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A Guide To Financial Advice Administration, Financial Planner Life Academy Focus (from YouTube) · Financial Planner Life Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Today I am joined by the one and only Adam Owen, and we will go through exactly what you need to know if you're considering becoming an administrator in financial planning or mortgage advice, and we'll put some very useful information in there for you as well.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Hi Adam, thanks for joining us today here on Financial Planner Life.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to have you on to share everything you know about administration.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: How are you today?
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Really great and looking forward to chatting Charlie through all things administration, career pathway, and the Financial Planner Life Academy.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly, Adam.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: The Financial Planner Life Academy is a fantastic resource out there.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a second careerist or a graduate and you're curious about a career in financial planning or mortgages, it really is the place to go.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say you're a second careerist or a graduate and you're curious about this, where do you even start?
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's a great question.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I suppose we start by thinking about what the role of a financial planning administrator is.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: And administrators in financial planning businesses sit at the heart of the business.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: You'll find that administrators are the people who talk most often with clients, but they're also the people who talk most often with providers, the organizations who are actually managing clients' pension funds and their investment funds.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: They will do those core tasks that keep everything in the process of supporting clients working and operating.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: They'll be recording a great deal of data.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: They'll be needing to make sure that everything is in the right place so that it can be accessed properly on the back office system.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so many other things in between.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: So they'll be dealing with written correspondence, they'll be dealing with email, they'll be dealing with um telephone calls, they'll be spending an awful lot of time on hold whilst multitasking doing something else as well, because that is just the nature of the profession generally.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a variety of different skills needed, and no one day is the same.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very important job.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: It really is the glue that holds it all together.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And when looking at a career in financial planning, an administrator is a great place to start.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And looking at qualifications as we always do in this profession, what qualifications are needed?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And how do you go about choosing which ones are best for you?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's no core minimum requirement of qualification for an administrator, but there are qualifications that you can use to make yourself more employable and to demonstrate that you have the core skills that are needed for this role, but also to think about building skills that can be part of a development role as well for those people who want to see administration as the start point of a career to many different pathway options.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: And oftentimes people look to the Chartered Insurance Institute as the primary professional body and provider of qualifications, and particularly in this administration space.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the core qualifications that you could look at is the Life Office Administration Qualification, FA1.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a qualification that looks at all of those aspects of how to be an administrator in a life assurance office.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: Now, that can demonstrate that you can you have the knowledge around underwriting and products and all of those things and how to support life office administration.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: But it doesn't necessarily, as a syllabus, lean itself or lend itself to working in a financial planning office, which is a slightly different thing.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where many people will be looking to start their administration roles.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so if that's the case, then the Chartered Insurance Institute have their certificate in financial services.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's a broader qualification and one that can be a platform to going to a whole load of other qualifications in the future because there's great opportunity to be always learning in financial services and financial planning careers.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: So if we think about that qualification from the Chartered Insurance Institute, then that's a couple of exams.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one of them being the regulation and ethics exam, which is either R01 or CF1, and I'll come back to the differences of those two in a moment.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then financial services products and solutions, a paper called LP2.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: All are multiple choice exams.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, all of them take a recommended 50 to 60 hours of study, but again, it's how you spend those hours, and we'll maybe talk about that in a minute, uh, to make it as efficiently as possible when you study.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: But each of those qualifications can sit on their own as standalone whilst you're looking for employment in the sector, or they can come together to actually produce a certificate that you can use post-nominals after your name, and it gives you that core qualification.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now I mentioned CF1 and R01 as two options to that route.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's an either-or option.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: Both of them are regulation and ethics papers.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh CF1 is a multiple choice paper and it's positioned at a GCSE level paper.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's a level three.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: R01 is a multiple choice paper, but it's positioned at level four.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: The big differentiator and why you might choose one over the other is what they can then lead to.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: The content is almost exactly the same.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: The amount of study time that you spend is almost exactly the same.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's simply how the exam works, how they're examined, and the standard of the questions and the difficulty of the questions that you get at the end.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I often think if you're going to spend all of that time studying the syllabus, you might as well take the exam that gives you the most flexible options.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: And R01 is the core qualification for the certificate in paraplanning or the regulated diploma in financial planning.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it's the first step on either of those.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: So from an employability point of view, doing that uh financial services certificate from the CII, then that will give you the option if you do it through the R01 and LP2 route, gives you the option to then progress into other areas once you've begun to establish your career, taking a look around and see what you like the look of.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: The LP2 paper is services, products, and solutions.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so from that point of view, it looks very much at giving you a really broad overview of all of the different things that you're going to come into contact with in your administrator role.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: So, again, that is a great exam to give you core technical knowledge to just make sense of all of these things that you'll be hearing about in the day-to-day job.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: This video is designed specifically for our Financial Planner Life Academy.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is a new fully independent and online academy aimed at helping anyone reach their full potential in a career within financial planning and mortgage advice.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to see more content like this, make sure you hit that subscribe button and better yet, join our brand new Academy, and you'll have access to soft skills training, live QA's, live roundtables with experienced professionals, mentorships, exam support, and so much more.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: The link is in the description below.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic summary then, Adam.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, like you said in the beginning, it's not essential to have qualifications joining as an administrator.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: But myself, I'm a financial planning recruitment consultant, and when I see a CV where they've taken the proactive thinking of attaining their R01 over somebody who says, Oh, I'd love to join the profession, it's clear who's putting the energy in the right direction.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: And in terms of studying, it can seem quite daunting.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And in with the Financial Planner Life Academy, there's a lot of support around you to help you with this.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: What benefits would you put with the Financial Planner Life Academy to help bolster your studying?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Charlie, you used a great word there, which was support.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: So the first thing we think about in the Academy is that it is a collective, a community of people, all of whom are studying similar exams, and there'll be many that will be studying the same exams as each candidate is doing so.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: So you'll have that peer support, and there are people with you who are going through the same that you are going through.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: But then we have a series of support materials.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: So we start not with the materials, but we actually start with looking at the individual, and we'll do a learning preferences assessment and we'll look at your preferred learning style.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: So are you a pragmatist or a theorist?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: Are you an activist or maybe a reflector?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: And you may be a blend of those things.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: And when we consider your preferred learning style, we can then begin to select from the vast array of different support solutions that we have in the academy.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we provide group tutorial sessions, we provide um virtual classroom sessions, and we also provide on-demand video available through an app so that you can have that on the go as well.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: The core of it is where we focus on the techniques for the exams as well, because it isn't simply about having a textbook and taking hold of some other material, blending them together and studying them.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's about using your time efficiently.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: And the for any of these financial services exams, on average, they're recommended 50 or 60 hour study time from each professional body.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, how are you going to make use of that time?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: And how can you find shortcuts?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Which parts of the syllabus maybe don't you need to spend so much time on because there aren't many questions or because they're not examined very often?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Which parts of the syllabus come up all the time and you can get the big wins from?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: So we look at that and we look at the elements of where you're gonna get those big wins to study less and pass more.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not about studying less, being lazy and watching Netflix, but it is about using your time most effectively.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: So we look at all of those study techniques that people might have deployed in the past that aren't serving them and think about new ways in which they can study that are gonna make more use of that time.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you're starting out on a pathway of starting to study these exams, then in this career, it's something that can continue throughout your career.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: You can go on to charter degree level qualifications from the start point of any of these papers that we've just talked about now.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: So it's the start of a journey, and so we look to embed really great habits really, really early on in that process and to build that momentum so that you're feeling encouraged, so that you have a high chance of passing first time and then progress on to the next one and then the next, all the time improving your core knowledge, feeling more confident in the role, but also improving your employability.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think one thing you said there that really resonated was being efficient with your time and the likely chances this will be going alongside full-time work and finding the balance between studying and working and general life responsibilities, having the inclusive approach of looking at how you learn, looking at what resonates with you is a really great way to embark upon this journey.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, for people listening and watching, they might think, great, this is where I want to go, this is the direction I'm looking to take.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: But what happens if they lose motivation?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: What are the barriers that people face when studying these exams?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's a really great question, Charlie.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the key things that we focus on is alleviating the one emotion that really holds you back when you're taking time out to study for these important qualifications, and that is guilt.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: You either feel guilty that you are taking all this time to study, so you're not spending time with friends and family and loved ones or doing the hobbies or seeing your mates or all of those things that you might be doing otherwise, or you feel guilty that you are doing those things and not putting the study hours in.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that can eventually become a spiral where you just constantly feel bad and it builds anxiety and it's just not very nice.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so what we do is we we focus on what you are achieving and we focus on time spent, not whether it conforms to a particular timetable.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: Most of the exams and most of the syllabuses that you'll experience throughout your career can be taken almost any time, or there are multiple options to take them throughout the year.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: So we don't set rigid timetables.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: For those people who want an accountability partner and also want to have some things to aim for, of course, we can put those in place.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: But we don't sit there and criticize anybody who might have done 15 minutes of study in a day rather than the 90 minutes that they had planned.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you do 15 minutes, then you are 15 minutes closer to passing that exam.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: And we celebrate that in the community.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: And we build everything on a modular basis that you can do that.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we will recommend in our 30-day challenge to uh to achieve an exam, and we'll have 30-day programs of on-demand video for these exams.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: We'll recommend uh half an hour's worth of video and then maybe half an hour in the textbook for each day.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: But in that 30 uh 30 minutes of video, that might be broken down into three or four smaller videos so that you can pick one up and you can spend five or ten minutes learning something else.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: And in that five or ten minute video, there might be one or two marks extra that you pick up for the exam, which might be a hundred mark paper.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: But better to do 10 minutes and pick up two marks than to think, oh, I don't have time to do an hour, so I just won't do it today.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's where the guilt builds.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: So we've broken it down into very bite-sized chunks so that you can feel good about what you have achieved.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, we know, don't we, that in building any habit, once you have started something, once you've done a five-minute video, you think, well, I might as well do the next one.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I might as well do the next one.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: And before you know it, you've done half an hour, and then you can start to feel good and celebrate.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: So we look to make the entire process one of celebration and recognizing achievements rather than one of regret and guilt.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Focusing on the good and the positives of learning is a great way to continue the momentum.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I know people listening and people watching who potentially don't like exams or, you know, are worried about going down the learning path will feel comforted by that.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: I know some people consider themselves students of life and then they're probably sat there thinking, great, I can't wait to put the process in, I can't wait to get stuck in.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: And other people might be feeling a little unsure, so I'm sure that's what comforts them.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: I know personally, I've studied remotely, I'm actually attained my degree in that way.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: And studying by yourself can be a bit daunting, and it is the accountability as well of showing up.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I found really beneficial was creating a specific study space, having that desk I could sit down, and that none of my notes had moved from last time.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: I had my nice gel pens and a nice pad, and I had a clear map in front of me, and I had my calendar on the wall so I could see where I would be.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: But that's how I learn, not how everyone else learns.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I think people will learn so much about themselves in this process of how they study.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the benefit of being with a you know, Financial Planner Life Academies is you have that community.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's a very good chance that any worries, any niggles, any problems you're facing, somebody else has already experienced.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's exactly it.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: And in that broader community, you've got the opportunity to reach out to other people who are studying the exam because you'll meet them in the weekly group tutorials, or you'll meet them in the virtual classroom sessions, or you'll just meet them as part of the community.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: There's the opportunity to post questions and people will jump in and answer those questions.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: But also we've got the mentoring program, and there are people who have experienced this, who've been through it, who are experts in administration, operations, power planning, financial planning, and they're all there to share their experience.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: And we have 30 plus years of combined experience as a profession in financial planning now.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: So the Financial Planner Life Academy helps you to tap into that so that you'll find that there are very few things that you'll be experiencing as an individual that somebody somewhere hasn't already experienced and will have tools and techniques and methods and approaches that can help you with that.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the strength of that community.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's such a strength.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: And leaving the Financial Planer Life Academy, you're not just going to have your qualifications, are you?
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to have a network of people around you.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to know some true experts in the field.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And when working with Financial Planer Life Academies, you have access to us.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: We know what the market looks like, we know what the jobs out there look like, we know what the hiring managers are looking for.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think having this around you means that you won't just finish the academy and look around and think, gosh, where do I go now?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: You'll have us to guide you on your way there as well.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And what would you say, knowing people who've gone through the learning process with you, Adam, what would your advice be to people looking forward to once they've completed an academy?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think you made a really interesting point there, Charlie, that actually this is something that the profession hasn't had before, that it now will have with the Financial Planner Life Academy and does have.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that is the ability to answer the question of what next?
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's great to put together a pathway for people that can bring them into the profession, but then you know, throwing people into the profession and thinking, right, what type of firm is best for me?
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: Do I want to go and work for a small local firm of maybe two or three financial planners and a couple of administrators where I can feel that actually within that firm, I have an important role and I can do an awful lot of things and I will learn a lot of different skills in there.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Or actually, do I want to go and join a larger organization that that has a more defined career pathway?
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Or is it going to be a whole series of those things?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where the expertise from the Financial Planet Life Academy is going to come in to really support that transitional step.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: So, in terms of the technical content and the exam support and the soft skills support that we put together in the academy, that helps people to prepare to actually go into these roles and to feel confident on your first day.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: You'll have far more confidence in a role when you arrive with a qualification behind you.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: So that when somebody starts talking about a with profits bond, you at least know what that is.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it isn't a completely alien language.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: But as well as us building that confidence and that technical knowledge, it's about the what next and it's about calming out that right path for you.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because there are 80,000 plus firms out there, all of whom have opportunities at some point during your career, and it's about choosing the right pathway.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where the expertise from the Financial Plan of Life Academy comes into play.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's so much more than just finding a job and going in and doing what you think you know.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's about understanding the values that that firm has.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's understanding your own values and your own career path that you want to choose.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's great that there's so much in the academy that's not just pushing you through your exams and throwing you out in the dark.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's really shining that light forward for you.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: And you're totally right.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's not something like this in the financial planning community.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't wait to see it blossom into this beautiful network that goes on through people's careers and continues to help people and help fans as well.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the calibre of people that could be joining your firm from going through an academy like this will be head and shoulders above the rest.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: And to everyone listening or watching, do remember you're not alone in this.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: The sense of community Financial Planner Academy brings to you, and so much more is all available to you if you just click the link at the bottom of this video.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: I know we've covered a lot, but there's so much value, and all the key points are written below.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: And if this video has helped you, hit that like button, comment with any questions or queries you have.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: We love creating content for you.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're always looking for new, innovative, and digestible content for you, and your feedback is so important.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you've loved this video and you want to learn about maybe what it's like to be a financial advisor, perhaps you're pondering the idea of becoming a power planner or even a mortgage advisor, this video is part of an entire series of live tos.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Click in for more.