How Do I Become a Financial Advisor?

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A financial advisor is one of the careers that many people will want to pursue in the future or at the end of their degree or master education curriculum. However, if you’re thinking of becoming one, take time and ask yourself if you have the following skills, since they are essential to this promising job.

Do you have marketing and sales skills, relationship-management skills, communications skills, problem solving skills, organization skills, ethics and tenacity skills, and computer skills? Are you in a position to speak to different people with ease? If you posses all these skills, then you’re on the right path of becoming a financial advisor. Financial advisors must have these skills since this is a top career in business and wealth building and the rewards are golden.

What a Financial Advisor Does

Financial advisors advise different clients about their finances, investments and dreams. You have to come up with a plan of how they will achieve their goals. Different clients will have different sets of needs. There are those who will want advice about retirement, pension and retirement packages. As a financial advisor, you should be in a position to answer questions from your clients regarding investments that they are interested in. You’ll advice them on available opportunities, and do research on behalf of them, making recommendations. You will also explain the risks involved in such investments.

Financial advisors always monitor the accounts of their clients and make necessary changes to ensure that their client’s goals are achieved. If any changes are required on the accounts, you should update the accounts accordingly. As a financial advisor, you’ll have to establish a long-term relationship with your clients and you’ll have to make investment research pertaining to avenues like insurance.

Financial advisors do oftentimes work with rich families. However, as a personal financial advisor, you may work for yourself, the bank, or any company in the financial sector. This field is growing at an alarming rate and it requires one to possess a minimum of a bachelor degree. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2010, the median annual pay was $67,520 a year or $32.46 per hour.

The rewards of this job are worth the time and hard work.

All these duties of a financial planner can be summarized as follows.

•Researching financial products for their clients
•Having meetings with clients and discussing the way forward
•Dealing with clients inquiries and issuing appropriate solutions
•Keep detailed financial records
•Producing financial records both old and latest
•Update client’s regularly about their investments
•Negotiating with financial products on behalf of the clients
•Meeting sales targets
•Explaining financial products to the client so that the client makes a clear choice

Your attitude towards mathematics, technology and towards other people working in the same profession should always be positive and synergetic.

A Bachelors Degree is the minimum qualification if you want to become a personal financial advisor. Majority of financial advisors have college degrees. Having a degree in mathematics, economics, computer science, accounting and finance, puts you in a good position of becoming a personal financial advisor.

Look for an internship in the bank or brokerage sector. This will help you to acquire vital and vast information about the job. Lastly, earning your professional license will open more doors, since you’ll demonstrate that you can follow the licensing board’s code of ethics.