Consistency is key for bringing new advisors up to speed

The greatest piece of advice I could provide is to create and document or plug into an existing proven, streamlined and documented financial planning process that is repeatable for each client you work with. The bottom line is if you don’t have a documented process behind what you do, how you do it and why you do it, it becomes very difficult to train someone else.

Most successful advisors have a process they take their clients through, but more often than not it is not documented, it isn’t in writing and there is no consistency. Sometimes they do it one way, and other times they do it a little bit different. This sends a lot of mixed messages to a new trainee who doesn’t have the industry knowledge or personal skills to do exactly what you do. 

When bringing a new advisor into the business, you need to provide concise training on the process, and provide that training in different ways because each person learns a little differently. For example, I am part of a Mastermind Group of advisors that collaborate together on financial planning. All 120+ offices with more than 200 financial advisors follow the same financial planning process which allows us to collaborate and innovate this process together. The Mastermind Group has built out the training on the process into multiple formats: live training, eLearning training, role playing, written training manuals, videos, flow charts, study groups, etc.