If there's anyone who knows that life can throw you unexpected turns, it's a financial planner. Thomas Skinner experienced this first-hand, when a back injury set his dreams to play rugby professionally off-course. But he did what any good planner does: find a great alternative path. He first entered the financial services industry at age 23, selling insurance products, mostly to junior doctors.
After five years, the entrepreneur bug bit, and he began his own firm, MedInvest. But he craved more knowledge and experience. He'd wanted to work in London for some time, so he went from self-employed to an adviser in the corporate world:
"I think until you've experienced the other side of the coin, you always wonder whether you've been intellectually simulated. A big company seems glamorous when you're self-employed. I wanted to see how big firm solves some of the problems smaller firms face."
Skinner learned a lot, but the corporate environment left the creative in him stifled: "If I had an idea, I'd send it off, and weeks later after seven different committees had reviewed it, it didn't even look like my idea anymore. For some people, clock in and clock out is perfect. But I hated it. I prefer being given a blank piece of paper. I like being left to solve the problem."
Skinner used that creativity to launch his financial planning firm Barnaby Cecil, a collaborative effort with his colleague and Co-Founder, Emma Walker. While Emma focuses on the technical side of financial advice, Skinner puts his creativity to use. Skinner enjoys working with his clients the same way he does his general work structure: taking unstructured information and forming a clear plan.
As Skinner puts it: "Give me all of the information and I'll give you all of the solutions."
Keeping in line with Skinner's desire to cast aside rigidity, there is no cut and dry charging structure at Barnaby Cecil. Rather, the firm charges clients according to what makes sense for them. Some clients are charged a capped AUM fee, while others pay a flat fee.
In a post-RDR world, showing clients you can meet their individual needs has become essential:
"[Before the Retail Distribution Review (RDR)] you would try and identify a need for a product and hope that the client agreed with you. RDR was the start of the process where culturally… we stopped calling ourselves advisers and started using the term planners… The charging structure was taken away from the product provider and given back to the adviser. That forced everyone to think naturally about service offered and less about product. RDR was brilliant for the financial advice profession."
Skinner explains there are three essential client groups who walk through his doors. The first is those who are under 45, who maybe don't have a lot of assets yet but are interested in having a conversation:
"They've never experienced anything other than a banking type product, never a plan. Sometimes they aren't ready to commit just yet, but they stay in contact. Whether they engage depends on whether they can see value, which is how it should be."
Then there are clients who are a decade older. They are, "…a bit more focused in their mindset" and ready to set a plan into motion.
The older bracket, those are who are 55+, are craving something specific: "The number of clients who come in who don't talk about fees or investment performance is unbelievable. They just want a good and consistent level of service. The bar can sometimes be set very low."
Indeed, Skinner finds that older client’s value being heard, having their calls returned promptly and paperwork completed correctly:
"The simplest of things, often. We have won a great client recently based on a promise to always email back within 48 hours. Previously, they had waited months for a reply."
As for Skinner's ideal client, he says he "particularly likes to work with people who are very busy, can give me their full attention for a short period twice a year. There are 3-4 things we need to get done, a set of goals we are working towards, and then they let us get on the background."
This is a happy medium between a client who wants feedback every week, and one who is apathetic.
Being a father himself (Barnaby Cecil is named after his two children), Skinner knows his clients are willing to sacrifice to help their children get through things like expensive school:
"People in the middle bracket are not quite as affluent as previous generations… education in the UK is much more expensive than it once was, and people carry much more debt for longer due to the cost of property. Two people on very good salaries…may not have as much money going into those later stages of life as their parents. But this is exactly what we are here for.
“Mapping it all out, solving problems years in advance of them ever becoming an issue. I find the process enormously satisfying and I spend hours thinking through solutions."
Aligned with their nontraditional spirit, fitness, and wellbeing is central at Barnaby Cecil:
"We've added fitness to our daily routine and encourage anyone to do it. We have become fully signed up members of the Peloton cult. We love that bike! Time away from work exercising and reading something that takes the mind elsewhere for a while each day, are all really important."
