Wake Up, Consumers! Stop Sleepwalking Through Your Financial Future

Transcript

speaker-0 (00:00.014)
Did you know that there's 17 million policies out there which are being overcharged as 500 billion of assets set in pension legacy, free analysis tool like the ones we provide that's using AI. Are you being overcharged 10 seconds later? Yes or no. You can then go to the industry and say, I'm being overcharged unless you do something about this, I'm moving it. But what I'm saying is wake up consumers. You have a tool here.

speaker-1 (00:29.656)
Hello and welcome to another episode of Wealth Talk, the podcast specifically designed to help you build, protect, and transfer your wealth. I'm Kevin Whelan, founder of Wealth Builders. You know I'm joined by another founder today, Steve Conney, the founder of the Academy of Life Planning. Well, we gotta dive straight in. Steve, what on earth is life planning?

speaker-0 (00:52.344)
great to be here, Kevin, and yeah, let me explain what life planning is. It's basically financial planning done properly is the way I describe it. It's planning your life before you plan your money. People can think it's a bit airy-fairy, but so let me explain that it's not straight away. You need to know what you're going to do in your life in order to know how much money you need year by year by year for the rest of your life. So you need to plan your life before you plan your money.

You need to put in place what liabilities are going to be each year for the rest of your life before you know what asset strategies to put in place to support them. And a lot of people kind of miss that part and just look at asset strategies, kind of missing completely actually the reason for the money, which is to do something with your life. That's what the money's for. So we need to know that before we do the asset strategies, we need to do a comprehensive lifetime.

cash flow plan. In order to do that we need a life plan before we do the financial plan if that makes sense.

speaker-1 (01:56.238)
That's a really interesting point because more often than not, I suppose, Steve, people start with products or tactical questions or structures and tactical questions. Should I do an ICE or a bond? Should I do a pension or a LISA? What should I do? There's an awful lot of conversations tend to get started in the world of finance around that. What do you find?

speaker-0 (02:18.702)
It kind of misses the most important assets, those sort of conversations. So those sort of conversations circulate around regulated retail investments. So let me just tell you how important they are in the overall thing. mean, your audience probably understands this more than most. But total wealth, if we have a look at the O &S study on wealth and asset survey for the UK, 40 % of

Assets of the average Brit are in property, 40 % is occupational pension, 10 % savings, 5 % is in regulated retail investments. So in terms of total wealth for the average Brit, only 5 % is in those sort of products. But the planning really exists across all categories of wealth, not just the regulated retail investments. So it's a good idea to start about looking at the total picture rather than just 5 % of the picture.

There is another asset class which I talk a lot about which is called human capital. It's defined as your present value of future earnings. So it's your earnings that coming in. So you've got to look at how much money you've got coming in. And again, regulated retail investors and retail advisors don't look at this. But it's actually the majority of your wealth comes from your earnings. You earn 10 times over your lifetime what you save and very few people.

really give enough attention to the earnings side of things. And I know your audience do, which is great. Which is why I'm here to talk and share that. But it's of the average Brit, a 40 year old, say in the UK, 80 % of their wealth is called this human capital and 20 % is financial capital. So if you think 80 % of someone's wealth is on average, future earnings, present value of future earnings.

Only 20 % is what you have already. If only 5 % of what you have already is in regulated retail investments, the figure's now down to 1 % of your total wealth is in regulated retail investments. So I do laugh when I hear about financial planners who just focus on the 1 % and think that's a total wealth planning job, because the total wealth planning is obviously about all your finances, not just the regulated retail investments.

speaker-1 (04:36.43)
It's interesting way you frame that because from a wealth builder perspective we're always talking about creating recurring income from assets as opposed to looking specifically at the earnings over someone's lifetime and kind of working out what strategies are to maximise that, to minimize wastage and and have I suppose turn some of that human capital into financial capital as well along the way.

become sustainable. Is that are you coming from that same space?

speaker-0 (05:08.034)
That's exactly what I'm talking about. I define human capital as things you own that can generate earnings. It can be property. It can be skills. It can be intellectual property. It can be your network of people you know, your professional connections. It can be your brand. It's a lot clearer in the commercial world when we talk about businesses because the total value of a business is not, it's the value.

book value on the balance sheet is the market value and the market to book ratio is significant for some firms could be as much as 20 so for example Coca-Cola 95 % of the value of Coca-Cola is in its brand if you take tech brands they tend to have a market to book ratio between 10 and 20 which means that the market value the intangible value is 10

times or 20 times the value of the capital value that sits on the balance sheet. So it's easy to understand in commercial world, but it's often forgotten in the individual planning space. And total wealth planning obviously looks at the total wealth of your, and it's all about the strategies you talk about, Kevin, leveraging your human capital, whatever that might be to generate through entrepreneurial opportunities, some income.

speaker-1 (06:35.096)
Take us a step back, Steve. You've given us a nice little wander through some of the initial thoughts and hopefully resonate with those. But you you're the founder of something, the Academy of Life Planning. So who are you serving in that Academy and what what do those academy members do that traditional advisors don't do? You know, wh why are they coming and gravitating towards you?

speaker-0 (07:01.132)
It's useful to think about how I started. So I was in banking until 15 years ago and I set up the Academy. I started doing planning for a local stockbroker and discretionary manager. And they used me because I, unlike the other IFAs, wasn't interested in taking the assets under management. I was just delivering planning, fee for service, fixed fee planning. And it sort of grew from that.

And eventually people's other advisors started asking me how I did that and how I went about that. So I started to show others. And then I started to find out that I was showing other people how to do this, other planners, more than I was showing customers. I've now got a community of about 800 planners globally who do what I call total wealth planning, which is financial planning.

without financial advice. So it's financial planning without the product sale. What makes us different is we're not selling products, we're selling plans. That's purely what we do. And it takes away the incentive as well because a lot of financial planners who are also selling investments probably only get paid if they sell at selling investments. obviously if you're...

perhaps looking at a property purchase or something like that instead. It shouldn't really matter what the outcome is to determine how much the planner is paid. And that's really the model.

speaker-1 (08:33.644)
I get the model and I like the model b and I think deep down if people were asked the question, would you rather remove the conflict of interest from somebody selling something that makes money for the lifetime of how long you own it? Or would you rather have someone help you with the plan? Or better still, empower you to be able to work a plan and call on the design of the plan when the complexity demands that. Is that your view?

speaker-0 (09:02.446)
Yeah, so I call it proportional planning. What I mean by that is that 90 % of people, 90 % of the time can take care of their own plans without needing third party experts to help them because in those circumstances, they're relatively simple and straightforward. In times of complexity, stress or life change, that can change and you do need an expert on your side of the table, not the industry side, who's going to guide you through that period.

But once you're done, the idea really should be to restore your capability so that you once again can run your own finances without needing ongoing support. Now that model is completely opposite to the way the regulated financial advice market works because what they're looking for is wealthy delegators who are going to delegate running their finances on a year by year forever sort of basis.

But in reality, the 90 % of people 90 % of the time don't need that type of service. So it's what I call proportional planning. And 90 % of people 90 % of the time, what I call that capability that they have, I call agency. And what I mean by that is where you have control and ownership of your own decisions. have decision making, call it decision making capital, which is where you,

You're not asking someone else to make the decisions for you. You are capable and well informed and you're making your own decisions based on the pros and cons. And when it gets complex, you can have an expert on your side of the table, professional ally who's got no conflicts of interest, who's going to give you the right answers just to help you through that moment and get you back so that you are managing your own finances once again.

speaker-1 (10:50.818)
The whole concept though of agency is becoming much more enlivened with AI, isn't it? This this whole talk about agents and agentic approach to life. What what's your what's your thoughts about AI? Secondly, so I want to ask you if if you and I find ourselves as intelligent people wanting to serve others well, see from the same

perspective, why is so much of the advice given in this country driven from the opposite perspective?

speaker-0 (11:29.166)
you look here directly, there's been what I call information asymmetry. The financial industry is very complex, opaque, perhaps deliberately so in order to justify fee revenue, which is the way it's been. And individuals have been very disadvantaged in that scenario, not having access to the same information that the industry has. So there's been an information asymmetry.

capabilities symmetry. And what happens happened with AI is that's changed that. Suddenly, what we're finding is that individuals are going on to AI tools like ChachiBit or Claude and preparing their finances before a conversation with the industry. So in October, I turned up to a meeting, wanted to do some cashflow planning with the client. The client had already done it on Claude.

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to a planner who has went to see a client who'd already bought their investments using Chat GPT. So this is like, this is more and more the case. They're saying now that as many as 80 % of high net worth individuals are using AI for financial planning. Now, what the industry is doing is they're talking about AI, but they're talking about it to make it more profitable for them to distribute investments so that they have lower.

overhead so they can see more people, they can sell investments to people. So all the AI focus in the industry has been on the industry and the firms. And what I'm doing is I'm saying, well, what about the individuals? So I'm promoting AI to individuals. creating packaged solutions for individuals, which are available freely to the public. And I'm not doing this because I don't see AI as a bad thing. I see AI as very positive.

I see AI as a multiplier of your human capital and you can use AI. You could be tenfold more productive and your ideas and your business ideas are ten times better using AI than they're not using it. I don't see it as a substitute for judgment though, human judgment. I see it as a co-pilot for the human. So the best solutions for me are human expert with the judgment oversight, that sort of thing, and AI kind of leveraging.

speaker-0 (13:52.99)
human capital and so with a tenfold improvement in productivity and those two things should go together and they should be really for individuals and not necessarily the industry. I know the industry is building their tools and things but I'm really shouting out for the individuals saying try AI is going to make you 10 times more successful and productive in what you're doing. The industry is using AI, 100 % of the legal industry are now using AI.

they're using AI don't listen to them when they say don't use AI hallucinates everything because I'll tell you what they're using it you know and if they're using it that's good indication you should be too

speaker-1 (14:34.39)
Well, it's interesting, although there has been some interesting cases where lawyers have been responsible for the advice that's been delivered by AI and found to be wrong and working out who's got the legal responsibility for that, but there you go.

speaker-0 (14:47.278)
I agree with that, but that's delegating to the AI and I'm saying that's giving agency to your AI agent.

speaker-1 (14:53.368)
I'm agreeing with you that it's that's not the purpose, it's to be as you say, good leverage to your own intentions, which means you often, from both of our viewpoints, I suppose, need someone to be thinking very carefully about what outcome they want as opposed to what product they want. If AI is gonna drive down the cost of many activities, including the activity of

managing funds and so forth, yet so much money is charged from the process of managing funds. Where do you think the saving that it costs the industry to manage funds more effectively? And will that be passed on to the retail customer or are we asking for turkeys to vote for Christmas, Steve? What do you think?

speaker-0 (15:45.4)
I think we're asking for turkeys to vote for Christmas. think we're basically where we are at the moment is there's what I call a cash cow, which is the old status quo. And that's going, the incumbents are going to get, keep that, but going to protect that as long as they possibly can. So we might see another few years where they're protecting margins. They're using AI to increase the probability to increase margins.

I'm not passing on this cost savings to the consumer at present and hoping that they away with that for as long as possible. But what I'm saying is wake up consumers. You have a tool here. Last week, the FCA wrote out to firms, pension legacy firms, and said that there's 500 billion of assets set in pension legacy. You're overcharging.

The conversation really shouldn't be with the regulator telling firms, it should be the public being asked, did you know that 500 billion, there's 17 million policies out there which are being overcharged on their pensions. know, an analysis, a free analysis tool like the ones we provide would enable you to identify whether yours is that case. So actually using AI at an individual level, are you being overcharged? 10 seconds later, yes or no.

And then from an informed decision, you could then go to the industry and say, you know, I'm being overcharged unless you do something about this, I'm moving it. That's when you'll start to see change when the individuals embrace agency.

speaker-1 (17:23.72)
So there's there's an educational process for the consumer as well. So for the longest time they've been, I suppose, educated to delegate and then very quickly or very, very slowly, which serves the industry, that delegation turns into abdication and then abdication pulls all the shutters down and nobody looks at anything anymore. So w what what what do you do at the Academy of Life Planning to to help people

See that. You mentioned some of the tools. I mean, every time you mention a tool, I'm playing devil's advocate here. Or well, is it is it is it easy to use those only for financial planners like Steve or experts like a financial advisor?

speaker-0 (18:06.99)
Okay, so all the tools I provide are end user tools. So I don't believe in providing tools to planners. Planners get upset with me sometimes about that. They ask me, we put our name on your tools, Steve, and make us look good? No, the tools are aimed at the public, so they're easily navigatable. The data that's on the tool sits on the client's drive.

So the data isn't shared with the industry. It's very private to the client. I don't believe that data needs to be shared with the industry. So it's all aimed at a straightforward, improving the capability and understanding of the end user, the client, the individual, the person. So it's all about empowering them. So no, I'm not providing tools for the industry to make out that they're clever and you need to delegate.

It's all about capability and improving the capability of individuals. That's how.

speaker-1 (19:09.774)
I mean, this is a good thing for society though, isn't it, to improve the capability of individuals, not least because all the statistics are showing how poorly pensioned we are as a country and how does that translate into the next generation when they're starting life with more debt, more debt than they thought, with a more expensive cost to that debt than they thought. what's what's the view of the Academy of Life planning on

Legacy and helping the next generation.

speaker-0 (19:40.514)
There's two aspects, the same tool I use in two communities. One, the under-pension pensioners. The other is what the Gen Zs, or particularly not in education employment teams. So let's take the not in education employment teams first of all. So there's a million of them in the UK. The government are looking at trying to encourage them into jobs, et cetera, et cetera. They're missing the point completely. Your community, Get It Kevin, is about

Identifying human capital, leveraging entrepreneurial opportunities and creating sustainable livelihood from that is not just about jobs. It's working out what your gifts and skills are. you know, and not in education and implementing 16 to 24, human capital is at your highest at that age, but it's completely ignored by the industry, the conversation, the politicians never ever talk about human capital.

But at that age, that's where it's the most, it'll ever be for the rest of your life. And that's where the attention needs to be given. And people need to be shown how to identify their assets, how to use things like AI to create that multiple, to leverage entrepreneurial opportunities, to create earnings for your lifetime and get you into doing something that you're good at, that you love, that we will need to, we'll pay you for. And that kind of works there.

In pensioners, people now in defined contribution pension schemes are coming up to retirement, realising that they're not going to have as much as their predecessors, the baby boomers with the final salary schemes. What they're going to do, again, the industry are being silent on the real solution, which is human capital. And what we should be doing is people 50 plus, we should be identifying their human capital.

and showing them how they could leverage through entrepreneurial opportunities to create earnings to make good deficits in pension pots. It's not all about savings, it's also about earnings and that those earnings people can carry on earning into their 60s, 70s, 80s is if they're doing something they love to do and it's not a great strain on them.

speaker-1 (21:54.582)
I'm not stacking shelves insane to me. It's interesting. I was talking to a guy who has got a he's a business coach by nature and he was running a school for the over fifties to teach more entrepreneurialism within them because they they'd almost got to a point where I suppose in their early fifties if they'd been made redundant or if they'd got ill or something

speaker-0 (21:56.651)
That's right, yes.

speaker-1 (22:23.202)
had had kind of changed their outlook on life for the forever really, how they could use some of that life skill, that life's work and and dive a bit deeper into their human capital, let's say, using your terms, and then turning that into some sort of entrepreneurial outcome. The problem was though, they stopped the funding for it. Because people couldn't afford to do it on their own. And he's saying, you know, we

You just can't get the funding anymore. So we had it for a few years. So you know the as a result of that there's there's just no money to to provide that. And is there money at the the younger end of the spectrum? I've not heard of that.

speaker-0 (23:06.734)
Well there isn't. I mean, there is proposals to fund, create funding locally for young, the Gen Zs to get into employment. But I'm not, talking about a solution that doesn't require funding. We actually use this solution in communities globally, particularly Southern Hemisphere communities. There's a project that's being sponsored by the Church of England. It's a global project and it's creating

Sustainable livelihoods in poor communities. the starting point is we're not going to put in a strategy that relies on external funding. What we're going to do instead, this project, is based on identifying the human capital in the community. So what does the community own that they could leverage to create entrepreneurial opportunity and sustainable livelihood? That might be.

skills, might be local resources, whatever it is. So they're trying to work on starting with what you've got. And at the academy, we do the same thing. It's working out with what you've got. The tools that I'm providing are free, so there's no need for funding. So there's a tool called GetSecure, which is aimed at, it's a financial planning tool, it's free. It's aimed at communities where there's income insecurity.

and they can access it and you take a couple of hours to go through the program, but you come out with a plan to which identifies what you're good at, what you would love to do, what the world needs and would generate income for you. it uses in the get secure plan, AI has an AI analysis component which says, okay, these are the things you're good at. Here's how AI can help.

multiply that in terms of revenue. That tool is free. So there's no excuse, there's no why people can't access it. It's not requiring external funding. It's available on the internet. Any of these things I'm talking about, by the way, Kevin, are available on the Academy of Life Planning website.

speaker-1 (25:21.186)
Well, we'll we'll put that in the show notes and ask you if there's any other tools that you think would be valuable. I mean, I suppose, you know, as I I sit here chewing the fat with you and thinking, I'm agreeing, I'm agreeing, I'm agreeing. Yet you and I are sort of seem to be ploughing quite a lonely furrow in the context of the totality of the amount of people who would proffer from

More better use of their human capital, more control over their agency, less dependency and more independence. Yet it's so hard to find.

speaker-0 (26:02.798)
Yes, it is. And that again comes down to the cash cow strategy. Basically, the industry incumbents are trying to make as much money, making hay while the sun shines as long as possible. And are very resistant. So as an example, I wanted to talk about these things at conferences, CISI, PFS conferences, the National

speaker-1 (26:26.584)
These are national comforts linked to the financial industry, right?

speaker-0 (26:29.612)
Yeah, that's right. So they're very resistant to allowing me at time. They made a mistake. The PFS made a mistake and actually invited me to the conference in Birmingham. then half an hour later, I got a rejection letter. So, we made a mistake. We didn't mean to invite you, Steve. So it's I think it had gone up and said, you're not going to invite him. He's going to tell people why they don't need financial advisors. So, yeah, it's

We're in a world where the common narrative is preserving the status quo. The thing is, though, that things are changing very rapidly. I could say 80 % or more in some areas are using technology, individuals using technology to do their finances. I think at some point, the industry needs to wake up to that. The thing is that the baby boomers aren't that receptive to new technology.

But if you go down the generations, the Xs, the Ys, the Zs, you'll find they're all using technology. And when we see, you know, six trillion of assets migrate on succession plans from the baby boomers to the Gens, Xs, Ys and Zs.

speaker-1 (27:42.892)
Yeah, the Great Wealth Transfer as they're called.

speaker-0 (27:44.93)
Well, that's when things will change because they're not going to want granddad's IFA. You know, when they get the inheritance, they'll be very happy running their own finances. Thank you very much. So it's going to change in that way. So it might happen quickly, but it's certain to happen over a generation or two.

speaker-1 (28:04.952)
Do you find that the people who are joining you have come from the traditional background because that's possibly where they got taught and then began to resist the teaching as they saw the era of the ways of the big the big industry?

speaker-0 (28:20.462)
Interesting question. And if you'd asked me a few years ago, I said, yes, that's where they come from. know, it gets three quarters of the Academy membership are chartered or certified financial planners, very highly qualified individuals, tends to be people retiring from regulated, as I put it. But what I've found is, is that that's not been the best source of new members to the Academy. The best source of new members to the Academy have been other financial professionals. There's a million.

financial professionals in the UK who aren't advisors, know, wealth managers, relationship managers working for the asset management industry, actuaries, accountants. These are the people who want to get into personal financial planning, but don't want to sell products. Often they get sucked into a job that's selling products, not sold on that basis, but they find out a year into it that that's the basis of the job.

You're just the product salesperson, maybe with sales targets on your back and things like that. That's those are the people who didn't want that. They're then come into the academy and want to be what I call a proper financial planner doing life planning. That tends to be the new people. There is a third piece that I'll just mention, which is because the cash cow is still a cash cow, I'm getting more resistance in my business to business side of the academy.

I think the community of planners in general are not ready for change just yet, but their customers are. Guest was already now. So what I'm doing is I'm turning my attention really more to their customers and saying, okay, your advisors aren't ready yet for this change, but you are. And I'm hearing you and here you go. Here's the support.

speaker-1 (30:07.31)
Just thinking about other groups of people who come from a place of trying to serve business owners, let's say, and other planners where they have the trusted ear of the individual, they already know that they can be trusted to try and help them achieve a certain outcome. I'm thinking d is there an opportunity for business coaches who are seeing the inside of a business to then

kind of relate that back to what is the life that they're trying to create for someone. I was talking to somebody in their business recently and they said, you know, my my kids are in Greece and I'm staying here because I've got to finish something. It's like, well what nobody got into business but to send their kids to Greece and you stay home because you've got to finish your project. That doesn't happen. And I'm just wondering whether or not there's a there's an interesting

range of other people who might serve your academy.

speaker-0 (31:09.79)
So business exit strategists really should do a life plan before they do the business exit strategy. what are you exiting to? We often say there's a big psychological change for an individual to go from running a business to living in Greece. You go from what we say, who's who, to who's he. The big shift.

And that's a bit of a shock, you know, so it helps to actually plan post exit in the same way. Yeah, it's not just about regulated investments. Regulated investments is just 1 % of the market. The ONS survey excluded business assets in that research. So because it couldn't value private businesses for the ONS wealth and asset management survey. it's a chunk of people who have business assets there who aren't being served.

speaker-1 (32:07.436)
But also given that the inheritance tax relief on business assets for a couple is five million, let's say, potentially, compared to say max of a million for a couple building wealth with traditional regulated investments, you think you'd think that would come up somewhere?

speaker-0 (32:26.382)
As a total wealth planner, you definitely think that. If you're just a retail regulated investment planner, then it's like you say, you're talking about the million pound sort of wealth. I mean, that used to be more than a million when pensions were outside of a state for inheritance tax purposes. that situation is deteriorating for the regulated advice community.

speaker-1 (32:51.882)
Don't get me on that one, Steve. Don't get me on that one. I think my audience now I'm on that soapbox most week, so I'll I'll stay off it this week and leave the soapbox to you. Another interesting thing for me to get your take on is you know, if we look at the great wealth transfer again, right? We recognize that there will be a generational transfer, for sure. And you touched on the fact that many of the younger generation, I often call them the rising generations.

The rising generation will be receiving money potentially and won't necessarily want to go back to the place where mum and dad perhaps got the original advice. And I get that, which is seems to me like the writing's on the wall for that. But I wonder what's your take on the fact that the vast majority of those assets, before they get into the hands of a child children, will typically get in the hands of a spouse. And with

Your age, women living longer than men, and let's just call it typically, lots of women will inherit, but may not have had the financial capability, may not have been encouraged to have that capability. What are you doing at the Academy of Life planning to help them?

speaker-0 (34:04.334)
Yeah, so I'll give you an example, a case I work with. I've got a testimonial from the lady, so she won't mind me telling you. Her is Lisa. Basically, she's mid-50s and her husband managed the finances, ran portfolios with HML Vanguard, ran a deposit portfolio, about three million. He died and she became a widow. And she was lost, know, obviously going through a lot of grief.

She went and approached an IFA and said, the IFA said what he could do for her. And then she came to see me. And she said, you would never believe what this IFA quoted on charges. Said, I might as well have handed over the keys to my house the amount he wanted in fees. So I work on this proportional planning basis. So my aim was not to do anything other than to help this widow Lisa.

get back onto being able to look after the portfolio herself. At first it was very difficult. We had to cancel meetings because she had brain fog because of the grief. I was gentle with her and I showed her how to, she had about a million pound deposit portfolio. I showed her how to, as things run off terms, then how to replace that. And she became confident doing that herself. I'd explained about the passive.

globally diverse fund investment strategies her husband had used with Vanguard and AJ Bell. And I explained how all that worked. I explained it's really, you you could do it and forget it. And she became that confident that after 18 months, she turned around to me said, Steve, thank you very much. I'm now confident I know exactly what I'm doing. I really don't need you anymore for this. Now, that'll be bad news for a regulated advisor who's thinking of tapping into fees for the rest of their life.

But this is exactly what I was doing. I was doing what I call proportional planning, which is I just planned while people are going through complexity, stress or change, and then get them on a, where they get the capability back. And I believe that's the way the industry should work. We shouldn't have this lazy income thing where people are taking fees off people who don't need fees, taking off them that don't really need planning. And...

speaker-0 (36:26.646)
Lisa gave me a fantastic testimony. She's given me great referrals from her friends and I've used that to great effect in the business and I believe that's the way to go forward.

speaker-1 (36:37.986)
Did you see the article recently where the FDA were trooping in because a number of financial advisors were charging fees to people who'd already died?

speaker-0 (36:46.028)
That's right. Yes, I wrote a blog, quite a prolific blogger, as you know, Kevin. And yes, I wrote about that. I think I upset a few people, but it's true. know, they're people, they didn't have processes in place that recognize immediately when they get notification of death that the client has died. Yes, they do have advice requirement, the executors, the family, etc.

but there's no contract with the executor, there's no contract with the family. So they have no ability to take fees. So I do think there's a big fee for no service scandal brewing. think the FCA is trying to keep a lid on it because they're worried about the impact it might have on the government's growth agenda. things like this come out that people...

I call it I see dead people.

speaker-1 (37:47.02)
An interesting business model, isn't it? I'd I I find the obituary columns and then end up just giving advice to the dead people and keeping the money anyway. I did post myself about even some of the more highbrow companies generally try not to name things when fucking avoided, but double dipping, you know. So charging charging funds and then charging money on the cash in the funds.

taking interest and d doing it deliberately for margin, as you said before. And think for many people who listen to me or listen to you, you know, we talk about these things with great transparency. But I think most people think we're either having a go or a pop at an industry because what I tend to see when people meet me for the first time is, but my money's doing okay. You know, it's going up anyway. So almost like why are you telling me this? Rather than working out that the fees or the like a tax and

you you're robbing yourself of the agency of being able to do things for yourself and understand what's happening and not end up just hoping one day, someday, that pot's gonna be big enough to support you when when it might not.

speaker-0 (38:58.702)
There's a lot of psychology involved in this. So people don't like to admit that they've been making a mistake for the last 10, 20 years. And if you tell them actually, you know, they've been double dipping on you all these years, you know, or they've been taking a fee for no service or, yes, you know, so there's a big distributor company which I'm not going to mention it's there.

speaker-1 (39:21.922)
Well it's all right, we know.

speaker-0 (39:24.526)
No, one. Yeah, but basically they say, well, you're doing better than if you left your money in the bank. That isn't a good comparison. You know, as you know, it's really, they might have done better than if they'd left the money in the bank, but they wouldn't do, they were not doing as well as if they just got into the market directly themselves. You know, they would do 10 times better.

And it can make a massive difference even over five years. It can make a huge difference to people's finances. But people are kind of reassured, yes, it went up this year, so I'm happy. I'm not really asking. So some of the illustrations are taking half of the profit as fees. And you're thinking, if the advice firm is taking plough by profits as advice fees.

they only need two clients and they're earning as much as we are. They've got hundreds of clients. So it's just the garbage they're for that. So it's like an interesting model, but it's a psychological piece that it's very difficult to get across to people that you're being exploited.

speaker-1 (40:37.398)
I definitely feel that more the case with men, strangely. almost like I don't want you to prove that I've been doing it wrong. You know, that's the assumption and the underpinning thought. When yeah, well you've got something's happened in the past, now you've got clarity, you can't really unlearn it now. So now you can do something about it or not, as the case may be. So

speaker-0 (41:05.166)
So I have two, again, free tools. One's called the Leveler, which allows you to look at contracts and hide hidden terms and brings that out. Another's called Investigator, which allows you to look at investments, to understand this kind of due diligence program on investments. They're both free, but it kind of really, you you could put in one of these contracts into the Investigator and it'll tell you in 10 seconds exactly where it falls, where the red flags are. One of the things that FCA criticized

asset management companies for last week is their opacity in their disclosure documents. You know, they're not explaining the full extent of charges, etc, etc. So we do really need AI tools to go to consumers directly to help them see the truth. That's all I'm saying. I'm not being attacking anyone. I'm just saying this is the truth. This is actually what it says in their own documents that they're not showing you and not explaining to you.

this is it, black and white, these are the pros and cons of what you're doing.

speaker-1 (42:08.846)
Anyway, it's interesting talking about the comparison. We've spent a lot of time talking about the one percent club, right? where the money is, but but the real skill in all of this is designing a life, isn't it really? And then choosing the right tools to help deliver that. Steve, if people want to find out a little bit more, they resonate with you like I resonate with you, and they want to find out more about the Academy of Life Planning or the Tools, where would they go to find more about you?

speaker-0 (42:38.552)
Yeah, so they go to the website, academyalifeplanning.com.

speaker-1 (42:42.872)
We'll put that in the show notes so people can find it easily rather than rely on voices which can sometimes when they're using their AI can be trans can can be transposed. That the number of times AI gets SAS spelled wrong I can't tell you, even though we tried to correct it hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times.

speaker-0 (43:01.39)
Well, there's a kind of a start here page. That homepage is a start here page and points you to the various tools and techniques depending on what you need from the journey.

speaker-1 (43:14.19)
Steve, it's been a real pleasure and I know we're like minded, so feels like we're sort of just I guess really just chewing the fat a bit. But with real purpose in mind, that I don't think for anybody this is too complex. They can learn how to take responsibility for as many of their own decisions as they want to. And I like your phrase, although it's a it's

Don't think it would be in common parlance propor what did you call it? Proportionate.

speaker-0 (43:46.85)
Yeah, proportional planning.

speaker-1 (43:49.112)
Porsche planning. I don't think anybody's ever heard of that, but I get the point that when when life throws you a curveball, when a big chapter in your life opens or closes, that's a time when a a good advisor will be worth their weight in gold to you. Don't pay them in gold. Just pay them a set fee and they can, you know, try and help you understand what the pros and cons are the decisions that you'd be faced with. Steve, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time today.

And everyone else, look after yourself. Until then, see ya.

We hope you enjoy today's episode. Don't forget that we are constantly updating our resources inside the Wealth Builders membership site to help you create, build and protect your wealth. Head over to wealthbuilders.co.uk slash membership right now for free access. That's wealthbuilders.co.uk slash membership.