Hungry and outspoken: Meet five young gun advisers

Interesting

Nice to see that there are at least 5 new youngsters in the profession. I would be pleased to take any of these on and let them demonstrate to me that they can make their own market as a self employed adviser and bring home the bacon. Most youngsters and a lot of oldies fail because they do not have enough customers. Unless they work for a large IFA or bank they have little chance of being able to use that eductation and qualification at such a young age (your market tends to be within your age group). The "experience" is nothing to do with product knowledge but how years of practice, referrals and solidly built relationships compliment your skills learned in class. An adviser is expected to be competent as a given, nobody does a diploma in finding, bulding relationships with and spending 35 years nurturing clients or just potential clients. Just love the guy who has 8 years in the business and so feels "experienced". My suggestion for real experience and a measurment of competency is to take a year from scratch with nobody apart from your own resourced customers to advise - you gotta find them first! Try doing that and keeping your capital resources, paying your living and business expenses and then come back and tell us about that with as much enthusiasm. I, for one might listen and applaud you guys then. Apart from that though, I genuinely wish you all the best for the future

Posted by: Dwinsal

Regulations

They will soon get fed up with the over regulations of the F-Pack. I took the R06 exam the other day and shared an exam desk with a Natwest adviser. She said she had been doing the job 3 years and she was fed up with taking more exams............... Think what the 55 year olds feel, abused?

Posted by: Incompetent Regulators Award Team

Fantastic

I pretty much fit the profile of the typical UK IFA. I'm 50, male, white and spawned from a sales environment. I don't believe that's wrong it's just not the way forward. These young professionals add a breath of fresh air. Different thinking, new ways and above all moving financial planning to a profession rather than a product laden industry. This is where the RDR misses the mark. These guys won't always be right but I look forward to a new dynamic where product providers and the regulator [sic] are not dictating terms. In QUANGO terms, a welcome paradigm shift!

Posted by: Duncan Carter

Changed days indeed

I came out of university in the late 80's wondering what do do with myself, wet behind the ears with a piece of crisp parchmant that proved I could spend every Friday in the pub, go to bed at 3am drink my own body weight in beer and just about remember enough facts to get a degree - I was scooped up by a direct sales force (commission only - though they didn;t tell you that until after you'd been there a week!) I was given a weeks training and had to produce a list of people I knew to go an try and sell some financial products to - mainly MIP's & LCE's (Those under 35 probably won;t know what a LCE is and lucky you). The secondary aim was to obtain referrals from my list of acquaintences - I remember on numerous occasions sitting until 10 o'clock at night while some patient old lady tried to fill in my referral sheet for me with people she knew - Ahh memories - thank god the newbies listed above don;t have to go through that anymore!!"

Posted by: Paul Burnside