A Chartered Financial Planner is expanding a training academy for planners that he launched last year.

Steve Martin CFPTM Chartered MCSI, is to run a number of events to “communicate lifestyle Financial Planning to their clients effectively”.

He is being assisted by two Chartered Financial Planners - Tamsin Caine CFPTM Chartered MCSI, also from Smart, and Damien Rylett, owner of Brunel Capital Partners and Pilgrim Financial Planning. Both are involved directly in the training days.

Mr Martin, owner of Smart Financial, an Accredited Financial Planning firm, told Financial Planning Today the training programme had proved “not as daft as I thought it would be”.

He said the level of interest, with his latest session running out of spaces in 24 hours, had convinced him to extend it.

He said: “We’ve clearly hit on something which is really positive and people identify for themselves they’ve got gaps in their skills sets.”

The upcoming training days are focused on the first meeting with a client and how to help them understand what a difference Lifestyle Financial Planning can make in their lives.

The events are aimed at any planners who feel they struggle to get clients to commit to a full Financial Planning service.

The next event on 24 February in London will cost £297 to attend or £197 for members of Inspiring Advisers, for which Mr Martin was a founding member.

He emphasised the fact the sessions are being run by three planners who are “at the coal face practitioners on a regular basis, not consultants that haven’t sat in front of clients”.

Although the sessions take place in a class environment, the trainers get people role-playing. Mr Martin said he wants it to be difficult and for them to be feeling ‘uncomfortable’, having to deal with difficulties that they would do in the real world.

He said it was about trying to make planners feel “as exposed as possible” and challenge their existing habits.

Mr Martin previously expressed his ambitions to train planners to “never again engage in a transactional relationship with their clients”.

The former IFP Manchester branch chairman told FP Today: “The Smart Training Academy was born from a frustration of watching good planners struggle and bad advisers flourish.

“Our objective is to train Financial Planners to communicate lifestyle Financial Planning to their clients effectively so that they never again engage in a transactional relationship with their clients.”

Mr Martin, a PFS and CISI member, recently spoke out about what he believes to be a failure among the professional bodies to help younger planners first getting into the profession. He claimed the PFS and CISI were failing to provide the necessary training and guidance for upcoming planners – though both insisted otherwise.