by Elliot Guthrie
I started in financial services just a few weeks before my 17th birthday, working weekends as an administrator for a local firm of financial advisers. I didn't have a clue what a financial planner did, nor did I really understand what I was signing up for, but the hourly rate was better than what I could get stacking shelves so I figured it was worth a shot!
I didn't expect my new job to be anything other than a Saturday job to earn some money whilst at school, but slowly I began to see the positive effect that good financial planning can have on people: how a financial plan can remove some of the worry from peoples' lives. I spoke to some of the advisers at my work and realized that financial planning could be a rewarding career for me.
At the time the UK financial advice sector had recently undergone massive changes as a result of the Retail Distribution Review in 2013. Commission was out, increased professionalism and truly client-centric financial planning was in. I was looking at financial planning as a career from a different perspective from many of my coworkers, many of whom started in bancassurance, life offices or the ‘home service' organisations where the primary role of the adviser was to sell financial products.
So what does financial planning mean to me, as one of the next generation of financial planners?
Fundamentally, the industry is still about providing sound technical advice on pensions, portfolio management and taxation, with product sales where needed. Technical proficiency is an area where I see many of the ‘next generation' of financial planners, myself included, striving towards advanced level qualifications. But technical qualifications aren't everything though, and the technical and product advice is only one part of financial planning.
However, lifestyle financial planning, where a financial planner looks at the ways in which a client can use their money to improve their happiness, is becoming commonplace. Advisers realise the benefits this holistic planning has for their clients, therefore their value as planners and their bottom line as a business. Planning for financial wellbeing is something I'm seeing as one of the essential soft skills that a financial planner has to learn along with sales and presentation skills.
This area is where I feel financial planning adds the most value to clients, and as someone who is at the start of the process of becoming an adviser, I'm looking forward to developing and honing these ‘soft', client advising skills - as well as continually developing and consolidating my technical knowledge.
Elliot is a paraplanner and associate financial planner with Create and Prosper Financial Services, a firm of Chartered Financial Planners based in Kirkcaldy.
