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Financial Advisory Launch Programme · Stage 1 of 10
Choose Your Model & Niche
Make the decisions that shape everything else: what you advise on, how you charge, and who you serve.
How long
1–2 days
You’ll have
A scope of advice, a status, a fee model, and a niche
Steps
4 steps
Resources
2 resources
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01 Step 01
Step 01
Decide what advice you’ll give
Your permissions, qualifications and insurance all follow from the advice you commit to, so decide it first.
Do it yourself
- List the areas you will cover: investments, pensions and retirement, protection, holistic planning.
- Note that mortgages and equity release need separate permissions, and often run as a distinct arm.
- Be deliberate about higher-risk specialisms, defined-benefit pension transfers above all, which carry extra permissions, qualifications and insurance loading.
- Write your scope of advice in one plain paragraph.
Common mistake · Trying to be all things at launch. Every extra permission adds a qualification, an insurance cost and compliance surface.
Time~half a day CostFree DifficultyEasyResource for this step
PDFScope of advice worksheet
Turn "what I want to do" into the permissions, qualifications and insurance each area triggers.
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02 Step 02
Step 02
Choose independent or restricted
This is a formal FCA status with a hard test, not a marketing word.
Do it yourself
- Independent means you can consider all relevant retail investment products across the whole market.
- Restricted means a narrower panel or product range; many new firms launch restricted, often on a network panel.
- Make sure your choice fits the network you are weighing up (see Get Authorised).
- Confirm the label with your network or compliance, and draft the status-disclosure line for your site and documents.
Common mistake · Calling yourself independent while advising off a restricted network panel.
Time~1 hour CostFree DifficultyMedium -
03 Step 03
Step 03
Set your charging model
Since the Retail Distribution Review, commission on retail investment advice is banned, so you set and disclose your own charges.
Do it yourself
- Set an initial charge for the advice and its implementation.
- Set an ongoing service fee for the continuing relationship (fees cluster around 0.5, 0.75 and 1 percent a year).
- Write down the specific service the ongoing fee buys, at the very least an annual review.
- Build a simple fee schedule with a worked example for a typical client.
Common mistake · Charging an ongoing percentage with no defined ongoing service behind it, the gap the regulator’s 2025 review went after.
Time~1 day CostFree DifficultyMediumResource for this step
PDFFee schedule and fair-value one-pager
Your initial and ongoing charges, what each buys, and a worked client example.
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04 Step 04
Step 04
Define your niche
A brand-new adviser wins on trust and specificity, not breadth.
Do it yourself
- Pick a client type you can credibly serve and reach: business owners, people near retirement, a profession, a local community, an existing relationship base.
- Note their trigger events: a redundancy, an inheritance, a business sale, retirement.
- Sense-check the niche against the relationships you already have (see Winning Your First Clients).
- Write your positioning in one line: who you help, with what, and why you.
Common mistake · Aiming at "anyone with money to invest". An undefined niche makes every marketing and referral conversation vague.
Time~half a day CostFree DifficultyEasy
What you’ll have after this stage
- A written scope of the advice you will give
- A decision on independent or restricted
- An initial and ongoing fee model, with the service each buys
- A defined niche and a one-line positioning