I thought that I would just write down my thoughts after taking the leap from paraplanning to advising, as a sort of ‘what to expect’ for any paraplanners who are currently in the position that I was and are thinking about moving across into advising. This will likely not be everyone’s experience, and I would be interested to hear how other people’s journeys went!
After being offered the opportunity to become an adviser, and after paraplanning for a few years, I thought that I was ready for the challenge. Paraplanning for such a large multi-national firm gave me extremely valuable experience that I thought would translate easily into advising. I thought “I could do this!” after writing thousands of reports for numerous advisers all across the country, and quite often actually helping to formulate the advice, however – although I had built up a good level of technical knowledge, it was a massive learning curve actually taking the jump into advice, and to be honest it was quite scary.
I began my journey at Morrell Financial Management in September 2023, and straight away I got a taste of life as an adviser. I was immediately accompanying Andrew to annual reviews with existing clients, as well as new business meetings with potential new clients. This gave me an excellent insight into how MFM does things, as well as how to handle different client circumstances.
Towards the end of September, we all had the chance to attend the Personal Finance Society (PFS) annual conference for the North East at Ramside Hall, which was a great experience listening to various speakers from different people in the industry. I also began writing new business reports for Andrew, which as I was a paraplanner for a number of years prior, felt like putting on a nice comfy old pair of shoes!
Tom Day