True Potential LLP

communication

Daniel Harrison – profile

• Posted: Thursday July 15th, 2010.
• Written by: Daniel Harrison

Money Marketing
Gregor Watt

A senior partner at True Potential learnt the business working with his father, IFA stalwart David Harrison, and believes advisers can use technology to continue to serve clients across the wealth spectrum after the RDR Interview by Gregor Watt.

At only 29 years old, True Potential senior partner Daniel Harrison has been part of two successful financial services firms. Many people get into financial services as an afterthought but Harrison was actively encouraged to join the new business that his father, IFA stalwart David Harrison, was working on.

Aged 17 and a school-leaver, Harrison was encouraged to take a job as technical support for Harrison senior’s newly established Positive Solutions and work for a year to raise funds for university. Ten years later, Harrison left the firm but only to join the management of new venture – technology and support services provider True Potential.

During his time at PosSol, Harrison saw the company grow from three employees to more than 50 and he took on a variety of roles, from technology and programming to admin and compliance and eventually marketing. He says: “In the early days, there was not much I didn’t do apart from financial. I have always tried to keep away from that dark art.”

Harrison completed his university studies on a part-time basis, fitting his studies around work. “Unfortunately, I never got to sample the proper student life, work got in the way,” he says ruefully.

Following Aegon’s full acquisition of the Positive Solutions business in 2005, the senior management team stayed on to aid the transition to new management but they were already planning their next move into technology.

“We were proud of what we built at Positive and wanted to continue that. When we left, there were 1,800 IFAs making profits of about £;1.25m a month. We handed this well run company over to Aegon making lovely profits for them. But the one thing we noticed was when you join Positive, the IFA became an RI and they have to use the trading styles, etc. What we were finding was that IFAs wanted more independence, they wanted to set their own compliance protocols, they wanted their own brands and there was not much of an argument that we could put up against that.The other reason was that for many years we knew we needed to build a new system from the bottom up.”

Although the new firm was born out of the need for new technology, Harrison says it is more a support services provider than a technology company. Client firms have the option of just using True Potential’s technology but it also offers compliance and other business support.

“We began as a technology platform but have evolved into what we are now. We have handled 253 applications for people going directly authorised. We have around 600 individual IFA firms using us, with about 3,000 individual IFAs, and they are obviously using the technology platform as well as the compliance procedures and the administration and the regulation. We do fall into a funny camp, we are not an Intelliflo but we are not a SimplyBiz.”

The company is clearly doing something to attract IFAs and Harrison reports that the numbers of client firms has been growing exponentially. ByNovember 2009, just over two years after launch, True Potential had 321 client firms but this has grown sharply over the last six months and now stands at 607.

Positive Solutions is its biggest single client but Harrison says new members are coming from the smaller end of the spectrum for IFA firms.

“We find we work best with the smaller firms. The main reason is we are interacting directly with the IFA. The IFA is the business owner, he is also the administrator and often the compliance officer. Because we can interact with them directly, we find it is the best fit for True Potential. We deliberately do not go targeting the big firms.”

Harrison maintains that the RDR should hold few fears for IFAs, even small directly authorised firms, and notes that many of the network and national IFA firms have toned down their scaremongering as the number of advisers either leaving the industry or moving to the protection of a bigger firm has not materialised.

“Some of the national and network chiefs have started to go a bit quieter as they realise that some of what they were saying is countered by hard facts. We have handled 323 new DA applications since January 2009 and, of that, 270 have been since January this year.”

Rather than being apprehensive about the RDR, Harrison suggests that using the right technology can help to bridge the gap that many people are predicting for IFA clients.

He is proud of the firm’s new developments such as apps for the iPhone and iPad that let advisers communicate more efficiently with clients and says this will allow IFAs to continue to serve the less wealthy clients that some advisers suggest will have to be jettisoned because they will no longer be cost-efficient to advise.
“IFAs are starting to realise that if they have got the right tools in place, then actually they do not need to do what some are suggesting and get rid of all their clients except the top 20 per cent. IFAs are saying ’to hell with that, I want to service all my clients.’ If you have the right servicing mechanisms in place, things like the iPhone app and the client website, they audit everything to do with the client. The client can, to a lesser extent, look after themselves, with the IFA acting as the expert.

“Not using technology as a gimmick but as a real enabler for running the business is where the smart IFA will flourish.”

As a result, Harrison says developing new and usable technology remains the firm’s priority. It is already working on a bespoke iPad application for use in client meetings and a brand new version of the core True Potential software. Although the business is only in its third year, this is the fifth version of the core software and Harrison says the business is proud that each version is a brand new programme rather then an old version with a couple of extra pieces bolted on.
“We always try to be at least a couple of steps ahead of what the rest of the industry have.

Born: Gateshead, 1981
Lives: Gosforth, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Education: Ponteland High School, BA in business and management, Newcastle Business School
Career: 2007-present: senior partner, True Potential; 1997-2007: marketing manager, Positive Solutions
Likes: Rugby, spending time with my wife
Dislikes: Office politics
Drives: Audi S5
Book: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
TV programme: The Sopranos
Album: Anything a bit loud with guitars in it
Career ambition: To make True Potential better and work with our IFA clients to help build a new model for financial advice
Life ambition: We won the league last year in my first year as captain of the local rugby team, so the ambition this year is not to get relegated to where we came from. I have got quite a bit of travelling I would like to do, particularly South America.
If I wasn’t doing this I would be…;As a keen snowboarder, I would probably have been a professional skiier or snowboarder

• No Comments »
• |
• Latest News, Press Room, Views & Opinions

Sorry there are currently no comments.

Leave a Reply
	Post Comment
Name*
Email	Used for Gravatars
Your Homepage
Your Comment*