What picture springs to mind when you consider a career as a financial advisor? Complicated spreadsheets, a towering stack of folders and long hours at a desk? Or, is it sitting and talking with people about their hopes, challenges and dreams? If your vision is closer to the second scenario, you’re on the right track.
Sure, financial advisors spend time crunching numbers, but it’s more about getting to know clients — individuals, families, business owners — and providing guidance and education that helps them achieve their financial goals. And the best way to know more about the expectations and day-to-day duties of the profession is to hear it from the financial advisors themselves.
Distinguished training
Financial advisors come from all backgrounds, from recent college grads to advisors seeking more rewarding work. While no financial or accounting degree may be required, providing effective financial guidance requires analytical skills and tools, and we’re renowned in the industry for the quality of its advisor training. In fact, we've been recognized as a Training Apex Award Winner for multiple consecutive years.1
Building your own business
Financial advisors often balance their time between serving existing clients and gaining new ones. Some focus their practice on working with specific demographic markets, business owners, or professionals in certain industries. Serving the communities that matter most to you is one of the options you have when you build your practice with us.
A day in the life of a financial advisor
Financial advisors structure their own schedules. They can go on vacations when they want, work from anywhere, and service their clients during the times that work best for them.
Client meetings often occur throughout the day, but many financial advisors may reserve mornings for working on their clients’ long-term plans using Guardian’s proprietary tool, The Living Balance Sheet®.
It’s a powerful online platform that helps financial advisors show clients their complete financial picture and the value of potentially establishing lifetime goals.
From financial stress to financial confidence
If you consider that a record number of Americans feel their financial situation is getting worse2, a financial advisor helps serve a real need for clients. People have financial goals — buying a home, funding college, starting a business and even attempting to do all of these things at the same time — but don’t necessarily know how to achieve them. While being a financial advisor is challenging, it can be rewarding work. The job is about helping clients cross the bridge from a state of financial stress to a state of financial confidence, and many advisors consider it more of a calling than a career.
So what about you? If you’re motivated by challenging work and a desire to help others, a career as a financial advisor could be a great fit. To find out more, contact a local Guardian firm near you.