Over the last 2 years, Berry & Oak have been delighted to win a number of prestigious awards in the financial services profession. We always think it is an incredible achievement even to be shortlisted, especially when we are often competing on a national stage against significantly larger financial organisations. To be crowned the winner is very humbling and a testament to all the hard work the Berry & Oak team put in, to best serve our clients, help the profession grow and give back to our local community.
We thought it was a good time to tell you why we enter awards.
In order to win these awards, we often have to work on complex, but real client case studies and provide comprehensive solutions and guidance. This helps us demonstrate our financial planning skills and top-notch technical knowledge.
The process of entering an award is a useful way for us to assess our business, as it makes us take a look at our business through a judges eyes and think about things that we are doing well and look for ways we could improve, so developing and following a cycle of constant improvement.
We deliberately invest time and effort to apply for these awards, so that we can demonstrate our knowledge, and planning expertise externally and reassure clients and our professional circle, that they are dealing with the best team, that follows an award winning, independently tested, successful process.
Professional Adviser Awards January 2020
On the 6th January 2020 we were shortlisted for 2 awards at the Professional Adviser awards, but actually came away with 3 awards on the night. The Professional Adviser Awards take place each year, having first launched in 2005. For the 2020 awards, over 200 advisers, firms and providers were under consideration for the awards.
The awards were judged and voted on by an independent panel of industry experts, made up of financial advisers, business consultants, fund researchers, platform specialists and other financial services sector experts. This allowed them to look at the facts when compared with competitors and provide a non-biased assessment.
Winner – Best Client Engagement (Advisers) – For this award we had to tell the judges how, why, when and in what way we engage with our clients and show that we have gone the extra mile to communicate effectively with our clients. This was judged by an expert panel who reviewed and assessed our newsletters, website blogs, presentations and social media, as well as documents we use face to face with our clients in meetings and the client seminar events that we have run.
Adviser Firm of the year – North East – This award seeks to award and highlight “outstanding financial advice processes” by the completion of a complex case study, along with a detailed submission explaining about Berry & Oak as a firm and how we assess and manage risk in our business, for both ourselves and our clients. This was a tough category, with a number of national firms (some with over 150 financial advisers) with headquarters in our region. We were delighted to win this award and retain the title of Adviser Firm of the Year – North East, having also won the award in 2019.
Adviser Firm of the year – UK – The Adviser Firm of the Year category was narrowed down to 36 finalists from around the UK, across 6 regions. The judges then chose the firm that they believed was the overall winner with Berry & Oak scooping this prestigious award.
Professional Adviser editor Tom Ellis said: “It’s fantastic we are able to put on these awards to identify, honour and celebrate all the very best from our readers the financial adviser community. We are proud that so many financial advice firms took the time and effort to return our detailed case study – kindly provided and created by CISI head of financial planning Jaqueline Lockie. They gave our set of committed judges a tough enough time picking the winners.”
He added: “The regional adviser firm winners, some of which were returning champions, all fully deserved their awards and we were proud to honour Berry & Oak by giving them the overall adviser firm gong, they were fantastic winners”. https://www.professionaladviser.com/news/4009979/revealed-winners-2020-professional-adviser-awards
