In fact, that's how he got his first client. He had helped an Oppenheimer rep run a seminar on funds and separately managed accounts at the University of North Carolina. The head of the nursing school at the university told Hughes that she was "really interested, but I really do need some financial planning before I can do anything." Hughes agreed and said that he would find someone in the area to help.
Two months later, Hughes called the woman back and offered his services. She took him up on the offer and introduced him several other Southerners, who became clients. "I had my first clients, but they were in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Not a very cost-effective way to start a practice," Hughes laughs. He would make three or four trips a year there to take care of their planning needs.
He also started holding seminars closer to home. "They were very effective. They were always on a financial planning topic, never on selling a product," he recalls.
By the second year, Hughes was prospering. He was primarily working with older people, folks who were retired or close to retiring, widowed or divorced. "I'd say even today that we really don't have a younger client base," he notes.
Hughes is an optimist both about his practice and his profession, which he points out, is now becoming international in scope. As for its future, Hughes says the leaders of financial planning possibly need to consider issues such as ethics, education and specialization. The CFP licensee, he notes, has become the financial equivalent of the family physician.
"And when we look at medicine and law, we see specializations develop. Shouldn't there be educational opportunities for those who have CFPs to move further in their educational and professional development?" Hughes asks. He added that, given the status of a certified financial planner licensee as a fiduciary, "ethical behavior is going to have be a serious concern of this profession."
CFP licensees today study and memorize the code of ethics, notes Hughes, a former chairman of the Board of Professional Review for the CFP Board. But the presentation of the code is often "not effectively done," he says." There should be a greater effort to take our code and present it in the context of case studies. Let's analyze situations and how various planners acted," Hughes argues.
The ultimate goal of the planning profession, Hughes says, should be for the CFP mark to be seen as vital for most professionals involved with financial issues.
"Given all the problems with 401(k)s and mutual funds, why shouldn't the HR person at a corporation also be someone who has a CFP?" Hughes asks.
He also believes that wirehouses and other big national financial firms should be places where a CFP can practice. "But that can only happen," Hughes says, "when the culture of many of these institutions changes. But given the current scandals, I would think the culture is going to have to change if they are to survive."