Master Later Life Lending - By Air
The "Master Later Life Lending" podcast is designed specifically for equity release specialists and mainstream mortgage advisors who serve clients over the age of 50. Hosted by industry veteran Paul Glynn, our mission is to equip you with the knowledge and tools needed to excel in the dynamic world of later life lending.
Each episode features in-depth discussions with leading experts, focusing on the unique financial needs of older borrowers. We tackle key issues such as dispelling myths around equity release, exploring the latest product innovations, and understanding the regulatory changes that impact your practice.
Our goal is to empower you to provide the best advice and solutions to your clients, whether they are traditional equity release customers or emerging younger later life borrowers. By staying ahead of market trends and enhancing your expertise, you can build trust with your clients and grow your advisory practice.
Join us on this journey to mastering later life lending, and ensure you’re equipped to meet the evolving needs of your clients. Subscribe now to stay informed, inspired, and ahead in this crucial segment of financial services.
Master Later Life Lending - By Air
Education vs. Experience: What Really Drives Growth?
In this episode of Master Later Life Lending, host Will Hale is joined by industry leaders Paul Saroya (Viva Retirement), Jon Sommerville (LIBF), Dan Holden (Air), and Sue Reed (ERC) to explore the real value of adviser education: is it the key to unlocking business growth, or just another regulatory checkbox?
Together, they unpack the practical impact of ongoing learning, the importance of real-world application beyond qualifications, and how advisers can use education to stay competitive in a rapidly evolving market. With insights into balancing time, boosting credibility, and delivering better client outcomes, this episode is a must-listen for any adviser questioning the ROI of professional development in the later life lending space.
Welcome to Master Later Life Lending, the podcast where we explore the latest trends, challenges and opportunities in the later life lending market. I'm your host, will, and whether you're an equity release specialist or a mainstream mortgage advisor, this show is designed to help you stay ahead of the curve as you navigate the unique needs of older clients. In this episode, we're asking the question is advisor education really the key to growth or just a waste of time? We challenge the value of education in the later life lending space. Is it truly the key to unlocking growth or just another box to tick? As financial advisors, we often question whether the time and money spent on education results in tangible business outcomes. We explore why education should go beyond just certifications and how it can be a game changer in an evolving market. We also tackle the burning question can advisors afford to ignore it, or is ongoing education essential for long-term success?
Speaker 1:We're joined by experts Paul Soroya from Viva Retirement, john Somerville from LIBF, dan Holden from AIR and Sue Reid from the ERC to challenge some of the biggest misconceptions around learning and growth in later life lending. So let's get started. So let's get started. So jumping right into it. And, john, I'm going to come to you for this first question. Would you say that ongoing education can be used as a strategic advantage for forward-thinking advisors, or is it really just another regulatory hoop for advisors to jump through?
Speaker 2:there's definitely advantages to keeping your knowledge up to date and, um, well, you know, as you know, my thoughts on it. I was going to bring in a sporting analogy. I thought was probably a good idea to keep the sporting people happy, um, but you know what it's like when you're sort of at school and everybody does sport together and everybody's training together and everybody gets to a sort of decent standard, don't they? And then when you leave school, some people continue and they keep training and they keep going on, they keep going to sports clubs and they keep running or they keep playing football or they keep playing whatever sport they get into and they keep themselves fit and healthy and all the rest of it. And those of us and I've been guilty of that in the past where I stopped training and I look at others around me and I look at them I think they're doing so much better than I am because they've kept training, they've kept going, they've kept the fitness going. And I think that that also applies to your knowledge and skills, where, to keep your knowledge and skills sharp and up to date and keep effectively your um educational fitness at its absolute peak, you've got to keep going at it, and if you don't, others will fill that gap for you. I can absolutely. You know.
Speaker 2:So where you thought you were pretty good at football when you were a 16, there are thousands of others that will easily sort of walk past you. You know, and, and you know, you've got to keep practicing. And that's another thing. You know, looking behind me, you can see all these lovely guitars.
Speaker 2:If you do not, there's no natural talent here as far as anybody playing musical instruments are concerned certainly not me, I can assure you, um, but it's if anybody that picks up a guitar and thinks they're going to be slashed from guns and roses straight away, you know, and then find all of a sudden they're disappointed because they can't do it, it's because they're not practicing. And you've got to keep practicing, you've got to keep going at these things and that way, believe it or not, you get really good at it, and when you're really good at it, your clients notice you're really good at it. So does it have a strategic advantage? Hopefully, that analogy really brings it to life. But that's really where I see it and I think that, um, educationally, if you keep your cpd going and treat it like you are training at the gym. That's where the strength comes from so.
Speaker 1:So, paul, as a practitioner in the market, does that resonate with you? Do you find sort of keeping up to date with your education actually helps you generate more business and actually help support more customers over the line in terms of taking them through to completion?
Speaker 3:yeah, absolutely. It's a really great analogy. Um, for me, too many advisors and they basically close the door on business every day because the the tools in their toolbox can't hit help that client situation. So with the ongoing learning and keeping up to date with everything, it makes them a bit more forward thinking and they can get the commercial advantage, as john said, by either really spotting that referral opportunity because they know what's going on in the market and passing that on, or even realizing themselves. Actually, this is the area that I should be getting into. Let me do that every day, practice every day and become good at it myself.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, definitely thanks, paul, and actually dan. That maybe takes us naturally onto the. The second question I wanted to ask, which is when we think about education or or qualifications, is is it enough just to think in those terms or actually should we be thinking more about the real world application of that learning and how it can be used in terms of problem solving? I mean, you speak to a lot of advisors through the, the work we do as air academy, so is that something that that, again, you you think lands with with those advisors that you speak to?
Speaker 4:yeah, I think I think it's a really good question.
Speaker 4:Well, I think again using an analogy from my own background, you know I've got a phd in computational chemistry.
Speaker 4:12 years ago I published papers in the top journals in the in the world, spoke internationally, but if I was to go into a chemistry lab today I wouldn't have a clue where to start because it's moved on and actually the danger of qualifications is if we don't keep that knowledge up to date, the market moves past it and we assume we know what's going on. So I think the real world kind of application on case studies or really keeping up to date on how the innovations in the market is working or how referrals work or any of those more practical kind of applied learning opportunities is really important because if we don't do that we stand still and I really like Paul's analogy. A second thing about we close the door on business every day. Sometimes I think education is seen as a cost opposed to an investment and actually the cost of not having that education is missing out on all those great opportunities that come into you every day through your customers.
Speaker 1:Thanks, dan and Sue. Just building on that, I think one thing the Equity Release Council do really well actually is making sure that you remain relevant to how the market is changing and evolving. So does that apply as well to your thoughts on sort of education and how that can be applied to real world situations?
Speaker 5:Yes, definitely. I mean we at the council. We're just undergoing a standards refresh, so we're bringing our standards more up to date and we've reviewed all the points in our standards, so we're learning all the time. Every day is a school day. I always say that you know, there's not a single day that goes by, even after 40 plus years in financial services, when you don't learn something. And if you're not learning something every day, then you're not doing your job. Right, really, are you? So yeah, we at the council promote education.
Speaker 5:We have webinars, all sorts of events that people can attend, and learning opportunities. I think it's really interesting to see how many people don't take up those opportunities. You do tend to see the same faces at these events and you do see the same attendee list for webinars. You know, once you get into the groove of learning, you want to learn more. For me, it's about how do we encourage people to enter that world. It's very difficult to persuade advisors sometimes that they need to make time to learn. It's not a waste of their time, as Dan said, it's an investment investment of your time so let's explore that in a little bit more detail.
Speaker 1:John, just responding to sue's point there, I suppose how, as an industry, do we encourage more advisors to engage in what's available to them in terms of training and education?
Speaker 2:yeah, we've got to make it accessible. I think that's the real key to this um. So, as suce quite rightly pointed out, um, you know, we go to a lot of events. Um, it's so refreshing to see new people turn up. I can't tell you, you know, and that way that you can learn from the guys that I mean don't get me wrong we need those guys turning up regularly. The guys that turn up regularly, they're there because they want to keep learning. We love seeing them and and that's guys and girls, I I should say to make that completely clear and it's the same for seeing new starters, so you know, and people wanting to get into the industry. So something I'm very, very much a part of is something called the New Talent Alliance, which sits next to the Consumer Duty Alliance, and we want to bring new talent into all parts of the industry, whether it's financial advice, mortgage advice or later life lending and making sure that that is more and more accessible for a learning perspective to get into it. And the other um challenge is to ensure that those people that maybe don't regularly trade in this particular area that they are able and willing to keep their knowledge up to date, because the dangers of not doing it are really quite scary because the market, as Paul's already said, it moves on so much. I mean, this is probably the biggest changing marketplace in all of financial services product ranges going forward. I think that it's more innovative, getting more flexible, is certainly more accessible for clients, and advisors really need to keep on top of this, and so what we need to do as an industry is make sure that CPD is there, it's accessible, it's clear what is available to them. So what kind of CPD is going to be advantageous to somebody?
Speaker 2:Uh, you know, I like dan's discussion about taking his, uh, his degree, but obviously things have moved on. Um, you know, interestingly, we just um marked out a lawn, a circular lawn, at home, um, and used two pi r squared to calculate the, the, the, how much lawn we needed, because it was sir, because it's circle, right, and uh, it. So you, the things that you do learn and you remember from school brilliant, you know. But, uh, you know, could I go into calculus right now, I'd probably struggle a little bit. So, you know, you've got to think well, where can I find that information? What is that actually going to be useful to me? But, interestingly, pi r squared was really useful. So in you know and you just bend diagrams. Not so much I didn't need that to do the gardening, but certainly needed the um uh pi r squared.
Speaker 1:I wasn't sure we were going to get into a discussion on pi r squared within this podcast, but but, but, but they. But there you go. But, but, but, dan, just building on something John said there, when you sort of engage with advisors, sort of through the academy, what are the areas where you feel they need most support?
Speaker 4:And again, particularly as he said, with the evolving market, you know where are the gaps at the moment and where, as an industry, do we really need to sort of concentrate in upping the skill set and upping the knowledge I think the um, the whole load of buzzwords that we've been using probably for a year, two years um around this market, around, uh, working in silos or affordability or health fields, and and it's it's digestible kind of learning around those subjects that really kind of are benefit focused. So why do we want to understand what, um, we mean by affordability and what's the real impact on our customers for that, and from an academy perspective, what we've seen is there's been a real take up on on video engagement, so watching things back after events have happened, or short, bite-sized learning pieces to fit into people's busy schedules. So I think, um, the key topic areas essentially are all the new emerging trends. So actually this is innovation in the market with different products. What's that actually mean and how can I digest that and apply that to my role?
Speaker 4:I think that's the key thing we need to kind of continue kind of engaging with and with the rise of artificial intelligence and the way that is almost transforming the market as well. And the way that is almost transforming the market as well is how do we use those human skills to complement that and make sure the advisor has a place in the future of this sector we often hear about is artificial intelligence overtaking our jobs, whereas actually no. It's rebuilding that utilization rate so we can spend more time with our customers, which is, as advisors, where they want to be. So it's using those different um or, I suppose, thematic areas that seem to be coming through the market and really taking the time to actually understand what they mean and, more importantly, how does that help their customer, because that will help them commercially going forward as well paul, I'd like to explore from your perspective, sort of how that works in practice.
Speaker 1:I think all of us sometimes can sort of risk, sort of theorizing and sort of talking in terms of ideals about you know what advisors should do in this space and you know moan that we don't get the level of engagement. But it's hard out there as an advisor, isn't it? Particularly at the moment. You know spending enough time acquiring enough customers and then you know having to deal with all of this sort of product changes and rate changes and LTV withdrawals and all of those things. I mean it's pretty tough out there for advisors. So how do you make it work? How do you give yourself enough time to develop your knowledge and understanding as well?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is hard out there.
Speaker 3:You know it's a difficult market, but you know, the thing that we do is we go back to the client every time and start with the client.
Speaker 3:So once we see a client, if we're not in uh, full knowledge of all the options open to them, then we're not doing the right job for them. Um, and as everyone else has said, the market has evolved I mean even the later life market just the last 12 months. If you got your equity release badge 24 months ago and you haven't done much in the market, then actually when you're seeing clients which is the hardest thing to do to get in front of a client you're then not necessarily giving them the best advice for them. So actually it's just making sure you're up to date, grabbing that If the market's hard, it means there's more time to be allocating to be doing other things, and the most important thing for us is to keep an up-to-date with what's going on in the market as Daniel said, the thematic things that are coming up, and making sure we're on top of that so that when we're speaking to that gold dust client, we're giving them best advice I think it's about habits.
Speaker 5:So getting into the habits of learning.
Speaker 5:Setting aside, you know, maybe maybe friday afternoon it's not the best time, but at a certain time part of the week you know, a couple of hours or even just an hour.
Speaker 5:Um, when that is your learning time, you will do some reading or you'll look at some articles. Um, we all get most of us get bombarded with things from um strategy or solutions. Um, make sure you're signed up to all of those things and make sure you dip into them and learn what's going on in your market. That doesn't take more than five or ten minutes a day, but it does actually give you a lot more credibility and market knowledge, which is really important and sorry to dominate, I just wanted to go back on something that john was saying. Um, at the, at our summit in may in london, we will be having a special work stream or a section of the proceedings which will be devoted to new advisors and we're working with John and LIBF on that and there will be this whole section for people who are new to the industry and how they can progress within it and the learning that they can undertake. So watch this space register for the summit.
Speaker 1:I think is the message there. That's, uh, that's a great call to action. See, certainly be great to see new advisors attending that summit, wouldn't it? I think we need new blood in the industry and, um and john, just building on that, I mean, maybe you can give us a little bit more insight around what will be happening at the summit. But I suppose the learning needs of those new advisors can be very varied depending on their background. Some of them will may be coming from mainstream mortgage world. Some will be coming from sort of wealth or investment. So how do we make sure we tailor the education depending on sort of the background, knowledge or experience that that new advisors have?
Speaker 2:yeah, funny if I was talking exactly about this yesterday with the new talents alliance, we we if I was talking exactly about this yesterday with the new talents alliance, we we. Um thing about later life is has this danger of falling between several stalls within the marketplace? So you have flange and advisors, um, who traditionally look at other solutions in later life, from pensions etc. And investments, um. Then you have mortgage advisors who are um, very transactional, and rightly so, because that's what it's all about the number of transactions getting the people into their houses, that sort of thing. They're helping, doing a really important job, getting aspiring people into their new homes, et cetera. It's fantastic, but it is very transactional. And then we have this later life piece in the middle that needs both of those skills, and so we need to encourage people to first of all see why this is so important and why it's a safe.
Speaker 2:It's a very well-regulated, very well-run part of the marketplace and it's exceptionally important that clients have access to it and a choice given to them. But obviously that choice needs an education for the advisor, and so what we're trying to do with the summit in May is we'll have a separate section that is devoted to people who want to get into this marketplace but don't know enough or afraid to ask the questions or don't know what the process looks like. So we're going to be running a whole section, which will run for most of the morning and part of the afternoon, which will help advisors, new or existing, to understand how to get into the market from start to finish. So, beginning with qualifications, which I know we're kind of walking over the qualification it's a one-stop and then you move on to other things, but it's still important to get that basic. That's the two pi? R bit or pi? R squared bit, isn't it? You know that's the bit that you know you need to get that bit right, um.
Speaker 2:But then how do you market?
Speaker 2:How do you get those clients in the first place?
Speaker 2:How do you um? What are the soft skills needed? What kind of fact-finding skills do you need? What product knowledge do you need? Who are the um bdms to go to? You know what sort of information do you need to transact um a piece of later life lending and what tnc rules are there, and all those things will go into it so that if somebody comes out of it's really fully informed. But they also have access to existing advisors within the summit, which is fantastic, because you've got this mingle, then, of new people and existing people, which is what we were talking about earlier, so it's really going to be really exciting to have that. At the same time, as you know hopefully you know we're going to be talking to a lot of CMAP holders within our own membership at LIBF, as you can imagine. You know it's quite vast To invite them to come along, because those are the likely to be the people who would like to come into the market but haven't really made that step yet, and that's really where you know where we're going to focus our attention.
Speaker 1:John, it's really interesting the bit you talk about around learning from others who are already doing the job. One of the things I've always been struck with this sector, and particularly Ayers membership, is how willing advisors are to share their knowledge and experience. I think it's a sector that is very sort of warm and welcoming and inclusive. I don't know, paul, if you've got any sort of case studies or examples of that happening within your business or I. I know you're very generous, actually, with your time with the erc and and with others as well. So again, if we've got sort of listeners who are maybe sort of sitting on the sidelines wondering whether to come in, what would be your message for them?
Speaker 3:yeah, I think for them it's really important to step up and ask for that help first. First of all, because it's very easy for companies like us to put our arm around people and help mentor them into the market. We see that within our network, stonebridge, there's people within there who join. They're not quite sure what to do, but they know they'd like to be into our space in the later life sector. So we're able to sort of help them with the compliance side of things, but also, as you've said, soft skills and just the things that open up to make sure that they're getting the right information from their clients and then think about you know what they should be listening to and how often they should be setting aside time to make sure they're up to speed with the market. So, yeah, I think the first step is definitely to put your hand up and say look, this is something I'd really like to do. Where can I get this help?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's really important to stress that, whilst we all compete hard against each other, that ultimately, I think the later life lending market is so sort of under-penetrated at the moment. The opportunity is so huge that actually the bigger prize is for us all to grow the market and help more customers. So there's plenty of room, I think, for that mentoring approach you talked about and supporting more advisors coming in. So, no, completely agree with that, dan, I'm going to come to you again. I wanted to pick up on sort of something Sue was saying around people learning in different ways. I think.
Speaker 1:You know I still remember the days when the sort of the pinks, the newspapers, used to arrive sort of on a Thursday morning, thursday morning and you know people would sort of scramble to read through. But but now, as C said, we get the news feeds every day. But but also there's other ways of learning, aren't there as well? And and maybe, you know, as a little teaser, we could sort of talk about what may be coming through the air app as well in terms of, you know, learning and education opportunities. So so, dan, what's your views on that?
Speaker 4:on that, yeah, I think, like our market, learning is evolving so rapidly at the moment and the way to digest it is changing. So, as you mentioned there, we've got an app coming out imminently and might even be out by now actually thinking of timescales and through that we're having like bite-sized education where you've got short and long format videos on there. Whether that's a two-minute in the moment I need help whether it's a sourcing query or whether it's a fat fine opportunity, um, or whether it's a long-form podcast like this. I'd imagine this podcast will be on there as well and it allows advisors on the go, whether they're driving to see a client, to reuse that dead time in inverted commas to to um, to learn what kind of is in the market in itself and re-maximize their own time in that respect. So, and we're excited about how that can then be used and essentially engage the advisors on there going. Actually, what kind of learning do you want? What kind of feedback can you give us on um, how we can best support you?
Speaker 4:Because I think when I first came into this role, I think the mantra was what practical education can we do? Um? Learning for learning's sake is fantastic and really great, and you know I have to say that, with my role, right, but applied learning is what's really important. So, actually, how can we use what we've built to actually better us in our job, in our personal life, professional life? So what is it we're learning today that really helps build that commercial advantage? And using things like an app or using um, the academy and an on-demand kind of basis allows you to engage when you have that that time in the day. And so, because often we hear that we're too busy for learning, and I think it's a an interesting phrase that actually we don't prioritize it, um, but if we really see the value of it, that's, that's where it's really important.
Speaker 4:Um, and you know, looking at the commercial side of things and trying to be objective for a second, because you know I I find it difficult being objective about education, because I'm passionate about it. But if I was to look at simple stats from last year, um, through 2024 advisors that had completed our modules and through academy, transacted three times as many cases as those that didn't, and from a commensurate rate. So that itself shows the value of education. Now I will say that could be causal. You know, I'm not going to pretend that everything is due to education, but there's a direct link, and that is about engagement and it's about curiosity, I think, is the key word here. It's one that john's very um familiar and passionate about and suing as well from our work on the FactFind Learning Programme. It's about really being curious about education, because then you're curious about your customer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wholeheartedly, dan, and I have talked about this before. If you're curious about everything, you know, when you speak to somebody who's really interested in you and doesn't sit there talking about themselves, they're really interested in finding and don't doesn't sit there talking about themselves. They're really interested in finding out about other things and other people and other um uh knowledge for themselves and they're trying to discover things more and more for themselves. They're they tend to be, the more successful people because they are really interested in just finding out and expanding their own knowledge, whether it's educationally or whether it's about their clients and getting the best for their clients and getting a really thorough understanding of what makes them tick, what's important to them, what family situation they're in, you know, is the granddaughter the most important thing in the world to them, as an example? You know there's so many things that um that's happened to me in in recent uh, the recent couple of years, and the granddaughter's taken over everything you see. So that's basically what we're sort of going through at the moment. Um, and but they do, you know, and and this you just need to sort of go in and and find that information out.
Speaker 2:I remember, remember back in the days when I was a sales manager and I was sat observing an advisor doing a mortgage call and there were two twin babies young children crawling around on the mat in front of us and the advisor's talking about the mortgage and what the client wants and all the rest of it. Didn't talk about the kids whatsoever. It was almost like the kids were almost an inconvenience to him and didn't talk about financial protection for the family critical illness covering, just wanted to talk about the mortgage and that was it In the end. I was so horrified while I was watching I had to stop him because it was customer detriment and obviously back then the only time you could intervene as a sales manager and I was authorized was that you needed to have that.
Speaker 2:Now, if you're not curious enough to talk about what there is in front of you, how are you going to find out what's not in front of you? You need to be really, really curious about these things. But that was just an incredible example example. It stuck with me forever. You know it's one of those that you think look, you know, seriously, have I got to pick these kids up and sort of put them in front of you and say but you know this is probably the most important thing to this family and you're not doing anything about it and and see that that probably overlaps with something dan said around the fatfied learning program, isn't it?
Speaker 1:And that that need for real sort of comprehensive conversations with a customer to understand all of their needs and circumstances. So yeah, did you have a view on that?
Speaker 5:Absolutely. Yeah, I was just.
Speaker 5:I was just about to leap in and say that segues really beautifully into the fact-fired learning program, because what we've, what we've worked with AIR and we've worked with LIBF on this program. You know it's been a lengthy process, let's put it that way, but I think at the end of the day we've ended up with something which is very accessible. It's bite-sized learning chunks. You can do it in your own time. But for me, the most important thing about this whole program, when we started with a clean slate, for me it was all about, yes, anyone can learn how to do a fact find, how to read a fact, find you know, tick, tick all the boxes, take all the information.
Speaker 5:But it's about listening and having those soft questioning skills.
Speaker 5:You're dropping in little bits of information. You know silly thing, not necessarily silly things, but but things like you know powers of attorney, that sort of thing, make sure you've got them. When you've got a drawdown scheme, all of those sort of things, when you first start you, you don't, you rely heavily on the fact find structure and and the advisor checklist as well, um, from the council is a really golden document to use alongside all of this. But if you, if with experience comes the ability to go off piste to you know, go for a tangent and talk about those, those small people crawling around the room and and then bring it back into the the? Um, you know the topic that you really want to bring it back to. So the fact find learning program is really designed to try and help develop those sort of soft skills. Um, and put in some hints and tips about the sorts of things that you could be covering off with customers. Um, it's not all about rigidly sticking to the fact find layout or questions. It's about developing those skills.
Speaker 2:So I'd say. So I'll tell you what it's so, so important. And you know, I, I the thing, I it's worth sort of explaining how, what depths you need to go to as well, you know. So it's the difference between asking somebody do they have a will? Uh, we've got a will, obviously, but we've got, if you know, on the call. But if, um, if, do you have a will? Right, and if an advisor stops there, they're not doing the job. Yeah, so it's the tell me about your will.
Speaker 2:And then, why did you make those decisions about your will? What is what was driving that? What was important? Is it still relevant now? Do you want to make any changes? Are there things in the future that you worry about? You know, and that's just talking about the will.
Speaker 2:Now, the interesting thing about will is that the advisor is not going to get business out of that. So you wonder how far down the route you would go asking about something. But actually it's so important to understand that because it drives the conversation for so many other things within that, certainly in later life, without question, you know, and and that's just one aspect, you know, I remember when I was at a major bank, which I will not name. Um. They had a fact-finding system and this is only 10 years ago, um, and it used to have a question on it that you say do you consider yourself to be vulnerable, yes or no? So you tick yes or no. It asks the question, tick yes or no and then move on. There was no comments box or anything. There's nothing to write, so of course advisors then wouldn't write anything there, so it was just sort of you know how far do you go with your curiosity to discover really what's important to your client?
Speaker 1:I mean, I certainly think, whether you're a sort of new advisor to the sector or an even an experienced advisor who needs a refresh, that fact find learning program that you've all referenced, I think is a really sort of critical resource. I'd encourage everyone to seek that out, either via air or through the Equity Release Council. But I wanted to sort of move on to a final sort of couple of questions and, paul, I wanted to come to you and focus on perhaps sort of how things have changed, sort of post-consumer duty. So I think consumer duty has really sort of raised the bar and for me one of my key takeaways from consumer duty is that it's about delivering good outcomes for customers, irrespective of the scope of the service that you provide, and that means having, maybe, relationships on the back of consumer duty, because there's things like tax planning or long-term care advice and all of those things that customers may need that perhaps you don't sort of specialize in. So how have you sort of adapted to that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that consumer duty has really helped firms just benchmark themselves against where they should be.
Speaker 3:So it's okay for ourselves to think, you know we're doing really well we, you know we're happy doing what we're doing.
Speaker 3:But consumer duty actually helps us to go back and think okay, again, from that toolbox point of view, if we can't help that client, what are we doing? If we can't help them, I suppose ourselves, what are we doing to actually help them overall? And that means making sure that we are abreast with the education that's going on, but also aligning with people that we are happy to refer to and vice versa. You know we speak to, if we're speaking to, an IFA, and we're really happy with the, the job that they do for their clients. We make it really really important for them to know that actually, in the right situations, that should be reciprocated. So actually, consumer duty has helped us do that which, you're absolutely right, only leads to to helping more people and better client outcomes, even if we can't do that ourselves. But also, you know, from a return on investment point of view, it allows you to make sure that there's commercial advantage to do that properly as well.
Speaker 1:And Dan, from an air perspective, what sort of help or information is available for members in terms of education or training on maybe sort of parallel propositions, as I say, whether that's long-term care or tax advice or those bits and pieces?
Speaker 4:yeah, I think it's.
Speaker 4:Um, it's a great question.
Speaker 4:I think when you look at our master classes, even the recent ones, we've made sure we diversify the topics within that, to be around where it's ihd planning and we had a great talk with kind of life around that or whether it's affordability, where Borderline went into why affordability is important, and the crucial thing is to keep revisiting these kind of topics and giving a fresh perspective, because sometimes we're in danger of almost half learning a subject and thinking we know what it means, or half applying it.
Speaker 4:So, from an academy perspective, we try and keep it as simple and practical as possible because otherwise we miss that, miss out on the messaging itself. So you know, we offer our one hour short webinars around our tools intentionally, but instead of making them process focused, we make them case study based so that advisors can look at actually how the tools work but also how can they then apply it with their customers, and the intention there is then to look at what the new relevant topics are in the market and then apply those as well. So they are the best ways to do it. Also, listen to advisor feedback, and constantly we're getting asked around different areas of education that are important. We listen to what the advisors come in with to then build out these videos around them, so that is crucial. Again, through the app, it's a way we're going to start disseminating those, I think.
Speaker 1:I think, the way I always look at it, it's maybe the difference between advice and order taking that advice for me is that customer centric approach and really again we use that word again having that curiosity in terms of what a customer really needs and being able to recognize that if that's something that you don't provide, then how can you facilitate an introduction to someone who can support them around that. So I think it's a way of thinking, isn't it? Consumer duty absolutely supports. So I think it's a way of thinking, isn't it? Consumer duty absolutely supports.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to sort of move on to the final question and maybe a sort of comment from each of you and maybe just one sort of final thought or call to action. So if you were to sort of give an advisor sort of one thing to consider or think about or to take away on the back of this call, what would it be? And I'm going to start with you, sue, uh, on on that. So what, what was your one ask of advisors looking forward in terms of how they engage with, with education and training?
Speaker 5:I knew you were going to make me first, that was sorry um, no, it's all right, my turn.
Speaker 5:Um, I think it's actually having the right mindset and making time. You don't just think it's something you can do next week or I'll. You know I'm really busy this week. Um, we're all very busy, I understand that. But you know, make that time, set that space in your diary. Um, you know, for an hour a week it's. It's not going to impact too greatly on your working day. If you could do it at lunchtime, even heaven forbid you should give up your sandwich. But you know, um, yeah, make time for, for learning. It's really important. It's really important for your own personal knowledge, but also for your credibility and that you know when you're talking to customers, um, you come across as informed, but also to your peers and to the BDMs and the other people that you meet as part of your role. You know, having a bit of knowledge about what's going on in your market, latest product developments, whatever it happens to be, gives you a lot more credibility.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Sue and John, over to you. What would be your one final thought?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, like anything, when it comes to getting yourself fit whether it's fit for work, fit for your own personal life you know the first step is always the difficult one, um, but once you start and you maintain regular practice whether it's regular practice on cpd, whether it's regular practice on any kind of learning you, you carry on doing it and that's the most important thing. And, and for me, practice makes permanent. So what you do and keep practicing will stick with you, and if you don't keep practicing, it won't. And so it's really desperately important that that you get on this train of constantly training yourself to learn something new.
Speaker 2:And so sue saying that, um, you, every day is a school day it really is. But that practice is so, so important because you know the very, very best of us, whether it's sports people, whether it's people who work in education, people who you know if you think about our, you know we have a campus at LIBF and lecturers and what have you. They don't just turn up because they've got years of experience, they also read and study every single day because they are absolutely SMEs in their area. You just can't afford to sort of sit on your laurels in this game anymore. You've got to keep your knowledge up to speed.
Speaker 1:That's very clear, and Paul, from your side.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so echo what both Sue and John have said. It is about creating time. So only you can be a master of your diary and you need to put that time in in advance. But the thing I would say is that making sure you're up to speed with everything is work clever, and what I mean by that is the opportunity is there now for you know to take this information in visually by audio bite size, longer bits. It really can help everyone in the way they learn best, and only the individual knows how they learn best. So actually, if I was on a two-hour car journey round trip and audio is the best way that I take things in, then that's two hours of time that I can be listening and digesting things on my way and on my way back from seeing a client. So just make use of actually what is out there to help you in your own situation.
Speaker 1:Thanks, paul, and the final word to you, then, dan, for that. From an air perspective, maybe, what, what's what? The one sort of call to action that you would uh make to advisors on the back of this podcast?
Speaker 4:I'd like to finish with the customer because actually, like leading on from your um relational point a minute ago, will a piece of advice was given to me by one of my trainers a while back, going as an advisor, imagine that someone you love was about to be given advice. What is the minimum threshold you want that advice to have, to give that advice to your loved one and then, on the back of that, are you at that level? Because if you're not, you're not being relational and you are. There is the potential to cause, cause customer harm. So you know, from an air perspective, from an academy perspective, we're here to support you get to that level. We want to make sure you are giving the best advice you can do in the best way you can digest it so that you can help more customers. And I think by ending with the customer it kind of really helps reframe why education is so important.
Speaker 1:Thank you, dan, and thank you to you all. I think that was a really useful conversation and uh sort of uh aligned to the subject matter. I've certainly learned a lot from that discussion, so thank you very much, and I'm sure the rest of our listeners and viewers will will feel the same. So thank you for your time today and, uh, yeah, best best of wishes for the rest of the year, thank you. Thank you for listening to the Master Later Life Lending Podcast. If you've enjoyed our comprehensive conversations, then please take a moment to leave a review on the app or your favoured podcast platform. Make sure to subscribe, too, so you never miss an episode, and follow us on social media for exclusive content.