--- title: I fed an alligator a marshmallow 🐊 --- And here's what it taught me about finance ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­    ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­   | View in browser    Latest Events   \|  Latest News  \|  Latest Resources Hi there 👋   I've just got back from New Orleans and I'm still not over it. Neither is my waistline, but I don’t want to talk about that.   I’m popping my jet-lagged bot into the hotseat for Eclipse this week to talk a bit about what I learned on my travels and how I related that to finance.   I went expecting jazz, beignets ("benyeys") and a lot of people telling me to try the gumbo (they were right, by the way). What I didn't expect was to come back with a notebook full of thoughts about the finance industry. Yep, really. I'm that person on holiday. My husband is a lucky guy.   It started almost as soon as we landed. Everywhere we went, someone asked, “How's the city treating you?” The Uber driver. The woman in the coffee queue. The barman who had probably asked forty people the same thing that day. And here's the thing. They actually wanted to know. They waited for the answer, nodded along, then told us where to go next, where not to go, and which cousin of theirs did the best po' boy in town.   And it starts to rub off on you, I found myself at one point, asking a 14foot alligator, affectionately called Crackhead, “How you doing, little fella?” while feeding him a marshmallow. He didn’t really answer, but I felt we had a connection.   Collective pride. Nobody I met was just promoting their own business. They were promoting the whole city, the whole state and, at times, the whole country. The hotel recommended a restaurant down the road. The restaurant told us about a bar round the corner. It felt like everyone had quietly agreed to sell New Orleans together, and nobody was fussed about who got the credit.   Generosity. We were upgraded without asking. We were fed on the internal flights (actual food, not a sad little bag of pretzels). Our first evening someone at the next table picked up our tab, and when we tried to thank them, they said, “Welcome to The US of A,” and just told us to pass it on. We watched people do the same for each other all week. No scorecard, no awkward, “I'll get the next one.” Just kindness for the sake of it.   Checking in. People asked how we were doing constantly, and meant it. This is very different to our British “Y’alright?” which is less of a question and more of a noise we make while walking past each other and not something we really want an honest answer to but a genuine intrigue for our thoughts.   So what's this got to do with finance? Quite a lot, I think. We seem to have nailed the art of asking a client how they are and genuinely caring about the answer. Not the fact find version, the human one. Some of the most important things we've ever learned about a client came from that throwaway chat at the start of a meeting, not from the questionnaire, and rightly so. But can we honestly say we have that same attitude towards each other and the wider community? Do we genuinely check in on each other, and care about our overall wellbeing as a profession?   That’s the collective bit. As an industry, we can be a bit quick to criticise each other. Advisers versus providers, inhouse versus outsourced, fixed fees vs percentages, this firm versus that one. Imagine if we promoted the profession as a whole instead. If every adviser, paraplanner, administrator and provider took pride in making financial advice something people trusted and talked about positively. A rising tide and all that.   Consumer Duty asks us to deliver good outcomes and to go beyond simply ticking boxes. Fair enough. But nobody in New Orleans needed a regulator to tell them to be kind. It was just how things were done, and I think that's the real lesson. The best client experience comes from culture, not from a policy document.   And generosity doesn't have to mean paying for anyone's dinner (although if you're offering, I'm free Thursdays). It can be sharing a template with a new paraplanner, helping another firm with a tricky technical query, or sending a ‘competitor’ a note when you know they've had a rough year. The little things, that snowball and turn big when we pay them forward. The things nobody expects but everybody remembers.   There are enough clients for everyone. Just as I imagine, there are enough tourists in New Orleans, drinking enough liquor to fill the Mississippi ten times a week, we’re not in competition really, we’re in a collective.   I'm not suggesting we all start calling clients “honeybun”. Although, having tried it in the office this week, I can confirm it gets a reaction of sorts.   But if we could bottle even a little of that Southern warmth and bring it into our industry, I reckon our clients would notice. And they'd tell their friends, who’d tell their friends, who’d tell their barman etc etc. Which, when you think about it, is exactly what I'm doing now.   For our part, here at Verve, we’ve got some of our own great music and culture events coming to a city near you, at no cost to you, with our Grow on Tour events and even more discounts that we’ve negotiated with providers, the latest being Fintegrate, which we pass onto you (with no cheeky skimming I may add) which you can read more about here, plus all the other good stuff, Cathi writes about each week.   But y’all have a great day now. I’m off for a Sazerac Old Fashioned. Can recommend. 10/10. Let's connect on LinkedIn 📍 GROW on Tour Harrogate - 06/10/26 📍 GROW on Tour Warrington - 07/10/26 Find a GROW on Tour date in a city near you Save up to 46% on website projects with Ai-enabled design Same design standards, same financial services know-how, a much smaller price tag. Our new AI-enabled website service passes every hour we save back to you.  Start saving now 🖥️ Your latest compliance round-up From AI-powered cyber threats to governance that can't keep up with growth, we've pulled together the latest from the CDA and FCA so you know where to focus. Read the latest 💡 IHT and pensions process 2027 HMRC's second technical note sets out who needs to share what, and by when, once pensions come into IHT from April 2027. Grant Callaghan breaks it down.  Get ahead of April 2027 ✅ Unclaimed Child Trust Funds Kate Hall explains which clients (and their children) could be affected, how to trace the funds, and what advisers should be telling their clients now. Find out who's owed a CTF 🔎 How do you recognise financial abuse? In her latest Professional Paraplanner article, Jo Campbell tackles a sensitive topic - financial abuse - outlining the red flags to notice and what to do next.  Know what to look for ⚠️ MPS, regulation and opportunity: new whitepaper with Aberdeen Grant Callaghan & Maddie Delboy have teamed up with Aberdeen to tackle MPS under Consumer Duty, from target market to fair value. Get the full framework.  Download your free copy 📩 Cathi live from Transformation  The FPC took Podcast on Tour to Verve Transformation for a series of quick 10-minute chats. In the first 2 episodes, you'll hear from Cathi Harrison & Tony Pound. Listen now🎙️ Verve's next phase, explained Cathi Harrison sat down with Professional Adviser to talk about our next phase: using AI to reduce costs for advisers, and the next stages of the Verve foundation. Find out what's next 👀 Copyright © 2026 Verve. All rights reserved. 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