Being a financial advisor is a multifaceted profession that draws on a mix of knowledge, experience, and financial strategy along with effective salesmanship, personability, and related social skills to help build trust with clients. The following are some traits that successful advisors have in common.
1. Passionate About Work and Clients:
The most successful advisors are those that are the most passionate about their subject. If you have a passion for wealth management and financial planning, then that passion will be evident in your work and communication. If you don’t, it’s hard to fake.
Standards, products, and methodologies within the finance and investment markets are constantly changing. An advisor who is passionate about their craft will continually educate themselves with evolving practices and industry developments. Failing to keep up with the evolving industry could mean the difference between failure and success for an advisor. An interested financial advisor will also be able to communicate that passion to clients by implementing new trends into helping clients achieve their financial goals.
2. Good Listener:
Asking questions, being curious about a client’s aspirations, and taking the time to understand clients’ needs are key to successful client relationships. As you ask more questions, you will gain a comprehensive idea of client concerns and goals, and you will be able to make a financial plan accordingly.
Although some might undervalue them, soft skills are vital for financial advisors. Soft skills complement technical and methodical knowledge and skills in the workplace and are necessary for building and maintaining work relationships. Even if you are the smartest financial planner out there, if you aren’t good at listening to clients, they will move on to another financial planner who demonstrates greater care and interest.
3. Comprehensive Understanding of Personal Finance:
A successful financial advisor needs to have a thorough understanding of the financial markets, as well as sufficient training and analytical skills. Crafting financial plans for multiple clients with different situations and goals requires not only knowledge but also creative analytical ability. It is essential to have a thorough understanding of financial concepts including retirement planning, estate planning, cash flow planning, insurance planning, tax planning, and investment management.
Especially in investment management, a successful financial advisor understands that every part of a financial plan is driven by risk and return. As such, an advisor should be able to plan and analyze a portfolio in terms of different metrics, and with the flexibility to reallocate assets and update goals according to market changes.
4. Strong Professional Network:
While a financial advisor needs to have a strong understanding of general concepts in financial planning on their own, a good advisor will also make sure to have access to a team for support.
Having a network of professionals will allow you to rely on other experts with specialized knowledge and unique experiences. Since you might not always have the best answer for every situation, having a team to rely on offers increased specialized advice to help with any particular problem or objective in all areas of financial planning.
5. Proactive Communicator:
Excellent financial advisors make sure to communicate clearly and openly with clients. You can develop a plan for a preferred method of communication according to client needs early on in the relationship. Once you’ve determined the best way to communicate with a certain client, be consistent.
Consult regularly with clients, and update them on current financial trends, issues, and opportunities. Don’t be the kind of financial advisor that sends periodic statements without explanations or in-person interactions.
A good financial planner should also be able to help clients understand complex issues easily and have difficult conversations. Proactive communication shows care and builds trust between advisor and client.
6. Client-focused:
The best financial advisor puts the client’s interests before their own. As much as possible, a financial advisor should work to keep the interests between the advisor and client aligned. A financial advisor that pushes products or services on a client to receive a larger commission will be seen as less trustworthy. Keeping to the fiduciary standard will show that you have the client’s best financial interests in mind.
In addition, a successful financial advisor is upfront about fees and shouldn’t charge higher fees than are necessary or usual for financial services. While you do want to be compensated fairly for your work, your fees should be fair, upfront, and consistent.
As a thought leader in the multifamily development space, I specialize in developing people with my independent financial advisor coaching programs. My Holistic Transformational Life Coaching goes beyond strategy and encouragement to help financial planners build successful networks and clientele.
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