'Advice firms are like tankers: the bigger they are, the harder to turn'

What was meant to be a steadily growing family business, providing a certain work-life balance for its owners. soon took on a life of its own, leaving the pair scrambling to juggle the demands thrown at them from multiple directions.

But they were determined to grow at a pace they felt was healthy, and this philosophy continues to underline their business strategy to this day.

"There was no time to think," Jenny laughs. "You just had to go, go, go! Next, next, next - just to get everything off the ground."

Growing a business is like "spinning those plates", she adds. "It's making sure you give attention to all of the different parts of the business and moving everything forward consecutively."

Glasgow-based Wellington Wealth was launched by the two sisters, their aunt and their father, who is now retired. 

Working with family members has served them well, though the drawback is "we never stop working" quips Jenny.

"We've always got on [well] and we've always worked together as a family, because when we were young our parents ran a hotel, so, you know, you pitch in and you get involved.

"And I think having the separate roles has been quite important, bringing different types of expertise," she adds.

Different strokes

Her sister Nicola, an economics graduate and adviser at the business, had initially eyed a job in fund management - an endeavour hampered by the stock market downturn of 2002.

Jenny, on the other hand, studied map-making at university and worked on a ship in the oil industry as a hydrographic  surveyor, before returning to dry land to study motion graphics and virtual prototyping.

This lay the foundations for her growing interest in technology.

But it was their dad who worked in the advice industry and who sowed the seeds for what is now Wellington Wealth when he asked Jenny to look after his old firm while he was away on holiday.

Coming from a different industry background, Jenny says, she was somewhat shocked by the state of the technology the firm was having to rely on.

"Offshore there's processes and procedures, it's very process-procedure driven, and that's exactly what you need in a business of this type as well," she says.

A couple of tech jobs later, Jenny and Nicola  - who was by then fully qualified - decided to set up on their own.

Hitting the ground running

Today's Wellington Wealth was not the first iteration of the business. They had agreed to a partnership with another person before, who they now believe had ulterior motives for doing so.

This soon led to a split and the learning curve was steep, they say, especially in terms of what it taught them about business management.

"It was the mechanics of a business actually," says Nicola, "you know it inside out when you go through a process like that and what exactly it means to give up certain controls of our company and the rules and the importance of it."

She reflects back: "I think we were quite unique when we started at that time, eight years ago, because most businesses, if they start with two people, it's two advisers, whereas Jenny was very much operations or back office and I'm very much front-of-house advice.

"So it meant we had completely different roles and could concentrate on those bits of the business.

"We could just focus on our strengths. So we sort of almost hit the ground running when we started, and it was a good way to start a business."

Wellington now has two advisers and a trainee adviser, looking after 186 clients with a total of £130mn invested.

Wellington Wealth's target client is between 45 and 55 years old and pre-retirement, because that's where "we can make the biggest difference," says Jenny.

The client base

But being a female-led business does not mean they automatically get more female clients. 

"In some ways it's the opposite. We do get a lot of what one might call 'alpha males', which I think is because they don't want to clash with another alpha male adviser," says Jenny.

"Also, with a female adviser, I think they are more open to asking if they don't know something, and certainly we would encourage that."

Anything that didn't work, we did make changesNicola Ellis

The firm offers three tiers of service: Dream, Plan, and Enjoy.

• Dream is online-only and designed for clients who are taking their first steps in the world of saving and investing, such as family of existing clients, whom Wellington likes to target.
• Plan is for those with more advanced needs, needing a clear strategy or financial plan
• Enjoy caters to wealthy individuals who have reached their retirement and now want to enjoy the fruits of their labour.

Every client gets access to a client portal built by Moneyinfo, which allows them to track their investments, store documents and communicate via a secure messaging service.

The pair have had a keen focus on technology from the start, especially when it comes to optimising processes.

Prospective clients are greeted by an online questionnaire even before they attend their first meeting.

"Even before we've met somebody, we've already got quite a bit of information about them, which makes that first initial meeting really useful for both parties," says Nicola.

Jenny adds: "We try to take them on a journey so that we provide a bit of information, they provide a bit of information, and it's not too much at once because, you know, sitting filling out a fact-find is extremely boring."

A home from home

Wellington Wealth's office is different, and deliberately so.

The walls are painted dark blue, and the sofas are blue, green and purple velvet. There's a homely kitchen area with neon signs on the wall, and plants dotted all around the room. It feels like a cosy, modern, open-plan living room.

It's "a home away from home", they say. The pair wanted to "develop a space that was much more client friendly, that we could use for client events, that wasn't a normal office."

The idea was to make clients feel relaxed and at home, as well as change the "stuffy image" of financial services.

"Having a nice office space to come to and having people take that time to come here just makes them engage more with it from the start," says Nicola.

She adds: "When they come in, a lot of people are really uptight about finances, and that's again why this space is created this way.

"It may sound silly, but we maybe have certain scents on or diffusers...because, again, if people are too stressed or uptight, they're not going to take anything in."

It may seem odd that a firm with a strong focus on technology should also have such strong views on office appearance.

But Wellington Wealth values face to face time with clients. In fact, a mere 10 per cent of client meetings are currently done online.

"We use technology to drive efficiencies, but still make it really relaxed and personal for clients," Jenny says.

"It is the discipline of going somewhere to invest your time and see your planner as part of that professional elevation of the industry as well."

Controlling growth

Wellington Wealth has to date grown organically and without much marketing.

Clients have mainly come from referrals and much of the profit the business has made has been reinvested to improve service and operations.

Jenny and Nicola say they are sitting on ideas to boost growth but have slight concerns about what this might mean for the ethos of the firm.

Sitting filling out a fact-find is extremely boringJenny Ellis

Jenny says: "We have a good team and I think it's important that, you know, all the clients need a certain standard and if we were just to bring in 10 advisers and admin and all the rest of it, I think we'd lose an essence of what we are.

"We haven't chased leads and things, clients have referred quite a steady referral because they obviously liked the service.

"It's inevitable that you grow and you lose a bit of what you were at the start. I think we still want to retain some of that because it makes us different from everybody else."

However they do recognise change is important.

Last year in fact was a year of change for them, they say, which included the outsourcing of their investment proposition for the first time after their father's retirement.

"That's going to free up a lot of time for everybody, the team and also for us coming up with the portfolio," says Nicola.

She adds: "Anything that didn't work, we did make changes."

For instance, they changed their back-office system, which had offered limited functionality and thus didn't work for them.

She says: "Being nimble enough and on the same wavelength meant we can could do that because it would have been wrong to have stuck with that."

But making changes is easier early on, says Jenny.

"As a startup you can change the direction you go quickly. But as you get bigger, you get more clients and it's just, I suppose, like a tanker: the bigger the boat, the harder it is to turn.

"So you want to make changes but it just takes a wee bit longer to plan them out and execute them."

For now the pair are looking for what they call "controlled growth".

"We definitely would like to have some more advisers, a bigger team, take on more clients, but you know, we want to do a good job for the client," says Jenny.

Nicola adds: "We've got lots of ideas for seminars and other areas that we know we could really push, but we want to make sure we've got the capacity in place to deal with it."

After all, "what we wanted this space for was to do client events," says Jenny.

And what a space it is - something the pair hope will see the firm through the next years of growth.

carmen.reichman@ft.com