This planner’s week is filled with meetings, hosting webinars and giving talks to university students
Monday
My day starts at 5.30am with a foot to the face as my three-year-old decides she no longer wants to sleep in her own bed.
A strong coffee is needed after that, so my morning begins with an espresso.
I make the kids’ breakfasts and help get them ready for school before I jump on the computer around 8:30am to catch up on emails.
We have a paraplanning, admin and client servicing team meeting at 9am every Monday.
Tuesday
Today is a busy day as I am hosting a webinar for our clients. We have more than 70 advisers join a lively session with great feedback.
This afternoon I catch up with our defined benefit paraplanners to discuss the changes to DB cases and contingent charging.
We run through the changes again and discuss what this means from a compliance perspective, as well as ensure we are equipped to support the advisers as they transition to this new way of working.
Wednesday
We have recently rebranded and updated our website and associated documents.
This morning I am going through our handover documents and checklists to make sure they are all up to date.
Once this is done, I send them back to our designer to make the required adjustments.
This afternoon I am hosting a training session for a number of our paraplanners on Voyant.
We are seeing more and more demand for this part of our service and it’s great to see advisers embracing this.
I truly believe that cash flow planning can be transformative for clients and can show often complex situations in a clear, easy-to-digest way.
Thursday
My day starts with a catch-up call with my business partner Mark. We talk more now than we did when we were in the office together.
We have an upcoming pitch to one of our existing practices, regarding the new social media management service we recently launched.
The pitch goes well, and they decided to sign up.
This evening sees me giving a presentation to 40 final-year students at Liverpool John Moore’s University.
I normally do this each year to encourage more young people into the industry. This is usually face-to-face in a lecture hall but today, as with everything else, it is via Zoom.
Friday
Today is a relatively quiet day for me. I have a catch up with an adviser to run through a particularly tricky inheritance tax case at 9am.
This is followed by a virtual coffee catch up with some of the management team in St James’s Place. We run through the support we offer and introduce them to two new services we are offering to advisers.
My week ends with a round of golf in the rain.
Scott Daniels is a director at Plus Group
If you would like to write a Diary of an Adviser then contact Ima Jackson-Obot at ima.jacksonobot@ft.com
