Anthony Bell: Making it big in financial services

In terms of hiring, he makes it his policy to recruit out of uni and develop juniors into the managers of the future. Rather than look for academic stars (they do have do be university graduates, though), he looks for the right culture fit, and says he prefers to hire a person based on “will before skill”.

“If someone’s got a great will and is a self-starter, I’m far more interested in them than someone with great qualifications,” he says. “If I can get skill and will then I’m pretty happy, but if I can get the will, I can train the skill into them.

“There’s been the odd manager that we’ve taken on at an intermediate level, but in terms of our senior management structure, they’re all home-grown.”

He says he’s not afraid to hire at senior levels if he has to, but admits he’d rather promote from his own talent base. “If we have to go out of house, I need to look at what haven’t we done enough of to bring the talent base on. And that doesn’t have to be so much about training, it could be that we’re not selecting the leaders of tomorrow properly.”

To help foster his talent base, each new staff member is put into a management group, where there’s an immediate senior, a manager, an associate, and department head. So one or two will be watched in a management group so they can be properly trained and counselled.

Unfortunately, you can’t get it right every time, so Bell Partners makes good use of the probationary period, conducting full reviews to see if they’re meeting expectations. If staff are under-performing at this stage, he offers counselling to help find out why and see how the team can help them reach potential. If they’re still not “getting a hold of it”, Bell takes the view that they’re better off parting company, not just for the benefit of the business but also because he says it can affect the culture of the rest of the office.

It’s Bell’s focus on training and counselling to foster future leaders that drives the business to success. Bell and his management team conduct between two or three training sessions per month with his staff, with additional sessions for hot topics or if the team is behind on a particular issue.

The training is split into technical training, for when new legislation or announcements are made, such as changes to tax laws, but there are also more creative sessions, which involve help in managing the business and developing client relationships. “We work on their ability to solve business problems, to identify the issues businesses have, and so we put a lot of the ‘softer’ skills on them.”

His own training involves attending seminars once every two months, and he takes senior associates with him and debriefs afterwards to see what they all got out of it. He also reads books, and has a particular interest in reading about other successful businesses.

As well as recruiting and training staff, Bell recognises the need to work hard to retain them. “We can’t presume that they’ll stay forever unless we keep providing a place they want to stay at.”

To enhance this Bell Partners conducts 360-degree reviews four times per year, so they know how well they are performing. “I think what you have to do, particularly with generation-Y, is meet them in the target areas about what they want out of their career and provide them with a challenging basis to move forward on.