There will be occasions when as paraplanner you need to challenge the advice or rationale of a financial adviser/planner. That is not always easy to do. Hannah Wynick, managing director, Core Financial Paraplanning, and PFS Paraplanner panel member, offers some sound advice on why and how paraplanners can deal with these situations.
Recently, there seems to have been a bit of a buzz surrounding how paraplanners can tackle difficult or challenging conversations with the financial advisers and planners that they work with. This was a topic that I spoke about at one of the recent Professional Paraplanner Technical Insight Seminars and after hearing how it had really helped some of the attendees, I wanted to share some tips and tricks that I have picked up over my years as an outsourced paraplanner.
We paraplanners, on the whole, are quite an introverted bunch, which means that we are probably quite apprehensive about tackling these tricky situations to start with. But in reality, having the confidence to challenge and question if you don’t fully understand a recommendation, has the power to increase your credibility and show you to be a more proactive individual.
Back in the day, an adviser was sometimes seen as higher up the financial services food chain than a paraplanner, but in today’s world, I hope it is seen more linearly, like an actual chain – with all the links representing the different parts of the financial planning process. If one of those links breaks, the chain doesn’t work properly and so, in order to work together efficiently and effectively, we cannot fear asking questions of each other.
As paraplanners, part of our role is to be a second pair of eyes for the adviser, and in order to do our jobs to the best of our abilities, we need to have complete faith and sureness in ourselves – something which probably doesn’t always come naturally to some of us.
The best advisers that I have worked with are the ones who know that the relationship goes both ways and who will see any suggestions, challenges or questions as my way of understanding, rather than as an accusation that they are in the wrong.
However, I am sure that we have all dealt with advisers who are not always so keen for our opinions – so how do you deal with these situations?
When it comes to querying recommendations, we all know that as paraplanners we are meant to be mind-readers. But by asking for further clarification on the advice being given, especially if we don’t fully understand how the Adviser has gotten from A to B, it could actually produce some hidden, out of sight information that has been stowed away in the Adviser’s heads – so it’s a win-win situation!
No-one likes to be accused of being wrong, so remember to stay calm when offering your suggestions. You are more likely to get the answers that you want by asking for more clarification as to why something is being recommended than bluntly saying the recommendation seems incorrect to you. Talking through your concerns with the adviser will also allow you to understand their rationale further – it might even help them realise that there may be a better way forward for their client.
If you feel that you have an alternative to the advice that they are providing, use that old-school mentality of ‘showing your workings’. It might be that two things can be true at once so by showing that you have spent time looking into the issue, not only are you providing an alternative solution that the Adviser may not have even considered, but you are reinforcing your integrity further.
If you don’t feel that you are getting anywhere, or if the adviser is a ‘I’m right, you’re wrong’ kind of person, it is always useful to run your thoughts past a colleague or another paraplanner that you may know to get a second opinion. You may be able to use these to go back to the adviser and try again (with some extra luck the second time around!)
Whatever your situation, however, remember that everyone will encounter these challenges from time to time – believe in your knowledge, trust your gut feeling and most importantly, don’t feel that you can’t speak up! You might just be surprised with the outcome.
If you want to know more about challenging conversations, you can download the PFS Paraplanning Panel’s guide to challenging conversations HERE.
