Industry news and views from Panacea and our partners.
Business Development_
Now is the time to plan not panic
In these turbulent times I am reminded of a quote from Benjamin Graham the father of value investing when he said The best way to measure your investing success is not by whether youre beating the market but by whether youve put in place a financial plan and a behavioural discipline that are likely to get you where you want to go. Isnt that the issue with so many people we react day to day when in fact we all need a plan, habits and the discipline to get us to where we desire to be.
What is your elevator pitch?
If a potential new client asked you what do you do, how well would you be able to sell your business and more importantly yourself?
Royal London: Putting a number on the value of advice
We recently worked with the International Longevity Centre to put a number on how much financial advice is worth to those who receive it. Our distribution director, Tom Dunbar, looks at the findings.
Fundsnetwork: PROD 3 and 4 what you need to know
As part of MiFID II, the FCA introduced the Product Intervention and Product Governance Sourcebook (PROD) rules in January 2018. Research has shown that some advisers are unaware of how the rules apply to them.
Put your future in good hands - your own
In the last few weeks I have shared with you some ideas on how goal setting can help you in 2020. Hopefully those that want to change have started to think about what their goals could be. The first step in effective goal setting is making sure you're clear about what your objectives in life are. Once you've done that, you must write them down, mapping out how to achieve your goals
Aviva Investors: Dancing to a different tune
Discover how a small Swedish football team used brave, unconventional methods to triumph over their competition. Östersunds FK was languishing near the bottom of the Swedish league system until the launch of an unorthodox culture academy inspired the team to extraordinary success. What can we learn from this remarkable story?
Get paid not to stop
How it looks to me is that a significant element of the financial services business still believes that the value for clients is all in the transaction. Why else would advice be offered for free?
FundsNetwork's tax and pension technical materials
To help your discussions with clients at this time of year, our range of client-facing guides explain the more complicated aspects of pensions and allowances, in simple terms
Why goal setting can open doors for you in 2020
This article is about how to choose New Year's resolutions that could actually change your life and more importantly how to keep them!
Resolutions dont work but Goals do
So did you set a new years resolution for 2020? Perhaps you pledged to get fit and lose weight after the festive excesses or even give up drinking after visiting the recycling centre and dropping off all those wine bottles?
Control your own destiny or someone else will!
My last article was about Business Vision, the ability to define with confidence and facts the way in which your business and life could evolve. Id now like to look at a key step in this process, the business audit.
Have you got a 2020 vision?
Part of my weekend ritual when I was much younger in the 90s, was the visit to the video and then DVD store to rent the latest releases, No downloads or streaming then. It seemed to me that every high street had a Blockbuster video store.
Nucleus: Is your firm ready for the SM&CR?
The senior managers and certification regime (SM&CR) comes in to force for all solo-regulated firms on 9 December 2019. At Nucleus, were running a campaign to help our users get ready for this initiative. Whether youre about to finalise your preparations or you still have a way to go, financial planning firms need to understand whats required to make sure theyre ready.
Aviva: 5 ways volunteering is good for business
Giving your time for volunteering could be the start of something special for your business, tooGiving your time for volunteering could be the start of something special for your business, too.
Turning clients away - is it good for business?
Towards the end of last year, I was privileged to be invited along to a focus group for a financial planning client of mine.
FundsNetwork: Explaining how pension withdrawals are taxed
HMRC has paid back £480m to taxpayers since the introduction of the pension freedoms (FT Adviser 31/07/19). To support you and your clients, FundsNetwork have created a practical guide where they explain how the tax on pension withdrawals is administered and outline the process for reclaiming any overpaid tax.
FundsNetwork: Building profitable practices
What are the key business challenges facing advisory firms? And what does it take to run a profitable practice? From boosting productivity to hiring the right people, how can you help make your business a success?
Aviva: Recognising the signs of a vulnerable customer
If we think of someone who is vulnerable, we generally conjure up the image of an elderly person, a child, or maybe someone with a disability.
FundsNetwork: Do your passwords pass the password test?
Passwords are an obvious way to prevent unauthorised access, although they need to be strong, robust and ideally unique, to be effective. Staff should therefore be encouraged to take great care when setting security details. FundsNetwork have created a checklist where they've highlighted some important tips to promote password best practice.
FundsNetwork: Introducing bite-sized pointers (to help drive profitability for your business)
Research from FundsNetwork shows that business management issues, such as training new staff and succession planning, are a key challenge for over one quarter of financial advisers.
FundsNetwork: The top six ways to spot a phishing attack
Phishing is an attempt to gather personal information or to compromise technology for the purpose of financial gain or malicious activities. Everyday millions of phishing emails are sent out to unsuspecting victims all over the world. FundsNetwork have created a checklist to help you detect them.
FundsNetwork: October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month
Whats your firms cybersecurity strategy? How do you assess the security of your platform partners? Would you know how to spot a phishing attack?
Prudential: Will technology be the end for the advisers who dont embrace it?
What a concerning prospect; the speed in development of technology is such that some believe we are entering a fourth industrial revolution. The first being steam power, the second the application of science, the third digitalisation and the fourth artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Never give up on your goals
As I write, its now the start of October and Im thinking where has the year gone? It seems only days ago I was sitting down thinking about what I wanted to achieve this year. I even wrote out my plan and detailed the goals needed to achieve it
How to raise your fees (and have clients willingly pay them)
Going back over ten years to the early days of my coaching business I remember walking along Piccadilly one day, on the way to see a client one day and, quite by chance, I bumped into my friend Jamie who is also a business and corporate coach.
Nucleus: Be illuminated
Weve been running our successful illuminate proposition since 2015. Its an online hub designed to help advisers build and share knowledge in areas that are vital to the successful development of their business. Its designed to complement illuminate live events that we held across the country each year.
It's no longer safe to use a Debit Card
Every year, increasing millions of consumers are victims of scams and identity fraud. The worst-case scenario is when an identity thief drains your bank account, takes your property and sells or trades your sensitive information.
Prudential: Handling income and investments with care webinar
Register to join one of Prudentials webinar sessions on Wednesday 18 September,to help you identify new opportunities with your clients.
Will I have a good day?
As a father of children with autism, you wear many hats. Youre a nutritionist ensuring they eat well, a psychotherapist making sure they improve their co-ordination and most days a psychologist dealing with anxiety. My eldest boy usually starts each day looking for affirmation and emotional support and often asks a question due to anxiety Will I have a good day.
FundsNetwork: 10 steps to protect your business from a cyber attack
FundsNetwork have put together some easy and effective ways to reduce your firms exposure to cyber attacks based on guidance from the National Cyber Security Centre.
Every day is a school day so never stop learning
Im a great believer in never ending your education and that, as the old saying goes, every day is a school day. If we stop learning we stop evolving and we might not reach our full potential or even enjoy life as much as we should.
FundsNetwork: The 12 security-related questions firms should be asking their platform partner
FundsNetwork have created a checklist to help your due diligence around keeping your clients' data and assets safe.
Square Mile Research: Understanding how your risk tool is calibrated
As your business models evolve in the post-RDR world,and your financial planning processes continue to undergoimprovement, Square Mileobserves that many centralisedinvestment propositions rely onthe use of third-party strategic asset allocation tools.
Quilter Financial Adviser School
Never before has there been a greater demand for financial advisers with social and demographic changes fuelling the need for financial advice. An ageing population, changes in the housing market and differences in working patterns, all mean that managing wealth is becoming more complex. People need help to make more informed choices, which means there are plenty of opportunities for advisers.
NMBA Apprenticeships: 2019 start dates still available
The New Model Business Academy, part of the SimplyBiz Group, has seen its ever-popular apprenticeship programme go from strength to strength after receiving further funding last month from the ESFA, and launching a new course for Mortgage Advisers to sit alongside their Financial Adviser and Paraplanner programmes.
What are we and where do we go from here? A report on the future of advice
With so many regulatory changes being made, more to come, along with the rise of new technologies and Baby Boomers continuing to age, it seems that we are looking at a number of disruptions to the status quo.
Square Mile: Defining value for fund managers
Defining value for fund managers, view the adviser newsletter
The joy of missing out
How many self-help books have you got on your book case or lying around half read? Self-help is a multi-billion industry. In the USA alone it was worth $10bn in 2018. It fills bookstores, packs out conference rooms and is all over the web and social media.
NS&I present 'small advice firm of the year' to hunter aitkenhead & walker at money marketing awards
This years Money Marketing Awards celebrated some of the best advice firms and individuals in the advice industry, and NS&I were proud to sponsor an award: Small Advice Firm of the Year. This award looks to celebrate the success of small advice firms in their relationships with clients.
FECIF Trust the cornerstone of financial advice
Theres a quote that says, Trust takes years to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair. This is nowhere truer than in the financial world, where a persons quality of life relies on decisions made by the experts in whom they place their trust.