Meet the paraplanners: Bluefin's Gemma Davies

Gemma Davies, a paraplanner/trainee financial planner at Bluefin's Cardiff office, works in a team of six providing support to financial planners Julie Lord and Marlene Shalton.

How did you become a paraplanner?
 
I graduated from University in 2005 after taking a law degree. However, I decided I didn’t want to go into law and quite early on I began to get involved with financial services. I started doing some temporary work at Julie Lord’s firm Cavendish for six weeks. When that time was up, I then became a full time staff member. The firm then became part of what is now Bluefin in November 2007.
 
What were the first few weeks like?
 
I had no preconceived ideas about what it would be like but I really enjoyed it. I started work as a trainee paraplanner and have now moved to be a paraplanner/trainee financial planner.
 
The firm I work for is a generalist so we cover investments, pensions and IHT as well as issues like cash-flow modeling for clients.
 
I started doing basic administrative tasks, for example on investments and bonds and keeping an eye of cash-flow management. I used to produce valuations and updates on cash flows for clients. I probably did this for the first six months as I had little previous experience in the financial sector.

Then my work started to develop as I grew in confidence and I began to build on my earlier jobs. For example, I started doing recommendation letters for things like ISAs and investment bonds. The process to get to this point was quite gradual but it allowed me to grow in confidence.
 
What about qualifications?
 
I firstly completed the Certificate in Financial Planning and then the Diploma in Financial Planning. I am in the middle of working for my Certified Financial Planner accreditation.
 
I am also taking the J05 unit on pension income options as an extra in October. I intend to sit the J04 unit on pension funding and the AF3 advanced diploma pension exam in April 2010.
 
It is helpful to Julie and the other financial planners for us to have this technical knowledge and then this allows them to get on with the client facing work they do so well.
 
I am now working to become a full financial planner and have started sitting in on a number of client meetings. It is helpful that I have done work directly with the clients before so I have a good relationship with many of them now.
 
On the exam front, doing the CFP is testing in itself. What I needed was revision in areas like long term care planning. Now I am looked to back that up with more pensions training as I already have the main investment exams.
 
What is a typical day like?

My working day does vary but I tend to spend the first half an hour dealing with e-mails and post from existing and new clients. Then I will have a meeting with Julie for half an hour and the spend much of the rest of the day writing reports.
 
I do go out too to seminars and conferences especially now the business has joined Bluefin and there is more support in this area. For example, we are going to the IFP conference in October where they have having a separate track for paraplanners. I suppose I attend perhaps one or two conferences a month.
 
Gemma’s Paraplanner Top Tips

1. Be well organised.
2. Get as much client contact as possible- this will help not only with drafting suitability letters but also in meeting the servicing needs of the clients.
3. Keep in regular contact with the adviser – good communication between you and the advisor will result in a better service for the client.
4. Don’t be afraid to ask for help – there is no such thing as knowing all of the answers. If you are part of a paraplanning team discuss the cases that you are working with your colleagues, as they may be able to come up with some innovative ideas or foresee problems that you did not.
5. Be flexible- each working day is different and problems can arise without warning. The key is how you handle the problems and what is learnt from them so that you are more prepared next time.

Paraplanners: The adviser view

Julie Lord explains why she believes paraplanners are key to a successful advisory business.
 
“Paraplanners play a very important part in our business and could be said to be the life blood of the organization. They free time up for the financial planners and this means we can get on with our job without having to try and do everything. I have always used them and had them as a part of the business.
I think it is good if a paraplanner has a general knowledge of everything. Then they may decide to take on a specialism. For example, one may have more technical knowledge of pensions.
In terms of their development and working up to a financial planning role, they have the benefit of working in a team.
I require people for this role who can think on their feet and also have a commercial sense too. Some people are mega-techies and get caught up in the nitty-gritty but sometimes you don’t need that level of detail for clients.
Preferably on the qualifications front I would say the FPC is an absolute minimum but in an ideal world they should be at CFP level.
I would say becoming a financial planner is not for everyone and the paraplanner role is an important function in its own right."
 
This article was first published as part of Professional Adviser's new Paraplanner Zone.