We are still six months away from another superb IFP Conference at Celtic Manor but the team at Whitefriars have already announced our keynote speakers and they give a strong flavour of the main themes of the conference
Mark Tibergien, CEO of Pershing Advisor Solutions, made a significant impression on those who heard him speak last year. Mark is an expert at making financial planning practices work. He is the author of Practice Made Perfect, the financial planning practice business managers’ bible, and this year he will use his keynote speech to highlight the ten big things we need to do to build our own perfect practice.
Graham Codrington of Tomorrow Today returns to the conference to develop ideas about the key drivers of change that are re-shaping the business landscape. We anticipate some serious paradigm shifting in this session, which delegates might find either extremely painful or exhilarating and inspiring.
Karren Brady will close the conference for us. Karren is Alan Sugar’s newly appointed assistant on the Apprentice as well as football’s “First Lady”. Karren is a passionate straight talker. She will use her experience as a highly successful business woman to inspire and motivate us to fulfil our potential before kicking us out of Celtic Manor to put into practice the ideas and inspirations that we will all come away with.
And there is much more. Keep an eye on the Conference website to read about more speakers as they are announced. The early bird discount ends on 24th May so try and book before then.
Speakers are important but it is the delegates who have made the conference the success it has been over the last few years. We all bring experience, knowledge and energy to share with our fellow delegates. The more of us there are at Celtic Manor from 20 to 22 September the better.
Jeremy Deedes
Conference Committee
Certified Financial Planning
Friday, 19 March 2010
Friday, 5 March 2010
"Genuine care" must be at the centre of our service to clients
You may be financially solvent, but are you "solvent in mind and soul" and if not, who are you going to call? This is the groundbreaking question raised by Susan Galvan in her recent post, "A Fiduciary of the Heart" on the FPA's Future of Planning blog. Its a stunning question and Susan's answer hits the nail on the head.
Galvan is a thought leader in the field of life and financial planning and her article gets right to the core of the argument of what we are all doing in the planning profession; it is also timely as it adds to the debate we have been developing on this blog about services, fees and professional relationships. Particularly, it provides both a reason for consumers' fear of visiting a planner, as well as setting out an answer.
Susan starts off by pointing out that the extreme materialism and consumption of the last decade brought us to the brink of financial Armageddon. However, she goes on to argue that this same extreme materialism and consumption has also brought us to the brink of an “insolvency of mind and soul” as well as a financial insolvency. For Susan, true impoverishment is when we forget our larger purpose, the one that connects us to the wellbeing of the world around us. Susan says that “we know that over-consumption eventually leads to death. You cannot fill an inner emptiness, an insolvency of soul with substances whether food, alcohol, drugs, money or stuff.”
This has deep implications for the client planner relationship. As planners we should truly be in the business of helping our clients become “healthy, wealthy and wise”, not only financially but in their lives as a whole.
For Susan, the crucial question is whether, as planners, we want to enable our clients to "live more amply with greater vision and a finer spirit of hope and achievement or do we just want to manage their money and make our own living in the process of doing so". Interestingly, Susan sees this as being important not only for our clients but for planners themselves.
Susan describes a simple strategy that will facilitate enriching our clients’ lives – and our own – in what really matters. She suggests we should get to know them in depth, providing genuine care for them as we come to know them in a very deep way. In our deep conversations with our clients we become a "fiduciary for the heart as well as the financial assets".
As we’ve noted time and time again, money is one of the most emotional things we have to deal with. We have always argued that you can’t deal with money on its own. You have to deal with its reason in our lives as well. This is so fundamental that once consumers realise what we do they will not only lose their fear of coming to see a financial planner, but positively embrace it, a trend we have seen at Planning for Life. They will find real value in the fees that they pay for our "genuine care" and advice. The holistic approach that Susan describes should not only increase the number of people wishing to visit a financial planner, but the subsequent demand created will ultimately pull more advisers and planners back into the profession.
Galvan is a thought leader in the field of life and financial planning and her article gets right to the core of the argument of what we are all doing in the planning profession; it is also timely as it adds to the debate we have been developing on this blog about services, fees and professional relationships. Particularly, it provides both a reason for consumers' fear of visiting a planner, as well as setting out an answer.
Susan starts off by pointing out that the extreme materialism and consumption of the last decade brought us to the brink of financial Armageddon. However, she goes on to argue that this same extreme materialism and consumption has also brought us to the brink of an “insolvency of mind and soul” as well as a financial insolvency. For Susan, true impoverishment is when we forget our larger purpose, the one that connects us to the wellbeing of the world around us. Susan says that “we know that over-consumption eventually leads to death. You cannot fill an inner emptiness, an insolvency of soul with substances whether food, alcohol, drugs, money or stuff.”
This has deep implications for the client planner relationship. As planners we should truly be in the business of helping our clients become “healthy, wealthy and wise”, not only financially but in their lives as a whole.
For Susan, the crucial question is whether, as planners, we want to enable our clients to "live more amply with greater vision and a finer spirit of hope and achievement or do we just want to manage their money and make our own living in the process of doing so". Interestingly, Susan sees this as being important not only for our clients but for planners themselves.
Susan describes a simple strategy that will facilitate enriching our clients’ lives – and our own – in what really matters. She suggests we should get to know them in depth, providing genuine care for them as we come to know them in a very deep way. In our deep conversations with our clients we become a "fiduciary for the heart as well as the financial assets".
As we’ve noted time and time again, money is one of the most emotional things we have to deal with. We have always argued that you can’t deal with money on its own. You have to deal with its reason in our lives as well. This is so fundamental that once consumers realise what we do they will not only lose their fear of coming to see a financial planner, but positively embrace it, a trend we have seen at Planning for Life. They will find real value in the fees that they pay for our "genuine care" and advice. The holistic approach that Susan describes should not only increase the number of people wishing to visit a financial planner, but the subsequent demand created will ultimately pull more advisers and planners back into the profession.
Wednesday, 24 February 2010
High fees to restrict access to advice
Recent research published by Aviva adds more fuel to the debate about client services and fees triggered by the Retail Distribution Review.
ICM carried out a study among 2,000 consumers at the end of 2009 for Aviva and found that only 3% of consumers will be willing to pay £100 or more per hour for independent financial advice. About half of the consumers surveyed would be unwilling to pay any fee at all.
In contrast Aviva’s research amongst advisers found that most advisers plan to operate on an hourly basis to comply with the RDR. The range of fees proposed varies from as little as £50 per hour to over £400 per hour.
As a result of this research Aviva believes that the majority of customers will be unwilling or unable to pay these fees and consumer access to advice will decrease post 2012.
At Planning for Life we don’t specifically charge by the hour, instead preferring a retainer fee depending on the level of service provided. This is paid per month irrespective of the work we do for a client during that month, but is designed to pay for our work over the full annual planning cycle.
In a related story Bluefin Advisory Services, a large wealth management and advisory company, have declared that they expect all their advisers to obtain full Level 6 qualifications and work on a fee basis from May this year. As a result Bluefin expect the number of advisers working for the group to halve from 180 to 90 in the next four months.
So the picture we see emerging is one of reducing numbers of advisers with those staying in the profession charging fees nobody really wants to pay.
As usual we would be interested to hear your views on the whole question of advice, how it’s paid for and what as consumers, you want to get and pay for. Comments are welcome in the box below.
ICM carried out a study among 2,000 consumers at the end of 2009 for Aviva and found that only 3% of consumers will be willing to pay £100 or more per hour for independent financial advice. About half of the consumers surveyed would be unwilling to pay any fee at all.
In contrast Aviva’s research amongst advisers found that most advisers plan to operate on an hourly basis to comply with the RDR. The range of fees proposed varies from as little as £50 per hour to over £400 per hour.
As a result of this research Aviva believes that the majority of customers will be unwilling or unable to pay these fees and consumer access to advice will decrease post 2012.
At Planning for Life we don’t specifically charge by the hour, instead preferring a retainer fee depending on the level of service provided. This is paid per month irrespective of the work we do for a client during that month, but is designed to pay for our work over the full annual planning cycle.
In a related story Bluefin Advisory Services, a large wealth management and advisory company, have declared that they expect all their advisers to obtain full Level 6 qualifications and work on a fee basis from May this year. As a result Bluefin expect the number of advisers working for the group to halve from 180 to 90 in the next four months.
So the picture we see emerging is one of reducing numbers of advisers with those staying in the profession charging fees nobody really wants to pay.
As usual we would be interested to hear your views on the whole question of advice, how it’s paid for and what as consumers, you want to get and pay for. Comments are welcome in the box below.
Friday, 19 February 2010
FSA review to make advice less available, more expensive
The FSA's Retail Distribution Review (RDR) has the potential to affect both the availability and quality of financial advice according to Jeremy Deedes, Director of Planning for Life. This is the view emerging in the financial planning community as it debates two RDR related issues, both of which are pertinent to Planning for Life's position in the market place, and both of which give rise to two important questions for consumers. We would like to hear your views:
In generic terms, "segmentation" is regarded as absolutely necessary to business success. A one-size-fits-all service does not work. The onset of the RDR has led some to argue client segmentation will become a necessity for financial firms in order to remain competitive, but to the detriment of thousands of clients who will not be able to afford top level services. To this end, the argument runs, segmentation is immoral.
The widely accepted counter-argument is that it makes sense for both the adviser and client to match the right service to the right client.
The second and related debate is about qualifications, and whether all advisers should be required to hold high level qualifications. Some argue that the RDR requirement to reach Level 4 qualifications had not gone far enough and is pandering to "commission-based, low quality" advisers. Others argue that Level 4 is more than adequate for the majority of advice given to UK consumers.
These are not just intellectual questions. They really affect they way you will receive advice after 2012. At Planning for Life we have adopted the segmentation route by offering a range of services from the comprehensive Freedom service to an entry level financial planning service (Pathfinder); we believe that segmentation will make financial planning more, not less, available. We have also adopted a policy of top-level qualifications.
What do you think? Do you agree with our position on these subjects? How would you answer the questions above?
- Are you prepared to accept a lower or restricted level of service, but for a lower fee?
- Higher qualifications lead to higher fees, but potentially to better advice; are you prepared to pay higher fees for greater quality and depth of advice, or would you be happy with lower qualified advisers charging lower fees but more oriented towards advised product sales than financial advice?
In generic terms, "segmentation" is regarded as absolutely necessary to business success. A one-size-fits-all service does not work. The onset of the RDR has led some to argue client segmentation will become a necessity for financial firms in order to remain competitive, but to the detriment of thousands of clients who will not be able to afford top level services. To this end, the argument runs, segmentation is immoral.
The widely accepted counter-argument is that it makes sense for both the adviser and client to match the right service to the right client.
The second and related debate is about qualifications, and whether all advisers should be required to hold high level qualifications. Some argue that the RDR requirement to reach Level 4 qualifications had not gone far enough and is pandering to "commission-based, low quality" advisers. Others argue that Level 4 is more than adequate for the majority of advice given to UK consumers.
These are not just intellectual questions. They really affect they way you will receive advice after 2012. At Planning for Life we have adopted the segmentation route by offering a range of services from the comprehensive Freedom service to an entry level financial planning service (Pathfinder); we believe that segmentation will make financial planning more, not less, available. We have also adopted a policy of top-level qualifications.
What do you think? Do you agree with our position on these subjects? How would you answer the questions above?
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