Best of Wiser Financial Advisor: How To Find Or Become A Great Financial Advisor (#46)

Host Josh Nelson shares three primary things that makes a financial advisor a great financial advisor. If you're looking to find a great financial advisor, or are contemplating becoming a financial advisor, listen to hear about Josh's experiences in the business of financial consulting and as a financial advisor.  a that sheds even more light on how to find, or become, a great financial advisor. 

Contact Josh for a free consultation about finding, or becoming, a great financial advisor.
https://www.keystonefinancial.com/contact

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/keystonefin/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Keystone_Fin?advisorid=33004651
Contact Josh Nelson: https://www.keystonefinancial.com
Contact Jeremy Busch: https//www.keystonefinancial.com
Podcast Editing: Tim Leaman/info.primegen@gmail.com

Transcript

Wiser Financial Advisor –  What Makes a Great Financial Advisor

Hi, Everyone. Welcome to the Wiser Financial Advisor with Josh Nelson, where we get real, we get honest, and we get clear about the financial world and your money.  

This is Josh Nelson, Certified Financial Planner and founder and CEO of Keystone Financial Services. We love feedback and we'd love it if you would pass it on to me directly at josh@keystonefinancial.com . Also, please stay plugged in with us and get updates on episodes and help us promote the podcast. You can subscribe to us at Apple podcasts, Google, Spotify, or your favorite podcast service. Let the financial fun begin! 

I'm excited to be back from our break. While I was gone, I hope you enjoyed our favorite episodes from the past year. Coming up here next month, we will hit our one year anniversary for the Wiser Financial Advisor. It'll be Episode 52 and that will be worth celebrating! Anyway, I’m glad to be back and getting into the fall mode. And just as we've got seasons of the year, we also have seasons in our careers and seasons in life as well.

One of the things I've been thinking about recently is what makes a great Financial Advisor. It's on my mind these days because we’re going to be starting to search for the next advisor to hire here at Keystone Financial. That got me thinking about what makes a great advisor. What are the attributes you're looking for in somebody to know if they will be a good fit to be working with clients and making an impact on people's lives? Many of you know me and have known me for many years. Some of you have been working with me since my early 20s when I first got into this industry. You might wonder, well, how do people get into this business? 

These days there is a college track. You can enroll in financial planning programs. You can choose a financial planning emphasis at many university programs, including locally. Here we've got Colorado State University and they've had some great interns that we've worked with over the years through that program.

Back when I became an advisor, you really didn't have that available. There wasn't a college degree in financial planning or anything close to that, and so you had to get into this business a different way. For me, I got into it first through my mom, early in life. She got me curious about money and business and so forth. Those seeds were planted very early, but I kind of forgot about them until I got into college. I had no idea what I wanted to do at that point. All I knew was, “Hey, you need to get a degree and learn and build your mind and make connections and things like that.” In the end I chose political science just because I was interested in that and I figured that political science was a good major whether I went the business route or law school afterward. I might have gone to law school, but I happened upon the financial industry.  

I was working at a grocery store called Hy-Vee. Those of you familiar with the Midwest know that Hy-vee still has a big chain of grocery stores back there. At the Hy-Vee store, I did menial jobs, cashiering and garbage collecting and stocking shelves, all that stuff. It was a good job and I enjoyed a lot of the work and the relationships there. 

Then one of my friends got hired at the credit union located inside the grocery store and he said it was pretty great. “Not only do they pay more, but your schedule is better and you're learning about money and you're not working in the dirt and grime and all that stuff.”

So I pursued that and got hired at that credit union in a different location. It worked out fine. I ended up being a great fit for them and got promoted several times while still in college and shortly after graduation. That was fun, but I figured I was going to hit my ceiling pretty quickly. Fortunately, it was a big enough credit union that they had financial advisors. I started talking to those guys about how they got into this business and also talked to advisors in the community that I knew and asked them: “How do you get to be in this business? How did you get to be successful?” 

It ended up being a great path for me. I talked to these guys and figured out that I should have gone down the business path in college. It was too late for me; I was already going into my senior year. But the advisors said, “No, you do not have to have a business degree or a finance degree. In fact there are some other attributes that are even more important. Largely, you need to have the desire to get into this business and work really hard. It's going to take a lot of effort on your part, not just because you need to be smart. You need to learn some stuff, but also you've got to put yourself out there and be in a position where you've got an entrepreneurial mindset. You need to be able to find clients to work with and be able to ask for people's business and not just be able to help them but also be able to build a business.” 

When I moved to Colorado, I just knew somebody in the financial industry was going to hire me. I moved without a job and worked for Pepsi for a little bit, just throwing pop on the trucks and filling grocery store shelves for a few months to pay the rent. But I knew somebody was going to hire me in finance. I just needed to be persistent. I talked to a lot of firms and companies. Back then, somebody had to hire you and then you would get licensed. (To a large extent it still works this way.) The trick is that nobody wants to hire you unless you're licensed. And so I was kind of stuck because I didn't have the license and didn't have the experience level so that they could just get me going right away. They'd have to invest in me at the beginning.

Fortunately, I did find somebody who gave me a chance. Back then it was a company called AG Edwards. I interviewed and went through the whole process. They had some pretty extensive evaluations, some really hard math you had to do on paper without a calculator. I ended up doing really well. I was told, “You're one of the highest scores that we've seen in recent history. Blah blah blah blah blah. But we're not going to hire you.” When I asked why, I was told, “Because you don't know anybody. You're not from here. You're going to have a heck of a time building a business when you really don't have any relationships. You're probably not going to be successful here, but I've got a friend who's a bank manager. They need a financial advisor in their bank program right now. Why don't you contact them and go interview?”

Long story short, I did get hired and they took that chance on me. I was there for a couple of years and then got a headhunter call from a credit union, which was the HP Credit Union at the time. (Since then it has moved on to a few other names and mergers and so forth.) I got hired there and stayed for about 10 years and then started my own business here in town.

I wanted to give you that fly-over because it's not exactly an easy business to get into. Traditionally, you have this chicken/egg thing going on as far as experience and license and people you know and so forth. That makes it hard for a lot of folks to break in and be successful. But there are a few attributes that I can tell you make a great financial advisor. That’s what we look for when we hire financial advisors here at Keystone Financial Services. 

First, there are some basics that you need to have done. You need to be a reasonably smart person and have a good personality and be able to solve problems. You need to be a self-starter. And because there are some basic things that you need to be able to do, it does help to have some work experience in other environments where you've picked those things up. But beyond that, there are three key things that are really crucial for somebody to be successful not only in doing the job intellectually, but also to be dialed in with personality. 

Number one, you need to like people. Ultimately, this is a people business. That's why my friend at the credit union years ago said “No, you don't have to be a business major. Number one is that you've got to have people skills. You need to like people.” Ultimately, you're going to be around people an awful lot, so you need to have a personality that can connect with others.

There are a few different things that come from that. One thing that pops into my mind is that if you like people, it can't be all about you. If you've got a super big ego and you're making it all about yourself, that's going to make it hard for you to connect with people. And people pick up on that pretty quickly. Ultimately they need to know that you care, or they're not going to want to deal with you. That's just something I think we all just know. We don't like to deal with people who make it all about ego. We like people that connect and have good personalities. They need to have some humor. They need a certain amount of confidence but also some humility. 

I know people who have tried to get into the financial industry that were very smart engineers or from other high level intelligence occupations and they didn't make it because they thought, “Well, I like numbers and I like doing analysis and so forth,” but didn’t consider that being a financial advisor is a people job.

Number two, you need to enjoy solving problems and be good at solving problems. In other words, you need to be curious. You need to have a certain amount of collaboration that you're willing to do with a client, because a successful financial planning relationship is a partnership between the planner and the client or clients. Say if it's a husband wife, for example, you may be dealing with a two different people in that individual house. Household collaboration is pretty darn important, and then again, having confidence, but having the humility to be able to know that you don't have all the answers and there's a lot you don't know. 

To enjoy solving problems and being creative and curious in an environment of uncertainty is one thing I really enjoy about this industry and in running the business. Every day when I come to work, I don't know what's going to happen, right? We don't know what the market is going to do that day. We don't know what sorts of world events are going to happen, political and otherwise. There are a lot of things we don't know. There are a lot of things that will happen in the future that we can't predict as far as what politicians might do. And again, what the market might do. Maybe interest rates go up or inflation. Even the Fed chairman, the President, the people who supposedly have all the information—well, they don't either. If they're honest they will tell you they are making their best guess.

As far as what's going to happen, we've got all kinds of analysis and data and everything like that, but they still don't know, and a lot of times don't get it right. So it’s important to be able to have confidence and solve problems in an environment of uncertainty, sometimes extreme uncertainty. Think back to times like when the COVID pandemic first hit and the market dropped 30% in a couple of weeks. Think about the financial crisis back in 2008, 2009, when the market dropped over 50%. That’s why you need to be able to enjoy solving problems and just embracing the fact that there's a lot you don't know.

And of course, we don't know what's going to happen in people's lives. Part of the fun is that people don't know what's going to happen next year. Their company could offer an awesome retirement package and they end up being able to retire early, or something could happen health-wise. A parent could pass away. So many things happen every single day. As financial planners, we have the honor of being in an intimate role with clients in the sense that we get to know all these things happening in people's lives and we’re able to guide them through as things unfold.

Number three: Great financial planners and financial advisors have the heart of a teacher. They don't have to have a teaching degree or certificate or something like that, but they need to have the heart of a teacher because ultimately this is about financial education and helping people understand what's going on with their money. We are helping people understand how the financial world works and all the things that are happening out there in the world and the decision points that will affect them. It’s great if you enjoy teaching one on one and also enjoy teaching groups. These days, we do a lot of financial education on zoom and webinars, things like that, but also you need to be able to get up in front of people. For most people I would say, including myself, getting in front of people is not the first choice of something they want to do. It's one of those things that you have to get over and start doing it. You can intellectually look at things and study things all day long, but until you do it, until you step out there and do it, you're really not going to get good at it. That’s why you’ve got to have a certain amount of confidence in yourself and trust that you're going to figure things out.

So, firstly, a great financial planner needs to like people and be good at relationships. Secondly, be able to enjoy solving problems and work in an environment of uncertainty while honestly admitting there's a lot of stuff that we just don't know. Anyone in the world, no matter how smart or how much information they have, if they’re good at something then they know they don't have all the information, and they will account for that when making decisions. And finally, a great financial advisor needs to have the heart of a teacher. We put ourselves in a position where we're here to teach. We're here to help clients learn about the financial world and their money; to help them make great decisions, because it is a collaboration; it’s an environment where people work together. It isn’t a dictatorship where you've got somebody making all the decisions about somebody else’s money. That's a very poor financial relationship if the advisor does everything, makes all the decisions and doesn’t involve the clients. People want to understand, not just be told what to do. They want to be educated and be able to make those decisions together. 

So, it could be that you're listening to this and maybe you're doing some career exploration. Or maybe it's your kids or your grandkids doing some career exploration and trying to figure out, “Hey, is this an occupation that could make sense for me? And what would be my path into that?”

There's a formal educational track now at a lot of universities for people who want to become Certified Financial Planners. Firms that would be hiring them are typically looking for somebody with those attributes I mentioned. Again, reasonably smart. You've got to have some intelligence, but ultimately we're looking for people with great personalities who want to collaborate with clients.

So if you're working with us, I hope you can say that that's true of your relationship with us. I think it is.

And if you're working with somebody else, if that relationship is great and it matches up, that's great as well. I'm glad you found somebody you've connected with. If you are a student and interested in talking about careers, and even if it doesn't end up being with us, we always enjoy talking with people and helping people out regardless of whether you become an employee or a client. Here at Keystone Financial Services, we want to add value in whatever way we can.

So if you are a student and you're looking for career guidance, we're happy to talk to you about that. If you are somebody who's out there and wondering how to hire a great advisor, or wondering if  Keystone could be a good fit for you, please reach out to us.

Thanks for listening today. I hope you enjoyed this first episode back from our break and I hope you enjoyed the “best of” episodes while we were gone.

Please help us promote the podcast. It’s helpful when you refer your friends or family and subscribe to us on your favorite service whether Spotify, Apple, Google, or others. We are on all the major services. And of course you could just shoot your friend an email or tell your neighbor or coworker. We think that's awesome when we're getting new listeners to our different content pieces.

Thank you very much for supporting the Wiser Financial Advisor this past year by listening to episodes. We're always looking for feedback, so please let us know if there are any topics or guests that you'd like us to be talking to. Have a great week and God bless.

The opinions voiced in this episode of the Wiser Financial Advisor with host Josh Nelson are for general information only and not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. Investment advisory services offered through Keystone Financial Services, an SEC Registered Investment Advisor.