What Do Financial Planners Do?
Job Descriptions September 30, 2013Financial planners are planners, but the term “finance” covers various strategies and disciplines. You will be helping others to manage their finances for the long-term future, so that they can reach their economic wants and needs. This makes financial planning a long-term process, as opposed to a single strategy. As a financial helper of sorts, your job might be to help someone to reach their goals related to retirement or analysis.
Job Duties and Strategies
The actual job, following the goal establishment and client introduction stage, will involve gathering the data, analyzing patterns and trends, and then recommending courses of actions. Provided that the client will work with you on these changes, you may have to implement the changes and devise realistic strategies, which you can easily monitor along the way. Following the entire formula is a sign of a good planner, as many professionals skip the first few steps, and simply provide generic advice.
This is intrinsic to problems within the career path itself, as many financial planners cannot truly define what they do, or what makes them competitive when compared to others in the field. So consumer education is prime.
Specialists are the ones who thrive in financial planning because they know exactly what they do, the niches that matter, and what type of client they are looking for. Your job may consist of working on aspects of finance like maintaining or increasing cash flow, not to mention debt reduction. However, much of the process is goal oriented.
Going Beyond the Norm in a Unique Career Field
Not many people realize that financial planners ask for some personal details of your life, specifically a household’s family goal. Discerning wants, needs, and priorities of such events are essential. From there, you, as the professional, will put a plan together of budgeting, investment funding, tax and debt, and protection for unforeseen events. It’s not merely one plan or coping strategy but a mix of them, whatever it takes to help the client reach those elusive goals.
Markets change and do an adaptive philosophy is vital to success. You will review your client’s plan every year, making sure nothing is occurring to alter the otherwise effective plan based on economy, trends or tax law updates. The good news is that this scenario makes it advantageous for clients to keep financial planners on every year, working with them on an ongoing basis.
In order to get started in this career field, certification is recommended, by that of the American Certified Financial Planner of Board of standards, as well as the Financial Planning Standards Council in Canada and the international Financial Planning Standards Board.
This is a wonderful career if you enjoy helping people—individuals, as opposed to large companies—who will very much appreciate your efforts to transform their life into a happier existence, a more promising future. Debt is not merely an inconvenience. It is a life-crusher and as demoralizing as a disease. Your help can go a long way towards improving the quality of life for your fellow man.
