QLD winner: Chris Kelly

Chris Kelly is aiming to progress from his current role as a paraplanner to a financial planning job shortly, a move that will make the 23-year-old one of the youngest advisers in the industry, and he already has plans to use his demographic position to specialise in helping young Australians with their financial affairs.

“I want to help people get their financial priorities correct early in life. To do that I’ve gone out to the universities a couple of times and given sessions on financial literacy and education in those areas to either students that are graduating or through their alumni association,” he said.

Kelly nominated making the initial contact with the universities as the most difficult part of the process, but said he was lucky enough to have contacts in a few of the student societies that helped make the process a little easier.

And his determination to service this area of the market is not unfounded as attendance numbers for his sessions have been strong.

“The feedback at the end of the sessions from both the group running it and also the attendees has been quite positive. I’ve had comments that they’ve learnt something from it and benefited from it and that it has given them a different perspective on life,” Kelly explained.

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As far as his own career situation goes, the Queensland Paraplanner of the Year cites the intrigue associated with the vocation as what initially attracted him to the industry.

“As a school leaver I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do but I enrolled in a bachelor of commerce in financial planning and investments degree through Griffith University.

“We did a couple of financial planning subjects in the first year. At the end of the first year, I wanted to learn a bit more about it so I started looking for a job in the industry and luckily I ended up in the firm I’m still working for,” Kelly recalled.

“It seemed a bit interesting and intriguing and was a field that not many younger people were in, so I thought I’d try something different. It’s certainly a growing industry with all of the Baby Boomers coming through and knowing from my own personal finances, there’s so many questions out there that need to be answered,” he added.

While making the transition from paraplanner to financial planner was a career goal for him, Kelly does not believe all paraplanners must follow that path.

“There are a lot of people out there making very good careers out of being a paraplanner because it is a specialised area. You don’t need the sales skills or the presentation skills, you just need to have the technical knowledge. In this day and age with all of the rules changing all the time, it’s hard for the adviser to keep up-to-date with all the changes, and being a paraplanner you can provide that sort of support to advisers when they need it,” he said.

According to Kelly, what makes a good paraplanner is having the ability to think “outside of the square”.

“I believe that’ll provide a competitive edge… The focus should be to step back from the client’s situation and ask if there is anything else we can do that we haven’t already thought of or that they wouldn’t be able to think of themselves,” he explained.

“You have to be able to acknowledge that every client is different and therefore for every client you need to step back and have a look at the bigger picture and focus on the strategy a bit more,” Kelly said.