What a day indeed! We’re officially one week on from Evolution 2021 and we’re still on a high here at The Verve Group. With overwhelming feedback from the first real life event in financial services since the global pandemic, we felt we well and truly came back with a bang! For those of you who missed it (or those who still want to ride our high), we’ve shared some of our highlights below.

“It takes a lot of courage to put yourselves out there as the first to go back to in-person events, so major kudos and thank you for continuing to inspire the rest of us.”

Entering the Dragon’s Den.

“Look, there’s no way I’m going to go and seek out a financial adviser. I just wouldn’t want one. I’m not coming to you. I’m not actively seeking out a financial adviser. Now, if I was on my phone, on Twitter or TikTok, and something popped up, something grabbed my attention, in the right way, at the right time of day for me, I might be tempted to click on it and see where it goes. But you need to come into my world. I’m not coming into yours”.

Controversial? Completely. Needed? Absolutely. Steven Bartlett, the man who prefers no job title undoubtedly had the most thought provoking statement of the day when explaining to Cathi why he’s not going to seek out a financial adviser. And it has certainly given us a lot to think about ever since. Check out Cathi’s edition of Eclipse where she shared her views on the matter here. One delegate said that Steven’s views have the potential to change financial services in a big way.

Industry Insight.

“Some stunning stats.”

Paul Grimes shared with us his thoughts on how best to future-proof the profession, as well as giving delegates a sneak preview on the latest global job analysis research and the future of financial planning practice with the FPSB.

Highlights include:

• 40-60% of people said five years from now, virtual will be business as usual.
• Most people said behavioural finance (71%) and financial issues related to ageing (70%) are the most important topics for professionals to learn to be successful in the next five years.
• 73% said embracing technology will have the most significant impact on the success of financial planners.

Building a Profession.

“We have some way to go to change the culture before we become truly a trusted profession.”

Following on from an insightful presentation from Keith Richards, Chairman of Financial Vulnerability Taskforce, delegates had the opportunity to get creative and interact with each other, discussing their thoughts on ‘what do we need to START doing?’ and ‘what do we need to STOP doing?’ when it comes to evolving financial services into a profession. In a World Cafe style activity, the audience scribbled away on tablecloths to help encourage collaboration and a different way of thinking. We’re currently collating these ideas, along with some of our own and will share with you in due course. Have any thoughts of your own? Share them with us @GroupVerve and use the hashtag #VerveEvolution.

Attracting Talent.

“Entertaining, lively and intriguing.”

From her days on the Apprentice to her current role working as Sales and Marketing Director at Dynamic Planner, Yasmina Siadatan, certainly gave us a lot to think about when it comes to recruiting and retaining external talent for the future. Her top tips included:

• Focus on creating real purpose. What are your values?
• Future-proof recruits with a good use of processes and technology.
• Offer flexible working to the very highest degree your firm can operate within.
• Advertise in specialist local channels, such as university job boards or mumpreneur networks.
• Create jobs for life.

Using these tools, delegates then discussed in groups the challenges we face at both a macro (as a profession) and a micro (as individuals) level. Some inspirational ideas were generated and pledges were made to take forward this fresh new thinking and begin to do things differently.

We’ve taken a similar approach to successfully scaling The Verve Group and are happy to share our insights with anyone facing recruitment challenges of their own.

Encouraging Innovation.

“I really wanted to say thanks for letting me join you at Evolution and be part of the day. It had the best energy throughout – a sense of purpose and positivity combined with productivity and practical takeaways. I had a great day and learnt a lot!”

From our business lounge and innovation zone, right through to The Verve Awards themselves, we tried to ensure innovation, creativity and ‘doing things differently’ were at the heart of everything we did at Evolution – and if we think we did a pretty good job if we do say so ourselves!

We will be reviewing and digesting the outputs from the event before pulling them into a comprehensive whitepaper. You can click here to pre-register and we will share it with you very soon!

-The Verve Group