A Year In Review – Life at boosst in 2024 - Financial Planning Insights and Guides

A Year in Review: Life at boosst in 2024

We’re starting our year by taking a moment to reflect on our favourite highlights in 2024…

January:

Each year in January we take part in Financial Planning Week – a national initiative which provides access to outstanding independent financial planners for the general public. Gabby, Tom and Josh all hosted 60 minute sessions in 2024, with wonderful feedback…

With that same objective of continually improving the profession of financial planning, we also make a conscious effort to speak to as many newcomers to the profession as possible. Whilst we can’t create job opportunities for every promising candidate we speak to, we can help, guide and provide career tips to those who reach out to us. Sometimes this includes offering formal work experience, and across 2024 we opened work experience opportunities to 5 people looking to enter the profession.

We also hosted Isaac, Dawn’s son, for his GCSE work experience. He got involved in a few little projects and spent time with the team learning about what we all do (especially his mum!). He was certainly up there as one of our most engaged school work experience students we have had join us and he gave us some very kind feedback on his time with us!

February:

We entered a team of six into the Willen Hospice Big Quiz, alongside 90 other very competitive teams. The mood was fun but the questions were challenging – this wasn’t an event for amateur quizzers! We may not have won the quiz but everybody in our team did leave with a raffle prize… sometimes you have to take the small wins!

February also saw a new batch of leadership training for Jennie, Gabby, Tom and Nick to further strengthen the depth of our leadership skills. The external training sessions varied from one hour to multi day courses, spread out with homework in between. This initiative is all about ensuring that our future leadership team has strong applicants from within. A core belief at boosst is that leadership is not simply a job title – instead it is a learnt characteristic that we can all embody in order to support and develop each other.

March:

Jennie, Josh and Keith were invited to attend the Accredited Financial Planning Firms conference in London. This offers us the opportunity to socialise with senior team members from other top firms around the UK, and with financial planning being a relatively small profession, we love taking every opportunity we get. Presenter highlights included a cybersecurity specialist, an AI consultant, and peer-lead discussions on how we can work together for the benefit of our small but mighty profession.

April:

In April, Josh and Gabby were treated to a tour of the Mercedes F1 factory by clients and friends Adam and Georgie. It was fascinating to see how a large team is able to work together and bring incredibly nuanced aspects of each role together with effective communication. Adam’s role is specifically focused around the integration of the engine to the car and we were lucky that a car from a previous year was available to see, half-constructed on the factory floor. If you ever get the opportunity to see inside of a Formula One team factory, Gabby and Josh highly recommend it.

The weeks either side of the tax year are always particularly busy for our support team. Some tasks, no matter how well we plan in advance, must either be done at the end of the tax year once all other variables are known, or immediately after the beginning of the next tax year. To celebrate another very smooth tax year end, we all gathered at our local restaurant, The Swan, for a well earned team meal.

May:

In May, the team grew by one as we were joined by Ryan Smith, our enterprise planner. Ryan settled in extremely well and has quickly become a valued member of the team. As well as tackling his advanced financial planning qualifications, he’s also a semi professional footballer – so certainly a busy man.

Keith, Josh and Tom made the trip to Tolouse to support Harlequins in their first ever European cup semi-final. Unfortunately, the French side were a little too strong, but it was a brilliant trip and special memories were made.

May also signals our annual portfolio rebalance for our individual clients. As it had been another excellent period for equities, it’s important that we rebalance portfolios to ensure that the asset allocation does not drift and investors do not find themselves holding a more volatile portfolio than intended. The rebalance is just one of many things that we do behind the scenes for clients.

In May we also published two more of our Uncommon Sense essays, with the total number of essays reaching 26 by the end of 2024. We added topics like ‘Longevity – The Under-appreciated Retirement Risk’, ‘The Overlooked Hassles of Owning Property’, ‘Simulating a Month Retired’ and ‘Building Wealth for the Unknowns’. Clients can access our latest and historic essays through the link in our newsletters, which we send every other month.

June:

We opened our doors once more to welcome our group of local professionals – an important network we maintain so that we can always connect our clients with trusted professionals, as and when required. At the summer event we ran an educational session on the recent changes to pension legislation and Tom spoke about how we help clients to make important life decisions by viewing the decision through a lens of ‘regret avoidance’. Tom then excelled himself with the pizza paddle:

After the success of the event in June, we hosted our professionals again just before Christmas, this time at The Woburn Hotel. We did a deep dive into the recent changes announced in the Autumn Budget before going into some detail on investment performance for clients – and closed with a session about our journey to employee ownership.

For 2024, our two wellness ambassadors were Jennie and Dawn. Amongst their other organised activities throughout the year and challenges to keep us on our toes, in June they took us on a long walk around Willen Lake in Milton Keynes. It’s always good to stretch your legs and we had good fun whilst enjoying some fresh air and scenic views.

July:

July brings our annual external audits by Standards International, as we are put through our paces to ensure that excellence is at the heart of our business and compliance processes. Gabby, Josh, Keith and Tom are also individually assessed and interviewed to ensure our financial planning process is consistent across all planners, using the ISO22222 global benchmark. We are pleased to report that we passed all Standards with flying colours once more – and have a fresh suite of certificates. These assessments are a great opportunity to review and continually enhance the outcomes we deliver.

As a team, we tackled the newly opened Wallace and Gromit escape room in Milton Keynes. Both of our teams made it out of the rooms in excellent time (albeit one was slightly quicker than the other!), with plenty of fun had by all.

Keith and Josh spent two long weekends in France for their annual father-son trip watching the Olympics. This is the third time they have supported Team GB at an Olympics games together, and each country has bought new experiences, excitement and medals.

July was also the third consecutive month that Keith and Linda had been away from the office after setting sail in April. They spent most of the time cruising around the south coast and had a good number of clients join them on the boat for meetings and socialising. By spending a lengthy amount of time away from the team, it offers extra space for the team to flourish, as new leaders emerge.

August:

Following a development stage earlier in the year and focus groups in July, August saw us launch an exciting new solution to an age old problem: ‘how to die tidily’!

We all hope to have plenty of notice for when we may die, which makes planning for death much simpler to defer. Sadly, we see all too often that death can be sudden, with no prior warning to prepare. Our new solution, in partnership with technology provider Zenplans, gives clients a secure platform to store everything that their loved ones will need when they are no longer around.

You can learn more here: LINK & watch a recording of the online event here: LINK. We’ve had wonderful feedback from users, who now have the peace of mind that everything will be dealt with as simply and as tidily as possible, with minimal hassle for those grieving.

On a cheerier note, August was also the month that Riah began to prepare for her Certified Financial Planner qualification. It’s a lengthy and complex case study based examination and represents her final formal qualification. We couldn’t be prouder of Riah’s incredible journey — from starting as a retail assistant at Specsavers in 2020 to now being on the verge of becoming a Chartered and Certified Financial Planner at boosst!

September:

After leaving us to go on maternity leave in August, September brought us the news that Laura gave birth to baby Liam. After a few weeks, he was welcomed into the office to meet the team for the first time. Laura has come in for a few days to keep in touch and is returning in May 2025.

We hosted our main 2024 client event ‘Beyond The Money’ at MK Art Gallery. The general theme for the event was to share the ways that we help clients that are not ‘obvious’ things you might expect from a financial planner.

The outstanding Amy Hopper delivered an incredibly motivational and inspiring presentation sharing some of the setbacks she has overcome in her own life and leaving us all feeling motivated to make the most of our time on Earth.

This lead nicely in to the launch of the boosst Travel and Experience Directory – a platform for clients to see what other like-minded people have loved and would recommend – and to share their best experiences to inspire others.

The directory is now live for you to view and add your own experiences to – and can be accessed via the boosst Personal Finance Portal.

October – ‘the big one!’

Wow, a lot happened in October and it will forever be an important month in our legacy. In chronological order…

Keith ran two (free) masterclass sessions for 100 new entrants to the profession – the attendees ranged from complete novices seeking their first financial planning roles, to those working at traditional advisory firms wanting to learn more about how the boosst approach delivers spectacular outcomes for clients. Both masterclasses received rave reviews and have gained widespread praise throughout the profession.

Six of the team attended the CISI UK Financial Planning Conference at Old Trafford Cricket Ground for two days of brilliant offsite development and networking. Gabby was invited to speak on the main stage and did a brilliant job of conveying how putting clients lives first with ‘proper’ lifestyle-driven financial plans create a much better outcome for clients, especially through seeking confidence to spend through retirement. This was her first big speaking gig, but surely not the last.

The next week, we hosted a private screening of The Fall Guy at the excellent Everyman Cinema in Borough Yards, London. This was originally bought by Keith at auction for a children’s cancer charity, with places then ‘resold’ to bidders at our local village charity fundraiser Catfest (supporting Action Against Cancer in memory of our neighbour Cat). Having effectively ‘doubled up’ and raised money twice for charity with half of the seats, remaining spaces were offered to boosst clients for an enjoyable night out in London.

On the 23rd of October we hosted our pre-budget webinar to discuss some of the changes that we expected to see; either immediately, or over the rest of the term of the new government. Importantly, as well as considering likely changes, we also explored their knock-on consequences and how clients can proactively take steps to ensure that their own personal financial plan is able to navigate change as it arrives. The webinar was well received and very popular, becoming our most attended online event to date.

Katie joined us in October becoming our second hire for 2024, taking on a new role as Personal Assistant to the leadership team. Katie has a bubbly can-do attitude and is helping Josh, Jennie and Keith to achieve as many of our projects as possible. Little did she know it was such a perfect time to join…

The following week we were able to announce our transition from family ownership to employee ownership, a significant milestone for us as a business.

boosst has thrived since inception as a family-owned business. An unwavering focus on ‘doing the right thing for the right people’ has proved to be a strong base for building a people-focused business.

While continuing our pathway of family ownership was a perfectly viable route, it was important to Josh, Linda and Keith that boosst exists for as long as it possibly can. Passing ownership to Josh would have only handed on the baton for the next 25 years, and hoped that the following recipient maintained the same values. By moving to employee ownership, the family has secured true longevity for the business and the values they hold dear.

Our profession is one where acquirers are always lurking, and we receive dozens of offers from third parties wanting to buy boosst every year. Selling our team and clients to an external entity would never sit right for the family. While selling to a third party remains a common route in the marketplace for retiring advisers, it would simply not fit our culture.

A transition to employee ownership means that our culture and values are preserved, with the same people making the decisions on how the business is run. No change at the top and no third-party shareholders to answer to means we can remain committed to delivering an authentic boosst experience.

This was a big moment for us and we have loved seeing all of the wonderfully supportive comments landing from you, our clients.

November:

Early in November, Keith, Tom, Nick, Riah and Ryan attended the Humans under Management conference at the Royal College of Physicians. It’s a conference that aligns very closely with our values and focuses on bettering the human side of our relationships with our clients.

Our ‘Bake Off’ contest had also firmly begun, with each team member bringing in their ‘showstopper’ efforts on Mondays. If you were fortunate enough to come and see us over those weeks, you may have had the chance to taste our cakes. Dawn took an early lead as we led into December with her four-tier rocket cake.

To end the month on a high, Keith was installed as a Freeman of the Company of Entrepreneurs, a city of London institution that recognises and welcomes those with an entrepreneurial spirit, and gives them a platform for supporting promising talent with an entrepreneurial flair. This is a fantastic achievement for Keith that we’re all very proud of.

December:

We started the final month of the year by being included in Citywire’s ‘Top 100 UK Firms‘ shortlist for a seventh consecutive year, a great team achievement.

Our bake off competition came to an end with Dawn, Josh and Gabby being level on points, it seemed fairest that Dawn won, leaving Josh and Gabby in second as they had two pairs of hands, with Ryan taking third place for his majestic millionaire shortbread.

In December we also received our 70th testimonial for our Wall of Love, after it launched in 2023. It’s incredibly rewarding for the team to read your kind words and receive your appreciation for their efforts. You can take a look and add your message here: Wall of Love.

We published the phenomenal results from our 2024 Client Survey – a big thank you to those who took time to respond as this really helps us to understand how our efforts are being received. You can see some of the headline results here LINK – we were particularly thrilled that 94% of respondents selected ‘Very Satisfied’ as their overall response. As well as gaining your insights on us as a business, it’s also really important that we can demonstrate the happiness of the boosst community – as it is incredibly helpful for the friends and family that you refer to us to have independent validation that the people actually paying our fees are really very happy with the value they receive.

We always like to divide the final month of the year neatly into two halves. The first half is always devoted to any final client work for the year, followed by time together as a team before closing the office for the festive period. We spend that time together reflecting on the past 12 months and planning for the year ahead. It probably isn’t a surprise to hear that your financial ‘planners’ like to plan ahead for the upcoming year – and this is when we set our projects, goals and milestones for the new year.

We then all enjoyed our Christmas party together before closing the office so that the team had the opportunity to take some rest over Christmas with family and loved ones. As the team has grown, we needed a different kind of Christmas party to host all of our lovely team and their partners. Linda did a fantastic job organising a private house with actors coming in to run a live murder mystery evening and a chef to take care of all of the food. We took our roles in the plots very seriously with some epic fancy dress. All eyes were on Josh as the killer, with suspicion rising through the evening… until he too was killed… and we collectively figured out that Dawn was in fact the murderer!