“Good on you”

“Are you sure about this?”

“What about your employer benefits?”

“How will you cope without regular income?”

“That’s a bold move”

“We’re very proud of you”

“What about your pension?”

“Will you be knocking doors selling insurance?”

“That’s a good fit for you, but where will your customers come from?”

“How will you make money?”

“Have you got any clients?”

All of these comments were received as news of my planned career change filtered out during the early days of 2019. After 24 years in paid full-time employment with BT (mainly, 20 years) and Colt Technologies (most recently, 3 years) I was re-skilling and starting my own financial services and advice business, in partnership with St James’s Place. It was a big change. I was 45 years of age, with a wife, 3 daughters in primary school and all the overhead costs you would typically expect of someone at that stage of life.

As you can read for yourselves, most of the comments above have a slightly negative slant. The consistent theme is they were posed as questions, not statements. Some, a few, were entirely positive and actually made as positive statements. I cherished those positive reactions.

The slightly negative comments/questions were no surprise to me at all. They were already front and centre in my own mind. My own Chimp paradox (Ref: The Chimp Paradox by Steven Peters) was regularly poking me in the arm saying, “you’re being childish. You have a family to support. Grow up. Get a job”. The negative comments fuelled the Chimp and the negative thoughts in my mind. Despite this, I was able to overpower him. Why and How?

To answer that question, allow me first to paint a brief picture of my life in employment. Across 24 years, I had maybe 2 bad ones. Periods where I made mistakes or the people I was working with were just not my cup of tea. I was content, I had developed, I had enjoyed a nice variety of roles, had been promoted a number of times, had great employee benefits, a sound pension that I had always been a member of (thanks for the guidance Mum!), the ability to travel, the ability to work from home and some fantastic office locations in UK & Europe. Despite all this, I knew it wasn’t for me, forever. I was “playing a role”. I knew I was acting as someone I really wasn’t as I went to the office each day. The simple truth is I had ended up working in accounting for a large corporate. It was not a passion. It was not a well thought-out and well implemented plan from secondary education onwards. It just happened.

As I grew more mature and became able to reflect with some honesty, I realised, very clearly, the lack of passion for what I was doing was becoming more harmful to me than the salary/security was beneficial to me. This was an important reflection. It gave me clarity as to why I needed to make a change. In a wider context I would suggest that being very honest and straightforward with yourself is important but more difficult than most imagine. The comfort zone is a precarious place.

It was time to take action, but how would I go about it?

How 1. Recognise your strengths. I had been a very satisfied client of SJP for some years, so had an understanding of its partnership and operations. Previously, when living in London, I had worked with a very good IFA, so I had some reasonable knowledge of the wider industry and its “ways of working”. I loved the fact I always came out of meetings with my FA energised and excited for whatever plans we were implementing. I loved the fact it was REAL. It was NOT budgets, forecasts, sub P&Ls, nominal ledgers or procurement contracts. On reflection, it was no surprise the jobs I had enjoyed most in BT had an element of direct interaction with the public, with the consumer and small business customer base. It had real impact to people, families and businesses. That comes with pressure, of course, but this was a pressure I was passionate about. I was also skilled in financial management, numerate and comfortable working with large volumes and large financial plans. It is often easy to forget your own skills when you are simply fulfilling a role day-in-day-out. I had to remind myself of that  

How 2). Conversation. I spoke to people in the industry. My very helpful near neighbour who runs his own financial services business, my old SJP partner, my old IFA, current SJP partners, friends, family and old work colleagues. The most important aspect of this stage was honesty, closely followed by confidence. Those honest conversations allowed me to believe strongly that I had the requisite skills to build, grow and run a successful business in the financial services sector.

How 3) Confront your weaknesses. To silence the chimp, I decided to visit a business coach. Money I could ill afford at the time, but money well spent. In these sessions we addressed the doubt and the question, “am I just mad giving up a good job & good salary?” We discussed this whole process openly and put some very simple steps in place to ease my concerns, increase confidence in my decision and my skill set. I really am reminded of these meetings when I see images about the small steps to success/victory/achievement. The work & effort that goes unnoticed.

Opening a business bank account, creating a limited company via Companies House, registering for self-assessment, updating personal budget models, working on a brand, establishing a new LinkedIn profile, drinking lots of coffee. All of these things built my confidence in small steps. I encourage anybody who considering a career change to just focus on the small steps. The whole picture, the whole business plan can consume your energy and focus and actually result in you achieving very little.

(Note – I would love to credit the author of the pic)

How 4) Keep it simple. To this day my business plan remains very simple. Comfortably spaced on 2 pages with a distinct absence of tonnes of metrics and measurements. “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth” as Mike Tyson once famously said. I prefer to use case studies from the military which broadly follow the theme that “no battle plan survives the first contact with the enemy”. Not that my clients are “the enemy” of course, but one the best things about this job is that no two people and no two peoples circumstances and aims are the same. To aim to track and measure the outcome of future business would be an exercise in futility. I much prefer a broader approach on the values I want to bring and the quality of service I will provide.

I recall with some ill-ease the amount of time I spent in former roles, reconciling performance to a plan that was formed 12-24 months previously, mainly so someone could have an answer for their boss, not for any great benefit to the end customer.

Understand your core values and live them, but don’t spend weeks with your head in spreadsheets or documents.

How 5). Sharpen the saw. Whilst I had qualifications, experience and skill as a commercial accountant, I was not a qualified financial adviser. Going back to the books in the first half of 2019 and working through a series of exams was tough but rewarding. Spending weeks of that summer up in Solihull at an SJP academy centre was hard but worthwhile. I met new people, planned in my downtime and developed the necessary knowledge base of the financial services environment. Achieving full FCA accreditation ahead of launching the business in September 2019 was memorable.

I keep the saw sharp now. It is important and working in partnership with SJP means I regularly re-certify licences for investment, retirement, inheritance tax, business relief planning frequently, to name just a few.    

Finally, all of the above is written in the hope it will help or inspire people who are considering a change in job at what could be regarded as a “later stage in life”. It is certainly not meant as a success story looking back. Whilst I feel great pride in the changes I’ve made and that I am working in an environment where I feel completely authentic and motivated, I have not cracked it. I still worry about those overhead costs and I still have moments of doubt. Doubt about whether I did the right thing and whether I am moving the business forward in the right way and at the right pace. But I fall back on some of the above to just keep going,  suppress the sporadic doubts and build a better business for me, my family & my clients.