Every month we like to feature a different Brunsdon Financial team member. This month, we’re getting to know Andrew Jones, Senior Financial Adviser.
What is your role at Brunsdon Financial?
Senior Financial Adviser.
How did you come to your role?
I joined Brunsdon Financial eight years ago after spending 25 years with my previous employer, most of which as a Corporate Financial Adviser.
I had a couple of offers on the table but when I met the Management Team here, I felt that we shared the same values when it came to clients. The main aspect that sold it for me, was that I could see the company was a professional, long-established, forward-thinking business and there was a great “Work Hard, Play Hard” culture.
To be frank, I’ve not looked back – I work with a fantastic group of people.
What do you like most about your role?
I like seeing clients and becoming a central cog in their planning.
Nothing gives me more pleasure than witnessing a long-term plan come to fruition for an individual and their family. That could be seeing them fund their pensions properly, investing successfully and then perhaps helping with the transition through to enjoying a fulfilling retirement, as well as inevitably ensuring that their financial legacy is secure for those they leave behind.
If you could wave a magic wand to achieve anything you wanted at work, what would it be?
Less paperwork and more time in front of clients talking about what is important to them.
If the magic wand can’t sort out the paperwork aspect, perhaps we can wave it to re-instate the bacon butties we used to get at the monthly team meetings!
What advice would you give someone starting out in business now?
I’ve never had the confidence to leave an employed role to start a business myself, so I have a huge amount of admiration for anyone that has taken the leap into self-employment or has set up a company.
I would tell them to be ambitious and passionate in their planning but in equal measure to be unrelenting in how they manage their cash and cashflow. I’ve met hard working, ambitious people that have struggled, not through a lack of effort or ideas, but simply because they couldn’t manage their cashflow properly.
What’s the best piece of business-related advice you were ever given?
Plan, do, review (rinse and repeat regularly!).
If you could, what would you tell your 21-year old self?
I’m not sure I would change anything. I think I made the usual mistakes through the over exuberance of youth, but I have the memories to go with that! I would have perhaps explored travelling more, but then I do believe that the world is a smaller place now than it was 28 years ago and the opportunities are greater.
Who are your business heroes?
I don’t really have business heroes. There are people of course that I admire in business, but actually not for business reasons alone. Locally I see all the charitable work that the Gloucester business community does for the Pied Piper Appeal and that “giving back” aspect personally ticks more boxes for me than someone who is a brilliant deal-maker for instance.
That said, I’m always impressed when I go to a company premises and see a genuinely happy group of employees.
Outside of work, what do you like to do?
I love walking my two hounds Johnny and Cooper, sampling great coffee and cake, and dining out with Mrs J. I’ve perhaps indulged in too much cake over the last 18 months.
How would you like to be remembered, a) by your friends and family and b) by your Brunsdon Financial clients?
I would want my clients to think of me as a safe pair of hands who always put their interests first.
By friends and family, I would like to be thought of as a kind person.
