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Tales From The Frontline – Business almost as usual

In this ‘Tales From The Frontline’ Sutton-based Nick Wells tells us how he and his wife Tracey are using lockdown to focus on Wealth Platform and annual reviews.

We are in the ‘lucky’ position (although Tracey may not agree!) that we work together in a self-contained office 10 minutes-walk from home, so self-isolation has not been a problem for us and we get our daily exercise too! I would write some personal stuff, but we do not really have a life at the moment and I am sure a lot of you will know that feeling.

The pandemic took hold just after we had been with Sandringham six-months and felt that we were starting to get settled. This has clearly had a large effect on being able to produce additional business, plus finishing the process with new clients that we had started working with. However, it has presented us with opportunities to review what we had done well and not in the first six months to move the business forward.

As Tracey was pretty much new to the industry when we joined, apart from doing some part-time projects for me previously, it has been quite a challenge for her and meant that certain areas were not addressed straightaway, one of them being the Wealth Platform. Although I was mentioning this as part of meeting agendas, it was not being done with enough knowledge, conviction, or time being spent on it. So, the result was after two months of review work, we had no-one on Wealth Platform.

The decision was made to not only start getting all the up-coming annual review clients on the Wealth Platform, but we would go back to the start of the reviews we have done and get all those clients on there as well, where we could. Otherwise, they would not be on there when we started the second cycle of client reviews. The upshot of this is that we have signed up 37 clients onto Wealth Platform in the last seven weeks and would urge anyone not doing this to do the same because it has completely changed the way we work.

It was key to continue doing the annual reviews, especially as we are in our first year at Sandringham, with the vast majority of them being completed and it helps that the clients understand the importance of doing this. Making use of a combination of email, post, telephone meetings and more recently the use of Zoom (although I am strictly audio only at this stage, especially as I have not had a haircut for over three months). As it’s our first year, I have wanted all clients to have the hard copy review pack, which I feel is very impressive, then will give clients the choice from year two onwards. All of this has meant we have kept momentum, are not backing-up the work till later in the year, plus can start doing new business once the situation has improved.

The other major change was starting to work with the Sandringham Adviser Services (full in-house paraplanning service) at the beginning of December, which was another major reason for us joining Sandringham. Jess, Sam, and other members of the team when required have been brilliant, with no discernible difference since the office was closed and it is good to have the Sandringham Powered Advice (ad-hoc in-house paraplanning service) available when it’s busier.

The support has not changed at all with everyone having to work from home, which Sandringham was so clearly ready to do. This has also included the review pack team, who have continued to do the work required at the same high standard.

I wanted to finish by saying that we are not perfect and nor is Sandringham, but after working in this industry for over thirty years, I am so pleased to be working with a partner who understands what I am trying to do for my clients and I admire the ethics of what Sandringham are striving to do. With everything that is currently happening, we thank goodness that we had the opportunity and decided to join the company.

Nick

Nick Wells, Advising Partner

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