was very much a. I think there's two routes into the industry. The way I see it, you either sort of build your own client base or you look after an existing client base. The route with this firm was very much build your own client base.
Speaker 2:The sort of options were either, you know, jump on the phone and just sort of calling through a list of potential leads that are probably very cold, or it was speak to people that you know and have a conversation with them and see if financial advice is right for them. You can imagine, at 26 years old, speaking to a few of my friends you know, ringing them up and saying, look, I'm working in this industry. It'd be, I think, really beneficial for you to come in and have a conversation and we'll see where it goes. If you like it great. If you don't, then we can always grab a pint and a bit of food afterwards. Some some of them put the phone down on you and go what are you on about? Why would I do that? Others go yeah, brilliant, I'll come in and have a chat and you know and that was my learning experience, it was on the job.
Speaker 2:The firm I was at previously were very big on you know you're not qualified yet, so you can't give any financial advice, but very quick to say well, let's put you in a life situation alongside you know another advisor, where there's a qualified advisor, there's yourself and you're working through. You know a sort of meeting framework and and that that experience I think is is invaluable. The the downside to it might be that you know you have a, you ring up a friend, actually there'd be a great long-term client, but because you're not quite ready, you know the meeting might have not gone quite to plan and actually that's someone that you could have called up in a year's time. But I don't feel you can pick and choose and wait for that in our industry. I think you've got to try and get that understanding of how to take a meeting, how to sit in front of someone.
Speaker 2:There were a lot of times where I was in a meeting and you know somebody would ask a question that you don't know and you know you never pretend you know the answer to something which you don't know the answer to. Sometimes you can sort of get out of that, call this out, you're down, but sometimes you've got to say, oh look, I don't know the answer to that question. I'll come back to you and let you know that feeling of being sat in a meeting and being in that I'm never sat in that situation again where I can't answer that question. I just think that sort of mindset really really helped with fast forwarding through a lot of the training to be able to be sort of skilled and competent to to sit in front of someone fail fast yeah and learn, don't make the same mistake twice yeah, that's the only way you do learn in it through failure.
Speaker 1:That's the way I've always looked at it. I've never been. It comes from sport. I think I played a lot of sport when I was younger. I played a lot of football. Um, there's fear of failure and there's need to achieve, and I think in football and in sport, in any kind of team-based game right, it tends to be need to achieve.
Speaker 1:You have enough yeah you've got that mentality, um, and I think it's that's why it's so brilliant and so transferable into a role such as financial planning, anything where you're a hunter, you know, because you're not, you're not scared to fail, you're not scared to make a mistake. Get back up again and you get the ball and you run on, don't you, you know, and you try and score another goal, whatever it is, or another try, and that's what it's all about. It's building that resilience and that mental strength. So I think a lot of that is missing in those that are coming into the profession and sort of hoping that they're going to move straight into financial planning. Right is that they haven't built that skill set. They haven't built that resilience, that strength, um, and the only way you can really do that is by failing, by working hard and and really really trying new and different things. So ecosystems and environments they're so important as well that allow people to fail, you know, if it's overprotective, and you sit over there and be the administrator for two years and then we'll let you into some client meetings and then you can do some power planning and then you be a financial planner.
Speaker 1:You didn't do that, did you? You were straight into financial advice? Was that right um?
Speaker 2:I was straight into sitting in on meetings. So I got protection qualified within, I think, four or five months of being in the industry, because obviously I'm going, how do I earn more money than my basic salary? They deliberately kept the basic salary very low and then there was a commission structure, bonus structure that you could work up. So I'm going. Well, what's the fastest way that I can start earning a decent living through this job? And it was, you know, get your protection qualifications. I could, you know, work with another advisor. We could sit in with a client, have that initial meeting with them, you know, have the second meeting with the client. I could talk about some protection recommendations. The advisor can then give the investment advice.
Speaker 2:So you know, that to me, was the sort of obvious next step of you know what I was doing, certainly within that 18 months, because you know you break it down, you go right. You know, the first month that I'm in here, what do I need to do? I need to upskill quickly the first 18 months. What do I need to do? I need to get qualified, but I also need to get competent so that after 18 months of being qualified I'm not then going. How do I take a meeting, I want to go right, 18 months, I'm qualified, right, let's go, let's run um. And then you're going right, what's the five-year plan? What's the 10-year plan? Obviously got to recalibrate that frequently because things change, as I've certainly seen over the last couple of years, but it's um.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the sort of process and sort of mindset really that we went through it's a blueprint that I see very often with successful financial planners, especially ones that have started out in the protection side. So it's an absolute blueprint. Like people who get their hands dirty in the insurance side and get out there and start selling insurance, do extremely well as financial advisors. It's like the ones who start on mortgages. When someone says, oh, you don't want to get into mortgages, and it's like, well, why not, you know a bit of mortgage, a bit of protection gets someone says, oh, you don't want to get into mortgages and it's like, well, why not, you know, a bit of mortgage.
Speaker 1:Bit of protection gets your confidence up. You start building things, start making some money, but those individuals then become clients of yours later on down the line, when your experience has gone up and you're able to give some pensions and investments advice when you're signed off as cash status and I've seen some incredibly successful people do that that's really interesting, I think, motivating to anybody who's listening, that you know, get stuck in with a firm, that's gonna a get you in front of clients really quickly, but you yourself have to, uh, do your boots up and get stuck in um and get yourself in front of clients and pick up that telephone and reach out to your friends and families and try and sell some products to them.
Speaker 2:At the beginning it's not it's not sorry, it is difficult, like the first first two, three, four years that I was an advisor. Okay, mondays might have been like a normal working day but Tuesday, wednesday, thursday I remember sitting in the office till 7, 8 o'clock in the evening and you first one in Trying to get a client base off the ground is the hardest thing. Once you get it to a certain level there's this sort of snowballing effect that you see with a client base where you start getting referrals up. I had friends of mine that I took on that were, you know, they've just bought their first property and they need some insurances to cover the mortgage liability. So I've spoken to them about that.
Speaker 2:The other advisors then said well, look, you know, out of the net income that you've got, this goes on your basic outgoings, this goes on your discretionary spending. What we don't want to do is have lifestyle creep. We want to make sure that you know you're putting some money into financial planning. So we might have said you know, help them out and put in place, you know, 500 pound a month regular into a stocks and shares isa. I've had quite quite a few of those clients have then referred me in the last two or three years up to family. So up to parents, right, you know they've got an inheritance tax problem. We've recommended business relief products. We recommended whole of life products. We've helped with family trust planning, um, and all of that. So it's. It's that early work where you're planting all of those different seeds and really not turning your nose up at any work because you don't know where something's going to lead you know, a friend of mine who's earning 40 45 grand six years ago, who's now earning 200, 250 grand.
Speaker 2:That's also referred me to. You know family here and his uncle here. It's like that one client has then generated all of this business, but you've got to get the clients in the first place to do that. So you know, and I think that the protection route is a really good route, and with that I mean the FCA, PPSIM protection is the first thing that you should talk to clients about and the other thing with that.
Speaker 2:I think there was a period of time that it took for me to fully buy into financial advice, which wasn't very long, it was probably three or four weeks. It was getting involved with the firm and understanding exactly what we did. And as soon as you have that understanding that what we're doing is really really valuable for people, it arms you with this confidence to sit there in front of someone, say, well, you need this. This is really important, whether whether they know they need it now or whether when we talk about sales again, you convince them that they need it now even though they do need it, or whether that's later down the line. You know there is a point that all of this sort of stuff is important for people. So once you have that, once you make that switch, I think in your head of going, actually, this is, this is great, everyone needs this. And you start doing it yourself and it's like, well, why would I not speak to everybody about it?
Speaker 1:it's almost reckless of me not to speak to all of my friends and family about it because they all need it.
Speaker 2:And if they're going to take these sort of things out at some point, or you know they need some financial planning, then well, why would they not do it with me?
Speaker 1:um, it's kind of like the fifth emergency service, isn't it?
Speaker 2:yeah, you could say that.
Speaker 1:I mean in essence mate at the end of the day, like if you had a family and you died, your family's screwed. If you haven't got any money left, you know any protection in place to be able to cover the mortgage, uh, income replacement if something happens, if you get a critical illness. These are like life's emergencies. How do you survive during this period? How do you make that period of your life easier? And without these products in place, you can really cause some detriment to your life and your lifestyle and those that you might leave behind if something really bad happens I mean, I've seen it firsthand sadly lost a friend of mine two and a half years ago.
Speaker 2:Um, he just bought a property taken out mortgage, um, he'd had a child, sadly went out and played footy on a Thursday night, had a few beers, fell over and whacked his head and sadly didn't wake up. And you know, very, very close friend of mine. Thankfully, six months before that I'd said to him quite a few times look, you need some cover in place If anything happens to you. You know, we've think about, think about the family and the little one. And, um, thankfully he took the policy out. So, um, you know that policy is now held in trust for his daughter until she's 18 and I'm managing the trust that he's running in. I feel, no, you know, I couldn't have done him any greater service than knowing that I'm managing that money for his daughter until she's 18 so so it's you.
Speaker 2:The longer you spend in the industry and you do this sort of thing, some people can shy away from speaking to clients about insurances. I always make a point of speaking to clients about it. You only know it's important when it's too late.
Speaker 1:Well, mate, that is an absolute lived experience and I could imagine you tell that story to every single client. You sit down and there's nothing more powerful than a story like that, which we all don't think is going to happen to us, but it can. It sent a shiver down my spine when you said that you know the thought of something so simple as that happening and leaving my wife and my daughter in a position where they are struggling. It sucks, man, and to know that somebody's got their back in the corner, as well as a justice, I think it's brilliant. So that's an amazing story and it's brilliant actually because everybody I know is so super passionate about um protection have had something bad happen in their lives, somebody that they know.
Speaker 1:Um, I do the just covered podcast with legal in general and it's all about how to position life protection. It's the stories on there and how they talk about the stories and how advisors are sharing that they position life protection. Um, it's the stories on there and how they talk about the stories and how advisors are sharing that they position life protection. It's really, really powerful. Obviously, they want more people sending life protection as their business, but actually there's a reason for it. I used to work for Aviva and I was straight out of. I was about 21 years old. I went and worked for Aviva as a trainer. Obviously, they do life protection.
Speaker 1:In our training. They sat us down and went through like a training video of why life cover is so important. And I remember at that point thinking, wow, that is like ridiculously important and all you're buying is a piece of mind, aren't you? It's like a piece of paper, piece of mind and that's it. But piece of mind is actually really powerful, isn't it? It's like financial security. If you know you've got the money in the bank and if you're going to lose your job, but you've got six months worth of money there, you're going to feel less bothered by it. You know you're going to feel more comfortable.
Speaker 1:When I had like a large sum of money in my bank account, I was probably the most calmest I ever had been. And then when I bought my house and I had to take all that money and put it into the house and then my mortgage went up and I didn't have any money over there, it made me feel awful. It made me really doing because I really love the financial security element of it. And then you've got to kind of shift your mindset into thinking well, actually that's an investment, that property over there. But yeah, very interesting how that in the security of the products, how they make us feel and that human connection, and that's probably what people should be doing more of in the role like this, isn't it? It's connecting on that level where you're actually solving a human problem. It's not like money, it's something else, it's security.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and I think you know. Just going back to the insurance point, again, I say to clients all the time I want to hope to God. This is a waste of money. Get the thing to the portal. You've never had to claim Hope. It's a waste of money. If you have had to claim on it, it's the most important I could speak to you about different investments isis pension, whatever it is. You know this will be the most important conversation that we've had and if it's not brilliant, you're healthy, you're fit and healthy. You got through to whatever age and you never have to claim on the policy brilliant things were going really well for you, then why?
Speaker 1:why did you leave and join foster day now, though?
Speaker 2:yeah, very, very good question.
Speaker 2:Um, the, the previous firm I was with, they had a sort of more old school attitude, I think it's fair to say, where they believed the advisor should really do everything. So, from all of your own administration, all of your own power planning, obviously speaking to clients as well and you know I was still ambitious with you know where I want to get to in my professional career over the short, medium and long term. With where I want to get to in my professional career over the short, medium and long term, and I thought is this going to be the most suitable place for me to sort of continue to grow and develop? It was a very, very valuable three years that I had with that firm. I think it was the best place I could have been for those three years to develop and learn. But when I was looking at you know my business and what I want to do next, I felt like I needed some support because you can't do everything yourself and they weren't they weren't too keen on the idea of helping support advisors with that.
Speaker 1:so for someone listening to this now and maybe they're a bit uncomfortable, they're a bit anxious or you know, maybe they're not. They feel like they can do more. What was it that triggered you to start looking around and thinking like I've got ambitions with this business and then my needs aren't being met where I actually am? What? What physically was it you said? You said about support, but what was was triggering is because you were spinning too many plates. Were you doing way more business development? You had nobody in the background, so there was a process systems. What, what was was triggering is because you were spinning too many plates. Were you doing way more business development? You had nobody in the background, so there was a process systems. What? What was it that triggered you and made you think I've got to look elsewhere to solve this problem?
Speaker 2:yeah, so I'm. I'm super, never used to be right, but I'm super organized, and I think this job has taught me that, because the last thing I ever want to do is sit down with the client and sort of go right, you know, promise to get this email to you by this point, I'll get this report to you by a certain point, and I'd never go over that right, always under-promise and over-deliver with things like that. I think the point was I was writing a good amount of business. My business production was nearly doubling every year in terms of the total revenue I was generating each year, and I was finding myself writing reports, thinking, you know, in the middle of the day, going you know, it's going to take me two, three hours to write this report. That's two, three hours. I could be speaking to a client, you know, or I could be doing this.
Speaker 2:I had a whole load of things that I had on my list of things to do that could make me money, but I had to do this thing here, which is a suitability report making you money. It's something that's got to be done. Am I the best person to do that? So it's having that you could have that short-term, medium-term, long-term view right, and that was my sort of medium to long-term hat going. Surely there comes a point where this system breaks, and without all of that support? I've spoken to a few people in the industry. Obviously, you can be very insular in the industry If you're with one firm. That's all you've ever known. That's how you think the whole industry works. And speaking to a few other people in the industry, I realised that wasn't necessarily the norm and the norm was probably the opposite to where I was. So that then prompted me to think let's have a look at what else is out there.
Speaker 1:You were self-employed then.
Speaker 2:We were employed, but on a very low basic salary with a commission bonus structure. There was also the point around client ownership, which was huge for me right From day one. Even without being so, I treated the clients as if they were my own clients. Right, I go and find the client, I bring them into the company. There's obviously the conversation around well, whose is the client? And you know, I think that was something else I was looking for certainty over, which I probably didn't really get the certainty of, well, who owns the client where I was previously. So I wanted that to be very black and white in terms of where are the goalposts? Certainly, when you're thinking right, I've just about to get my business off the ground. It's just growing and developing, right, well, hang on a minute, if I spend the next 10 years here and then suddenly I run into this problem later down the road, well, we've got to have a bit of foresight and look forward and and think where do I want to be and where's the best place for my business?
Speaker 1:that's a really interesting point. So your business is ramping up, you're starting to see assets under management, you're starting to see future business and then, all of a sudden, you're looking at the contracts and who owns the clients and instead of like put it burying your head in the sand, really, and just having that niggling in the way in the back of you, you made a decision to actually go out, get a contract that meant that you own the clients, but at the same time, it's ticking boxes around helping you develop and build that business, to supercharge it according to your ambitious business plan, right? Yeah, that's cool, that's good, and I think people listening to this need to take ownership. You know, if you are a bit anxious about your contracts, if you, um, if you are thinking the system around you isn't working and support and you're thinking, well, when's this going to change? You need to go and make that change. Go and knock on a few doors and speak to a few other companies. Go and speak to some more advisors, because no two businesses are the same in financial plan.
Speaker 1:I can tell you that 15 years of working in recruitment, right, you think one company's doing it really really well and you go around the corner and they're smashing the part. You know, and or there's some. Some companies are shit like right, genuinely terrible what they offer, especially self-employed advisors really archaic, you know, not even investing in. You know crms and database. And tell me, right, because let's get really, really interesting, okay, so you obviously went around, looked at the market, settled on Foster De Novo, right, tell us a little bit about what did you actually? What did you start with? Then let's give the listeners a kind of indication of how successful you've been since joining Foster De Novo then. So when you left that practice, what assets under management, for example, did you have?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there was 4.8, you know, 5 million pounds that I joined with Fossil de Novo with I was generating about 120 grand of revenue, gross revenue, in my last year, which was my third full year in financial advice.
Speaker 1:So that was the point I'd got to within three years of joining the previous firm and you felt really at that point glass ceiling, you need to smash through it, you need to develop new systems to be able to take it to the next level. Okay, cool, so you're at that point, good point, good point to turn. And in fact, when I was in, when I was in recruitment, you know that's the kind of like sweet spot really, that that someone starts making decisions and starts looking around. So that's really interesting. Okay, cool, so you went into Foster De Novo. Tell us a little bit about what actually happened then. What kind of support did you experience? Did they sell you the dreamer interview? I bet it was Helena Bogdanovsky.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was Helena yeah she's great.
Speaker 1:So tell us a little bit about your journey then in Foster De Novo. What have you experienced along the way?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the first thing to say is moving firms was one of the most daunting things I've ever done, right, leading up to it, right. So the month before you know, handing in my notice, my previous firm, you almost felt like a bit of a family, right. But I had to make the right decision for my business. I loved everyone that I worked with it, but I had to make the right decision for my business. I loved everyone that I worked with. It was a great place to work, really fun, and they taught us a lot of valuable skills. But it was so daunting was moving, and telling the boss at the old firm was something that kept me up at night. But I made the right decision and I'm so glad that I did it.
Speaker 2:I sat down with Helena. We spoke about the investment proposition. We spoke about what Foster De Novo helped me with as an advisor, sort of the business plan in terms of how they see, you know, my career, where I'm at, what clients have got, what business I'm doing with them, and it felt quite early on with them that I was being helped to grow my business in a very sort of hands-on but hands-off way, which I know is very contradictory, but they were very keen to understand more about my business and what I was doing. But then they were like, well, what do you need to grow? What do you need to develop? So they were asking me the questions that I was asking for the answers for in my previous place. So as soon as you hear that you go well, god, everything that I want, you know, everything that I want and I need. Well, she's saying well, what is that, what do you want us to help you with?
Speaker 2:One of the biggest things for me was the support. That was what I was looking for. The misconception that you know, I think there is in the industry is well, my support might just make you lazy as an advisor. I mean, I think, whether it's a personal thing or not, I think if you, if you look after clients and you've got that, you know, fire in your belly you're never going to be in a position where you're just going to put your feet up for after, I mean, what are you gonna do? Watch daytime tv, that's right. So so the the support was what I felt like I needed to be able to, you know, increase revenue.
Speaker 2:So I started here in the December, january, which is three and a bit years ago now, I think. Yeah, it was a very daunting prospect moving across, but as soon as I moved across it was very friendly, welcoming place. There's advisors of all ages here at Fossa de Novo. There's a fair few that are similar age to me, maybe sort of five years older, which is quite nice being a younger advisor in the industry. You know the average age is 59 and you know there's this very sort of male dominated industry. We've got a great office with, you know, a load of different people in the office. So that was great. It was a very welcoming place to come and work. I was living down in London. Still when I was there it was, you know, sort of I joined I think just before, no, just in the middle of COVID, so sorry, just before COVID, and then obviously COVID hit. So it was a case of you know lockdowns and what do you do next?
Speaker 1:So this is a pretty cool office here. It wasn't the same office when you joined then, was it?
Speaker 2:no, it wasn't my my fiancee works for these lot we had a nice conversation with them about, actually, these offices over in monument are brilliant. So they had a look around and, um, yeah, they're really nice offices here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, brilliant to be all based in york now, right. So being remote and not being in the office full time, how do you manage that? Do you enjoy being remote, working from home, having the flexibility of coming into the office? Do you use it? Is there a benefit of you doing that? Because you know, with Foster De Novo, you don't have to be on the doorstep, you can be a bit further away, right? What's your take on that?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean, there's nothing from foster novo says you should be in the office, this much. You know you're self-employed financial advisor running your own business, right. So I come into the office as and as I'm going to need to. What do I need? To come into the office for one? To see clients, right, that's always first and foremost.
Speaker 2:But to my uh, admin support and power planners, you know we're we're a team, um, you know we have that sort of mentality. There's, there's, you know teams catch up. So we have frequently throughout the the week at set times. But you know, some of the best work that we do is when we get into a to a room together and we sit down and work through what you know, what we've got to do. So we try and make sure that I typically come down once a week, maybe once every other week. Occasionally Things are a bit quieter. But yeah, I think working from home for me works. I don't have this worry about. I'll just go put the TV on for 10 minutes. I feel like I can sit there and I can work solidly for two, three hours at a time. Go and get some lunch, work solidly for two, three hours and there's less distractions.
Speaker 2:But coming into the office is great because you know you get to have those conversations with people around the business, right? What's going on here, what's going on there and within our business? There are so many different parts of the business, right? So you've got second site with the employee benefits, you've got private wealth. There's becoming more and more of an overlap within the business between Second Sight and Private Well.
Speaker 2:So I work quite closely with a colleague here in Second Sight and if I sit down with a client of mine they own a company or they're in a FD or HR role, right, who looks after your company pension scheme? What are your group healthcare benefits? Like you know, we have those conversations and I'll then sit down with. You know a couple of colleagues of mine in Second Sight and we have those conversations and I'll then sit down with you know, a couple of colleagues of mine in second sight and we'll we'll speak to them about that. Likewise, you know the second sight team. If somebody you know higher earner needs to speak to a financial advisor, they'll often refer them across to me.
Speaker 2:So fantastic it's a really you know, and I find the synergy that you as a business, being in the office certainly helps with that is, those small conversations you can have second site for anyone listening who doesn't understand what it is is the employee benefits arm of uh foster.
Speaker 1:De novo, I agree with you. If I'm at home, I am flat out um, I get recharged from being on my own and I get recharged from being around people. It's like I've been at home for the last two and a half weeks working.
Speaker 1:I had a new job so I've been really, really flat out. Um, and coming to the city today was brilliant because I live in like sleepy old yatton in north summer. So coming in today I was like hey, and as soon as I came in I just felt energized. So I get a lot of my energy from being around people, um, so being able to dip in and out for me is beautiful, and I think being self-employed and having that flexibility that you have it is, I think, it's good for you. It's good for you, isn't it? It's good to have it.
Speaker 1:If you didn't have it, if you were on the network and you're on your own and running your own little business, wearing multiple hats and you weren't really connecting with anybody else, um, I think it's um, it's lonely, um, I've experienced that myself in my own business. So it's lonely, being on your own. I miss that office type vibe. So, yeah, I'm with you on that. Being able to dip in and out is the best of both worlds. You came in with 120K turnover, 5 million under management. Where are you now?
Speaker 2:So we've just reached 30 million. So we've nipped over the 30 million mark funds under management. New business targets and sort of turnover for the year have had to be re-evaluated a couple of times already this year because things are moving along really well. So, aiming for the 400 grand mark, I think, in terms of turnover this year. At the start of the year we thought it would be about 300, but it's been a very good start to the year.
Speaker 2:It's just you know it happens every happens, every single year. You know you get through the year and you go I've generated that much revenue and you think at the start of the year I never thought I'd get close to that, but every year it seemed I can't imagine it will last forever and ever and ever. But um, it's. You just. You know the, the types of clients that you speak to, the. You know there's an extra zero on the end that tends to come. You know every sort of year or two that you that you spend in the industry, the, the level of assets that you're advising on the different avenues that business, you know come, whether it's through. You know internal recommendations within the company, whether it's with. You know referrals upwards and outwards and around the corner and wherever else they tend to come from right. So it's um, yeah, it's been a touch wood. It's been a relatively smooth journey to get here over the three or so years that I've been at Foster de Novo.
Speaker 1:I think it's a brilliant achievement what you've done so far within that period of time. So what was it then? What was the tipping point? Obviously, you identified it when you ended up walking here and there with an interview with Helena Boltonovsky and I've been there as well that feeling, that weight off your shoulders, that breath of fresh air when someone asks you, well, what we can do for you, what is it you want? And they actually come up with solutions and you're like, oh wow. It's like moving from a really being a big fish in a small pond moving into a bigger pond and all of a sudden, your brain just goes and your growth opportunity, and you see it and you can breathe.
Speaker 1:What was the turning point when you were in it? Because you had to make it happen, right.
Speaker 2:What was it? It's hard to put my finger on any one sort of reason or turning point, but there's multiple things I think I found quite quickly as being part of this business. One is that there are a fair few advisors that are turning over over a million pounds a year. So you go, right, well, where's my ceiling? People are very susceptible to this, where you sort of put a ceiling on yourself and you sort of limit where you want to get to. You sit down with someone and they're turning over a million and a half quid a year. There's three guys that work together here together and the turnover upwards of four million quid. They've got a team of 12, 15 people that work for them. I'm going, I want to be, I want to be that guy, right, you know that's, that's, that's where I want my business to be. Um, you know the three of them work in quite different ways, um, but it's very. You know, I'm quite a probably easily influenced aspirational guy, right, you know you sit down and you see that and you go, I want to do that. So, immediately when he called me, my ceiling was was raised. You know, there's people generating a lot of revenue within the business, which I think is very, very motivating to be around. The other thing is it's freed up a lot of time for me.
Speaker 2:Going back to the original point about why I moved over to go right, let's start working with a power planner, let's start working with an administrator. That then gave me a lot of time to take on more new clients and obviously look after my existing clients, whether that's, you know, various things throughout the year, whether it's the annual review meeting, whatever it is, you know my client base is probably slightly younger than the average client base. So therefore, there are a lot of moving parts that come with that, as different life events occur in, you know, 30s, 40s, 50s and then obviously, retirement. So you know that was quite daunting for me in terms of how to manage a team and work with a team. Obviously, I didn't go straight into having the team that I've got now, with the amount of hours that we spend together and the size of the team.
Speaker 2:But you know, even just beginning working with an administrator a day a week, you know two half days spread throughout the week and a power planner for a similar period of time, and you know the the beauty of what we've got here is that there are people managing the power planners and the administrators. So you know I talk to them about what the way I want to run my business, because you've obviously got that sense of well, it's your own business and you're self employed financial advisor, so you and the business how you want to within foster de novo's framework, um, so that was really helpful because you know we'd sit down um helena, who you mentioned already. You know I have a weekly catch-up with helena. I even I still do now. Um, you know we missed this week's which we both sort of going oh, I need to catch up with helena. I haven't had my catch-up with her this week and and it's great for talking about.
Speaker 2:You know what you're finding is working well. You know, within your client base, within the business, any challenges you've got, anything that you think you need to do differently, doing that sort of immediate right over the next week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks. You know what's, what's going on, what do you need help with and doing that longer term piece that me and Helen have done quite frequently. As to, you know what does a business that's generating half a million pound of turnover 750 grand of turnover, a million pounds of turnover 750 grand of turnover, a million pounds of turnover. Assets under management of 50 million pounds of 100 million pounds. What do those businesses look like and what's the level of support that you've currently got, and do you need a bit more than the average? Do you need a bit less than the average and working with that, which makes me feel very much in control and very much like we've got the flexibility to be able to do whatever I need to do in order to continue to grow my business.
Speaker 1:Absolutely love that, love it. Those are golden there. Did you ever lean into anybody? So these are these superstars that were doing some really big turnover business. You got a bit similar mindset as me. Really, as soon as I identify somebody that's absolutely smashing it, there's no point in reinventing the wheel. Is it like? What are they doing that works really well and can I do it? And also, can they give me some help? Can they give me some pointers? Did you ever get any support from anybody in the business? Did anybody kind of put an arm around you and say do you know what? You're showing an interest me? I'm going to give you a bit of mentoring.
Speaker 2:Um, if I didn't go and ask for it, I'm sure it'd probably come my way anyway, but I quickly went and asked for it and went right what are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? So there's there's a couple of people within the business that I spent a bit of time with both producing, you know, a lot of business every year. There's a sort of family office style relationship that I've got, now that I'm that I'm working with a client and one of the advisors here. You know the.
Speaker 2:The assets under advice that we brought on was larger than any client I had already. It was, you know, there's some complex trust planning and family office style planning that we wanted to put in place and was right for them. How many conversations as I had in front of clients about that not too many did I then go and say you're really good at this. Do you want to have a look at? You know, working commercially on this together? I want you to be invested in the client as well. I don't just want a sort of brief half an hour conversation. I want you know you to get involved with this and then I can learn off off you as to you know, how do you this, do this with all of your clients and you know any, any advisor here if you, if you give them a call, certainly early on, because I was only three years into my career, right, right, I'd only been qualified for 18 months as an advisor.
Speaker 2:Any advisor you ring, pick up the phone to go. Can I just have half an hour of your time to talk about this? I might go, I'm busy right now, but let's put half an hour in at this point here or this point here, and everybody's very happy to do that. But there are a couple of people I've spent a lot more time with on individual cases. One One of them, the technical knowledge that I picked up from the types of planning that we were looking at was invaluable, and the other one, yes, the technical details, but also how to position things with clients. I got to a point where you think I'm feeling like I'm getting quite good at this now I know where I'm going, and then you sit in that meeting and you go. Oh, I thought I was at like eight out of 10. I've just realized I'm at like eight out of 30.
Speaker 2:There's all these other, like you know, sort of this different world out there in terms of things we can do for clients and things we can help. And once you then have that experience under your belt, I'm then going well, if that's how I thought everything was before and that's what other people in the industry I think you know we were sort of at a similar level to or your understanding of what we do for clients is there. Well, that means, if I'm doing all this, you know we're in the top 5% of advisors that are out there. We're doing things that very few other advisors are speaking to clients about. And how have I managed to do that? Well, it's by speaking to someone and saying, well, can you show me what you're doing with your clients and then being open enough to go well, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And helping me. Love that. That's energising profession. Now we're crying out for new advisors. We want new people to come in, but the options out there for new advisors on an employed basis, for example, are few and few and far between even options. Where you're not. You have to be cast status before someone might even take you on. Now. Not the same at foster nova. Foster nova actually take somebody on with level four qualifications, no cas. What they're looking for is people like you with that ambition and drive and the right mindset and have thought about a business plan, etc. Let's just give somebody a bit of a, whether they're in the profession and they're employed and they're thinking about going self-employed, or they're somebody's going to go straight into self-employed, what advice would you give them, say, for the first 12 months? If you could go back in time, talk to yourself. What advice would you give for the first 12 months to make sure they are focusing on the right thing?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think you've got to pick the route which is right for you. So, if you're comfortable with you know probably a ceiling on on your earnings, if you're comfortable with you know working within a structure and and having you know people above you and below you where you know you've effectively been told what to do, and then you've probably got a little bit of wiggle room to do your own thing within that, then that to me is an employed route. My view very quickly was I don't want a ceiling. I want to be able to, you know, work with clients and to be able to, you know, build my business and be in charge of my own time and manage that with some help and support. So I think that the first thing when you're thinking about which one of those sounds more appealing is it this potential security and safety that comes with that employed role, or are you more aligned with that? Well, I've got ambition and growth and I want to build my business and you've got to be confident with that. And that's ambition and growth and I want to build my business and, you know, you've got to be confident with that. There's, you know, and that's an edge, that's that's got to be a logical decision you make, not an emotional one. You can't just go well, yeah, I've got a load of confidence, but you haven't got really underneath the bonnet. There's not much there. You've got to have that sort of you know that logical conversation with yourself as to as to where you think you can grow your business. But that then helps back to the point I made. About every year, when I look at the amount of business that I've generated for the last six years, it's always been a bigger number than I thought it was going to be. So don't sort of do yourself an injustice in thinking that you can't get there. I've found that you know, by putting in the hours, by putting in the hard work, by structuring my business properly, by working with other people, being a bit of a magpie, you're doing that well, I'll have that. You're doing that well, I'll have that. You're doing that well. You know my business has grown, you know, far faster than I ever thought it would.
Speaker 2:So the first thing I'd say is you've got to try and get as good an understanding of what both of those roles look like, and it might be spending some time in an employed role, spending some time in a self-employed role, the self-employed role. Um, you've, you've, you've got to be organized. You've got to, you know, manage your own time. You haven't got someone there saying you've got to do this at this time and this at this time. Um, you've got to have that discipline with yourself to know that, um, you know, this is what I want to do and this is how I'm going to run my day and this is what I'm going to do within my day and prioritize. You know what's the most important thing that I need to do? You know, today, what you know is is is what I'm doing making me any money? You know that's that's really important. Otherwise, you can spend a lot of time doing things which aren't going to make you any money.
Speaker 2:Um, so you know, within both of the roles and within within the industry, you've got to have a mixture of that. You know you've got to keep your compliance hat on. You've got to look at everything through a compliance lens and you've got to look at things through a sales lens and through a generating business lens. You can't just look through one of them If you just look through things from a sales line. Well, have you done this? Have you dotted this I and crossed this T. If you just look through things from a compliance lens, there might be opportunities that you've missed. You've missed elsewhere. So those two things have to intertwine and you've got to use them together which is difficult when you're on your own right.
Speaker 1:This is where you like the support of a company, such as, say, foster de novo, comes in really really handy. Uh, not only have you got people sort of guiding you down the right path, keeping you in, keeping you in check and a coaching capacity, but you've got those individuals in the different part of the business that you can lean into really really quickly. I think the quickest route to being a success is finding the most successful people. What I've learned today is you said the same thing as nikos said he was literally.
Speaker 1:That's scary you two are powerhouse you just start a partner practice together.
Speaker 1:I think honestly, you two are a powerhouse. Well, maybe one day you might be up against each other, I don't know, but there's definitely synergy between you two, without a shadow of a doubt, and I think together you would be an absolute force. I always find it like when someone's employed and then they spend like 12 months getting directly authorized and they go and set the business up directly authorized. They think it's my business, I've got you know it's mine and they can realize how much work they've got to do on a directly authorized basis whilst they're trying to win business because they've never done that before whilst trying to build a brand, whilst trying to build a website, whilst trying to do absolutely everything power plan, administration, balancing the books so they've actually got some money to grow. It's headaches. Man Employment contracts.
Speaker 2:I mean, the beauty of my position within FD is that I have a business without having to worry about being a business owner. Have a business without having to worry about being a business owner. Yeah, I've got staff without having to worry about what I'm just, you know, paying pension contributions and payroll and this, that and the other FD look after the compliance aspect of what we do, like I'm a business owner, without having the stresses of being a business owner, and that is one of the best things I think about the setup that we've got here. You can, you know, it's all as much or as little as you want. If you want to come into the office five days a week, you come into the office five days a week. If you don't want to come into the office for a month, you don't have to Do. You still have regular contact with Fossil Nova, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean the head of private client services, which is your admin and power planning. You know, then I speak to them throughout the month. I have a weekly catch-up with Helena. There are various, then, people within the administration team and the power planning team that I'll have a frequent catch-up with as well. But if I didn't want that and I felt that was too much. Well, I'd move it to sort of every quarter instead of every month If I thought I wanted more. Then there's the flexibility to do that more frequently With the power planning time and the admin time that we've got.
Speaker 2:You know, it's quite easy for me to say well guys, my business is growing and growing and growing. Instead of having a administrator one day a week and a power planner one day a week, I need an administrator three and a half days a week and a power planner two days a week. Now, you don't make that jump from sort of there to there straight away. But you know, you, there's that flexibility to be able to grow your business and and trust another. You know the words. How does somebody support your business? Well, that's a prime example of how they support your business. As you grow, they'll grow the support around you to to get there tom, I love that your career outline has been really inspiring.
Speaker 1:Uh, it's lovely to sit in front of somebody that has that growth mindset, realizes the strengths that they have and the areas where they need support so early on in the career, the ability to lean into people around you and ask questions and learn from them as well, letting go of that pride that you don't know it all at that point, that you are surrounded by some really great people. So why not just learn from them and ask some questions and monkey, see, monkey, do type stuff like you know it's. It's a great way to get going. I've always said it who's always walked to the room? Who's the best in this room? Right, what are they doing and how can I do it better? Yeah, always been my mentality, so it's been a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much about sharing your journey here on this foster de nevo special with um, the financial plan of life, and, of course, we wish you all the best and um hope to catch up with.
