The next big challenge advisors face

investmentnews.com:

While the advisory industry must contend with a “human capital crisis,” some advisors are stepping up to the plate to try to fix the problem.

James Bogart, CEO and founder of McLean, Virginia-based Bogart Wealth, has created Advisor Growth Track, a recruiting tool and professional growth and training program that his firm uses to attract and train qualified staff.

Bogart wants to ensure that the next generation of advisors are confident and competent, two characteristics that are central to the program’s mission.

“To be an effective advisor, you have to have confidence, and you have to have competence,” he says. “Independently, if you have a lot of competence with not a whole lot of confidence, you can’t be very effective, and if you have a lot of confidence with no competence, you’d be very dangerous. So the whole point is to merge the two.”

Advisor Growth Track participants will rotate through client service, financial planning, and investment management before landing in a position where they’re responsible for overall financial advising. Along with rotational assignments, there are brief periods of formal instruction and testing.

It’s important for Advisor Growth Track advisors to have on-the-job experience, Bogart says, so they can see what it’s like to service accounts, build financial plans, and work in the planning department. They will also gain the skills for portfolio management, building investment proposals and understanding trading.

The program covers “all of the different nuances of what goes into servicing a client because that’s what naturally leads them to be knowledgeable and empowered advisors,” he said.

Advisor Growth Track was created in 2021 to help the firm deal with having more leads than it had