4 Key Elements to Building Effective Training Programs for Financial Advisors
The future of every advisory firm rests on its ability to retain talent. And the most effective way to ensure the loyalty of financial advisor colleagues is to demonstrate the extent to which your firm cares about them and their careers.
One of the most impactful ways to do this is by creating an in-house training (or coaching) program to help expand the careers of advisors employed in your firm. Building a path and a process to advancement can not only instill loyalty but also develop productive advisors who ultimately will help your firm grow.
Effective training programs are built around four elements: personal development, exceptional service, professional development, and managing expectations. How the training is imparted is as important as the subject matter itself.
Figure 14 Key Elements of Developing an Effective Financial Advisor Training Program
Training programs need to be consistent and ongoing — an organization can’t compress technical and client communication knowledge into a few cram sessions and expect others to absorb it. People grasp information as they need it to perform their jobs. If information appears irrelevant or useful only in the distant future, it will not be retained, and the training program will ultimately produce disappointing outcomes.
Let’s take a deeper look at the learnings objectives within the four key elements needed to build an effective training program:
Figure 2Learning Objectives within the 4 Key Elements of Developing an Effective Training Program
1. Personal Development
This refers to transitioning trainees to a more independent lifestyle by helping them focus on their relationship building, well-being, and resiliency. Advisors who have a pertinent educational background and licenses are professionals. Thus, they have a different code of conduct. For example, it’s their responsibility to show up quickly when a client needs help, and to take care of their own personal and professional needs independently to be able to help others.
Personal development training should be the team member building relationships with colleagues of diverse backgrounds. They should develop resiliency through the achievements and setbacks of being in the business. On a related note, personal development includes the ability to identify and manage exhaustion, isolation and anxiety, and to create a space that promotes well-being.
2. Exceptional Service
This consists of developing several important intangibles. Among them is a respect for office and virtual office etiquette and the agreed-upon set of behaviors that reflect respect among clients and other team members.
It’s also critical to develop understanding of clients’ lived experiences to meet them where they are. Putting oneself in a client’s shoes is one of many skills that financial advisors can learn from observing the nuances of how their more experienced colleagues work with clients. The most exceptional service occurs when advisors authentically care about clients, which is also something advisors can learn and solidify through observation.
An underappreciated element of service is understanding how to talk with clients about the hard issues such as divorce, retirement and death. Obviously, these issues arise regularly when dealing with retirement and estate planning, and they require a careful combination of compassion and understanding of life experiences that they themselves might not have. Finally, exceptional service includes managing social presence, which encompasses in-person events as well as social media.
3. Professional Development
This includes understanding the elements of financial planning and investment management, and where the advisor fits in the client-experience continuum. If a financial advisor doesn’t understand the big picture, they’re likely to be less effective as part of a cohesive whole.
Another element of professional development is narrowing one’s focus to the most effective practices. Financial advisors often want to do a bit of everything related to serving clients, but a good advisor training model can show them how to narrow their focus to the areas that need their attention most.
It’s important for developing advisors to recognize barriers to their professional growth, and a common one is uneven expertise in different topics. An advisor might be great at retirement planning but uncertain when it comes to advanced issues in estate planning or tax planning, for example. Thus, it’s essential to recognize the need for targeted development.
Finally, advisors need to understand the most effective ways to rise in an organization. The best way to fast-track promotion is to build communication skills, both with clients and colleagues. It’s often thought that mastering technical knowledge is the key to moving up, but without the ability to clearly convey empathy, understanding and caring, technical skills won’t take advisors far.
4. Managing Expectations
As early as possible, advisors need to start internalizing the mindset of a professional in terms of high accountability and an ability to manage expectations and time efficiently. Financial advisors should be empowered to assess their own performance; the goal is for them to follow an internal gauge to determine how they’re doing, rather than relying on feedback from higher-ups.
Advisors who learn early how to resolve conflicts between what the client wants and what the client truly needs produce greater advisory talent. The ability to deliver behavior change in a polished and respectful way is a big part of evolving into a confident senior advisor.
Keep in mind that creating a culture in which advisors can learn from one another is invaluable. Too often financial advisors are isolated from more senior advisors in the office, when bringing them together would speed up their learning. Professional friend groups, inside and outside the office, online communities, coaches, and consultants can be powerful learning and idea-sharing forums to aid in development as well.
Creating a training oriented culture to support financial advisors’ advancement within your firm sends a message about how colleagues are valued and trusted — and that is the most powerful retention tool of all.
Written by Angie Herbers and Jarrod Upton
Angie is founder and managing partner of Herbers & Company. She brings over two decades of experience in human capital consulting, growth consulting, and client experience modeling to help financial advisory firms achieve long-term, scalable growth.
Jarrod Upton, CFP®, MBA, MS, senior consultant and partner at Herbers & Company. He brings over 20 years of experience in management strategy, client experience, operations, and advisor training programs from start-ups to multi-location/multi-billion advisory firms. Jarrod leads the consulting division of Herbers & Company and provides solutions to all size advisory firms that result in positive, sustainable growth.