How to Become a Financial Planner
If you enjoy helping others and are good with numbers, you should consider becoming a financial planner. Putting knowledge and skills at the service of people is the primary mission of any financial planner. To become a financial planner, you must have obtained a financial planning diploma from a recognized institution. You can register for a diploma of financial planning course at ABM College and start your journey to becoming the best in this field.
What is the job of a financial planner?
A financial planner is a personal finance professional. They analyze the different aspects of the client’s financial situation and then develop a personalized action plan. These professionals offer financial advise, resulting in discussions with the client about the different aspects of life: personal, family and professional.
This communication makes it possible to analyze each aspect that makes up sound management of personal finances in detail. The financial planner takes on the role of a trusted person who, thanks to their expertise, optimizes the client’s financial situation and wealth.
Areas of intervention in financial planning
The following areas of intervention will be part of the daily actions of the financial planner :
Finances
The financial planner examines the client’s current financial situation to paint a picture of what it could become.
Legal aspects
In performing their duties, the financial planner must understand the client’s legal situation to determine the protection measures to be applied clearly.
Investments
Here, the financial planner focuses on finding the best way to manage the client’s assets to provide them with attractive income.
Taxation
In this area of intervention, the financial planner implements strategies aimed at minimizing the taxation of the client’s income.
Insurance and risk management
Here, the objective is to reduce the possible risks of financial loss as much as possible by adopting the right strategy. The risk factors are death, disability, health problem or damage to property.
Retirement
The financial planner makes long-term projections and presents them to the client to determine the ideal life scenario once the latter’s working life is over.
Qualities of a good financial planner
Communication
It is the central element of the relationship between the financial planner and the client. The action plan determined and the objectives defined derive from the information gathered during the exchanges. It is, therefore, essential to have excellent listening skills. In addition, it is important to ensure that the client fully understands the financial planner’s role and the financial planning process in a concrete way.
Loyalty and sincerity
The financial planner has a duty to place the client’s interests first. To do this, they must act in complete transparency and validate the strategies determined with the client. The proposed solutions must be supported by concrete facts representing the client’s situation. It is, therefore, the duty of the financial planner to take seriously the information transmitted to them and listen actively.
Confidentiality
In performing their duties, the financial planner has access to the client’s personal information. It is then up to them to act ethically to maintain a relationship of trust with the client.
Professionalism
The financial planner develops a closeness with the client due to the multiple exchanges resulting from the meetings. While being friendly, it is important to maintain a professional attitude so that the client gives credibility to this job.
Objectivity
Through their adviser role, the financial planner must remain objective when issuing action plans and strategy proposals.
The Professional Skills of a Financial Planner
Financial planning is a process that contains steps to follow. The three basic steps to good financial planning are:
Data collection
The financial planner collects information from the client during their exchanges, then puts it together.
The analysis
This involves assessing the client’s financial situation, then determining the right strategies to implement.
Recommendations
The role of the financial planner is to advise the client. To do this, they develop recommendations to optimize the client’s financial situation, then submit them to the client.
