So where do you go to get good advice?

At a workshop I was running last week, we got onto the subject of trust within financial services and how one goes about finding an adviser. One of the attendees commented that he still felt comfortable using his bank for advice. This is good as one needs to be comfortable with one's advisor.

This Saturday, the Personal Finance Editor of The Times was commenting on the massive fines imposed on Barclays bank and the Royal Bank of Scotland and spoke of the Barclays “Branches as little more than sales operations staffed by underpaid, ill-informed and commission hungry school leavers”. Probably a little harsh.

Here we have two different perspectives. So where do you go to get good advice.

As you would expect, there is no easy solution as the relationship you build up with your advisor may last many years and in my own experience people rely on that adviser to keep them up to date and abreast of their affairs. All advisers have required formal qualifications since the early 90s and these are currently being reviewed to an even higher standard. In the meantime, as with other professionals, advises are involved in a rolling process of continued professional development.

Experience is important and, in my own opinion, the ability to communicate clearly and make things simple for the client is of paramount importance. No matter how good technically you are if you cannot put the point over in a way that the client understands then they are going to be confused and possibly worried about their financial situation.

At the Chapman Partnership, we market ourselves under the branding of making money make sense as we have a passionate belief that pensions, investments, savings, Wills and trusts etc do not have to be overly complicated from the client viewpoint. It is the adviser's role to understand the complications and help the client to work through them. If that is not happening, then perhaps you should not be paying him or her.

With regard to building trust for new clients, then we offer a taster service for a fixed fee and with no ongoing obligation (on either part). It allows us to do some real work for you the client and allows you to get some real benefit whilst at the same time also seeing how we go about carrying out that work.

Currently for businesses within The Best of Newark we are offering a discount of 10% on the normal price of £97.

If you want more information about this ring Martin on (07767) 450097. The only thing we ask is that if you do not feel it has been worth it do tell us and if you do feel it has been worth it then perhaps you will consider referring us to others.