When the rush hour has subsided a little bit I drive carefully into work. The snow has become packed-ice on parts of the roads and the pavements are just as deadly.
In the office I write up notes from a client meeting the Friday before. All meetings are recorded (with the clients’ consent) – it is better for both parties. I would be lost without these meeting notes. We tend to meet clients annually and having these notes allows me go “back in time” and fully avail myself of my client’s life and circumstances. Soft facts are way more important than hard ones – and that is a (hard) fact.
Tuesday
had no badminton last night because of the inclement weather. I stare balefully at my post-Christmas paunch before beginning prep work for a forthcoming annual planning meeting with existing clients. Two weeks prior to every APM we email the clients concerned, confirming the date, time and venue and asking for a complete breakdown of their income(s) and assets. Why waste your and your client’s time in the meeting getting this mundane stuff – get it out of the way beforehand. It also means we can update the client’s lifetime cashflow forecast prior to the meeting, not in it – again, saving everyone’s valuable time. I am chairman of the local branch of a political party, so it is off to Stevenage after dinner to meet all the Hertfordshire branch chairmen. It is good times for our party and we work out tactics to really push forward in 2013.
Wednesday
At 6.45am I go to a weekly breakfast networking meeting and have done for years. Great bunch of people, all I consider friends, some of them are clients as well. I have an APM this coming Monday – the client’s well trained and has already sent in his income and asset update. I revise the client’s lifetime cashflow forecast prior to the meeting, so I am prepared for any devils in the detail. With this client, my biggest effort is to get him to stop working. I tell him that he will never run out of money, so not to keep on working because he thinks he had to. But, the fact is he enjoys work and who am I to stop him doing what he enjoys? My role is simply to lead the horse to water – it does not have to drink. Wednesdays are school pick-up run days for me; I get there early to scope the yummy mummies, but sadly few are seen. Standards are falling everywhere it seems.
Thursday
Unusual piece of advice today. I informed a client that she is better off purchasing her annuity with her current provider rather than taking an open-market option. Not because her pension plan has guaranteed annuity rates or suchlike – it is just one of those rare instances where the pension plan provider also happens to be one of the leading annuity players as well. I have an ongoing battle with FundsNetwork – I find it incredible that in 2013, when a client requests me to set up an external bank account for his Sipp, FundsNetwork wants all the resulting paperwork via the post. Email, anyone? By the time the bank account is set up the interest rate will have probably been pulled. I am a great believer in technology and it is so frustrating when you are forced to go “old school”. I have band rehearsal in the evening, as we break in seven new songs. As ever, some work, some, er… do not. Our set list is now well over two hours, which is just as well, as we have got quite a few gigs coming up. My contribution? Bass guitar and some vocals. And endless charisma, naturally.
Friday
Without fail, the last Friday of every month is devoted to compliance catch up in the morning. This is where I go through CPD-related activities and update my CPD log. Pro rata I am well ahead of where I need to be at this time of year in terms of completing my 35 hours. A common definition of what constitutes structured and unstructured would be nice, but no doubt it will all settle down in time. Off to town in the afternoon to meet with a gang of likeminded advisers to discuss life, the universe and everything over a small sherry or two. We have these events every four months or so. Always good to catch up and share ideas etc. Is this CPDable? It starts off “structured” but soon ends up completely “unstructured”.
Nick Lincoln is director of Hertfordshire-based Values to Vision Financial Planning
