What losing our practice manager has taught us about our business

It was December 28 2022, three days after Christmas, and a mere four months after first being diagnosed with an illness, that Jenn Baillie, operations director of the small Edinburgh-based firm, died.

Overcome by grief, it did not take long for the firm's owners and sole advisers, Shadi and Angus Kirk, to realise the central role Jenn had played in the running of their business.

"All Angus and I did was see clients," says Shadi. The rest had been handled by Jenn.

On top of the emotional, personal impact of the loss, they were at a loss in terms of how to handle the daily operations of the team.

"This time last year we were in a trance," says Angus. "We treaded water just to get through and we weren't quite sure what route we're going to take.

"We didn't immediately replace her. First, we thought it'd be unfair on the person who's coming in because Jenn was so ingrained in the business. 

"Also, we went through this period of mourning," he says. "It was a huge challenge." 

From bad to worse

Left to their own devices, and perplexed as to what to do next, Angus and Shadi decided to outsource most admin tasks.

But workload effectively "doubled" for them in the following months, due to a combination of old cracks beginning to show and new processes struggling to bed in.

Angus says one problem was that a couple of the administrative staff did not seem to know what to do after Jenn passed away. 

Similarly, an appointed representative the business had taken on three years prior emerged as more of a "burden" than they ever realised.

Finding somebody to see clients is easy, but finding somebody to almost understand how your business works is very tricky.Shadi Kirk

"It became clear that he just wasn't aligned to the way we are looking to work and he was a burden on admin," Angus says.

The only thing that didn't seem to conspire against them was their clients, who were most understanding of the situation and sympathetic, says Shadi.

But if there was one thing the two business owners were not, it was quitters. And Transform Financial Planning, as its name suggests, was not new to transformation either.

Changes past and changes present

Transform Financial Planning is a small wealth planning business with about 140 clients, many of whom are households with a wealth of more than £500,000, and these days it has a strong focus on life planning and client wellbeing.

The business had only changed its name two years before. It had been called Bridge Investments, as a nod to the Forth Road Bridge which connected the Kirks' former workplaces in Dunfermline and Edinburgh.

Husband and wife Angus and Shadi had met when they were both at Edward Jones, before its takeover by Towry in 2009.

They did not think the new owner was a good fit so they decided to take the plunge and set out on their own.

One thing they really liked at Towry was its time-based, or fee-based, charging. So they decided to take that on.

Angus says: "They wanted you to operate like a lawyer, billing for time. Some 15, 16 years ago that was a strange concept for advisers but it made so much sense because a lot of what we did as advisers back then, you weren't getting paid for.

"You do the preparation, you do the planning, you do the report and hope that they're going to write a cheque or you get a new client."

The business has since undergone a number of transformations, especially since bringing on board consultant Brett Davidson from FP Advance about a decade ago. 

They were in the first cohort of his Uncover Your Business Potential course, which takes a deep dive into an advice business with a view to optimising systems and processes.

Angus has since become a practicing Life Planner, and Shadi an NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) practitioner, a practice which looks at how and why people make certain decisions.

As a result, their practice gradually changed from one focused on wealth and investments to one focused on financial wellbeing and finding out "what clients really want", says Shadi.

"We find that when you do that with clients it actually makes them more interested in their finances.

"It's a very, very different way of working, so we are having different conversations with clients than we were probably having about 10 years ago."

But perhaps their biggest transformation was yet to come - triggered by a realisation that nobody in their business could be taken for granted.

A new journey

Confronted with Jenn's passing, it dawned on Angus and Shadi that processes and process sharing needed to be changed somehow.

The role of practice manager needed to be replaced, though the time was not right to do so (as previous "hiring disasters" had taught them).

There were several things that needed to be figured out first.

"Finding somebody to see clients is easy, but finding somebody to almost understand how your business works is very tricky," says Shadi.

"You've got to make sure that you've got measures in place, that if somebody else comes in they can step into it. It's that tacit knowledge about understanding how the business works, understanding how a client works, that is really valuable.

"You can only get that if you've updated your CRM properly."

We just want to make our lives easier and our delivery for clients simpler, more fun, more clearAngus Kirk

And so Angus and Shadi decided to embark on a second three-year business development course, going through all aspects of the business with a fine-toothed comb, determining how things could be done better and getting a firm grip on their culture and values.

They focused on implementing IO process mapping, a tool that manages every process in a firm when it comes to client management, from onboarding to annual reviews, to ad-hoc advice.

It helps to eliminate mistakes, says Shadi, and it ensures no client is left waiting for an update and nothing slips through the net.

This was not an entirely new thing; Jenn had already worked on this project, but now the two owners had to find a way of staying on top of it.

Davidson introduced them to an outsourced practice manager, whom they started to meet weekly, chatting over what had gone well in the business and what needed to be done.

They also got in touch with a consultant Jenn had used to work with on practice management, and they engaged with Next Gen Planners to transform their client communications.

"One of the things that we've always banged on about is that our documentation can be quite dull, you sit down with a client and it's just text, you find your logo, but it's just terms and conditions and fact finds," says Shadi.

"We just want to make our lives easier and our delivery for clients simpler, more fun, more clear. And we want to be attractive to younger clients and want to be attractive to younger advisers as well," adds Angus.

So they started to introduce graphics and design concepts to their paperwork and they started to think about team development.

"[Brett's] big belief is that if you have the right people behind you [...] then that will really help your business," says Shadi.

Finally, by the end of last year, the time had come when they felt ready to take the plunge and look for new full-time office support.

Replacing Jen

"One thing that we have learned from the experience with Jenn was it was easy to just go okay, fine, Jenn will do it," says Shadi.

"[After she was gone] I had to step in in a very different way. And it was stuff that I was doing anyway, but I had just delegated to her and then it just became easy and then you become complacent. So I'll never, ever do that again."

She adds: "I was involved before, but I was just overseeing and now I am completely in there. And I am overlooking absolutely everything."

Earlier this year Transform FP finally made the hire. The business took on a young woman called Danielle as a financial administrator.

"We've spent quite a lot of time focusing on what our own culture is and sorting out our own values. And I think when you're clear on that and you can then explain that to somebody that makes life a lot easier," says Shadi.

Self-development plays a central role in Transform's strategy and future direction, she explains.

"When you run a business, when you run a financial practice, it's actually really important to also develop yourself and I'm not talking about going and doing CPD for financial planning and that kind of thing.

We've spent quite a lot of time focusing on what our own culture is and sorting out our own values.Shadi

"But as a business owner, that's one of the biggest things that you face because you spend so much time making sure that everybody else is motivated and everybody else knows what they're doing. But actually, you then kind of go right, what about me, you know, so it's also making sure that you've got measures in place to look after you as a business owner.

"And it actually took me quite a few years to realise the importance of that."

Looking back, the experience has taught the two advisers to never take anyone in the business for granted again.

"It just made us look at things from a different perspective, because not once in our business planning or business continuity plans did we ever think Jenn would leave, or a key person would leave, so it's made us think about things in a different way," says Shadi.

"So what I would say to other people, if they're in our position and they might have a key person in the business, such as an ops director or a practice manager, to just make sure that they are completely involved in everything and are aware of what's going on, and to try and document as many processes and things as possible.

"That's the key thing."

Angus adds: "[Having] the right team can be amazing. And we were a really great team and I feel that that's where we're heading now."

carmen.reichman@ft.com