Much like a great many others who work in this field, Scott Tominaga came to the role of financial advisor after forming a successful career as a hedge fund manager. In fact, it is pretty rare to find someone coming out of college to be a financial advisor and this is because of the depth of knowledge which you need in order to be successful in this game. After spending many years in hedge fund management Scott decided that he wanted a change but wanted to remain in the financial industry where he had made his career. We caught up with Scott to find out what someone needs in order to work as a financial advisor.
Experience
As aforementioned you are going to struggle to find real success in this industry if you do not already have a background in finance and the reason for this is because a financial advisor needs to have knowledge about many aspects of the financial world, something which is normally only achieved after years of working inside it.
Confidence
In order to be able to offer financial advice to anyone you must have a great deal of confidence in your own abilities. This is not like advising a business who will then stew over your advice before deciding whether to accept or ignore it because in this industry you are essentially telling someone what to do with their money. Most individuals will listen to and trust in their financial advisor which is why it is so important that you have the strength in your convictions when it comes to telling people what to do with their cash.
Sales
Financial advisors, whether they work for a company or independently, only make their money when they have clients and in order to attract clients you must have a skill and a passion for sales. Your advice is your product and that is what you need to market to people. Once you have given sound advice to people they will trust you and they may very well recommend you to someone else, prior to that however you must sell yourself.
Studious
Financial advice is a lot harder than many people give t credit for and most of the time is made up studying market trends and movements. The best mortgage today could be the worst tomorrow, at the stock market and real estate market moves with great speed and even savings accounts can ebb and flow. All of this means that a financial advisor should spend a great deal of their time understanding and watching out for these changes, in order to give the very best advice that they are able to. Scott loves his job but he does concede that it is far harder than he first believed, and that most of his time is spent studying data and financial reports.
Do you think that you have what it takes to work in this industry.