Each month Financial Planner interviews a leading Financial Planner to ask him or her to share best practice from their business. This month we speak to Paul Spires CFP^CM from Sound Financial Planning.

Financial Planner: Congratulations on joining the Accredited Financial Planning Firms RegisterTM. Why did you decide to apply for the register?
Paul Spires CFP^CM: We felt that we needed to continue to differentiate Sound Financial Planning from mainstream 'IFAs' in this new post-RDR world and this was one way we could do so. In our brief experience so far it does appear to have given us an 'edge' over other firms and feedback from our clients and prospective clients has been positive so far.

FP: What do you hope the accreditation will bring to the firm and are you getting involved with the IFP's Great Minds Think Alike campaign?
PS: I hope the accreditation will give our clients and our team comfort that we have been recognised by the leading Financial Planning organisation in the UK as an Accredited Financial Planning Firm and that will continue to differentiate us in the future. The Great Minds Think Alike campaign is a really worthwhile initiative as Financial Planning is not widely understood or appreciated by the general public. We know that when new clients come to us it's generally for some specific issue or other (usually retirement related) issue, but when they see Financial Planning in action they 'get it' and buy into it. It is a hard message to get across though and I wish the IFP success with it.

FP: How did you first get into Financial Planning and what attracted you to the profession?
PS: Like many I started as a 'tied agent' for a home service organisation, which I fondly regard as my apprenticeship in financial services. It happened by accident when an old friend of mine asked me if I wanted to work for the same company as him and when I realised he 'worked' just three days a week, I jumped at the chance! Since those days back in the late 80s I was attracted to comprehensive Financial Planning by a gradual process of evolution and recognition that the financial advice process in the UK was dysfunctional.

FP: Why did you decide to set up your own company?
PS: Andy [Hall, director] and I did so for the same reasons that many business owners do, we wanted to do a better job than the firm we were working for, wanted to be independent and eventually fee-based. We also wanted to better ourselves in terms of qualifications, our earnings potential and to steer our own ship.

FP: How has your team/company changed since the launch and what has the journey been like? How many clients do you have and what's the annual turnover?
PS: We are still a small firm with eight of us working together. When we first started we had one lady who answered the phone, typed letters and made the tea, but now we have different people in differing roles and the business is unrecognisable to those early days. It has been a steep learning curve. We've made mistakes along the way, but we've learned from them and have come out the other side much stronger for it. We still have a relatively small number of clients (real clients as opposed to customers) and they are predominately people who we like and enjoy working with. The practice has around 100 active clients and new clients pay a minimum of £3,000 pa based upon retainers and/or asset/fund charges.
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FP: What type of Financial Planning do you offer to clients and what are your fees/charges?
PS: We offer comprehensive lifestyle based Financial Planning and this is charged for separately to what we would call traditional 'brokerage' or 'intermediation'. Fixed fees for financial plans are broadly £2,500 or so depending upon the client and their circumstances and regulated product based advice will be charged as per the terms of our discounted fee tariff.

FP: How do you find new clients and what have been some of your best practices in terms of sourcing new clients? Please give examples of what works most effectively?
PS: The vast majority of new clients are referred to us by existing ones or by professional connections. That said we run a couple of seminars each year with some high profile speakers and they have been successful in attracting clients in a non-threatening way. Use of online resources can work well, but is a little more scatter-gun in its direction and can sometimes attract clients that we cannot help or provide significant value for.

FP: In terms of running your business, what software applications do you use (particularly in reference to Financial Planning and back office software) and what sort of internal processes do you run in brief to ensure everything runs smoothly?
PS: For the past 10 years we have used the full Prestwood front and back office software. This is backed up by Word, Excel and Outlook based applications and everything is scanned, so we don't have lots of filing cabinets clogging up the place. We find Financial Express/Analytics to be very helpful on the investment portfolio side.

FP: You're a CFP^CM professional; do you encourage other members of your team to study for this qualification?
PS: Ideally yes we want our team to be as highly qualified as possible, however we are also aware that it takes time, and we all have lives outside of work and Financial Planning (even if it doesn't always feel like it).

FP: What has been your greatest source of achievement in running your business and what are you proudest of?
PS: I think getting the business to its current stage whereby we have a good team of people around us, satisfied clients and are profitable. The business can naturally take up a lot of our time, however we no longer feel that we have to be involved in every single decision and prefer for many tasks to be delegated to others. We understand that we are not good at everything and many do a better job than we can. For the business to survive and prosper its needs to work without us, to protect everyone involved, and this is our ultimate long term aim. We now attract some very wealthy clients (we hate to use the term high net worth) and are proud of the service and advice that we offer them.
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FP: Your firm regularly hosts seminars and events throughout the year, why did you decide to do this and what benefits have you had from holding them?
PS: We want to give our clients the opportunity to hear from a variety of speakers to update them on what is going on in the financial world and to dispel some of the rubbish written in the press. We also use this as a way of attracting potential new clients by way of introductions. We have attracted some of our better quality clients this way and encourage professional connections to bring their clients along too – And for them, yes there is such a thing as a free lunch!

FP: You previously worked as Essex branch chairman, how did you find this role and how valuable is the branch network?
PS: I'm a big fan of the branch network and would encourage all IFP members to support their local branches. The role was demanding, but I did it for five years before I decided that I had served my time and was due parole! It was a really worthwhile experience and I met some great people who gave their time up for me and the branch members. This was invaluable in my opinion and as a firm we got some great ideas from these meetings.

FP: Shows such as The Only Way Is Essex portray Essex as being full of young affluent people, is this the case and how does it affect your client base?
PS: I wouldn't know as I don't watch it, I'd prefer to watch paint dry. I believe that some of these young affluent types are not affluent at all and are living up to an image and probably kidding themselves. Sure some will come from wealthy families and we do look after a few, however many of our clients don't want to spoil their kids at too young an age and so much of their wealth is held in trusts and dripped to them when they think it can be looked after and not squandered. Most of our clients are business owners and senior executives and are broadly 45 and older, so not really TOWIE types. Essex can get a bad press, but there are some lovely parts of our county and the wealth is well diversified.

FP: What do you like doing in your spare time outside of work?
PS: I'm a massive QPR fan and I enjoy watching and coaching cricket with my two boys aged 13 and 15. I've taken up Triathlon again and hope to raise some funds this year for deserving causes and to get fit into the bargain. My wife Caroline and I enjoy comedy clubs, eating out and soul music – we still attend the famous Caister Soul Weekenders. 

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