‘That trumped everything’: Helping others the key motivator to becoming an adviser

Contrary to the prevailing media and public perception, research from Western Sydney University has found advisers’ primary motivation for joining is to help people.

Over half (53.57 per cent) of respondents cited helping others as the motivation to become a financial adviser, the only option that had at least half of respondents point to it as a reason.

“That trumped everything in the interviews and surveys,” WSU accounting and financial planning associate dean Michelle Cull tells Professional Planner.

“A lot of that was led through life experience, whereas a lot of other career choice is not necessarily life experiences – there’s a lot of pressure from teachers or parents.”

The research, titled ‘Factors influencing the motivation to pursue a career in financial planning’, operated under the initial assumption that financial advice was a “things-orientated career”.

Under career choice theory, what is considered a “things career” are ones that fulfill personal career goals as opposed to communal career goals. The reverse applies to “people careers”.

Cull says there’s never been a career that’s discussed as a combination of both – which makes financial planning unique.

“A lot of people we spoke to that we received information for the survey from said they were interested in numbers but they’re really wanting to help people,” Cull says.

“Whereas a lot of other numbers-orientated careers – like engineering – that’s something that is seen more objective and not people related.”

Origin stories

According to the research, social learning theory suggests that individuals learn through the observation of others in social contexts.

Cull notes an example of this was people going with their parents to see a financial planner or hearing their parents talk about the benefits of seeing an adviser.

However, personal financial hardship was often the bigger catalyst.

“Particularly for women, what I recall from interviews with women who were financial planners and successful ones at that, was a lot of them had been through difficult financial situations themselves,” Cull says.

“That was a popular theme. A lot of females had been through some divorce or separation themselves when they were forced to make financial decisions and weren’t sure. When they had to teach themselves they realised how much they could actually use that to help other people.”

When it came to men, Cull says she spoke to some who dealt with financial hardships growing up in farming communities.

“Financial hardships made a lot of people seek out some sort of financial advice and then could see those sorts of benefits,” Cull says.

She added there are positive examples as well, but that financial hardship did come across as a strong theme.

“Which is really interesting because the general public probably don’t think that,” Cull says. “I think they think financial planners are probably there to make a quick buck, not necessarily to help people.”

Showing off

Cull says the main catalyst for the research was the shortage of supply of new entrants to the new profession, particularly from school leavers or those currently at university, and how the profession could promote itself as an option to that cohort.

“If we found out what motivated current financial planners and financial planning students to pursue financial planning as a career, maybe we’ll find something there that would help us to find a way to market financial planning as a career to new entrants,” Cull says.

Unexpectedly, one of the key takeaways from conducting the research is more needs to be done to get into schools to showcase advice as a career.

“And also having more work experience opportunities for high school students,” Cull says. “The earlier on their exposed to financial planning, then the more able they are to make choices in terms of their study.”

Csilla Skultety, who was one of the two other co-authors in the research says the study of psychology should be part of financial planning education.

“There’s so much psychology in financial planning but there’s psychology subject – other than behaviour finance – but a lot of financial planning in Australia would benefit from having a proper psychology focus,” Skultety says.