I went to see Mike on a recommendation because I was looking for help with general financial planning.

Mike sat down with my wife and I and worked out what we had, what we wanted it to do, and what levels of risk wanted to take.

We’re both semi-retired and wanted to move back to Yorkshire once our kids left home, but we needed to work out if it could happen financially. Mike helped to assess our incomings and outgoings and predicted our cashflow over the next 10 years or so. He put a plan together so we could see everything in black and white. It gave us real peace of mind seeing what our future looks like.

Since then those plans and the market have changed slightly, and Mike's been proactive in making other recommendations that fit with those changes. This means we can count on him through the ups and downs.

Before that I had PEPs, ISAs and stocks and shares that were all over the place

Mike helped me consolidate lots of different plans and made it all a lot simpler. He also gave me a clearer view of the potential growth. I can now check my portfolio daily to see if it’s grown – it’s useful to be able to get that instant update.

There are other things Mike’s done that have been beyond the call of duty – my daughter got a very competitive mortgage thanks to his recommendation.

He also recommended someone who helped with a pension fund I’d cashed in early, which was quite a complex transaction, but the result was fantastic and I received more money than I thought was available.

I’ve come across other financial advisers in the past and some have seemed a bit pushy

That’s not the case with Mike. He’s become almost like a family friend – he understands where we are in our lives, and what’s going on, and you feel as if he genuinely cares.

And he’s extremely responsive – if you have any concerns at all, you just give him a ring. Or he’ll come over and see you - going the extra mile - literally! Likewise, the fees and costs are very transparent, so we had no problem understanding any of that.

But I think the most important thing is we trust Mike. If you don’t have that fundamental trust, no matter how good the advice, it’s always going to be a difficult arrangement, because there are such large sums of money involved. But we trust Mike to give us the right options. Our portfolio doesn’t always increase – sometimes it goes down – but we trust Mike to give us the best available advice at the time because like all good planners he takes a long-term view.

Mike is responsive, trustworthy and always extremely approachable

I like the fact that he explains things in such a way that you can understand if you’re not a financial guru yourself. He's down to earth, and doesn't need to use long words to impress. And if you want chapter and verse and the detail to back it all up, you’ve got that in abundance.

Thanks to Mike's help, we’re moving back up to Yorkshire soon, but I can’t see us leaving Mike to be honest. We’ll keep using him – from a distance!