Sarah, Josh & Joe from Informed Financial Planning - GROWING

Situation

Informed Financial Planning (IFP) was founded in Hull in 2004 by Kevin Ferriby and has grown steadily into a respected, award-winning financial planning firm. By 2006, they became the first firm in Yorkshire to achieve Corporate Chartered Status, an accolade they’ve proudly retained ever since.

After years of success, Kevin handed ownership to the board through a Management Buy Out, paving the way for the next generation of leadership. With Josh Richardson stepping in as Managing Director, the firm already had strong foundations in place. But Josh and the board had the drive and ambition to go further. They wanted to understand exactly how well the business was performing and where it could improve, so they engaged Melo to provide an independent review of their operations.

What we did

One of the most significant outcomes of our work with IFP has been a measurable improvement in performance. Profitability has increased even as the business has invested heavily in its future. The difference is that investment is now strategic, focused on long-term growth and capability, rather than reactive spending to solve immediate problems.

When we first started working together, the business had fallen into a common trap: doing things the way they had always been done. Drawing on our knowledge of the wider market, we were able to challenge that thinking, showing the team new approaches and best practices, many of which they were able to adopt.

We also worked with IFP to examine the entire client journey from start to finish, identifying opportunities to deliver a better, more consistent service for clients, which took less time and effort for the team to deliver. This included the introduction of an AI meeting notetaker, which dramatically reduced adviser follow-up time after meetings while providing paraplanners with higher-quality notes.

Alongside these improvements, we built a clear plan for how the firm’s proposition will evolve over time. The aim is to deliver an even more effective service to their target clients while making the business more efficient and scalable.

Our ongoing role has been to keep the business focused and accountable. We help the board set clear priorities, stay aligned on what matters most, and ensure progress against agreed actions. IFP is already seeing the impact of these changes, and there is still significant potential to unlock as the plan continues to roll out.

In Sarah’s words

“We admittedly had got a little bit caught in a trap of doing things how we’d always done things and not really seeing ways we could improve. (Melo) helped us challenge that. They brought in their wider knowledge from the industry, from other firms and showed us what could be done differently. We not only looked at processes and workflows, but we actually looked at the entire client journey to enable us to give a better service to our clients.”

“We were also able to create efficiencies internally to help our staff workloads.”

“Previously we were spending money to fight fires a lot and it wasn’t really getting us anywhere. Whereas this year it feels like every penny we have spent has been a true investment to actually set us up for the future.”