7 Tips on How to Become a Successful Financial Advisor

The barrier of entry for financial advisory is quite low.

For entry-level positions, you only need a bachelor’s degree in fields related to finance and relevant certifications, such as CPA, CFP, or CFA, to get a designation.

The early stages of your career as a financial advisor can be overwhelming. It can be both exciting and stressful, challenging but ripe with opportunities. And most of all, it can be confusing to determine what you need to do to get the best results.

It’s normal if you’re unsure how to proceed next, whether you’re an investment advisor focusing on entrepreneurs, a wealth advisor specializing in estate planning and retirement planning, or starting out your own firm as an RIA. The new opportunities popping up can be quite confusing.

In this article, we’ll guide you through the best tips you can follow to grow your clientele and become the successful financial advisor you’ve always wanted to be. 

How to Become a Successful Financial Advisor

Financial advisory is a competitive field, but there is still room at the top. Here are seven tips that can help you reach success more efficiently than your colleagues.

Establish Your Brand

In a saturated field like finance, you’re essentially a nobody if you’re new. You can’t just cast a wide net and try to be everyone’s financial advisor — you’re fighting with too much noise that way.

Instead, pick a niche to focus on — for example, holistic financial planning and advisory for local dentists — and target your audience to get a leg up in the industry.

Even if you know you are capable of offering other financial services and providing financial advice to a different niche, like investment and wealth management for small business owners, for example, try sticking with one thing until you’re ready to expand. Having a niche will help you build a client base, develop your skill set, and grow familiar with your client's needs, therefore making it easier for you to attract prospects that fit your area of expertise and increase your conversion rate.

After you’ve settled on a niche, you need to establish a brand.

Your branding must make it clear why you are a better fit for your target audience compared to  other players in the industry, like mega brokerages, and tell your audience why your skills are different from digital services like robot advisors. Successful advisors know how to brand themselves and keep it in their client’s minds.

Stay Up-to-Date on the Industry

This doesn’t only apply to new financial advisors, this applies to experienced ones, too — everyone in the industry who wants to stay relevant.

Laws and regulations change, and new practices are always being implemented in the field. For example, the practice of behavioral finance used to be criticized, and yet, as more people understand its value, has now become an actual component of the industry.

In this field, continuously striving for knowledge to improve is something that will keep you relevant. In the first place, you are able to enter this field because you took certifications and earned the relevant designation like Certified Financial Planner (CFP).

Besides keeping you relevant as a financial advisor and opening up new opportunities, being up-to-date will help you keep up with your client's interests as well.

Understand Your Prospects’ Needs

As someone new to the field, you’d naturally want to show prospects that you’re the right financial advisor to hire. This probably translates to selling them on your achievements and capability as much as you can during the discovery meeting so they’ll be convinced of your expertise and knowledge.

This is where new financial advisors usually take the wrong approach.

The thing is, your prospects already assume that you’re an expert — especially if they’re the ones who set up the meeting.

Rather than talking about yourself and repeating what they already know, it’s better to allocate more time listening to your prospects. Give them room to air their financial grievances, so you understand what it is they actually need.

If the meeting is 60 minutes, give the first 45 minutes or so to your prospects. Guide the conversation by asking questions that will get them to talk about things relevant to why they’re here.

Then, in the last 15 minutes, you can talk about how you can alleviate the financial pains they just shared with you using your expertise and experience.

Expand Your Marketing Strategies

How do you get more clients? Marketing. If you’ve been relying only on one or two marketing channels all this time, it’s time to create another one.

There are plenty to pick from. Printouts, setting up your own email newsletter, creating your own website, referrals, and even Facebook ads are just a few. 

While it depends on what you need — which depends on various factors such as your target clients and whether you’re working independently or with a firm  — having an online presence is the bare minimum.

At the very least, you should set up social media accounts on platforms your potential clients use, such as Facebook or LinkedIn, along with an optimized website.

Research done by the Oechsli Institute found that out of 403 respondents with a minimum of $500K, the majority of investors under 45 years old preferred to do an online search first when they are looking to hire a financial advisor. The data also shows that a shift may happen from the referral system to searching online.

If you don’t have an engaging landing page or website, where will your potential clients learn about your services?

Monitor Your Performance

Do you know how many new clients you’ve accumulated over the past three months? How many of them are one-time clients, and how many are retainers? What about your conversion rate? How about the average revenue from your clients?

To focus on your goal, you should be tracking your progress, including metrics like these.

Tracking and monitoring your performance helps you achieve your goal better. And possibly, earlier. Knowing your conversion rate, for example, allows you to gauge the effectiveness of your marketing assets.

Having other data tracked like where your clients came from (eg. referrals, ads, or inbound marketing) and how much you earn per client on average also helps your business and marketing decisions.  For example, if you get way more clients from referrals despite having invested in multiple marketing channels, that might mean your strategies aren’t working, and it’s time to improve them.

That said, if you own a firm, make sure to track your own goals as well as your KPIs to understand how your business is doing. Like personal goals, tracking and monitoring your KPIs properly allows you to understand what’s working and what’s lagging behind.

Aim for Authenticity

To be a good financial advisor, you need to build a good relationship with your clients. Be transparent with them and understand what their financial goals are. Communicate honestly and make sure you offer financial services relevant to their interests.

Bringing authenticity to all parts of your business helps you create a cohesive for clients as well.

In your client relationships, it’s essential that you’re being transparent with your clients’ goals, financial status, the problems you’ll have to overcome, and your capabilities to navigate their requests. You’ll build trust among your clients and establish yourself as a quality advisor. 

Network with Peers

There’s no reason to think that it’s all a competition. A lot of people and businesses need financial services, and having a network of people who you can exchange leads with is not a bad idea

Having a network of people who understand the struggles of what you do and whom you can share your thoughts with will help your career in the long run.

You can also meet valuable mentors and mentees, or people in different stages, to help you navigate your career. Having a good mentor is also crucial for your success. A mentor can teach you industry know-how that can only be gathered with experience. They can also help you widen your network, meet other peers, and might even refer some business your way.

Grow Your Financial Business with Asset-Map

Reaching the top is hard, but being mediocre is even harder, especially with how crowded the financial advisory industry is.

These tips won’t help you achieve overnight success, but they will put you on the fast track where the competition is scarce.

As with any other service industry, having a great client experience should be a priority.

Make your client experience frictionless with Asset-Map.

Use the discovery tool to make your client interview process easy for both you and your clients. This means no more half-filled forms and spending your first consultation just getting a grasp of your client’s financial situation.

See how the visual maps will help you create more meaningful client conversations that leave your clients excited to work with you.

Ready to give Asset-Map a spin? Book a demo here and see how it fits into your current process.