Business Recovery Response to COVID-19: O’Sullivan Financial Planning Q&A

Tell us about your business and what you do.

My business is imaginatively titled “O’Sullivan Financial Planning”. We help individuals and business owners make informed decisions around their financial plans to achieve and maintain the lifestyle they desire.

What challenges are you/your customers currently facing following the COVID-19 pandemic?

My wife works for the NHS and her role is significantly more important than mine! As a result, I am spending most of the time looking after our 6 and 3-year-old children.

Despite the recent stock market falls my clients are not too concerned about this. They all have sufficient cash reserves that they can afford to leave their money invested for the long term and although short-term price movements are disappointing they are not too much of a concern for them achieving their long term plans.

How are these challenges being overcome?

For myself I’ve had to learn to juggle! I’ve changed my working pattern to a massively condensed working week. All my meetings are on a Monday or Tuesday and I fit work around everything else during the rest of the week – I’m writing this as I cook dinner!

For my clients I had been managing expectations for some time that markets will drop. I had no crystal ball and couldn’t predict COVID-19 but the longest bull market in history was always going to end at some point so I had been talking about this for a while. Having managed their expectations going into this, I have tried to be in much more regular contact than usual with them to ensure that any questions they have are answered and provide reassurance as needed.

I already had a fully functioning remote office, so apart from getting more comfortable with video calling, I am still able go service my clients in the same way I always have. In anything, I’m using a lot less paper, so I’ve probably saved a couple of trees.

What difficulties do you foresee coming out of lockdown and what support would help?

Life won’t return to normal for some time. There will be a second wave, and the more the curve can be flattened to try and prolong when this will happen the better prepared our health service will be and hopefully, we will be much closer to a vaccine at that time.

In my opinion the on-off switch what is furlough won’t help many businesses as they try to open their doors again. I think a scheme similar to Germany or Ireland where it’s not so much the individual which is furloughed but maybe a portion of their hours would massively help businesses start operating again and give individuals the ability to return to work.

I’d like to see the schools begin to open sooner rather than later (not just for my personal sanity) as the economy is losing a lot of productivity with parents balancing childcare. Our schools will need support as this will be a much harder task to deliver.

What message would you pass onto others?

We shouldn’t underestimate human ingenuity. This too shall pass.

Conor O’Sullivan, FPFS, Chartered Financial Planner Director & Independent Financial Adviser at O’Sullivan Financial Planning | T: 01536 639 007 | E: conor@osullivanfp.co.uk