Let’s be honest, most industries have a stereotype, whether that’s the nerdy IT department, the super cool and super young social media team or the grey boring accountants who love a spreadsheet and tax returns.
So when you are storytelling for business, how do you avoid being cast as that stereotypical person?
Katie Flamman is joined by Dai Rose, a very much not grey financial advisor to explore just that.
Dai shares how he actively markets himself as the opposite to the stereotypical finance person and how that has helped him build trust and connection with potential clients and his local community.
Key Takeaways
- Stereotypes can hinder effective communication. Dai Rose addresses potential biases associated with his role as a financial advisor by using humor and honesty to connect with his audience and break down preconceptions.
- Authenticity is key in building relationships. Dai’s genuine and real approach has contributed to the success of his business. The interview serves as a case study for the marketing concept of “know, like, and trust”.
- Business storytelling and corporate social responsibility are intertwined. Dai combines his work as a kids’ rugby coach with his role as a financial advisor to support disadvantaged children in his community. He aims to provide food, funding, and education to improve their prospects.
Guest Information
Check out Dai’s business, Sterling Welsh, Independent Financial Advisors:
Website: www.sterling-uk.net
Email: drose@sterling-uk.net
Tel: +44 (0)1792 720510
Your host:
KATIE FLAMMAN (she/her) – Voiceover Artist, Presenter, Announcer, Podcaster, Founder of Storyteller Media.
Website: www.katieflamman.co.uk
Podcast: https://katieflamman.co.uk/the-storytelling-for-business-podcast/
Voiceover services: https://katieflamman.co.uk/voiceover-services/explainer-videos/
Presenting services: https://katieflamman.co.uk/presenting/
Get in touch for a FREE demo read of your script:
Email: katie@katieflamman.co.uk
Phone: +44 (0)1892 249 001
Follow Katie on Socials (do mention the podcast!):
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-flamman/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katieflamman/
X / Twitter: https://twitter.com/KatieFlamman
Transcript
“Hello, and welcome to Storytelling for Business, the podcast that helps you build better customer relationships by telling stories your clients want to hear. I’m Katie Flamman. I’m a voiceover artist specializing in corporate storytelling.
I’ve worked with clients like Fidelity, Barclays Bank and Deloitte, helping them to share brand stories and business developments. But why is business storytelling important? What makes a great story?
And how can storytelling create leads for businesses and build lasting client relationships?
I’m determined to find out the answers and anything I discover, you’ll be the first to know. Now, do you remember in episode one, Gareth Dimelow said that you are your own USP? Well, today’s guest is truly unique.
Episode eight is about being authentic and owning your story. So let’s meet independent financial advisor, Dai Rose.
Dai Rose is a financial advisor with a bit of a difference. His business is called Sterling Welsh and they’re based in Cardiff and Swansea. And they help people with mortgages and personal finance.
The financial services industry is traditionally pretty straight-laced and of course, money matters are important and serious. But Dai does things a bit differently. And he’s proved that just because it’s a serious business, it doesn’t have to be dull in the way that it’s marketed.
And Dai himself is definitely not boring. So let’s jump right in and find out about this thriving company, how it stands out from the crowd and the story behind it. So welcome to the podcast, Dai.
Good morning.
Thanks so much for being here. It’s brilliant to talk to you.
Likewise. Looking forward to it.
So let’s start by finding out a bit more about your business. Just tell me what you do and the headlines. If you were explained to somebody what you do.
OK, so we’re a financial company. We do personal finances. So that may be anything from mortgages, pensions.
We do investments. We help people with inheritance tax problems. So any sort of personal finance issues we will deal with.
When people come to your company, are they kind of completely clued up about what they need or how to go about it? Or are people quite often a little bit in the dark and a bit kind of anxious?
A small percentage of them know what they want, but they’re certainly in the minority. The majority of our clients, essentially they come to us and say something like, I don’t have a pension and I don’t really understand how it works. I don’t know what I need to do.
And most of them are sort of in the dark. They put money into a pension because they think it’s a good idea or they save up for their kids to go to school or whatever they may be doing, but they don’t really reset any goals or know where they’re going or which path they’re on. So what we tend to do, like I said, we try and be different.
So we don’t bore them with stock markets and rates and all the rest of it, the most financial advisors do. We sit down with them and we sort of set goals and we say, right, okay, when you want to retire at 60 or 55 or whatever it might be, this is how much money you need. This is the sort of lifestyle that you may want.
And we go through that and we get to know them. And when we know that and we work out their magic numbers, should we say, then what I do is I work on a plan with them to see how long really it’s going to take them to get there because they can always get there, as long as they’re prepared to do what it takes. And they can always get there, but we just help them work with that really.
And that’s all it is in simple terms. That’s what we do.
And why do you think, because if people don’t really have a clue and stuff, there’s quite a lot of maybe head in the sand sort of attitude sometimes, or like you said, they take out a pension, but just because they think that’s what they have to do, but don’t really have a full understanding of it. So under those circumstances, why do people go for your company? What do you think that you do that reassures people immediately?
I think we’re different in the sense that, I mean, if you look at our website, there’s a photograph of an eight-year-old boy on there, and we say very clearly, look, we’ll explain this so that an eight-year-old can understand it. And that’s generally what we try and do. We try and break it down so that it’s simple, it’s straightforward, because actually, personal finance, when you do break it down, it’s not that scary.
It’s actually quite straightforward. There are really three things you can change, how long you save for, how much you save, and how much risk you take. And when we break that down, we distill it into those three things, and we talk to the client, we talk to them quite a lot about risk and how much I call it the Goldilocks approach.
So you don’t want to take too much risk, you don’t want to take too little risk. You want to get it just right, you know. So once we’ve got that bit sorted, and we know what sort of lifestyle they plan to lead when they get to whatever age they decide they want to retire at, we then work out, well, okay, well, based on how much risk you want to take, based on how long we’ve got, basically, I can tell you how much you need to save, and that’s essentially that’s all it is.
But we do that in a way that, like I said, I think you all could understand it.
Yeah, I mean, I loved your website when I had a good look around. You’ve got a video on there with you talking. So tell us, what do you say in your video that made me smile?
Basically, I’ve got this thing about financial advisors, and the stereotype is that they’re generally male, they’re generally grey, they’re generally in their 50s, boring. And we say on the web, none of us wear Rolexes, which we don’t, we don’t drive Ferraris, and there’s nobody in the office called Tarquin. So, yeah, we play on that a little bit, because again, I think it just breaks down those barriers and people know them what they can expect when they speak to myself or one of my colleagues.
You know, we’re not going to talk jargon at them for an hour and a half. We talk to them about what they want to talk about. We let them set the agenda, and I think that puts people at ease, and then they’re more likely then to tell us the things that we actually need, and all the boring stuff, you know, like, where do you work?
We sort of let them do that behind the scenes. We’ve got a portal, and we let them log in, and they can fill all that stuff in later. But when we spend time with them, when I sit in front of clients, I just talk about what they want, and what their aspirations are, and that tends to engage them, and they give us a lot more then, and we can help them better.
See, I think every business can learn lessons from this, because you talked about putting people at their ease. I mean, I think it’s about creating trust, really. If you’re pledging your financial management to somebody, trust is clearly the main thing you, the customer, need to be feeling.
But actually, that works with any business, I would think. You’ve got to trust the person who’s providing the service or selling you the product, or it’s not going to land. Is it the deal?
Absolutely, and particularly in our industry, people are essentially entrusting us with their life savings. I mean, a pension is exactly that. It’s your life savings.
And if you get it wrong, there are a couple of things that are going to happen. You’re either going to have to work longer, or you’re going to have to live a diminished lifestyle as a result of not having enough money. So we’re acutely aware of that.
And our job and our mission is to make sure, and I don’t want to sound corny about this, but we just want to make sure that we get it right, because we care. And if that comes across in that first meeting, then people will sign up and they’ll work with us. And that’s what we try and do really.
Try to give them something as well, something that they can leave the meeting understanding. Actually, this isn’t as difficult as I perhaps thought it was.
Brilliant. So you’ve been running your business since, I think, is it 2008 you started?
Yes, 2008.
So what were you doing before then?
It was a bit of a story and I tell this quite a lot. So I went to university and studied to be a pharmacist. I left in 2001 after finishing the course.
And I embarked on a journey or a career as a hospital pharmacist. And I worked in a large teaching hospital. I enjoyed that job very much. At the time, I started buying properties. I got interested in buying properties. And as a result, being interested in that, I surrounded my friends with doctors.
They all started asking me, how do you do it? And I started sort of informally advising them. We were having chats in the tea room and lunch breaks and things.
And yeah, I sort of worked my way through the ranks. And as you get more senior, I mean, everyone know what the NHS is like. But as you get more senior, you find yourself working weekends and Christmas and stuff.
And in 2008, we had our first daughter, Charlotte. And my wife’s also a pharmacist, and she wanted to give up work to look after Charlotte. And ultimately, you know, the need was to replace her income.
So what I did, I said, well, you know, I really like doing this. I’ve sort of been doing it for free. Let’s see if I can turn it into a business.
And that’s what I did. So I did that for a couple of years and we grew fairly significantly. And, you know, I really enjoyed doing it because, like I said, as a pharmacist, you’re helping people out.
And doing this, I was also helping people out. And, you know, I got the business established and there were three or four other guys working with me. And it came to a point where I wanted to take Charlotte and my son that we had at the time a couple of years later.
We wanted to go to Disney and I couldn’t get, I wanted four weeks off because we wanted to go to Disney. We wanted to go on a cruise afterwards. And I just couldn’t get the time off because of my position in the hospital.
And I thought, you know, as much as I love this job, I think actually it’s time to think about doing something else. And so that’s what I did. I left the NHS and everyone thought I was mad.
My parents thought I was absolutely bonkers. And I left the NHS with this great job and I went to do this full time. So, yeah, that was the story really.
And, you know, a lot of what I learned as a pharmacist, like I said, looking after people’s health and now I’m looking after people’s wealth, that wasn’t pre-planned, that just came up. But, you know, it’s the same sort of thing really. You know, you’re just looking after people.
And as long as you actually, and I think this is quite important, you care about the people you’re working with, then actually it’s quite easy.
I think that’s really interesting to talk about coming from that caring background and to be working with clients now, health and wealth and all of that stuff. But it is about caring. And I think that really comes across with you, maybe more than other people.
I think you’re, I mean, what would you say, I’ll put you on the spot. What would you say your personal values are? And do you think that they’re the same for your business?
Absolutely, 100%. They have to be, don’t they? Because otherwise you’re a fraud to yourself, you’re a fraud to the business.
So I think the very simple thing, when I take on a new financial advisor, the very simple advice I give them on day one is, look, if you wouldn’t recommend that your mum or your granny does this, then you don’t recommend it, simple as that. If it’s not the right thing to do, and it’s difficult because the right thing to do is very different in certain different circumstances, but ultimately that’s the best personal value you can have. Don’t recommend something unless you tell your mom or your dad or your brother, as long as you get on with them.
But just don’t do it unless it’s the right thing to do. As long as you think like that. You go into work thinking like that and ultimately you’ll never ever get it wrong.
We’ve been going since 2008. We’ve never had a complaint. I don’t envisage us having a complaint.
I’m not being cocky or arrogant here. It’s just because you have those values. As you know, financial advisors don’t have the best kudos.
They are viewed with suspicion. In the 80s, they were allowed to get away with murder. Not literally, but financial murder.
They could pretty much do what they want, charge what they want, returns regardless. Then obviously the FCA came in and they tidied all of that up. They made all financial advisors do a diploma and that got rid of a lot of people because it was difficult and took some time to do.
Since that, I think the industry has self-regulated itself. Ultimately, if you’ve got the values that we talked about earlier, you don’t really need the regulation, but it is there to protect the consumer against the odd rogue that still lies out there. We’ve seen the British Steel scandal recently where financial advisors were talking people into moving their pensions pretty much for their financial gain, not the clients.
That’s a bad example of where it does go wrong. But yeah, I wouldn’t have recommended that. I didn’t recommend any British Steel transfer, and I suppose it sums that up.
Definitely. So family is obviously really important to you. It’s not a family business, but your family values are in there as well.
You talked about not recommending things to you. Don’t do something you wouldn’t recommend to your wife or your mum or something like that. How important do you think is your family background? You’re a family man, you’ve got kids, you’ve got a dog, I think.
I have, yeah. I’ve got a crazy Springer Spaniel who we can be found walking down. We live next to the Gower Penninsula. We were there on the weekend walking her. So yeah, I think family is really important. As I said earlier, the whole reason I started the business was linked to the family.
I fit the business in with the family, not the other way around. Again, when I started, that was different, but now obviously we’re established. We’ve got lots of good clients.
For instance, I don’t work on a Friday afternoon. I never work weekends. I don’t work Christmas. I make sure I have all the school holidays off with the kids so that we can go somewhere nice or at least I can spend time with them. So yeah, family is really important. I make sure that…
I’ve said to you before, my youngest son plays rugby and I coach their side. So I make sure I spend four or five hours a week coaching rugby and then I make sure I always watch them. Having your own business is a pleasure and a curse, isn’t it?
But I always go to the nativities and the sports days and the things like that because the business now can fit in with that. So yeah, family is really, really important to me. It always has been.
I think that’s also a good place to be coming from, a good place of grounding because if you’ve got… You’re putting your family first. You’re also putting your client’s families first, essentially by the service you offer for them.
I think what I’m trying to do with this series really is find out how businesses use storytelling in their marketing. And I think what you do with your business from what I’ve gained from speaking to you and what I’ve gained from looking at your website is that the story that you tell in your business is really the story of Dai. It’s right there, isn’t it? It’s all one, the same thing.
Yeah, I suppose it is. And ultimately, everyone’s got a story of Dai or of Katie. And ultimately, yeah, it is.
It’s always the same, isn’t it? You go to school, you leave school, you get a job, sort of you get a house if you’re lucky enough, you know, you buy a house and then you might, if you’re also, if you’re lucky enough, you get kids, you look after them, they leave. And even, you know there’s a financial journey that we all go on.
Largely it’s similar. You know, some people have better time along the way than others, but ultimately, it doesn’t matter. I mean, last week, I’ll give an example.
Last week I spoke to a guy who had seven million pounds to invest, and I spoke to another guy, and he was in his early 60s, and I spoke to another gentleman who’s in his mid 70s, who was still working because, again, he’d been let down by a financial advisor, and he had, I think, 50,000 pounds to invest. But they both had the same treatment, because ultimately, and again, you could look at them and say, well, they’re on the same path, but they’re not, because the multimillionaires got very different issues to solve than the gentleman who was still driving a bus in his mid 70s. So, yeah, it’s every day is different.
Every client is different. But like I said, as long as you go back to those core values, you always end up with the best result. And I think hopefully that’s answered that question.
But yeah.
What do you love about your job?
People. I’ve always loved speaking to people. I love being around people.
You know, I like getting to learn about people’s aspirates. I mean, you know, since 2008, it’s getting on for 20 years now. I’ve seen clients that I’ve taken on, that they’ve had their first mortgages.
You see their kids coming into the world. You work on things to help them pay for things for their kids, whether that be a private education or for them to buy their first home. I’ve seen people retiring, that were working when I started.
You know, I’ve seen all sorts. And going on that journey, because if you do look after clients, they’re clients for life, you know? And if you do look at it, and I’ve never lost a client, you know, once I get a client, I’ve never lost one.
So going on that journey with them, and you know, even things like, you know, at Christmas time, there was a knock on the door, and someone dropped, there was a hamper for us, and my wife’s like, oh my gosh, this is brilliant. It should be the other way around, you know, you should be sending your client, which we do, by the way, but you know, but to get stuff off clients at that time of year, just goes to show that they do become friends. And again, I don’t want it to sound corny, because it’s not, because they generally are friends.
I mean, you’re looking after their life savings. You know, you’re helping them reach their goals and their dreams and, you know, and often it does go well if people plan their finances properly, it does go well. I mean, you know, it hasn’t gone that well in the last 12 months, is it?
But everyone knows where they are. We talk to people, we understand what, so they understand what’s going on. And then actually the journey becomes easier.
It’s a blip along the way. It’s not a catastrophe, you know? So yeah, that’s why I enjoy it.
I just like being with people.
That’s a lovely answer. And this is, just going back to what you said about coaching the rugby and the kids, is there anything you’ve learned from doing that that you’re able to put into practice in your business?
Gosh, that’s a good question. Well, one thing is, and again, this is probably the biggest takeaway, is that kids are not little adults. I’ve also got a teenage girl now, so that’s another manifestation of that.
Kids are certainly not little adults.
They’re a whole new species, teenage girls.
No, absolutely. And I think, you know, we talked earlier about having different clients, but in a rugby club environment, you get lots of different kinds of kids, right? So you get kids that are from affluent backgrounds, you get kids that are from one-parent families.
So I think what I have learned is sort of understanding how to speak to different people and how, you know, the aspirations of a one, of a single-parent mum in a rented house is very different to 2.4 children, you know, with those kids that, you know, their aspiration, well, how am I going to pay for university? How am I going to make sure they get their first car and house? And then, you know, the single mum make me think, well, how am I going to feed them next week, you know?
And those things, to getting used to different people, I think has been a good learn actually from being in that environment. I’ve played rugby all my life, but it’s interesting when you’re on the other end, because the kids, literally, I mean, for some of them, and it sounds, again, it sounds a bit weird, but we like second dads. Some of them don’t know their dads, you know?
And we’re the only male figures they have in their lives. So, you know, and again, it goes back to that respect, doesn’t it, and the things that you try to indoctrinate in these kids, the manners, because rugby is all about that. Yes, a tough game is a very tough sport, but it’s all about discipline and respect.
And some of these kids don’t have that when they first turn up. So, yeah, I’ve learned a lot from coaching rugby, but mainly it’s how to talk to different little human beings and hone your skills, I suppose, in order to get them to do what you need them to do in order to be good rugby players.
And are they good rugby players?
They are, actually, yeah. So we’ve got, at under 12s level, which they are at the minute, the year before, they go to play what’s called representative rugby. So in Wales, you get to play, it’s called schoolboys rugby, schoolgirls rugby, and ultimately you go to trials and you get, if you’re good enough, you get selected.
So we’ve got, I think we’ve got 28 kids in our side, 15 of them last year got selected for schoolboys, you know, which is like a club record. So yeah, they are good. They’re very good.
They work hard, but, and they’re a lovely bunch of kids and they love the game, which helps. Yeah, they are. They’re very good.
They got to the final, so they play in a competition and they actually got to the final and they got to play at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.
Well, that’s amazing.
So that was a great day out. Yeah, that was, that was good fun. And we sponsor the club as well.
So yeah, we’re, I’m fully, fully, fully loaded with the rugby for the next couple of years, I think.
Definitely. I think you’re stuck there. Well, that’s brilliant.
What a great story. Well, I think, I think we’ve, we’ve covered all kinds of stuff, but I just wanted to know which direction do you think your story is going to take in the next kind of three to five years, your business or your life or it’s quite, it’s quite a big chunk of time to ask about. But what do you reckon?
Well, one thing, going back to the, you know, the rugby thing that we talked about, there was something that horrified me not so long ago. We, excuse me, Wells were playing a team called Georgia down in the Millennium Stadium and we got, I arranged for all the kids to go down and watch the game. And we took like 250 families, so the kids and mums and dads from the club down to Cardiff, it’s about an hour’s drive, wherever it is.
And there were kids, some of the kids weren’t going from our section. And, you know, when I sort of dug around a little bit and found out it was essentially because they couldn’t afford to go. When I dug a little bit deeper, I found that not only could they not afford to go, some of these mums were struggling to feed their kids, which absolutely horrified me.
So what I’d like to do is, the business in a position now where we can start to give some stuff back, and what I’d really like to be in the position to do, I mean, I don’t want any kids to be hungry. And again, even saying it, I get quite emotional about it, because they shouldn’t be kids living around me that can’t afford to be, you know, parents can’t afford to feed them. So I want to try and do something around that.
I want to do two things. I want to educate kids in school about money, because I think, and sorry if there are any teachers listening, that the coaching that they get in school is woefully inadequate, and it’s not difficult to teach kids about interest, about savings, about, you know, not using credit cards, not getting into debt, not using payday loans. All of these trappings that are out there, and they’re marketed as weak and vulnerable members of our society.
So I’d like to do that. I’d like to put a program together where we’re totally for free without earning any money from it, where we teach kids about money, because I think we should. I think it’s as important as English and maths and literacy. For me, it is anyway. So I’d like to do that. And I’d like to do something whereby, you know, we can look after kids.
And these are not, you know, you can’t give money to charities because ultimately you can. But I don’t think that will fix that particular problem. So working out in a local community, how the business can fund things like, you know, we’ve thought about doing things like HelloFresh, you know, so that, again, I know there are other, there are other people available that deliver food, but sponsoring things like that, you know, so that there aren’t kids going hungry.
Because I think, you know, if you’re doing well in life, you can live in this little bubble, can’t you? You’re not aware of it. But because of what I do with the rugby, you know, I do come across, like you said, all sorts of kids in different backgrounds.
And I was horrified. That was only in November last year. It just literally horrified me.
So we talked about it and, you know, a couple of other businesses that I know got together. And we said, right, OK how are we going to fix this? So, yeah, that is something I’d be very keen to do that and the kids’ education stuff.
Well, that’s a really inspirational five year plan. That’s incredible.
You know, it will happen. It’s just we just got to work out how best to do it because I’ve already spoken to a couple of schools and, you know, initially they’re a little bit, I don’t know, they’re a bit reticent about it. I don’t know why.
Well, I do know why they got to protect the kids and some bloke turning up like me saying, oh, I’m going to come talk to the kids about finance probably is a little bit off putting. But I think we just got to break down a few barriers and then we’ll get it sorted.
Definitely. I mean, they have health education, don’t they? They have cooking sometimes and all that kind of stuff.
So why not financial education too?
Absolutely. And I think it should be part of the curriculum. And somebody might say, well, it already is, but it may be.
Yeah. But I want to do it the Dai Rose way. I don’t want to do it how Tarkin would do it.
I want to do how Dai Rose would do it. Because I think the kids will engage. And as long as they’re eight years old, they’ll be able to understand it because they’ll get no different treatment to my 50, 60 year old clients would.
Love it.
That’s the plan.
That’s fantastic. Well, I think we’ll finish there, Dai. That’s amazing.
Thank you so, so much for talking to me.
No probs. Thank you very much.
Let’s check out the key takeaways from this episode.
One, there are some jobs which conjure up stereotypes, traffic wardens, politicians, financial advisors. Doesn’t matter if it’s fair or not. People will make assumptions about you because of the job you do. So if you’re trying to get a particular message across, you could be at a disadvantage before you’ve even opened your mouth. Dai Rose addresses that head on, saying there’s no Rolexes or Tarquins in his office.
He uses humour and honesty to make a connection with his audience and cut through any preconceptions they might have. Two, what shone through in the interview is that Dai was just being himself. He’s authentic and real which I suspect is why his business is so successful.
The interview was a case study for the marketing concept of know, like and trust. I feel we got to know Dai during the interview. I certainly found him likeable and that leads to trust.
And people are more likely to buy from a brand that they have a relationship with. Three, I think there’s a powerful link between business storytelling and corporate social responsibility. CSR is about your values and ethics, you the business owner and you the human being.
In Dai’s case, he’s combining his work as a kids rugby coach with his work as a financial advisor, helping the children in his community. He’s supporting the poorest kids by literally supplying food and funding activities, but he’s also hatching plans for the future to educate them and improve their prospects. The stories Dai told were inspiring and thought-provoking.
And that’s storytelling at its best. Well, I’m not sure how it happened, but we’ve almost got to the end of the series, just one episode left. I really do hope this Storytelling for Business Journey of Discovery has been useful for you.
I’ve certainly learned a huge a huge amount from all my amazing guests this series. So for our last episode, I thought it would be really useful to summarize everything we found out and give you a list of actionable tips to help you be the best business storyteller around. And lucky listener, I’ve pulled it all together in episode 9, toolkit of storytelling takeaways.
And it’s ready when you are. But for now, there’s just time to say another huge thanks to Dai Rose from Sterling Welsh. If you’re looking for straight talking financial advice that an eight-year-old can understand, please get in touch with Dai and his team.
The contact details and Sterling Welsh’s website address are in the show notes. Just don’t ask for Tarquin. I’m Katie Flamman and this is Storytelling for Business.
Till next time, goodbye. Goodbye.
From Storytelling For Business: Authenticity: Owning Your Story, 4 Sep 2023. This material may be protected by copyright.
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