You may have seen from previous notes or Stuff On Social Media that our biggest adviser research exercise of the year – State of the Adviser Nation or SOTAN – is live right now.

I’m writing to you to ask for your help in making this the most robust census that the industry has ever seen.

SOTAN is completely independent – no provider sponsors it, no-one gets any placed questions in return for envelopes full of cash, nothing.

The survey itself covers a lot of ground, but we hope that reflecting on some of the things we ask may have a little bit of value in itself for you. We’ll come back to other value in a moment.

We want to know about your frustrations with the industry, how your business is doing and what your outlook is, what your hopes and fears are, what you’d like to see more and less of, and of course how you do business right now. 

The results of SOTAN go all over the place. We use it a lot in our own work – talks, white papers, articles and so on – as well as using it to influence providers, regulators and industry bodies. And we share the results back with you, so that you can get a sense of where your peers are at.

Here’s the ask. If you work for an advice business, would you be kind enough to spend just a little time to take part in SOTAN and share your views?

TAKE PART IN STATE OF THE ADVISER NATION

It usually takes about 20-25 minutes (though some people get really into it and spend a lot longer, which is lovely but not essential). We know that’s a long time in busy lives, especially when the world is getting back to some kind of face-to-face normality.

You absolutely need something in return if you’re going to give us your time, so I have four – not one, not two, not three, but FOUR nice things to offer, along with my eternal gratitude.

1. A free streaming ticket to our February #langcatlive event from the famous BAFTA theatre in London. These will retail for £50 when they go on sale next month.

2. A free white paper on family linking functionality and pricing strategies on platforms. We’re getting that ready at the moment and will start sending it out to respondents in the next week or so. 

3. A full playback of the results in a beautifully presented and written document that will take care of your on-the-loo reading for quite some time.

4. A special ask-us-anything webinar for respondents so we can share highlights and so you can grill us about anything on which you want more depth.

We don’t muck around with prize draws for vouchers or iPads – you’ve all got an iPad or whatever anyway – so we hope this sweetens the deal for you and shows you how much we appreciate your help.

The survey remains open for just another 2 weeks, so if you are minded to take part and grab your share of the NICE THINGS then don’t hang around

You’ll find the survey here – and thank you so much for your help.