Want More News?

Click here to receive regular updates

TCFP21: Three heads are better than one

by | Aug 31, 2017 | General News

Before I begin let me pose a few cheery ponderables (all found on the internet, so not exactly thoroughly researched).

What are the chances of us….

1. Being caught in an act of terrorism?
2. Being involved in a plane crash?
3. Ever needing to claim on home insurance?
4. Running out of money in retirement without proper planning?

I will come back to these at the end.

23 years ago, I joined the financial services industry taking a job as a trainee inspector with a company called Scottish Equitable. There were around 12 trainees in my intake.

Amongst them was a chap called Jeremy Askew and we hit it off pretty much straight away as we had a fair amount in common.

We both enjoyed football (being a Nottingham Forest fan, that has subsequently waned in my case), we enjoyed the odd beer, had a similar sense of humour and crucially, as far as this article is concerned, we shared a similar view of the industry.

Even back then we could see that the way most of the advisers were approaching it was wrong and incompatible with good client outcomes.

Too many focussed too much on what they earned and nowhere near enough on what was best for the client.

Fast forward to today and I am delighted to be joining Jeremy’s thriving practice as a Chartered Financial Planner.

Unfortunately, still too many advisers focus on their own needs rather than their clients’. And only a few businesses like Town Close are setting new standards.

Over the last 20 odd years I have met literally hundreds of adviser firms and seen them in action.

I have seen everything from advisers putting all their clients in the same investment product (whether it was appropriate or not) purely because it paid the most commission, to other advisers who took 8% commission on a single £1million investment (Yes £80,000!!) just because they could.

Commission has thankfully now disappeared from our industry but that hasn’t expunged the problem.

Still the focus for lots of advisers now is to replace the lost commission income by charging exorbitant fees that bear no relation to the amount of work they do.

For example, a common adviser charging model is to charge 3% for investing money and then 1% of the value each year. That’s regardless of the work being done or its value.

It also means if you have £400k invested you would pay £16k in the first year and £4k pa thereafter compared to £32k plus £8k pa if you have e £800k invested. And I promise you, people are paying these levels of fees.

But the bigger point is there’s usually no more work involved for the client with £800k than the client with £400k so why should they pay twice as much just because they have more?

The Town Close approach is refreshingly simple and totally aligned with my own philosophy, which I guess is why Jeremy asked me to join his business.

That philosophy being to take time to truly understand our clients – their hopes and needs and dreams.

To take that and put together a financial plan that matches their life to their finances as efficiently as possible.

And then watch the plan like a hawk to make sure they never have cause for concern.

Fees are agreed that are fair and reasonable for the work done rather than being done on the percentage of assets basis which is a very common yet unfair model.

I am joining Town Close at an exciting time in their development. The business is expanding, maturing and getting better.

There are now three client managers and three qualified financial planners with Ian Penberthy also being new in the door.

I know Jeremy is excited by this as it means there are now more of us, with different knowledge specialisms, available to help look after you, the clients.

Think of it as peer review, or how surgeons, regardless of the routine nature of any operation, ask a colleague to go over the case to make sure they haven’t missed anything.

At Town Close you’re not “buying into” an adviser you’re part of a philosophy and way of doing things that is regrettably rare backed up by 56+ years of experience.

The old adage is “Two heads are better than one”.  At Town Close we have gone a stage further; “Three heads are better than one”, plus a trainee and four client managers and two researchers, and lest we forget her, the indomitable Mrs A.

Before I close let’s get back to the cheery questions:

1. Being caught up in an act of terrorism? 1 in 3,500,000
2. Being involved in a plane crash? 1 in 5,400,000
3. Ever needing to claim on home insurance? 1 in 40
4. Running out of money in retirement without proper planning? 1 in 3

What does this mean?

It puts into perspective what we should be spending our time worrying about.

Whilst we might not be able to do much to help you out with the first three, the good news is that as a Town Close client we will take care of the last one for you

 

advice@townclosefp.co.uk

020 7993 4898

Want More News?

Click here to receive regular updates