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It may not seem obvious in the current economic turbulence, but a career in financial advice has never looked more attractive. It is not just that we have millions of people in this country who need advice and who are currently under-served, it is also that the financial services industry is refocusing on distribution as a vital factor in companies' success or failure.

The industry has shrunk from a high of more than 250,000 financial advisers, to more like 50,000 now. There is widespread talk of the need for more advisers - and particularly new, young blood - if the sector is to meet market needs. If we take into account IFAs, alongside the banks and life companies and their stated ambitions to service their tens of millions of clients more fully, then even a return to a quarter of a million advisers, tied and independent, may not be enough. 

The best news for people thinking of a career in this industry is that the means of recruitment, training and management are going to have to improve beyond recognition, to accommodate the demands of an entirely new generation of adviser, both in terms of number of recruits and quality of business. While acknowledging that the financial services industry has been hugely successful through the 1970s, 80s and 90s, it is also true that the levels of waste and squandered opportunities have been staggering.

In today's tougher business climate and more consumer-focused regulatory outlook, the wastage can no longer continue. Importantly, this waste extends to clients as well as financial advisers, with the norm still prevailing of less than two sales per client. So much for a persistent, hungry, aggressive sales culture.

One of the most important implications of this change is a new deal for financial advisers. In the good but dark old days, tied sales forces were expanded by throwing new recruits into a tough cold-calling environment and seeing whether they sank or swam; sophistication in recruitment meant poaching entire teams from other companies. Distribution businesses considered themselves lucky if ten per cent made it. Meanwhile the IFA sector was being fed by tied sales people who wanted to run their own businesses and to offer independent advice - often keeping a foot in both camps by running separate businesses.

Clearly, we are not going to recruit our next 100,000 advisers into the industry by these methods. There are not 100,000 advisers to poach and the lost opportunities in terms of failed recruits, not to mention the sub-standard advice given by struggling advisers, will no longer be tolerated, by either the businesses or the regulators - and nor should they.

The alternative is a much more structured approach to selection and training, as well as a more efficient system of sales management. And before anyone asks where the money is coming from, I would suggest that the successful use of this better business model will be a lot less costly than the hit or miss approaches of the past. How many millions have been spent in the acquisition of sales forces, only for the acquiring companies to see the talent and the client banks walk out of the doors over the first 12 months? We hesitate to add it up: the total would be at once a revelation and a disgrace.

The alternative will be a more scientific search for people not already in financial sales. Some of these people will come from other roles in the industry. Estate agents, mortgage brokers and financial company admin staff are already recognised sources of new blood. We should also be broadening that search to include professionals from other industries. I am also confident that, with a better, more structured approach, we will become more successful at recruiting younger people, at an earlier stage in the career ladder. These have traditionally been hard to attract under the old structures, because these very structures made the career look so unattractive. However a more professional approach will attract more professional and better-qualified recruits to what should become an aspirational career.

It used to be common practice that new sales people would be told to start calling friends and family then, their hands firmly taped to a phone handset they would begin cold-calling their way through the phone book. It is a massive irony that while they were embarking on this soul-destroying voyage of discovery, sales teams, life companies, banks and others were squandering millions of much more promising leads. The eighty twenty rule has never been more applicable than it was in financial sales. Both successful and struggling practices would tend to find that their best business came from a small percentage of their clients. Would that this has changed, but sadly not; and the average consumer gets their financial services products from a spread of at least eight providers - each of whom 'claim' him or her as 'their' client.

Understandably, the advisers concentrate on these clients, but this process means that there is also another, significant, percentage of clients who still need advice and given the right circumstances would also be prepared to invest savings and buy protection. This group of clients, numbering literally millions across the country, have traditionally been under-serviced or at worst left to wither on the vine. It is clear that they would be much better served by being re-allocated to the new practitioners coming into the industry and trying to build client banks. In today's market, we have both the will and the technology to serve these people better and by doing so we will create a win-win-win for the clients, the advisers and the product providers.

The role of the senior practitioner will be vital in seeing through this change. Whether they be sales managers or owner/managers of smaller practices, they will take on a mentoring role as new advisers grow into the business. This is already happening to an extent, with the development of para-planners into fully-fledged financial advisers. It is an area where many IFA practices have shown skill and flair, partly because the model works well for them. In the larger tied sales forces, such as banks and life companies, management will also have to evolve in this way.

It is early days for all of this to happen. But there are already clear signs that this is the way our industry is heading. Behind closed doors, there are few senior managers who would dispute it. It creates the attractive prospect of a bigger, more professional and more efficient industry. Advisers, businesses and clients will all benefit, while regulators and politicians will surely approve.

So as I said earlier: it may not seem obvious, but a career in financial advice has never looked more attractive. We thought our challenge was to find room amongst the doom-and-gloom headlines to convince the great British public of that. As it turns out, we have to convince the industry first.

Bob Gill has spent 30 years in the financial services industry working with distribution businesses, he is currently working with a team to launch The Financial Advice Academy in the UK