What Successful Financial Advisors Do Every Day

Financial advisors help their clients achieve their long-term financial goals. It’s a growing field with benefits like flexibility and the ability to determine your own income and potential to take charge of your work-life balance.

If you have the leadership skills and initiative, coupled with the desire to build your business, financial advising is a promising career. Market intelligence firm Cerulli Associates predicts more than one-third of the financial advisors in the U.S. will retire over the next decade. To fill their shoes, the nation will need more than 100,000 new financial advisors to enter the industry.

What is it like to be a financial advisor?

In their day-to-day work, financial advisors manage both technical and creative tasks. U.S. News and World Report ranked the role among the top 20 Best Business Jobs. Opportunities to use their entire skillset keep the job from ever feeling mundane or boring. In fact, Career Karma included financial advisor on its list of the happiest careers.

Creating personalized financial strategies taps into a financial advisor’s technical skills and critical thinking. They call on their creative, social, and communication abilities on a daily basis to engage clients and operate their branch office.

The career can also be financially rewarding, with unlimited earning potential. Edward Jones pays new financial advisors a salary while they study for their licensing exams, then provides a supplemental salary for up to four years as they build their commissions and new asset compensation.

Job search and hiring website Indeed.com lists the following qualities as good ones for a financial advisor to have:

• Research
• Analytical thinking
• Interpersonal communication
• Detail orientation
• Empathy
• Risk assessment

What does a financial advisor do?

There’s more to being a financial advisor than crunching numbers. Financial advisors’ daily activities fall primarily under four areas of focus, each one designed to serve their clients and community.

Build relationships
The area of financial services is a people-first profession. Clients trust financial advisors with not only their money, but with the future that money represents – dreams like a child’s education or a comfortable retirement.

By building relationships, financial advisors gain a deep understanding of each client’s unique needs and values. And clients develop trust in their financial advisor’s advice.

Create personalized financial strategies
People come to financial advisors for guidance. Financial advisors combine their understanding of financial services with what they learn about a client to develop personalized roadmaps to short-term and long-term financial goals.

A good financial advisor recommends quality, diversified investment products to suit each client’s objectives and personal tolerance for risk.

Financial advisors take a holistic approach to their clients’ finances. Beyond helping clients manage their investments, a financial advisor may help their client identify opportunities to pay off debt, plan for retirement, and prepare for the unexpected.

Run a business
Helping people achieve their financial goals is a financial advisor’s primary function. But they are also a small business owner, and a portion of their time is dedicated to managing their branch office.

As the leader of their practice, Edward Jones financial advisors need the leadership skills to hire and manage staff, as well as the business acumen to create and execute a business strategy.

We provide assistance with making that first hire – a branch office administrator. The branch office administrator is a financial advisor’s right hand, helping the financial advisor in developing a business strategy and managing the day-to-day tasks that go along with running a business.

If you were to start a business from scratch, you would have to secure your own office space, training, software, employees, business plan – it’s enough to make your head spin. A unique advantage to becoming an Edward Jones financial advisor is that you are provided assistance with securing the space, tools, and people you need to hit the ground running.

Positively impact your community
A financial advisor’s work impacts the lives of people in their community. Being an active part of that community builds trust and inspires financial advisors to do their best work.

Financial advisors actively volunteer, network, and sponsor events in their local communities.

On a broader scale, Edward Jones is committed to corporate citizenship initiatives. As a firm, we’re working to combat Alzheimer’s disease and educate the public on economic inclusion and financial health. We are aligning actionable strategies to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and measuring the impacts and outcomes of our environmental activities.

Read more about the good we do alongside our 50,000 associates across North America in our Purpose, Inclusion and Citizenship Report.

A day in the life of a financial advisor

A financial advisor’s schedule offers the flexibility and independence needed to achieve work-life balance. They may choose to work evenings or weekends, or they might stick to the traditional 9-to-5.

Here’s what a financial advisor might do on a typical day:

Keep up with the markets
People hire financial advisors for their knowledge. When the economy shifts, clients call their financial advisor to ask how their investments might be affected or to seek reassurance about their portfolio.

Financial advisors need to understand the market’s daily performance so they can explain it to clients and apply it to strategies.

Financial advisors spend some time every day watching or reading market news on television, online, or in trade publications. Financial advisors with Edward Jones have the advantage of home office research teams that help them stay up to date on stock recommendations, mutual fund management, and more.

Review investments
Investing is not a “set it and forget it” activity. Financial advisors regularly review their clients’ portfolios to make sure everything is performing as expected. Shifting markets or changing client needs might lead a financial advisor to make minor adjustments or recommend a new course of action.

Keeping up on all the market’s changes and how they might impact clients is a tall order. Edward Jones’s home office advisory teams help financial advisors out in the field provide the most comprehensive, up-to-date guidance.

Counsel clients
Helping to create a better future for their clients is a financial advisor’s most important job. Financial advisors help their clients achieve long-term goals like home ownership or retirement.

To do this effectively, financial advisors need the technical skills to create a sound financial strategy and the communication skills to explain it so a client understands.

A financial advisor might meet with a client annually, quarterly, or even monthly, depending on the client’s needs. Before these meetings, the financial advisor reviews the client’s portfolio. They create a presentation to help the client visualize the portfolio’s performance and the potential outcome of recommended changes.

Market their business
Succeeding as a financial advisor isn’t as simple as flipping the sign on the door to “open.” Financial advisors need a full pipeline of prospective clients, which means getting comfortable with explaining who they are and what they offer.

Some financial advisors rely on traditional marketing channels like advertising. Others might sponsor events like college planning workshops for parents. Many market through social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn.

Edward Jones financial advisors have the advantage of the Client Attraction Marketing Hub, an online repository of marketing strategies and resources.

The Client Attraction Marketing Hub includes webinars, social media tools, and brand assets. You’ll also find useful planning tools like marketing calendars, customizable prospecting materials, and marketing dos and don’ts.

Network
The most effective marketing channel is referrals. Effective financial advisors have a network of accountants, attorneys, and other financial professionals who can refer clients to their office.

This network also proves invaluable when a financial advisor comes up against a unique situation.

Besides formal events like chamber of commerce mixers, financial advisors can meet like-minded people by getting involved in the community. When volunteering for a cause they’re passionate about, financial advisors can build their network while making a positive impact.

Financial advisors should schedule time each week to meet new people and catch up with the people in their sphere.

Compliance and career advancement
The financial services industry is heavily regulated, and regulations change often. Many independent financial advisors spend one to two hours a day on compliance activities.

Edward Jones financial advisors are fortunate – the home office does the heavy lifting for them. Associates at our home office keep up with changing regulations and manage compliance activities for our financial advisors nationwide.

Continuing education is a required part of maintaining a financial advisor license. Edward Jones financial advisors are encouraged to pursue additional training to broaden their knowledge and skills. Commitment to education secured Edward Jones the No. 17 spot on the 2024 Training APEX Awards list by Training magazine.

It’s also a good idea for financial advisors to attend industry conferences. These events are an opportunity to hear from leaders in the field, learn about new technology and best practices, and network with peers.

How to become a financial advisor

1. Apply. Start by applying online. If you’re selected to become an Edward Jones financial advisor, you’ll be welcomed into a supportive community dedicated to your success.
2. Get licensed. Studying for licensing exams typically takes more than two months. Edward Jones pays new financial advisors a supplemental salary during this period so they can focus on preparing for the test. Edward Jones also provides study guides, practice tests, a licensed study specialist, and a coaching team to help candidates get ready for their exams.In order to take some licensing exams, you will need to be sponsored by a FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) member firm like Edward Jones.
3. Establish your practice. Once they’re fully licensed, Edward Jones financial advisors spend about four months learning to run their practice. We teach them how to find clients, how to provide excellent service, and management best practices.
   
   After the branch office opens, Edward Jones continues to provide ongoing support. Financial advisors have access to ongoing training, mentor programs, and career development opportunities. The home office helps to hire and support a branch office administrator to help with the day-to-day work of running the office.

What makes Edward Jones different?

Edward Jones takes a personal approach to financial strategies. We have a singular focus: serving each and every client through a one-on-one relationship with their financial advisor.

As a privately held company, we’re not accountable to shareholders or quarterly earnings – only to our clients. That means every Edward Jones associate is free to focus 100% on the client’s best interests.

Our partnership structure is collaborative, not competitive. Edward Jones financial advisors enjoy the support and camaraderie of other financial advisors in their region. Our financial advisors are encouraged to offer and receive support from their peers.

It’s a human-centered environment that helps financial advisors achieve their potential while doing meaningful work for their clients and community – one of the reasons we were ranked on the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For 2024.

This single-minded focus is at the heart of our unique branch-team model. The firm invests in getting financial advisor branch offices up and running and offers ongoing support.

Interested in the Edward Jones Financial Advisor Opportunity?

Learn more about starting a career as a financial advisor or start searching for opportunities now. If you’re already licensed as a financial advisor, learn how we’re built to take your practice to the next level.

Training magazine Training Apex Award 2000–2024, published January–March each year, data as of September of prior year, application fee required for consideration.

2024 Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For, published April 2024, research by Great Places to Work®, data as of August 2023. Compensation provided for using, not obtaining, the rating.