What sets a financial professional apart: integrity, soft skills and continuing education

Are we born knowing how to communicate?

Of course not. We have the capacity to communicate, but we spend a lifetime honing this skill. When it comes to helping people plan for and manage their finances, communication skills are essential.

Will an algorithm understand that a shy person won’t find it easy to talk to her siblings about mom’s estate? If you make a great investment return in your retirement account, does it help you talk to your children about your will?

The findings of LinkedIn’s survey of 1,000 financial services and fintech professionals weren’t a surprise here at the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards (CFP Board).

Financial professionals listed “soft skills” such as communication skills (75%) and presentation skills (46%) as key attributes for success.

It’s easy to lose sight of the soft skills in an algorithm-driven world.

But, our nearly 80,000 CFP? professionals know how important soft skills are to high-quality financial services. We also know that it’s not a question of technology versus soft skills – it’s a question of how to marry the two, and how to keep the soft skills as important in the marriage. This year, with Wiley, we published Communication Essentials for Financial Planners: Strategies and Technologies. “The ineffable importance of consistent and effective communication with clients is widely acknowledged by experienced financial planners,” wrote the authors.

Along with a deep emphasis on those soft skills, CFP? professionals have two other great advantages today: integrity and competency.

We’ve all heard about the John Oliver segment, in which he criticized the financial services industry. Amid his warnings, he told young investors to seek out advice from professionals who hold themselves to a fiduciary standard, which CFP Board requires when CFP? professionals are providing financial planning services. But don’t take John’s word for it: We recently discovered some 88 percent of CFP? professionals think all advisors should be fiduciaries.

CFP? professionals also get the benefit of having a core competency in financial planning through continuing education, which we believe is the foundation of professionalism. Education doesn’t have to be an advanced degree. Just under half (47 percent) of financial services and fintech workers ages 36 and older think advisors need advanced degrees to succeed. Millennials are more skeptical: only 34 percent of them see the value of an advanced degree.

We require a Bachelor’s degree and additional and continuing training to ensure people with the CFP? mark deliver the highest standard of professional financial planning. In the years to come, CFP? professionals will help oversee a generational transfer of wealth between retiring baby boomers and their millennial inheritors. The recipients of all this wealth will be folks with the 2008 financial crash seared into their memories.

Competency, in addition to a fiduciary standard, builds trust with the millennial clients who will shape the future of our industry. Our continuing education requirements enable CFP? professionals to keep adapting to meet the needs of new clients.

A certification with high standards gives advisors a real edge. They learn to probe, ask the right questions, and understand a client’s whole financial life and how they engage emotionally with money. These are difficult services for pure fintech solutions to provide alone. That’s why Vanguard’s Personal Advisor Services wants human CFP? professionals in their record-breaking hybrid service platform. That’s why our Digital Advice Working Group concluded human advisors will thrive when they adopt the strengths of fintech advancements and use their time to do what fintech can’t.

Fintech is quantitative. It automates and builds scale. But, it struggles to account for human nature, unexpected life events, and emotions. If an advisor is strategic about their education, they’ll fortify themselves with automation-proof skills. They will concentrate on obtaining a certification that shows value and integrity to a growing share of their clients. In short, they’ll be ready for the future of our profession.

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