Page 48 - Investment Advisor October 2022

THE NEW SCHOOL

By Caleb Brown

A New Way to Train Next-Gen Financial Planners

Hiring students to provide data entry services gives them valuable
experience and eases the burden on experienced advisors.

he financial planning profession The planners will work virtually on
has changed substantially since their own schedule (after the initial
TI joined almost 20 years ago. training) and must commit to at least 10
While these changes have been mostly hours per week. We will provide access
for the better, we are still struggling to the various software programs in a
with the hiring and training of new secure computing environment.
financial planners. I see it every day as
CEO of New Planner Recruiting, each FIRM OWNERS
semester as an adjunct faculty member • Be able to leverage your internal team
at the University of Georgia’s financial by outsourcing data entry and initial
planning program, and as a certified and data migration services to indepen- review work, leaving your team to
financial planner with a local RIA. dent planning firms. higher-value activities without hav-
Many of the smaller independent We have experienced planners profi- ing to hire a full-time employee.
RIAs don’t have the infrastructure, cient in each of the most popular finan- • Give back to the profession by
desire or bandwidth to train their new cial planning software programs. These allowing new planners to experi-
hires. Instead, they have been forced to experienced planners are teaching the ence what the planning role entails.
hire more experienced planners away hired students how to understand the Firm owners who want to outsource
from large financial service institutions information they are receiving, enter the some or all of their financial planning can
after those institutions have trained new data points into the software, identify utilize our services for data entry or data
planners out of CFP programs. This can any information gaps, and provide a list migration to streamline their business.
work, but it hardly moves the needle if of basic red flags/opportunities for the If we can increase the number of new
we are going to continue to grow the advisor to consider as they create the planners who have deep data input and
independent advice channel to keep up plan for their client. software skills as well as a foundational
with demand. Our intention is to simultaneously planning understanding, our hope is that
I have seen so many bright new plan- help new financial planners entering the independent firms will hire more freely,
ners flock to these large firms because profession, financial planning firm own- allowing them to serve more clients.
they will hire without prior experience ers, and the public as a whole through We estimate that each new planner
and may provide new planners with increased access to knowledgeable finan- trained will help at least 50 more house-
their best shot at being trained — only to cial advice. Here is how we think we can holds seeking financial planning ser-
find out after a few years that they are create a win-win for everyone involved. vices. This is an exponential benefit and
not being taught true financial planning, something that will continue moving
at least from an independent standpoint. NEW PLANNERS the profession forward. We realize there
Frustrated that these planners quick- • Earn an hourly rate as contractors. are outsourced data entry businesses
ly become disenchanted with our pro- • Receive hours toward the CFP already in operation. We feel, however,
fession, and seeing a good number settle experience requirement. that this builds a great long-term solu-
for less-than-ideal situations or leave the • Possibly receive internship/experi- tion to bridge the gap between inexpe-
profession altogether, some colleagues ential learning course credits from rienced planners and firms looking to
and I think there has to be a better way. their college. hire. Check out our website (www.plan-
Sue Chesney, Carrie Jones and I have • Learn multiple financial planning ningzoo.com).
started a new venture called Planning programs.
Zoo, where we are hiring students pur- • And most important, learn and Caleb Brown is co-founder and CEO of New
suing their CFP education to provide understand how financial planning Planner Recruiting. His podcast is at new- Adobe Stock
outsourced financial planning data entry is done! plannerrecruiting.com/category/podcast.

46 INVESTMENT ADVISOR OCTOBER 2022 | ThinkAdvisor.com