Andrew Goodwin is the Managing Director and Co-founder of National IFA Truly Independent Ltd and Author of ‘The Happy Financial Adviser’.
His 20 year career in Financial Services started when he graduated from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh with an Honours Degree in Actuarial Mathematics and Statistics.
Between 1995 and 2003 he worked for General Accident (now Aviva) as a Senior Financial Consultant before moving into their corporate division where he achieved advanced qualifications in Taxation & Trusts, Supervision & Sales Management and Pensions.
In 2004 he joined National IFA Positive Solutions on a self-employed contract and during this period he recruited and mentored others into a similar role. By 2008 he was head of the North division in charge of his own recruitment team of Business Consultants.
In 2009, he recognised that the industry was changing and left Positive Solutions to set up his own multi-adviser firm with co-founder Cath Bowden called Truly Independent Ltd. With just £10,000 of investment Truly Independent Ltd today is the largest firm in Cumbria and supports more than 40 self-employed IFA’s across the UK and is growing.
7 October 2024 by Andrew Goodwin
I know this is hard to believe, but I haven’t always been the easy-going, supremely cheerful, endlessly availing soul everyone rightly sees me as today. In the past, given what I felt was due cause, I could actually be quite cantankerous. Take my battle with what I perceived to be the dark forces of a…
20 August 2024 by Andrew Goodwin
It’s very hard to do well at something – or even to enjoy it – without grasping the idea of expectation management. The reason is straightforward enough: expecting too much usually leads to disappointment and disillusionment. Most of us have probably experienced this in the course of our sporting endeavours. Let me quickly explain how…
18 July 2024 by Andrew Goodwin
Financial advisers often devote relatively little thought to their own retirement. Given that they specialise in helping other people retire happily and in comfort, the irony of this oversight is pretty striking. It’s true that everyone thinks about retirement in some way, of course, and advisers are certainly no exception in that regard. Yet simply…
11 June 2024 by Andrew Goodwin
Back in the 1990s there was a cartoon series called Pinky and the Brain. It was co-created by none other than Steven Spielberg. The titular characters were two lab mice – the first an accident-prone goofball, the second a raging megalomaniac. The premise was neatly established by a brief exchange that prefixed every episode… Pinky:…
15 May 2024 by Andrew Goodwin
It seems reasonable to suppose our chances of finding happiness will increase if we work hard and earn well. I know this can’t be true, though, because I meet so many financial advisers who freely admit to being miserable. Sure enough, these individuals have put in the hours. Sure enough, they live pretty comfortably. But…
19 April 2024 by Andrew Goodwin
Remember the classic confrontation between man and machine in 2001: A Space Odyssey? Astronaut David Bowman is trying to re-enter his ship, but the vessel’s onboard computer, HAL 9000, refuses to let him in, famously telling him: “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.” When Apple launched Siri, the “digital assistant” built into…
18 March 2024 by Andrew Goodwin
Anyone who dabbles in philosophy is likely to come across the concept of logical fallacies. Those of us who aren’t quite Bertrand Russell material may think of these as arguments that simply don’t stack up. One of the most common examples takes the following form: “All X are Y, therefore all Y are X.” The…
15 January 2024 by Andrew Goodwin
Some years ago I played a round of golf with an accountancy undergraduate. We needn’t concern ourselves here with who won. What I remember most vividly – and you may think this says something about my performance on the day – is a discussion about business management. At one point I asked the undergraduate if…
15 March 2021 by Andrew Goodwin
This year we introduced our Motivational Monday video presentations for advisers, ensuring they can stay up-to-date with the latest company news, tips to improve their business, new technologies at their disposal and much more. Recently we launched our three videos to help support advisers with their succession planning and we broke them down into the…
10 February 2021 by Andrew Goodwin
Unlike other non-regulated business, financial advisers have a third administrative function governed by the authorities; on compliance, regulation and generic industry administration. Directly authorised firms tend to have their own staff for this activity or they outsource to other compliance firms, however the best system is t align with a company specifically set up to…