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
Why I didn't take recruiter advice, and how I secured my first job in Financial Planning as a Financial Planner! Tom Brookes
Unlock the secrets to a fulfilling career in financial planning with Tom Brookes from Mosaac Financial Planning. Tom's journey is nothing short of inspirational, from his early ventures in the property market to his transformative "quarter life crisis" that led him to the world of financial advising. His story is a testament to the power of self-belief and strategic career moves, offering invaluable insights for anyone at the start of their financial planning journey.
Tom sheds light on the often challenging transition into financial advice, sharing his firsthand experiences of the steep learning curve beyond passing the CII RO exams. He emphasizes the crucial role of on-the-job training and the wisdom gained from observing professionals. Whether you're considering a move into financial planning or navigating its early stages, Tom's advice on dealing with recruiters and understanding financial products is essential listening.
We also explore the strategic choices between employment and self-employment in the financial planning profession. Tom's candid reflections on the barriers to entry and the need for a foundational salary for trainees highlight the practical challenges newcomers face. His perspective on leveraging youth to take career risks and the eventual financial rewards of persistence and hard work provides a roadmap for aspiring financial planners. Join us for a conversation rich with actionable advice and personal stories that can shape your career in financial planning.
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And on today's episode of the Financial Planner Live podcast, I'm talking to Tom Brook from Mosaic Financial Planning. Tom has been in the profession now for five years and we talk about how he got into the profession because he joined self-employed how he dealt with recruitment consultants, how he ended up getting four offers off the back of five interviews when he was being told he should go and do admin or power planner applications. Instead, he followed his heart and his head and he got a role in financial planning as a financial advisor. So he shares very deeply around his own experiences, his journey to be able to help you if you're early on in your financial planning career.
Speaker 1:Tom, thank you so much for joining me today on the Financial Planner Life podcast. How are you? Yeah, good Thanks. Good you, I'm very good. Sorry if I scare you because I've had a shave and I already freaked out my wife and my daughter and chris ball from hoxton capital because apparently I look very different without a beard and, um, I know the feeling because, um, everyone says I have the clock kent effect with glasses.
Speaker 2:So if I like meet clients and maybe used to seeing me with glasses and I'm wearing contacts, they genuinely do not recognize me, like I will be staring them in the face and they will not figure out it's me.
Speaker 1:You're going to have to take your glasses off now. Let's have a look, let's see. Okay.
Speaker 2:Especially if I'm not wearing a suit as well. My God.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Everyone says that I am the belief that actually Superman could have got away with it plenty of times. I interchange all the time. So good on you, Fair play to you Well listen.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for joining me today on the podcast. It's a careers-based podcast for the financial planning profession. You have obviously gone on a career journey. Today, tom, we're here to find out a little bit about how you ended up at Mosaic because you're at Mosaic at the moment, you're a financial planner. You ended up at mosaic because you're at mosaic at the moment, you're a financial planner what that journey looked like. Okay, so let me just kick things off from the start. First off, like, how did you get into the financial planning profession?
Speaker 2:um well, I had a bit of a weird start, I would say so. Um, prior to joining the industry, I well, I was when I was at university. I um, well, I suppose even before that, um, I knew for a long time I wanted to work for myself. That was like that was a thing. And I just decided I wanted to work for myself. I the early days when I'm like 15, 16, I knew I wanted to. I was watching like the apprentice and I was like, oh yeah, I want to do that one, do that. Don't want to work someone else, don't want to, don't want someone else to be my boss. And, uh, I speak to my family and they'd say, all right, but if you're going to set your own business, what are you going to do?
Speaker 2:and I was like I don't know, and then obviously I just get laughed out the room. It's like you can't say you want to work for yourself and then not know what you do. Uh, and I didn't want to go to university because I was like now I want to want to set up for myself. And again they. I remember I was in sixth form and I had a presentation from Trey Azam. I remember I think he must have been like season one or season two of the Apprentice, and I spoke to him afterwards and I said, trey, you know I'm getting the mitt taken out of me. I want to set up my own business. I don't know what I want to do. And he said he listened to what I said. And he said go to uni. He says it's a great thing. He says you'll have a great opportunity to see a good target market. You might see some business that you want to set up or you might just find your passion.
Speaker 2:So I did that and what I seemed to enjoy at uni was property. I really liked property. So that's how I started was. I worked in a letting agency and then I set up a property franchise when I, when I graduated uni, and I did that for quite a few years, um, but the intention really was that I wanted to build like a property business, and I just felt like it was a good way to get into it, to get some experience whilst also earning some money, to start building up the property business, and I got to what I jokingly call my quarter life crisis, which was I was I was like 25 years old and I was like I've been doing this now for five years and this is not, it was never a long-term thing. I didn't want to do this job the rest of my life. I'm still doing it, uh, and I kind of had a bit of a reality check. So, um, when, when I I knew that I wanted to to leave that industry, there were some things that I liked about it and some things I hated about it, um, but I also knew that I didn't want to be one of these people. There was like some really scary statistics at the time and I remember it was like millennials will change careers like not even jobs, but careers something like five times in their life, and I was like God, like no, that freaks the heck out of me.
Speaker 2:So I, while I was selling the business that I had built up, which took about a year. I literally had a year of research and I just researched every single job under this one, everything you can think of. I looked at it at some point and at the time and this is a big thing for me and always has been at the time I didn't even know financial services was a career. I did not know what a financial advisor was, and it was pure chance that I happened to pass on a friend of a friend and they were a financial advisor and still really good friends until this date, um, and I was just really interested. So I just said, like you know what is a financial advisor? What are you doing? He started explaining it to me and I was like that sounds, that sounds pretty cool. Well, and it's like I say I wasn't like committed to it at that point. I was just like well, it's one, it's an option. And I had this stupid venn diagram of like all these things I had to have, like gotta have this, gotta have this, um, and basically, as I got close to the end, it was like it was a clear, just favorite. It just seemed to tick a lot of boxes for me.
Speaker 2:So when I joined, well, when I decided that that was the career for me. The thing for me was I'd looked at all of the different jobs in financial services and obviously the most common three that we talk about nowadays are an administrator, a power planner and an advisor. And I knew I would not be a good power planner and I would not be a good administrator. So I knew I wanted to be an advisor and I also knew that it would be absolutely crazy to try and go into this brand-new industry where I knew nothing and try to go straight in an advisor. So the only kind of Hail Mary approach that I had was I needed to stand out, and the way I did that was I basically just sat my. I sat through the CII so I did my RO exams in the fastest possible time that I could so that if someone looked at that CV they would go. Am I reading this right? Like is this guy genuinely that serious? Because I knew the fear was that because I'd done something else for so long and then all of a sudden I was just wanting to what would seem on paper to be a really random career change. I didn't want anyone to think that I was just wanting to give something else a go, like I wanted them to know that I was dead serious, like I knew this was the career for me. So that's what I did.
Speaker 2:So I sat R01 to R06, I think it was three and a half months in total for all the exams. There wasn't actually enough time to book them. You had to book them a month in advance at the time well, they're all better now because they've changed their exam system and but yeah, you couldn't do that and I needed I needed short time. So what I was actually doing was I had two exams booked at once, even though I'd not even started reading the textbook of one of them. Um, and then I was kind of coming out of one exam and then booking one a month from now, which would be like exam number three, and then just like this, just nonstop. And I didn't admit I didn't pass them all. I failed R04 first time and then reset it again after R06.
Speaker 2:And then I started speaking to recruiters once. I knew that I was pretty much I was waiting on my R06 result, but I knew I'd done everything else and I've been honest, I found it really difficult, like when I was speaking to recruiters in the industry, I was just getting the standard textbook response, which is you can't do it. What you want to do is impossible. You can't go in and just be an advisor. You need to start in the administrative position, then progress to a power planner and then move on to an advisor. And they're like, if you're really lucky, you might be able to skip that first, jump and come in as a power planner.
Speaker 2:And my response was the same every time. I just said but I won't be a good administrator and I won't be a good power planner, so why would I do jobs that I know I'm going to be bad at? Yeah, and I will be a good advisor, I know I will. Um. So I think I must have spoken to like 10 recruiters at the time and eight of them didn't want to waste their time with me because they just thought I was just being stupid and I had dreams way too high and it was never going to be achievable. Um, and then of the two that was left, I I couldn't stand one of them. I just could not work with him at all.
Speaker 1:He was one of these typical sales types that like over-promised and under-delivered.
Speaker 2:Who's that then? Are we naming Shane or not? I can't remember his name. Being honest, I would be happy to, but I genuinely can't remember his name. What was his company. No, I don't know. I genuinely don't know, I genuinely don't know, I'd have to have a look if you want to put it in the notes after this.
Speaker 1:I will absolutely leave his name in shame, but I do. I can't remember his name.
Speaker 2:Well, there's nothing worse than a bad, bloody recruiter absolutely yeah I'm real, at the time I very much saw them as a necessary evil. No offense, someone, I know your background. But yeah, yeah they were. It was really difficult. But, um, but the uh, the advisor, the recruiter that I did work with, was very good and I I was honest with him and I said the hardest thing is going to be to get me in front of people, because 90 of the firms that you put my cv in front of they will literally not even give me the time of day. They'll just say that's stupid. Same as the other recruiters did. But I said if you can just get me a foot in the door, just give me a platform where I can explain what's happened, my life story, people can see the look in my eyes and really understand the belief and the passion I have for the job. And I firmly believe that if you can get me in front of that door, people will buy into me and they'll offer me the job. And he was great. So he got me five interviews and I got four job offers pretty much straight away and then one came later. So we both fulfilled our side of the bargain, I suppose.
Speaker 2:But then it was my last interview was actually Mosaic. I was going to take a job with another firm but I really bought into Mosaic and they're something that I believe is really important for someone coming into financial services, particularly if you have no experiences. You've really got to buy into the employer, like the employer has to see you as a person, as a human being, rather than just a money-making opportunity. Because I think for me, with my background I obviously came from quite a salesy background, I didn't really like it, but that's the background I had and because I'd set up my own business, there were a lot of people that I was speaking to and I could just see like they just had pound signs in their eyes. They were just like, oh yeah, if we just motivate this guy, then he's just going to make us a lot of money and obviously that's not what I was looking for.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I thought I was ready to take a job, but I ended up taking on Mosaic just because I really bought into the training plan that they had for me and I could understand how I was actually going to get to where I wanted to be Because, like one of the firms, they were basically wanting me to go and service these existing clients but basically not even give advice. They were like, just get there, sell to them, come away, our central office will write up all the advice, they'll decide what needs doing and then you just go back present it to them. And I was like, but I'll never learn anything if I do that, like I've got to be involved in the process. So there are type of things. I got on really well with everyone I interviewed with.
Speaker 1:There were some really nice opportunities, but ultimately I found my home at mosaic and I've been happy there ever since very interesting, great overview of how you did that, how you got in the journey that you've been on, and I think there's going to be many people listening to this podcast that will find that really beneficial and very motivating as well. So I think I really do want to unpack it a little bit more. Um, because your experience is very, very useful, especially for those that are either in a job right now, looking for a new one, or are considering that transition into financial advice and are coming up against the barriers to entry that you did also experience but then overcome. First off, three and a half months passing your qualifications that's pretty spectacular. Did that give you a lot of confidence as well going into these meetings?
Speaker 2:weirdly. No, um, because the problem that I found is and I've likened this when I've when I've been training people, since it's like the ro exams with the cII. I liken them. I always remember when I passed my driving test. I passed my driving test and my driving instructor he said to me congratulations, you've now got your certificate to learn to drive. And that stuck with me forever. And I feel like the CII RO exams are exactly the same. It's like, yes, you have passed, now you can learn how to be a financial advisor, because I think real learning to be a financial advisor is doing the job.
Speaker 2:I think you have to learn on the job. You have to learn by watching other advisors and seeing how advisors come to the ultimate advice and the journey they go along the way. I think that's really important and just seeing different styles of of how people deliver information, things like that they go along the way. I think that's really important and just seeing different styles of how people deliver information, things like that. So no, the one that always sticks with me and I've since told my partner, courtney, because she's currently going through the RO exams, and I said to her the one thing I can always remember is passing everything. I was technically fully qualified and I still didn't have a clue what an investment bond was. Not a clue, I didn't understand them at all. I tried to understand them over and over again. I was like, yep, I get corporate bonds, I get government bonds, but why is investment bonds? It feels like it's not the same.
Speaker 2:It feels pretty different, but I don't really get how different, feels pretty different, but I don't really get how different. And then I basically, when I joined mosaic, I sat and I looked through the the documents of a client who had one, and I got it straight away. I was like it makes complete sense now. But that's the problem is, if you're coming in with no industry experience, you're literally reading a textbook and trying to understand all these really complex, often quite archaic products, like some of them are just like they've been around for years and they probably don't really have a place in today's market.
Speaker 2:Um, I'm a big fan of the uh, the real advisor podcast and nick lincoln talks about that with uh I think it's annuities that he mentioned it and he said like if this was around now, they just wouldn't be served. And I think he talks about investment bonds in the same way as he said that there isn't a market for them now. They're only there now because they've been around for so long. And so, yeah, I, I, I always that always sticks out for me as the investment bonds, but as a general I I understood the vague concept. But that was the start of my journey.
Speaker 1:I learned far more in my first year as a financial advisor than I did for many of the qualifications yeah, very, very interesting and worth people understanding this at the beginning of their journey and they're thinking about becoming a financial planner. Look, you know, if you're doing your qualification, you need to get them past to be able to give the advice right, but it's not going to make you a financial advisor. It's not going to give you all the knowledge you need to walk straight into a job as a financial advisor and be able to deliver financial advice. Very different, uh, experience all together and all all together, a different learning experience required. Okay, that's really interesting that you said that very honest. I like that very, very much.
Speaker 1:So, okay, why let's talk? Let's talk about this dealing with recruiters bit, because I've come from a recruitment background 16 years of building a recruitment company within the financial planning profession and there are things that we can do as recruiters and things that we can't do. There are things that we say that are right and things that we say that are wrong, and there are reasons why you mentioned that a recruiter would turn around. So, first things first. You've gone out to the market and you've gone from property into financial advice. Probably the first thing you thought was I need to get hold of a recruitment consultant straight away or go to a recruitment consultant and use them as part of a recruitment strategy.
Speaker 1:So use it as part of your application strategy. One of the strands not put all your eggs in one basket in the recruitment world, hoping that a recruitment consultant is going to put you in contact with the right company, especially if you don't have the right information to give them as to how you want to be marketed, because they can actually damage your candidature in the marketplace as well by putting you forward to companies or not putting you forward to companies, so it can be quite damaging forward to companies or not putting you forward to companies right, so it can be quite damaging.
Speaker 1:So let's kind of dissect it a little bit, because you had some negative experiences where they were pushing back on you and saying you need to be this, you need to be an administrator and work your way up to a power planner and then become a financial planner. Very typical feedback that someone will give when they are inexperienced of recruiting into financial planning firms and also don't really have a consultative approach. They're kind of almost cookie cutter, square peg, square hole, transactional type recruiters. I have a job, it's this um, look, I can't place you because they can't make any money, because they find it it's hard to place somebody without any experience. So, in defense of a recruiter, they aren't going to spend time on somebody that they're going to find incredibly difficult to actually place.
Speaker 1:But a good recruiter would turn around and say well, tom, tell me why you want to be a financial planner.
Speaker 1:You know, give me some insight and some outline of where, how you're going to target this, how you're going to be, how you're going to business development, how you're going to target this, how you're going to be, how you're going to business development, how you're going to get yourself in front of clients, tell me how you're going to perform an interview.
Speaker 1:I used to love doing that with entrepreneurial individuals that wanted to become financial planners, and if they kind of thought back and bit back on me and they gave me some really good examples of how they could become a financial planner, what they would do within their first year, what their business plan is, all that kind of stuff, and I was like, well, actually you sound amazing.
Speaker 1:So if you're making me think you're amazing, then I will definitely put you in front of somebody, a client, that knows me and trusts me. I'll put you in front of them and I'll sell you in, but you've got to go in there and sell yourself, you know? Oh yeah, absolutely. So that's what you ended up doing, by the sounds of it, sort of pushing back on the recruiter, good, and then selling your benefits, if you like, to the recruiter as to why you believe you were placeable as an advisor. So let's just go to that point. Then. What did you say? How did you market yourself to that recruiter to give them the confidence to actually put you in front of the clients, which actually ended up in a job role, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess, probably quite similar to what I was saying to you. I wanted to stress that it wasn't just a random, spontaneous decision. I wanted to try something different. It was a. It was a once in a lifetime career change that I was going to the career that I I was near certain, as certain as I could be at that time, that this was my life, that that would be my new career, um, and I guess, trying to take the things from my previous job, um to understand, to try and kind of show as evidence that I would be a good financial advisor. Again, it was difficult because there's so many parts of the job that I had no experience in, but I believed and I still do to a certain extent that I had the stuff that couldn't be taught and the stuff that I didn't know could be taught and that was kind of the justification that I was given. That I didn't know could be taught and that was kind of the justification that I was given. But ultimately, interesting, what you said, because that's exactly what I thought at the time is I felt like the recruiters a lot of them they just want an easy fee, they didn't want hard work and that's fine, I don't mind.
Speaker 2:But they weren't wanting to waste their time with me because they saw me as someone who was wanting to achieve the impossible. So from their point of view, why would they? You know, it's just going to be a waste of their time. But similarly, I was kind of screening a lot of them because I was like I don't want to waste my time with you, like if you don't get it, if you really do understand you as a person and and like you you kind of almost touched on it there and I feel like a good recruiter should almost be like your personal salesperson, like they should be able to sell you an individual. So they should know you know you really well. But a bad recruiter is it's basically redundant because basically they're just a middleman passing a CV from one entity to another.
Speaker 1:Tom, yeah, I've just lost you. This is really annoying. I'll be back again, okay. Are you experiencing delay? Nope, okay, cool, okay. Are you experiencing delay? Nope, okay, okay, cool, okay, yeah. So, yeah, a bad recruiter is basically redundant. A good recruiter in your back pocket will stay with you for years, right, so they'll understand who you are. They wouldn't do it at the beginning of the journey. You're always going to turn back to that person at some point and they understand the market and every now and then they come back to you and give you an update on what's going on, what's going on out there, your worth within the market, what other opportunities that might be there for you and help should really help guide you through your career, right?
Speaker 2:definitely, yeah, yeah, and they should be, um, they should be a valued part. I mean, I guess, like I, I now come to this from the financial planner side and I feel like a financial planner should be a really good, almost like an extension of the family, and I guess that's. A good recruiter should be an extension of your professional family. They should be the person that you go to if you're unhappy or, like you said, they should be giving you updates in the market to understand if there is an opportunity for them to move on. But you know, the other side that we touched on before, which I think is really important, and you and I have talked about this before, is actually that you know I went into the industry and the first thing I tried was applying for jobs myself. That was the first thing was I started applying for jobs and basically just got laughed at, you know, laughed out the door. So then I went to recruit quite early on because I realized I needed someone to explain my scenario to first. But actually I think the gap there is. That doesn't you don't necessarily need to go to a recruiter for that. That's more of a problem with the industry. And if I had access to, basically to be able to just see, like, send it out to the, to the wider market, and just say guys, I am well aware 90% of you are going to think that this is absolutely crazy, but can you just tell me if you're one of the 10% so we're not wasting each other's time? If I had that, that's all I needed. I just needed a recruiter with access to a wide pool to be able to go. No, don't even bother going to any of them, they'll any of them. They'll just say no chance. So for me it was a bit of a necessity, but that doesn't mean it always needs to be a necessity. I just think we need to maybe change a little bit as an industry, and I'm a big believer that as an industry, we have this big problem, and the problem is is that we are very insular. It's almost like a bit of a boys club, so we only recruit from within.
Speaker 2:You know, I hear so many firms keep talking about how there's a shortage of paraplanners and it's really hard to find a good paraplanner. But I apply the same logic that I applied to myself at the time and if you think of what makes a good paraplanner, they're a huge part of that job but you can't actually teach. It requires very high attention to detail, really good organizational capabilities. Now there are plenty of jobs out there that you can find people that possess those skills. Yeah, they might not have the technical knowledge because they've never worked as a paraplanner, but the technical knowledge comes. You can teach someone the technical knowledge. So a great example, I think, is personal personal assistants, pa's like they possess some wonderful skills that you just cannot teach. So I feel like there's more opportunities there as an industry that we can be reaching out to other industries and starting to try to coach I suppose coach really good candidates and then say, right, well, you're not where we need you to be, because we also need you to have this huge amount of technical knowledge, but we'll get you there.
Speaker 2:And that's why I'm a big advocate for the academies. The SJP Academy was around when it wasn't something for me personally, but it was around when I was there. I think that's fantastic. And the Hoxton Academy that you have been talking about recently. I'm a big, big believer in stuff like that. I think we need people to have this opportunity to come in, like I said before, to sit and see real advice and to kind of do it in tandem. So actually it's learning the, the theoretical knowledge, and then being able to apply it immediately. You know, I wouldn't have that scenario of investment bonds if I was actually sat with an advisor whilst I was studying, going what the heck is this? And you could just go well, have a look through this, this, this is an investment bond, so I think that's the best scenario.
Speaker 2:I think real academies are a fantastic thing, but a lot of the academies are advisor focused and I think that we do need to branch that out. You know, um the, the industry that was in in property, that is a very common thing that they use um school leavers and get, get, get school leavers straight in learning, learning roles, apprenticeships really, really common, and I just don't see anywhere near the volume in financial services that I did back then. And actually, when I look at some of the people that came through our apprenticeship program when I worked in property, some of those went on to be absolutely fantastic at their jobs and I think we just were too quick to shut the door. We really are one of these cat 22 industries where it's if you've not got the experience, then you can't do this job, but if you've not, if you can't get the job, you can't get the experience. So it's like that, and that's where I found myself. Was that interestingly?
Speaker 1:I think that's awesome without being ageist. I think that's also to do with the average age of the advisor and the average age of the person that's running a business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally um we are yeah, they're just not prepared to invest in somebody's long-term future if they're one foot out the door looking to sell their business, it's just. And I get that, I fully understand that. And then you're looking at the size of the businesses. Like, the average size is about 10. So you know, getting somebody in training them up, getting through the process and not seeing a return on investment, if you like, from a traditional sales sense. Right, numbers on the board. They look at it and go what's the point? Um, I'd rather try and find somebody in a profession already and get them across or kind of don't bother, maybe I'll outsource it. So there isn't ever there hasn't been for a long time an emphasis on taking on new people, entry-level type roles and training them up from scratch. But if you look at the larger firms, right, they do and they do have that in place and they will take on apprenticeships and they will take on trainees. So Brewing, dolphin, evelyn, st James's Place, to name a few companies that have got graduate programs, investec graduate programs these companies have them and they're doing it and they're going into universities and they're trying to attract people.
Speaker 1:The issue you have is there's a lot of very small companies in financial planning that just don't have even a clear-cut career progression plan. So unless you literally walk through the door and sell yourself, then you're going to struggle. So that's one of the areas I think is difficult. But I do love what you said about like is there not a place where we can get a sounding board where you can sort of say, like you know, have I got a chance? And I guess that's what I've been trying to build with the financial plan of life is to kind of be open and honest and have the conversations of what works and what doesn't work. You know, my background is recruitment and I've always been very open and honest about what works and what doesn't work and what to expect. And a big big part for me is pushing it back on the candidate and saying like, if you really want it, if you really want it, if you really want to get into the profession, what are you doing about selling yourself?
Speaker 1:Which is why I created a video how to get a, how to get a job within financial planning and I'll put it in the show notes. But I outline the strategy for marketing yourself to businesses. And I also created the career accelerator program, which is four hours of content for somebody that wants to get into the financial planning profession. So we've created the content. It's out there on YouTube. I'll put it in the show notes for anybody listening. If they are struggling to market themselves or struggling to get their foot in the door and what to expect at interview, it's there. The content is actually there. One thing I would like to understand is when you got in front of people right, so that's good news Were you looking for employed or self-employed?
Speaker 2:I think the honest answer at that time was I will take whatever I can get, because I knew it was. Uh, it was a long shot for any firm and they needed to. They were really rolling the dice with me, let's be honest. They just they wouldn't know what to get. But that being said, going back to the early days of Treazam, I've always been very, very driven. I don't like the idea of making money for someone else. It doesn't get me out of bed in the morning, being honest. So the position that I ultimately selected I was often both, but the position I ultimately selected was a self-employed role. I actually started self-employed, which, you know, to anyone listening, particularly people in financial services, will think that I'm a maniac and I was. I maybe wouldn't always suggest it, but it depends on the circumstances, I guess. But yeah, for me that was a big driver. For me is that I want to progress my own career, okay.
Speaker 1:So you decided you want to be a financial planner, but you also were open to employed and self-employed. So when you went to that recruiter and you went in front of these advice companies and you sat down with them, they had the understanding that you were open to employed and self-employed. Right, yeah, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:So that would have opened way more doors for you yes yeah, because you didn't shut any doors at that point, because there was already only like three left.
Speaker 1:So but interestingly, it would have opened more doors for you because self-employed being less risk for the, the company, right, yeah, yeah. So then I think in my but what we got to lose? We may as well sit down with them, whereas on the other way, it'd be like, well, this person's looking for a 35k basic salary, they've got no experience, they're probably gonna go no. So actually being open to employed and self-employed to get yourself through the door and actually sit down with somebody is actually not a bad shout, right? Because once you're through the door, you can start to sell yourself, show who you are, what you've done, your skill set, you know your attributes, all those things, and then a company might look at it slightly different, might go well, actually, we can pay you this amount for six months to get you up and running, yeah.
Speaker 1:So there are. There are candidates need to think about trying to get out of a fixed mindset when it comes to applying for a job and being open to event. You know different types of scenarios when it comes down to the actual job offer side of it. But, to not be misleading, you were in a position to be able to take a self-employed contract, right? Because you ended up taking a self-employed contract, didn't you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's a big thing for young people. If you're young and you have that opportunity we talk about financial advisors you can sustain losses easier as a younger person because you can bounce back a lot quicker. And I think if you are a young person then it's a great time to try it like go out and do it. If it doesn't work, you've not got so much on the line. You know, when you're older and you've got family, kids, mortgage, then it gets a lot more difficult to take that leap interesting, interesting way to look at it.
Speaker 1:So you you think if you're younger, take a chance on self-employed. It's more risky if you're older.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because ultimately it's going to get harder the older you get. If you start employed and you carry on employed, then by the time you're 40, that gets scary to go to jump to self-employed because unless you have got a client bank that you're able to rely on and you know that's going to come with you, you've got a big jump to make. And, like I say, the older you get, the more liabilities you take on, the more responsibilities and at some point you've kind of got to take that leap of faith, like if you want the rewards. Again, going back to Nick Lincoln, I was listening to one of their podcasts the other day and he mentioned this and he said if you want everything that you aspire from being self-employed which for me that was a big thing, you know, that's where you can see a lot of the aspirational stuff about like good salaries, really good work-life balance. Most of those I am generalizing a little bit, but most of those are self-employed advisors and if you like that and you use that, something that you aspire to, well, at some point you've got to really take that leap of faith and buy into yourself and just jump and trust yourself that you will, you'll, you'll catch it. You know you'll, you'll make it.
Speaker 2:So I think that that jump gets harder the longer time goes on. So if you are a younger person, I would say try and just give it a go. Like you know, if you do it for a year and you don't make enough money, it doesn't work out. You can pick things up at least and you've got a year of experience. You can then reposition and there might be a different firm that might work a little bit better for you. Or it could be that at that time you want to go into the book. But at least you tried it. And that's the important thing is, if you don't try it, you'll always have at the back of your mind what if I'd have moved? And then, as time goes on, you're like it's too late now, I can't, I can't afford to switch. But ultimately, obviously there can be a big, big earnings potential if you do go down the self-employed route. But a lot of people like say just can't afford to make that leap well, this is it.
Speaker 1:So were you in a position where you could afford to make that leap?
Speaker 2:yeah, because ultimately I'd run my own business for at that point, like five years, you know, dealt with. We had the expenditure as low as possible because my income was like this all the time it was I mean to financial advisors. Listen, the only thing I can equate it to back then was like, imagine living off only initial fees, because that's basically what I was doing in my early days in the property side. So some months were great, they went into saving. Some months are terrible, so we were kind of already used to that.
Speaker 2:So I was like well, and the other good thing was and the thing that I liked about mosaic and this is something to look out for for young people is, you know, there might be an opportunity where you can be self-employed but you actually um, take on a small client bank to begin with um, because, as, like you said, from the firm's perspective there's there's less risk there anyway, because they're they're they're only paying you whatever you can generate um, but you give a little bit of stability of income.
Speaker 2:It's not that, yeah, definitely I'm going to make 35 grand salary, but it is like, well, these clients are currently generating, you know, I don't say around about 30 grand in income. So, yeah, some months will be down, some months will be up, but they'll be somewhere around there. So for me, making that jump was actually a big increase to my safety, because at least I knew roughly what I was going to earn each month, and then I could earn more than that or sometimes a little bit less than that. But previously I had no clue, I was just used to it, okay.
Speaker 1:So when you took on that self-employed role a mosaic, yeah yeah, Did they give you a client bank?
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, there was an advisor that was just retiring. I had about three months with him before he retired.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So he taught me a lot and in those three months as well, I kind of went through the Mosaic crash course. So it was a little bit like an academy, because I basically sat in the admin team for well over a month and just understood that I got writing some reports, got some feedback on those reports and then, uh, transitioned then, like say it was, it was about a three-month window from when I started to when I got my permissions from the fca, and so in that time I was just basically just absorbing as much as I could before I got sent out and put with clients but you wouldn't have known about that opportunity if you didn't get in front of them, right?
Speaker 1:if you didn't sell yourself to the recruiter, that you're open to opportunities, that you're open to employed, open to self-employed, you'd have never had a opportunity like that presented to you, because you wouldn't have had the opportunity to show your skill set and that person to look at you and go well, actually, there is a place, I can see you here. So once you get your foot through the door and you sit in front of somebody, it's a difference. It's a completely different situation. It's a completely different situation than pressing apply on a job advert, right? So that's really, really important that people, when they are so we're talking about people here who want to go into financial planning, right, straight into financial advice. There is a great route admin power planning but that wasn't for you. That's not what you wanted to do. You wanted to go straight into financial advice. Now I think the learning bit here is right I'm going to market myself, I'm going to sell. What are my usps, what are the things that I can do? Really, really well, I'm going to market myself, I'm going to sell. What are my USPs, what are the things that I can do really, really well. I'm going to market myself to companies. I'm going to market myself to recruiters. I'm open to opportunities. This is what I can bring to the table. But I'm open to opportunities, whether that's employed, self-employed, a hybrid, a mix between the two. I'm open, but what I want to do is sit down in front of somebody and show them who I am and how I can add value to their business.
Speaker 1:One of the opportunities is aging population. We talked about that being a barrier to entry for young people, but also, if you turn it on its head, it's an opportunity, because there's the opportunity for you to sit down in front of that aging advisor and say you're probably going to want to retire at some point. Have you thought about your succession plan? Because I would love to come on in, take on some of your clients, release some of that pressure from you so you can start to enjoy yourself a little bit and then work on a succession plan within your business with some of your older advisors. Is there an opportunity like that for me? So that's like another opportunity and an opportunity to sit down and have that open and frank conversation. You are in a situation, right, and this is not the same situation. This is the problem that we have.
Speaker 1:Some people want to be an advisor advisor but they want a basic salary and the profession as a whole doesn't offer basic salaries all the time. You know, there's very, very few companies that will offer a trainee a basic salary very few companies. Hoxton we do. We offer the pathway and we give people roughly about two to two and a half thousand pounds per month on the on the pathway um to becoming a financial advisor, and I think it's the right thing to do. I think it's the right thing to do to offer somebody a basic salary, give them that security, because one not everybody's work, self-employed, like you, right, and it's scary and um, not everybody's got savings. I think I don't know what the average debt is in the uk, but it's pretty high. Most people have got debt, new savings right. So the abilities are kind of so many of these barriers to entry. So I do think the employed options need to be there.
Speaker 1:But if you're somebody like you that's listening right now, that is backing themselves and confident that they think that they can actually get in there and be an advisor straight away, don't want to go down the academy routes, because they can do that down the academy route as well and they might even get a little bit of money come their way to help them through that process and the training and development support.
Speaker 1:You chose to go self-employed, registered individual in an existing practice right, yeah, yeah, and that's what you chose to do because in that ecosystem you've got people that can support you, you've got clients to work with and all that kind of stuff, so that was the perfect scenario for you. So when people are listening to this and they're in a similar situation to you, it's right try and find those companies, those maybe small to medium enterprises that have aging advisors in there. Market yourself to those companies, selling the reasons why you want to go in there and being open to the opportunity of employed or self-employed, and that will get you through the door and once you're through the door you can sell yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you talked about barriers to entry, and I love that, because the only thing I could cling to before I joined the industry was that I had an a level in economics and I love economics.
Speaker 2:That's one of the big appeals to the job for me, um, and we, they, we talked a lot about various century when I was studying for my other phone, economics and and I love that.
Speaker 2:And if you look at the I you know um oligopolies, where there's like a few firms that control the market. The main, the most common theme there is there's a massive barrier to entry. But the other common theme is, if you can break through the barriers to entry, then normally they're very, very lucrative markets to be in, and I feel like financial services for young people is kind of like that. It's like not so much an oligopoly, but the idea is, because there's so many barriers to entry, if you do have the self-confidence and the belief that this is something that you really want and you know you're going to be good at and you, you really push through those barriers. I'm not saying that it's easy, because it's not, but if you do, you have this very, very lucrative opportunity. As you, as you just mentioned something, we are, we are an aging population as advisors there is a massive balloon problem.
Speaker 2:That's on the horizon, it's started, but it's just going to get worse and worse and worse, particularly over the next decade.
Speaker 2:So if you are a young person coming in and you're one of the few that made it through that barrier and everyone else is kind of on the outside knocking on the window, you're like, great, I've now got this pick of all these different opportunities. There's going to be so many client banks to inherit. I can basically just take my pick of what I want. So there I say to a lot of young people if you know, if you, if it is for you and I'm happy if anyone wants to reach out on linkedin to understand a bit more about the job more than happy to share that with them but if you really think it's the industry for you and you think that you'd be good at it, you have some fantastic opportunities. Maybe not right now, but if, if you can get in and get five years under your belt, really get some experience, you've got some great stuff coming your way. You really do. It's a fantastic industry for young people.
Speaker 1:That's great. So let's just quickly just take a look at it, because you've obviously. How long have you been in the profession now? For Five and a half years. Five and a half years, right, okay. Reality then. Okay. What was your first year like? In comparison to what you thought it would be like?
Speaker 2:um, well, like I say, I've done a lot of research so I would say generally there were no major surprises. Like I really did, I'd asked as many. I'd reached out to financial advisors. I wanted to understand, like just little things like what's your day, what's your daily schedule like? Just give me an example of a day in the life of a financial planner and I love watching stuff like this. I think that's that's really really useful for people to understand, like what you know what time you're going to the office, how many times do you go to the office, how many clients do you go and see, what do you discuss in those meetings? That type of thing. So there weren't too many, too many surprises for me.
Speaker 2:I mentioned before that I definitely weren't way more in that year on the job than I did for my exams. It was a crash course but I would say about two, three years in I felt comfortable in my job. I didn't really have any major curveballs coming my way, anything that would throw me off too much. But I would say for me I'm fairly, fairly confident that 2024 I will always look back on as the year that I really progressed and I'm really into my settled now and I feel very, very confident in my skill set um, and I think this will always I'll always look back on this year as a pivotal moment for me, where where I'm I'm finally truly settled and I know what I want I like, what I don't like, and I really developed my style as an advisor.
Speaker 1:So that's really interesting to know right who I talked about your first year and that's kind of getting to grips with it yeah you're saying 2024 is the year that you feel the most confident. So we're talking like what four or five years later?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think that's one of the things I love about the job is you're always learning. I think if you don't have a passion for continual learning, probably not the career for you, because every day is a school day, as they say. I've continuously learned something, pretty regularly, maybe not every single day, but pretty regularly for all of these five and a half years and honestly I'd say the last six months every single day, but pretty regularly for all of these five and a half years and and honestly I'd say the last six months. That's why I consider 2020 so pivotal for me. The last six months I've probably learned more than like the, certainly the last four years.
Speaker 2:That first year was a big upward trajectory for me.
Speaker 2:I was a crash course but certainly in the four years since, I've learned more in the last six months because just the stuff that's come my way, the opportunities that the, the papers that I've been reading um I I've mentioned to you before, like um, listening to the real advisor podcast was big for me because I hated podcasts before that. I thought no way I'm ever gonna listen to a podcast, hate audio books. I was like podcasts are the same, but that was a big eye-opener for me was. I was like, okay, well, some of these things that I've been wondering, actually there are people out there that feel the same and that opened up a community, and then I've been absorbing a lot of resources, reading a lot of books since. So this was kind of the year where, I believe, I transitioned from a financial advisor to a financial planner, so that's why I consider it to be so important to me in my career when did you start to feel more financially secure within yourself, around your remuneration in your job as a financial planner?
Speaker 1:what did you have? A couple of years where it was like shit, I'm not earning as much as I hoped or I thought I would. Or were you always kind of? Is it gradual increase? You know, because sometimes, like, let's say, for example, you go into a trainee role and let's just pick a figure out of the air, right, I think it's fair to pay a trainee, let's say 30 000 quid, right, yeah, as a trainee now, expectation wise, let's say, someone came in at 30 grand in year one and you've gone to year five.
Speaker 1:Has your earnings gone up exponentially? Is it has it increased massively or has it been a gradual increase? Were there periods where you were like plateauing a little bit and thinking, should I even do this anymore? And did it spike all of a sudden? Talk to us about your earnings, because I've talked to lots of people and like someone could be on nothing, nothing, nothing and then all of a sudden 50k. So it's kind of it can jump up massively in financial planning. You could be on 100k earner in a couple of years. You know it's. It can be very, very different in dependent upon the environment you're in and the opportunity that you have and your ability as well to go out and win new client relationships yeah, um, for me it was.
Speaker 2:It was fairly linear in the early years. Like I say, I was kind of fortunate in that I had that kind of minimum level, roughly. It wasn't an exact minimum, it wasn't a hard floor, but it was kind of soft. It was like, yeah, the fund values will fluctuate, but generally my income will be around this much every month. But, to be fair, after about three years I believe, I transitioned to employed within the firm because I got offered a position on the senior management team. So I had an option to be able to either create a hybrid role where I was kind of self-employed as an advisor and employed as a manager, or to go fully employed. So I did that and I've done that ever since. But, um, my earnings have probably gone up at a faster rate under employed than self-employed, and that's not because of the nature of the employer self-employed, it's just that, uh, I've got a lot more settled in those times. So it's kind of a happy coincidence that it's happened.
Speaker 2:But you know, I'm one of the things that I I read a lot about financial advisors before I joined and I really do think this is true and anyone listening you know you really do buy into it and that's you've got to push through the early days where you are, you're basically just trying to earn money and that they're horrible because, um, you you're kind of under pressure in yourself and once you get past that you you actually become a much better planner and actually business comes your way faster because you're more secure in yourself and you actually, like I loved, like the moment when I realized that I was actually turning away more clients than they were turning me away. I was like, yeah, that's a big thing for me, because that's when you start to understand that actually, no, I'm not the right fit for you. We're not going to work well and having that security I think it's not something that you tell clients. You don't say you know, well, I'm screening you, by the way, but I think it probably comes across. I think you actually have a lot of confidence and you exude that. When you're just sitting just listening and just saying, yeah, I could work with this person, you're just sitting, just listening and just saying, yeah, I could work with this person or no, I don't think this is the right fit. So I think people probably almost intuitively pick up on that.
Speaker 2:Without you, you really putting, pushing anything across is once you have that security and the confidence in like I say, in your style and knowing what you're good at, what you're not good at, which I'm, I'm a really big believer in really think that, not just for financial advice, I think a massive thing for people. You know when I say that the greatest strength that you can possibly have is knowing all of your weaknesses. So that's a big thing and that was a thing for me. Coming in was that, and that was why I was so adamant. I didn't want a job as a power planner, I didn't want a job as an administrator, because I knew my weaknesses would be really shown in those two roles and I didn't want, I don't, I don't want to do a bad job for someone. So I think that's, that's very important for people as well interesting.
Speaker 1:I've done a lot of work on myself from a self-reflection perspective and looking at my character, defects and areas of weakness or things that trigger anxiety right, trigger, trigger those fears in me, those worries in me, and one of them is definitely financials. So my financial security. For me to be able to do my job really well, I have to feel like in the background, financially I'm secure and that security comes from a guaranteed income where I've come from running a business for 16 years. I suppose I had a kind of regular income off the back of that, because your business does a certain amount and you've got a set amount. But I was never really in control of what I could earn because you employ people and a bit like in the property side, it was up and down, up and down. There was no recurring income. We didn't do any contract type work. So that causes a lot of anxiety and a lot of worry.
Speaker 1:Right then I moved and I'm oh. Then I moved across into financial plan of life on its own when it was just me and I was just self-employed and when I sold to recruit uk and I'm sitting there thinking I could do this on my own. And then all of a sudden I was like jesus christ, I've got no team around me anymore, I've got nobody to support me. So you had to be sales, for example. Sales calls were a lot less because you had a lot more work to do, so that put a lot more pressure on me and I didn't have as much income. So then I felt really anxious all the time right.
Speaker 1:Moving then into an employed position now with Hoxton, where they've met the salary expectations that I need to calm down my financial insecurity, has just allowed me to be me right, allowed me to focus on my job and focus on what I'm good at without worrying about money and and there is definitely something in that. So when we see all these self-employed roles and we're trying to get all these new people into self-employed roles and we're not being realistic about the journey and how long it takes to get the level of income that will make them financially secure, right and feel comfortable to do the job. Because once you're secure and you're comfortable in doing the job, you'll start to do the job in a different way, like you've experienced. You start to really enjoy it because there isn't a pressure to put food on the table or pay the bills or whatnot, right, and that's so uncomfortable. It's so uncomfortable. I don't want anyone to go through that.
Speaker 1:So if anyone's listening here like, it is hard being a financial planner I've spoken to loads of financial planners right, and in the very, very beginning it's tough. So if you're going to go self-employed, just make sure that you have some money in the bank to secure yourself or that the opportunity you're going into they are supporting you. Perhaps they are giving you a client bank, perhaps they are giving you a bit of a retainer or something like that, just to help you during that period. And don't stretch yourself because it's going to take time to build a client bank and I just don't want people thinking, well, great, I get the qualifications, I must make me an advisor. There's loads of people out there that want advice. Therefore, I'm going to make money straight away. This isn't the type of profession that is like that.
Speaker 2:You know it really isn't, and the problem with that is as well is is that encourages sales-like behavior, which I really like, because you're basically pressured to try and put food on the table so you're going to offer subpar advice, let's say in those scenarios.
Speaker 2:So that's why I'm a big believer, like when you were saying about the salary being paid under the Hoxton Academy. I think stuff like that is great, because you need to take that worry away from someone if you want them to truly focus on their development and for them to just be able to say I need to just absorb information and improve as an advisor.
Speaker 1:And young people coming to the press. You know to expect a young person to go self-employed, for example, you're never going to. It's really hard. There's few and far between. You're obviously a very entrepreneurial individual, right. That doesn't mean that every young person is, and you know social media will lead you to believe that everyone's got a million and one side hustles, but in reality it's not like that at all. People just want to feel secure. They want to feel secure with a career development plan and they don't care if it takes five years to become a financial planner.
Speaker 1:I spoke to a business developer who works for hoxton just a second ago actually before this call, and he understands it. It might take me three or four years, he's 22. But he said at least I know that I've got, I know the journey that I'm going on. I know what I need to do to get there. He's doing his qualifications, he's doing business development calls, he's interacting with clients, he's learning all the skills. Plus he's got a basic and plus he's got a bonus structure and and for him he is excited about the next three to four years.
Speaker 1:Not resentful, you know, and I think there's something in that that needs to happen more. Start offering basic salaries to to employees, without a shadow of a doubt. And you're getting it, but in line with a clear-cut career progression route. Right, it has to be clear-cut, it has to be explained, not just dump them in the corner and say, learn that and we'll review it at the end, because no one likes that. People want to know where they're going and how long it's going to take them to get to a certain point. What training and development are they going to have? What does progress look like? And that's really, really important.
Speaker 2:I think that's really, really important, I think. Yeah, totally agree, and it doesn't have to be a high amount either, like you said. It's literally just enough so that people can have the security that they know they're going to be able to put food on the table that month. You don't want someone in for work trying to sell products to clients because they're aware that they've got a looming utility bill that they can't pay.
Speaker 1:That's an awful position for people to be in Stressful, very, very position for people to be in stressful, very, very stressful. Tom, lovely talking to you today, I could talk to you all day. Thank you so much for sharing your experience in your journey and we've hyper focused really on the beginning. That's the key thing here. Um, and I think that's it's important for those that are listening to this podcast, that are at the beginning of the journey, thinking about getting into the profession. I think we've shone a light on a few hints and tips and ideas and experiences that you've had that will help people. So thank you so much for that, tom, no worries, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me.
