While technical knowledge is essential, soft skills – such as effective communication, problem-solving, and relationship management – can enable paraplanners to excel in their roles. From client meetings to team collaboration, soft skills can enhance efficiency, improve client experiences, and support business growth.
In our latest Parameters survey, we asked for your views on whether soft skills are becoming more important for paraplanners to have over and above hard technical capabilities. Nearly half of respondents (47%) said they were. 29% didn’t believe so and 23% were unsure.
One of the key ways in which paraplanners said they used soft skills was when participating in client meetings. Meeting clients face-to-face paraplanners said helped them better understand the client’s goals, financial situation, and personal preferences, all of which informed their recommendations. The soft skills most used were effective listening and the ability to extract both hard facts and soft information – such as a client’s concerns, aspirations, and values – from the meeting, all of which are critical in ensuring financial advice is tailored to the client’s needs.
Beyond meetings, paraplanners said they regularly communicate with clients via phone, email, and written correspondence. This requires clarity, empathy, and adaptability, ensuring that complex financial advice is presented in a way that clients can easily understand. Whether it’s answering queries, explaining cash flow projections, or translating adviser comments into client-friendly language, respondents said strong communication skills are vital in building trust and confidence.
Responding paraplanners also felt that soft skills played into their ability to help clients better understand the often intricate concepts involved in financial planning. The ability to simplify these complex issues and making recommendations more accessible, were particularly useful, they said, when:
- presenting cash flow models in a clear and digestible manner
- writing suitability reports that are both easy for clients to read and compliant
- explaining the reasoning behind financial advice to clients
- challenging advice recommendations when necessary, ensuring they align with the client’s best interests.
Paraplanners also felt their soft skills came to the fore in their interactions with financial advisers, business development managers (BDMs), and account managers at providers.
Sometimes, this required negotiation and influencing skills, they said, especially when challenging advisers on aspects of advice and when recommendations needed further clarification. At other times, it involved managing relationships diplomatically –”helping to soothe egos” while maintaining compliance and client focus.
Team leaders emphasised the need for strong communication and teamwork skills, ensure that the paraplanning function runs smoothly and that new talent is nurtured effectively. They highlighted the importance of soft skills in
- training and mentoring junior paraplanners
- leading team projects and improving workflow processes
- developing tools to enhance efficiency within the business
- collaborating with colleagues to refine procedures and manage workloads
Paraplanners can be the first point of contact for clients when advisers are out of the office, or in meetings. Beyond their technical expertise, paraplanners said they felt use of soft skills helped them to assess clients’ unspoken concerns, by picking up on subtle cues that might indicate a client’s hesitations or preferences.
Whether through effective communication, problem-solving, leadership, or relationship management, paraplanners highlighted soft skills as a means to ensure smoother client service and stronger collaboration across the business.
Yet, despite this high number of paraplanners viewing soft skills as important to their roles, only 14% of respondents said their firm provided soft skill development/training, with the majority (64%) receiving not training at all, and 19% undertaking their own learning in this area.
As the financial landscape evolves, notably as artificial intelligence takes on a large proportion of the heavy lifting of the paraplanner’s day-to-day tasks, paraplanners will need to continue to adapt and change, with soft skills likely to become ever more important in the evolving paraplanning role.
Main image; charles-deluvio-rRWiVQzLm7k-unsplash
