Many smaller financial planning firms would love to attract, recruit and train new people! So how do we attract and retain people to the financial planning profession?
My late father-in-law used to be a regular in the army at the time of National Service. This entailed individuals from a wide range of backgrounds going through training and he often commented upon how some of those recruits who possessed high level qualifications could also have astonishingly little practical ability! They remind me of the performance report which reads:
“This man is like a lighthouse in the desert; extremely bright but absolutely no use!”
The same can be true of many occupations and is certainly true of the financial services sector and the financial planning profession.
Meet with Jackie to establish if the training and development scheme is suitable for your financial planning business.
How do we attract and retain people to the profession?
We all have to be responsible for spreading the word on what a great profession we have. Not only that but we also need to find ways to help find and nurture the paraplanners and financial planners of the future. In the past we have often sought exclusively graduates because of their assumed intellectual curiosity but there are plenty of other non-graduates, like me, who are just as curious and very capable. We can train all these people to build a bigger and better profession.
Many smaller financial planning firms would love to attract, recruit and train new people but many do not have the time and resources to do that in a structured way.
It is NOT just about passing exams!
Knowledge can be taught; however it is the skills and attitude that we need to seek out and nurture. When I started in the profession, I was pushed to do as many exams as possible. As a paraplanner at the time that seemed reasonable. But as I gained more knowledge, I realised that there was an imbalance; I was not developing any skills. I was terrified to become a regulated adviser, thinking that I would bamboozle clients by imparting my knowledge to them in a way which did not engage them.
I asked to attend a training course to develop my skills and was duly sent. But when I arrived to hear the trainer say, “Welcome to the sales validation course!”, I got up to leave……
I was persuaded to stay and despite my initial reservations, we learned how to apply the knowledge that we had to clients’ situations to help them to make the decisions which would enable them to achieve their goals. I knew that simply acquiring the knowledge but being unable to apply it and to show clients how they can take action to improve things is not going to deliver any actual benefit of that knowledge.
Your Financial Planning Symphony
We designed Your Financial Planning Symphony to help stop this happening and to give more structure and support to smaller financial planning firms. We draw upon all the great training and information already available, both inside and outside the profession. It offers a comprehensive and transparent career pathway with lots of new elements across 12 separate criteria including:
- Psychometric testing
- Sharing the firm’s vision
- Client relationship work
- Teamwork
- Skills training
- Ethics training
- Extra reading
- Mentoring by other team members and the business owner
This and more are set within suggested time-frames to ensure that the new team member knows what will happen next while the existing team can plan to support the development of that individual.
The Results?
We hope that this will create a pool of Certified Financial Planner professionals who are willing and able to help run, expand or ultimately to take over these great financial planning firms.
Get in touch to find out more.
Return to Journal
