Gibson Lamb as you know it is made up of the core team of myself (the adviser) and Emma and Vicky (my support team). But there’s a whole lot more to how we operate than just the three of us.
We work in partnership with three different firms to provide extra resources so we thought it would be interesting to give you an insight into what these companies provide us, and therefore you.
The Paraplanners
Looking back, starting to work with The Paraplanners in 2008 was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. Essentially, the founder, Richard, and his team provide technical support and report writing. The whole team are highly qualified financial planners – they actually have more qualifications than me! This means that when it comes to helping us prepare client reports and recommendations, they are ideally placed to ensure that our advice is being ‘sense checked’ early on in the process.
Their own processes mean that at least two people at The Paraplanners read each report, and of course I read them all, meaning that no less than three qualified financial planners have written, checked and re-checked our recommendations before they reach you.
As well as client-facing reports, they help us prepare internal due diligence research and join us for our biannual board meetings. Richard and I have formed a close friendship over the years, as not only do our businesses work well together, we also share a passion for gadgets and cars!
Outsourced paraplanning services that plug in: The Paraplanners
Standards International
Our relationship with Michelle and her team dates back to 2017. We felt like it was time to give our business processes a bit of a shakeup. Everything worked pretty well but we thought there were improvements we could make. The journey we embarked on with Michelle revolutionised how we do things on a day-to-day basis, culminating in us being awarded British Standard BS8577 in 2018. (This is basically proof that we run Gibson Lamb in a very organised manner.)
Michelle is a lively, straight-talking person, with an infectious enthusiasm for improving the quality of financial planning businesses by showing them that good processes are the core to success. Get the foundations right and everything else falls into place. Our business looks similar from the outside but since 2017 our internal procedures are much more effective and robust. They’re also written down!
Michelle or one of her team also join us for our biannual board meetings, providing further expertise and insight into how we can become even better at what we do for you.
Intuitive Administration
In a more recent partnership, Debbie and her team provide us with the option to outsource day-to-day administrative tasks. The Intuitive team are experienced financial services professionals, meaning they have an understanding of the terminology of our industry which is crucial when dealing with the enormous amounts of paperwork generated.
By passing some of our administrative tasks over to Intuitive, we free up more time for Vicky and Emma to help me stay on top of my workflow.
Intuitive – Supporting Financial Advice Firms
Meet the team to find out a bit more about us and our partners.