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We are seeing rising numbers of Financial Advisers and Planners joining our open Coaching and Mentoring Certificate Programmes. So, what is the attraction?
How good are you at helping your clients?
As a financial adviser I’m sure you came into this profession really wanting to help your clients and do the best for them that you can.
As an expert you’ll aim to ensure you achieve that through:
building up good technical knowledge,
achieving high standards of professional qualifications with continued CPD,
implementing compliant procedures and processes and
delivering a good range of quality products and solutions.
However, these are merely the minimum! We should also recognise that to meet clients’ needs we must first understand them and their situation really well, indeed we will often need to help them figure out what they really want for themselves. In addition, we may need to help change their relationship with money and maybe even change lifestyles and behaviours to achieve their objectives.
This is where coaching skills are powerful. A coach is trained to use effective listening skills to understand their clients, how they think, how they process information, what motivates them and how they make decisions. They build up a strong tool set for asking helpful questions, building trusting relationships and structuring effective conversations. Using a coaching style helps clients increase their self-awareness and take responsibility for changes to their own mindset and lifestyle.
“Although Financial Planners are tasked to maintain their technical skills regularly I am sure that soft skills are actually more important in ensuring clients get the best experiences of planning. Coaching is one aspect of such skills and a formal grounding in how this is done has been invaluable for my day to day work with clients, employees and in day to day life – how often can you say that of a course?” Chris Bowmer | Owner of Fortitude Financial Planning
How good are you at helping your colleagues?
Not only do coaching skills improve the quality of conversations with clients, they also help promote better relationships with your team and improve their performance. With good coaching they will feel more valued and empowered, and as their abilities rapidly improve, there are more opportunities to delegate. This frees up your valuable time to focus more on business development and client engagements.
“An intense course that really helped me focus on the start of my coaching journey and how I can help myself and others achieve our potential.” Charlene Young, NextGen Planners
New possibilities
Coaching goes beyond lifestyle financial planning. It gives financial planners the tools to help clients change their thinking, behaviours and lifestyle. This opens up so many new possibilities for how you engage with your clients and for the services you can offer.
“I was able to put what I learned on the Coaching Certificate course into practice immediately. True financial planning means first coaching to help clients create and discover their objectives, before moving onto planning and finally advising.” Chris Budd, Founder, Ovation Finance
Internationally recognised qualification for credibility
However, coaching is not an easy skill to master. A half-day coaching course isn’t nearly enough to build good coaching knowledge, mindset, skills and confidence. Advisers in most fields initially tend to find coaching hard, as their mindset and approach are often very different from a coach. There are old habits to unlearn and new habits to develop. Financial planners also need to reflect on how to build coaching into their practice alongside the advisory elements, so they complement each other. The knowledge and practise required should not be underestimated.
We therefore recommend our Coaching Certificate course, where the participants receive two days of intense classroom training followed by 2-3 months of individual support by an experienced coach, while they practice their new skills in their work environment.
Our open coaching certificate courses take place in London, Bristol and Edinburgh. The programme is accredited by EMCC, the leading professional body for coaches and mentors in Europe, so participants will, upon successful completion, receive an internationally recognised qualification.
Spaces are still available in Bristol and Edinburgh in November and dates for 2019 have just been released.