A NEW training program directed at improving the soft skills of associate financial advisors entering the market, is already having a significant and positive impact on the way they are engaging and interacting with clients.
Better still, it is providing many of the young participants with a new-found passion for the industry and is proving to be a valuable employee engagement tool, say the employers of the advisors who have embarked on what is believed to be the industry’s first and most comprehensive ‘soft skills’ training and mentoring program.
Developed by leading nationally based financial service provider, Partners Wealth Group, the Associate Advisor Academy (AAA) program was created in response to its own experiences as well as well as feedback from the industry.
According to George Hluchaniuk, who heads up the Wealth division of Partners Wealth Group, businesses were voicing their concerns that tertiary based education courses were not equipping new employees with the practical skills and knowledge, critical to building and developing business opportunities.
“While graduates are leaving university with all the right technical and compliance skills, they are not being taught how to work effectively with clients.
“Neither are they being taught the key fundamentals of critical decision making.”
He says equipping young advisors with these skills has become especially important in an environment where there is much greater fee transparency and where clients are demanding much more for their money given current volatile investment market conditions and with interest rates at historically low levels.
“There is a lot of scrutiny and clients expect much more engagement from their advisors than was previously the case.”
Available to aspiring associate advisors working in practises across Australia, the Partners Wealth Group AAA program is specifically designed to prepare participants to successfully transition from a support role to an advisor position. Course content includes:
• Relationship mastery – the skills needed to build, strengthen, grow, nurture and develop trusted relationships with clients, stakeholders and referral partners.
• Business acumen – the fundamentals of how a business operates and how to make logical, commercial decisions that contribute to the ongoing success of the business.
• Advice and technical competence – how to perform competently as an associate advisor within the structures of the financial services landscape.
Mr Hluchaniuk says while the course offering is relatively broad, the relationship skills component is by far the most important.
“Participants are not only taught how to make a great first impression and build rapport with clients, they also taught how to better understand client and stakeholder needs, even personality types, and to respond appropriately.
“They are also taught how understand the demographics of their client base and how to more effectively work with them.
“Advisors need to understand these differences and to respond accordingly.”
Mr Hluchaniuk is emphatic that the course is not designed to turn associate advisors into ‘high pressure salespersons’, rather more competent and better rounded future advisors.
Ultimately, he says, the aim of the program is to create ‘exceptional advisors with strong customer advocacy, and who are leaders among their peers’.
Harnessing the skills of senior Partners Wealth Group advisors as well as those of external professional training providers, the AAA program is delivered one day a month in a classroom setting and via Skype.
With the first intake of AAA students now nearing completion of their first year studies and given the positive feedback from both participants and their employers, Partners Wealth is looking for expressions of interest for 2017 enrolments.
