Beyond Numbers: What Financial Planners and others are saying about our Financial Coach Training

A Training for All

I’m excited that we’ve got our Spring 2024 Financial Coach Practitioner Certificate Training coming up soon: running from 15 April to 19 June 2024.

And in case you’re wondering who that training might be for – whether, for instance, it might be a fit for you, or you for it – do please read on…

You might be surprised, for instance, just how many traditional Financial Planners enrol – and what they report getting from the training. Or, indeed, people switching from completely other careers, and finding Financial Coaching offers a great prospect, going forward.

A changing world

One thing I’m noticing more and more is how the world around us is changing. When I founded Wise Monkey in 2002, I did so because, working as an Independent Financial Adviser, the gap in financial support was so vividly clear to me. Fast forward to 2024, and I can see the rest of the financial services world is noticing the same thing.

Product recommendations do not play the part they once did. And so many people simply don’t have the assets – at least £100,000 – to cross the threshold into today’s version of traditional financial advice.

Where the real gap lies – and has for so long – is on the human side. What’s missing is solid help for clients in coping with how they think, feel and behave around money. Which is precisely why, twenty two years ago, I left my IFA role, and set up Wise Monkey Financial Coaching.

Financial Planners

Our training attracts all sorts of different people. And I'm always thrilled to hear what they got out of it, and the impact it’s had on their work and lives. Today, we have plenty of Financial Planners signing up, for instance; as the world around them is evolving.

Jo Wall is one. Chartered in Financial Planning, Jo’s worked in Financial Services ‘for over ten years. I’ve done the technical stuff,’ she says. But doing the Wise Monkey training – which Jo completed in June 2023 – was, she reports, ‘a revelation: the thing I’d been trying to do has a name! A framework! An amazing community!’

This makes me smile with recognition: it's exactly what I was looking for – and couldn't find, so set up myself – back in 2002. ‘My relationships with my clients have always tended to be deep and strong,’ Jo says; ‘it’s the person I am. The Wise Monkey training has really enhanced this. I got loads out of it. The bit the exams didn’t give me.’

One of the things Jo hugely appreciates is all the practical tools the training provided her. ‘Take the coaching cards, for instance, which I have on a pinboard in front of me – simple tools which are very powerful. My clients and I get to places in our conversations a whole lot quicker…’

Jo speaks about how much the training has helped with the ‘contracting’ part of the client relationship for her financial planning business, Joyful Wealth. ‘From a purely business perspective, my conversion rate is ridiculous – 80 to 90 per cent! I love the work we then go on to do together. The training has helped enormously with how I hold that space. I wanted to have amazing conversations with people, and help them build resilience’, she says. ‘Now I can.’

Transformative training

Victoria Jones is another Chartered Financial Planner who’s recently completed the Wise Monkey training. She came to the training thinking some of the softer, human skills would enhance her financial planning work. Now, she’s expanded her thinking to the idea of setting up a fee-only coaching service separate to her financial planning practice, diversifying her client base and serving people who may need coaching and education more than advice.

‘I learnt the importance of really listening,’ she says. ‘I learnt about holding a space, the role of silence, in allowing more important stuff to be revealed…’ Victoria says she feels ‘much better equipped now to work with clients on deeper and emotional issues around money. The training cemented the reality that so many people struggle around money, both emotionally and practically. I started to understand people more’, she says.

‘And attending the training not only expanded my thinking about incorporating coaching into my own financial planning practice,’ says Victoria; ‘it also opened up my thinking about the way I operate within and influence the future development of the company I work for. It’s changing the way I approach everything, and has truly helped evolve how I see the future of our business.’

Fundamental change

Financial Planner, Shane Hyland says that training with Wise Monkey in 2021 has ‘transformed everything I do. The course fundamentally changed my approach and perspective’ says Shane.

'It's changed the way we work with clients. Prior to providing any type of regulated advice, we now build financial plans by chatting to clients about their dreams, aspirations and past feelings around money.'

Incorporating the emotional side of money into his work, he says, 'I have much deeper conversations with my clients, conversations which focus more on their lives and far less on products…’ Shane gives the example of one client who changed her working life to earn less, but be happier and healthier.

‘I also speak to groups and schools using emotional stories and language in a way I just wouldn't have done before,’ he says. ‘All round, the results are much better. I feel doing the training has added huge value to my clients and helped our business align more fully with Consumer Duty requirements.’

Career shift

Of course, it’s not just Financial Planners who sign up. People from all walks of life find their way to our training. People looking to change direction in their careers and passionate about helping people navigate their relationship with money. For some, it changes everything.

Take Rosie Mowat. Rosie knew she had lots of good, transferable skills – on the human and compassionate side, from nursing; from time working in Quality Improvement. (‘Quality Improvement is all about looking at something that’s not working – looking at the data,’ says Rosie – ‘then working out how to make it better. This is a lot like Financial Coaching…’); and from a Masters degree in Behavioural Science.

‘I woke up to Financial Coaching when I realised just how uneducated we all are in money – and therefore unconsciously reliant on often poor, earlier, role models – and I started educating myself. The Wise Monkey training was on my wishlist for some years, but the timing wasn’t right – plus, I was busy working on my own finances and money mindset – so I signed up only days before the course started, in the end;’ Rosie laughs. ‘It was a gamble, but one that truly paid off.’

She calls doing the training ‘one hundred per cent the best decision I made.’ And says that, from the moment she opened the pack we sent in the post, ‘I knew this was the right course for me. I devoured the whole training!’

Rosie has just completed her training. ‘The structure of the course is fantastic,’ she says. ‘I joined a brilliant cohort of trainees, and the ten weeks were intense and immersive. The whole thing was the step that led me forward. The missing piece in the jigsaw! I couldn’t feel any more positive than I do. It was literally the best course I’ve ever taken by quite some distance.’

I'm thrilled ours is a training that can work so well for such a wide range of people - whatever their background or previous training - it can help people get to where they’re going!

REGISTER HERE FOR OUR NEXT TRAINING….EARLY BIRD ENDS 31 JANUARY

We also run a Personal Finance Seminar Series starting on 18th March 2024, which people can attend ahead of the training if their background isn’t in personal finance or they want to top up existing knowledge.