Embracing financial advice as a career changer

A former gym owner details his path into the financial advice profession, and the value of gaining support staff experience before progressing to the adviser milestone.

Career changers and relevant professionals, such as accountants and teachers, have been cited by industry experts as an effective way to boost dwindling adviser numbers in Australia.

Money Management spoke with Joel Perryman, senior client relationship manager (CRM) at Integritas Wealth Advisers, to explore his path into the financial planning sector.

Perryman previously spent nine years as a business owner of a gym before a series of changes in his personal life and the business impact of the COVID-19 lockdowns prompted him to consider a new career.

Prior to making the transition, he spoke with 15 advisers to gain a better understanding of the industry. While three individuals were hesitant to recommend the career jump due to regulatory challenges, the vast majority encouraged him to take the plunge.

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“I realised that working in the financial advice space meant I could help people, which is what I’ve always wanted to do, and lean into the more complicated financial strategies that I was interested in,” he explained.

He began studying Bachelor of Business (Financial Planning) at the University of South Australia in 2020, which he completed in 2023, and landed his first client relationship manager role in 2022.

Last month, Perryman was appointed as senior CRM at Integritas Wealth Advisers. He plans to begin his professional year (PY) by the end of the year, take the financial adviser exam, and hopefully become a financial adviser within the next three years.

Reflecting on his experience to date, Perryman emphasised the value of gaining experience in a CRM or client services officer (CSO) role before stepping up to the adviser milestone.

“I’ve read probably upwards of 200–300 advice documents [in my time]. That’s going to make me a better adviser because I’ll actually understand the process of implementation and it will make life easier overall. If you’re moving into the profession, I recommend starting off in that CRM or CSO role and doing that for the first 12–18 months.

“The more experience you gain, the better adviser you’ll become overall.”

Jasper Pritchard, wealth management recruitment consultant at The Andersen Partnership, also encouraged new entrants to not rush towards becoming an adviser immediately.

In a recent LinkedIn post, he described: “Don’t expect to leap straight into your PY, these things take time and that isn’t always a bad thing. Working in a CSO or paraplanning role for a few years can give you the essential training you need to be a well-rounded adviser. Staying proactive during your first few years in the advice industry and trying to learn as much as possible can definitely accelerate your PY timeline.”

Earlier this year, a former teacher and international development worker shared his journey into the financial advice world with Money Management, including what motivated him to make the jump and the transferable skills involved.

Recognising transferable skills

Perryman also noted the transferable skills between his previous service-based career, where he ran his own business, and now working in the advice sector.

“There’s a lot [of transferable skills] between personal training and owning a gym to financial advice. The client experience piece has been a big component and all the soft skills such as being able to communicate well and written language.”

Research by Morningstar earlier this year found that an adviser’s soft skills and emotional intelligence were often as important to clients as their financial ones.

“Soft skills are some of the most valuable in the advice process, but it’s more than just intuition. We can use hard science to better understand investors and how best to engage with them. The value of an adviser is evolving, and the job is becoming less and less about investment management and more about investor management, so anything you can do to enhance your skills in that area will be useful,” said head of behavioural insights Ryan Murphy.

In particular, Perryman’s decade-long experience as a business owner has provided him with crucial communication skills when dealing with clients.

“That attention to detail you gain from running a business is important. You’re ‘on’ almost 24/7 and most advisers are like that. Because I’d been doing that for so long, I learnt how to create boundaries and expectations with clients too,” he said.

“When you’re dealing with clients, you want to give them the best experience possible. To do that, you need to make sure you’re setting good expectations and clear boundaries and referring out when needed, which I did quite a bit when I was a personal trainer and gym owner.”

Moreover, Perryman underscored the importance of career changers entering the advice profession, who are often recognised as a valuable demographic to increase the supply of advisers.

“The main reason I became an adviser was due to a lot of those personal lifestyle factors that have added up over the last 10 years. So I feel like change makers bring that to the advice profession, because they already have such diverse life experiences that will be a massive value-add for clients moving forward,” he remarked.

Earlier this year, the advice professional shared his top recommendations for career changers looking to transition into financial advice.