NextWealth Live 2026 – Heather Hopkins Welcome

Transcript (generated via AI)

Introduction – Heather Hopkins

We hear a lot about the death of the High Street and but opticians have somehow managed to buck this trend. And it’s actually a really, really interesting story that I think has direct parallels with our industry. But before the mid-80s, opticians weren’t allowed to advertise the price of frames. They weren’t allowed to promote their services very much outside of the shop.

The shop name had to be the names of the opticians that were delivering the service and shop. They couldn’t be called lens crafters or spec savers or anything like that. Then in the mid-80s, with the Thatcher government and deregulation, that all changed. Opticians were allowed to promote their services more widely. They were able to put the price of the frame in the window of the shop. They were able to promote two-for-one offers on frames. And they were able to advertise.

They also could have a name more representative of the product they were selling and the solution they were offering. And Specsavers is a really interesting example. Doug and Mary Perkins – now Dame Mary Perkins –

founded Specsavers in 1983 and the timing is not a coincidence. At that time, optometry was incredibly friendly. Small businesses across the country were run by local opticians who were practitioners turned business owners.

But the cost of glasses was exorbitant. People would joke that they had to take out a second mortgage to be able to buy a new set of frames. The eye test was universal and free provided by the NHS until the end of the 80s when all that changed, and spec savers rode that wave of change. In 1999 they opened their 350th shop on Tottenham Court Road, their flagship store. Last year, they had nearly 3,000 stores worldwide, absolutely bucking that death of the High Street.

So what does this have to do with wealth management? Well, there’s a few things I think we can learn from what they did. One of the things was that Dame Mary Perkins really was rooted in what the customer was experiencing and buying – NOT the product they were selling. She spent a lot of her time mystery shopping, visiting branches, apparently, wearing some fun disguises, going through the experience of a customer.

She spoke to customers in stores, asked them about what they were buying from Specsavers, how that experience was and what the customer was buying was really important. Many of you might be familiar with the “Should’ve gone to Specsavers” advertising capturing the essence of what the customer was buying, not the product that they were selling.

It was so important to the identity of Specsavers, and even in the name of the shop. You think about the specs being the cost of a second mortgage, that people would talk about that, and they rooted that – what the customer is buying – in the name of the shop. That’s an important lesson we can think about today. Is what is the customer buying?

There’s another thing about their business which has direct parallels to what we’re  going to be talking about today, and it’s the business model. I mentioned optometry was a highly fragmented industry. What Specsavers did was they partnered with local optometrists to open stores. It was called a joint venture partnership. It’s still the way that they run their shops today. And they partnered with local ophthalmologists, local retailers in some cases, to open stores. And people had a share in the success of that business, so they were partnering with local business owner who had some autonomy for decisions to be made locally.

And you might remember LensCrafters came in from the US. A well-capitalised businesses acquiring lots of businesses such as Tesco’s opticians business. A lot of people thought that would put Specsavers out of business. But one of the reasons Specsavers give for their success is that they give local people a stake in being successful. There’s are lots of different optician brands on the High Street that are constantly busy. So it’s not the only business model. But it was one that they point to as a factor in their success.

Another part of the business model that’s really important is vertical integration. So originally the cost of specs were high and choice was low, because it was a fragmented market. There wasn’t any buying power that could be exerted on the manufacturers of the frames. But Specsavers changed all that. They own all of the technology for delivering the service that they offer, and they partner with designers – the most recent – is with will.i.am to offer an array of choice to meet the needs of different types of customers, from lower-cost frames all the way up to more premium products. They’re still a mass market business, but they offer an array of propositions. They point to vertical integration as key to their driving down the cost to the customer, because that was an important thing for them – hence the name Specsavers.

So hopefully those parallels to our industry are clear to everybody and make sense because the theme of today’s conference is growth. A few things have changed since we did our first conference but one thing that hasn’t is the proportion of the UK population that we reach as an industry. It was and is 9%. We just haven’t moved the needle, but I think things are changing.

There’s demand among consumers for financial planning. There’s increased appetite among financial advisers –

higher than we’ve ever seen –to grow their book of business by working with new clients and taking on more clients. And we’re also hearing from advice businesses with external owners that they’re getting a lot of pressure to evidence that they can not only serve the advisers and the clients that they already have, but they can also grow organically. So you’ve got demand from customers, you’ve got a willingness among advisers on the ground to look to growth. And you have a business imperative. Of course, the Treasury and the FCA is behind this effort for growth as well. So that’s why our theme today is about growth. I hope that the parallels to that Specsavers story about really being rooted in what the customer wants and having the right business models make sense with that.

We have an incredible agenda for you today, an amazing lineup of speakers. You are in for a treat talking about the business models that will help to drive growth on our industry with our CEO panel chaired for fifth time, because one year, Peter had covid, and me, with no voice, had to chair the CEO panel. Luckily, we both have our voices at our health today. So we’ve been talking about the business models that will drive growth on our industry. We’re going to be hearing Simon Belsham, who’s the Chief Client Officer of Hargreaves Lansdown about what we can learn from retail. Simon has a fascinating background in retail, in the UK, in the US, and now he joined Hargreaves Lansdown as the chief client officer. We have a panel on advice, thinking about the models that will thrive and how we bring new people into the industry. We have our Oxford-style debate, of course, and you won’t be surprised to know what the theme is on. We have a speaker on AI in the workplace thinking about what are the skills we need to have, and we need our teams to have, to be able to take advantage of AI and helping us think about what the impact of that tech might be in our businesses.

Mark Fitzpatrick, the CEO of SJP, will be sitting down with me for a fireside chat this afternoon. They were responsible, I believe, for recruiting over half of financial advisers that joined the market last year. So that business is obviously going through a massive transformation, but has always been an important driver of growth in at least number of advisers and clients coming into the industry. And for the sixth time, Richard Romilly will be chairing that panel on shape of flows, thinking about the investment solutions that will help clients achieve their goals.

We could put this together without the support of our sponsors, EV and SSNC back again this year. Thank you. New to the conference this year as sponsors, but not as attendees, Forensic, Intelliflow and Scottish Widows. So thank you to our sponsors. We had fantastic participation from urban synergy last year in this room, and really did want to have them back with us again this year. Urban synergy helped bring diverse talent into the workplace, and we’re not going to be able to grow if we don’t bring the best people into our industry. So really, to have them in the room with us today.

So I talked about Mary Perkins’ discipline of understanding what clients are buying. So what are our clients buying? We spoke to some customers over the last few weeks and asked them, what is it that they value from the financing support that they receive. These are all people who pay for financial planning on an ongoing basis. They’re clients of people in this room. Here just some clips from three people to remind us of what our customers are buying,

What customers are buying

Speaker A: “expertise, market knowledge and understanding of the best approaches to take in Financial Planning. So what I mean by that is I was impressed by the way that we established the goals that are needed to achieve, and what should be my financial planning around those goals. It reflected their understanding of the market and how finance planning works.

HH: I love that client talks about goals. It’s so important the role of the financial planner to help clients understand and help them articulate what their goals are, why they are seeking out financial planning what their goals are, and then help them with a plan towards achieving that. He talked about financial planning, which is such great progress. I mentioned to him that our industry is going through a transformation, and he really seems to have been on the receiving end of that transformation, from product advice to planning. So loved hearing from him.

Speaker B: It’s definitely reassurance that we’re sort of looking at the total pot and we’re planning for our retirement. And it feels that – obviously the adviser hasn’t got a crystal ball, but it feels that what we’re doing is going to set us up, right.

Speaker C: I think it’s the peace of mind, the reassurance, the knowing that for me, that’s the greatest chance of the money growing. This is someone who’s much more expert than me, and growth is my main focus of what I want to get with that money. I don’t want income yet – I want future income from it. So yeah, it’s the reassurance of knowing that my money, to me, feels as safe as it could be and is in the best hands it could be – with someone where I trust their choices and judgement is greater than my own. I don’t want to study and learn the markets. They do it as a job, so they will definitely know better than me. They could get it wrong, but, I mean, I’m much more likely to. I would be too hesitant because of my lack of knowledge, and, you know, my growth would be much slower. So yeah, it’s the reassurance peace of mind, the fact that I can forget about it and carry on with my day-to-day life.

HH: What I love is that that that nuance of understanding that she needs to take enough risk to be able to have the growth that she needs and she wants for the future, but understanding that she might not be able to do that on her own without the reassurance of an expert. So clients are looking for expertise. They want to understand their goals. They want reassurance that they’re on the right path. And I just think it’s really important for us to remember what the customer is buying from us as an industry as we think about that theme of growth today, because what our customers want will help us on that journey.

The theme today is growth, but it’s not just about growth of individual businesses. It’s about growth of the industry. And I mentioned Specsavers’ incredible trajectory from starting that business on a table tennis table in the spare bedroom to nearly 5000 stores. That’s an absolutely huge success story. But it’s not just about the growth of specs, the growth of that industry. There was no opticians sector in the mid-80s. It was a highly fragmented set of individual businesses with no real external value, and that has completely changed to be worth over £5 billion today, serving millions of customers. And so the growth of Specsavers isn’t just about the growth of an individual company, but about the growth of an industry. And so as we all think about our businesses, we can remember that will lead to growth for the whole industry as well.