Company with ambition
Francis Clark established as an accountancy practice in 1919 and began growing in the 1980s expanding its financial planning side in 2002. A merger with Truro-based Winter Rule LLP in 2011 increasing the size of the financial planning team, which now has 35 members of staff with the six paraplanners, plus Alex, split between Exeter, Torquay and Truro.
“Since the merger we’ve gone from strength to strength,” Alex says. “Figures to date show we have around £460m under management, although we’re hoping the latest figures, which we’re in the process of compiling, will show that we’ve passed the £500m mark.”
The firm has ambitions to keep growing. “We’re already the largest independent accountancy practice in the south-west and our aim is to become the largest independent financial planning firm in the region too.”
The firm provides two levels of service; lifetime financial planning with clients paying an ongoing fee and a specific advice service which offers a more transactional service.
Growing with the company
Alex became technical services manager in 2013 and, as might be expected, the role covers a whole host of different elements. He is the proverbial ‘man of many hats’. Alex explains: “The role was almost created for me in that I want to stay with the firm and I could have become a financial adviser but that’s not where my best skills necessarily lie. This role has enabled me to further my career as a paraplanner but also to progress within the firm by taking on other areas of responsibility as well.”
Alex manages the team of paraplanners and until recently, managed the team’s workflow so that it was distributed evenly “all the paraplanners have their own allocated advisers but we have to ensure the system is working properly,” he says. That duty has now been allocated to another member of the team allowing Alex to focus more on other areas of his role where workload has increased in recent months.
He also looks after the firm’s back-office system, Intelligent Office from IntelliFlo, which includes ensuring there is an up-to-date and formal set of procedures that are being adhered to – “obviously with a back-office system there are various different ways you do things and can set it up to work with a business, so I’m making sure it is set up to fit with the way that we work,” he says – and provides training support for the firm’s staff on the system.
Another string to his bow, is that he is responsible for the social media for the financial planning side of the firm, as well as having his own Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ accounts that he uses to promote the firm. He works closely with the accountancy practice’s digital marketing manager and looks to spend half-an-hour a day on social media. “It really depends on what you put into social media as to what you get out,” he says. “If there is something interesting going on with the firm we’ll post on that. And I’ll tweet from my own account as well. It all helps raise the profile. If you at least spend a little time on it then you should get some engagement back. If I don’t do anything on the account for a couple of days then find I little has happened but I’ve only got to spend that half-an-hour reading through some tweets and putting out some content and replying to some people and retweeting, and all of a sudden I’m getting new people following me, I’m getting people replying back to me as well.”
The firm even set up a Pinterest account, which Alex admits was something of an experiment. “We set up the Pinterest account a little while ago up but to be honest it hasn’t received a massive amount of interest. I think this particular channel is more relevant to crafts and design rather than people looking for financial planning.”
The firm’s website also falls within Alex’s remit. He works with Gary Quick, CFP and marketing director for the financial planning firm, ensuring the site is up-to-date and regularly supplied with blogs, sourced both in-house and externally.
