Why use me as your financial planner?

1.Professional qualifications

I have studied for a variety of professional financial qualifications. These qualifications would satisfy the regulatory requirement to provide product related financial advice and to manage clients investments on a discretionary basis, among other things. It provides me with a broad understanding of the products and techniques used in managing your finances.

Whilst I have qualifications and knowledge that are to a higher standard than perhaps 3/4 of financial advisers in the UK, my intention with Small Acorn Money is to teach you how to take control of your wealth, not to promote or sell financial products.

A full list of these qualifications are outlined below.

2.It’s a vocation for me

3.Remote service

Technology allows me to work from anywhere and remove many of the costs associated with an office and face-to-face service.

Traditional financial advisers prefer to ‘look into the eyes’ of their prospective clients as it has been proven that this enhances trust, i.e. it improves the sales process.

As the ‘personal touch’ will be removed somewhat by operating a virtual service (I’ll be as friendly as possible on Skype, but I can’t confess to being any good at sales tactics), I will have to convince you to utilise my services by proving that my service is useful and my counsel is sound.

I will never say things like “don’t worry about not understanding, you can trust me”, but will always ensure you fully understand every stage of my comprehensive financial planning process.

Technology allows me to work from anywhere and remove many of the costs associated with an office and face-to-face service.

Traditional financial advisers prefer to ‘look into the eyes’ of their prospective clients as it has been proven that this enhances trust, i.e. it improves the sales process.

As the ‘personal touch’ will be removed somewhat by operating a virtual service (I’ll be as friendly as possible on Skype, but I can’t confess to being any good at sales tactics), I will have to convince you to utilise my services by proving that my service is useful and my counsel is sound.

I will never say things like “don’t worry about not understanding, you can trust me”, but will always ensure you fully understand every stage of my comprehensive financial planning process.

4.Truly unbiased

So many financial advisers are entirely reliant upon you as a client purchasing a product, or transferring to another provider in order for them to get paid. With this method of earning a living, are you honestly surprised when your ‘advice’ results in needing a new product/provider?

The old adage, “you don’t go to a barbers and ask whether you need a haircut” comes to mind!

Many financial advisers advertise they are ‘independent’ or ‘unbiased’ yet there operational set-up and charging model is full of conflicts of interest. So whose interests are they working for?

You pay me a fee to sit on your side of the table and stand between you and the self-interest, jargon, noise and complexity of the financial industry.

Whilst there are some other financial planners who operate this way, it is actually quite rare to find those who do so.

The reasons for this are twofold.

Firstly, many of the public don’t necessarily understand the true value of comprehensive, unbiased and conflict-free financial planning. They don’t see what goes on behind the scenes, so trust financial types far more than they deserve.

Secondly, most financial advisers don’t understand the part of their service that is actually valuable to people, or they don’t have confidence in their advice.

Far too many are long in the tooth and are institutionalised financial salesman. This may have been okay 20-30 years ago, but the public shouldn’t stand for such nonsense in the 21st century.

If you need to sell your clients something in order to feed your family, how can you provide truly unbiased and conflict free financial advice?

5.Transparent charging

Most financial advisers have a percentage charging model.

Unfortunately, it’s been proven that the majority of the public don’t actually understand percentages!

They may well issue you with a 5 page disclosure document about their fees, yet I doubt you will truly understand it.

If you can’t understand how you are paying for their services, how exactly can you judge whether they are providing good value for their fees?

All of my books, courses and my virtual money coaching service comes with pretty straightforward charging, all quoted in pounds sterling.

My fees are transparent and I feel they offer excellent value for money. I don’t have anything to hide. Do other financial advisers? (click here to find out the answer)

To sum up my transparent charging structure,my earnings come directly from you and you are paying me to help you and only you. That is the essence of my service and surprising makes me relatively unique in the marketplace.

6.Educational, not transactional

My aim with Small Acorn Money is to empower people to take control of their wealth.

I hope to achieve this through a combination of educational articles, guides, videos, books, digital courses and financial planning. Hopefully after spending some time with me, you will feel comfortable and equipped to manage your affairs entirely on your own, or perhaps you can do so in a few years time. If so, I would be delighted as you will be venturing on your path to prosperity and ensuring you and your family’s finances are secure.

This is very different to financial advisers, who far too often resemble asset gatherers than the title they are putting on their business cards. (As an aside, surely this misrepresentation of who they are is fraud? At the very least, the term adviser should come with sarcastic air bunny’s, “adviser”, to help inform the public that they’re not necessarily all they’re advertising to be).

Your investments are very valuable to a financial advisory firm over the course of your life. Is it any wonder they make no real effort to help you truly understand? This may seem a bit cynical at first glance, but this article may persuade you otherwise.