TrustsApr 5 2018

Is there enough training on soft skills?

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Is there enough training on soft skills?

This could be training for those just starting out as advisers who want to know how to develop and start using these interpersonal skills, or it could be courses which help those who have been financial advisers for years but who are keen to brush up on their skills.

Marie Calvin, 1825 national academy manager, explains 1825 has “several layers of support” available to its financial planners:

  • A regional supervision team who provide our team with coaching and feedback.
  • People development support via the 1825 Academy, which offers structured support exclusively for the 1825 financial planning firms on a range of subjects.
  • We also offer additional skills and knowledge courses and provide access to online resources through our preferred learning partners and these are in addition to those who access regular CPD via external examination bodies.

There are also some organisations and individuals who are well-known in the industry for providing training courses.

The Kinder approach

The Kinder Institute is one of these, offering workshops, intensive training and consulting services to financial advisers with a focus on what founder George Kinder calls “the human side of financial planning”.

Mr Kinder says: “Our signature training is a five-day training of a five-phase process. Its acronym is Evoke – each letter standing for a stage of the process.  

“For a sizable client, each letter stands for a meeting with a particular purpose, delivery and consequence. The phases are E for exploration, V for vision, O for obstacles, K for knowledge and E for execution.

“During the training, each adviser partners with another throughout. They life plan each other. So each adviser leaves with the exhilaration of their own life plan, as well as the skills and implementable process of a business. There are typically three to four trainers and 12 participants.”

He lists a series of benefits he believes his approach, Life Planning, delivers for advisers who take the course, including:

  • Far more referrals.
  • Clients for life.
  • Closing clients in the first meeting.
  • Much greater happiness, vitality and excitement for both the client and adviser.
  • Much more trust and ease during times of market collapse.

Not all advisers will have the available time or money to spend on a five-day course, however. Samuel Leach, director of Samuel and Co Trading, argues team events are "considerably more valuable than rigid training courses" when it comes to soft skills.

He explains: "They enable team members to share their strengths and apply them to their colleagues, creating a level of job and workplace specific personalisation that an external party would be incapable of achieving. This comes with the additional benefit of building bonds between employees."

Industry recognition

In which case, there are plenty of wider industry events which run individual sessions covering soft skills, which may be easier to incorporate into a working week.

Claire Walsh, chartered financial planner at Aspect 8 Financial Planning, observes there is much more training related to soft skills at conferences now than there used to be and that these are sessions she tends to gravitate towards.

“At New Model Business Academy we’ve always seen the importance of soft skills for advisers,” claims Tom Hegarty, managing director at the Academy.

“What we’ve done is incorporated soft skills and developing interpersonal skills into our events and communications programme for our members. 

“So, for example, at the Business Evolution Forums, which is a round of events that we do throughout the year, we always include at least one soft skills session which is run by a training organisation which enables advisers to brush up on their interpersonal skills. And we link that in with the technical knowledge that’s needed, and the regulatory bits and the business skills.”

But he admits that the sector more generally does tend to avoid these interpersonal skills and probably focuses “too much” on the technical side. In fact, a lack of training devoted to enhancing adviser soft skills might be down to industry attitudes.

Mixed response

Mr Hegarty acknowledges when the New Model Business Academy runs sessions on these types of skills, he does get some negative feedback.

“On the whole, I’d say 80 per cent of the advisers that attend those meetings see them as being very positive, they’re very open minded and very flexible about the opportunities to improve themselves in terms of interpersonal skills. 

“But I’d say there are still a number of advisers that attend those meetings and they don’t really understand the benefits of focusing and improving on those soft skills. They think they either can’t improve those skills or they don’t need to improve those skills.”

He points out: “Actually, it’s those who accept they are not the finished article – they’re not perfect, that there is still room for improvement – that are the ones who get the most out of those sorts of sessions.”

In recognition of the growing importance of and emphasis on advisers’ interpersonal skills, the Financial Adviser School launched a standalone soft skills only course for qualified advisers in October 2017.

I think these interpersonal skills have been a bit forgotten. Advisers who need the skills, don’t get the access.Tom Hegarty

In the press release, it confirmed the course was for those advisers who “wish to supplement their existing skillset with training in non-technical competencies including customer service, behavioural finance, and building trust with clients”.

Mr Hegarty believes there is a gap though when it comes to training, particularly for those who are just starting out as financial advisers.

He harks back to the days when there were more large financial advice businesses which could afford to send their advisers on training away days.

“There are a few larger advice firms and organisations that remain, but most of those have disappeared and now we see a lot of smaller businesses that have a small number of people within them,” he admits. 

“What they could do is hire a trainer and get someone to come in and run a session for the day. But I think that could be very expensive for a small firm and I don’t know if they see the importance of it.

“If you think of non-financial advice businesses, so banks or insurance companies, they often have offsite days where they’re given management and leadership training, for example, which include things like personality profiling and making people more effective at working together.”

He adds: “I think these interpersonal skills have been a bit forgotten. Advisers who need the skills don’t get the access.”

The training gap

Ms Walsh thinks there is also a shortage of training and education around selling, which is more acutely felt by those advisers who start out in smaller firms.

She recalls a conversation early in her career which made her consider how to improve her conversion rate.

“I looked for sales courses and I couldn’t really find any,” she remembers. “They didn’t look that relevant to me. I didn’t end up booking one because it seemed like a massive investment of money. So there could definitely be more, I think. 

“A lot of my older colleagues, their background was they worked for big insurance companies that gave them sales training. Anyone interested in entering the industry now obviously doesn’t have that.”

I think qualifications and technical aptitude should be a given, but I think the softer skills are what mark you out.Claire Walsh

It seems this is the feeling across much of the adviser industry.

Steve Martin, director of The Financial Planning Training Academy, points out young advisers now feel as though there are not many opportunities to move into advising positions.

He feels that those advisers who have not grown up with a life assurance/sales background, “the way that advisers used to come into the industry”, are left floundering.

“Those companies taught people how to sell, but actually while they were teaching people how to sell, they were also teaching them soft skills,” he explains. 

“The balance between soft skills and sales skills, for me, was probably a bit wrong. But certainly, for the first half of my career, the vast majority of the soft skills and sales skills training I received was in the first year and a half of my career working in a direct sales force.

“If you’re a new entrant coming into the profession now, you just don’t get that.”

Mr Martin argues advisers would not dream of doing the academic or planning parts of their roles without achieving the right qualifications.

“So why would you think the third part of that, which is the most important bit of all, the bit that allows you to understand what the client actually wants you to achieve for them, that you would just be able to do that automatically?” he asks.

The sooner the industry recognises there is a shortfall in soft skills training, it might help to close the adviser gap.

As Ms Walsh says: “I think qualifications and technical aptitude should be a given, but I think the softer skills are what mark you out.”

eleanor.duncan@ft.com