BestAdvice fires the questions at Ahmed Bawa, CEO of Rosemount Financial Solutions (IFA) Ltd
BestAdvice (BA): What’s your brief background and who are Rosemount Financial Solutions (IFA) Ltd?
Ahmed Bawa (AB): Rosemount Financial Solutions was founded in 2006, its precursor to that, in 2004, being a company called Mortgage Solutions For You. As we moved to Intrinsic – as Quilter Financial Planning was called then – we decided to become a full financial services company. We now have around 120 advisers across the country.
As for myself, I started out in sales hammering through the Yellow Pages, cold calling. Once I started doing well in that, I moved into management at a company called Save and Prosper, which was later bought by Allied Dunbar, where I went on to work as national recruitment director.
In 2006, a handful of directors left to create Intrinsic, and I moved over with them to work as the recruitment director there. I left five years ago to take over Rosemount on a full-time business.
BA: What makes you different to other networks/adviser firms and why is independence so important to you?
AB: First thing that comes to mind is our core value of treating everybody – from our clients to our advisers – as they wish to be treated. This value drives every one of our decisions and processes and is immediately obvious to everybody we deal with.
This extends to we imprint family values on to our network of advisers. I personally know every single adviser in the firm, and we have regular meetings with each other. For our advisers, this intimacy translates into an ever-expanding knowledge base that every staff member is welcome to tap into, giving clients specialist knowledge across the whole spectrum of financial services.
And this is where independence comes in – being free to speak to any bank or building society or other institution ensures that we always work in the best interest of our clients.
BA: How do you support your advisers to enable them to grow their businesses?
AB: Outside of the benefits advisers enjoy mentioned above, our network provides all the expected offerings, such as compliance services, access to a Business Strategy Manager and an invitation to our annual conference.
However, we also offer much more specialised services, which include marketing support, stretching from designing logos and other graphics to social media use, access to regional peer groups of up to 20 advisers each for local support, and an online forum for advisers to use for networking and knowledge sharing.
Where we truly set ourselves apart is in our training. Here, we put on masterclasses in specific product areas and in business management for our advisers, alongside training for administration and paraplanning staff. And because we are always hiring and acquiring new businesses, the range of the expertise we offer is constantly growing.
BA: Why are the forum for advisers to use to communicate with each other and the regional peer groups so important to advisers?
AB: On the first point, in my experience it is far too easy for advisers to cut themselves off from the wider business when things start getting busy – or in the case currently, have been incredibly busy for nigh-on two years. Knowing there are people in your position to get advice from, or even to talk to casually, has been of immense benefit to the mental wellbeing of our staff.
There are also local housing issues, which are often affected by local governments and local sensitivities not understood on a national level, that advisers will sometimes need to discuss.
BA: You organise a variety of events for your advisers, can you give some examples?
AB: The most recent example is the Protection Masterclass that we ran at the start of October. It was a follow-up from one we ran back in late March. Featuring two speakers – one in-house expert and somebody hailing from a big provider – the masterclass focused on broaching and making the best of what are often quite difficult conversations with clients, as well as broader lessons in sales.
To create and maintain an intimate atmosphere, where everybody involved felt comfortable in asking any question, we split the sessions into two groups of 10 and seven people, respectively.
We are very proactive in receiving and acting on feedback from attendees.
BA: Finally, what’s your ambition for the business?
AB: Although we are keen in hiring new advisers and buying other firms outright, I spend a lot of time thinking about how I don’t want Rosemount to grow to a size where I’m unable to forge a personal relationship with every adviser.
Ideally, I’d like Rosemount to become an example of just how exciting and rewarding the IFA and mortgage and protection business can be. Too often I speak to successful advisers who reveal they ‘fell into’ the business rather than aimed for it. Working harder at getting the message that this is a brilliant lifelong career option to younger people seems like a natural next step for me.
As an aside, my son just joined Rosemount after graduating in microbiology from Imperial College. This has been not just a point of obvious pride, but inspiring too. We must be doing something right.
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