First-Year Expectations As A New Financial Professional At Consolidated Planning

Believe it or not, but, your first year as a financial advisor will define the trajectory of your entire career.

That’s why, here at Consolidated Planning, we set clear expectations to help you succeed from day one. From becoming a process-based advisor to putting strategies before products – when you focus on helping others, you can help yourself grow a successful practice. 

In what follows, we’ll help you understand the expectations linked to this career. This will be broken up by expectations before your first day and expectations after your first day. From licensing to determining a working target market, and delivering results, completion of tasks will be vital to your success.

 

Before Your First Day As A Financial Professional

Yes, you read that right – before your first day as a financial professional. Being a financial professional isn’t just your job.

This is your career. You don’t show up on day one and ease into it.

 

#1 Secure a Life, Accident, Health License

If you don’t already have a LAH license, first up is taking the exam(s). In some states, this is one exam and in others, Life is tested separately than Accident and Health. While the test and requirements vary from State to State, these exams are standard in the financial industry so starting here is a must.

Taking these exams does not require any firm association, which is part of the reason you should get these off the table before you start with your chosen firm.

Life, Accident and Health Exam

This is a benefit most everyone elects for. Securing this licensing allows you to sell life and health insurance in your resident state. Areas of knowledge include:

•  Life and health insurance industry
•  Policies
• Tax issues
• Annuities
• Disability income, and more

If you struggle to pass these exams, it may be a good sign that this career path isn’t meant for you.

 

#2 Natural and Target Markets  

To hit the ground running, it’s a good idea to have your initial markets sized up with an eye on your future market. Since these are going to be the people you first reach out to in your career, it’s important to really ponder this aspect to avoid floundering in your first six months. These markets include:

• Your Natural/Initial Market: Your natural market is just that, natural. These are people you already know – they can be your friends and family, for example. While some people feel hesitant in this area, leveraging this market can help you build confidence in sharing your firm’s processes, especially in those first six months as you’re navigating the learning curve of the industry.

If you believe in your chosen firm’s planning processes, you can feel confident in sharing all the ways they can benefit from working with you.

• Your Target Market: Your target market(s) will be your bread and butter, your niche. A target or niche market is a specific group of individuals closely aligned by their occupation, recreation, or interests. Here you will successfully demonstrate both a passion and a viable market to work with as a financial advisor, helping you to build a successful practice.

It’s likely that you already have a market in mind, but ensuring it’s the right market will be the differentiator in your career.

Putting in the leg work before your first day will make everything after day one easier.

 

After Your First Day As A Financial Professional

Once you’ve made it to your first day as a financial professional, it’s time to make good on what was discussed before day one.

 

#1 Working Within Your Markets

• Contacting your natural market: Actually contacting your markets will begin in your first fifteen days at Consolidated Planning. That’s why it’s important to determine your natural market during the recruiting stage and narrow in on your strongest fifteen contacts during your onboarding with us. Through your conversations with your natural market, you will begin learning the best ways to speak about the work you’re doing and how it can benefit them.

 

• Establishing your target market: Before your first day you had a few possible target markets in mind. These markets could be an area of interest, skill set, a network you already are part of or an industry you’re switching from. Over time, establishing the right target market(s) is an essential step in having a successful career at any firm.

Developing a suitable market starts with asking the questions:

Who do you know? 

Do you know 10 people connected to this market?

Through trial and error in some cases, the goal is to end up with 1-2 solid markets. This market will lead to better quality leads and better quality clients for a focused practice.

 

#2 Activity-Driven Results

As a financial professional, your activity level will help determine your results in building your practice from scratch. A high activity level will not be found while sitting behind a desk.  Attending networking events, volunteering, hosting meetings and events, and doing your work in public will help you drive results.

Advisors at Consolidated Planning will hone in on two areas related to activity:

1. 10 Contacts Per Week: Before someone is a prospect, they are a contact. The goal of these 10 contacts is to gather 1,500 contacts over your first three years. These contacts are those who know who you are and know what you do.

Contacts, not clients, can come from the following areas:

• Your natural market
• Your target market
• Becoming great at being introduced to others

 

2. 4 Philosophy Meetings Per Week:. Here you will simply get into the rhythm of setting four philosophy meetings per week. Philosophy meetings provide an opportunity to get to know a contact better and begin gathering high level data.

The idea behind these numbers is the 10-4-2 process at Consolidated Planning. For every 10 names you collect each week, 4 of those should result in meetings, and 2 will move forward with you.

These activity-driven results are two areas you can control as a financial advisor.

 

#3 Master Our Planning Process

The planning philosophy at Consolidated Planning is multifaceted and focuses on putting your clients before all else. Mastering our planning process does not mean mastering the nuances of planning for all clients but rather how the process works.

Here’s how the process should work:

• Client engagement
• Client experience
• Analysis, education, and planning
• Implementation
• Address client concerns
• Strive toward client goals

During your first 12 months, you will be part of our Take Off program to help solve the learning process. This compound learning has a beginning and an end. And at the end of this time, you will know our planning process and how that helps you run a successful client meeting, therefore a successful practice.

 

What Happens If You Fail To Meet These Expectations? 

In a perfect world, everything goes to plan and your first year as a financial advisor will go smoothly. However, this isn’t a perfect world and you have a full life outside of your career. 

While we believe a high level of support can help avoid failure, if your first year does happen to go off course, Consolidated Planning can help in a few ways. 

• Big picture: How can we reset goals to be more achievable? 
• Alignment: Can you align to your custom playbook? 
• Tactical: Where are you having issues? Is it trouble with the right target market? Too much time on your hands? 

Your first year as a financial advisor is arguably more important than your fifth year. Together we will problem-solve and help coach you back to where you want to be. 

 

Is A Career In Financial Advising Right For You? 

The requirements before your first day – and every day thereafter – help you have the least amount of resistance as a financial advisor. 

Once you get started in your financial advising career, you will quickly find yourself struggling to make time for anything that isn’t revenue-generating, like studying for exams. So, let’s get ahead of that. 

You might be wondering if the reward of a career in financial advising is worth the risk and only you can determine that for yourself. What can help you here is ensuring the firm you choose is right for you and your values. 

If you’re excited about the idea of building your financial advising practice, reach out to our team to discuss how Consolidated Planning is different from other firms. 

 

Exp. 10/2027

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Consolidated Planning, Inc. is an Agency of The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America® (Guardian), New York, NY. Securities products and advisory services offered through Park Avenue Securities LLC (PAS), member FINRA, SIPC. OSJ: 6115 Park South Drive, Suite 200, Charlotte NC 28210, Phone # 704-5528507. PAS is a wholly owned subsidiary of Guardian. This firm is not an affiliate or subsidiary of PAS. This material is intended for general use. By providing this content Park Avenue Securities LLC and your financial representative are not undertaking to provide investment advice or make a recommendation for a specific individual or situation, or to otherwise act in a fiduciary capacity.