How much of a role in decision making would you say you have at work? Our Customer of the Month at The Business Centre (Cardiff) this month is Seer Green Financial Planning, which has recently gone through a restructure. We spoke to Ian Bavey, the Director of Seer Green who explained to us how their team now have a committee type approach to the business, where everyone makes decisions together. Ian explained to us the benefits of sharing business decisions across employees and its advantages, such as everyone having a say in the decision making.
Seer Green are a team of qualified Financial Planners who provide a range of financial services from mortgages to investments and retirement funds. Although Ian is the Director at Seer Green, they are all individually self-employed but work together as a team to contribute to the payments of things like office space and salaries.
Before they came to us here at The Business Centre, Seer Green were previously located in Newport, however, since all of the advisors live around the Vale, Dinas Powys, Barry and West of Cardiff, it made sense to look for a serviced office space that was more local and convenient. Especially as being Financial Planners, they don’t work a Monday – Friday, 9 to 5, so they needed an office space that had flexible opening times and wasn’t too far of a commute. Whilst they searched for a while, looking in Cardiff Bay and Penarth, it was our culture and business community atmosphere that really caught their attention! Our business community really mirrors the culture that Seer Green are striving for. In addition, our facilities such as our free onsite gym, parking and our location plus the ability to access their serviced office 24/7, meant that at one low cost all-inclusive price each month, that we made perfect sense to become Seer Green’s new home!
Seer Green have a six-person serviced office space, which easily accommodates their team when they are all in the office at the same time. In their team there is Ian, their Director and the Mortgage & Insurance Specialist, then four Financial Advisors. Due to data protection and more stringent processes in place due to GDPR, they have to have a private office and a smaller office works best for the team at Seer Green, especially as a lot of the time, they’re working from home, meeting with clients or chasing up leads, so it’s rare that all six members of the team are in at the same time.
Seer Green has only just recently gone through their restructure; however, they can already see the improvements that the restructuring of the company has brought! In the future, they’re looking forward to increasingly growing their qualifications, so they can extend the financial services that they offer. For example, Ian is working towards becoming further qualified as an IFA so that he can give more advice on pensions. We can’t wait to see how Seer Green grow and what they achieve next!
We asked Ian and the team at Seer Green, if someone wanted to get started in the Financial Services industry, what advice would you give them? They said: We genuinely believe that it is a really good industry to get into! It’s financially rewarding if you stick at it long enough… of course, the beginning is always difficult as you have to build a client base. However, if you put in the hours in the early years to build the base, you’ll have a solid foundation! Everyone has a different approach but whichever way you do it be prepared to put in the time and effort, but it will pay!
Here at The Business Centre (Cardiff), we are located just 10 minutes from Cardiff Bay, Dinas Powys and Penarth. Our modern facility comes fully equipped with a range of amenities including super speedy broadband, breakout areas, a friendly reception team and free access to our modern gym. Plus, the best cafe in Barry, Mel’s Cafe, is onsite! Whether you’re a freelancer looking to hot desk in a creative community or a business with up to 14 employees looking for a new home, our packages can be perfectly tailored to suit your needs. Why not get in touch with our team to find out how our business packages could support you?