Meet the paraplanner: Gary Tunstall

Only two out of 100 people would know what a paraplanner does, Brook-Dobson Brear's Gary Tunstall says. So his business card reads something else...

Q. How did you decide to get into paraplanning?
A. My father works in the industry as a tied adviser, so I had some background knowledge. On leaving university my aim was to get into the civil service. When that didn’t work out I applied for several different roles, and paraplanning was the one that struck me as most interesting, because I always enjoyed research and analysis.

Q. Brook-Dobson Brear is a relatively new firm. Does the firm have a progressive attitude to the paraplanning role?
A. Absolutely. In terms of my involvement, my role and the firm itself, it’s the best company I’ve worked for by a long shot. Its investment and planning philosophy is fantastic, but also the company’s attitude to its workers. As the firm has only been going for 3.5 years it’s still quite small. There are only five of us – two advisers and one paraplanner – so we all work quite closely together. There is a lot of interaction.

Q. Your job title is ‘financial planner’. Some IFAs have voiced concerns there is a trend within the industry for calling paraplanners everything but paraplanner. Why do you think that is?
A. I think the reason Tim and Andrew decided on the job title ‘financial planner’, rather than ‘paraplanner’, was simply because the term paraplanner doesn’t enjoy widespread currency. If you asked 100 people on the street what it meant, you would be lucky to find two who knew, so it just adds another layer of obfuscation. However, it is a bit of a circular problem: if firms keep labelling the role as something else, it never will achieve the mass recognition needed.

Q. You have been working as a paraplanner for nine years and have quite a trail of qualifications. Do you see yourself moving into an IFA-type role?
A. Although I wouldn’t have ever thought I would hear myself say this, I may become an adviser at some point, although I definitely don’t have any overriding ambitions in that regard. Whether or not I will be a paraplanner in 20 years’ time is hard to say, but if I was I don’t necessarily think that would be a bad thing. It is not that I don’t enjoy working with clients but rather I am not sure how good I would be at bringing in new business.

Q. Talk me through your average day.
A. I spend time dealing with clients’ funds: buying, selling and the subsequent documentation. I also spend time speaking with product providers for research purposes, looking at new investment opportunities, writing up investment planning reports, and having client meetings with Tim or Andrew.

There is a small element of admin and back-office stuff, but client meetings and writing up reports definitely require the biggest input in terms of time. We do lifetime professional planning, expenditure, income, assets and liabilities for all new clients coming through the door now, and that is very time intensive. We decided to implement it for all new clients, because we found it is the best way to demonstrate the level of risk or investment needed for people to reach their goals.

Q. What are the key paraplanner skills?
A. Paraplanning requires the soft skills that advisers excel at. For instance, the ability to deal effectively with people but also a technical faculty. In some ways paraplanners have a wider knowledge base than IFAs, because we need both the analytical ability and to convey information in a client-friendly format.

Q. How do you think paraplanners are perceived by IFAs and clients?
A. In my current position the role is accorded due respect, but a lot of advisers tend to treat it as a glorified admin role, which it is not. As a result, there is a high attrition rate in paraplanning, in terms of regular job switching and leaving the industry, which doesn’t deliver the professional consistency clients expect. Hopefully, as the role develops there will be an increased understanding of its importance.

Q. What are your top tips for paraplanners?
A. It is important to have a clear understanding of what your IFA wants. Don’t be afraid to approach them for clarification. If you don’t, confusion ensues. The most important thing for a paraplanner is to work at forging a good relationship with their individual IFA. If you don’t have a good relationship, everything else falls apart and it can be a nightmare.