Here we are at session number 69 , and  I’m going to take the opportunity to share the results of my first ever listener survey which closed last week after being open for three weeks. It has given me some great insights into how you tick and what I need to do to serve you best going forward.

 

 

 

 

 

After the main body I normally look at the most recent reviews that have been left by listeners, and give you a weightloss update but I can’t do that this week. The reason for that is that I am recording this full show a week ahead of time due to the fact that I have to dismantle my recording setup and transfer it to my new company offices, which will have happened the week before this session is released. I am normally a week or two ahead in recording the main body of the show, but I top and tail it the night before it is released so that the weight loss update and listener reviews are right up to date. So I’m sure I’ll be able to report huge weight loss next week!

Click to Listen

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download

On that point, apologies to those waiting for the session on Student Finances that I announced a couple of weeks ago. I have shelved this for now, but will hopefully come to it soon. In the meantime, Baines and Ernst have a great info graphic on 5 finance tips for students.

If this show is of any use to you, it would help me massively if you would take the time to leave me a review on iTunes. This has a huge impact on keeping me near the top of the rankings, which in turns helps more people to find the show and to subscribe. I’ll remind you again at the end of the show, but if you want to do it right now, just click the button below

But first…

Sponsor Message

This podcast is brought to you with the help of Seven Investment Management, a firm of investment managers based in London. They put their name to my show and to my site and videos because they believe in what I’m doing, and I’m very grateful for their support. You can see what they’re up to at 7im.co.uk

Introduction

OK – I had just under 70 responses to my first ever listener survey, which I was really pleased with. My mailing list is only about 300 people, so I was delighted with the level of response. Thank you so much to everyone who took the five minutes to answer the survey.

I want to pull out the salient points in a bit of a reversal of the usual format here on MeaningfulMoney. The survey gave me what I needed to know and gave me some pointers as to what I need to do!

Everything I needed to KNOW about my audience

1 – Demographics

The ages of my audience are a pretty even split with just over 25% in the 25-34, 35-44, and 45-54 age ranges, and then 18.18% aged between 55-64 and 3% aged over 65

Interestingly, 86% of respondents were male. I wonder why this is. Maybe a predilection for the technology needed to listen to podcasts?

2 – Source

I asked an open question about how you found out about MeaningfulMoney and the results were somewhat unexpected.

I did expect a big showing from Property Podcast listeners. Rob and Rob from the Property Hub have name-checked me several times and I’m grateful to them for doing so. They were the second biggest source of referrals to me.

The biggest was organic search, which means I must be doing better at using keywords than I thought I was.

iTunes was next, which is why those reviews mean so much. Then came word of mouth and YouTube; so all those 285 videos are driving traffic to the podcast too.

Finally Twitter showed up as a source too. So a varied list of sources, which is good

3 – Venue

I was interested to know what medium people were using to listen to me. Unsurprisingly, just under half listen on their mobile phone, with another quarter listening directly on their computer. Then there was a smattering of ipod/MP3 player and iPad listeners.

I reckon the advent of the smart phone and the fact that everyone now has one, is the key component in the rise and rise of podcasting over the last couple of years.

I also asked about the form in which people liked to consume financial information. Perhaps the fact that this survey was announced on a podcast led 84% of you to tick that podcast was the favoured way. Video and written blogs came next, followed by eBooks and good old paperbacks.

4 – Financial Headache

Now to the meat. I asked you to identify your biggest financial headache. I suggested some options, but also gave an opportunity for a response of ‘Other’ and then space to specify what that other might be. I also allowed more than one response to this question.

Well over half of you said that deciding how to invest was a major pain for you. The next biggest headache with just under a quarter of you responding was setting and sticking to a budget.

Retirement issues were next, both saving for and then deciding what to do financially at retirement. Just over 20% of you ticked both these boxes.

Then bringing up the rear were paying too much tax and sorting out financial paperwork.

A couple of individual respondents mentioned about deciding whether or not to pay off a mortgage and quantifying risk on investments and understanding charges.

All interesting stuff and subjects that either I have touched on already or that I plan to in more detail very soon. For example:

How to budget: Session 3

Investing basics: Session 6, Session 37, Session 41, Session 43, Session 47, Session 61

Retirement planning: Session 14 – definitely need to do more on this subject

Financial Paperwork:  Session 46 and Session 44

Tax: Session 9 and Session 19

There is a complete listing of all the sessions on the podcast page – just go to MeaningfulMoney.tv and click the podcast link at the top.

I’ll come back to my plans for the future shortly

5 – Have you ever used a financial adviser or planner?

I wanted to know what the audience’s experience was in using a financial planner. Regular listeners will know that I am a Chartered and Certified Financial Planner and that I believe that everyone can benefit from meeting with one, but that not everyone needs to go to the expense of using one.

Your responses were fairly evenly split, 57% of you saying that yes you had used an adviser and 43% saying no. I then gave space for you to report your experience and it was a mixed bag to say the least. Some of you have had awful experience, and many mediocre. Very, very few have had a good experience with a financial adviser, which makes me a little bit sad, but just goes to show that we still have a long way to go as a profession.

I was pleased with one respondent’s answer:

“Great experience and all triggered by listening to these podcasts and knowing some of the things to look out for.”

I do hope that you are equipped by listening to this show to get the most out of your own personal finance endeavours. That’s the aim!

6 – Other sources of information 

I wanted to know which other sites you were visiting to get information on personal finance. It was great to see my friend and interviewee on Session 60 Damian Fahey of Money to the Masses mentioned a few times. As expected, Which?, The Motley Fool, MoneySavingExpert and ThisIsMoney all polled heavily.

An interesting number of you said that your friends and family were a primary source of information. That can go either way of course, but it is important to have real people you can ask advice from and trust the response.

7 – What else would you like me to cover?

This is where I shamelessly asked you to do my planning for me for the next few months of the podcast! This was an open question. Here are some of the responses:

• Changes in legislation, e.g. Budgets
• Pension or ISA – which is best?
• Investing as an expat
• Investment Trusts
• The impact of potential Scottish Independence
• Family oriented finances
• Getting into financial planning as a career
• Dealing with the doom and gloom of financial headlines
• Lots of different aspects of investing from determining good value stocks to asset allocation.
• Managing money for kids and teaching them how to do so
• Consequences of interest rate rises
• Retiring early – how to achieve it

Tons of good stuff there for me to get my teeth into!

Again, I want to thank everyone who responded to the survey request. I plan to re-run the thing every year, I got so much great value from it.

Everything I need to DO 

So what do I need to do to take this valuable info and serve you loyal listeners better going forward?

1 – Write more

The fact that lots of traffic to the podcast came from organic Google searches confirms that I need to be writing more. For years I just did videos on this site and didn’t ever write transcripts of those videos. Videos don’t show up very well in searches as searches are, of course, text based.

The fact that every week there is a sort-of transcript for this show has clearly helped my search engine rankings as they are peppered with keywords and links.

So I hope to write more short posts, maybe news items and comments.

2 – Build on the email communication

Exactly 300 of you are currently registered to receive my occasional updates on email. I’d love that to be more obviously, but be assured I have no intention of spamming you!

I do think that it might be an idea to send out the posts, or at least a summary of them to the email list each week. I think that will likely build traffic over time. I know that the email inbox is a hallowed place and that I need to not take advantage of your willingness to let me in there. So I need to make the content that goes out via email the best I can make it.

3 – Finish the LearnHowToBudget course

If you go to LearnHowToBudget.com there is a signup form to be kept informed about the launch. I’m aiming for a four-week course delivered by live webinar with clear action steps to take each week. I may even put together a kind of top-tier for just a few people, so I can help more personally with those people.

The idea is that by the end of the four weeks you will be equipped to set and stick to a monthly budget and begin to master the skill of spending less than you earn, which is the absolute fundamental skill for future financial success.

4 – Consider a How To Invest course of some kind

Apart from adding more free content here on the podcast, I may turn my mind early next year to putting together some kind of course for investing beginners. The world of investing is clearly challenging, or else I wouldn’t have a job, but even I find the array of choices staggering, and sometimes paralysing.

For most people though, they need basic portfolio building information and the tools to keep track of what they are investing in over the longer term.

There’s a very fine line between my giving folk the tools they need to help themselves, and actually advising them. If I step the wrong side of that line, I could get in trouble with the Financial Conduct Authority, so I need to think that one through very carefully.

5 – Stay grateful

I am so grateful for the emails of encouragement and the fantastic iTunes reviews you guys leave me every week. Maintaining the schedule of content creation is punishing (for those who don’t know, I have another website at Advisertech.co.uk so it isn’t just the podcast that I’m producing each week) and remember I also have a business to run and a family to engage with!

I’m certainly not complaining, because all the reasons I started going with this thing, such as helping equip people to take control of their finances are happening every day and that is what gets me out of bed at stupid o’clock every morning to work on this stuff.

Gratitude for the opportunity and for the kind words from you good people helps me through the darker moments, so I must remember to stay grateful. This survey exercise has really helped focus my mind on that.

Summary

So, a little bit of a self-indulgent session this week, but I hope you don’t mind that too much. Back to normal next week, but I don’t yet know what I’m going to be talking about as right now I have this big office move staring me in the face.

I hope you’ll turn up to listen anyway – thanks in advance!

This week’s reviews

No reviews this week as I am recording this session a week early, like I said. But if you like what you hear on this podcast, please leave a rating or review on iTunes by going to meaningfulmoney.tv/iTunes or clicking the button below. This helps others to hear about the show and to subscribe, because it keeps me near the top of the rankings.

Outro

That's it for this session of the MM podcast, I hope it was helpful. If I missed anything or if you have any questions, please leave them comments section below

I hope you enjoyed this session. Thanks for listening – I'll talk to you next time.