Job Responsibilities
Currently, I am in the process of building my business as a
Certified Financial Planner. The name of my business is the
Chariot Group. It is strictly a fee-based Financial Consulting
business that advises personal clients (as opposed to Business
Clientele)on financial matters from Insurance Planning, Tax
Planning, Estate Planning, Investment Portfolio Management, to
simple budgeting/debt elimination and attaining the goal of
financial independence. My responsibilities are to obtain
clients via phone, email, direct sales marketing, and
referrals. I estimate that I spend about 50 hours/week on my
business.
At Citi/Wachovia, major job repsonsibilities included but not
limited to: Opening bank accounts, assessing bank statements and
helping customer balance accounts, performing financial analysis
of each client that opened account, set up investment
appointments and informed clients of various loans. There were
goals that were set for each function. These duties
incorporated the entire day from one-on-one contact and phone
solicitations
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Job Requirements
Well, I have an MS degree in Psychological Counseling and
studied Psychology as an undergraduate. This experience comes in
handy when dealing with temperaments of clients. Also, I took
several finance classes and have several securities licenses.
In addition, I received my CFP (Certified Financial PLanner)
through an online series of courses at Kaplan University.
College workload is routine. You take the classes, you study
and you do well. With specialized courses, you must immerse
yourself in the material because the tests/quizzes are very
thorough and extremely difficult to prepare for. You must set
aside a HUGE amount of time if you want to do well. In
addition, you have to have a passion for financial planning.
Without it, you will hate this line of work.
Now, even though I am self-employed, I got quite a bit of
experience working with Citigroup and Wachovia. Those positions
were a great resource in learning how the finacial services
industry operated. Sales were strssed 24/7. Service was also
measured closely so there was no time to get a breather. I
worked for these two firms for 5 years and felt I was ready to
make my move and go into business for myself.
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Uppers
The best parts of the job are knowing that you are helping someone get their
financial house in order. There is no greater reward than that. I know that
sounds altruistic, however, it is the truth. If you don't get satisfaction by
helping others then financial planning is not for you. If, however, you think
client first and not fee or commission first they will respond positively to
your
commitment to them. Don't get me wrong, the fees are great and it pays well,
however, that should be secondary.
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Downers
Sometimes, the intense amount of paperwork required for every
client seeems overwhelming. You want to get as much detail as
possible. This can be very time-consuming but it needs to be
done. Also, learning new software programs to help you
streamline your business can be frustrating. Sometimes, you get
someone who is "Mr. Investor" yet has lost quite a bit of
money. He still thinks he knows more than you. You just suck
it up and eventually convince him that he is misguided.
Eventually, they come around to your way of thinking. At
Wachovia, the downer for my job was the constant harrassment
from my sales leader asking,"What is in your pipeline for this
month?" It never ended.
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Lifestyle
The key word for financial services is PASSION. If you hate to
sell then working at any bank in the financial services field
will be drudgery. You must be able to sell and sell a ton of
financial products. You must be patient with clients. You need
to be willing to work for a boss who will be demanding.
Financial Servies is a healthy field and as more baby-boomers
retire there will be a glut of opportunities available from
Estate Planning to becoming debt-free. You can help many people
and get paid for it. The banking industry has become a one-stop
shop for customers. It is no longer the stodgy old banking
system anymore. Competition is fierce. Be sure you do your
homework and understand that bigger banks are not always better
when it comes to being an employee.
If you want to be aggressive and adventurous, consider going
into business for yourself as a financial planner or a chartered
financial analyst. Many opportunities exist as customers do not
want to be "sold" anything. They want good advice from a
knowledgeable professional. Customers cannot pay enough for good
information these days. It will take a lot of hard effort but it
will pay off in the long run. I will say that the experience I
learned at Citi and Wachovia were invaluable training grounds
for me. So, I would definitely start out working for a
financial service provider before taking that proverbial leap
into self-employment.
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Compensation
You are extremely limited in your compensation when working for
a corporation. You have the chance to receive more in sales
incentives and goals met. The problem is that for each year,
the goals become higher and the incentives are reduced. That
leaves you earning a total salary in the range that is
unsatisfying--especially when you are working your tail-end off
to make your goals and have enough money at the end of the
month. The benefits are good with health insurance being a big
need that corporations fill. The other, retirement planning, is
very attractive since the company vests 6% total salary.
Being self-employed, you have some IRA's but there is no
matching contribution, so what you make is all there is to
invest from. I believe it is the benefits that keep many people
away from going into business for themselves. Once you make
that jump (assuming you have done your homework and leave at the
right time for a more lucrative business) it is extremely
freeing.
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Advice to Jobseekers
The key word for financial services is PASSION. If you hate to
sell then working at any bank in the financial services field
will be drudgery. You must be able to sell and sell a ton of
financial products. You must be patient with clients. You need
to be willing to work for a boss who will be demanding.
Financial Servies is a healthy field and as more baby-boomers
retire there will be a glut of opportunities available from
Estate Planning to becoming debt-free. You can help many people
and get paid for it. The banking industry has become a one-stop
shop for customers. It is no longer the stodgy old banking
system anymore. Competition is fierce. Be sure you do your
homework and understand that bigger banks are not always better
when it comes to being an employee.
If you want to be aggressive and adventurous, consider going
into business for yourself as a financial planner or a chartered
financial analyst. Many opportunities exist as customers do not
want to be "sold" anything. They want good advice from a
knowledgeable professional. Customers cannot pay enough for good
information these days. It will take a lot of hard effort but it
will pay off in the long run. I will say that the experience I
learned at Citi and Wachovia were invaluable training grounds
for me. So, I would definitely start out working for a
financial service provider before taking that proverbial leap
into self-employment.
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