Validpath’s guide to starting a profitable IFA practice

Leading IFA network Validpath has produced this excellent guide on setting up a new financial planning business. It is aimed primarily at firms of accountants considering venturing into the sector as an added service to their clients......

Please don't even consider setting up a financial planning practice if any of the following apply;

• you're already too busy;
• you consider financial services work to be a potentially useful 'add-on' which you may develop, time permitting;
• you do not want to study for the required professional qualifications or you are unlikely to be in a position to 'bring in' your own IFA from outside;
• you are part of a conservative, multi-partner practice, with some of the more influential partners nearer to retirement than you are;
• you are in partnership with colleagues who would prefer to refer their own clients externally, as it more rapidly generates an initial return;
• you are not prepared to market the service in a sustained and consistent manner;
• there is any suggestion that you, or your partners, see financial-planning as ‘something else’ that may be offered to the client, after the real work is done;
• you have a sense that ‘financial services’ is somehow sleasy or faintly unethical.

In our experience, although financial services is in many ways the perfect value-added service for accountancy professionals to offer to their clients, there are far too many instances where it simply doesn't work, and usually for the above kinds of reasons.

So, if any of the above apply – don't do it!

On the other hand...good-quality financial-planning is an almost perfect fit if you work in a proactive way with your clients, and are already moving your Practice's service format towards the value-added end of the spectrum. Whilst there are plenty of financial 'product-sellers' out there, there is a dearth of financial-planners who will work alongside the client to help optimise his/her personal financial security at every stage of life. If you are interested in that kind of ongoing, two-way financial relationship, then financial-planning may well be the right service to develop into.

Effective financial-planners command high hourly rates, or may charge significant fixed fees for their work, so this can be a lucrative business if you approach it correctly, and if you have a thoughtfully designed business proposition that suits your clients’ actual needs. This booklet is not a long publication, but it is a distillation of our own observations, based upon many years of practical experience in the field.