What’s actually stopping you from becoming an adviser?

Over the past year, Professional Paraplanner’s Editor – Natalie Dawes, has spoken to a number of paraplanners considering a move into advice. While everyone’s situation is different, the same themes tend to surface time and again.

One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about developing our Future Adviser content is the opportunity to speak to aspiring advisers at very different stages of their careers.

Some are already sitting in on client meetings, some are studying towards qualifications, and others are still working out whether client-facing advice is the right route for them at all.

Very few people start by talking about technical knowledge, which makes perfect sense when many have already built a solid grounding through paraplanning.

The conversations I have often come back to confidence, client meetings, opportunities to develop, visibility and the practical realities of moving from a supporting role into a client-facing one.

It made me wonder whether many of us are focusing on the wrong question.

Rather than asking, “How do I become an adviser?”, perhaps we should be asking:

“What is actually stopping me from becoming one?”

With that in mind, grab a notebook or open a blank document and spend a few minutes working through the questions below.

Could it be confidence?

Confidence is often one of the first things people mention when they talk about moving into advice.

The interesting thing is that confidence can mean very different things to different people. For one person, it might be confidence in applying their technical knowledge when sat across the table from a client.

For others, it could be confidence speaking in front of clients. Someone else might feel comfortable discussing technical matters but less certain about leading a meeting or handling a difficult conversation.

And talking of clients, perhaps the confidence is about finding them in the first place.

Take a moment to think about where your confidence dips.

Can you pinpoint a specific situation? A particular part of the role? A conversation you haven’t yet had enough exposure to?

Being specific matters because a lot of the time, confidence is rarely the real issue. More often, it is a signal that there is something we haven’t yet had the opportunity to practise.

Write down the situations that make you feel least confident and look for patterns.

Could it be a lack of client exposure?

Many paraplanners build excellent technical knowledge before making the move into advice. What they don’t always have is the same level of exposure to client conversations.

Think about your own role – how often do you attend client meetings? When you do attend, are you actively involved or primarily observing? Do clients know who you are, or are you largely operating behind the scenes?

Now ask yourself a different question – what would the next level look like?

Perhaps it’s attending more meetings or taking responsibility for a small section of a review meeting. Perhaps it’s following up directly with a client after a meeting has taken place.

Sometimes we think we need a new job title to start acting like an adviser.

In reality, there may be opportunities to develop adviser skills long before that happens.

Could it be experience?

One challenge I hear regularly is the feeling of being stuck between two positions. You need experience to become an adviser, but you need adviser opportunities to gain experience.

It’s an understandable frustration – however, there is a subtle difference between adviser experience and adviser skills. Think about the skills advisers use every day in explaining complex issues in plain English, listening carefully, leading conversations, building trust and understanding what sits behind a client’s concerns. And that’s by no means an exhaustive list.

How many of those skills could you begin developing in your current role? Write down three experiences you would like more exposure to over the next 12 months.

Then ask yourself whether those opportunities already exist around you and simply require you to raise your hand.

Could it be the business development side?

For some aspiring advisers, the concern isn’t advice itself – it’s clients.

Where will they come from? How will relationships be built? What happens when you become responsible for bringing in new business as well as delivering advice?

If this feels familiar, spend a few minutes exploring exactly what it is that concerns you. Whether it’s networking, asking for introductions, discussing fees, explaining the value of advice – whatever is on your mind, write it down.

The more specific you become, the easier it is to identify ways to develop that area. Many people bundle all of these challenges together under the heading of business development, but each one requires a slightly different skill set.

Could it simply be uncertainty?

Sometimes the biggest obstacle isn’t confidence, experience or business development. Sometimes it’s a feeling of uncertainty, perhaps even with not really knowing what the adviser role looks like day to day.

You totally get the advice process, but your viewpoint could be limited to the theoretical side, even if you understand the recommendation better than people realise.

What you may not have experienced yet is the reality of being the person sat across the table from the client, leading the conversation and delivering the advice.

If that’s the case, think about your current access to advisers within your business.

A few more questions…

How often do you ask questions about why decisions were made? How often do you discuss the thinking behind recommendations? How often do you see what happens before and after the client meeting?

The more visibility you gain, the less room there is for uncertainty to fill the gaps.

One thing worth remembering

So, what have you discovered?

By now, you may have identified one area that feels more relevant than the others. Not necessarily the area you’re weakest in – the area most likely to slow your progress over the next year or however long, if it remains unaddressed.

I’d get the highlighter pens out now and go to town on this. Make a note of what’s impacting your development and, importantly (time for the highlighter), commit to one realistic action that could genuinely help you move forward.

A few ideas to get you thinking:

• Asking to shadow more meetings.
• Seeking feedback from an adviser you trust.
• Volunteering for an opportunity that feels slightly outside your comfort zone.

Commit to something that feels right (if a little daunting) for you. The action itself matters less than the fact that you’ve identified it.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from speaking to advisers who have already made the move, it’s that very few of them felt completely ready beforehand.

They didn’t suddenly wake up feeling more confident or reach a point where they knew everything. In fact, many advisers with years of experience will still tell you they don’t know everything. In this profession, that’s impossible, and that’s okay. They simply identified the areas they needed to develop and kept moving forward.

So to start as we mean to go on and before you move onto another article, write down the one thing most likely to hold you back if you don’t address it.

And then…

Once you’ve done that, take a proper look at it.

Is it really the thing that’s holding you back, or is there something sitting underneath it?