1.5 years since taking over the business: a conversation with Seán

In 2023, after nearly 40 years at the helm of MLP, Paolo Standerwick stepped down, with his 2 sons, Seán and Paul, buying the business from him.

Now, a year and a half into their leadership, we sat down with Seán to hear his reflections on this new chapter.

What have you found most difficult since taking over?

The most difficult thing is finding top-quality new staff. We’re lucky to have a great team around us, but we need to grow the team further to help us meet our ambitious goals.

When hiring fresh talent, there’s also the added challenge of being so close to London because so many young people are drawn to the lights of the big city. Of course, we don’t blame them – I was the same when I was young – but it does present a challenge.

We have a lot to offer younger people though, in terms of training and job growth, and you can easily get to the office from London. For example, James, our Adviser who successfully came through as a trainee, lives in London and regularly makes the commute.

This problem isn’t exclusive to us; we speak to a lot of other business owners and managers who are also outside the capital, and they all find hiring good, new staff difficult.

What are your goals for the business?

Shortly after we took over, we sat down with the team and did two full days of business planning, working together on a plan for the future of MLP that we called “defib”.

We now have a monthly meeting where we update each other on our ongoing responsibilities, and discuss and vote on anything we need to.

It’s not about us deciding something and telling everyone what we’re going to do and what their role is. We’re a team, and everyone here has great ideas, so we work together to try and bring them to life.

Why is the business plan called “defib”?

Our two main business goals are to “provide financial peace of mind”, and to “be a vehicle for people to be successful”. And the most important step to achieving peace of mind and success, is health.

Our dad had the idea of getting a defibrillator for the local community when we moved into the office in 2020, but for one reason or another it never happened.

We thought it was a great name for our plan because it’s about re-energising the business or bringing it back to life – not that it was ever dead! It’s just evolved somewhat.

It’s also committed us to finally getting the defib. We couldn’t have it as our business plan name and not have one! So, we’ve installed a defib on the side of our building for the local community.

Louise, one of our Adviser Support staff, organised for us to have a CPR/defib training day in the office, which was amazing. We now all literally know how to save a life!

Some of the staff were worried about having a defib and not knowing how to use it. But while the training was useful and we have planned a refresher course, it's not needed to use the defib because the defib talks to you, telling you exactly what to do.

As well as wanting to be the “go to local Financial Planners”, we also want to give back to our community. We got the defib, but we also do things like sponsor events, including the upcoming Christmas lights, which nearly didn’t happen last year due to poor funding.

Also, if anyone’s passing by, we always encourage them to pop in for a coffee. Not only do we argue it tastes better than the big chain coffee shops in the area, but we give them delicious biscuits, serve our drinks in China cups, and all this can be enjoyed in our new waiting area while listening to some relaxing jazz music! And, of course, it’s free!

What else have you changed since taking over?

We’ve worked a lot on the culture within the company. We understand that there is no business without staff. So, we’ve tried to build a strong and positive culture within our team.

We’ve done things like increase pay, holiday time, pension contributions, and pension investment options.

We’ve also added health insurance and eye tests, and we now have a social secretary who organises staff events and socials. For our next social, we’ll be going to see Simon Brodkin (best known for playing Lee Nelson) in his latest standup show.

We’ve started an annual MLP Summer barbeque at Paul’s house, where we both cook. We invite our team’s other halves and children as we want to get to know them and make them feel welcome. They support our staff, so we want to give something back to them too.

And we spent the summer building and installing loads of new office improvements and upgrading our staff equipment.

We wanted to give the office a more personal and warm touch, so we built the client waiting area, added a new glass divide, bought tailor-made staff desks, and there’s still more to come!

My wife, Alice, is an interior designer and she’s been the brains behind the redecoration. She’s done an amazing job.

We also conducted a staff survey, asking for our team’s honest feedback and suggestions on any changes we could make. We’ve brought in a lot of them, but we still want to take more steps to improve our offerings and our working culture, so we don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.

Anyone who wants to keep up with what we’re doing should follow me on LinkedIn, where I post regularly, and read our monthly updates in our newsletter.

What have you been most surprised by since taking over the business?

The number of small jobs there are that take up a lot of time. We’ve managed to automate a lot of things, but even doing that takes a lot of effort!

We used to make a lot of payments manually, but they’re mostly now on direct debit. Setting that up with the bank took a very long time. Now that’s sorted, it’s so much more efficient and Sue does a great job making any of the payments that still need to be done manually, even though setting her up with the bank took a long time too!

We’ve outsourced other jobs, but there is still a lot more to do on this. We need to free ourselves up to deal with more clients, bring in new ones, and focus on the business itself.

We’ve also changed some of our service providers and added a payroll department just to improve efficiency.

Looking ahead, what are you most excited about at MLP?

The opportunities in the market. The average age of an adviser is 58, and over 60% of them are either retiring or considering retirement in the next three or four years.

My brother and I are quite a bit younger than your average adviser, which means there’s a massive opportunity to take on new clients.

It’s also exciting to be able to offer young people a great career that’s fulfilling and pays well. It gives us a lot of satisfaction to see people growing in their jobs and we’re always looking to open up new opportunities to the younger generations.

The industries changing a lot with technological developments and more people getting advice online, but being younger than a lot of advisers, we’re in a good position to rise to any challenges that those changes present.

Get in touch

To find out more about MLP and the work we do for clients, or if you or someone you know is interested in working with us, get in touch.

Email info@mlpwealth.co.uk or call us on 020 8296 1799.