FPA programs aim to build the profession of the future.
In the fast-changing world of financial planning,
the Financial Planning Association is partnering with planning firms
and financial corporations to keep pace with the changes and promote
the profession. In the end, both financial planners and their clients
benefit, according to the many organizations and individuals involved
with the varied programs.
The newest promotion to be added to the FPA
portfolio is the Alliance program, designed to recognize an outstanding
large firm that promotes the high standards espoused by the FPA. But
this is only the latest effort, which joins others such as the
two-decade-old residency program, designed to foster passion and
insight into the professional lives of planners, as well as the
opportunities for national sponsorships.
Each is orchestrated to promote the FPA in its
leadership and advocacy role while promoting best practices among
members. At the same time the FPA is expanding the existing efforts, it
is looking for new ways to promote and elevate the profession, says
Marvin W. Tuttle Jr., CAE, executive director and CEO of the
professional association.
"If the FPA is to be successful, we need to engage
major firms in our activities," explains Tuttle. "We not only want
firms that support our campaign to attract FPA members, but we want to
align ourselves with firms that promote our principles and we want to
recognize firms that live up to those principles.
"By the same token firms, such as Lincoln Financial,
want to be known as financial planning organizations that promote a
high standard of performance and put clients' interests first," he adds.
Lincoln Financial Advisors, based in Philadelphia,
became the first and so far only FPA Alliance firm, although the FPA is
hoping to add more in the future. To qualify, a firm must have at least
50 CFPs and 90% of them must be FPA members. Beyond those
nuts-and-bolts issues, the more philosophical goals are to promote an
atmosphere of "lifelong learning and leadership initiatives within the
organization to further exemplary financial planning practices for the
ultimate benefit of the client," according to the promotional material
for the Alliance program. The Alliance firm also must "support FPA's
commitment to pro bono efforts by providing community service to the
public in need."
Rich Rojeck, who is based in the San Diego office of
Lincoln Financial Advisors, notes that his firm is more than proud to
be the first Alliance member and attributes their selection to the
standards Lincoln Financial practices. "The Alliance program is only
open to firms that meet the numbers criteria, but the firm also must
support the FPA code of ethics, which is that financial planning is a
client-centric process. We also have a strong commitment to training
and continuing education."
In return, the Alliance firm earns the bragging
rights to the title and gains exposure through FPA. "The major
financial services firms have obviously focused their message on the
need for planning and, of course, the value of their advice in helping
people achieve financial security," says Rojeck, managing director of
Sagemark Consulting-Lincoln Financial Advisors and head of the Pacific
southwest region. "Consumer confidence is vital to their use of these
services, and the FPA's Alliance program can be instrumental in
encouraging firms to deliver quality advice. As a firm that has been
committed to the financial planning process as the basis for providing
advice for over 60 years, and now with the CFP mark, we were honored to
be selected as the first FPA Alliance firm."
In the past, FPA did not have a lot of programs
designed, like the Alliance program, to nurture large firms that
exhibited high standards, says Sean Walters, FPA managing director of
knowledge and market development and the liaison to the large firm
advisory team. "We don't have a catchy name for our overall large-firm
outreach effort, but the Alliance program is part of that and it is a
recognition of a large firm that delivers high-quality financial
planning. We want to be a lot more active in the next few years in
promoting these large firms," Walters says.
In the near future, the FPA also plans to roll out a
program designed to recognize and assist smaller firms. Any firm
selected for the Alliance program has to have a strong commitment to
continuing education, one such program being the FPA Residency program,
which was originally conceived of by a predecessor organization two
decades ago and then revitalized in the late 1990s. The Residency
program is a week-long boot camp designed to help relatively new
financial planners-those with less than three year's experience who are
sitting for their CFP license or have recently obtained it-transcend
the science of financial planning and learn the art of the profession.
"Good financial planners come out of college knowing
how to use things such as tax analysis tools and estate planning tools,
but we want to stretch them, to show them how to use their best tool,
which is themselves," says Krya Morris, founder of Morris Financial
Concepts Inc. in Charleston, S.C., and a major force behind the
Residency program. "Good financial planners really know themselves.
Through the Residency program, we want to plant the seeds in new
financial planners to take them beyond the numbers, to show them the
part of the profession that is above the bottom line."
Going through the Residency program instils a
passion for the profession in participants, who are presented with real
world case studies by mentors and told to come up with a financial
plan. "They always want us to come up with a plan for them, but we
refuse to do that," Morris says. "We want them to bring a lot of
thought to the process, which creates a bubbling dialogue among the
participants."
Morris wrote the curriculum for the Residency
program when it was revived in 1997 by an FPA predecessor, the
Institute for Financial Planners, where she served on the board of
directors. The first year there was one program and only broke even. By
the next year, the participation level doubled and there was a waiting
list. Tuition fees for the Residency program are paid for by the
participants' firms or by the individuals. Many of the mentors, who are
the Residency teachers and have at least ten years' experience in
financial planning, return year after year. Some, like Mike Ryan of
Paragon Asset Management in Wilmette, Ill., and author of the recently
published Colors of Money: Finding Your Money Force, started as
participants and later become mentors.
"At this time, there are a lot of firms looking to
hire financial planners and there are a lot of new planners, either
just out of school or people starting second careers," Ryan says. "The
Residency program is the way to learn about the heart of financial
planning. We always say, 'Clients do not care how much you know until
they know how much you care.' Instead of the technical aspects of the
profession, the Residency program, among other things, teaches you how
to really listen. It is a wonderful experience that helps planners
create a sustained relationship with clients and it is a way of
starting off a career in a way that will guide you for the rest of your
professional life.
"We recognized that a program is driven by
personalities and we knew there could be problems when those original
personalities leave," Ryan says. "So we worked hard to set up a mission
statement so that the program can be continued and it will generate its
own enthusiasm."
The Residency program grew from ten mentors to the
current 40 to 50, each of whom is required to go back through training
once every two years. The program is now offered several times a year,
including one session at State Farm in Bloomington, Ill., that is
offered strictly for State Farm investment advisors, the first, and so
far the only, Residency program offered as a collaboration between FPA
and a corporation.
A desire to find out more about the financial
planning industry as a whole motivated State Farm to bring a Residency
program in-house. State Farm has 260 financial planning agents
throughout the country, and a group of 26 to 30 has participated in a
Residency program for each of the last four years. A fifth program is
in the planning stages.
"We have a closed system of agents and we wanted our
agents, particularly new agents who were entering the profession, to
see what it was like from an industry perspective, rather than from
just a State Farm perspective. We purposely did not want to make the
program a State Farm program. We wanted it to be an outside program.
The FPA hires the mentors and arranges the program for us and it has
been a great success," says Frank Moore, State Farm program manager for
the corporation's personal financial planning program. "At first there
was some concern that exposing our agents to products that we could not
provide might be upsetting to them, but we found it was just the
opposite. We are good at providing what we can. Our clients are from
middle America, and people in middle America need help. There is plenty
of room in the financial planning industry for growth for everyone.
"The Residency program was successful because the
traditional role playing is a technique that works," Moore adds. "It
teaches our agents to ask the tough questions they might not otherwise
ask."
Another collaboration between FPA and large
corporations exists with Thornburg Investment Management, based in
Santa Fe, N.M., and Nationwide Financial Services, based in Columbus,
Ohio, the two companies that are national sponsors of the professional
organization. Both have long histories with the FPA and its predecessor
organizations and have, within the past few years, increased their
involvement to become national sponsors of the organization and its
events.
"Every year we find more value in working with FPA.
Members recognize us as a partner in finding solutions to guild their
practices and better serve their clients," says Leigh Moiola, managing
director of Thornburg Investment Management, a national sponsor for the
past three years. "We believe in the process of financial planning and
we are concerned about the financial well being of Americans. We want
to help people reach their financial goals and any organization that
supports that, such as the FPA, is one we want to support. This is a
way to give something back to the financial planning community. It is
also a branding opportunity for us to be recognized as a resource and
recognized for our expertise in a niche market for creating focused
equity portfolios and laddered bond portfolios."
Nationwide had served as a regional FPA sponsor and
sponsor of the virtual learning center before becoming a national
sponsor last fall. "We are committed to the same solutions for
investment professionals and for consumers as the FPA and we are
aligned with their educational goals and with their focus on
client-centered financial planning," says Jeff Whetzel, a spokesman for
Nationwide Financial Services. "We get some exposure from the
sponsorship, but we also get to participate in the FPA education
programs, which are important to us. Financial planning is for
everyone-for today's college graduate who is mired in debt, for a
country with a savings rate that is at a historical low, and for people
who are contemplating retirement readiness. Being a national sponsor
gives us a nice platform for our financial planning service."
The idea that financial planning is not just for the
wealthy is a central theme being championed now by the FPA and is an
idea the organization wants to popularize. "We have been pigeon-holed
by some who think financial planning is only for the affluent," says
Tuttle. "We do not believe that. Financial planning can be for everyone
and we are working through corporations to develop business models to
demonstrate that concept."