Most people don’t go straight from college into the world of financial advising and in most cases the people who do this will have already have had a career within a branch of the finance industry. This was certainly what happened to me ad after many years working in Greenwood Village, CO in the banking industry, I decided to branch out when I hit 45. During my financial advising course, I met Jared, a man who had worked all of his life in Denver, selling farmers insurance.
For Jared Seyl Denver was a place where he wanted to stay, but after 2 decades in the game he had reached his limit in the insurance business. Due to a number of factors I never began to offer financial advice but Jared did, and he quickly became one of the most sought after advisors in the state. I caught up with Jared recently, and picked his brain about what the biggest challenges are in his new career.
Pressure
Jared works mostly with individuals rather than businesses and when he is offering advice to them he tells me that the biggest challenge is the pressure that he faces. The reason why this is harder than with businesses is because in many cases he is offering people advice on what to do with their hard earned money. To have someone’s life savings on the line can be a very scary prospect.
Studying
Something which probably surprised Jared when he began working as a financial advisor was the number of hours of studying which he would have to do. He had spent many years looking through data and documents which related to the insurance business, but now he was covering all bases in the financial industry and that meant that he had to study even harder and for even more hours.
Getting it Wrong
Jared Seyl isn’t the type of person to throw out risky investment strategies or stock tips but there have been a couple of occasions where the advice which he gave wasn’t as accurate as it could have been. In these situations he must face the client and explain what has gone on and he says that this is the most difficult aspect of the job. Of course he uses these experiences, and the unpleasantness of delivering such news, as a motivator in order not to make mistakes again.
Sales
Part of the reason as to why Jared left the insurance game was that he didn’t like the hard-sell which he was forced to do. Unfortunately however there is still a heavy element of sales within the world of financial advice. In this role you are selling your advice to the client and in order to get clients, you must sell yourself. This may not be the same as having hard-to-reach targets and KPIs around sales, but it is still a challenging aspect of the job which Jared hasn’t enjoyed too much.
If you like this article and want to learn more business tips from us, click here.
2018 ·
Leave a Reply