‘Soft skills’ are nothing to do with furnishings or upholstery, but in management/training speak, the ability to talk to and understand people. Why do financial advisers need these more than, say, solicitors or accountants, whose business and fee models our regulator often seems to wish we’d emulate? Well, if you ask for help from an accountant or solicitor it’s usually because you have to. You have to pay tax, submit accounts if you run a business or be conveyanced if you’re buying a house. You don’t have to invest or save, you can leave your money in the bank or under the proverbial mattress. Life and critical illness insurance are a good idea but not compulsory. And pensions can be messy, but there are plenty of websites which will let you DIY consolidate them. The parts of what we do for which you’re required to take advice, transferring final salary pensions, for instance, are so heavily regulated that most of us can’t or won’t do them anyway. So we have to persuade you, by understanding your situation, that what we actually do might be worth paying for. It is, but you probably wouldn’t realise that if it weren’t for our soft skills. And sorry, accountants and solicitors, many of you don’t have them. Those that do get plenty of client referrals from the likes of me!
“Letter of authority: Why now is the right time for change”
This may sound like a non-issue from outside the world-of-financial-advice bubble. It is the bain, however, of the daily working lives of many of us, particularly of those paid by we advisers to do the dirty work of dealing with the many providers with whom we have to work.
