Business Owners - Client stories: David Rossell

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If you’re a business owner with £250,000+ to invest (including ISAs and pensions) book a free, hour-long financial health check with an independent financial planner. Rest assured; this is not a sales call. It’s your opportunity to get to know your financial adviser and understand how they can help you achieve your personal and financial goals, without any obligation to go further. Your review will cover five important points: - Your personal finances – your income, assets and outgoings- Your business priorities such as exit planning or drawing an income tax-efficiently- Your goals and aspirations for you and your family - How a financial plan could help you achieve the future you aspire to- Our recommendations on next steps

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A people-centric approach to wealth planning for business owners.

I personally like to think about wealth in the broadest sense of the word. It means so much more than if we think about it purely as money. And this idea is very much a core concept of the discussions that I have with my clients. I try to get them to think about life beyond their finances. Money, as I see it, is merely a vehicle to enable us to live the lives that we want to live. Typically, people come to see a wealth adviser when they are going through a large-scale transition in life – such as a business exit. This in turn feeds into another one of my core principles, which is that every significant financial decision we make comprises a human element and a financial element. And I believe that the human element should drive the decision-making process.

David Rossell, a Wealth Planning Director here at Canaccord Wealth, shares his people-centric approach to his clients, including how he gets to know them and the three key questions he asks when it comes to planning for their future.

Understanding the needs of our clients

I see my job as getting to know the person that is sitting across the table from me. I need to understand what is important to them, what makes them tick, what their values and risk profiles are and, crucially, what their timescales are. When it comes to financial planning, some firms use a structured questioning process with their clients, but I don't do that. I see it as my job to get people to take a step back and think about how they, for example, currently spend their time. Next we’ll chat about how they might choose to spend their time if things were different. I won’t mention money at this point, but instead I’ll aim to get to a place where I’ll discover what is meaningful to the person in question and their loved ones.

Helping clients visualise their current financial situation

One tool that I always use is some form of lifetime cash flow and asset analysis. These are really great ways of helping people visualise their current situation and how it might evolve in the years ahead. And if you’re working with people earlier in the process, as opposed to after a business exit, then you can look at a whole range of different scenarios and ascertain what might occur if certain things do or don’t happen. This can really help instil a sense of calm in business owner clients and manage their emotions. You can show them that even if something doesn’t work out as they had hoped, that they’re still going to be okay financially. I also have a view on inheritance tax (IHT) and a framework that I use for advice purposes. For me, inheritance tax mitigation is part of what I would call broader estate planning.

The who, what and when of estate planning

What I've found over the years is that quite often people approach estate planning as a tax reduction exercise. But if we come back to my philosophy that every significant financial decision has a human element and a financial element, my approach would be to look at the human side first, rather than automatically assume that the answer is to reduce IHT – because it might not be. What I do is ask my clients three questions:

What assets do you have? Who do you want to receive them? When do you want to receive them?

If you approach the process this way, then you can then ensure that you have an estate plan that matches your wishes. Then, if you want to make your plan as tax efficient as possible, you can. The alternative is to target a range of IHT strategies, but that could mean potentially ending up with a plan that doesn't really meet what you – as a human being – actually want. That’s the crux of my approach, to be honest – thinking people first, strategies second.

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Book your free business owner financial health check

If you’re a business owner with £250,000+ to invest (including ISAs and pensions) book a free, hour-long financial health check with an independent financial planner. Rest assured; this is not a sales call. It’s your opportunity to get to know your financial adviser and understand how they can help you achieve your personal and financial goals, without any obligation to go further. Your review will cover five important points: Your personal finances – your income, assets and outgoings Your business priorities such as exit planning or drawing an income tax-efficiently Your goals and aspirations for you and your family How a financial plan could help you achieve the future you aspire to Our recommendations on next steps

File size: 5MB

Our exclusive free guide for business owners explores the eight key insights for personal wealth optimisation, to ensure you don’t lose sight of yourself in a business exit or sale.

Download our guide