Changing to Financial Advisor

[Babber101]

Considering changing careers to Financial Advisor - I know a fair amount about the industry and have the qualifications but be interested to see & hear from others who have made this change or are IFAs?

Keen to hear thoughts on daily life of an IFA - the joys of regulations, fact finds, form filling and customer service on a daily basis

Any comments welcome?

[dibblecorse]

If you love the idea of working in a highly regulated, scripted and compliance heavy industry, then go for it.

Above though is the easy bit, the hard bit is building a client base, its effectively a sales role, are you a sales person ?

Its a hard graft job.

[Derek Chevalier]

Babber101 said:

Considering changing careers to Financial Advisor - I know a fair amount about the industry and have the qualifications but be interested to see & hear from others who have made this change or are IFAs?

Keen to hear thoughts on daily life of an IFA - the joys of regulations, fact finds, form filling and customer service on a daily basis

Any comments welcome?

Happy to have a chat if you DM me.

[Derek Chevalier]

dibblecorse said:

Above though is the easy bit, the hard bit is building a client base

Yep, quite a high failure rate IIRC.

dibblecorse said:

its effectively a sales role, are you a sales person ?

I think IFA marketing has changed (for some) in recent years. Having an abundance mindset and giving away content/knowledge (be it in the form of books, podcasts, social media etc) can be an effective way of building a business.

This is a great example from across the pond.

https://twitter.com/measuretwicemny?lang=en-GB

[FatboyKim]

Are you hoping to join an established firm? Or just setting up on your own and finding clients.

I work for a fairly substantial financial services company. I'm an accountant but am in spitting distance of a couple of IFAs in the office so get to see and hear most stuff on. Their days are certainly varied and I don't think could ever be called mundane. Our IFAs all come from banking backgrounds, and they all much prefer being fully independent and being able to offer products from the whole market rather than being tied to certain products or providers.

They've got a broad range of clients, annual/biannual review phone calls and meetings are always interesting to listen in to when hearing the clients' situations and their varied approaches to investing whether they have a very low risk attitude or have a higher risk profile, and hearing their interest whilst the IFA is explaining the current market and how their investments are doing.

[Derek Chevalier]

FatboyKim said:

and hearing their interest whilst the IFA is explaining the current market and how their investments are doing.

They are probably just being polite

[FatboyKim]

Derek Chevalier said:

They are probably just being polite

Yes, true.

And God forbid when a client mentions that 'Martin Lewis said on Good Morning Britain to do xyz with my money. Should I?'