Charlotte, welcome to the team!
This is Charlotte (pictured with one of her beloved dogs, Stan-Lee).
She’s Sam’s eldest daughter – and she’s also the newest addition to the Bow Financial Services team.
We pride ourselves on being a family business: when you pick up the phone to us, it’s either Chris or Sam at the other end. Either way, it’s someone you know and trust. That the way we’ve always done business.
As our business is growing, we want to continue supporting you in the same way, so we’re delighted to welcome Charlotte. Fresh from her role at charity Age UK, she’s going to be taking over a lot of the admin work and will be your main point of contact.
We’re really excited to have her on board.
The next generation
A benefit of having Charlotte in the team is that as well as being extremely organised (we love a spreadsheet!) and being incredible when it comes to customer service, it also helps us expand without moving away from our ethos. Keepings things small has always allowed us to maintain our values of integrity, trust and a personalised service.
That’s why up until now we’ve been reluctant to employ anyone else. We both work well as a team and haven’t wanted anything to get in the way of the close relationship we have with our clients. But having a family member on board (not least, one who’s as capable as Charlotte) means we’re employing someone with a personal stake in the business.
But keeping it in the family doesn’t mean we’re cutting corners. Charlotte is signed up to all the same policies and entitlements you’d expect of any other employee: health & safety, GDPR, social media, annual and parental leave. When taking her on, we did what we do in any other situation, and what we encourage others to do – we followed the professional advice (from an employment lawyer Aisha who we’ve worked with for many years and would happily recommend).
Most importantly, she’s enrolled into a pension. Of course, this is a legal minimum requirement nowadays. Employers are expected to contribute at least 3% of their employee’s earnings.
But we’re going above and beyond that. In a competitive marketplace, the minimum just isn’t good enough. Employers need to do more to hold on to their best staff. An attractive benefits package is no longer something ‘nice to have,’ it’s a vital tool for employers if they want to keep hold of their staff. And just because Charlotte’s family, we’re not taking her for granted.
In the longer term, we’ve got potentially even bigger plans. We’re putting her through her financial exams on her way to becoming qualified as an adviser. This is no mean undertaking. It requires hundreds of hours of study and exams to work all the way up to something like a Level 4 Diploma of Financial Planning, the industry benchmark for financial planners.
For us, this is an important investment not just in Charlotte’s future, but in ours as well. As our business grows, adding more than one adviser gives us greater security and stability. So, it’s better for you as clients as well.
So hopefully you’ll be seeing more of Charlotte in the months and maybe years to come. We’ll track her progress and keep you updated. It’s not easy qualifying as an adviser!
The importance of having a great back-up team
One of the most important reasons for bringing Charlotte in is it allows us to bring a vital piece our business in house – our paraplanning.
Sam will now be in charge of this area, rather than us having to rely on an external service.
Paraplanning is crucial for any financial adviser, large or small. Although it’s viewed as a background role, they’re involved in far more than people realise.
To give you a brief glance behind the curtain. Paraplanners are essential for technical support, closely involved in research and analysis, and there to ensure we meet the highest standards of due diligence. A good paraplanner is invaluable in ensuring the advice you get matches your exact needs.
For clients, paraplanners also help keep costs down, because without one an adviser would be taking on a lot of these important tasks – and charging adviser rates.
Like many smaller advisers, we’ve previously used an external service for this, but we’ve long had ambitions to do it ourselves. As well as controlling costs for our clients, it also gives us greater control. We like to work quickly and sometimes this just isn’t possible when working with a third party.
Many of these improvements will be invisible to the eye. Clients will still have the same personal and friendly service. But with Sam at the helm of our paraplanning, and Charlotte an exciting new addition to our team, we’re confident this new structure will give an even better service for our clients.