All professions require CPD
It’s one of the unifying hallmarks of all professions all over the world – Continuing Professional Development. On the surface, the concept is quite simple. Achieve minimum education to join a profession, and upskill each year to remain relevant. The basic premise is sound. How each profession goes about fulfilling these requirements, and the different stakeholders involved in producing these outcomes, is where the interesting journey to completing the annual requirements comes into play.
For example, XY provides a platform for financial advisers to collaborate on all aspects of the advice process. The concept has proven itself to be extremely successful. In fact it was 200 advisers who funded our initial commercial expansion. At this point we publish on average around 30 podcasts, one white paper, and a couple of articles every month. And this number will double by the end of the year. So with millions of words, thousands of conversations, and hundreds of bits of content delivered each year – why do ‘Professional Development Days’ still exist?
The CPD puzzle
This question stumped us for many years. The number of avenues an adviser can gain their CPD points these days is unlimited. It seems almost every product provider, every licensee, every media outlet, and every association provides a solution. Even our first foray into tech back in 2018 was simple – a place for advisers to create CPD content for other advisers. This ‘on demand’ CPD resource center was about as successful as all the other attempts.
So we exited stage left, with the idea CPD was a saturated environment. We thought there were enough avenues for advisers to complete their requirements, and we would stay out of it. However our head of community Emily Blanch kept receiving the same request each week. ‘I need help completing my CPD’. This really stumped us. Obviously the issue wasn’t a lack of access. So we decided to dive deeper.
XY re-enters the CPD space
After months of interviews, it came down to this concept. As the industry changed and advisers moved from large licensees to smaller licensees, the one framework they missed was the PD day. A PD day allowed advisers to put the day aside in their calendar, to make sure they tick over the requirements efficiently. From the advisers’ point of view, if they can manage to put aside four days per year aside, and receive 10 points on each of those days, the requirements are complete.
From there we started toying with the idea to put on an inter-licensee PD day for the growing number of boutique dealers who didn’t have an existing PD day. The majority of our 5,000+ membership base are in these types of licensees. So delivering something specific for them was our priority. However there was as much interest from the advisers who remained in the large aligned dealer groups. So we decided to open it up for any adviser, from any of the 700 licensees our membership covers.
And at this early stage, it looks to solve a large problem. With only a single email sent so far to save the date, we’re tracking for this event to be at least twice the size of anything we’ve ever held. The media are already calling it potentially the biggest PD day ever. If you’re interested in learning more about how you can be a part of the education, feel free to contact us here.
