We spoke to Steve Dyson, Director at Investment and Wealth Management Consultants (IWMC), and Michael Walford-Grant, Founder and Director at MDWG Consulting. The two have joined forces with TWM to provide a sales accelerator offering for would-be entrants to the UK market. The Accelerator is a part of an overall strategy – the sale being the endpoint. It is an ecosystem of knowledge, experience, and skills that relies heavily on the firms getting market exposure via TWM to show off the brand we have first put into place. 

Please tell us a little bit about yourselves!
We are the UK Sales Accelerator service, designed to help technology firms, primarily start-ups, scale-ups, and overseas market entrants, wanting to enter or grow in the UK wealth management sector.

Primarily we deal with early-stage companies who want to enter the UK market from elsewhere. They need to know about the differences in the market and ready themselves in terms of their messaging and in terms of making any necessary changes to their offering to be able to serve the UK market. Our report provides them with everything they need to know!

Once a vendor has got to the stage where they are ready to be seen by the market, they work with TWM by participating in webinars, white papers, and events. From there, they raise awareness and get their brand into the market and, in doing so, become ready to attract the attention of wealth managers and have a conversation with them. We aim to have a process that accelerates a vendor to be market-ready in less time to be seen and attract attention from the wealth management community.

Why is this relevant to the UK wealth market?
The UK is one of the biggest and most attractive FinTech hubs globally, and the WealthTech sector is an important and growing part of that. The UK’s wealth management sector is also sizeable and spread over several subsectors, so the opportunity for a WealthTech provider is vast.

The people that we help can be very established in their home market, or they can be a start-up wanting to build out from the UK; the service is the same; to accelerate the process to get them to the stage where they are ready to raise their profile and start to have conversations.

What are the main UK market trends, and how do they impact those wanting to gain traction or establish a presence in the UK market?
Before the pandemic, wealth managers realised that they needed a digital strategy to underpin their interactions with clients. They also realised that they had legacy systems that would eventually need to be refined and replaced and that they would need to move to a more digitally enabled front end with API-enabled ecosystems to offer clients the full range of functions. The pandemic accelerated all of this, and wealth managers now firmly have a focus on the client experience and think carefully and work quickly towards having an omni-opti-channel offering that is high quality and works for all clients. 

The second part of this equation is that wealth managers need to quickly adapt to new regulations, notably the new Consumer Duty regulation. They need to maintain a business-as-usual approach while aligning with new regulations that cut across many business areas and functions. 

Thirdly the wealth management community is renumerated on assets under management (AUM). In the wake of market volatility, there are reductions in AUM as well as an uptick in the cost to serve. Wealth managers are therefore looking to reduce their costs to serve and up their revenue streams.

Technology is a key enabler of all three facets and, although not the driver of change, supports and underpins the actual drivers of change to support the vision of wealth managers regarding their present and future success.

What are the issues players currently face? How does the Accelerator help with that? What are some of the practical things that you recommend?
One of the biggest issues that vendors entering the market is brand awareness. Wealth managers simply do not know who they are; because they are new to the UK, they do not have a presence, so it is harder to convince wealth managers that their offering is UK-relevant and that they have something to offer. All of that needs sorting before they start to reach out, raise awareness of their brand, and start conversations with wealth managers. 

This is where we come in. We can work on brand, localisation, adapting the product and the messaging, and marketing collateral to the UK market. It is about being able to articulate their message so that it appeals to the UK wealth manager with a clear USP and point of differentiation. All of this gets a vendor to the stage where it will be worthwhile working with TWM to get their content and message into the market, raising awareness and, ultimately, getting in front of wealth managers. 

How does TWM feed into this?
TWM plays a key part in the vendor’s success by offering a platform and executing a content and market visibility strategy. If the vendor is out there in the market attending webinars and roundtables, supporting white papers, and contributing to the conversation, they need to be saying something interesting! We get the vendor to the point where their messaging and voice are suitable for the UK market, so they will be taken seriously and have something of interest to say that is relevant and compelling.

What are some more in-depth things that are up for consideration, aside from the obvious practical things?
The Accelerator is a part of an overall strategy – the sale being the endpoint. They have the exposure via TWM, and then we can also help with a go-to-market plan, facilitating networking and acting for them on the ground as a sales or pre-salesperson. It is an ecosystem of knowledge, experience, and skills that relies heavily on the firms getting market exposure via TWM to show off the brand we have first put into place. 

Do you have any case studies?
A growing and ambitious company based in Australia identified its next stage of growth as the UK, soon to be followed by the US. The UK Sales Accelerator is providing a lot of value in terms of adopting the right positioning, strategy, and approach. “The report the team compiled for us was comprehensive and full of insight and will act as the foundations for our go-to market strategy beginning 2023,” Director at the company.

“I tasked Steve and Michael to undertake The Sales Accelerator for the UK market, as it was a market we planned to launch into. The report they produced provided invaluable insight into the UK wealth management market, and improvements on sales topics such as messaging, value proposition, sales execution, and collateral. If given the opportunity, I will work with them again in the future.” Independent Wealth Management Consultant.

What is next? How will you expand on what is already on offer?
We are comfortable that our current ecosystem of skills and experience is the right one and that our offering is usefully and suitably holistic. Our aim is always to deliver value for money to smaller firms that typically Do not have big budgets; that is our sweet spot. We want to go on a journey with our clients to get them to a point where they can market their brand and raise awareness with TWM or take them through setting up networking events and acting as a sales conduit for them on the ground. We can provide as much or as little as the client wants, but we always work around the client’s aims, bringing our skills, knowledge, and experience to bear.

If you would like to take part in our ‘TWM talks to…’ series, please get in touch with us at office@thewealthmosaic.com