New services

We are in the process of carrying out a major review of our business plan at the moment to take advantage of the many opportunities we see coming up in financial services.

This includes the development of new services, and we are designing a “2-hour special” for people wishing to carry out a very compressed financial planning exercise, a sort of financial health check but oriented towards the strategic achievement of goals rather than a review of financial products.

We feel this fits in with our ethos of providing a service that is client centered, based around planning rather than product sales, and paid for by fees. We intend to provide it efficiently and economically by adapting our existing processes.

We have begged, borrowed and otherwise sourced market research that indicates that there is a significant demand for such a service. It was useful confirmation, therefore, to see and read the reports on the BBC and IFA Life about the BBC Money Matters Roadshow at Trafford Park last week. Long queues of people from all walks of life formed for just a short meeting with a planner to talk about their pensions, savings, investments and other financial matters.

The key lesson, which confirms our own research, is that there is a huge demand for professional advice about all matters money. Why was the event so popular? One reason undoubtedly is because it came with built-in respectability from the BBC umbrella. However, it must also be because consumers were looking for holistic, independent, impartial advice, not “advice” with a hidden agenda of a product sale, which is very encouraging for our own proposed service.

Jeremy