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It’s that time of the week again; Friday afternoon and the weekend is almost within touching distance. Over the years, several people have told me that they look forward to receiving Eclipse, not because of its fascinating and witty content, but because it signals the imminent 48 hours of relief that the weekend brings, and I’ve opted to take that as a compliment 💁🏼‍♀️

It’s also that time of the year again; where the seasons change and it makes me want to change things up too (I’m quite a basic creature like that). For some reason, the change from summer to autumn always feels particularly noticeable and much like a spring clean makes me want to freshen things up, a big seasonal shift just has me looking at what else might need shifting (a subtle Eclipse makeover is case in point!). Some of the areas I’m casting my beady eye over right now are:

Consultation papers

You may have heard about the latest FCA Consultation Paper, CP23/20, which is focused on culture, diversity and inclusivity. Side note: if you’re struggling to keep up with all the FCA activity, I saw the Lang Cat launched a ‘Tracker’ this week, to help you stay on top of it all, which definitely sounds like a useful tool for anyone in finance.  Anyway, I was going to put my ponderings on this paper in this week’s Eclipse but then realised that our approach to CP’s, DP’s, PS’s and whatever other content our great regulator bestows upon us needs handling differently than me just word vomiting on it on a Friday, with one eye on the wine. So, we’ll come back to this topic for our clients and readers very soon.

Evolution

You know we loved it. We know those who attended loved it (the feedback has genuinely been incredible). However, since then (and in the week in the run up to it) there have been so many conferences and I very selfishly feel like I’ve missed out on a load of them because I was in an Evo bubble and it’s just an incredibly busy time of year. We all love the post-summer pre-festive time of year for get togethers. But another change I am considering is whether it would be helpful if we shuffled ours to another time of the year, so have linked a one-question survey for those who came, or are interested in coming in future ones to let us know when they prefer.

Tech adoption

I’m feeling very tired and hoarse today as I spent all day yesterday doing some filming, for some tech, that we’re going to adopt, to try and shake up one of our own processes. Which sounds quite vague – apologies. I want to see if it’s any good before actually sharing it! The point being, halfway through the day, when the energy levels were dipping, I doubted myself and questioned whether it was really a good use of time and money to be changing up a process that by and large currently works fine. But you know what, I think the answer is yes. Change isn’t always perfect; I might decide the output is rubbish and not use it. However, in the process of doing this, we’ve been able to re-examine what we do and make some tweaks and it has got my brain looking at things from a different angle, and sometimes the outcome of the change is different to the outcome you expected, and can still be just as good.

Service structure

As you know by now, we’ve done a full restructure of Para-Sols, Apricity and The Art of Finance into Verve and in doing so our services were combined and are working more harmoniously than ever. And for most people that would be great. But I’m not most people and so there’s a giant notepad with scribbles on about how we can further tweak, refine and improve the overall structure of our services to make it easier than ever for advice firms to get some support. If you’re an adviser and have a suggestion or idea for your dream service structure, there’s a separate one-question survey below; I am all ears.

If you’re staring down the last quarter of the year and have spent most of 2023 chasing your tail and barely keeping your head above the water, you’re in the same boat as probably 95% of us, but I’d still encourage you to take a breath and a moment to look at the business, to start thinking ahead now to 2024 and whether there’s any changes you want to put in place now to make your new year kick off with an absolute bang.

I received the most beautifully boxed Champagne as a very kind gift this week. I’ve never tried Pol Roger before, so I’m going to make it my recommendation this week so we can all try it together! It also has a stunning website.

Have a wonderful weekend all,

One question: on when in the year you'd like Evo 2024 to take place

One question: on what your dream support service would be

One question: is also apparently a TV show - who knew?!