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Getting Started as a Financial Planner

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Getting Started as a Financial Planner

Bloomberg Press,

15 min read
10 take-aways
Text available

What's inside?

Planning your career as a financial planner.

Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Applicable

Recommendation

How can you plan other people’s financial futures without a firm grip on your own professional plan? If you are trained and ready with the know-how and skills to be a financial planner, but could use some help getting your professional practice together, here’s the book you need. Author Jeffrey H. Rattiner guides you through the basics of setting up your business. While he doesn’t teach you how to be a financial planner – that would be an entirely different book – he does cover everything else you need to open your office, including an explanation of the education and certification process in the U.S. He shows you how to create a business and marketing plan, how to deal with clients and understand their needs, how to comply with regulations and how to protect yourself legally. His book is filled with useful lists and charts; getAbstract was particularly impressed with his excellent resource section. Fledgling financial planners, line up here.

Summary

The Basics

More than ever, opportunities abound for financial planners and other financial professionals who are considering taking their careers into this lucrative field. Today’s financial planners are poised to profit from the tremendous surge in the number of baby boomers who are preparing to retire in the coming decades. But be warned, the clients you want to help are savvier than ever before, and thus more demanding.

As a financial planner, you need strategies for building a successful practice, including preparing your business and marketing plan, choosing the right legal structure and compensation model, developing an effective infrastructure and creating a client management system. You need to develop a solid understanding of client needs and how to best meet them. Today’s financial planner must be able to motivate people to take the right actions for the right reasons right now. Consumers of financial planning services have broad concerns, including:

  • Retirement funding and the fear of outliving assets.
  • Income tax exposure and estate planning.
  • Investment and asset growth during the earning years.
  • Cash management and control...

About the Author

Jeffrey H. Rattiner  , CPS, CFP, is president of JR Financial Group, Inc., a financial advisory firm serving consumers and corporate clients. Formerly the director of Professional Development and Corporate Sponsorship for the Institute of Financial Planners, he has also served as Director of Technical Standards of the CFP Board of Standards, and as Technical Manager of the Personal Financial Planning Division of the AICPA. He has written books, articles and online education programs, and teaches college courses in financial planning. He lives in the Denver, Colorado area.

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