Our values
We believe that financial wellbeing is everyone’s right and is just as important as physical and mental wellbeing. All three are the keys to the future happiness of individuals and of society in general.
The financial world has done a lousy job at looking after normal, average people - rich people can afford to pay for advice, well-connected people can ask their friends for help, but everyone else has had nowhere to go, until now. We aim to plug the gap between the need for help, education and advice and the cost of accessing it. And we want to do it without people having to suffer constant sales pressure.
Financial companies must serve everyone, not just the wealthy. They should be making things easier to understand, instead of confusing you by complicating everything. It’s about time the balance of knowledge and power was moved in the direction of ordinary people and away from big companies.
We protect people from scammers and aggressive sales people. We aim to help people find a way through the confusion and to lend a helping hand. We are altruistic but also realistic - we are a for-profit organisation, but we have a conscience and are motivated primarily by a sense of responsibility to the people who have not been served well, until now.
We will never sell, ever. We will never refer you to someone else who will sell, ever, even if you ask us to. You can trust us to help you make the best decisions yourself without our having any vested interest at all in what you decide.
We’re new, and we hope we’ll grow by helping you. If you help us we’ll help you, that’s why we’re offering free sessions to build our reputation.
Independence
We are completely independent.
We have no ties to any financial institution in any country.
We fund our business ourselves.
Ability to pay
We recognise that some people are more able to pay for things than others. Because we believe that financial wellbeing is everyone’s right, we want to make as many people as possible have access to it. Where practicable, we charge on an ability-to-pay basis - that means we’ll ask those who can afford to pay a bit more to help those who need to pay a bit less.
We’ll give a discount to anyone who earns less than half average earnings. And if you are on minimum wage we’ll give an even bigger discount. We will consider pro bono work for people who are unemployed.
The way we work
When we work with you we follow these simple rules:
- We’ll never make you feel stupid for not knowing something, or for having made mistakes in the past;
- We’ll be as simple and clear as we can - we don’t try and look sophisticated just to make ourselves look smart;
- We’ll make sure you understand that sometimes there’s never just one answer - you need to understand and appreciate uncertainty and not be given false hopes and promises;
- We’ll never use jargon;
- We’ll always be friendly and, if it’s appropriate, we’ll be lighthearted too.
Who are we
Don’t Sell To Me was created by British actuary Lee Faulkner.
Lee passionately believes that the Public Interest responsibility of actuaries is fundamental, and is the key driver of everything he stands for and believes in.
In his career Lee has lived and worked in the UK, Spain, USA, Mexico, Argentina and Hong Kong. He has held a variety of roles in the insurance sector from senior actuarial consultant to Chief Financial Officer.
