Hi all, a bit late to the party but wanted to address a few questions on here as a current Octopus Money coach:
@BelindaMelinda You summed it up really well - the service covers all of those aspects, and more; the big one you missed that is a pretty central part of what we do, is making a financial plan to optimise someone's future decisions. Usually the 1st time anyone's contemplated that from people we talk to, but a really powerful tool. With regulated advisers behind the software, it means we can coach & also use the tool to deliver advice recommendations to clients.
@Marchforward It's not at all an MLM, at times yes we get a (small) referral fee if we refer someone to train as a coach who then qualifies, but a) No further earnings come from that direction and b) That hasn't actually been the case for a while as coach capacity & training pipeline has been full (less than 5% are accepted onto training as coaches, it's popular!)
@DelurkingAJ I touched on it above, but as you rightly point out, we're not regulated advisers and therefore aren't giving advice directly (we can still pass on action recommendations using the planning software, eg. save X into pensions to potentially gain Y income in retirement etc.). Training as an adviser is of course a valid other route, however much harder and more training £££ to get into. We do have liability insurance but it's highly, highly unlikely we'd need to use it, as I said we're trained specifically not to stray into regulated advice and calls are checked accordingly
@Hoppinggreen Clients can come either through personal networks (paid a bit more) or via workplaces arranged via the OM HQ team - calls then just drop into the diary so zero coach work needed for option b.
@Sarah7550 @chimichangaz At the moment, the flow of clients is good and diaries are full, however it can fluctuate so I would advise thinking very carefully if you need a confirmed level of income, it's a self-employed role so like any such role there's an increased level of uncertainty there, especially if you're relying on the workplace client flow.
@MILTOBE The value isn't in investment performance - we're not advisers (although there is an investment option via OM, which holds up well against all the relevant benchmarks - it's a passive-led, personal risk-attuned, low fee approach). The value is in planning & coaching - a holistic look at your entire financial picture over your whole lifetime to inform your decisions and coach accountability/structure to think through options/help make sure actions get over the line (like any coach). There isn't anything else similar out there to the same scope.
@BadgerFace Did you hold your initial call? Hopefully that would provide (free) value for you upfront and show you exactly what you'd be paying for
@tescocreditcard Funny you say that, sometimes the people who think they're all sorted, actually aren't! It's very, very rare that I talk to someone that I can't make suggestions to make improvements, if you think about it, the best sportspeople have more coaches, not fewer..Some of the value is purely carving out space in a busy diary to tackle this stuff. Clearly the wealthiest pay people to look after all this stuff but that's not the bracket of person we're talking to! (Less than £200k investable wealth)