Why Your Business Needs To Ignore Everything You Have Been Told About Growing Profits And Get Yourself A
Thirty Day Restart Plan.
In This Report – Why the Fluffy Bunny Approach Is Dead And Why You Need To Be A Lot More Roman Gladiator About The Whole Thing.
My name is Richard Smith for the last thirty two years I have provided financial and business planning consultancy to small and medium sized firms. When my wife was diagnosed with Breast Cancer in 2010 I semi-retired, wasn’t sure what I needed to do in order to help as many people as I could.
She is now fully recovered and I am back to tell you the truth about how small businesses are being lied to, how the current plans for growing a business using conventional (the stuff that used to work) marketing will no longer work for you.
Importantly I also want to show you how to get a bit more Gladiatorial and bit less Fluffy Bunny about how you approach your business. Look, no one cares if your business fails, no one is interested, except you and your children which is why this report is important.
The world economy is struggling in the post Covid-19 world, the big tech firms are lying to you, promising you the earth and not delivering. Social media is the emperors new clothes. Like the search engines they are telling you, build your presence on our platform, put all of your content over here, there is no charge. So you spend hard one cash on it, fill it up with your content – then they decide not to show your content unless you pay.
That is the reality of your interactions with the modern tech firms. And still you are told, social is where you need to be, search engine optimisations, apps. If you’ve not worked it out yet. Like Boris’s lies – they are telling you to do one thing and then doing the opposite to you.
There are also two markets for you.
The under 40 demographic who are struggling to bring up kids and buy houses at 10 x salary.
The boomers who have billions of equity in their houses and gold plated state pensions.
Only one of these can buy at the moment.
More customers, despite the competition. Higher profits, despite the uncertainty.
What about surfing online?
It’s madness – meanwhile ad revenue at Google increases year on year.
“Don’t buy from us, we are really not that good. Seriously our widgets are not that great?
Would your business grow? How could any business grow?
Lower Prices?
Andy Average just saved himself £5k for doing very little.
Twenty years ago, getting new customers and growing your business were straightforward processes. You may remember those days?
The days when you’d call your rep at the local newspaper, and arrange for a 1⁄4-page spread to run every Friday. Or you’d get a 30- second spot aired on local radio during rush hour.
Maybe you’d buy a mailing list to reach everyone within two miles of your business, and hit ‘em all with a targeted postcard or mail campaign?
And new customers would beat a path to your door in droves! Are those same things working for you today?
I’ll bet that they aren’t working as well as they once did—if they’re working at all.
The above facts led me to prepare this comprehensive view of the current uncertainties and dangers that threaten to sink businesses like yours and I have found a whole series of VERY disturbing trends that have been maturing nicely over the last 15 years— these are trends that are gobbling up marketing budgets and providing no return on investment! Just serving to keep you poor.
There’s been an explosion in traditional media and its effectiveness. The explosion has been so big traditional media is now in bit’s, no longer fit for purpose. Furthermore, many scientific studies prove that the Internet and other new technologies have actually rewired people’s brains so they no longer think and behave the way they used to.
The evidence for this all around – go read The Shallows by Nicholas Carr. According to him (and supported by much science) we have a generation that can find the answer to everything and know nothing about anything.
This means that marketing campaigns that worked for you twenty years ago now fail to bring in a single new customer. The cost to advertise to new customers has risen steadily, despite the facts that circulation, exposure, and response rates dwindle every year.
You won’t believe how difficult it’s become to engage their attention and keep it. We have a generation of 30 something’s that can’t sit down to eat without being glued to their phone, waiting for another ‘status update’.
Brand loyalty? That’s even funnier. Everything’s a commodity now, and to survive you need to give your customers reasons to use you other than just low pricing…
…because they can certainly find cheaper products or services by searching online, on their phone which is permanently on and stuck to limb.
Want to sell on price – take on Tesco!
Our world is full choices – unlimited choices and fierce competition. The economy’s still running on petrol vapour, but hey house prices are up and the rich are getting richer, traditional businesses are collapsing (Comet etc).
In addition to the business struggling, profits are down, the Euro is down, house hold income’s still down, trust levels are down—even the distance people are willing to drive to buy a product or service has decreased.
But you, like a Roman Centurion facing the Celts you’re still brave enough to pilot your business in the midst of this perfect storm. Congratulations, it takes kahunas the size of a warrior to even think about starting a business. But the options, look for a job perhaps
– get one in local government, most of them are not happy. Is this what you want, take a look at some of them leaving the local council offices – once their pensions get cut (that’s coming trust me) where can they go? Most have tiny kahunas.
You also need to be smart enough to know that you need help to navigate these battles, those Celts are a mean bunch. Look everyone needs help to steer a business so it gains more customers and even higher profits than it ever has before.
Even if you don’t want help, you are not going to survive without it. Look when you fall over in the street and someone rushes over to help you say – it’s ok, I’m fine.
But you’re not. When a customer walks into your business premises you say… “can I help you?” and they say “no thanks” – because they are the same as you. No one wants help, only you do need it.
By the way I can solve this problem for you overnight. What you need is this…
More customers, despite the competition. Higher profits, despite the uncertainty.
In this report, I’ll show you what you’re up against.
How the map has changed for growing a business, what has fundamentally shifted in the last 20 years—part of the reason why hundreds of start ups have vanished in the last 10 years.
Don’t allow your business to do the same……
Information overload. Your customers thinking about buying from your business are lit- erally swimming in a sea of information, and odds are, they’re so easily distracted they’ll never notice your business.
And if they don’t notice you, how can you expect them to become customers?
So before you let some modern-day media salesperson tell you he can get your business ranked Number 1 on Google, or you just need to get your name out there—
STOP! No one gives a Fluffy Bunny about where you are in Google, I have spoken to web people who tell me that some Google users automatically go to page 7 when searching because they know the top positions are spoofed.
INFORMATION OVERLOAD
Do you want to know the BIGGEST reason that dooms to failure nearly every ad campaign? The reason your advertising and marketing efforts are destined to fail? Why the stuff that has traditionally work will no longer work for you. Here it is….
A PERFECT STORM
Information Overload has churned up a perfect storm that’s overturning marketing campaigns as we speak.
Here is some alarming data I’ve found that provides the evidence showing just how ADHD affected our customers are. Some of this stuff is from overseas but don’t for one minute think that it does not apply to you, it does.
According to a Nokia study, users check their smart phones an average of 150 times a day during waking hours. That also includes your staff, think about that.
- While sitting at a computer, people change between Windows on screen almost 37 times an hour.
- Office workers check their email account(s) between 30 and 40 times each hour.
What about surfing online?
Think about your own browsing style online. Do you go at a leisurely pace?
Nearly 20% of Internet page views last fewer than four seconds, according to researchers from the University of Hamburg and most people average less than a minute of staying power.
It’s madness – meanwhile ad revenue at Google increases year on year.
Numerous scientific studies have found that being “always on” and always stimulated has actually rewired people’s brains, and has had an astonishing impact on our ability to focus on what’s in front of us.
- A century ago, the attention span of an average person was 20 minutes.
- By the year 2000, researchers discovered it had plummeted to only 12 seconds.
Bloody fish have a longer attention span than a human being!
It’s true…a study reported by Associated Press showed that Guppies have an attention span that lasts 9 seconds. Then again, Guppies don’t face the barrage of commercial messaging and media overload that we have.
Have a look at the Facebook interface it’s now full of ads.
How Many Ads.
Just how many ads do we see on average? Back in the 1970s, most warm – blooded, TV watching people saw about 500 marketing messages in a day, according to one advertising expert.
Today we’re bombarded by advertisements to the tune of 3,000 to 5,000 commercials, banners, pop-ups, and jingles every 24 hours!
And out of those thousands and thousands of messages, according to recent studies we actually WATCH around 54, yet we pay attention to…drum roll …
…only FOUR of them!
That means of the 5,000 marketing messages people are exposed to in a single day, they pay attention to 8/100ths of one percent of them. What are the odds that your business will be among that 8/100ths of one percent that is noticed?
For any of you who don’t watch TOWIE – ITV 2 Sunday and Wednesday – the Ads now run for whole 5 minutes, and then there are some pop up ads and then a trailer for another ‘sponsered by’. It’s madness.
THE STATE OF THE MEDIA
If the short attention spans of people today aren’t enough to make you wonder whether your campaigns will ever catch anyone’s attention, then the statistics we’ve learned about the decline of traditional media may leave you scratching your head even more!
But you don’t have to go it alone.
Every year, the Pew Research Center (yeah I know it’s American) puts out its “State of the News Media” report, and in 2013, the report was astonishing…astonishingly bad, especially if you’re a traditional media outlet—or someone who advertises in them!
Over the past 20 years, the number of people who get newspapers delivered has fallen on average by 30%, and more than 200 major papers have gone out of business. In fact, the Futurist Exploration Network predicts newspapers, as we now know them, will be EXTINCT in the U.S. in fewer than 11 years.
Local newspapers are virtually extinct in the UK.
Mine have lined the Duck House, and stopped my Wellies getting the carpet dirty for as long as I can remember.
Radio and magazines are no better as a means to reach your target audience. Instead of listening to traditional radio that mixes local ads with music or talk, large numbers of listeners now choose online services like Spotify or Pandora…and that number is predicted to double by 2015. With the BBC Radio app it’s even more likely that large numbers of clients will not listen to your message, they don’t need too.
Magazines have seen circulation remain flat, and ad sales have yet to make any significant recovery from their cliff edge fall of 30% drop experienced in 2009.
Further the number of magazines catering for every need from…Boat Building to Fetish Art mean that your choice of publication for that ¼ page is more important than ever.
Perhaps you think digital advertising’s the way to go. My research did find a 50% increase in online advertising from 2010 to 2013. Along with a 450% increase in the cost per click.
The keyphrase – Home Insurance on Google Ads – £10.73 per click. Mortgage Adviser £10.02 there are a number of reasons for this that I will cover with you in my Restart – but with the right model, and if you know your numbers then £10.73 per click can be good value.
But for most (80/20) it’s the poorhouse if you go for it.
Is online advertising worth that price?
A study by Adobe found that people are seven times more likely to pay attention to their dentist than online advertising!
And yet, in the last five years, advertising rates have doubled, tripled, and in some cases, even more than quadrupled, according to TIME magazine. For that much money, you might assume that advertisers are seeing spectacular results…but that’s not the case.
Soaring costs are tied with response rates that have plummeted to one-tenth of what they were five years ago. The cost of acquiring and retaining customers has increased massively over the last 20 years, and is now six to seven times more expensive than it once was.
The clear fact is 90% of your marketing exposure is seen by people who are not even in the market to buy!
Even tech darling Apple is feeling the pinch these days, with its profit margins falling back to levels not seen since 2007, and a share price that’s been in a downward tailspin for the first half of the year. Want investment advice, sell Apple and Buy Google.
If the big players are struggling to get and retain consumers’ attention, what strategies will help a small business like yours reach the 10% of consumers who want its products or services?
The Business Pyramid: 22 Years of research compiled across 1700 industries showing that when consumers are exposed to advertising they are in the above 4 mindsets
As a business owner (a Roman fighting the Celts), you should encounter warning signs like that nearly every day, though it’s doubtful they’re as visible.
You’re used to changing course and making adjustments, those bloody Celts hide a lot, and need hunting down you can’t predict what lies beyond the next corner, as they steam into the compound, knives drawn.
The fact is you are in a COMMODITY CURVE? It’s the second greatest threat to small businesses I’ve found, and you’d better hold tight to the chariot if you hope to find your way around it
Commoditisation happens when supply outpaces demand. Successful products or services are copied and sent to market, and in a short order, shelves are filled with TVs, cameras, paper towels, and widgets that all look the same.
COMMODITY CURVE
You know what it feels like when you’re cruising down a straight, level stretch of motorway, where you can see for miles…it’s safe and certain. Then you spot it: a sign in bright yellow that reads: “Danger: Bend”
Local phone directories still list page after page of landscapers, gardeners, pizza delivery joints, plumbers and doctors…all offering services that sound like they’ll provide a beautiful lawn, a great pizza, or a clean bill of health.
o matter if you’re a one-man band or a team of thousands providing products or services, this curve is evolving into a major test to overcome.
Many times, the only difference between your business and one of those firms with thousands of employees is that they have unlimited resources—resources that number in the millions or billions—resources that they can put to use to stand out from their competition.
We’ve all seen these big budgets battle it out publicly, trying to differentiate their products from those of their competitors. We’ve watched Microsoft wrestle with other search engines in its TV and print ads that virtually beg viewers to give Bing a shot instead of Google. The company made news in 2009 when Ad Age reported that Microsoft planned an $80 million to $100 million campaign to make a grab at some of Google’s search engine business.
Whoops, good job Bill Gates has deep pockets.
That crusade started ages ago, at least in Internet years. How much do you think Microsoft has since spent in its battle against Google, and how many new users do you think those ads have brought to Bing? Microsoft’s not saying, and nor would it. Save that some 80% of global searches are done on Google. As Homer would say Doh!
Creating a unique face in a commoditised market is a costly business, indeed…and apparently it takes a large helping of mayhem—to get consumers to recognise you!
Some of the best campaigns in recent years have been singing dogs, dancing horses, cute babies. Of course none of these were accountancy firms but they should have been.
If the big dogs are struggling to send a messages telling us why we should choose their business over that of a competitors, then it’s clear: Nearly every business in almost every industry runs the risk of death by commoditisation.
YOUR BUSINESS IS NO EXCEPTION…
If what you’re offering is so unique that you feel that it’s safe for the time being…then just go ahead and rest on your laurels. It won’t be long until someone who’s just as ambitious as you used to be catches wind of the opportunity you’re sitting on. Remember Blockbuster? Now, say hello to Netflix. How long did that take – couple of years.
If you don’t think commoditisation is a problem for your business, let’s allow Google to settle it. After all, isn’t that how every important decision is settled these days?
So Google “car tyres west sussex ”—or Bing it, if you’re one of the few people Microsoft has convinced to do so—and you’ll get more than 246,000 results about car tyres!
Now clear your search terms, and type in “plumbers west Sussex”…you’ll find over 381,000 results to choose from.
But you’re probably not blown away…at least not yet. We’ve been saving the best search for last. To get a real picture of what your business is up against in terms of commoditisation, type in a few keywords that describe the product or service you provide. Don’t type in who you are, type in what you do- that’s what you customer would look for.
I’ll bet your search results show a whole lot of content & companies—hundreds, thousands, perhaps even millions of firms—trying to snare the very same customers your business deserves. Shit! Yeah there are that many.
Better than that, open up a copy of the Yellow Pages or Thompson Local – there are sill so many people advertising in there, and guess what all of their ads are the same. They have also moved online.
Reliable, Professional, Competitive – yup that’s a given. If you weren’t any of these methinks you would not be trading. Let’s send in the Centurions off with their heads. One answer would be
Accountant in Sussex. WWW.WeHateTherevenue.com
We Hate The Revenue More Than You. Call Today For A Payless Session.
I know which one I would phone, joking or not it seems better than nice and professional.
This is where the COMMODITY CURVE turns into DEAD Business Owners curve. Be- cause it’s no longer good enough to stand out from just one or two of these companies…
You need to have a reason for customers to choose your business instead of ANY of these others. If you don’t, you could be inviting fatality, or a Zombie business. Just hanging in there week after week.
And just because you say your products and services are better than those of your competition—even if they ARE better—that doesn’t mean your potential customers will believe you.
Sadly, they’ve heard it all before and many who said it to them didn’t deliver on the promises so why should you. Cynical, ADHD addled consumers.
You’ve got to get beyond merely being “better.” Every company thinks they’re better at something. Better customer service, more durable products…honestly, have you ever heard any company say,
“Don’t buy from us, we are really not that good. Seriously our widgets are not that great?
Can I share with you how many businesses like yours are now swimming with the fishes because they got stuck in a commodity war, actually I can’t count that high but it’s a lot.
THINK YOU CAN COUNT ON LOYALTY?
I developed a small business loyalty scheme to help small firms hold on to customers, and this kind of helps solve one part of the problem, and at one point loyal customers would help your small business stay afloat during lean years or seasons.
But 37% of customers are “at risk” of switching their business to another provider at any given time. They are all Butterflies and not bee’s. (Bee’s go back to flowers on a regular basis, Butterflies less so).
Think about it for a second: What if you lost more than a third of your current customers?
Would your business grow? How could any business grow?
Trust goes hand in hand with loyalty, and commoditisation has surely pulled a trick on consumer trust. In the 1960s, 70% of viewers trusted what they heard during commercials. But a recent Nielson survey revealed that that number has dropped off a cliff to a mere 14%.
These days, customers won’t even drive to the next post code, as they once, did to make purchases!
Whether it’s higher petrol prices, or the fact there is a chemist, a take away or a supermarket on every other corner…who knows?
Loyalty has given way to convenience and price at least in part, and it takes a savvy business owner to figure out what methods to use to educate buyers that his or her products or services are worth more of an effort or worth paying higher prices for.
The New Normal
The new normal businesses face is that consumers no longer rely on a few trusted sources. With the Internet at their fingertips, they have countless choices. And they’re not always just shopping for the lowest price, even though household incomes have been falling.
Your potential customers are more knowledgeable than ever before. They read online reviews and follow comments on social media before making decisions. If there’s ever been a problem with one of your products, or if you employ a idiotic or rude delivery driver, it’ll take a long time for you to be able to recover from it.
Transparency like this is just one more tool in the hands of consumers, guiding them to make purchasing decisions in a “me-too” marketing world that’s increasingly commoditised.
BUT THERE’S GOOD NEWS…
There’s no shortage of customers looking for products and services like yours. But they have micro-attention spans, and frankly they’re having a hard time working out why they should choose to do business with you instead of with one of your competitors.
A great book on the subject is by Jack Trout – Amazon, it’s called Differentiate or Die and is a brilliant read but not for the feint hearted.
Look, your customers aren’t as loyal as they once were, but this presents a whopping opportunity for your business.
After all, if 37% of your customers are at risk of switching providers, then the same is true of your competitors’ customers. That means that almost 40% of all your competitors’ so-called loyal customers might be looking to switch to another provider like your business instead! But, will you take action? It’s D O G eat D O G out there.
If you can take their customers it means you can command premium prices, increase your market share, and see profits higher than ever before. Doesn’t it?
In my research, I’ve discovered that there’s only one thing that stands between you and that level of success.
The ONE THING, and one thing only.
It’s YOU!
Actually, it’s the fact that there’s only one of you.
When you first dreamed of being an entrepreneur, of running a business on your own, you probably thought about a great product or service, and how you’d change the world by selling it.
You likely didn’t imagine just how much grunt work there’d be. Just how bloody hard it actually is.
You were stuck with doing things like finding an office or workshop to rent, and fitting it it out. Taking care of insurances, employees and payroll. Paying taxes
If you have not started yet, I know that you’ll be stuck doing the stuff that’s not glamorous, because I’ve been there too. Managing daily ops isn’t fun, and for entrepreneurs, it can be the kiss of death.
Who wants to handle the paperwork that keeps your business open, and compliance with local or national regulations? Unfortunately, in a small businesses, that person is probably you.
If you’re lucky, you’ll have enough money to hire some professionals to take care of these things, so you can focus on what you do best: selling your ideas.
But if you’re like most small-business owners, you’ll find yourself planted behind a desk most of the day, interrupted continuously by phone calls and emails.
So here’s one important question to consider: During the day-to-day drudgery of keeping your business alive and thriving, do you have the ideas and resources to ensure that your business stays on course, and the marketing strategies in place to ensure that it grows?
Implementation.
You have products and services that stand head & shoulders above others in your industry. Your competitor’s customers are ready to jump ship and switch to you.
In a 2013 study of 500 small businesses by TD Bank, it found that 25% of small businesses weren’t confident of their financial health. No wonder the banks are not lending. If the business owner is not confident…
Citibank, too, performed a survey of small businesses in 2013, to find out what percentage were reinventing themselves in the face of a failing economy. It provided many strong responses; at the same time, the poll discovered that half of businesses were doing nothing to reinvent themselves.
There’s certainly no shortage of content for you to look at the sheer volume of marketing advice that’s available is staggering. Right now on Amazon, there are more than 400,000 books for sale on the topic of Sales and Marketing. That’s a lot of advice, waiting just a few clicks away.
If you didn’t have a business to run, and found the time to read just one of those books a week, you’d finish the lot in just under, what 8,000 years.
11,000 new books a year on business. There is loads to go on.
You could probably call yourself an expert in marketing a few millennia before that.
Once you have read them and you’re an expert, the strategies available to you are virtually endless. Are you certain you have the resources to implement them? Do you have the time to do everything yourself, or enough employees to support your efforts?
Really? Make sure you aren’t overestimating your abilities. Now ask yourself again, and consider carefully:
Do you have the time not just to pull together a plan, but also to implement your ideas? If you don’t have the time, do you have enough “boots on the ground” to put your plans in action?
If you needed a website, you could teach yourself to code, and probably build one yourself eventually. Probably not the best use of your time, though.
If you needed legal advice, would you put yourself through law school? Of course not! When you need expert advice, you turn to experts.
Experts like careful accountants. Experts like experienced doctors. Experts like honest mechanics.
If every product and service you sell has been commoditised… If you haven’t yet found a way to clone yourself…
HOW DO YOU PLAN TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS OVER THE NEXT 20 YEARS?
One key to survival in an environment with unstable economic conditions, increasing costs of services, decreasing profit margins, and a weakening value of money is to add customers.
I’ve already warned you about the changes that often disrupt the effectiveness of traditional advertising. With that in mind what other ways might you grow your business?
Referrals? A lot of small business owners think they can rely on referrals to deliver new customers. Well, guess what? As much as your customers may love you, and promise to tell everyone they know to come to your shop or call you when they need something…you can’t put their good intentions in the bank!
In the same way as a strong balance sheet can’t pay the business rates.
The Harvard Business Review take a look at just how effective referrals are as a business development strategy, specifically within the telecommunications and finance sectors. Their findings were nothing short of stunning:
68% of customers said they would make referrals Only 14% actually did.
So if your business has 100 customers today, and based on what they tell you, you’re thinking you’ll have 168 customers sometime in the future…I recommend you significantly scale back your expectations.
Lower Prices?
You might win more customers if you offer the lowest price, but will you be able to turn and sustain a profit? Price wars are dangerous, as a long-term business strategy, lowering prices is too-often a losing game.
Perceived Value!
You can buy a cup of coffee for £1…so explain why more than 8 million cups a day are sold at Starbucks at a price that’s 300%-600% higher.
I have just done a quick search, and found a company online that sells tablet computers for £50. Yet Apple has sold more than 80 million iPads since it introduced the 6 times more expensive device in 2010.
A perfectly suitable leather handbag can be found in the £50-£100 range, but Louis Vuitton has built a multi-billion-dollar business selling bags that go for four and five figures.
In an era of hyper-commoditisation, if you find a way to make your product or service stand out from a crowd—in other words, if you offer something more than just another cup of coffee—you can not only avoid the threat of commoditisation, you can charge a premium, as the examples above show.
Look I can get a hair cut in Horsham for £10 – or I can go to the Kings Road in Chelsea and pay up to £5k – now I am sure I will get more that a pair of clippers and a number 2
all over – but is it £4,990 better?
The threats of Information Overload, Commodity Curve and Implementation I described in this report are very real, but you can overcome them—without spending thousands or millions of pounds.
Whether you’re not growing fast enough and you don’t have enough customer or you can’t find enough of the right customers ask yourself this very simple question:
How can you RESTART your business and overcome the threats you’re facing?
It’s tough. You know you have great products and services, but you’re ham- strung by a limited marketing budget.
You might not have known how strangled by information overload the average consumer is…but you know now.
And commoditisation? If you suspected it was a challenge, but didn’t know how to overcome it, now’s the time to take on your competitors.
You don’t have to go it alone. The threats of Information Overload, Commodity Curve and Implementation described in this report are very real, but they can be overcome.
If you’d like information on how to protect your business contact me today.
My analysis will focus on identifying untapped revenue sources, underperforming marketing assets, and overlooked marketing & selling possibilities that are costing your business £1,000,000 or more in lost revenue.
You’ll receive a plan of implementation to recover the lost revenue without spending more on conventional advertising while using the resources you already have, the same effort & the same staff.
Andy Average just saved himself £5k for doing very little.
Andy is just like you, far too busy running a business or bringing up kids to understand all he should and there is an industry that prays on your busyness. Yup pension providers and advisers.
The average UK Pension pot is just over £50k, but that’s not the whole story. Once you factor in charges and your options at retirement you could well end up with dire a rather than poor pension. By taking the time to learn a few snippets you could be substantially better off – truly much better of – to the tune of at least £5k.
If you are like most people the whole topic of pensions just makes his eyes glaze over. The adviser and pension industry know that – that’s why they keep the truth hidden in fug of small print and odd terms – their mantra ‘if they can’t understand, they’ll do as they are told.”
It’s a fair point and with many changes in rules and legislation relating to pensions over the last few parliaments, and the fact that you are forced to enage with an adviser just to understand a few basic points it’s no wonder Andy can’t be bothered.
But there is a massive problem; see putting his head in the dirt and hoping the whole thing will blow over won’t work, it won’t work for And or me so I doubt it will for you.
Important
If when you open your eyes all you can see is dirt, it means you are not accepting a couple of truths. Important truths relating to your longer term plans should have a great big light shone on them, not buried in dirt.
Once you start to understand a couple of basics about your medium term financial security you’ll also start to notice something. These pension things aren’t difficult at all In fact they are incredibly simple.
One you understand the game you’re playing. Long term planning is just a game where turning up to play is mandatory. Making your money work hard for you – is just a game and you have to play it if you want to make your future better than now.
Rules of the Game
Charges. Make sure the level of charges within your planning are affordable.
Charges alone could be costing you £10,000 more than necessary based on the UK average pension pot of £50k. Adviser charges alone make up for more than half of that. No wonder they’re pleased to see you walk into the office.
Income. All of your investments within your pension need to be focused on producing income and not on growth. Remember these words when allocating your funds.
Asset Allocation. In simple terms don’t put all your eggs in one basket, and the doesn’t mean you can invest in the managed fund.
Don’t ever agree to pay adviser fees from the fund. If advice is worth paying for then it’s worth paying for – like writing a cheque. Would you let your garage charge you a percentage of value of your car for servicing? Yeah thought not.
Understand
Andy, like many of owners of pension products got told he should invest in one of these pension things, it all seemed very grown up to him at the time. In his late twenties with only himself to worry about this made sense. He wrapped up his disposable wealth in a nice little ‘tax efficient’ wrapper – his adviser made all sorts of promises.
What Andy didn’t know…
He couldn’t touch the fund ’til he was fifty five – close to being dead (in the scheme of things Andy now recognises these ages – close to being dead, closer, really close, touching distance, very nearly dead.)
Charges would be taken from the pension whether he got advice or not.
The investments within the pension would not produce anything meaningful for Andy until some thirty five years had passed – and then were subject to changes in the rules. By any colour of Government that arrived – and that’s what happened.
No one explained to Andy what the options were. Like alternative investments, building a business etc etc. Note I’m not talking about the more esoteric and little understood options – just the basic, reasonably charged investments.
No one explained that after taking a small amount of the fund the rest was taxable in full and that ISA rules would change making these a slightly more efficient option.
No one explained that there were genuine tax free options that he could have used.
It’s not to late.
For Andy he didn’t wake up early on pension problem morning.
Being a tad past his fifties; he thought there was nothing he could do. Fortunately he managed to come across the Moneytrainers package which meant he could learn about this stuff at no charge – and be given the option to come along to some free webinars and the Pub Schools.
Now Andy’s a happy bunny, he knows stuff and he’s avoiding the pitfalls outlined above.
If all you had to do in order to become financially independent was sit down in front of an Independent Financial Adviser for an hour; we’d all do that and there would be line of people outside offices up and down the country. All we’d need do is wait to the told the solutions.
Pop over now to https://www.moneytrainers.co.uk, put your best email address in the box and you’ll get some goldmine information – just don’t tell your adviser what you’ve done – they tend to get a bit grumpy.
Look, I get excited about testing and proving things can actually work better if we think differently about them. Most of the things you want to try don’t work anymore, but there are some things that really do work well if you combine them.
So do this first.
Phone your local newspaper and ask them how much it will cost you run a ¼ page ad, and your local Radio station for 10, 30 second ads, and then your local Adwords Consultant.
Once you have been given a price, ask them what guarantees they offer.
You know the rule you give them money, what do you get back? If they are not offering any form of guarantee you had better get in touch. My Thirty Day Restart goes deep into your business and your marketing and not wide, and will uncover things you never knew were there.
If you would prefer a better analogy – rather than digging new wells to find water I will help you bring up more water from the existing one.
Start up – special rules apply. I can still help but not with this service.
Richard Smith – www.therichardsmith.com
Direct Line 0774 007 6226