State of the Advice Nation, or SOTAN to its friends, is now live and in the field until Friday 22 November.

https://www.research.net/r/sotansocial

Veterans of SOTANs past will know this is by far the most in-depth study we carry out each year. We do this to better our understanding of the advice profession, to reflect the widest number of perspectives and provide the most comprehensive insight into what’s going on in the worlds of planning and advice.

The origin story of SOTAN, now in its seventh wave, is to be the go-to place to capture how you feel about the profession and the wider financial services sector. And we especially want to capture all of the nuance that goes with it – none of this ‘advisers say this’ or ‘advisers want that’ on our watch.

So here’s what we’re asking, and who’re we particularly keen to hear from. If you fit the bill or know someone who does, we’d love to hear from you.

To … the study!

SOTAN has been designed with role types in mind, so you’ll only be asked questions that are relevant to you and what you do.

If you are a paraplanner or new to the profession we’re keen to hear your thoughts – you’ll have your own sections as you walk through the study.

If you are an advice firm business owner, if you’re in the leadership team, or an adviser, then SOTAN will have something additional for you too.

Basically, if you work in advice and have a view on what is and isn’t working, we want to hear about it.

Some examples of the kind of stuff we ask about:

• What are the work issues keeping you awake at night?
• The top skills paraplanners bring to the advice process
• Living in a Consumer Duty world: Where it started and how it’s going
• Client reviews and total cost of ownership
• The choices you make about who you work with and recommend; plus
• An opportunity to rate your providers from the great to the far from great (paraphrasing)

We have also for the first time included question sets that you and your peers have specifically asked for – to make sure you get the most value back, but which will also provide useful benchmarking data when it comes to results time.

Points win prizes

In exchange for giving up your time, we offer an array of Good Things™ from a £500 voucher to spend as you wish to a bottle of Leith’s finest boutique gin or whisky.

A selection of chosen participants will also get time and expertise from their chosen lang cat specialist, offering support on things like comms and PR, public speaking, client research or even a regulatory therapy session with our public affairs team.

(Penalty for not taking part is dinner with Mike Barrett etc etc)

We’ll also give you all the data back as standard, and you’ll see it before anyone else.

That’s enough from me. The link to take part is below – thank you in advance for making sure SOTAN stays as representative and the best reflection of the advice profession as possible.

Here’s that link again https://www.research.net/r/sotansocial