Natalie Cheesman, Partner at St. James's Place, joins Sam Oakes to talk about how she built a financial planning practice to £6 million in funds under management in 18 months, without ever fully stepping away from the mortgage business she'd run for 15 years. In this episode, Natalie explains why a transactional mortgage career, however loyal her 1,200-client bank was, left her wanting something more predictable, and what it actually took to build financial planning on top of it rather than instead of it.

Natalie talks through passing the CII Investment Advice Diploma in under a year while still running that mortgage business solo, and training through the St. James's Place Academy while continuing to submit mortgage applications in the evenings and on breaks. She describes the support that got her through those first months as a new financial planner, including a business development manager she'd sometimes speak to daily and an administrative specialist who had her submitting business from day one, and how she methodically worked back through her existing client bank and added mortgage-introducer partnerships to grow from £40,000 to £6 million in funds under management through organic growth alone.

She also talks about the moment a client realises they can retire years earlier than they thought, what it took to keep building a business through a genuinely hard period in her own life, and what winning the Mike Wilson Award meant to her after 18 months of work.

Key takeaways from this episode:

• Why Natalie kept her mortgage business running while training as a financial planner
• How she passed the CII Investment Advice Diploma in under a year while running that business solo
• What day-to-day support from a St. James's Place business development manager and administrative specialist looked like
• How she rebuilt momentum with her existing 1,200-client mortgage bank
• How a mortgage-introducer partnership became a steady source of new business
• How she grew from £40,000 to £6 million in funds under management in 18 months
• What winning the Mike Wilson Award meant to her, and the resilience behind it

This is an episode for mortgage advisors weighing up whether financial planning is the right next move for them, and for newer financial planners looking for a practical blueprint on client conversion and introducer relationships.

Learn more about St. James's Place at www.sjp.co.uk 

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