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The Navvai Shift – AI & Business Insights
Welcome to The Navvai Shift, the podcast where business leaders in finance share their journeys, challenges, and unfiltered thoughts on artificial intelligence. We dive deep into how AI is shaping industries, uncovering real-world insights from those driving innovation.
Subscribe for expert conversations on AI, automation, and the future of business.
Hello everyone. Welcome to today's
episode of Nevada Shift where we're
diving deep into major threats facing
financial services and what companies
can do to stay ahead. Today our guest
speaker Elliot Silk, co-founder of My
Time Pension and Retire What Retire
World Technology and a head of financial
planning of Serbia Group with extensive
experience in financial planning,
retirement solutions, investment
strategies. Elliot has definitely been
the forefront of helping firms navigate
profitability challenges in a rapid
evolving financial landscape. So Elliot
for those who might not be familiar
could you give us a quick overview of my
time pension retire technology and also
your role at superior group. Yeah
certainly. Hi Deari. So um yeah
retirement oh well technology and my
time pension have been set up as an
automated retirement deumulation
solution for people that get to
retirement with moderate pension pot. So
typically between 30,000 and
250,000 whereby they may not want to pay
for advice or they they struggle to get
advice and that's there to provide them
with a sustainable income in retirement.
I'm also head of financial planning for
for Superbia Group. The main two
financial planning trading brands are
Fernley House and Headley Financial
Services. Uh it's a group consisting of
around about 80 people, 19 financial
adviserss and my yeah responsibility is
very much leading the the advice
function and also dealing with the
mergers and acquisitions um within the
group as well.
Nice. We see. So Elliot, obviously you
have a range of experience and I think
it's safe to say in this market, you
know, a lot of the financial industry is
facing an extremely large amount of
pressure when it comes to profitability.
So from your perspective, what would you
say are the most concerning trends that
are putting financial firms at risk
today?
So, so the trends at the moment is very
much being able to deliver advice on a
cost-effective basis to clients also
filling the advice gap. You're always
going to have challenges around the
regulation and the compliance aspects
and as as well. And it's it's really
looking at how the world is moving
forward and what tools we can utilize to
assist in in what we're doing and really
get advice and requirements out there to
to the needs of the the wider general
public that perhaps haven't had access
to that before.
No, Han, I definitely do agree with you.
I think you did touch in terms of
regulatory changes, rising operational
cost and also shifting customers
expectation. I feel like they're all
definitely major factors in my opinion
in terms of profit profitability. So
where do you see these being the biggest
profitability threat right now?
So the biggest profitability threat or
something we can change. I mean they're
two they're two different aspects
really. So there's a large proportion
for you for a regulated firm that is
taken up on the cost of compliance
regulation making sure that we're we're
trading in the trading in the right the
right way. And that will range from
checking financial
promotions, social media stuff that's
uh sent out by by employees and their
interaction with that as well. Oh, and
you know, some great tools coming to
market that will analyze documents,
literature, fund fact sheets, what
you're you're planning to send out to
the to the wider general general public
whereby in the past you would have had
to have a team of people doing that,
looking at it, amending it, drafting it
in the first place. You know, you can we
can now leverage tools that are
available to us to to write the content.
Clearly as the stage we're at at the
moment is yeah we need human
intervention to to look at that and make
sure it's it's correct. But you know
some of those those costs that are
related to it can be saved which
ultimately then adds to the to the
bottom line of of a business or enables
that business to spend that money
elsewhere in terms of growth
deliverables there to the to the clients
without a doubt. And so you did mention
obviously there's a lot of new tools
coming to market. So obviously with a
lot of firms they still have like legacy
systems and outdated business models. So
my question to you is like what impact
would you say these old systems like
legacy systems can have on just the
productivity of a business and also the
profitability.
So, a lot of the legacy systems actually
relate to the the insurance companies
and the providers themselves. And where
that causes pain and cost to a to a
financial advice firm such as Superbia
is
that you normally have a team of people
that have got to phone up, request
information, takes longer for the
insurance providers to to turn it
around. You may well have clients that
are sitting with them on on different
different platforms. So albeit it's the
same name of the firm over the the door,
the interactions with them can be quite
different because of the different
platforms that they may well be sitting
on. So you've got you got the provider
issue there. You've then also got within
the advice space. So on the the advisor
firms, you know, there's two main
providers out there in terms of CRM that
I think most people will know who who
they are and they probably have round
about 80% market share of the advisers
that are sitting sitting with them and
yeah, they're great they're great great
pieces of kit. It does tend to be one
platform. they're not sitting on too
much legacy. But where we're seeing in
terms of mergers, acquisitions, if you
want to take your business forward, it
can be quite expensive, costly, and slow
to migrate data from from one place to
another. So there are is new tech on the
market. There are new CRM that aren't at
the moment being widely adopted by the
advisor community, but they're very much
more a modular type approach where you
can actually choose the modules that are
best going to assist your business. And
you know, the the important thing for
for an advice firm is really being in
control of as as much data as possible.
So whether that's reporting on MI, it's
enabling you to take the business
forward quicker. you can have your own
in-house dev team rather than being
relying upon third parties. So, so doing
stuff to your your time scale. Sorry,
it's quite a long-winded answer. It's an
area I'm quite passionate about, but um
covering it really there from from from
both aspects, but in summary, the legacy
bit tends to sit more with providers
than it does with ad advice firms. Yeah,
of course. Talking about advice firms,
how are the new market entrance as a set
of fintech startups? Are they reshaping
the competitive landscape and you think
traditional firms are struggling to keep
up a little bit?
It's a great it's a great question and
probably if you'd asked me that question
a couple of years ago, you would have
used the word robo advice as to the
challenges and how things are being
being done differently. I I I don't
think that we've really seen robo advice
materialize as a lot of people predicted
and there was a lot of fear within the
advice community that they would be
challengers. There's so much that we can
automate and we
can do, but there's still when you're
talking about significant sums of money,
there is still reassurance from a human
being that is wanted by consumers. I
mean to to to give you an example of
that, you know, it's it's Friday night,
we're sat at home, we don't want to
cook, we'll go on to a certain pizza
company's website, you know, we'll we'll
order a couple of pizzas, you know,
choice of topping for me, choice topping
for the for the for for the other half,
and it will say, you know, press this
button. It's £38.90 Elliot. Um, order
it. and I will press that button and
know that my pizza is going to be there
within within half an hour. I don't I
don't think twice. If we're looking at I
am on my accumulation journey, you know,
so I'm I'm working. I've got a few
pensions dotted around. I go on to one
of the consolidators websites because I
want to do it myself. You know, I put in
details of my pensions and I've got 20
grand there and I've got 30 grand there
and I've got 10 grand there. You know,
if my maths is correct, I get that
button there saying, "Okay, Elliot,
press this button to move
£60,000." You know what? I don't act
quite as quickly as I do when I was
ordering my pizza. Um, you know, there's
a second take there. You know, is the is
the company genuine? What am I what am I
doing? And you're suddenly frantically
searching around the website saying,
"Look, how can I speak to someone? How
can I just check check this out? can I
just maybe do the the £10,000 pension so
if something goes wrong then at least I
haven't lost my my my my £60,000. So,
you know, there there's there's still a
lot of work to be done, you know, how we
as individuals interact with technology.
So, you know what what what I'm saying
there's there's still a need for
personalized advice. there's the need to
be able to to speak to someone to have
customer support and and I think that
that will you know the sums of money
we're talking about within the pensions
and investment industry I think that
will continue for for quite some time um
until we get until we get to a stage
where it is comfortable and people are
are happy just to do you know with with
with tech yeah again you know if it's a
case that we're we're setting up an ISO
we're doing that ourselves and we're
putting away 100 or200 pound a month I
probably would push push that button.
But it's when we're we're talking about
the other end of the spectrum that I've
just given the example of. I see. So
Ellie, I think you obviously you've
mentioned that it's imperative to make
sure that technology still has has that
sort of like human touch and human feel
to ensure that for example in financial
planning your clients it's not just
dealing with a robot. So like for
example, you know, when you're on the
phone and you're just you need to the AI
or whoever's the automated me is talking
to you and you're getting you have to
repeat your name like five six times cuz
obviously it can't read it properly. So
how would you say firstly you can
balance that human touch with
technology?
So, you know, the the sites we're
looking at and where we are developing
our, you know, sites ourselves, whether
that be through, you know, either of the
businesses that I'm involved in is it's
part of that machine learning. Um, you
know, when I' I've been an adviser for
for many many years and went through,
let's call it the old school training
methods. And, you know, one of the early
things you you you get trained upon is
the it's almost like the soft skill side
is objection handling. you know, you're
going in there and you're thinking
actually what might the client ask me?
Why may they not proceed? How do I over
overcome that? And we need to get to the
same place in terms of technology that
if we are designing websites, if we're
designing an automated route or an
automated path is within those FAQs, we
need to cover off those salient points
and build out that way. It's it's it's
very much a lot of it should be based
upon behavioral stuff, you know, where
where I gave the example of the pizzas
and then the moving pension money.
They're both behavioral but at different
ends of the the spectrum. It's also
around nudge theory and I think we're
going to see an element of this come out
through the guidance boundary review.
You know, I've I've put in my two penith
into that. I've had that in the
background where with with Retire Well
and and My Time Pension, you know, we're
looking that as an advice firm at
Superbia as as well. And it's it's going
to be based upon, you know, people like
you. It's having personas out there is
that you know you're you're you're a 40y
old on your accumulation journey versus
you're a 67 year old that has got a
layer of final salary defined benefit is
going to get the full state pension
having worked for the 35 years of paying
national insurance. It's like people of
you would would select these options or
people like you would would do this
trying to guide them to the right
outcomes but thinking about those
objections that they might have in their
mind um whilst they're making those
decisions and following that that that
that route of outcome.
I see. So you talked about the right
outcomes and obviously with AI I feel
like it's just got at the moment
limitless potential and it literally
changes year by year. So
literally
it's so fast honestly. So um how do you
see like AI and automations improving
probability? And I feel like that
question has a lot of answers so you can
take it however you want to take it.
Yeah, I'm not sure if it's yeah,
probability or possibility, but it will
improve things. You know, it will
certainly give us on the the advice
side, on the advice community, a better
understanding of choices that are are
being made and decisions that are being
being reached. It will bring in an an
element there of automation. So it will
enable assistance there with decisions
but it will also speed up the processing
of those decisions as well. It also
provides you know a degree of management
information and can see us the p show us
the paths that people people follow so
that we've got less of let's call it a
scatter gun approached on what we
interpret they might be thinking or
might be doing and actually say look
we've got meaningful information now
here that you know 80% of people are
going down this path or looking at it
and seeing where do
people fall out of the the journey. You
know, there are certain pension
providers that deal solely with the
accumulation market and the
consolidation of pension pots. If um I
wouldn't say they're rumors, but you
know, if hearings are to be proven, you
hear that as much or as many billions as
they've got under AUM, they still got
that many billions that are in the
pipeline still to land. And the reason
that they're in the pipeline is somebody
for some reason has decided at a certain
stage not to proceed or to delay their
decision making process. Um and that's
certainly where we can get the the the
the learns there from whether you know
the I suppose the the learning of the
probability of someone going beyond a a
certain stage or the possibility that if
we if we worded stuff slightly
differently or took them down a slightly
different path would the outcomes be be
quite quite different? And we've got
that information to our fingertips and
that that information is only going to
improve going forward. Yeah. No, I
definitely do agree with that. I be that
I believe AI I think with AI only as
good as your data as well. I think once
you have your data in place, the results
can give is it's remarkable and I feel
like but I still feel like a lot of
financial firms are still very hesitant
to invest in AI and especially in
AIdriven solutions. So what do you
believe might be the misconception which
leads to them holding back from actually
making those investments?
There's there's always going to be an
element of caution when you're acting
and delivering in a regulatory um
environment. Um and you know and rightly
and rightly so. You know there's a lot
there that's not yet proven. Um, you can
get AI and tech to do a lot of the grunt
work, if I can use that that phrase, but
you still need someone that's checking
it over, seeing what's put together,
seeing the the journey that it's that
it's taken on. It's only going to be
over a reasonable period of time where
we and our regulator has confidence that
good client outcomes are being delivered
more often than than not. You know, we
have to have confidence in the system.
We can't rely upon it solely and relying
upon it solely that it's going to
provide the right outcomes would be be
wrong. If we started before we did this
recording, gentlemen, about explaining
how long, you know, 35 years plus that
I've spent in financial services,
there's a lot of the things in financial
services from 30 years ago that that
haven't changed. We're not known as the
industry that evolves really quickly.
We're never at the the forefront of
developments and and part of that is
because of the regulatory
responsibility. It's how much money the
wealth of the nation that we're in in
charge of. You know, if you if you're
putting it into context, most people's
highest net asset will probably be their
house or their property. We are then the
people in control of their second
biggest asset, which will be their
pensions and their investments. So
there's always going to be and needs to
be an element of cautiousness um a
conservative view taken and making sure
we're safeguarding that that that that
money for them. You know there's the the
the reputational risk there Deari which
I think does has does slow things down
in terms of adoption of new tech.
Agreed. And especially the point where
you referenced that financial services
is a very rigid industry. I think we can
all definitely attest to that. So
Elliot, what would you say are like the
biggest inefficiencies in financial
operation today? And I guess how can AI
and automations help address them?
So biggest biggest inefficiencies. So
you've got some inefficiencies which are
systemled and I think that there are
some inefficiencies that are put in
there on purpose. Let me let me explain.
Um, so you've
got like letters of appointment, letters
of authority. You know, that's always
been a very manual process. Takes a
while for a new advisor to
be recognized, etc. and and I'm not one
to to voice too much opinion on that
because I know that others are working
on that and looking to correct it and
looking to to utilize the tech that is
now available to us. You've got on the
other side where there are
inefficiencies which may well be
deliberate where we've got platforms and
providers that are trying to retain
assets under management. There are
quicker ways for us to to move that that
money and to provide better client
outcomes. But there'll be certain things
that are there ultimately which are
designed to protect consumers and make
sure that money is going to the right
place. But we allow through systems
where clients need to go and speak to
like the the likes of MoneyHelper or are
rooted off in in certain directions. You
know, there's ways there that we can use
technology, we can check providers, we
can check the receiving scheme to make
sure that it isn't going in a an
overseas rainforest somewhere, you know,
that it is legitimately being invested
into a recognized DFM or model portfolio
service or multiasset funds or into
single funds where we haven't yet
adopted or utilized it because it
doesn't make financial sense for
everyone to do it. Um because it they're
they're the way we do it at the moment
enables people to put blockers on it.
Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. I know you
just touched on the widely of different
funds people can actually go into, but
is there any is is there one overlooked
strategy you think financial firms can
be using today, but they are using
they're not using to protect their
margins
from a from an investment management
point of view? Yeah, from investment
management point of view is certain
strategies that you would say are more
overlooked than they should be.
There's nothing nothing that immediately
springs to mind that I haven't sort of
Yeah. covered covered off. No. Okay.
Amazing. And also I also wanted to ask
as well so I know a lot of companies are
over relying on automation. Is there how
do companies avoid pitfalls when they
over rely? Because I feel like as you
mentioned before, you definitely need
the balance of the human expertise and
also automation. But I think some people
are looking to rely too heavily on
automations.
Yeah. So you you need you need to make
sure
that the automation is delivering the
the outcomes that you want as a business
and that your consumers want as well.
Yeah. not to be too hasty on removing
people or think that it's going to be a
good way to cost cut to improve margins
and so forth. So you need you need to
make sure that the automation is
delivering good client outcomes. It is
doing what we expect it to be doing. It
is going to give us the ability to
attract new clients, but it's also not
going to be detrimental to us retaining
clients as well. and automation is going
to be
and yeah adviceled or technology-led
advice is going to be right for some
people but yeah we have massive
demographics of the clients that we look
after you know one word that I haven't
yet used is vulnerability you know
there's where we look at ourselves as a
as an aging nation and
population I know that vulnerability
isn't just related to to age but there
is an impact of us getting getting older
advisers need to take that into into
account. Certainly one of the massive
benefits of of COVID which five years
ago, you know, a lot of us struggled
with is it did force people to adopt
technology. I think that we we'll agree
that we spent quite a lot of the time
where we were stuck at home on this
medium speaking across your teams, your
Zoom, Google Meet wasn't quite up there
at the time, but yeah, you certainly had
your teams and your Zoom. And what that
has has done is even the more mature
clients is it has forced them to do
online banking you know it has
encouraged them to speak to to family
and friends using this this method. If I
look at it as an adviser or someone
sorry that's running an advice advice
business. It enables us to deliver
advice to individuals in a more
effective manner by jumping on um a
teams or a zoom or a Google. The other
massive plus for us is that it enables
us to speak to multiple generations at
the same time. You know, where you've
got families distance, you might have
the parents up north and the kids have
have gone to London because the streets
are paved with gold and they're working
down is before it would have been very
difficult to meet in person and to get
those timings of when everyone's going
to be together. Whereas now, you know,
you can give a couple of times and days
next week and you can get two if not
three generations jumping on this. So
where we we always think of AI and what
has happened over the last couple of
years. So we're going back five years
then until this became common common
practice and that you know that in its
own has just advanced what we can do and
what we can what we can deliver. Agreed.
I digressed a little bit there from the
question.
Sorry topic for sure. So that's fine. So
Ella, you did speak about basically co
essentially being a catalyst for like
technological change. So I guess if
financial firms want to stay profitable
over the next I say one to two years.
Obviously co was a shift in technology.
So what do you think is the most urgent
shift companies in the financial
services need to make today in order to
firstly stay competitive and profitable?
So hopefully nowadays you know advisor
firms would have segmented their client
you know looked at the service that
they're delivering and seeing actually
which clients do need a service which
ones do need you know annual review
meetings and as we all know there's been
lots in the press over that since
consumer duty came in in the summer of
2023. Um, but it's it's around being
able to, you know, deliver the tools,
put people on the the right track,
particularly those that are the young
professionals coming through
accumulation, you know, setting them
them straight, having client portals. I
think you're going to see more of that
from from advice firms about um, you
know, client having access at their
fingertips to where their money is
invested. The other piece that financial
advice firms haven't really developed
too much is things like open banking. We
spend as an advice firm quite a lot of
time doing fact findiness or updating
fact finds. You know, clearly we have
information on what is in their pension,
what is in their eyes, how much life
insurance they've they've got. But we'll
always have to ask that question as to,
you know, what's your your property
worth or how much money have you got on
deposit? what might you have in your
your cash is that we don't look after.
We can we can link all that up nowadays.
Um, and you speak to people in the
advice community and it's like, well,
I'm not sure that that clients would
agree to to open banking and me, you
know, knowing at my fingertips what
their their property is worth because
we've linked it into to Zupller, knowing
what's in their three or four different
different bank accounts. But when you
when you take a step back and you
actually think, okay, I myself utilize
one of the credit agencies, you know, I
get an email every month saying that,
yeah, you your credit report is is
ready, Elliot. I go on that and it's got
my credit card balances and it's got
that I'm on the electoral role and it's
got that, you know, I've paid my bills
on time. It says there who my utility
providers are and so forth. And then I
think I don't remember consenting to
that. You know, I don't remember giving
them permission. You know, they're
dragging that financial information in
about me, but you know what? I'm quite
happy about that that I can go on. I can
see that no one's taking any money off
me, that I'm paying my bills on time. So
when you think around that positioning
and how you actually then address that
with clients, if you were to put it in
that context, I think we would see more
clients that say, "Actually, yeah,
you're right. You know, that that
information is in the public domain."
And how much easier would that make it
for my advice team? How much more
efficient would it become? How much more
can we help our clients by actually not
just at that annual review meeting but
on a almost on a day-to-day basis if we
can build some tracking in there as to
how we can help them and deliver much
better financial outcomes for them. So
they're they're the things that I think
we'll see hopefully co doesn't come back
you know but they're the things that I
think that we can see over the next
couple of years that help us to evolve
as an industry and make sure we're doing
goodbye everyone. Yeah, 100%. I believe
as the industry evolves, it's just more
convenient for the end user and I think
that's always going to be the objective
my Yeah. But I know within Sabia group,
you have been expanding through
acquisitions and strategic growth. How
does this approach help protect your
long-term profit profitability?
Yeah. say you know some some of this
this stuff will enable us to on board
client quicker give them confidence to
dealing with us as a group you know some
of the the online tools there where we
we have grown over recent years has been
through client bank book acquisitions
typically from retiring adviserss when
we look at the advice community in the
in the UK I think it's 90% of advice
firms have less than less than five
advisers there's only something like 45
or 46 firms, advice firms in the UK that
have got more than than 50 advisers. So,
you know, an element is a is providing
the clients with reassurance.
Um, you know, making sure that we're
delivering the right investment outcomes
for them, that we're looking at
cost-effective platforms, you know, what
have they got at at the moment. And you
know there is you know plenty of room in
this world for the for the one or two
person advice firms but they perhaps
don't have you know an investment team
behind them and a research t team behind
them. So certainly here at Superbia
that's where we're where we're speaking
to companies that we potentially will
acquire is is a little bit of a
differentiator for us.
I see. I guess Ellie you've given us
like just a numerous amount of insight.
So we do love a we do love a story on
the shift. So I wanted to ask what's
been one of the toughest business
decisions you've had to make and what
did you learn from it? Toughest toughest
business decisions. I think you know
tough tough business decisions normally
evolve around people. There's the the
emotional side to it. you know there's
people's livelihoods, their families,
their welfare um really and you know and
that is so important but throughout my
career there are times where decisions
have to be to be made and it's not
necessarily removing people from the
business but it's telling them perhaps
that role isn't right for them or
because of the way the world is moving
is that those you know we don't need so
many people in those roles now um and
they you know we we need to consider as
a business where we're going to become
more efficient
But a lot of those conversations can be
removed by continually encouraging our
employees to to train, to develop, to
widen their skills. You know, just at
the start of this pre-recording,
listening to you guys where you've had
different roles and you've trained in
down different different paths and
things like that is, you know, that's
certainly what I encourage with people.
But yeah, the the the toughest decisions
that you have to take are those that
normally involve people and changing the
roles that they're that they're in.
Agreed. But I feel like with the day and
age that in obviously upskin is
essential because as you said AI changes
every day and that's just one thing
that's come now. Who knows and in the
future there could be like a AI on
steroids and we have to to even get
learning quicker and quicker every each
and every day. So in terms of obviously
your vision for Superbia, what do where
do you see Superbia in the next 6 to 12
months? Do you see technology evolving
in that time? I mean that's without a
doubt, but how would you see it evolving
and yeah, just where do you want to be
in the next 12 months? Yeah. So it's
yeah, it's ensuring that that our tech
stack is is fit for purpose. you know,
we're one of the 20% of advice firms
that don't use the two major players
there. Um, in terms of our CRM, we have
uh our own dev team which are based over
in in Chennai in in India. Um, we're
currently, you know, going through we we
call it yeah transformation but it's not
massive transformation. And it's just
making sure that we've always got our
eye on that and just seeing where we can
integrate and configure systems better.
Where can we deliver a or how can we
deliver a better client portal and
client client facing documents
accessibility as well? How can we
streamline the the suitability reports
that we're delivering? Whether that be
for for new business advice, whether it
be for the review meetings that that
take place, does it need to be in a a
word format? Does it need to be in a
letter format? Can it be almost like,
you know, PowerPoint and delivered in a
in a in a better way? We we we've got to
the stage over the last few years as an
industry where we think that the the
longer the suitability report, the
better. That doesn't give a client any
greater
understanding. The most understanding
that they're going to get is in that
interaction with their advisor or that
interaction with the online site that's
given them the FAQs and the information
that they they need. That suitability
report or suitability presentation, the
playing back to them has got to have the
important facts. You know, it's got to
cover off their objectives and what
their their outcomes are. But, you know,
we or we shouldn't be I don't know. You
know, we shouldn't be paying back to
someone saying, "Okay, you know, Elliot,
you are a 50 year old male or a male in
your 50s." Actually, I've made myself
younger there. Yeah, a male in your 50s.
You know, you are married with a couple
of kids. You live in a property that is
worth this. Um, you plan to retire at
age 65. You know, they're the things
that I need. Why are you using up two
pages of a a suitability report to tell
me stuff that I've already told you?
What what I want to know from you and
why I'm paying for advice is the fact
that I've told you my current state, my
situation, my age, my dependence, what I
want you to tell me in this report is
what I should be doing. Should I be
putting more money away? Showing me the
cash flow, where what am I on track for?
Will I have a surplus? Will I need to
work longer? Can I chuck the kids into
private school? Do I need to take them
out of private school? um and those
those aspects and that's what we as at
Superior are looking for is around let's
give them the meaningful information.
Yes, we got the regulator here. We need
to replay what the goals, the objectives
the client wants delivered, but let's
let's not just play back the hard facts
that they already know. Absolutely. And
you did kind of obviously throughout
your answer obviously touched on like a
lot of refinement and you did say you're
building up your tech stack. So I guess
my question is how do you go about
getting your solutions in front of the
right people?
The right people as in clients or
potential clients? Yeah, potential
clients. So just your target market in
general.
Yeah. So you know there's there's
elements there that are done through
through social media. You can do your
networking. You can do your professional
connections. But I don't I don't think
I'm wrong in saying right across the
advice industry that the majority of new
clients that an advice business will win
is referrals from existing clients. Um
you know
so we focus on that and we should focus
on that probably more and I think that
the the industry should do. We just been
speaking there about suitability reports
or or what have you. You know, if you
are doing stuff that your existing
clients value, if you're giving them an
understanding, if you're easy to do
business with, then they will refer, you
know, rather than go out and spend loads
and loads of money on having the
snazziest website. Okay, admittedly you
need to do that if you're a DTOC
business probably, but if you've got an
advice force be behind you, yeah, have
something nice, but really focus on
looking after your existing clients.
Your existing clients have a tremendous
degree of loyalty to you. They will
refer others. But and I meet so many
businesses and firms, you know,
particularly we're speaking to around
mergers, acquisitions, and and and stuff
like that that Yeah. aren't aren't
focusing on the people that can grow
their business the quicker which is
quickest which is their existing
customers. Last one is if you could give
one piece of advice to financial leaders
hesitant about digital transformation
what would it be? Do it. Go do it. Yeah.
Test the water. Dip your toe in. Think
through it through it carefully. But
yeah, don't be don't be apprehensive.
It's not going to take away your job. If
anything, it gives more opportunity than
it does threats. Go for it. Amazing. And
finally, Elliot, for those who want to
learn more about you and your work,
where can people find you? Mar time
pension retire work also. So, be a
group. Easiest place to find me is on
LinkedIn. So, yeah, Elliot Silk. So,
Elliot with two L's and two T's. So, the
full fat version. Um, should be should
be relatively easy to find me. There's
not too many Elliot Silks in the world
that I found so far. Amazing. It's been
very very insightful conversation. Much
appreciated for your time today. Thanks,
guys. Thank you. Enjoyed it.