Many people will view being self-employed as having the freedom to be yourself. While this is true among many business types, it is not always the case for financial advisers due to the ever demanding controls of the regulator. It is not easy to be a financial adviser and at the same time run a directly authorised business.
Financial advisers who want more time to enjoy their life are best advised to stay away from direct regulation since the opposite is true. The responsibility of running your own financial advice firm is huge, often underestimated and often regretted.
To ensure you have the freedom of time, maybe to focus more on your clients or your family, yet to still be self-employed, then the answer is to engage in a ‘contract for services’ arrangement with a national firm.
An employee will find it tough to transfer to such a contract for services, but in contrast, those who are directly authorised always embrace the change with welcome relief. The employed are limited in how to conduct themselves, by their employer’s way of working. They have targets to achieve, constraints on time and expected to be present and visible, strict holiday conditions and endless hours spent reporting to their boss. Freedom is about having the ability to take control and focus on what is wanted from a working life.
You should not have to work when you do not feel like it. You should not feel guilty for taking a day off work. You should not feel pressured to generate more business. You should not feel you are working for someone else.
The answer is to go self-employed. But before you dash off and do that, self-employed does not necessarily mean more money! It does, however, mean you will have more control of your lifestyle allowing you to develop a better working relationship with your clients which will eventually convert to more money.
By self-employed, I do not mean running your own business. The best solution is to take a ‘contract for services’ and work with someone else. While they run the business, you focus on your clients. Running a business is time-consuming and costly. It does not always offer freedom, but instead more responsibility.
You have responsibility to your clients in this industry, so don’t extend that to staff, office buildings, insurances, local business tax, employee law, and regulation. Leave that to someone else.
Contracts for services are a major contributor to all areas of working in the UK today. Hundreds of such contracts for services (self-employed contracts) exist in the car industry, the technology industry, the oil industry, the nuclear industry and of course in the financial services advice industry. However, like everything, some contracts are better than others.
Control you own destiny, not by being directly authorised, but by outsourcing the regulation, professional indemnity insurance, document creation, branding, website and marketing, agency, and provider relationships, post control, software needs and other business related elements of your role.
Key Points
Like the Happy Financial Adviser, you should…
- Apply for a self-employed contract for services arrangement with a reputable national firm allowing you to manage your own diary, your working hours and your own target.
- Provide independent financial advice which broadens your client spectrum so maximising opportunities.
- Determine your own dress code, within the boundary of client expectation and not be governed by an employer
- Embrace new technology to simplify processes and to reduce administration time.
- Educate your clients on the benefits of using client web portals to enhance their experience and to save your own valuable time.
- Have the freedom to spend more time with your family, your friends and just as important, your clients, to ensure stronger relationships, to know your clients better and to maximise client understanding and opportunity
If you are a financial adviser looking for a national firm to become an independent financial adviser, then Truly Independent could be the answer you are looking for. We are an ambitious national independent financial advice firm with over 65 advisers across the country. For more information you can book a discovery session by clicking here
