Brutal Honesty
As featured in the August/September issue of the Winchester Resident magazine.
Being a terrible salesman left Martin Strutt only one choice
Last week, the financial adviser of a retired media executive said to him “if I were you Steven*, I’d take the £100k cash you want to give to your son from your investments with us, rather than speak to your mortgage broker again, as you have just done, about borrowing it against your house”.
The advice meant Collingbourne Wealth Management would lose ½% a year in fees from the £100,000 of investments, but for founder Martin Strutt it was obviously the best way to manage his client’s risk.
Back in 1994, Martin parted company with a famous national IFA company as he wanted to move away from a commission-based sales process towards a transparent fee-based service.
He then joined a top 50 accountancy practice, which was his more natural home until he and his wife Kim founded Collingbourne in London 15 years ago, before moving the office to Winchester in 2012.
He says “I always believed in telling the unvarnished truth, even if it meant losing a client (or not gaining one). One truth is that proper financial advice is not cheap, so we need to get that on the table early on.”
Remarkably, no client has ever “fired” Collingbourne
“My view is that our fees are competitive, but still substantial and for that the client deserves our best advice. They are the only people who pay us, so we work for them and them alone.”
“We’re very careful about which clients we take on, or maybe I still can’t sell!” Martin says, “We like working with successful self-made people who have come to realise that they’d prefer to appoint us as their ‘Chief Financial Officer’ rather than worry themselves.
We did ask someone, whom we took on because he was the son of an existing client, to find another financial adviser as he kept second-guessing our recommendations, to his own detriment.
Other than him, and sadly, several others who since died, every client who has ever joined is still with Collingbourne.”
Meanwhile the team has also grown:
David Hanby joined 10 years ago as a young graduate with a first in economics. Like Martin he has since acquired the top professional qualifications of both Chartered and Certified Financial Planner.
The team is completed by Office Manager Kirsty Dewey, with her decade of financial services experience.
Long lasting relationships
Some clients go back to Martin’s time in the accountancy firm, meaning the nature of the service changes, if not its ethos.
The clients themselves evolve from savers to spenders, from time-poor to time-rich, from energetic to leisured, and for a few, from healthy to infirm.
Collingbourne sees its purpose as supporting people through those transitions.
But what about the future? How long will Martin Strutt continue?
“I don’t see myself retiring. I just happen to get paid to do what I enjoy, and meanwhile clients become friends.”
* real name changed
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