"I was getting a little bit fed up with the way advisers were being portrayed," says former adviser Mark Pittaccio, explaining why he undertook a study of the personality traits of financial advisers.
The business consultant and founder of Your Behavioural Economist, says the way the profession was being portrayed did not represent the people he knew and had been working with.
The "archetypal, foot-in-the-door insurance salesman" just did not resonate with him, he said, adding: "The advisers I work with are incredibly professional, incredibly knowledgeable and I didn't think it was a fair representation."
The experience prompted him to start an academic research project investigating the personality traits of successful financial advisers, which, he said, had raised eyebrows at the university.
The research found the predictors of success in financial advisers were emotional stability and an openness to experience, rather than the "really assertive gregariousness that they were being represented as".
This was somewhat unsurprising to Pittaccio, given advisers' role in helping clients through the peaks and troughs of economic cycles and their ability to adapt to regulatory change. But nevertheless, it was not what many outside of the profession perceived advisers to be like.
To hear more about the personality traits behind success, what makes advisers happy and the differences between male and female advisers, click on the link above.
carmen.reichman@ft.com
