Advisor/broker career advice

dunstonh

Anyone thinking of becoming an adviser now is in for a hiding. The costs are high. Liability with fraudulent and try-it-on complaints is just going to increase. You wont have the benefit of the high commission days to protect you. On the mortgage side, you are going to see the internet increasingly eat into the advice market as it has with car and household and other protections. Even the investment side has seen that, although to a lesser extent so far.

There will always be a need for advisers but the margins will become less and the numbers lower. It will be survival of the fittest and probably ultimatly you will see advisory firms go the same way as accountants and solicitors with national brands buying up the smaller firms to leave you with less skilled people working for them and using limited packages and a tiny number of small specialist type firms who can carve a niche in the market.

The peak was over 20 years ago and its been on constant decline since then. Quality may be getting better but volume is dropping. T

Conrad

dunstonh wrote: »

Anyone thinking of becoming an adviser now is in for a hiding. The costs are high. Liability with fraudulent and try-it-on complaints is just going to increase. You wont have the benefit of the high commission days to protect you. On the mortgage side, you are going to see the internet increasingly eat into the advice market as it has with car and household and other protections. Even the investment side has seen that, although to a lesser extent so far.

There will always be a need for advisers but the margins will become less and the numbers lower. It will be survival of the fittest and probably ultimatly you will see advisory firms go the same way as accountants and solicitors with national brands buying up the smaller firms to leave you with less skilled people working for them and using limited packages and a tiny number of small specialist type firms who can carve a niche in the market.

The peak was over 20 years ago and its been on constant decline since then. Quality may be getting better but volume is dropping. T

I saw a news item the other day where it was said hi end niche offerings in many different sectors had faired well. This is true of mortgage advice provision. I know 1 Man band brokers making £200k pa profit.
When it's difficult to borrow money like this, the expert becomes most prized. Any monkey can read comparison tables and do a basic job and read out criteria books but there's no value added in this approach.

It's like any other business. I know DJ's who scratch a living, and yet others who charge £10,000 a pop.

Griff001

Haha, good to know I'm on the right track to a successful career then :doh:

I still think it's something that I can be good at, given time, and to be perfectly honest, with my experience and skills, I'm not really sure what other route to go down!

Thanks for all your replies though.

dunstonh

I am wary of being negative. It is so easy to be. However, I have seen some very clever, honest and well qualified advisers fall by the wayside because they lack the ability to communicate well or just cannot get the clients in front of them

Griff001

I can appreciate that. Thanks for your honesty though, it's good to have opinions from people that actually work in the industry, so thanks.

ACG

Getting infront of people is the hardest bit in my eyes. Buying in leads is a good starting point but its not financially viable long term.

Everybody says "link up with an accountant, solicitor, estate agents etc" - you try doing that and see how difficult it is. Theyre either not interested or more common they already have someone.

Selling is the easy bit - in the last month ive had 2 policies come off risk with clawbacks in excess of £1500...just before xmas/new year.
Both were policies i would have bet my house on would have stayed on risk.

Its still the best job ive had, in that i really enjoy it. But at the same time its a rollercoaster with highs and lows as someone said earlier. November i wrote quite a lot of commission, however because of the £1500 clawbacks it now means its a not so great month.

If you go it alone, you have no work colleagues, nobody to talk to during the day and its very easy to go in a downward spiral. I did that twice where i just ended up sitting round doing nothing all day - i joined the gym and go there in the morning to get me going.

I understand why people would say they wouldnt want their kids doing it, but like you ive spent 10 years in the financial services other than working behind a bar im not really qualified to do much else and in the current climate with little experience its going to be difficult to go elsewhere.

Dave_Ham

I make ACG correct and actually I agree with one of Conrad's posts (which is actually a first)

Do what you can be the best at and you will do well. If you have a god given knack at fixing hoovers, do not start a business fixing oven's - ok rubbish example but Conrad is correct. Get a good business model and external factors are less of an issue.

ACG also hits the nail on the head, getting in front of people is the single biggest challenges.

People think this job is easy as half of people who read the forum can interpret data, numbers and costs. The skill is all about relationships.

Have relationships with your clients that encourage recommendations (encourage not enforce) Have relationships with introducers who find it a pleasure to introduce and have confidence in your ability and always focus on remembering the absolute key..

We may talk mortgages all day every day, many of our clients do not and having the ability to go over it super slowly so they understand is crucial, as is identifying the ones who get it and talk at their level...

There will be a difficult 1-2 years in my opinion and the influx of branch based and external IFA's. Lets not forget many of the big banks have made all of their IFA's redundant or huge % of them.

I wish you well.

Griff001

Cheers guys. Not to blow my own trumpet, but I do feel that my biggest asset is the way I can deal with people, and the relationships I build. So hopefully this will be a good starting point for me!