An Accredited Financial Planning firm has launched an academy to train planners to “never again engage in a transactional relationship with their clients”.

Chartered Financial Planner Steve Martin CFPTM Chartered MCSI wants to help planners “communicate lifestyle Financial Planning to their clients effectively”.

The training days run at his firm Smart Financial in Altrincham are aimed to improving key client skills.

Mr Martin is offering two free places for trainee planners who have been in the profession for under two years and are not yet diploma qualified.

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.”

He said: “In the last few years I’ve been delivering presentations to IFP branch meetings on how to deliver the perfect ‘first meeting’ which engages clients in Financial Planning and demonstrates sufficient value that they are happy to pay the correct level of fees for that service.

“In every occasion the message resonated with the audience but, as is often the case, the behaviour change and the implementation of the ideas was minimal. The outcome being that the advisers went back to a product based, transactional service which the advisers don’t want to provide and they know doesn’t fully serve 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.

Mr Martin said: “We will help them navigate the various communication gurus and find their own successful set of skills to engage their clients and then allow them practice them repeatedly in a safe environment so that by the end of our training days their real word skills have improved dramatically.

“As their skills improve, their confidence will improve and as their confidence improves they will feel more able to commit to full financial planning, every client, every time, no exceptions.”

The academy’s second event will be held at Smart’s offices on 16 December from 9am until 4pm. See the Smart website for more details.