How Do I Become a Financial Planner?

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If you want to be a financial planner, communication skills, management skills, marketing skill, problem solving skills, and entrepreneurial eagerness are essential. These skills and the education you pursue will help you grasp financial theory. Financial planners have the task of planning and managing all finances; ensuring clients finance records are up to date, and linking them with investors. It’s a tough, tiresome and stressful job that requires patience and flexibility.

What a Financial Planner Does All Day Long?

Since financial planners are responsible for coaching a client’s finances. In this case, you have to be responsible for your clients’ future finances. You have to make decisions for the clients on how to invest and protect their money without massive failure, which is definitely a possibility in a volatile career.

Financial planners come up with a financial plan and then introduce the plan to the clients. If the plan can’t work out for the clients, you should come up with another plan and several mixes of strategies until the client is satisfied. Once satisfied, you have to implement the strategy as agreed.

You have to keep reviewing your plan annually to ensure it’s achieving the stated goals. Maintaining long-term relationships with your clients is ideal.

As a profession, you have to advise clients regarding finance. Allow the client to make changes according to your plan. In summary, financial planners:

•Maintain their client’s files
•Help their clients calculate their net worth
•Explain and compare financial products to the client
•Gathers information for the client (income tax returns, insurance records and such)
•Helps the client identify personal and financial goals and objectives of their investments

Educational Requirements for Financial Planners

A Bachelor’s Degree in any related discipline from a recognized university could land you a job as a finance planner. Topics like insurance, real estate planning, retirement planning, state and federal income tax planning, employee benefits planning and other issues are definitely safe to study even before enrollment. A higher level of degree could get you noticed, but sometimes work experience is deemed an appropriate substitute.

Employment and Salary

Financial planners can be self-employed or can be employed by organizations. Others do contract their services to organizations like:

•Legal firms
•Insurance agencies
•Accounting firms
•Trust companies
•Private financial planning companies
•Banks and other lending institutions
•Stoke broker firms

Some experienced planners specialize in certain areas of financial planning like investment. Other factors that may affect salary and rewards include some demographic information like regional location, experience and the occupation of each person. The salary for a financial planner is somewhat generous, as these workers make a mean salary of $90,820 in 2012, which Money magazines verifies. This is a career that you can build onto and grow into, and the rewards are always worth the investment if you have the right perspective.