SO, YOU’VE DECIDED TO BECOME A FINANCIAL ADVISOR. GOOD FOR YOU!
You’ve made the choice to enter an exciting and fulfilling industry with many opportunities for financial advisors to succeed, particularly in Singapore. Before you know it, you might even find yourself moving up the ranks from financial advisor to senior financial consultant, executive manager all the way up to director, and even into the elite of the MDRT Singapore or MDRT Malaysia.
But none of this is going to happen without a solid financial advisor training program—and not just any financial advisor course, but the best. It stands to reason that only the best financial advisor education can prepare you to become one of the best in your chosen field, but how can you tell what the best financial advisor training program is?
THE BEST PROGRAM DEVELOPS THE 10 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BEST FINANCIAL ADVISORS
- Accountable. You learn to be responsible for your own results and performance.
- Ambitious. You want not just to achieve but to go far.
- Confident. You are self-assured without being cocky.
- Driven. You are disciplined, focused and highly organised.
- Free Spirited. You don’t fancy pushing a pen all day, and you relish meeting new people.
- Humanitarian. You have a genuine desire to help people lead better lives.
- Knowledgeable. You’ve honed your expertise by mastering every aspect of financial advisory.
- Mathematically Minded. You have a good head for numbers, specifically for people’s finances.
- Persistent. You don’t take no for an answer, and giving up is the last thing on your mind.
- Resilience. You don’t ever let repeated rejection get you down.
THE BEST PROGRAM MAKES YOU WANT TO BE THE BEST
Financial advisor education should inspire you to become more than you are, to reach for greater heights. Your financial advisor course might encourage you to become a Certified Financial Planner or aim for the COT or TOT of the MDRT in Singapore or Malaysia.
In striving to take your place among the industry’s best, you will invariably meet leading financial advisors, giving you the chance to learn from them and exchange ideas.
As one of these leaders, PPP Academy founder Chris Chan, counsels aspiring and struggling financial advisors to become real advisors, and to go beyond mere salesmanship. Like he says in About Building A Million Dollar Practice, the establishment of a substantial client base is what separates the salesman from the true businessman who truly cares for his clients’ welfare.
The best financial advisor training program will emphasise this concept. As one of the best financial advisors, you won’t just sell products or services—you understand what your prospects need, and draw from your knowledge and experience to recommend the best course to take towards their financial security. Your compensation comes from the advice you provide, and not from the sale of a policy.
In an episode of Ask Chris, Chris has said that it is the general perception of the financial advisory field as one focused on sales that has eroded public trust of financial advisors. It’s up to you, and the financial advisor courses that train professionals like you, to dispel this atmosphere of distrust.
THE BEST PROGRAM GIVES YOU THE KNOWLEDGE YOU NEED
To overcome this resistance on the part of your prospects, the best financial advisor training program provides you with strategies and the skills you need to carry them out. You should be able to benefit from the experience of mentors who can give you personalised guidance in sourcing prospects, consulting with them, closing deals, and continuous servicing.
You should likewise be able to gain valuable insight into the financial planning process which will enable you to better advise your clients. This includes a deeper understanding of the financial markets and prevailing economic conditions, but more importantly, how all these might affect the unique financial situation of each potential client.
Because what is arguably the most important knowledge the best financial advisors need to have, is how to find ways to help their clients get the most out of their hard-earned savings. Where a salesman might make suggestions or provide options with the aim of making a sale, an advisor considers the big picture and future developments that may not always translate into a more profitable arrangement.
Once you’ve drawn up a plan for safeguarding your clients’ financial future, you must also know the best ways for communicating these steps to them. How you present to your clients is just as important as what you present to them—they need to see your genuine concern for their financial wellbeing, and understand what they need to do to secure it.
The best financial education will also show you how you can succeed within the structure you happen to be in, whether you choose to work independently or for a firm. The training program should be able to help you identify opportunities within trends or individual cases. This know-how would enable an advisor, for instance, to spot and address the need for wealth management services or legal assistance.
THE BEST PROGRAM PREPARES YOU FOR THE REAL WORLD
If there’s one reality that financial advisors would be better off accepting sooner rather than later, it’s that the industry is not for the fainthearted. No amount of classroom training can prepare a professional for the harsh reality of repeated rejections and prickly prospects who feel that their personal finances is none of anyone’s business.
Knowing that up to 75% of professionals who participate in financial advisor courses give up on their financial advisory careers within five years does little to boost morale. The best financial advisor training program doesn’t sugar-coat these scenarios, but strengthens your resolve and builds up your confidence.
You’ll need this confidence to stand out from among 19,000 financial advisors in Singapore, as you work on building your personal brand. Industry experts say that it is the financial advisors who know how to build and nurture relationships with their clients who are able to sustain their careers.
Another real world truth that the best financial advisor education prepares you for is that how hard you work isn’t nearly as important as whom you know. This is where a proven system of getting referrals proves invaluable in sourcing potential clients and widening your network. Be sure to include professionals in related fields such as lawyers and accountants whose clients could become prospects.