The future of advice, the future of Progeny

Transcript

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

Hello everyone and welcome to the Compare The Platforms Cut Through the Noise podcast series, which basically does what it says on the tin. Cut through the noise in the market and brings you content that matters. If this is your first time on the podcast. Welcome. You can subscribe to it on all good podcast platforms. So today in the studio we have Neil Moles, the CEO of the Progeny group, which has grown rapidly over the last five years. So welcome, Neil. It’s a pleasure to have you with us. I read your article on the self-interest that is driving advice firms to launch their own platforms and decided then and there that I had to interview you. But we’ll come back to that in a little while. But let’s start with some history first. Yours and Progeny’s are intertwined and from what I can remember you left school at 16 and went to work for the Skipton Building Society. So please tell me more Neil.

Neil Moles

Ohh my life story. This is the exciting bit. Just excited that I get to talk about me for a little while.

So yeah, I when I left school, I wanted to work with numbers and then that quickly followed into people.

So I started with an apprenticeship at the Skipton Building Society when I was I was 16. Wow. Long time ago. And I quickly got up to speed with financial services and recognised that a big part of that for me was I wanted to sit in front of people and see that that light bulb moment when you take something complex and explain it and make it simple.

So then transfer to Skipton Financial Services started sitting exams, worked out that I didn’t particularly want to work in that type of organisation. I wanted to be in an independent business, so then moved into two or three different financial planning businesses. Just looking at the type of business that I really wanted to work for.

You know what their values were? What their what their purpose was, which I think is a really important thing to think about. And ultimately, I joined a business called Lawrence Schofield in 2004 and ended up acquiring that business in 2008, which was the Genesis for Progeny ultimately.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

I was going to say there’s loads to un-pick there. Like, first of all 16, you were very young, so you clearly decided, you know, you’re obviously a smart guy. You clearly decided that exams weren’t for you, or you just wanted to go out to work. What was it? You just want to go out and work? I want to learn on the job. What was your thinking process at that tender age of 16?

Neil Moles

At the tender age of 16, I think my life choices at that point was I needed to go and get a job and that’s what my dad told me.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

Right OK. I see. Right, I see. I see.

Neil Moles

Various reasons and I was very fortunate to get into an apprenticeship programme that allowed me to do that and like I, I never really wanted to go to university in the conventional route because I at that point I believe life experience trump’s, you know, three years of enjoying yourself. Probably think differently about that now.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

Fair enough.

Neil Moles

Yeah. But so yeah, it was. It was. It was a driven move, I guess by my parents in a way.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

OK. And that’s interesting. So you went to Skipton and you got into financial planning and you liked financial planning cause you said you tried to, you went to various firms before you finally settled on Lawrence Schofield. So really financial planning kind of attracted you. What was it about financial planning that you liked?

Neil Moles

I like people. I like the experience as I sat in front of people and as I, as I suggested, making those complex things simple and there’s nothing I think you got to remember, when a client comes to you as a financial planner, they’re always going through a trauma. And you might think that’s really weird, but you know, they may just gone through a divorce. They may have just received an inheritance. They may be retiring and that’s traumatic. So what you’re doing is guiding them, you becoming that emotional coach that takes them through something that’s really potentially quite volatile for them. And at the end of that process, it’s quite it’s really rewarding to see what you’ve done, and you know you get a lot of gratitude from clients and a lot of thanks from that. So that’s the bit that really ticks my box.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

It’s interesting that you said coach, because that’s how I really see, you know, financial advice, life coaching, because you need to get people onto the, what they really want to achieve. And that may not be able to articulate it really themselves. But so look, you’re doing Lawrence Schofield at the age of 24 and you began to see from what I can tell, the future of long-term wealth and private client business. And you decided to lead an MBO I mean that that’s in itself is pretty amazing. And so talk me through that eureka moment and what inspired you to take such a big step at that age.

Neil Moles

So I think we got to think about my personality and if anyone tells me I can’t do something, I’ll go and do it. I’m, I think I’m naughty in that regard, but also driven in a way. And when I first joined Lawrence Schofield. I express my interest that I wanted to acquire the business to the then owner and I think he nearly fell off his chair laughing at me.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

He must have thought you were a cheeky bugger.

Neil Moles

Yeah, pretty much, but I am. So I spent four years figuring out how to do it, and so it was. It was driven by that desire to prove everyone wrong, that I did it.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

Fantastic. And absolutely amazing. And then obviously from there, you know you’ve grown the business, you’ve got a unique view of what Ultra High net worth clients need. Tell me how you figured that out. What you figured out they needed.

Neil Moles

I think this this is born out of a desire just not to keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome. And I think the way I thought about this is 2012. We’ve got to now, in my sort of the timeline of evolution and a big part of me at that point was deciding, you know, we’ve done the MBO, we’ve managed to repay the debt from the MBO. And we had a choice and I think we had three things we could have done. One was to scale the business, which is what everyone else did. Again, if you know anything about me, that’s too easy. The other was to become a lifestyle business, which is, let’s face it, most of this industry and the third was to truly do something different. And we do this weird thing and we talk to clients. And who does that? And we asked them what other professional services they were using and what their experience was like. And it quickly became apparent that actually people were using other professional services, but nothing was joined up.

There were different people pitching different ideas for different fees and did the client ever truly get the best outcome? I don’t think so. And so my view was right, let’s put all the professional services in one room. Let’s give one piece of advice for one fee and hopefully drive better client outcomes. And that’s why we launched Progeny. The whole thing’s been done before, but not to this scale and not in this way. I think that’s important.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

So you’ve put all the professional services. That means legal stuff, tax stuff, financial advice, and you’ve also sort of given clients corporate advice, right? Am I? Is that right? Am I reading that correctly?

Neil Moles

Yeah, o we think we think differently where clients come from. So I think we have financial planning at the heart of what we’re doing. We have private client legal, we have corporate legal, cause our clients are entrepreneurs, we have personal tax, and we have asset management. But also in there we have HR consultancy service because a lot of other people out there are very wealthy, but they’ve not had a capital event yet. They’re not sold a business, they’ve not won the lottery. You know when you going to do that right. But they still need advice. So my view was, let’s bring those clients into our ecosystem, give them everything we can possibly do within that. And then at some point will be a trigger that means they need to use additional services. So we don’t think like a traditional wealth management business where you think about client wealth that will be created at some point, yeah.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

Yeah. So you’re not thinking just about the short term. What they have now you’re thinking about what they might have in the future, what their plans are going to be. So, yeah, I suppose it’s a. It’s a long view. You’re taking the long view and on your clients which is great. You’ve been busy acquiring firms, you’re pretty big now. Are you still in the market for new acquisitions, because you’ve acquired quite a few, are you still busy acquiring more?

Neil Moles

Yeah, absolutely. We, you know, we’re looking to grow something really special here and we are so supremely disciplined about what we buy and why we want to buy it. And I think that’s really important. You know, one and one has to equal 3 or 4 when you acquire something. And what I see in most acquisitions is 1 and 1 = -1. It’s just not thought out. So we’re looking to bring like-minded individuals into the business and not to dilute what we’ve already created and in doing so, join you know, join that, that’s not a revolution, but just join something different and Progeny’s is not like anything else in the marketplace in that regard.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

So I imagine you’re pretty choosy about the firms you want to buy, then. So what is your sweet spot? Do you have a sweet spot? I’m only asking because about there’s going to be about 20,000 advisers listening to this, so anyone who might be thinking about selling or joining your firm would want to know the kind of firm you look for.

Neil Moles

Yeah. So I think and look, there’s, there’s a lot of different models out there. So I’m not saying that any model is right or wrong, but you have to have your own version of it. So what we don’t do is to acquire a business where the principals want to retire and walk away. So it’s not our game at all. We want people to have got to a place in their journey where they’re recognised that actually they could take it to the next level, but it’s easier to join forces. And they want to do that, fold their business into ours and be part of a 10 to 15 year journey with us in the future. But all around the principles of giving that holistic financial planning, becoming an emotional coach to those clients and really having that value proposition that’s differentiated as opposed to just financial planning, selling investments.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

That sounds. That sounds really, really interesting. Is there a typical case size that you look for among, you know, do you want sort of an average case size of 250,000 or do you look at all sizes of firms or all shapes and sizes?

Neil Moles

No, I think this is really important, Bella, in terms of what we’re trying to do. So our average client size has got just about around £1,000,000 of invested assets with us. And it’s really important that our model relies on clients having complex requirements because of the multidisciplinary approach of the practice. So that’s where we’re targeting. So no, would we transact with someone who’s got 200,000 average client size? No.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

No. OK. So it’s very much ultra-high net worth complex needs, etcetera. So that’s the kind of firm you’re looking for. I suppose, Neil, that’s why you’re expanding. You know you’ve started to expand internationally and I suppose that’s because these kind of clients also have foreign bases they may be based in. So talk me through that a little bit as well.

Neil Moles

So I think what we want to do is to be the global advice partner to British people around the world. And I think what we’re finding more and more now is that a lot of Brits are globally mobile. A lot of British companies are all over the world, it’s amazing what we’ve managed to export over the years. So, what doesn’t exist overseas in the main is chartered financial planning or the standard of it, and we want to make sure that we’re giving people in Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai, the same level of advice as they would get in London or Leeds or Edinburgh for that matter, so. That’s why it’s really so important. I think as this world you know, comes back to life in a post pandemic environment. My personal belief is more and more people will travel, more youngsters will not want to potentially be in the UK. So we need a business that can support them globally.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

Digital nomads. You can go and work anywhere, right? So as long as you got your laptop and Wi-Fi, you can be anywhere in the world. So that totally makes sense that you would do that. And there aren’t many firms like yours that offer a global solution. So it, you know finding that there’s a lot of interest in this, you know, people coming to you or. You’re not struggling to pick up clients abroad is what I’m asking.

Neil Moles

No, not at all. I think. I mean, you’re not actually allowed to use your charter status internationally because you know it’s not recognised. But you know we are the I believe one of the only chartered firms operating out of all of those locations. So if clients want the same advice standard as they would get in the UK. You know they will come to us, I would hope. And you know, express that interest. So yeah, it’s there’s no shortage of opportunities.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

Sounds great. So look, you’ve got a sizable client base under your belt, you’re expanding internationally. I want to talk about the investment side of things now because you branched out into asset management and discretionary wealth management. What, why did you do that? Were you dissatisfied with the funds and the investment solutions or again, was this because it didn’t meet the needs of your ultra-high net worth clients?

Neil Moles

Yeah, I don’t think this is about ultra-high net worths or high net worths, I think this is about proposition. And I think fundamentally, I believe that we are stewards of client money. And everything that we have and work with is paid for by a client and therefore we have to, we have a responsibility to deliver value. If you look back when we launched the discretionary management business in 2016, most firms are still running advisory MPS (model portfolio solutions) and it just doesn’t work. Yet, if you want to scale beyond a couple 100 million of assets it’s nigh on impossible. So fundamentally you have to do that on a discretionary mandate, which we went for day one, and when we set the business up. We have a duty therefore to control costs with clients and deliver good outcomes. And So what we’ve done over that period is to professionalise the investment management process but put cost at the heart of it. I think delivering great outcomes and you know managing that cost for clients is what we’ve always done. So you have to be scalable and I think that’s the fundamental key here and the rest of it is around the principles of investment management where you know we believe cost is important.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

So that means, do you manage all your clients on a discretionary basis, or do you have some that are advisory? I understand that, yes, you’re absolutely right. You don’t want to have to keep asking clients, `can we rebalance your portfolio can we do that?’, It’s a nightmare. So do you, but presumably you may have some clients who will want to be consulted before you make changes.

Neil Moles

100% We’re independent you know and we will you know, protect that with everything that is good to us and you know. So whilst we work from an efficiency perspective for clients and the cost control that the discretionary works, yeah, we’re absolutely able to offer an advisory service and you’ve got to remember there’s a lot of legacy products out there in this wonderful industry that we work in that you know are locked in because of tax reasons. And you know, they still need managing they still need researching, still need reviewing. And so that’s probably still a high proportion of any book of business that’s out there. And just a byproduct of this industry of overcomplicating itself over many years.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

And just sort of sort of, you know to talk about the investment solutions themselves. Are you very much a sort of an active or a passive or a blend you know. Do you use active and passive solutions because you talked about keeping costs down, so I would imagine that perhaps you know you’ve gone for the active and passive blend of investment solutions to manage that.

Neil Moles

Yeah, it’s a good question. So we’re actually investment agnostic in that regard. I think our style of investment comes through, but we run passive model portfolios, we run systematic model portfolios, so market plus, and we also run best ideas. I’m not sure you’re allowed to call it active anymore. But you know. Fundamentally, across that sort of space, you know you control costs and you can provide clients with the level of complexity that they need to meet their goals. And it’s as simple as that. So we offer across the broad spectrum and we also have, you know, ESG mandates in the systematic and best ideas space like acknowledging you can’t run ESG money on a passive basis. It’s impossible. certainly in my opinion anyway.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

And absolutely agree then. OK. Well, yeah, that’s really interesting. And obviously you’re managing your solutions on platform and by all accounts you are really big on tech and data and some commentators in the industry would suggest that given your size and scope, you should be launching your own platform. But I know that you have said that you don’t want to do that and you’ve come out, you know, really quite firmly against that. So tell me why you think you would be wrong for Progeny and for your clients and maybe even for the industry, because there are a lot of consolidators out there, large firms jumping on the bandwagon and launching their own their own platforms.

Neil Moles

Yeah, this is where I decide how controversial I can be today.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

So, I’ll be well, please be controversial because this is a controversial podcast.

Neil Moles

I always am. Don’t worry. So look fundamentally I think let’s look at the platform again, we’re platform agnostic. So I do not believe that it is always in a client’s interest to move them from one platform to another. It might be in the adviser firm’s interest because they get them all on one and they can it’s easy if they’re back office, they can make more profit. But really clients needing to move from one to another to serve the need of an advisor that doesn’t sit very well with me. So I think from a new business perspective, you need to do segmentation and everything else you should have platforms that you’re providing new business to and that should be part of your platform analysis each year that you do. But no, no, you can’t sit here and say a client with £100,000 needs the same platform as someone with 5 million, that’s like a couple buying a 7-seater car and never using five seats.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Neil Moles

Why would you bother? It’s just it’s insane. So that’s the bit that I don’t like. I think when you look at so platform agnostic is where we are and let’s look at the platform sector for a second. It’s consolidating itself. So why would we bother, sit back and wait?. It’s coming to you. We will never end. They’re going to rule the world at some point.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

Not if I’ve got anything to do with it, because I hate FNZ. Sorry if you’re listening, FNZ, but I do. But yes, so but I know what you mean?

Neil Moles

Well, that’s what you then have to look at. So that’s my view and we’re controversial or not, that’s where I sit with it and I’ll argue, you know, for hours on that particular point, I think what you then have to look at are platform advice models out there. And what you’ve seen and what you’ve just described there is that large consolidators are launching their own platforms. Why would you do that? Because at best you might capture an extra 5 or 6 basis points. You know that you then have to report to the client and for me it just seems like these businesses aren’t growing. They’re not growing organically, their propositions not allowing them to do what they’ve set out to achieve. So they’re trying to find alternative ways to. To increase profit margins. That’s not what we’re about. We’re trying to build a platform that that’s scalable and it grows organically, but yeah.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

Now I understand. And then certainly what I what I’ve seen are platforms out there or consolidators out there building something where they’re getting, as you said, maybe someone’s offering it to them for 10 bips or 15 bips, but then they’re still taking another chunk of bips as profit for themselves. So that’s not really in the interest of the client. So it’s a fair point and I suppose the other thing is you want to stick to your knitting and run an advice firm. You don’t want to run a platform and that’s like being a supermarket and deciding you want to be a farmer. It’s it, you know, it’s taking you away from your core competency, which is, you know, the financial planning, the professional services Et cetera.

Neil Moles

Yeah, I think. But just on that point, I think people are trying to solve the wrong problem.

And I think sometimes you have to work out what you’re trying to solve before you solve it. People think that the platform is the answer to technology and AI in this industry. It’s not, it’s data. It’s fundamentally, you know, having the right data for the client and been able to utilise it in a way that delivers a better outcome for them, whether that’s efficiency, whether it’s cash flow modelling you don’t get that from a platform. That’s where you hold your investments.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

So what do you do? So tell me about your tech stack. I mean, this is the new kind of modern word, right? The tech stack. So what do you use internally? And you know, what sort of tools do you use? I’m assuming that your back office is all joined up and you can pipe into all sorts of platforms and do all sorts of clever things.

Neil Moles

Yeah, but you’ve worked in financial services, you know, that’s not possible. So the commitment we made was to move everything onto the Microsoft Tech stack. Because you know, you either got you got to commit to one of them because they don’t talk to each other. It’s not like Samsung and Apple, where you can ring each other. It doesn’t work that way. So yeah, we made that commitment which we’ve done and I think you know. So we’ve been doing that for three or four years now. So we’ve got things like Microsoft, Power BI, we’ve got our own data warehouse, where we can take that data and try and deliver better outcomes for clients by utilising it. I think the challenge that you’ve got in this industry is that we can be as super efficient as possible and then so we have a great customer experience. They can, you know, they can put money in, they can take money out when they want, subject to a guide, their advice that’s needed and then it comes to us, and we get it and we got this big fax machine fax machine that we have in the office where we send it off to the provider. To the platform, and three weeks later they might respond so as efficient as we get, they’re not, and this is my only counter argument as to why you’d launch your own platform, because that’s one way of joining it up. The reality is, I don’t think there’s a platform that can actually achieve that yet anyway at scale and I’ll get a lot of challenge on that. I’m sure people will say that ours does it well. Yeah, you’re not at scale.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

Yes, fair enough, yeah.

Neil Moles

And most of the smaller platforms out there are so under invested in, they’ll never actually make it.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

So what of the platform? So you know, can you tell me which platforms are your preferred platform partners in the market right now?

Neil Moles

Yeah, I Wouldn’t describe them as preferred. I would, yeah. I would suggest that we have significant assets of the major five or six platforms, I think you know they’re what abrdn, Transact, Quilter, Nucleus and so we’ve and that’s just because we’ve acquired businesses that are on those platforms and we’ve not sought to radically change that where it’s not in the client’s interest. So I think you know thereafter you make sure that you, you keep good relationships with those platforms, you make sure that the cost is appropriate for the client and you’re trying to form partnerships. So that technology stack actually fits together, and do you know what, if you’ve got a billion pounds sat on the platform, they’ll move heaven and earth to help you get your tech sorted. That’s a lot easier than building your own platform.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

So how much do you have under management? I’m sure you’ve got more than a billion. What? What sort of numbers are we talking about now Neil?

Neil Moles

Today, what’s the stock market done? It’s so as we wake up this morning, we’re about we’re about 7 billion of assets as of today.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

And yeah, that’s 7 billion across five or six large platforms. With consumer duty, do you think you will reduce the number of platforms you work with. Or are you quite happy to leave your clients where they are? As you said, you’re not going to move clients for the sake of your firm. But you don’t see any reason you know, consumer duty doesn’t make you think you need to reduce the number of platforms you work with or anything like that?

Neil Moles

I think when you get to our size and scale, if you’re doing it effectively, I think you’ve already thought about them. I think the challenge is where you’ve got legacy platforms that are too expensive and there are some out there. And if you’re not at scale and the platforms not at scale, then I’m not sure that you know delivers a great value proposition to a client and takes you know that appropriate box within consumer duty so. We always will look at that with any acquisition or any new client that comes on board to make sure we’ve got the most appropriate platform for their needs. So it’s not just a case of moving it because of our needs. It’s a case of looking at the client and saying right, you’re in that segment, you’re in decumulation accumulation, you’ve got this much wealth. This is what you need as a platform. We’ll recommend the most appropriate one. What we will not do as a business is leave a client in a inappropriate platform or in a bad set of circumstances. Yeah, we’ll explain it clearly. And what the benefits are and what if it needs moving? Absolutely will recommend it, but will not leave someone in an inappropriate place.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

Now I understand exactly. So you so you move them if it’s right, but you don’t. You know, you move them if it’s right to do so. But you don’t if it’s not right to do so. I totally get.

So you’ve talked about the data and you know understanding your clients’ needs and using all that data to underpin those services, and I imagine that your clients are really, really demanding, which brings me on to, you know, they’re obviously wealthy, Inter-generational, wealth transfer is going to be a big focus of theirs, I think you’ve launched, you launched a national survey on intergenerational wealth. Can you tell me a bit more about that?

Neil Moles

Yes, well what we were trying to understand again what’s the problem we’re trying to solve. Here is why intergenerational wealth was not transferring. And I think a lot of it was around confidence. So we had. You know grandma and Granddad, for example, and thinking about giving money to the grandson. And they’ve got 2 fears. One is have I got enough money and B, what’s he going to do with it? Like I was going to spend it or it’s going to go. I don’t want that. You know, the this a lot of people want to be the richest person in the graveyard. And that’s just.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

Yeah, exactly.

Neil Moles

A. But that’s a lot of that confidence building.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

That’s. That’s bonkers, isn’t it? Yeah, yeah.

Neil Moles

But how do you solve that problem? Well, first of all, you can do very effective cash flow modelling for the grandparents to show they’ve got enough money. What you can then also do is to have a an appropriate financial plan for the grandson to present to Grandma and Granddad to say if you were to give me this money alongside this financial advice firm that we’re using together, this is what we would do with it. So you come at it from both ends and give back confidence to do so and that’s what pretty much the survey was telling us. It was a lot about just that lack of understanding and you. Know families don’t talk about money. I mean, it’s bizarre. The more likely to talk about some really weird topics, but when it comes to money, no taboo, isn’t it?

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

Yeah. It is taboo, is very taboo. Yeah. Still, wherever you go. Yeah, absolutely. And the fight’s over money as well, but I think, you know, that’s why it’s really important, actually, to discuss a lot of this stuff beforehand, because often after, you know, inheritance, fights can be a major problem as well, can’t they?

So yeah, so it’s really, really interesting. And do you find I mean apart from your young clients that you’re looking after, are you getting a lot of young entrepreneurs, you know, 30s, even 20s, I suppose coming to you and saying that we need help. Or is there a different attitude now, among younger generations, do they think that they’ve got all the information at their fingertips and they can sort it all out for themselves? You know, ChatGPT will tell me how to how to invest my money kind of thing. What’s your experience with the younger generations.

Neil Moles

So I think quite rightly and this is this is about value proposition for firms as well. So what is your value proposition? If you can Google it doesn’t add any value unless you’ve got the ability to do something with that. So I think we do get a lot of youngsters who have complex needs, you know, a lot of entrepreneurs maybe had a start up business. It’s got to a certain size. What do I do with that? I actually think if when you talk about ChatGPT and AI think this is a very interesting topic because I believe that it will drive more people to face to face advice than ever. It advice is about trust. And people don’t trust robots yet, and I think it will be a long time before we do so. I also think it will. Personally I think it will do away with video calls for clients because at what point did this become a deep fake? Well, at what point is this a deep fake?

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

Yeah, that’s a good point, yes.

Neil Moles

Which you’ll which is why you’ll find me changing my glasses on every single call so. It can’t be done.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

Next time you’re going to be in red frames, with sparkly red frames yeah.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

Changed everything. Yeah. So at what point does actually the trust just disappear? And you know, if people are more likely to rob your bank account now than your house, that’s what happens. That’s where you know, crime has gone. And that’s just going to get even worse with deep fake technology and AI. So I believe on that trust equation that drives more people to face to face, even youngsters.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

That’s interesting.

Neil Moles

So you have to have a proposition, whereby people can interact with you through your tech stack, but ultimately you can deliver advice face to face.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

And what’s your? Sorry, this is sort of slightly off question, but you know what’s their biggest concern for a young entrepreneur? What are they most worried about? Is it holding on to their money? Is it you? Know what’s their sort of number one concern when they come to you.

Neil Moles

This hasn’t changed for 30 years. I think you’ve got to look at the life cycle of people and what people do as they move through life, and it’s usually. Yeah, start a business if that’s what they do. That’s their journey. Then at some point, you know, they’ll they might meet someone they made form a partnership, you know, in terms of getting married, they may buy a house. They may potentially have children or adopt children. So those things haven’t changed. What happens if you run your own business Is that the risk that you take is magnified. So some of these things become even more heightened emotion as opposed to if you’ve got a job and you’re getting a paycheck every month, it’s less emotional about the fact that all that could be taken away from you. So it’s just it’s a different process you take them through for that reason.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

Yes, that I totally understand. What would you tell? I mean, it sounds really thoughtful. You, you clearly adore what you do, and I’m sure you’ve got no regrets about becoming, going into financial advice. What would you tell young people about this profession? What? I mean, we know that we need young people to come into this profession. What would you tell them? What? How would you sell this to a young generation of graduates or school leavers?

Neil Moles

So I think first of all, remember it’s a profession and you can’t do it in 5 minutes and I think as an industry right now we we’re failing massively with making sure that chartered is the minimum entry level to give financial planning advice. So we have an Academy you know as part of that Academy people have to be charted when they come out of it to give advice. But we have those beautiful recruitment consultants that sit out there that think diploma is the answer to everything and it’s not, it’s time served. It’s chartered. It takes time. So don’t think it’s a quick route. First of all, it’ll take you 6-7 ten years to be a proper chartered financial planner with life experience. And it’s not about textbook. It’s about experiences that you’ve had that you can share with clients. That’s what makes you a good planner at the end. That’s the emotional coaching, so that’s foundational. You know, I think the aspirational side is the ability, no, no days, no two days are ever the same. No two hours are ever the same. There’s no two clients are ever the same. So the challenges that you’ll face that will challenge you personally to improve and, you know, communicate differently with clients. It’s just amazing. And you know, the gratification that you get. And that when that light bulb comes on in those clients eyes to say, hey, you did that, you made that work for me. I feel comfortable about life now. Yeah. Thank you.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

Yeah, that’s a really great point because, you know as. You’re looking after wealthy people. What you don’t want is a, you know, a spotty 22-year-old in front of them who’s just done a couple of weeks on a certificate or a diploma you want. You want people, you want to know that they’re they know what they’re doing and they can really support you. So it’s a good point. And I suppose, like any profession. And if we go and we want to go and see doctors, lawyers, etcetera. We want to know that they are absolutely qualified for what they’re doing. Yeah. So Neil, on that note, thank you so much. It’s been absolutely fascinating. I’m really, really fascinated by Progeny. I will be following everything you do very closely. I’m sure that you will become that you will hit your targets. So you’re obviously clearly ambitious and driven man. And so look, thank you very much for taking the time to talk to me, I really appreciate it.

Neil Moles

Now, thank you. It’s been wonderful to talk and express some of those views. So thank you very much.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira

Thank you. Have a nice day.