Practice Management
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The Power of Mentorship: A Spotlight on the
Junior/Senior Advisor Intensive Program
MARIA CONSIDINE KING
Commonwealth recognized the need for a program that
would serve the interests of tenured advisors seeking to
develop younger associates and simultaneously assist
those junior advisors in realizing their potential. Thus, the
Junior/Senior Advisor Intensive program was developed
and launched in 2013.
Some key benefits of the program include:
•
Customized guidance
through an individual
development plan that the junior associate will
follow and the senior advisor will use to benchmark
progress and results
•
A plan for sharing the knowledge and experience
of senior advisors, as well as for guiding the junior
advisor in a specific approach and philosophy
•
Ample interaction
among a small group of
approximately 10 senior and junior advisor pairings
To broaden each participant’s perspective, the program
presents three group workshops at which senior advisors
from participating firms share their knowledge with all
junior associates. This way, junior and senior pairs don’t
just learn from each other, but augment their development
by gaining insights from the entire group. After each
workshop, Commonwealth follows up with a coaching
call to help keep individual development plans on track.
Additionally, junior advisors participate in calls with their
peer group throughout the year.
Commonwealth’s Curriculum
Expectations and goal setting.
Each workshop builds
upon the last to establish a foundation for the successful
career of the junior advisor. To begin, expectations of
both the junior and senior advisor are set, and goals to
measure success over the course of the year are formalized.
To better understand what realistic expectations and goals
should look like, each participant’s innate skill set is
analyzed using the Kolbe
™
Index and Predictive Index
surveys. Through this process, participants uncover their
instinctive strengths and workplace behaviors, helping
them understand how to become more productive and
better communicators.
Sales and consulting training.
The group is then exposed
to multiple languages for the consultative process and
sales training. The languages form only a starting point;
what is critical is that each senior and junior advisor pair
together develop their own language that they will use
after workshop. Program participants are also given resources
to aid in the sales process. Junior associates can leverage
The absence of formalized training programs at wirehouses means that the pool of
young, well-trained advisors ready to take over a business is diminishing.
Why the “Intense” Focus on Developing Junior Talent?
Commonwealth’s interest in developing a formal training program is twofold. First, advisors expressed the need for a
program that would help them train younger advisors, so we delivered. Second, and perhaps more important, is the
fact that a large number of Commonwealth advisors don’t have succession and continuity plans in place. Actively
working to train and grow the next generation of advisors creates a larger pool of potential successors and continuity
partners to draw from.
For our purposes:
• A
succession plan
outlines an expected exit from the business on a specific date, with the retiring advisor actively
participating in the transition of clients and helping to ensure their retention by the new advisor.
• A
continuity plan
provides for the servicing of clients after the unexpected death or long-term permanent
disability of the primary advisor. In a continuity scenario, the new advisor must be ready to take over the primary
advisor’s book on short notice.
Continued >
