This past summer, I worked with a personal financial planner. She started her own financial planning business after working with a corporation for quite some time. Throughout my time as her intern, I learned a lot about how financial planning and sales are linked to each other.
I’ve wanted to be a financial planner since I was a senior in high school. Last year at this time, I knew that I wanted to intern with a personal financial planner. I found someone who seemed very compelling to work with, so I applied, and luckily got the internship. It was a very good learning experience for me. I was able to observe what she did on a daily basis, and I even got to sit in on some of the client meetings. In these meetings was when I realized that a lot of what financial planners do is selling/non-sales selling. Throughout the meetings, the financial planner explained different investment options. She also had to help the clients assess their risk levels and goals. Throughout these activities, she had to put the different options into terms that the clients would understand.
As a financial planner, it is also very important to create a genuine relationship with your clients so that they feel like you truly care about them and so that they can trust you with their money. The woman that I worked for was a very caring person. She always took the time to have a 5-10 minute personal conversation with her clients before the meeting even started, and then another 5 minute conversation with them once the meeting was over. I could see that the clients really appreciated this and that they trusted her. It was especially through these conversations that I realized that financial planning is essentially a glorified sales job. As a financial planner, you have to create a meaningful relationship with clients, figure out the risk level (needs) of the client, and then sell them on what investment options you think would be the best for their risk level and their life goals.
Before this internship, I never really saw myself as being a saleswoman. But, now that I have had the opportunity, I am looking forward to one day investing in relationships with my clients and having the opportunity to find out what their needs are and serve them by meeting those needs in a non-sales selling role.
BoweryJE22
When I interned in the same capacity at Morgan Stanley, I had a similar experience. I was surprised to see non sales selling in the finance world. Even having meetings with bonds salesmen and representatives from other companies like Vangaurd, sales was everywhere.
This is a really cool example of non-sales selling in a way that I hadn’t thought about before. It’s interesting too that you didn’t view yourself as a saleswoman until your experience in this internship, just goes to show that sales are present in all professions in one way or another!