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UnCANNed – Nick’s Pick of the News

UnCANNed is a regular but light-hearted feature brought to you from Nick Cann, CEO, at the IFP. Well known for his forthright views and straight talking, UnCANNed is Nick’s new weekly update bringing you his thoughts on a topical Financial Planning issue in true Nick Cann style.

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Blog #65 - Working together - 14/05/2010

Another week comes to an end and history has been made yet again. This is I suppose the same every week but somehow most weeks the history is fairly boring. This week, the IFP board confirmed that we should push ahead and look at how we can offer a level 4 qualification to members and potential members. So many it seems would like to join the IFP but are initially put off because they have to go to the CII or others to get the benchmark qualifications. It has never been the best “sales” message to deliver and this should now change within 2010 which is so exciting to go along with the launch of the Paraplanner qualification in July.

In addition to this momentous decision, I believe that there was a change of government and it is great to know that David Cameron is always going to want to know what NC, or Nick as I like to call myself, thinks and wants to do. With little lobbying it would appear that we have established a good platform to find the ear of the politicians. It was unfortunate this week when David Cameron was reminded about the answer to the question about his favourite joke to which he had replied Nick Clegg!! We have to be so careful about the things that we say that can potentially come back to bite us!

It will of course be interesting to see how the coalition performs as a team. Sometimes it looks great on paper to be able to pick the best individuals for the job (look at Real Madrid or Ospreys rugby team) but they cannot perform at the highest level as a team. It would be an interesting exercise to go around financial services to pick the best players for certain jobs and then try and mould them into a team. It would of course be difficult to find talent in certain areas. Perhaps New Model Adviser will run this idea one week after they have gone through the whole variation of top tens. I have heard that they will be running top 10 “readers’ wives and husbands” during the summer which should be either very interesting or very scary.

Went up to Scotland this week for the first of the Threesixty regional conferences and some really good business development sessions from Lawrence Emms (Scottish Widows) and Phil Billingham (IFP Board member and Threesixty).  Couple of really interesting thoughts:

What do your clients say about you when they finish a meeting and recount it to a friend? Do you think that they even mention it or can they tell a great story?

Do you or your firm still offer a “free” meeting which you tell the clients about so that they always remember the word free or are you able to use other words to convey the same e.g. “at our expense”?

People were raving about a book by Tim Ferris called “The four day week”. I appreciate that it would be a chore for most to move up to this amount of commitment but apparently a good read. One for the summer holidays which will be fast upon us.

Next week I am looking forward to the Art & Science conference which will be brilliant. There are a couple of spaces left if anybody wants to still come (18/19 May). There are some tennis courts there so if anybody fancies a game that would be great. I need to improve to be able to beat Operations Director Steve Gazzard who has now won both our games so far this year. The new racket has gone back because that clearly doesn’t work! Just need to get better now!

We shall have some exciting news about the Ryder Cup in connection with the main IFP conference 20-22 September so watch out for IFP announcements. I note that as a bit of a school boy error, I am away for the weekend of the Ryder Cup. At least I shan’t have people questioning how I got the hospitality tickets to the event anyway. I shall be sitting on a beach in Mallorca.

Have a good weekend everybody. A calm one this week after the excitement of the school prom last (all went off really well and Jemma looked gorgeous and had a great time). Greenhouse nearly built and so tomatoes in 2011 will be brilliant! Have a good one and hope to see you at the Art & Science next week.

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