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Paraplanners – It’s time to lean in
9 October 2019
Michelle Hoskin recently ran a Paraplanner Masterclass in Australia. Here she talks about the experience, why paraplanners should have confidence in their abilities, and three key things that make for top performing paraplanners.
As I approached the closing section of my presentation on day one at the AFA united conference in Adelaide, Australia (28–30 August), I leant forward towards the crowd and asked all of the paraplanners in the room to raise their hands. As I looked out across the sea of faces less than 10 paraplanners actually raised their hands… despite there being over 30 in the room… but why?
Were they not proud of what they do? No way.
Where they unsure if I was talking to them? Maybe.
Or were they just lacking in confidence? Absolutely!
In all of the work that I have done in this magical profession, confidence in the paraplanners who so proudly own their roles will be one of the key cards to play in the global positioning of the value that this group of highly skilled and capable professionals brings to financial services.
But I let it go… I held back on calling them out. But not for long!
The next day I delivered a Paraplanner Masterclass to a room full (approx. 30) paraplanners all of whom proudly wore ‘introverts unite’ t-shirts and huddled together like they were lifelong friends. The buzz in the room was overwhelming and I felt honoured and privileged to have been invited to join them to share with them what I knew and what I realised later would be, for some; life changing insights.
… and true to form I called them out! I made them tell me why they didn’t raise their hands when I asked them to the day before. As expected, the innate introvert coupled with a genuine lack of confidence in their ability to hold their own was the cause of hiding behind their note pads.
And here lies the problem. I think it is safe to say, whilst deep down we all love them dearly, the planner and adviser community would never pass up an opportunity to raise their hands when asked. And the ingrained ego, confidence, passion and an overarching pride for what they do will sadly be one the contributing factors to paraplanners continuing to be seen as the ‘understudy’ the ‘administrator’ at the side of the planners and advisers themselves.
But this doesn’t have to be the case. It can change but we have to be ‘united’ just as the Paraplanner Pulse community now understand.
The Paraplanner Standard™ was designed for many reasons but for me one of the main reasons was to help give paraplanners a leg up to make their mark and be rewarded with a level of credibility and respect earned from achieving a level of excellence equal to or exceeding that of planners and advisers.
So, what differentiates a ‘Certified International Professional Paraplanner™’ (CIPP) from an everyday paraplanner?
In my recent article ‘Build Your Confidence’ I shared my thoughts around confidence as the killer skill. But let’s take a deeper dive into what else it takes to achieve top spot.
More information on the standard can be found here – and a short Q&A video here.
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