Career In Financial Consulting Business Term Paper

Financial Consultant

Before starting the consulting business, it is imperative to discuss the actual nature of the job. A financial consultant is the one who is known in the given field with different names like financial advisor, financial planner and sometimes, personal financial consultant. The business and its very nature are related to sales of financial products. A financial consultant or advisor usually helps people to choose among different profitable investment opportunities, insurance and other numerous products of the financial industry. Apart from offering consulting services, financial planners help their client to fund their college education, plan their retirement and make investment analysis depending upon investor’s objectives.

Challenges faced by Financial Consultants

Before and while running the business, financial advisors or consultants face enormous challenges every day which they are bound to face to keep the business operating as going concern. A major challenge which financial consultants come across is elaborated in the following manner:

Obtaining New Business

These days, it is important that every business should be conducted with a customer orientation and satisfaction by catering to their basic needs concerning financial services. The corporate success of every business rests on the intensity with which the target market is served (. The targeted market’s population is equally important for the business to generate enough profitability for creation of stakeholder value.
With such an idea in mind, any person wishing to start a business as a financial consultant should bear in mind that the business success is largely dependent on its client base. Therefore, the greatest challenge for a financial consulting business is to find the client base that are willing to avail the financial services which is definitely critical to the success of a financial advisor.
The financial consulting business should be immune enough to face the challenge of accessing more customer base through referrals because customer satisfaction stands as the biggest source of attracting new business. To increase the market share and serve more customers, there is a challenge to gain more customer confidence by serving them better. This objective could also be achieved by giving lectures/seminars, through build up of business/social contacts or simply by cold calling which is necessary to gain more consumer base.

Opportunities for Financial Consultants or Advisory Business

Apart from facing numerous challenges, the world is full of growth opportunities for those who run their business as a financial consultant, advisor or planner. Most of the opportunities containing wide array of benefits are as follows:

Building of Social Network or Public Relations

The growth opportunity for a financial consultant, advisor or planner is very lucrative because this business entrepreneur may be working as an insurance sales agent, auditor, accountant, financial services sales agent and lawyer for gaining experience in this field. With a wide network of social relationships, the financial consultant has the opportunity to access more consumers of financial consultancy services which will add more to business and financial success.

Charm of the Consulting Business

These days, the financial industry’s set up is such that almost majority of the financial consultants receive employment or business contracts by working for large insurance and financial institutions. These institutions normally include financial investment firms, insurance carriers, banks and securities and commodity brokers. Therefore, there is a great opportunity to get an insight about what services are needed and it will be easier for financial consultants to gain business in collaboration with High Net-Worth (HNW) corporate partners.

Shortage of Talent

For any person starting and managing a financial consulting business, there is a great opportunity that there exists a shortage of related talent in the complex world of financial advisory services. At the global level, particularly United States, of the total existing financial advisors (316,000 in number), approximately five percent are those who are under the age of thirty. The remaining number of financial advisors or consultants in the marketplace is heading towards the retirement phase of their employment. The market is actually looking for the fresh talent to come forward and rule the world of financial consulting business which in itself is a big opportunity for growth .

Rise of Baby-Boomers and their Retirement

As stated earlier that majority of the financial consultants and advisors, being the baby-boomers, are running towards their phase of retirement. Anyone starting the financial consulting business will be at a competitive advantage because of being able to exploit greater opportunities, more educated than old consultants and because majority of the people are getting richer. Due to these three reasons, there is an enormous opportunity that financial consultants may benefit from increase in their sales turnover as more wealth customers will seek investment advices.
Similarly, compared to previous years, due to improvements in healthcare services and hygienic products, the life expectancy of the global population has increased dramatically over time . People, now-a-days, are expected to live longer which causes them to think about their retirement benefits and appreciation of their old-age savings. Increased life expectancy is another factor that provides a wonderful opportunity to the business world of financial consulting operations because of the growing need for financial services while dealing with investments .
New financial consultants or advisors will benefit from a vast experience of their seniors in a very less time than required. All these factors contribute to greater demand of viable investment advices while baby-boomers are approaching their retirement phase. New and energetic talent is missing in this particular industry which contains numerous financial rewards for entrants. As an average financial consultant is aged fifty years old, there is a golden opportunity to take over the industry by new entrants.

Potential as a Successful Financial Consultant

Given the general view of various challenges and opportunities governing the financial consultation and advisory industry, I am quite convinced that I can become a successful financial advisor because of my ability to remain comfortable while making sales of different financial services and products. The industry can provide me with greater business opportunities due to my nature of being an extrovert as I am interested to remain involved in social gatherings and build relationships while benefiting from them.
Apart from these two skills, to become a financial consultant, it is necessary for me to keep improving my communication and analytical skills . This kind of job suits me the best because I prefer to be involved in a team and motivated enough to work in collaboration with others. What appeals to me the most is that, as a financial planner, I am willing to face challenges to build customer base by running my own consultation business .
The investment analysis which is performed for appraisals excites me the most due to which I am interested to become a financial consultant. Lastly, I am motivated to earn loads of financial rewards through commissions. Due to this, planning of financial management and investments arenas for clients is the one area that can make wealthy for I will have a competitive advantage due to shortage of talent needed for management in this industry.

References

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