“My paraplanner is my eyes and ears on the ground"

Tracey Evans, associate partner at Ashley Law Crawley, explains why she would be lost without her paraplanner.

Servicing the complex needs of my clients and running all aspects of a small business is no easy task.

My time is sapped by many distractions throughout the day and it is very easy to find that important client facing work slips down the priority queue. That’s where working with my paraplanner, Debbie is invaluable.

At the top level, Debbie keeps track of my client facing work load, covering all aspects from initial contact to in-life servicing. She is my eyes and ears on the ground, managing our busy office and fielding first line questions from clients.

As a business, we specialise in complex financial planning needs, covering situations such as pension drawdown, SIPPs and a whole range of other financial planning requirements. As one of two fee earners in the business, it is vital that my client facing time is maximised and time consuming tasks such as researching provider solutions, preparing detailed reports and chasing down technical queries are addressed effectively.

It is at this detailed level, in the meat of the financial advising process, that paraplanner skills come to the fore. Simply put, my time is maximised on servicing existing clients and generating new business while the time consuming highly skilled financial planning work is mostly addressed by the paraplanner.

Cost benefits

The decision to employ a paraplanner is an easy one when this massive time/skill benefit is realised. It is easy to justify the employment costs when compared against the time made available to generate additional business and spend more time face to face with clients. A very simple example is that Debbie will pre-populate application forms and even put markers where the client needs to sign saving valuable time when with clients, these small things really add up and take the stress out of advising clients.

Debbie and I have worked together for over 14 years and we have created a bond of understanding. We each know our respective strengths and weaknesses and as a team we are stronger and more capable. This translates into a better client experience in not just quality of advice, but also resilience in terms of contactability, more than one person available who understands the client’s sometimes unique and complex requirements as well as the obvious benefit of cover during holidays and sickness.

It is also good to be able to bounce around ideas and jointly solve problems that arise from time to time.

Frankly, I would be lost without Debbie’s support and certainly far less productive and successful than I am today.