A fourth London Paraplanners Powwow is in the offing, organisers say, as advisers were told they could learn a lot from the rapidly expanding movement.
After a successful third outing on Tuesday this week there will be more Powwows Down South, Financial Planner Online has been told.

Many of the 26 guests attended for a second or third time, showing how much they valued the events, organisers said.

Alan Gow APP, who set up the London incarnation of the event along with John Redmond APP, after the first national Powwow in 2013, said the day had been another worthwhile and successful one and added: “There will definitely be more.”

Nathan Fryer, another organiser of the London Powwow, which was hosted by 7IM, said the growing Powwow movement should provide an example to follow for others in the sector. He said Paraplanners had shown a collegiate, sharing approach and were dedicated to helping spread good practice and giving colleagues useful ideas to implement in their own business lives.

He said a tip he picked up at the last national Powwow had saved him huge amounts of time on a common task.

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He said: “People like to share ideas and processes and personally I think advisers could learn a lot from what we do at Powwows rather than seeing each other as competition.”

In terms of themes to emerge from the London Powwow, Mr Fryer said that the “biggest eye opener was the amount of people moving towards cashflow planning.”

Mr Fryer, owner/director of outsourced Paraplanning firm Plan Works, led a discussion about the review process, what it looks like, what makes it efficient and client segmentation.

The process should be more than a review of the performance of the funds, he said. The group looked at whether it should be a whole revisit of the client objectives and if changes were needed.

He said: “It was generally agreed that you should revisit the risk profile each time.”

Mr Gow led a session on report writing, which featured some discussion following on from FCA expert Rory Percival’s presentation at the IFP Paraplanning Conference in May. 

Mr Gow said the emphasis of the session was on how to make reports more engaging, examining the need for replication of information and illustrations from providers and offering greater clarity.

One guest discussed how their firm was using a non-financial services company for storyboarding to make reports flow better and easier to understand.

Mr Gow said: “The idea of storyboarding was met with a lot if interest from Paraplanners in the group. I think the fact they were a non-financial services firm was very interesting as well.”

Following the sessions, guests stayed to chat and network. Organisers thanked host company 7IM for allowing the use of its offices.

In September the third national Paraplanners Powwow takes place