Blog

At FPA NorCal last month, I was asked several times what firm owners should do to ensure their new planner employees will stick around for more than a couple of years so they have a chance to recoup the investment of developing their next generation of planners. There are many avenues a firm can take to integrate, cultivate, and retain new planners. Here are a few strategies from firms that have experienced success in employing new planners. Client Meetings:  Firms who integrate their new ...

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One step in our process of assisting financial planning firms to find great people who are a good fit is to confidentially interview non-owner key staff members to garner multiple perspectives on the culture and needs of the firm. When interviewing these key staff members, I often get a lot of interesting feedback about their perceptions of the company, the culture, and their supervisor(s).  This month’s article looks at 5 things employees say they wish their superiors knew, but can’t tell ...

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When I visit CFP Board registered programs, the faculty and administration want to know how their program (i.e. students) compare to other programs and what they can do to improve.  The fact that they are asking the questions is a positive direction and a sign of things to come as more and more program directors continue to craft programs to produce graduates who will meet firm owners’ needs. Below are some of the exciting best practices I see being adopted in a few schools, along with my ...

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Last month after my southwest Washington/Portland FPA Mid Winter Conference Keynote presentation, I took four additional plane flights (and hotels, and rental cars!) to visit four CFP Board registered programs in the West:   Utah Valley University, Colorado State University, California State Northridge, and San Diego State. It was my own little version of planes, trains and automobiles! During these visits, I interviewed dozens of students, spoke to a handful of PhDs (faculty members, college ...

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There are numerous benefits to involving your new planner in client meetings. These include increased leverage of firm owners’ time and client relationship scalability, quality of life improvement, profitability, and enhanced client experience.  There are some common myths that can often overshadow these benefits though.  This month’s post addresses the top 5 myths of integrating new planners into client meetings so firm owners can get their new planner(s) started down the right path to ...

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2012 is now behind us and for the most part it seemed to be a pretty good year for a lot of you, so congrats! To continue to build upon these successes and avert the challenges facing our profession, it is increasingly necessary that you continue to fully utilize every asset at your disposal. By far the biggest lever you can pull is your firm’s human capital. From this perspective, you need each member of your team at the top of their game for 2013. Here is a list of New Year’s resolutions ...

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Last month, we reviewed several common personality assessments used in hiring that measured the Affective (Feeling) and to some extent the Cognitive (Thinking) parts of the mind. This month we will examine the leading assessment that measures the Conative (Doing) part of the mind. You may not be as familiar with this one because the others are more widely discussed and commercialized. Nonetheless, having an idea of how someone prefers to take action is just as important a factor in the ...

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When recruiting new employees, I often get questions about the validity, structure, and cost of various personality assessments. This month, we will take a look at some of the most common assessments that I come across and administer.  Keep in mind, I am not the developer of these tools and have no affiliations with these companies. I am simply providing a general overview, based on my experiences and use of these tools. So why use personality assessments at all? Contrary to some popular ...

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Last month, we explored what candidates were seeking in growth opportunities by looking at an excerpted dialogue exchange I have been having frequently with candidates recently (see http://bit.ly/GrwthOppPart1). This month we examine specific characteristics firm owners should be providing in their new planner positions to help ensure the new planner doesn’t have to leave the organization for the career growth they seek. The most important distinction we see between the firms that effectively ...

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The impetus for this month’s post is the recent deluge of individuals who have reached out to me expressing frustration over “lack of growth opportunities” in their position at their current firm.  It’s not uncommon for candidates to reach out to me to “see what else is out there.”  What is interesting is the similarity of the recent conversations and the sense that the underlying, well documented, issue might soon have a larger impact than once thought.  So in this two part post we will first ...

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Last month we discussed what expectations are generally unreasonable for a new planner hire and this month we look at what firm owners SHOULD expect from their new planner.  As I mentioned last month, not all new financial planners are equal. Also I have previously written on how the educational experiences between CFP Board registered programs can vary widely. http://bit.ly/NewPlnrExppart1 Nonetheless it’s reasonable to have some solid, but realistic expectations for a good candidate that ...

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Throughout my career I have witnessed firm owners’ frustrations with new planners they have hired or were interviewing. Their frustrations stem from lack of clarity on what type of education a new planner receives and what can be expected of them. Also, firm owners sometimes don’t know what role they are trying to fill so they are left with trying to hire for a catch-all position resulting in unclear roles and responsibilities, and unreasonable expectations. We will start this two-part ...

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