Starting from the bottom of the financial services industry can “make you a better adviser”, according to Ashley Savage, an independent financial adviser at Adsumus.
Savage explained: “It’s very hard to come in at a high level, because you need to understand how the foundations are built to understand what is created at the top.”
He outlined what this looks like in practice saying: “When I’m talking to clients sometimes there’s a bit of a disassociation.
“When the adviser has done their job and walked out of the meeting there is still a lot of admin work that needs to be done, such as typing up notes.
“As I’ve done paraplanning and administration work in the past, I can get an idea of the real timescales of how long things are going to take on the admin side.
“All the necessary minutiae that needs to go into a report is sometimes easily forgotten when you’re in the conversion until you get asked.
“I think having the experience of knowing what will go into the role, knowing what forms need to be signed, knowing how long it takes just makes the service better and give clients better expectations.”
He also explained how this has informed his own experience in the industry, as although Savage enjoys talking to people, he would not have gotten to this stage if it weren't for the paraplanning work he did before.
Savage attributed his experience in this to getting him to where he is today.
He underlined the importance of this work and the experience it offers: “I would suggest to anyone looking to get into the industry to sit as many exams as they can and broaden their knowledge as much as possible.
“The experience then comes after that and that’s when you understand how it works in the real world.
“You learn things which you wouldn’t find in a textbook but it’s best to have all that textbook knowledge as soon as you can and work on that experience after.”
Industry improvements
Discussing areas in which the advice industry could improve, Savage said visibility of the profession could be better stating it needs to show what “rewarding” careers it can offer.
“I didn’t really know what financial advisers do, even through university I didn’t have that awareness,” he explained.
“So to bring new people in I think the industry needs to tell them about it.”
Savage suggested that this could be done while also improving people's financial literacy, a sentiment that has been echoed by other members of the industry.
“The amount of people I speak to who question why financial literacy isn’t taught in school. Why don’t they teach you about mortgage rates? Why don’t they teach you about compounding and those sort of things?”
