In June, IFA Magazine launched our new weekly podcast, IFA Talk, where we talk to people who matter about subjects that matter in the world of financial planning and advice. In this article, we give you the inside view of why we believe it is a powerful new addition to the content you receive from us and – most importantly – why it can help advisers and paraplanners to keep up to date with the latest thinking on important and relevant subjects.
Our new IFA Talk podcast is all about thought leadership. We know that there is a lot of important discourse to be had across the advice profession, through the sharing of ideas and opinions that financial advisers, paraplanners and other experts are so well known for.
Here at IFA Magazine, we feel particularly well placed to open up these conversations – and project the voices and stories of individuals from across the spectrum of financial services.
Our aim is to incite honest and open conversations about a wide range of relevant topics – from the more technical aspects of investment and the business of advice to broader themes such as sustainability, D&I, and mental health. By extending our use of this powerful new medium we believe we can support our advisers and paraplanner audience to help you think a little differently about what you do and how you do it. If we succeed with this, then we will have achieved our goal.
Short, snappy – but relevant
These insightful and engaging conversations will be wrapped up neatly in the short and snappy listening time frame of around 20 minutes – think TED Talks!! This allows us enough time to flesh out the detail with each podcast guest, but without being too much of a time thief to you, our busy audience. Why not listen to the show whilst you have your morning coffee, whilst sat at your desk or even when you’re out for a walk? We hope that our listeners will find these new conversations to be a valuable use of their time.
Talking technical
For the majority of IFA Talk episodes, IFA Magazine’s combo of Sue Whitbread and Rebecca Tomes will be talking to a range of expert guests. It’s all about informal conversation – you’ll find that it resembles a chat between friends over lunch – but just the important bits! Sometimes we will be getting technical, other times we will be talking about some of the overarching issues which affect our profession. Occasionally, we might be joined by another member of the IFA Magazine team too so as to broaden out the conversation.
We’ve already had some really powerful conversations, including with John Porteous, Managing Director at the wealth management firm Charles Stanley, about the advice gap. John is someone who knows the advice profession inside out and will be well known to many readers. Also we enjoyed talking to Gavin Francis, Founder and Director at Worthstone. Gavin is an impact investment specialist adviser to financial planners and wealth managers. It’s clearly a topic about which he’s not only very knowledgeable but passionate too. Make sure to give our most recent episodes a listen. We very much hope you will.
Commenting on the launch of IFA Talk, Alex Sullivan, Managing Partner of IFA Magazine, said: “IFA Magazine has established a very strong reputation across the advice profession for delivering unbiased, trusted content which helps to keep our audience up to date with the latest thinking. To augment all the content from our monthly magazine and digital editorial on www.IFAMagazine.com, this new weekly podcast is a powerful new development for us. We’ve got a great team here and I’m sure that IFA Talk will quickly establish itself as one of our most popular features.”
Sue Whitbread, Editor at IFA Magazine, said: “IFA Talk is a natural progression for us as we look to further support the needs of our adviser and paraplanner audience with yet more great content in a short and snappy format that’s quick and easy to access. I’m sure it’ll help us to take thought leadership for our audience to the next level.”
Rebecca Tomes, Junior Editor at IFA Magazine, commented: “As an avid podcast listener, myself, I was extremely excited when our Managing Partner suggested that we release our own show! I am still relatively new to financial services, having joined IFA Magazine – and the advice profession–just over a year ago, and so hope to bring a fresh, objective perspective to the show.
“I believe that now is the time to be launching our podcast because there are so many exciting initiatives happening across the board. The financial advice profession has undergone a great deal of change and transformation in recent times. Currently, we’re seeing a lot of attention and discussion around ESG as well as so many other important areas of business and personal development – and we really want to be part of that conversation.
“It’s a huge privilege for us to have such a fantastic, loyal audience who take the time to read our content – both in print and online and so engaging with you more directly and personally, via the podcasting platform, felt like the natural next step. We hope our readers and listeners are as excited about the launch of IFA Talk as we are!”
Brandon Russell, Online Writer at IFA Magazine and Editor of IFA Talk, said: “Podcasts have really exploded into popularity over the last four or five years and at IFA Magazine we wanted to make sure our audience had a route to listen to some of the biggest names in financial services give their opinions on the issues that really matter.
“We have been producing podcasts for a while now, but we wanted to give IFA Talk our full attention, and a revamp seemed the best way to do that. A new name, a new theme, and a variety of new – and expert – guests mean we have pushed all our efforts into making IFA Talk the best experience for listeners.
“We understand that the written word can only go so far, so we hope our listeners can use our new podcast to complement all the information available via our website in order to get the most out of all the valuable content that we produce.”
Tell us what you think
But we’d love to get your input too. So, if any of our readers feel they have an interesting story to tell, or there’s another subject that you’d like us to cover on the podcast, please do let us know. You can email us at: rebecca.tomes@ifamagazine.com or brandon.russell@ifamagazine.com. We are extremely keen to get the thoughts of as many IFA Magazine readers and listeners as possible so that we can make sure we deliver exactly what it is that you want through IFA Talk.
Check out IFA Talk podcasts for yourself
You can catch up with each new weekly podcast as well as all our previous IFA Talk episodes by visiting: https://ifamagazine.com/category/podcasts/
