Top soft skills every financial advisor must have

While hard skills are necessary to keep the business running, soft skills enhance business opportunities. Our profession is mostly about interacting and coordinating with clients and prospects. As a result, financial advisors must master soft skills to guide and gain the trust of clients and prospects, and thus run their business efficiently and profitably.

What are the top three soft skills?

1. 1. Communication: It might sound very simple, but communication drives smooth client conversations, and it helps a lot in influencing and negotiating with the client.
   2. Time management: Undoubtedly, lack of time is one of the biggest challenges any professional faces. One must learn how to precisely plan their schedule and prioritize accordingly to ensure happy and satisfied clientele.
   3. Creative thinking: Coming up with different solutions to a problem adds brownie points to a business. Creative thinking not only helps in enhancing business opportunities but also enhances versatility.

As a wealth architect, I believe soft skills are highly critical while serving my clients or prospects. I strive to give my best when it comes to communicating with leads and offering them the best solution that suits their needs. 

A few years back, I met a prospect who was highly demotivated and hopeless with his investments at that time. He wanted to withdraw the investments, as he realized that those were not generating much profit but couldn’t due to lack of proper guidance. 

I took the responsibility and helped him retrieve most of his invested money in the shortest time possible. As a result, he completely put his faith in me and selected me as his financial advisor. So that’s one of the success stories that every advisor should strive to create in their journey. 

Hence financial advisors must focus on going beyond learning hard skills and excel in soft skills to make the overall business more efficient and successful in terms of happy and satisfied clients.

Surojit Kala, of Kolkata, India, has been an MDRT member since 2010 and is a Court of the Table member. Read more from him.