"When you have larger firms, like consolidator firms who are waving much bigger sums of money than I could ever afford, that does make it really difficult and if you're unable to articulate or really understand what the value for the person selling is, that's more than monetary, that's a really difficult conversation to have."
New beginnings
Her father's exit heralded change at the firm, including a reassessment of the firm's core values and definition of what excellence looks like, says Little.
"So much of the value that we add is intangible," she notes. "If the team are performing, they are fulfilled, they are challenged in a healthy way and therefore happy, that's the thing that's going to mean clients feel and get a great experience from the service. This culturally for us has definitely been a switch in mindset."
Emery Little has six financial planners looking after about 400 families between them, some across multiple generations. Of these advisers Little and Mullan are the oldest ones, at age 34.
For new clients the team follows the 'Evoke' process of life planning, which is a method to determine clients' life goals and make financial plans that allow them to fulfil these.
Little is also eyeing a change to the firm's charging structure, partly to allow her to do more to help younger generations.
"One of the things that I would love to be able to do, and I'm not sure anyone's got this quite right yet, is to be able to deliver a service that is of real value-add for younger accumulators, and like come up with a pricing strategy that works for them," she says.
Emery Little currently charges an initial fixed fee of up to £5,000 depending on the complexity of the case plus a 1 per cent ongoing charge, but Little says she would like to change the latter to either a completely fixed fee or a hybrid, whereby the percentage element is "much smaller", making it more enticing for clients to bring all their assets together in a way that is not solely motivated by money.
They also moved their clients' investment portfolios from active in-house managed ones to an evidence-based passively managed style.
That was quite a big project, she says, because it needed education, managing expectations, and explaining to clients why the firm's views had changed on active investing.
The majority of clients trusted the firm, she says, and the handful that insisted on active investing ended up switching firms.
"That's another big difference for us," she says. "We just have much more conviction in what we think is best for clients and do our most to try and get them comfortable with that, and if they really want to go against our advice then that's a bit of a red flag for the relationship more generally."
