Business workshops
It was with a similar ethos in mind that Richard decided to host the business owners’ workshops. He had already co-founded TheParaplanner.com, a web-based resource for UK paraplanners, and the Paraplanner Directory, a listing service enabling financial advisers to find freelance and outsourced paraplanners available for casework in the UK, but he was getting quite regular calls from paraplanners either looking to go freelance or to set up their own outsourcing business. “They would ask me how I set up the business, how it works, what the pitfalls are? Having been one of the pioneers of outsourced paraplanning, I have made all the mistakes you could ever make when you start up and learned the hard way. So I am more than happy to help – I don’t see it as a threat to the business because there is plenty of work to go around, and I’m a great believer in sharing experience.”
However, a series of phone calls in a matter of a few days made him realise that there was probably a growing need in the market for something slightly more structured. So he wrote a blog saying he was prepared to host a workshop on running an outsourced paraplanning business and had close to 30 people sign up. From this there are two events planned where, Richard says, “people can get together and talk about the issues they want to discuss, and hear from the old hands about what it’s really like to run this type of business.”
Back to the beginning
All of this, however, is some way from where Richard was back in 2002, when he set up his first (and the first) outsourced paraplanning company in the UK.
He had worked for Eagle Star for eight years as a financial consultant, mainly pensions and offshore products, during which time he got quite close to his panel of financial advisers and realised they nearly all had a need for technicians to do the research and write the reports for them. He had also spent some time in Australia, where he had seen paraplanners used in firms, and keeping in touch with his contacts down under he knew that outsourced paraplanning firms were doing very well in the market.
The merger of Eagle Star with Zurich Insurance gave him the incentive to take the plunge and start an outsourced paraplanning business. This he did with a business partner, launching Adviser Assist in 2002. The business lasted until 2008, when the partners went their separate ways and Richard launched Paraplan Plus. This has now become a holding company for three different elements of the business: The Paraplanners, the outsourced paraplanning firm; Moneyscope, offering cashflow planning software; and a training arm.
Richard admits: “I never really liked the name Paraplan Plus. We had to come up with a name when Adviser Assist was dissolved. So when I brought in New Tradition, the independent marketing company we work with, to help with the launch of Moneyscope in 2010, we decided to look at the name and the branding for the paraplanning service too.
“The result was the relaunch as The Paraplanners in November 2012. “We deliberately went with a new and distinctive corporate colour – bright yellow – to create clear definition between the paraplanning service and the web service brands. We also created a separate website that is designed to tell people about us, as people as well as the company, so we have the blogs and biographies and links to our Twitter accounts.”
Still hands-on?
The question is, having now established a thriving business and as the business owner, is he still a hands-on paraplanner?
“I am the stereotypical small business person, my title is managing director but I’m also the finance director, marketing director, HR director and a paraplanner all at the same time,” he says. “I really enjoy paraplanning and I realise that if I’m going to take on high profile roles like IFP board member then if I don’t walk the walk I can’t talk the talk.”
Another realisation was that like many small business owners, he was responsible for so much of the business that “there was a risk issue, in that if I got hit by a bus then a lot of the workings of the business would go under the bus with me.”
This has led to the promotion of Kim Bendall to director of Paraplan Plus and of Kat Mock to senior paraplanner within the business. “Kim is a fantastic member of the team and a fantastic paraplanner and it means that we now have a management team, not just me,” Richard says. “Kim has taken on some of the operational activities involved in running the business. Importantly, she is looking after the team, which is timely, as we’ve just taken on another paraplanner who is starting soon.
“These moves are putting us on a more solid foundation so that we keep on delivering the best quality we can but we can also start to grow because we’ve got a more robust team in place.”
