Diary of an adviser: Brian Hill

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Diary of an adviser: Brian Hill

This week...

Monday

I am up at 5am with a strong mug of coffee to study for my Diploma in Behaviour and Investigative Interviewing. This morning I am focusing on exogenous and endogenous cues when considering an individual’s attention. 

Afterwards, I run the two miles to Crossfit to blast out the cobwebs from the weekend, and jog back home to have breakfast with the family before driving four miles to the office for two new client meetings. After lunch I start training on Selectapension’s defined benefit transfer value analysis as I’ve recently passed the CISI Pension Transfers Exam and I am just awaiting FCA authorisation. I finish up at 6pm and leave for Systema – Russian Martial Arts – before getting home for tea at 9.30pm.

Tuesday

I am up again at 5am; firstly recapping yesterday’s study then focusing on attentional blindness – looking at how people can easily miss what should be obvious. 

I then catch a train to Bristol where my colleague, Jennifer Whitton, and I are delivering a workshop on Advanced Communication Skills for Parmenion under our Kinesics business. On route back to the office I discuss the new Jones Hill website launch, scheduled for April, with Phil Bray of Yardstick Marketing. 

My afternoon meetings are with potential clients who want to give up working as soon as possible due to health reasons. This is followed by a collaborative meeting where we present our initial plan of action, getting our client’s thoughts and ideas to ensure they are on board with the plan, before we implement. 

My second Systema session of the week, focused on dealing with a knife-wielding attacker, leaves me with a few knocks and bruises but better trained.

Wednesday

Like most of the week I am up at 5am to study; making a start on attention capacity, selective and dichotomous listening. Who knew that people often listen better with their right ear than their left?  Too much stimuli leads to cognitive overload and means that important things can be left out, or forgotten, as our brains try to work out what’s important. Ensuring we don’t overload our clients is super important to ensure we get the message across in a way that is easy for them. 

This morning I take the kids Maddi, aged 10, and Archie, aged 8, to Daddy’s Big Breakfast (McDonald’s) and then on to school. I have an initial telephone meeting with a client who has met with two other financial advisers but the client has heard that we only charge fixed, flat fees, which he prefers, and is happy to travel the 80-mile round trip. 

The rest of the day is spent fine-tuning at the Kinesics workshops before going home and to enjoy dinner with the family.

Thursday

After my regular morning study, I made my way to the office to deliver a two-hour session on in-house communications skills training to the team. Our paraplanner, James Mackay, meets one of our newer clients and as he shows her out after the meeting, he says: “Let me just check the traffic, we don’t want you getting run over by a bus!” The office is on a tight corner with no pavement. To this she replies: “I wonder what the odds are of that happening?”.  James says: “You should research that, let me know!” Apparently, the chances are 2:1 million. 

I finish at 4pm and I am off to see Ant Middleton of ‘SAS: Who Dares Wins’ fame with my co-director and wife, Lisa Hill.

Friday

At work we receive the printed copies of The Journal: Education, Community & Planning, which is our ‘client-only’ magazine which our colleague Ellis Jackson developed for us in-house.  

Two new client meetings go very smoothly, and I then meet with our accountant to tie up any tax-year end loose ends and continue planning for next year. Turnover, profit and cashflow are all up. 

The day finishes on a perfect note when I get an unexpected and lovely thank you message from a student who I taught to ski in Italy during the half-term.

Brian Hill is the managing director of Wiltshire-based Jones Hill