For midcareer professionals eager to shift gears, working as an advisor and proffering financial advice may sound appealing. Helping people with money management could be fulfilling, as well as financially rewarding.
Many financial advisors rate their job satisfaction highly. They enjoy working with clients and drafting a financial plan to guide them to attain their goals. They also embrace the challenge of blazing their own path, building their businesses by tapping their sales, marketing and customer service skills.
Of course, you can't just declare yourself an advisor and bathe in instant success. It doesn't come easily. You may have to rethink assumptions and reconsider work habits that you acquired in your prior career — and take a fresh approach as you transition to become an advisor.
Suzanne Muusers, a financial advisor coach with Prosperity Coaching in Scottsdale, Ariz., hears from many workers in their 30s and up who want to change careers and become an independent financial advisor. If they're serving clients in their current job, they may figure they're well suited to make the leap into financial planning. Or they may have a long-standing interest in money management and finally feel ready to indulge their passion.
In this interview with IBD, Muusers discusses what it takes to succeed as an financial advisor. She also describes how to hit the ground running and how to avoid traps and self-sabotage.
IBD: How can someone in their 30s or 40s assess whether they'd make it working as an advisor?
Muusers: To be an advisor, you need three things: perseverance, diligence and follow-through. You have to persevere when things get tough, have a strong work ethic and finish what you start. There's a lot more that goes into it, but you have to start with these three strengths.
IBD: Someone might say, "Yes, I have all three of those strengths." What else should they consider if they want to become an advisor?
Muusers: They need to have a positive attitude about selling. They have to be good at selling, or at least willing to sell and learn how to do it well. I give (potential career changers) a "Prospecting Assessment" to test their specific strengths around selling.
IBD: But what if they don't see themselves as salespeople — if they fear coming across as too salesy?
Muusers: The No. 1 challenge new advisors face is they don't prospect enough. Prospecting is the key to growing revenue. It takes a lot of time and effort. In the first three years of building a practice, you need to spend 75% of your time prospecting for clients. So you need to be positive about it.
IBD: What are the best prospecting activities?
Muusers: Hosting events, networking, developing centers of influence and social media marketing. With social media, I'm not talking about doing erratic posts here and there. You need to develop a calendar of topics so that each month, you have a social media marketing plan with eight to 12 posts that you can share on a certain theme.
IBD: Spending 75% of your time on prospecting sounds like a big commitment.
Muusers: It is. That's why career-changers need to make sure they don't adopt self-defeating behaviors. An example is (poor) time management. I worked with someone who was switching from a corporate job to becoming a financial advisor. He was having a hard time making the transition. When I asked about his typical workday, he said, "I come in at 9:30 a.m., take an hour for lunch and leave at 4:30 p.m. to pick up my daughter from school."
IBD: How did you respond?
Muusers: I told him, "You've got to come in at 8 a.m." He had no idea. He thought everyone did that — working from 9:30 to 4:30. It's what he was used to (in his corporate job). But starting off as an advisor requires much more work and long hours. You have to set the bar at the right height.
IBD: So what happened to him?
Muusers: He didn't make it as an advisor.
IBD: But just because someone works long hours doesn't mean they'll be productive.
Muusers: That's why I tell career-switchers that successful financial advisors put together a model workweek with time blocked out from when they start their day in the morning to what they do all day until they leave the office.
IBD: But how can new advisors know how to organize their time when they're entering a whole new profession?
Muusers: Just having a model workweek is important. They can keep fine-tuning it as they go along. It's important because midcareer-switchers often face the same challenges. They may have a family to support. So they have to hit the ground running quickly so that they have income coming in. Knowing how they will focus their time throughout the week helps them be more productive and get results faster.
IBD: You mentioned social media marketing. How can career-changers know whom to target in their marketing?
Muusers: You better have a target market. If you try to market to anyone and everyone, you'll really market to no one because you're a generalist. It's better to target your marketing to working with a certain group, such as working with women.
IBD: Most career changers surely know they need to define their niche and target their marketing to appeal to that niche.
Muusers: You'd be surprised. In my 18 years of doing this, maybe 5% of people have a niche and 95% don't come to me with a niche.
IBD: What about the technical knowledge that advisors need? Is it hard to acquire that knowledge?
Muusers: You can learn what you need to learn. But you also need to score highly (in assessments) in judgment and critical thinking. You need to analyze different investments and match them up with a client's risk tolerance. It's knowing your clients, being aware of factors leading them to be overly cautious, and anticipating how they'll react to your proposals.
