Specialist Niche: IFAs – Nikki Thurston of Cloud 9 Admin
Nikki got in touch with us and asked if she could share her specialist niche – it seemed logical to use her financial background to find new clients, and it’s worked out really well! If you would like to feature your own specialist niche, please get in touch.
I’m Nikki Thurston and I am 30 years old. I own Cloud 9 Admin Virtual Assistant Service. My business has been running for a year, however I have been an Associate to another VA for about a year before that.
My niche market are IFA’s, Financial Planners, Mortgage Advisers and Insurance Brokers (basically those in the Financial Services). I specialise in this area because I worked in the Insurance Industry for over 10 years and worked closely with IFA’s and Brokers. I understand what they do, why they do it and the terminology that they use.
I must stress that I don’t just work for these group of clients. I love the variety of working for different businesses and the challenges of learning who they are and what they do.
I believe that it is a really good area to get into. There are approx 80,000 IFA’s, Financial Planners and Brokers in the UK – some are lucky enough to have a large enough practice that they can afford to employ an administrator, however there are thousands out there who are a ‘one-man band’, but with Compliance Issues and general regulations for ever more going through the roof, they just don’t have the time or the inclination to spend it on all their administration. Furthermore, by 1st Jan 2013, all IFA’s have to have passed an RDR Qualification which means that they have to study for and pass three exams, or else they won’t be able to practice past this date. It’s putting more and more pressure on them and this is why I want to be able to home into them that I can help ease the pressure of their day-to-day administration whilst they concentrate on their clients and passing the exams.
Please see below for my contact details. I am very excited about my new website which is under construction at the moment but is going to feature a ‘Specialist IFA Support’ page. The page will show that, not only do I provide a VA service to IFA’s, but it will detail the more specialist aspect of tasks that I can do for an IFA… like product searching, online new business application forms etc.
Nikki Thurston
Cloud 9 Admin Virtual Assistant Service
01904 763062
07790 005865