I’ve just got back from a week in beautiful Andalucia.

A little bit of sun, no laptop, barely checked emails. For a few days I genuinely forgot what day it was, which feels like a win.

And then straight back into it.

Opened facebook, dipped back into a few of the groups and conversations I follow, and within minutes I was back into something I’ve seen come up again and again recently.

An adviser doing well. Growing. Winning new clients.

But also completely overwhelmed.

Too many reviews building up. Plenty of work coming in. Support in place… but still feeling stretched.

And the question that always follows:

“Should I hire or outsource?”

 

The replies are always interesting, but also… pretty consistent.

Outsource paraplanning. Hire someone. Train a junior. Use AI. Segment your client bank. Reduce new business. Batch your reviews.

All good advice.

Genuinely.

But also nothing most advisers haven’t heard before.

And I think that’s the bit we don’t really talk about.

 

Most advisers already know this stuff.

They know where the pressure is coming from. They know what they could hand off. They know what only they should be doing.

If you asked them to map it out, they’d probably get pretty close.

But in reality… they’re still holding on to more than they need to.

 

And I get it.

Letting go of work you’ve always done is uncomfortable.

Especially when it’s client-facing, or something you’ve built your reputation on.

Paraplanning is a really good example of this.

We see this a lot with firms we work alongside.

Advisers still writing their own reports. Still checking everything end to end. Still involved in parts of the process they don’t really need to be in anymore.

And it feels quicker in the moment.

But zoom out a bit and it’s usually where things start to bottleneck.

 

What’s also interesting is how the advice tends to split.

You’ve got one thread saying:

👉 outsource now, free up time, take the pressure off

And another saying:

👉 hire, train, build your own team properly

And they’re both right.

But they’re solving slightly different problems.

Outsourcing is about immediate relief.

Hiring is about long-term structure.

And most firms are trying to answer both at the same time, while already stretched.

Which is why it feels messy.

 

What no one really wants to do is the bit in the middle.

The slightly boring bit.

Sitting down and properly looking at how work actually flows through the business.

Not in a fancy way. Just honestly.

• Who books the meeting
• Who prepares the file
• Who writes the notes
• Who drafts the report
• Who checks it
• Who sends it

And then asking:

👉 why am I involved in this part?

That’s usually where things start to shift.

 

Because more often than not, the issue isn’t:

“We don’t have enough people”

It’s:

“We haven’t made it easy to hand work over”

So even when firms do hire, or do outsource, the pressure doesn’t fully go away.

It just moves.

 

Paraplanning comes up a lot in these conversations for a reason.

Not as some big strategic overhaul.

Just as a way to create space when things start stacking up, especially around reviews.

Outsourcing reviews. Getting support during peak periods. Taking some of the report writing off advisers’ plates.

It’s not revolutionary.

But it works.

 

Hiring, on the other hand, is brilliant when you’re ready for it.

But it takes time.

Time to train. Time to build trust. Time to get processes right.

And that’s usually the thing firms don’t have when they decide they need to hire.

So you end up in that slightly painful phase where:

You’re busy → you hire → you’re even busier trying to train → everything feels worse before it gets better

 

One thing that keeps coming up in these conversations is:

“Where will you find the time to train someone?”

And that’s exactly it.

Everyone wants more capacity.

But creating it properly takes time and effort in the short term.

 

So the answer to “hire or outsource?” is rarely one or the other.

It’s usually:

Create some breathing space first. Sort the process out so work can actually be delegated. Then decide what you want to build in-house and what you want to keep flexible.

Not very exciting.

But it’s honest.

I don’t think most advisers are stuck.

They’re just holding on to too much for a bit too long.

And I get why.

It’s just usually the thing that needs to change.