Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here.
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Dear Bev,
As a millennial, I appreciated your column last week. I am in my mid-30s, and I’m not sure your characterization of those older than 45 who disparage millennials is accurate. The problem lies with boomers almost exclusively. This brings me to my question – I recognize one of the great aspects about this profession is the ability to work late into elder years. But at some point, older advisors need to step aside and make room for the up and comers.
I don’t want to reveal too much about my situation in case my senior advisor reads this column. But suffice to say this is a person who could have retired out 7-10 years ago. I get the idea that self-worth is connected to one’s career. Clients get attached to a particular advisor and vice versa for the advisor. There are various dynamics around a transition. In my advisor’s case, there is a spouse at home, retired, whom my advisor is not particularly fond of from what I can understand.
I also get the “what’s on the other side of full retirement?” problem.
What I don’t get, and what frustrates me is the idea that I – as a younger advisor but now with 12 years of experience – cannot get more engaged and involved with some of our clients. I am still behind-the-scenes on almost everything. It’s defeating to me and I’m wondering if I should just leave. I do have some ownership and my advisor is very complimentary to me. I know I am adding value. But how do I bring up the conversation that something needs to change here soon. I am the main breadwinner in my family and want to know this career is leading somewhere for me.
T.T.
Dear T.T.,
Financial advisors spend their careers guiding and advising clients on how to make the best life and financial decisions they can. Funny, how often they don’t apply the same formula to their own lives. Anything could happen to your senior advisor at any moment. If you aren’t engaged and involved directly with the clients, it will leave both you and the clients vulnerable. That’s the business side; on the personal side, thinking about “what’s next?” and how to craft a lifestyle post-career that works is also an important focus.
You don’t say how much you have tried to broach the conversation with your senior advisor. I get the sensitivity around doing so if you haven’t. It’s their business, although you do have some ownership. It’s also something they have built and care deeply about; I’m going to guess you are acknowledging this and respecting it. However, it may be time to call out the elephant in the room and address what remains unspoken.
Ask your senior advisor to coffee, lunch or dinner and sharing your observations. Point out there is something disingenuous about advising clients and making recommendations about how to protect their finances – personal and professional – but then not doing the same in one’s own firm. Point out this person likely cares deeply about the clients, but “care” takes many forms, and one is making sure the clients have coverage no matter what may happen to the senior advisor!
Share your own frustration. I don’t know the behavioral style of your advisor, so you may need to be extremely direct about all of this. Tread lightly and carefully. Only you can determine the best delivery for what I am recommending. You can share you have been a committed partner, but you want to be more engaged with the clients. Ask for guidance on why you have not been included in most, if not all, of the meetings.
Having a direct, exploratory conversation is key. How your senior advisor responds to you will give you an idea of your options and what you want to do next.
If it helps, you can share stories and examples – I know of several situations with financial advisors who were in great health and had unexpected tragedies, including heart attacks, strokes, car accidents and family crises that made them unable to work. Reminding your advisor they are also human is important to help them take that next step. If not, and it doesn’t work to do this, you will be able to take the next step that is important to you. That might mean leaving the firm altogether.
Dear Bev,
I am among the younger generation you wrote about last week. I am motivated, work long days (often 10-12 hours), am passionate about my career as a financial advisor and have a book of young clients who work well with me.
It’s a crazy question, but our firm is hiring. We don’t discriminate or believe that young people are used to rewards, are unmotivated or focused on other things. How do we get the word out that we’re a great place to work?
We are not located in a hot financial area like NY or San Fran. We are in the Southeast and we’ve had a hard time locating talented people. Once we find them, they want to join us and they stay. But it’s a bit hard to reach my generation except through LinkedIn postings, which we do on a regular basis.
And before you suggest it – yes, we pay a finder’s fee to existing team members (there are only nine of us). We have tried hiring a recruiter (terrible waste of money) and we have posted ads, gone to local colleges and hired an outsourced HR firm. What are we missing?
R.H.
Dear R.H.,
I appreciate your enthusiasm and your willingness to do what it takes. That’s the right thing for some people, but not for everyone. Each person – no matter the generation – should be comfortable with their own value set and align their values with the culture of the firm they are employed by. Sounds like you have done this.
You are covering the bases. One item I often see left out is making sure the job postings and the engagement process with a recruiter focuses on culture and not just skills. One of my clients was having a similar hard time finding young talent that was a fit for them. When I reviewed what they were doing to locate people, it was all about the job and experience needed. There was nothing about what it felt like to work for this firm, what the firm valued and what an employee could expect in being on the team. Once we rewrote this to reflect who they were and updated a section on the website talking about their culture – with pics of the team showing the youth and diversity – they started to get many more inquiries.
That is the first place to start. The only other thing you have not mentioned is old-fashioned networking: going to financially oriented events to meet people from other firms. While they may not be looking today, they might have a colleague who is – or they may be looking in the future. It is often about making a connection somewhere and keeping in touch.
Be sure your firm is staying relevant: maintain a good image in the local market and make yourself “known” for something (via blogs or posts and on social media) so that people who might be interested can learn a bit about you.
Beverly Flaxington co-founded The Collaborative, a consulting firm devoted to business building for the financial services industry, in 1995. The firm also founded and manages the Advisors Sales Academy. She is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate and graduate students Entrepreneurship and Leading Teams. Beverly is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst (CPBA) and Certified Professional Values Analyst (CPVA).
She has spent over 25 years in the investment industry and has been featured in Selling Power Magazine and quoted in hundreds of media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, Investment News and Solutions Magazine for the FPA. She speaks frequently at investment industry conferences and is a speaker for the CFA Institute.
Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here. 
