Back2Y – Among Like-Minded People
It’s always nice when you find yourself among like-minded people, especially when they’re talking about things you’re really passionate about. If you believe strongly in a particular set of values, a conference about those same values might seem like preaching to the converted. But it’s actually reassuring, gratifying – exciting even – to be in a room full of professionals who get fired up about the same stuff that you do.
That’s exactly what happened for financial planner Richard Peters at Back2y, a large annual professional event billed as ‘The Lifestyle Financial Planning Conference’. In just a few years, Richard has gone from attendee to participant to becoming part of the event’s ongoing story. Here’s how it played out.
What financial planners really want
As professional planners, we’re absolutely dedicated to understanding what our clients want from life and doing our level best to help them achieve it. But sooner or later we need to give over a bit of time to think about what we want too, as professionals. We need to think about why we’re really in this business at all. What’s the outcome that we want?
More and more we’re seeing a divergence between financial planners working within product-led business models and those who are tired of that way of working. We’re seeing a growing awareness and enthusiasm for ‘lifestyle financial planning’ which puts the client front and centre and focuses on how they can achieve the best possible lifestyle with what they have available to them.
Fortitude is definitely in the second camp, and back in September last year Richard was in a roomful of professionals who felt exactly the same. The Back2y conference is all about sweeping away ‘the industry’ approach of providers, products and pushiness, and instead replacing it with a focus on outcomes – those of your clients for their life and legacy and your own too, in your profession and the contribution that you make to it.
A recurring story
Richard was impressed and buoyed by the experience of hearing other professionals discussing the merits of giving clients what they actually want, but the idea of breaking out of old ways of working spoke to him too. As someone who left behind a product-centric way of doing business before, to forge ahead with a career move based on values, Richard saw his own story in many of the attendees. In fact, it struck a chord with him to such an extent that he was keen to take a role in the following year’s conference.
After the conference Richard got in touch with Back2y founder Paul Armson to discuss his potential future involvement and that’s how, one year later, he came to find himself on stage as part of a question and answer panel on lifestyle financial planning. As a financial planner at Fortitude Richard is no stranger to talking to people, since that’s really what the job is all about. But it tends to be individuals or couples – 500 people at the International Convention Centre in Birmingham doesn’t come up quite so often, so that was a definite excursion out of his comfort zone.
Why would he do that? Well, if you believe in a message you’re also likely to be passionate about getting that message across. Richard is keen to help other financial advisers to enrich their own lives and to have the courage and conviction to undertake a similar journey to his own. In a 90-minute appearance he joined Paul and four other lifestyle financial planners, interacting with the audience through polls and fielding plenty of questions.
And they were pretty searching questions too. Along with the hows (how to create a lifestyle financial planning business model) there were also the whys (why do you do what you do?), and that’s what the conference is really all about. Back in the pre-Fortitude days of Richard’s own career, he experienced the frustration and dissatisfaction of working for firms that perhaps focused more on products than on helping clients to meet their goals. That’s what inspired him to get out and instead do what he really wanted to do. Appearing at Back2y was a chance to tell that story but also to help others in a similar position – financial advisers who might want to take that step but need an extra bit of encouragement – to do the same.
We often talk about enriching lives for our clients, but it’s just as important for us to think about enriching lives for professionals – to turn a chore into a passion and to have a ‘why’ that we’re genuinely proud of. After all, financial professionals who really care about what they do every day can only be a good thing for the clients they serve.
And the story continues
Just as Richard was impressed by the experience of attending the conference last year, he was delighted when he heard from another financial planner who went away inspired and ready to take action. That planner left the conference with the feeling that maybe this is for them and perhaps they should do something about it. They too made contact with Paul Armson and through him, found their way to Richard.
They've now taken their own first steps on a journey to what they really want out of life, walking away from their firm and towards being a proper lifestyle financial planner. It’s a bold move that requires dedication and real passion, but as Richard said on stage, ‘if you believe in something you will act upon it.’