CHRIS THORPE
Founder | Agile IFA Ltd
What was the situation that made you want to work with The IFA PA?
When we started working with The IFA PA the business was just starting out. I was working on my own 5 years ago and was performing all of the business functions myself. Completing all of the usual admin such as LOA’s, applications and appointment scheduling.
The amount of admin that was building up was affecting the amount of time I had to concentrate on finding new business and dealing with the existing client base. There are only so many hours in a day, so this became unmanageable and quite stressful.
How did The IFA PA solve your problem?
The IFA PA team took on several of the admin tasks that I had been dealing with including;
- Onboarding of new clients onto our back-office system
- Contacting clients for necessary missing info
- Sending of LOA’s to existing providers
- Preparing a file for paraplanning
- Completion of applications upon gaining business
- Managing pipeline
- Booking second and review appointments.
This resulted in much more time being available to work on finding new clients, spending time with existing clients and generally being much more organised. Being able to spend much more time working ‘on the business’ resulted in a snowball effect of new clients being obtained and higher business revenues as a result.
The team placed all of our workflow onto their suggested system, Asana. This worked well for a number of months however since then we have gradually integrated the task process into our back-office system (Intelligent Office). We now have very controlled and repeatable processes that more than ensure we are compliant, and our clients receive a timely and professional service.
How has your life changed since working with The IFA PA? Would you recommend us to people who were hesitating in outsourcing their Financial Services administration?
I couldn’t have grown the business to the level we have without the support of The IFA PA. Had we not had their input, then we would have had to employ potentially untrained, or more expensive team members which would have put undue strain on the business at the point where profitability was key to its success.
I would not hesitate in recommending outsourcing the admin of the business to an external firm and definitely Nikki and the team at The IFA PA. From the very start of the relationship their understanding of the systems and processes we needed were invaluable. The team are great to work with, we have regular meetings in relation to our ongoing work and both myself and our clients all feel that The IFA PA team are part of our own team. It’s a seamless service.
I cannot thank The IFA PA team enough for the support they have given in growing our business, the service has been second to none and I cannot recommend them highly enough. Both myself, our team and very importantly our clients find the service provided is top notch!