A quick glance at emails provides me with two new appointments. Nowadays I do much of my marketing through targeted emails.
I plant seeds each month, and email requests for appointments come in fairly regularly over the coming weeks. I do very few appointments and many sales are agreed in principle through detailed email correspondence.
I am predominantly an investment and retirement planner. In line with many advisers I have an ongoing campaign to migrate clients from portfolios of products to platforms, generally with a 0.6 per cent ongoing fee. I try to complete one or two of these a week, with an average fee of £2,000 a case. This ongoing income tops up normal fees, trail and commission.
Tuesday
I have an appointment with a rare new client, an IT director. Most of my clients are small business owners. My client’s company produces a group pension scheme, company investment plan, group medical insurance and director life cover.
My set fee for the group pension is accepted, the investment is at 1 per cent initial and 0.6 per cent trail and the insurance is by commission, which I have used to subsidise the investment.
Wednesday
I travel to France with my wife (and co-director) and stay in a client’s apartment in Nice.
I have a review meeting with old client who is the managing director of a business consulting company. We agree an employer-paid pension scheme for his son who has now joined his growing new business.
In the afternoon the client takes me to VilleFranche for lunch and introduces me to his brother-in-law, a self-employed property planning consultant. He is a long-standing Hargreaves Lansdown client, so I enjoy comparing HL’s charges with the best of the new platforms.
Thursday
I move down the coast to Juan-les-Pins to meet up with my colleagues from Caerus Capital Group. Some of the advisers are involved in film investments and have just returned from semi-compulsory premiers in Cannes.
We are joined by some old friends from St James’s Place and Openwork. I was previously with Openwork, which is a good mortgage and protection network, but no place for a wealth manager. Any business conversation for Thursday was dramatically outweighed by French wine and evening sunshine.
Friday
I have a business breakfast with a director of Caerus. She is the primary link between the company and our network Paradigm.
Topics covered are processing, quick fixes, compliance issues and business checking. This is mostly my wife’s area of knowledge, but it was a surprisingly useful meeting for all three parties.
Caerus is currently in the final stages of buying the Paradigm network and, as a shareholding partner, it is in my interest that we all have common goals.
Saturday
Today is a Caerus lunch at the prestigious La Palme d’Or hosted by Caerus chief executive Keith Carby.
Sunday: Today is the Monaco Grand Prix.
We have a table booked at Cafe de Paris Monte Carlo to watch the race.
I meet up with a client before the race. He is in the recruitment industry and counts as one of my newly cultivated young up-and-coming clients from London. They are very high in monthly investment, but very low in current profit. They are my seeds for tomorrow.
My paraplanner emails a full review file to my iPad and we review his recent investments over drinks. Obviously I take full credit for the massive rise in investment values.
In the evening I meet up with a colleague from MetLife. The company is very keen to do business and I guess I am warming to the concept.
The evening is a blur but includes a rooftop party and ends on the Torch super-yacht in Monaco harbour.
Paul Scott is director of Hampshire-based Scott Financial and shareholding partner of Caerus Capital Group.
