Leanne welcome thank you for joining us today.

Thank you for having me.

Could we start by maybe expanding on your and and responsibilities within Brooks Macdonald?

Yeah. So the global head of marketing role was actually a newly created role, which I think is kind of testament to the growth ambitions of the organization by putting in this role that will sit across the different channels that we have. One of the interesting things is as we were looking at obviously data is going to be really integral to how we do that and drive that growth because we need to have that understanding of our client base. As I came in in March, we embarked kind of straight away on implementing Salesforce.

So what was really interesting for I think through legacy systems and acquisitions, we actually Brooks ended up having seven different CRM systems. And as any marketing person will know, trying to manage data across a number of systems like that is is can be a nightmare. So that's where we started really on looking at Salesforce. How can we get that kind of one central source of truth for the data and then build from there?

How do you actually start a program like that? So having seven different systems just in itself, it must be complicated to work out how to navigate your way through that. So how what can you talk me through the process that you you started undertaking?

Before I came in, the Sarah Ackland joined the organization as global head of distribution and marketing.

You've worked with Sarah before?

I worked with Sarah before. Yes. So we both worked at Arcitas together, and we'd been on kind of a similar journey to Brooks in the Arcitas ad in ambition to be a top multi manager in the UK. So, you know, that's what makes it really interesting at Brooks, I think, because not many places do you get the opportunity to really have such a greenfield.

And I think with a lot of organizations, they tend to have CRM systems that have been in place for a long time or they have multiple ones and they can be a nightmare to kind of manage and try and pull really insightful data out of. So to be in an organization that's making that commitment at this point in its kind of maturity. Brooks is over thirty years old now, but to be putting in a new CRM to say, you know, greenfield, we're gonna start from this point. We're gonna consolidate everything, and we're really gonna utilize the insights we can get from this to to drive the business forward.

I'm I'm very keen to learn about how you're thinking about using the insights, and we'll we'll come on to that. When we were having a discussion, earlier before before this session, you you mentioned that you kind of drove where Salesforce was gonna sit within the business. Could you could you expand on that?

Another ex colleague from Arcitas, I used to feel like everybody spoke to Arcitas, now is at Deloitte. And so I got invited. They host on a quarterly basis a CRM and heads of distribution roundtable. So from the asset management industry, we will get together. We talk about things that are really pertinent to how you can drive businesses forward and kind of the growth strategy.

One of the things that we were talking about were CRM systems, marketing automation, you know, and really leveraging Martech and digital to drive businesses forward. One of the examples that they use was outside of the industry in FFCG. They actually use McDonald's as an example where CRM actually sits within marketing rather than within distribution, which I think historically from an asset management or investment management perspective, we've always seen the kind of owner of the customer being the salesperson. Yeah.

And I think that, you know, harks back to the days when it was in the little black books and, you know, the sales person had his bank of clients and they were responsible for them and marketing was kind of a support to that. But what's interesting is outside of the industry and in some of the more fast moving industries, they're actually putting the ownership of the data and insights within marketing. So the McDonald's example was that distribution actually sits within marketing. They kind of all work very closely together because of all the insights that are leveraged from CRM, from how people navigate around restaurants.

And I think what it helps you to do from that perspective is you can focus your really valuable resources, which are your salespeople, and you can be really directional with where you're focusing those kind of really valuable resources. So, you know, let marketing do the kind of legwork in the sense of we can do the fielding, you know, the nurturing, sorting the wheat from the chaff. And then when it's actually a really good opportunity, then deploy your really valuable resources. So Bricks was open actually to because we were putting in a new CRM, there wasn't a central place that CRM sat before because there it was quite fragmented.

There was, you know, as I said, a number of different systems. So when I went in, I kind of put my hand up and I said, you know, we could put CRM within marketing. And then what we can do is we bring in marketing automation. So we're using the marketing cloud that's part of Salesforce.

And then what we can do is we can really you know, I think everybody talks about marketing qualified leads. I'm not sure if we all, from an asset management or investment management perspective, have got to that stage yet. But I think this really gives us the opportunity to do that. So, you know, leveraging data sources, putting people into the funnel.

Because from a Brooks perspective, it's we have the intermediary side of the business, but also private client. So it's really interesting to be building out a database and what you can gather on someone from a who's a private investor versus an intermediary. So I think it's gonna be, we've got a really great opportunity here, I think, to do something different.

I was I mean, just picking up on a couple of things that you're saying there. The I guess the opportunity at Brooks was because you were designing it from scratch. Yeah. I would have thought if you perhaps suggested that in in other locations, other companies, there may have been pushback against that. Did you was there any pushback there or was it for people fairly open minded?

Not from a Brooks perspective. Think, you know, we're we're a business that's at a kind of a a bit of a crossroads in the sense of we know that if we wanna grow, we've got to do something differently. We've worked a certain way for a number of years. And now if we really wanna, you know, up the gear and and go go into overdrive, we need to do something different then then they're really open to change, which I think is amazing because, like you say, a lot of organizations are those that were maybe a bit more on the front foot.

So but Yeah.

Arcitas, for example, we had Salesforce. It had been in place for kind of ten years. And you've really from a business perspective, you've really got to hope that the organization has the understanding that Martech, it doesn't stay still. You've got to continually invest in it. And I think a lot of organizations end up with a CRM or, you know, Martech sac that perhaps doesn't grow with them.

Right.

So you really need an organization that's gonna put the money into it Yeah.

And continually invest and evolve.

So you've got two two audience sides there at, Brooks and, I'm keen to understand how you think that the, the MQLs may differ between them. Is there anything that you've, if you can give any thought on that?

Yeah. I think, you know, my background from a architect, I also worked at ninety one. I worked at FNC back in the day when it was FNC and there was always very intermediary focus. And I find, you know, when there's quite a traditional route you tend to go through from a marketing perspective in terms of how do you generate leads, you might use third party data sources such as a financial clarity or gold mine, or, you know, and you would work with your media buyer and you do some digital advertising, you probably do some gated content and then that's how you would be collecting leads or it's through events.

Whereas it's really interesting on the kind of high net worth side and obviously, you're dealing with individuals rather than businesses. So you have different challenges and opportunities I would say. So my background is not really in the private client side. So this is a real kind of stretch for me which also makes it a very interesting role.

Yeah. But there it's a lot around referrals and word-of-mouth, you know, the relationships I I see the private clients have with their investment managers. When those relationships work really well, which I see at Brooks, then they're really open to referring them. And it's how do you capture all of that data?

How do you give people the mechanism?

Also, we've done some research recently to kind of delve into our different audiences a bit more to understand, you know, how can we be more relevant to them? What we've kind of heard back is it's not so much of, oh, you know, let's have a conversation about a product. And people are at different life stages now. They want you to understand what stage of their life and they're not they're less traditional now.

So it's not, oh, I'm, you know, fifty five, I might be going into drawdown or I'm sixty five and now I'm going to stop working. You know, especially in the entrepreneurial space or the ex sports person, they tend to have one or two retirements. And that might be when they finish their sporting career or they sell a business and they might go on to do something else. And so that's, I think, really, really interesting.

And it again, it comes back to how do you capture that data and really leverage it. And then you turn that into, you know, the way in which you interact with those people. Because, I mean, we're talking a lot about martech and kind of CRM and digital, but obviously it's much broader than that. That's your underpinning.

Yeah. And then it's how do you continually have that conversation and evolve it.

And I think the the other part that you you made there was lots of organizations they've put in perhaps systems years ago but the world of Maltech as you say constantly evolves and the technology that's available now was not the same that it was ten years ago and you mentioned that Deloitte CRM session that attended. What advice or knowledge did that give you when going in to set up the new system in Brookes that you were kind of like better prepared with going into it with your eyes open so to speak?

You know, the insights that it gives you is you're sat around a table of peers. You're not only listening to kind of the research and the insights that Deloitte bring, but you're also learning what other organisations are doing, what some of the challenges they might be facing. And then that gives you a really good insight, I think, to go back to the table within Brooks, for example, and say, you know, we're we're having this conversation at a sort of ex co level to say, these would be my recommendations. And then you're able to back them up with not only kind of insights from Deloitte, for example, but actual lived examples from your peers. Yes. Yeah. And I think quite often that can be you you'll hold up a few companies as examples of, oh, this is how we do it because this is how they might do it.

X.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

But if you can actually understand that actually that is how they do it and they're struggling with it for these reasons, then I think it gives you much more three sixty view of it.

Yeah. And and much more ammunition because these can be challenging conversations. Right? They're not always you know, you don't realize the value of them super quickly.

They can be very expensive. So they are massive outlay, and it takes a big commitment from a business to say, okay. We're gonna put the money behind this. We're also gonna understand that until this is implemented, until everybody's up and running on it, we're not gonna necessarily realize benefits really quickly.

But from a long term perspective, and if we're committed to growth Yeah. We understand that this is what we need to do.

So give give us an overview of the time frames that you're that you're working with. How how long have you been in the role?

So I joined mid February.

Okay.

We kicked off the project at the beginning of March.

It's probably not a good example because we've done it really quickly. Yeah. Well, phase one anyway. So phase one, because as I said, we have a number of different kind of CRM systems that we're trying to consolidate. So we're we're we're batching those up into let's let's, deal with it. So today, we kind of have our UK investment management, our international business, and private client business. So phase one was migrating the UK investment management business on, and we went live with that mid July.

From March to mid July, which I think is Wow.

Probably even Salesforce would say is quite extraordinary.

Hit the ground running.

Yep. And then we're in the the midst of, Pardot implementation at the moment. So we're we should be finished with that at the end of September.

And then we begin the scoping for phase two and that will be migrating the international business and the private client business.

Right. Right.

And we'd hope to have all of that finished by June next year.

Wow. And then what?

When you've got all of the you've got all of the kit in And then the shackles are off and we go.

Right? Yeah. No. Then it's all eyes on the on us to kind of really demonstrate what those benefits are. But I think the thing is it's like, you know, you've got to always remember the quality of the data and the data for integrity is something that doesn't stop. No. It's, you know, it's constantly keeping people motivated and engaged.

I think the the fact that we had such challenges with data in the sense that it was very fragmented. I'm working with the distribution team who are asking for a CRM, you know, rather than, you know, in many other organizations where I've been and there's implementation, it's you're trying to take my clients away from me. You're big brothering me.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Whereas it's completely the reverse. Right. That's refreshing. It's really refreshing. And I actually feel super super blessed for that because, you know, that can be a huge challenge in itself.

So once that's all, you know, once it's all implemented up and running, I think that's when marketing kinda comes into its own in sense of right now, it's how do we use segmentation? How do we start really enriching the data with all the campaigns that we're doing with the events, how do we make it all joined up? And the more and more we can enrich that data, the more and more relevant we can be. And then hopefully then that's when we start really realizing the benefits because we'll actually start resonating with kind of our clients much more.

Have you done almost any experiments or any pilots so far that you can that you can share?

Well, obviously, the the first question when we went live mid July and now we're in September is like, have you seen any benefits yet? Yes. Okay. We're live.

Now now what? It's like, well, how, you know, is this working out for us? Have we spent our money wisely? So we have our distribution teams but also our investment managers who are having relationships with clients through advisers.

So they are all on this kind of Salesforce. And what was happening before was an I'm might speak to a client and then that wasn't being captured in the same system as the distribution team we're using. Like the BDM would not know whether the I'm had spoken to the advisor or the client and vice versa. So we're seeing much better already engagement in you one, utilizing the system because people are realizing the benefit of it.

Yeah. But two, the service that we're offering to the client or the, you know, the the end recipient of that because they now get a much more joined up interaction with Brooks, whereas before it'd be like, well, actually, I already spoke to your medium, and it's like, oh, sorry. We didn't realize you'd already been contacted. So Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So although not, like, real tangible benefits, I think from the perspective from a, you know, brand reputation perspective and service.

And also buying, I guess, internal buying.

And we are actually so although we've gone live with phase one, what we're we're doing is we've gone back to the users and we've said to them, are there any enhancements that you would like? Are there any small tweaks that we can do? Now you've been using it for, you know, a month and a half. How's it working for you? So to keep again, to keep that ongoing engagement because it's really that hearts and minds piece. Once you lose that, it's so hard to get back. It's really hard to get in the beginning, but we were very lucky because everybody wanted it.

Yes.

Yeah. But you have that one chance to make a first impression. And if we really get that right or we don't keep that ongoing engagement Yeah. Then, again, that's where we will fail.

Yeah. And is there anything that's driving or affecting this with the changes for like on the Consumer Duty Act? Is there anything in that that's you're mindful of looking to utilize this in order to help Brooks in that area?

I think anywhere where, you know, if we look at what's consumers trying, consumer duty is trying to do in bring transparency, you know, improve the value to clients, The more data again, that we can capture, the more we can understand the clients that we're marketing to, even if that is intermediated by an advisor, you know, that's where we're really going to be able to demonstrate value again from a regulatory perspective.

Because if if we were to be audited, you know, to have really clear records of how we're engaging with people, what we're sharing with them. And I think, again, the it comes back to that relevance piece. We need to demonstrate that what we are marketing is relevant to target audiences. And the more we're able to demonstrate that through engagement with marketing activity, distribution activity, I think can only be kind of helpful in that from that perspective. And then you have the the regulatory side in terms of the risk mitigation, which is also a really good one when you're trying to sell into an ex co of it's gonna help us mitigate risk. It's gonna be great for audit trails and but it is true in the sense of, you know, if you've got this central repository where if we were to get audited and the FCA came in and said, tell me all of the interactions and what you've sent and it's all there and it's you know, we don't we wouldn't be scrabbling around in files on the drive to Yeah.

To try and find all of that.

And it it's it's also just making me think of the medium term ambition to become a top five wealth manager within the UK. Perhaps you could remind us where brooks are currently and so we can get an appreciation of the scale of that ambition?

From a kind of size wise, we are round well, the last numbers I saw, think, is twelve twelve or thirteen.

So we're kind of mid table Okay.

Which which I think is interesting because a lot of I've I come from asset management side rather than wealth management. And I and I always found that when whenever we would talk about wealth managers with our wealth management division, Brooks was always in the kind of top three names that we would be talking about. You know, you kinda got your SJPs, your Bruins, your Brooks. Yeah.

So I was quite surprised when I went in and actually when you kind of look under the surface, it's like, oh, we're we're sort of mid table. But what that does mean is that we have got everything to play for. Right? So so there's lots of growth opportunity.

Top five wealth manager in the medium term, I think, you know, we could probably be a bit more ambitious. But, yeah, I don't wanna put a target on myself. No.

No. No. Wise. Very wise.

And and I think that growth that you that you're gonna be going through with everything that we're talking about with organizing the data, getting intelligence info, MQLs into sales teams, that's enabling the sales team to do to do more because clearly the growth has to come from Exactly.

From winning more business, doesn't it? So what is the the sort of, I guess, how you bring the sales team on board with you in order to say, right, we've got this in place now. We're gonna be going on this journey together. Is there anything you can share with us about how you bring that hearts and minds on with them or or they like you say, they're already bought in?

Yeah. I think, like I said, I was very lucky because they were already bought in. But equally, I've been in organizations where, like I said, there's a very much, oh, these are my clients. Like Yeah. You know, you don't need to get involved.

Because that's that's what I've heard before, you know, people are like protective and it's like, no. Yeah. I'll deal with my my top thirty, forty clients but then you're like, yes, but you've also managing five hundred clients. How can you?

Yeah. And and it's an experience I had previously. I mean, I can remember sitting down with a we will not name any names, but a CEO of an organization I'd worked at. And we were talking about digital marketing and the need to kind of invest. And and he said to me, we've got, you know, kind of six thousand clients globally.

We don't I don't need to we should know them individually. I don't you know, we should personally know them. I don't need a a system to kind of tell me how to talk to them. My counter to that would be, but imagine how better those conversations are gonna go and how more relevant are they gonna be if you were having those conversations and because I'm not saying that this replaces the salespeople.

What I'm trying to do, what we're trying to achieve is we're gonna make it way more relevant. So those doors are already half open by the time they're going to knock on them. Yeah. So it's all very well saying, oh, these are my forty clients and I know them really well.

But that's not where you're gonna get growth from. And, you know, you've always got to be thinking if you've got this consolidation of assets within your client base, if they start dropping off, if they sell their business, they might love you and they might stay with you. But if they sell their business and that next person that comes through decides that they wanna take it off to who they've been working for or with, then that becomes a problem. Right?

If you don't have this tail that's constantly being nurtured and you think and, you know, we all talk about the funnel and it's filling up the top of the funnel and, you know, you have to have this constant cycle. So this would always be my kind of counter to a salesperson who says, well, we've got all these clients blah blah blah blah. But equally, I think if you can find someone, there will always be one or two in a distribution team who will be open to it. They would have worked somewhere else where they've seen it working really well or they might be struggling with the passion they've got and they'll they'll just be open to having conversation or they're just quite forward thinking.

And I think where you can demonstrate and you can have some case studies and you can say, look, this is where this is working really well. And then those kind of laggards, the resistors start to come around when they see that actually the results that other people are getting, they're not seeing the benefit of.

No. No. Because it's a competitive space.

So One hundred percent.

Right? Yeah. I remember having a conversation about social media and, you know, trying to get the distribution teams to be engaging in that. The best way to do that is make it a competition.

Yeah. Yeah. And then you see that employee engagement go straight up the minute. It's like there's a competition about who's reposting or interacting the most.

When you think about sort of supporting those those sales teams and, you know, help giving giving them a reason through in through through data led insights, you know, for them to pick up the phone? Or is there is there anything that you've that you can kind of illustrate to us and and talk about there?

Yeah. I think there's a there's a couple of ways, obviously, that you can do it. You can use third party data and looking at, you know, what people are investing in, what they're not investing in with you, and then kind of targeting campaigns around that and putting them on that that journey. And I think that's where we want to get to is utilizing that data and then seeing where people start to engage.

So it's not the data is the first part, right? But then you've got to have all the content to support that journey afterwards. Yeah. So, you know, if we wanna talk about IA sectors, for example, you know, if we're someone's buying in the multi asset and they're not buying from you, okay, so then you start a little mailing to them of, did you know about Brooks, blah blah blah.

If they start engaging with that, then you send them the next and then the next. And this is where marketing automation can really, you know, remove some of that manual intervention that you have to have and you put them on the engagement studio journeys if someone behaves like this and then bringing in lead scoring as well. So, you know, we work very closely with the distribution team to say these different interactions that people have, we allocate your scores to them. And then when someone reaches a score of a hundred, for example, that's when they become a marketing qualified lead.

Yes. And so where we're working to get to is at that point when that person reaches one hundred, they automatically become a task in Salesforce and go to the relevant distribution person to say, you know, this piece of person's really engaged with us. And when they go and look at that person in Salesforce, they can see all the interactions. So they know what that person's downloaded.

So when they pick up the phone, it's not really cold.

No. No.

It's kind of warmed up. They know what to talk to them about.

And also the person's almost expecting that call because they they've been interacting with Bricks with all nice different Yeah.

And then it's like when they are on board, it's, you know, keeping that person engaged, warm. What do what do they need from a business perspective? So as well as supporting the distribution team, it's also about supporting the intermediary in that from that side of the business. What we see resonates the most is when someone starts working with you from an adviser perspective, they then want you to help them sell your organization or your products to their clients. So the more you can give them that's client facing that they can kind of so you become that partner to them.

You're almost like an an outsourced marketing agency in the sense of Yes.

You're giving them collateral even to the point you can do social posts that you can give them that they can put on their own social channels, co branding, all of that kind of stuff. So as again, as much as we're talking about digital and CRM and data, once that person is working with you, then it becomes much more around the traditional marketing assets and collateral.

So that's an interesting point you make about almost becoming an outsourced agency to the advisers. In a way, you're you're helping them market their business, gain growth themselves.

Yeah. Because a lot of these advisers, they're they're not just advisers, they're business owners. Right? And they they also have to grow their business, attract new clients, retain clients, and they don't always have the luxury of having a big marketing team. If you think of some of the smaller firms, they will have their kind of the regulatory functions, they'll have their power planners, they'll have everything to service a client but not necessarily market their own business.

Yes.

And I think this is where we can really help and act and service becomes the differentiator.

I think and what I've seen over the years is it's a race to the bottom if you're going to compete with your competitors on price. Right. No one has, you know, the best performance all of the time. And we've all seen the kind of star managers rise and fall.

Yeah.

The moment in some Exactly.

And then product as well. So I think although there is a spectrum of products, but we're all kind of playing in the same space to a certain extent. So that service part, think is really where we can find the differentiator. And I think what we did some when we were looking at how we could rebrand Arkitas back in the day.

So Arkitas was part of AXA Twenty sixteen, AXA decided they didn't wanna have a life and savings business in the UK anymore. So then AXA Architas was gonna be a standalone investment manager in the UK. And we had to look at that point of where where could we find our USP? And so we did research with advisers.

So again, a lot of this as well always comes back to the research and insights of Yes.

Let's not just make assumptions. Let's actually test what we think or let's not make any assumptions and let's just hear it from who we're trying to talk to first. And what we got back was, you know, product providers, they're there when the sun's shining and everybody's got great performance. But as soon as the proverbial hits the fan, then they're nowhere to be seen. But what happens with the adviser is that they have, you know, fifty, however many clients bringing them up going, what should I do? Should I go into cash? Should I sell?

Yeah. Yeah.

Of course. And the more you can help the adviser at that point, be proactive, be transparent, open and honest Yep. And help them speak to their clients, the more you're really demonstrating your value as a partner.

And I think that's when the relationship becomes much deeper than just, oh, would you like to invest in this fund? Yeah. And you tend to get much more kind of brand loyalty from that perspective.

Makes perfect sense. I'm interested to just touch on the research elements. You're saying that you did a lot of research when you're an architect and I think you said as well that you've been conducting research at Brooks. So what, how does that process work for you?

Do you do focus groups, individual depth interviews with existing clients, not existing clients? Yeah. Like what was the word? Potential clients?

How does that work?

We've done it a number of different ways. And I think it's depending on what you're trying to do. So I think at the point where with Architas, so we had a very clear objective. We wanted to be in the top three multi managers over two years. So we were much more punchy.

Yeah, right.

And it was like, how do we do that? So we went out, we worked with external research experts. So it wasn't something we tried to conduct ourselves.

We spoke to two fifty advisor firms, not necessarily ones that dealt with us. So we gave them some of our clients to contact, but equally we wanted people that didn't work with us because we really wanted to understand one, you know, what's the challenges you see just generally and two, you know, what's the challenges you see with working with Arcitas or the opportunities so that we could really, you know, take it to that next level. And then we carried on that research. And so the objective of that kind of initiative was to raise our Catasys brand.

We didn't really have we weren't really known as a standalone brand in the UK because we'd already always distributed through AXA and partnerships with AXA's platform, which was Elevate at the time. So from that perspective, we did this that was our marker in the sand to say, these are the challenges. This is where I think we can see a niche for our contest to play in. If we can find that sweet spot where we're providing this support to advisers at the points that where they need it.

Yeah. I think we can carve out a niche for ourselves here. Then from a brand perspective, we were like, where are we on the brand scores? What's our recognition like at the moment?

Who's working with us? Who's not, etcetera? And then we did research every six months. And that was our measurement of are we successful in what we're trying to achieve?

Going in the right direction. Yeah. And so by doing that every six months, we could see where we're going in the right direction. If we weren't, what did we need to tweak and change?

And we achieved that objective actually, you know, we went to actually number one multi manager in the UK, which is Congratulations.

Score it. Yeah. And then from the Brooks perspective and what we're doing at the moment is we're trying to understand more about what do people know of Brooks. So I think there's there's a I wouldn't call it a misconception or the but there is a a preconception that Brooks are just a DFM. But it actually you know, we've got a funds arm, and we've got a much wider proposition than perhaps people might know for.

Right.

So it's how do we have that conversation around, actually, we we can be more than just bespoke portfolio services to you or Yeah. Managed portfolio services. So we've done research with existing clients, lapsed clients and also prospects.

Right.

And those have been in-depth phone interviews. So we were very grateful to the fact that people were willing to give up thirty, forty minutes of their time to take part in this, but we got some great insights out of and it's gonna really help us shape how we go forward. I'm actually presenting it to the ex co tomorrow, so.

Oh, fascinating.

And the similar numbers when you were So we, so that was, I think we did around one hundred and fifty.

So we broke it into those three channels, the UK investment management, the international business and the private client business. And then it's really interesting what you see come out of that as well. And then that the where where we see international is servicing of expats in Yeah. Kind of English speaking countries.

So you actually find that the challenges that they're facing, although there will be local nuance, and they're probably more concerned around tax than perhaps a UK investor is or different tax challenges, actually, how they want to be serviced, how they want to interact with a brand, what they want from you, is actually very similar. So the jurisdiction is probably less of an issue than perhaps we might have thought. Similar on the intermediary side, same kind of challenges they're having with servicing clients, etcetera. So I think it's some we're gonna have some really useful insights come out of that that will, again, feed into this overall growth ambition.

Yeah. Fascinating.

And and a lot around what do people actually want to hear from you. So there's a lot of appetite for increased communication rather than less, but just in different formats than perhaps they've been receiving previously and not just from us, but from competitors as well. So I think that will really help us hone.

So once we've got the data piece all in one place It's almost like the the part two that you come onto.

It's giving you the insights to shape what that that is gonna be as part of the the marketing lead nurture.

Yeah. And, know, we can't we can't be so I don't know, feigns the right term, but to make these assumptions that this is what people want. I I'm always like, I think in every marketing budget, you should have a good carve out for research. Yep. And you should be constantly testing and iterating what you're doing.

So otherwise, you just assume and Exactly.

And you're then you're relying on the metrics that you get from the interactions. If you've emailed it out, you know, what's your click through rate like? But that doesn't really tell you anything. Will just tell you whether it's resonating or not. It won't tell you how you evolve it and take it to the next level.

So for me, I think research is super important.

Yeah. Yeah. I want to bring it back to brand and brand awareness. We've talked a lot about data and digital, but of course we know that there's another side to marketing, which is the creative side of it. What is your role in developing out the brand awareness of Brooks? What is the Exco's view on the importance of brand? Is there anything you can share?

Brands always a challenge because it can be quite intangible. So when you're having conversations about how much an ad campaign might cost and it's like, well, what am I gonna get out of that? Yeah.

And I I think it can be quite crude to be like, well, unless you're I'm gonna be able to, you know, demonstrate x amount of leads that come off the back of this, then I don't see any value. And I think those are the kind of conversations that need to be overcome sometimes of some things are just quite intangible. Some things just you measure differently. So brand awareness, I think sometimes can be a bit of a, how do you calculate that?

But it's anecdotal as well because, again, brand's really important because people aren't going to trust a brand that they don't know. No. So you might if you're a private client, you've come through an intermediary, the you trust your intermediary, so therefore, you're you're quite happy to and I'm I'm sure there's there's quite a few, you know, high street investors who won't know who some of the big names are in the asset management industry. Yeah.

But they go might go through an an adviser if they made that recommendation, they trust their adviser. Yeah. I think from an adviser perspective, brand awareness is really important. And we've seen that come through this recent piece of research as well.

It's like, I know Brooks or I don't know Brooks. If I don't know Brooks, why are they not doing more to work on their brand so that I know more about them?

Yeah. Yeah. That in itself is like, well, there you go. Read that.

Yes. And this again, you know, comes back to demonstrate the value of research. So I think brand is super important, but it's doing it in the right way. It's making the most of that budget spend on brand.

So it's not perhaps, you know, there's been some really successful brand campaigns that have been, you know, wrapping taxes or but if you that's if you've got the budget to do that and the luxury to be able to go, do you know what? We can dedicate this amount to brand. A lot of brands need to make that that brand spend work much harder. Yes.

So it's how do you raise the brand awareness, but also associate it with something where you can actually add a bit more context to it in the sense of, you know, you've got that really strong call to action or you can really get the message through whilst you're raising the brand awareness. And that's what we're looking at and that's where I think the role of content really comes in as well.

So I've got in my mind that that I'm sure you know it, the Burnett and Peter Field diagram showing the importance of brand building combined with short term sales activation and he I think Mark Ritzon talks about a bothism approach.

That's my view. It sounds like that's what we're talking about.

Yeah. And I, you know, and I'm sure many will agree. There is no one kind of facet of marketing or sales that is going to be a hundred percent effective. Is a collaborative effort. Right?

You can raise you can have the best brand, but if you don't have the right distribution people to then go and close it Yeah.

That's gonna fall down.

You can have the best salespeople, but if no one knows who you are, they're gonna have to work double, triply hard Of course.

To get that person over the line. So that real collaboration through distribution and marketing is where it's really important. I think it has come a long way in the time that I've worked in the industry. You know, I think we're moving away from marketing being the coloring in department, And we're actually getting to a point where there's an understanding or there's a you know, they're they're witnessing the value that marketing can bring when marketing works really well.

We've talked a lot about what you've been up to and putting in in place a new system and the the, I guess, the immediate actions that are that are coming off the back of that and the research that you're undertaking. What's the next three things that you're you're you're gonna be involved in or to maneuver Brooks into the top three?

There's quite a lot going on actually because we're also replatforming our website.

Right.

So we'll be moving to a new CMS. And for me, it's kind of I I created this slide, which is part of the the sort of vision that I've been taking around the business to say, from a Martech stack perspective, it's Salesforce, it's marketing automation, it's website CMS, social analytics, and then, you know, some really good co branding software. So these are the kind of the next three things. And I see it almost as foundations.

So it's let's get our house in order. We need the founder the house built on really strong foundations. So data being one, really strong martech stack to enable us to do all that we need to be able to do. Having the right processes as well.

So I think now we've got all when we've got all of this stuff, it's only gonna be scalable if it's robust and repeatable. So we we need to make sure we've got really clearly defined processes to then, you know, where we are doing this activity, we're following a process that you know, it's going from the marketing automation piece into Salesforce. And then how are we tracking that activity through Salesforce. So it's all very well we can give all the the marketing engagement metrics, but we also wanna be looking at, you know, the distribution metrics as well.

How is that converting? Because, you know, it is very difficult, I think, in a lot of marketing activity to really demonstrate ROI. Yeah. When it's going through a system like that, you can really start to add some some value.

And that's not to say that we're trying to take anything away from distribution teams, but I think it's just to say this overall activity we've done as an organization has, you know Is having a benefit on the growth. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Where I think in a lot of organizations, where they do have kind of sales also, but if they have a an old system, even those that level of visibility isn't always there. So I think for me, that's the kind of next the focus is, you know, let's get the website re platform because that's our shop window. Right? So we we need we're gonna be doing all this marketing activity.

We're gonna bring people into Brooks, and they need to come in and they need to have a really good kind of journey when they come into to the site. And that journey needs to be relevant. That journey needs to be as tailored to them as it can be. So as we build that out and as we get more data on our clients and that's integrated with Salesforce, again, those journeys will become more and more personalized.

So that's the kind of North Star of where we're trying to get to everything integrated so that the more data we glean on people, we're just constantly, you know, refreshing that and making what we're doing more and more relevant and then, you know, the relationship that they have with Brooks better and better.

And that that the timeline to complete everything that's on that chart, what you what's your estimate?

Well, interestingly, our financial year runs July to June. So I would like to have everything in place and live by June next year.

Right.

So that will be obviously dependent on The year one foundations Exactly.

Yeah. Because you only get so much grace, right, when you go into a new role. And and already it's a bit like, hello. What are you doing?

And It'd be a busy few months.

Yeah. We've done a lot already. Right? So we've managed to get first phase of sales sourcing, marketing automation's almost in. We're gonna be scoping phase two. RFPs are out. We're we're kind of streamlined, we're we're at second stage on RFP for the new CMS.

Right.

So hopefully, I think end of June next year, end of our financial year, that's a good target. And then going into the new financial year kind of all guns blazing.

Fantastic. I I wish you all the success in that.

You will have to come back in a year's time. Will do. Yeah.

And see see see where we are.

Yeah. Brilliant.

Thank thank you so much for for joining me today and and sharing all of your of your insights.

It's yeah. I I really do wish you and Brooks the best.

Thank you.

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