For those of you who have recently begun your career as a financial advisor, you’re likely feeling pressured to get off on the right foot and set yourself up as best you can for future success. In this blog, we’ll look at the best advice seasoned professionals might offer greenhorns in the industry. The financial advisory landscape is constantly evolving, and so are the skills required for success.
The Early Years: Selling Skills and Relationship Building
In the early days of financial advising, the ability to sell is critical. Success hinges on mastering basic business development – prospecting and closing. Both require persistence, confidence, and tenacity. Take the time to learn by doing, which is to say, learn by failing – the best way to learn what sells is to learn what doesn’t sell the hard way. “No” is hard to hear but provides the best learning experiences. Spending time with prospects pitching yourself cannot be overlooked – it’s the foundation of any successful financial advisor.
To truly excel in the sales category, we must go beyond finding and signing clients and focus on cultivating deeper relationships. This transition required a shift in skills towards empathy and active listening — the building blocks of meaningful client-advisor relationships. The ability to understand and connect with clients on a personal level became the differentiator, transforming clients from mere opportunities into referral sources.
Evolving Landscape: Technical Competency and AUM Tides
When markets are high and investor confidence soars, wealth flows into the hands of wealth management firms — Assets Under Management (AUM) becomes the holy grail metric. In those situations, a steady stream of new clients means firms need advisors who are experts in financial markets and products, with detailed knowledge of all the different ways to generate and protect clients’ wealth. Having a strong technical competency in financial markets combined with empathy is ideal – advisors who can operate autonomously, delivering unsupervised advice while fostering and growing lasting relationships will flourish even without business development skills.
But when markets are down, clients and their funds become more scarce, and advisors with the ability to ‘catch and kill’ themselves become highly prized.
The Four Domains of Mastery: Competency, Empathy, Sales, and Management
The trajectory of a financial advisor’s career can be visualized through the mastery of four skill domains: competency (technical knowledge), empathy (relationship building), sales (business development), and management (business execution). Each domain serves a unique purpose, with competency and empathy being client-centric, while sales and management focus on business growth.
Individuals may naturally gravitate towards one domain over others, looking to double down on where they feel strongest – it’s challenging to master all four. While some may start with an innate aptitude for sales or technical competency, expanding into other domains becomes essential for career advancement. The industry’s growing specialization allows advisors to find roles aligned with their natural talents, but the key is to continually develop and master new skill sets.
The Personality Traits of Successful Advisors
Contrary to the conventional belief that extraversion is the primary predictor of success, recent research suggests a more nuanced perspective. While many financial advisors are indeed extraverted, traits like conscientiousness and agreeableness emerged as stronger predictors of success and longevity. Moreover, maintaining emotional calm, characterized by low neuroticism, proved to be a significant factor in a financial advisor’s success.
Embracing the Journey: “Paying Your Dues” in Today’s Environment
The concept of “paying your dues” has undergone a transformation in today’s financial advisory landscape. With new advisors entering the field with CFP certification and education, the emphasis has shifted from merely doing busy work to genuinely learning the intricacies of being a successful financial advisor. “Paying your dues” is about mastering skills, practicing, and developing expertise in client-facing roles and operational tasks.
In essence, new advisors should view any real job in an advisory firm as a valuable learning experience, even if it’s not client-facing. The industry demands a continuous commitment to growth and skill development. Once a skill is mastered, the focus should shift towards finding new opportunities within the firm or seeking advancement elsewhere.
Conclusion: Mastering the Ever-Evolving Financial Advisor Career
Embarking on a career as a financial advisor is a dynamic journey that requires adaptability, continuous learning, and mastery of diverse skill domains. From the early focus on selling yourself to the later emphasis on technical competency combined with empathy, the landscape of skills needed will evolve through your career. Successful advisors navigate this evolution by embracing change, continually refining their skill sets, and finding new ways to make clients successful.
As you embark on your journey as a financial advisor, remember that the key to success lies not just in any one area but in the holistic mastery of competency, empathy, sales, and management. Embrace the challenges, seek opportunities for growth, and, most importantly, enjoy the journey of becoming a seasoned financial professional.
Disclosures
This material has been prepared for educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide, and should not be relied upon for, investment, accounting, legal, or tax advice.