Now more than ever financial advice plays a vital role in people’s lives, especially in light of the global pandemic, four long months of lockdown and market volatility.
This is even truer for people and investors who have, historically, felt alienated and disenfranchised by the financial services sector.
Last year, International Adviser reported on the launch of Attitude Financial Services, an LGBT+ inclusive financial advisory firm.
It was set up by Ian Meekins and Dawn Gale, who run financial planning business Blueprint South West, and Darren Styles, publisher of gay magazine Attitude.
Attitude Financial Services is also part of advisory network Quilter Financial Planning.
As the firm turns one year old, IA caught up with managing director Dawn Gale to talk about the reaction it received during its first 12 months.
All about choice
“It’s been good from the point of view that we have been welcomed by both the industry and some clients,” Gale said.
“The press we got has been very, very positive. I think we got the message right, which is about choice. And if you want to choose somebody who is part of the LGBT+ community, or has an understanding of that community, then that’s where we are.
“I think that’s been well received. The anecdotal evidence that we’re getting from talking to clients, and prospective clients as they come through to us, has really reinforced our original premise, which is that members of the LGBT+ community feel cut off from financial services,” Gale added.
But she said that choice wasn’t always available to LGBT+ people when it came to financial advice.
“If, as a woman, I want a female adviser, it’s quite easy for me to go and find one. But if I was a gay woman, and I wanted somebody who was accepting of me and not having to worry about that, that’s a far more difficult choice to make because, until you sit down with somebody, you don’t know.
“You don’t know how you’re going to be made to feel. And that’s what I think Attitude is about, it’s trying to make the client choice easier.”
Owning the quirks
To put itself out there, the firm leveraged the Attitude magazine brand to advertise its services and offering, but matching a financial services background with a publishing one between the three founders was not as easy as they thought.
“I’ll be honest, we had a little bit of a false start with, perhaps, us coming at it from a financial services point of view, and Darren coming at it from an Attitude point of view,” Gale admitted.
“And the two different worlds had to collide and come up with something that would work for the adverts that went in the magazine.
“We’re quirky, there’s no doubt about it; there’s the one [advert] with the back view of a young man in underpants saying: ‘We’ve got it covered’. And that’s where we’ve had to learn.
“But, again, they were really well received. And they definitely got the message across, we were here and we were different.”
‘Normal advice’
And in terms of clients, they received enquiries about two key topics: mortgages for the younger groups, and pension consolidation for the older LGBT+ generation.
“It’s normal financial advice,” Gale said, “but it’s to people who haven’t been seeking that advice in the past.”
Many current and prospective clients have turned to Attitude Financial Services because of negative experiences they have had with financial services in the past.
Gale added: “It’s either a poor experience where they’ve been made to feel uncomfortable when sitting down with an adviser, or it’s a personal perception of financial services, that it’s all grey middle-aged men who will probably have prejudices.
“And as a woman in financial services, I know that feeling.
“But it doesn’t have to be that way. I think the industry is definitely changing. We talk a lot about diversity and, as a woman in financial services, I was very much a minority.
“And that’s now changing, and I think that’s the message that we’re trying to get across: don’t be scared, we’re here and we’re very happy to provide advice across the board to anybody, but you don’t need to worry about the reception you’re going to get from us.”
Worried about reaction
Attitude Financial Service wants to be part of the positive change when it comes to overcoming LGBT+ people’s legacy issues with the financial services industry.
“We’re here to shortcut the process for a gay man trying to look for financial services and is perhaps worried about what reception they’re going to get,” Gale said. “And that’s why Attitude is here, to say that you don’t need to worry, you don’t need to go looking. You don’t need to worry that you’re going to have a false start.”
And it wasn’t just the response from clients that gave the team pause for thought, it was also how the industry would react to a firm like Attitude FS.
She continued: “Twelve months ago, we could have really come under pressure for actually going out and stating that that was our intention, because we’ve seen it before, the financial industry can react badly, but it didn’t.
“I think that is another sign that things are changing.”
12 months later
But, with the global pandemic stifling client enquiries, what has Attitude Financial Services’ first year been like?
“The mortgage market stopped, so that side of the business definitely stopped; and this was across financial services.
“But now that it is opening up and again, we will be starting new mortgage enquiries. And we’ve also got some clients who were in the pipeline, and they’re now going forward to get that finished.
“And I think a lot of people just took a step back a little bit, not knowing what was going to happen and how it was going to pan out.”
Not everyone expected covid-19 to have such a long-lasting impact, however.
Gale said: “I think, within our industry, or at least within my businesses, a lot of people went, for the first three weeks, ‘I’ll just take three weeks off and see what happens’ and then back to work.”
And, of course, we all know it was, and still is, way more than three weeks.
Challenges
So, what’s next?
“Covid aside, we’ve definitely got the message out there, I think what we need to do is get the message out there more in the mainstream,” Gale added.
“I think that’s probably where we need to work over the next six months. Obviously, we still got Attitude [magazine] backing us 100% and we’ll continue to advertise and do editorials through the magazine.
“We were doing some initiatives prior to the pandemic, where we were hoping to maybe be able to come out with some strong messages to discount some of the beliefs and come up with some strong initiatives on that.
“Everything stopped in March, but that’d be something that we would look to try and come back to at some point, either later this year or early next year and just try and work on some initiatives where we could come up with some strong messages.
“But really, we need to make it easier for people to find us, and how we do that I think that’s part of our challenge going forward,” she said.
