Financial advisers have laid their cards on the table when it comes to service levels at many financial companies, and one of the biggest bugbears for them is the lack of contact and communication with human beings.
For Billy Brown, the new head of internal sales at Time Investments, that's what the company is keen to avoid, which is why the investment house is building its business development team and continuing to support field agents across the UK.
Brown, who recently joined Time from Triple Point, tells FT Adviser: "One of my ambitions is to build out the the sales team to help remain present and accessible to advisers when they need it."
The company, which specialises in tax-efficient investment products and solutions, has 11 field-based individuals across the country who meet advisers face-to-face, as well as 16 internal business development managers.
"We also have a wider sales support function and marketing, so that everything we do can support the advisers through whom we distribute our products."
But it won't stop there. Brown says: "In the next 12 months or so I would like to grow our wider sales team. We've recently had someone join to head up fund distribution and we're always on the lookout for good talent."
He outlines Time's internal development process, which starts with a business development associate stage that is generally people who are "fresh into the industry" all the way through to senior business managers.
"There's kind of a nice conveyor belt of development, and we continue to look at opportunities where we can facilitate it.
"Obviously there is going to be a natural cap on the size of the team at some point in the future, but with interest in inheritance tax solutions growing, I can see this business area becoming bigger over time."
At a time when many of the big banks have been ditching their high street presence and insurers let sales staff go during Covid, Brown said it was crucial to make time to meet advisers face to face as well as virtually, offering help and services to the planning profession, whatever the request.
He says: "It could be from the simplest question of 'What is business relief?' to 'I'm working with professional connections and I could really do with someone from Time to come in and talk about the underlying assets that you guys have within your proposition'.
"We get all sorts of requests and advisers are our focus, so it's important to be able to meet their needs."
That's not to say Time does not do virtual meetings - "They're fantastic for efficiency", says Brown but "the core ethos of Time is the service we give to our advisers.
"One of the standout reasons I wanted to come over and join Time was that I could see how they supported the adviser through the first point of contact, such as asking for an illustration, right through to helping advisers dealing with complicated inheritance tax issues."
