How small changes can mean big gains for your investments

Former Performance Director of British Cycling and Ineos Grenadiers Team Manager Sir Dave Brailsford has long stood by his coaching practice of making marginal gains. This approach has yielded success across two Olympiads for Team GB and led to 7 Yellow Jersey wins in the Tour de France.

Brailsford based his marginal gains approach on the Japanese business idea of Kaizen – a continuous cycle of learning and improvement. He works with his athletes to break down everything which could affect their performance and tries to improve it by 1%. Once you put all those aspects back together, the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.

Some of the marginal gains Brailsford finds may seem borderline obsessive. During the Olympics, he hired in surgeons to teach his cyclists how to wash their hands properly to reduce the risk of infection. When working for Team Sky (now Ineos Grenadiers), he noticed that dust in the mechanics' area was affecting bike maintenance and insisted it was kept spotless. He even had the interior layout of the team bus rearranged to provide optimum comfort and recovery for his riders.

The concept of marginal gains is applied beyond the world of cycling across sectors such as aviation, education and health care. You can make your own marginal gains in your day-to-day life including your finances.

Get your own Sir Dave Brailsford for your finances

Our advisers can act like a sports coach and work with you to find marginal gains which can add up to big improvements.

They work with a wide range of clients, from beginners to seasoned pros, and can identify which areas to focus on to see the biggest gains.

Perhaps the most obvious improvement is improving your portfolio performance. Whilst improvements in investment performance can’t be guaranteed, even a small improvement could add up to a huge difference over time.

Even a small shift from 5% to 5.5% annual return could make a difference of nearly 8% over 10 years – an extra £800 on a £10,000 investment. Now imagine applying that 0.5% improvement across your SIPP, ISA and other investments and you’re really making a difference.

However, please note that this is an example and all investments fall as well as rise in value, so you could get back less than you invest.

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Unquantifiable gains

It’s less tangible, but an adviser can help you gain confidence and peace of mind. An adviser will always find out what your end goal is in order to advise you appropriately and give you confidence you’re taking the right course of action.

We’ll help you map out what you’ll need your money for and when, to help you find out if you’re on track to achieving your financial goals. So you can be confident you’ll be able to live the life you want right the way through to, and in, retirement.

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Could you make some marginal gains?

Whether you’re a seasoned investor in need of some help or you’re at a turning point in your financial life and need a plan, our advisers can help.

When you take advice from us, it’s totally on your terms. You decide how you get your advice (on the phone or in person), what we advise you on and how often. We do charge for this service but you’ll only ever pay for the advice you really need.

To find out more about how our advisers could help you, book a call back.