This video series sees International Adviser chat with second careerist financial advisers to discuss their journey into the advice sector.
In the video above, Benjamin Beck talks about his move from the British Army to financial advice and the lessons he has learned from his transition in the sector.
Beck is now a financial adviser and client account manager at Nigel Grice and Associates.
Transcript:
[Robbie Lawther] Hi. I’m Robbie, senior reporter for International Adviser. This is ‘Why I became a financial advisor’. I’m joined by Benjamin Beck. Thanks for joining us. The first question to ask you is, what did you do before financial advice?
[Benjamin Beck] Thanks Robbie. In in my previous career I was a soldier in the British Army for six years from 2010. I enjoyed the exercises and got to meet a lot of different people from various backgrounds and cultures and it really developed me as a person. Throughout my career, I have managed to promote as well to Lance Corporal, which is the first step up the ladder in the British Army as a non-commissioned officer. So I had a short but fruitful career and great experiences.
[RL] What made you pick financial advice as a career?
[BB] So whilst I was serving in the Army as a logistician I realized I wanted to further my knowledge and expand my education. So initially I started business studies with Open University, which was quite flexible in terms of continuous study whilst serving overseas, for example. And I came upon more finance and accounting modules. Thoroughly enjoyed that. And it just fed my hunger for knowledge essentially. And I did some research online to find out more specific reading material towards financial services and effectively stumbled upon CSI and CII, so that’s short for Chartered Institute for Securities and Investments and Chartered Insurance Institutes. And I started reading it then and quickly found out that this is something I really enjoyed doing. Did a couple of exams off my own back. That combined with enjoying meeting new people and a desire to sort of help people financially, I then quickly realized that it is transferable skills from the army, you know, being able to connect to different people. And it just seemed like a really good fit essentially. From the army I managed to land a training advisory role here at Nigel Grice and Associates, which has been really, really key. And I was lucky. Predominantly, they saw my commitment and termination by doing two of the oral exams which are necessary to complete the diploma. And soon after I got enrolled on to the Open Academy, which has taken me through to Diploma Qualified Adviser.
[RL] Is there anything that’s surprised you since you’ve become a financial advisor?
[BB] Absolutely. Especially about how much people in general could benefit from my financial advice and perhaps how little people understand what we do as a profession. And it’s not just about kind of the markets and the investments as such. It’s a lot broader than that. But also about how complex the financial services can be. All the products out there and the general confusion. So those two combined, I think would be of the biggest surprise to me.
[RL] And the last question would be, what’s the most important lesson you’ve learned since becoming a financial adviser?
[BB] That’s quite a difficult one. To just have one. But if I make an attempt at it, I would say being a good listener. To really understand and listen with intent to what a client has to say, because that will then identify more about their actual goals and needs further on. That will help you as an adviser to realize what questions you need to ask them to really understand the situation. Because sometimes when a client comes into a meeting, they may think they have one area that they would like to press. But by probing in and asking further questions, you realize that actually there are other needs they have that they may not even have thought but are even more important.
[RL] Ben, thank you very much for joining us.
[BB] Thank you so much, Robbie. Thank you having me on.
