I would not be standing in front of you here today as a Top of the Table member if it weren’t for working with a paraplanner.

The title of “paraplanner” is a term that we are using to describe a role. You wouldn’t necessarily need to use that title; it’s just the title that we use in the U.K. for describing this function. A paraplanner is a specialist, a financial services professional, who happens to help advisors to provide comprehensive financial planning to their clients by taking on the more routine tasks and activities. They play a crucial role in the financial planning process. They help with tasks, including research and analysis, looking at asset allocation, financial modeling, report writing and the compliance aspects of a client’s file. This allows the advisor to focus on client relationships and on building client strategies.

Paraplanners may also sit in on client meetings. This frees up more of the advisor’s time to focus on that client relationship and on being present in the meeting, but it also helps to build the relationship between your clients and your business. They know that there is a team behind you. Having your paraplanner sit in on your client meetings means that they can also help with completing client file notes, which helps them to have a better understanding of the client’s situation and helps them to then carry on with the follow-up tasks and actions.

The responsibilities of the paraplanner are predominantly to assist the advisor with all of the tasks and research that is needed in order to deliver the financial plan for the client and to help you maintain your ongoing relationship with your client. They will carry out the detailed research and data analysis, including looking at the key aspects of financial products, of reviewing investment funds, maybe reviewing investment performance and understanding any other client-specific data and criteria. They will produce the report and the presentation for the advisor to then deliver to the client. They may also develop lifetime cashflow forecasts for your clients and, of course, prepare the necessary paperwork for you to then implement that new business. The paraplanner frees up a lot of your time so that you can focus more on your client relationships and finding more of your ideal clients.

The main benefits of the collaboration are the delegation of those routine tasks. Your paraplanner will handle the more time-consuming activities, allowing you, as the advisor, to allocate more of your time to your clients and to your business. It helps you to deliver more personalized attention to your clients. This can all lead to enhanced client engagement and greater confidence for your client knowing that there is a team behind you.

Your paraplanner can be an additional point of contact for your client, so when you are not in the office or are in a meeting, your paraplanner can answer questions from your clients. This further strengthens the relationship. It, of course, also leads to time savings. Instead of clients contacting you with inquiries, they may be going to your paraplanner or to your wider support team.

They will also help by conducting comprehensive, in-depth research for you. Paraplanners are people with high levels of attention to detail. They excel in research and analysis, which ensures that everything you have for your client meeting is accurate and up to date. They will also make sure that you have met all of your compliance and regulatory requirements. Working with a paraplanner gives you a second pair of eyes to review the client file and to make sure nothing has been missed.

This may sound counterintuitive, but working with a paraplanner can also lead to cost savings. Employing a paraplanner can be more cost-effective than employing another advisor. So, if you are at a point where you feel that you are maxed out on looking after your clients and maybe you are thinking of getting another advisor to help you, perhaps what you need is a paraplanner, someone to do the research, the report and other time-consuming activities.

They can also add to the specialized skills within your business. Your paraplanner may have skills that complement yours, and, working together, you can balance out each other’s weaknesses.

All of this can lead to an improved work-life balance. If you are freeing up more of your time, you could choose to either spend it with more clients or spend more time with your family or friends outside of your business.

For some people, the role of a paraplanner is a steppingstone to becoming an advisor. Spending that time working as a paraplanner helps build technical knowledge and skills, while also developing an understanding of the softer skills and how to build client relationships, and this is where having your paraplanner sit in on client meetings can really help them build those skills.

If you choose to hand over some of your clients to your paraplanner who has now become an advisor, if they’ve been sitting in on your meetings, they already have a relationship with some of your clients, making that handover process easier. You are not introducing them to somebody they don’t already know. This can also help with succession planning within your team. It gives you the opportunity to recruit from the bottom up, which can sometimes be easier. I say sometimes because, at the moment, recruiting anybody in financial services seems to be a bit of a challenge. But having transitioned your paraplanner into advice, if that’s the role they want to go down, it then gives you the opportunity to perhaps progress your administrator into becoming a paraplanner. Then perhaps you replace your administrator, so it offers succession planning and the opportunity for progress and development to your entire team.

You will want them to have detailed technical knowledge. You need to be able to give them the client circumstances. They understand it, and they understand what it is that you want to achieve for the client. You also want them to have analytical skills. They are going to be carrying out research and analysis, and it’s important that they’ve got that attention to detail. You want them to have good communication skills, not only verbal but also written skills. If they’re writing a report for your client, it needs to be easy for your client to understand and not something that’s full of jargon.

If you’ve got a paraplanner who is sitting in on client meetings, they are not necessarily going to sit silently in the corner, so you want them to be able to interact with your client. If they are going to go on that journey to become an advisor, they are going to need those interpersonal skills when they get there. You’ll want them to be proficient with IT. They may be using AI, or they may be using other technology to carry out their research and reports, so they need to understand how to use that most effectively.

The other thing that you would want your paraplanner to have is qualifications. It’s not a regulatory requirement for us in the U.K. that our paraplanners are qualified, but I feel that it is key, so all of our paraplanners are qualified in our business. When I say “qualified,” I mean they’ve got the same qualifications that an advisor may have for looking after clients.

Take the time if you’re not currently working with somebody to identify what the processes would be. How do you want them to work with the client? How do you want them to give feedback? How do you want them to update the client? Make sure it’s documented. That way you’ve got a consistent approach for every client. It also makes it easier when you add to your team, or you are transitioning somebody into a new role. Take the time to review your processes. What works for you now may not work for you later. If you recruit a paraplanner, they may have suggestions on how you could adapt your processes, so be willing to listen to your paraplanner. Take on board their suggestions on the processes. At the end of the day, they are going to be the ones following them.

Identify your strengths and weaknesses. Each member of your team will have different strengths and weaknesses, so make sure that you are taking those into account with your delegations. Use everybody’s strengths wisely. Use software and technology to help make the process easier, not only for your workflows and for your task management, but perhaps also for analysis, for reporting.

And keep reviewing your activity inventory. The things that you start going through on your activity inventory today and delegate are going to change over time. As you get more comfortable with delegating, you will identify other things that you want to start passing over. Do the same for your paraplanner. Your paraplanner may get to a point where they are inundated with work, so go through their activity inventory. What could they delegate to somebody else? Is it time to add an administrator to take more routine tasks away from your paraplanner, enabling the paraplanner to spend more time on detailed research and report writing?

Of course, not everything is always going to go smoothly. You can do as much preparation as you like, you can have everything documented as much as you want, but there will be times when there will be challenges. It’s important to see those challenges as an opportunity. It’s an opportunity for you to progress, for you to work more effectively together. Miscommunication is often the cause of these challenges, so it’s important to address miscommunication early. Don’t let it fester and become a big problem.

Understand how you, your paraplanner and your wider team prefer to give and receive information. You may prefer to just tell them what you want them to do. They might want you to write it down in an email so that they have something to refer back to. This is a potential cause for conflict, so it’s important to find a way that works for you both so that you can work most effectively and get the job done properly. Equally, is your paraplanner asking you the right questions? Have they got the information they need from you? Are you being clear enough in your instructions? Are you assuming too much? Have you given them enough information?

And you want your paraplanner to be coming back to you where they’ve identified maybe a shortfall in the file. Perhaps there’s some information missing. Perhaps there’s a compliance box that hasn’t been ticked. When that happens, don’t get defensive. It’s a way for you to get the best outcomes for your client.

Another issue could be underutilization. Maybe you are not giving your paraplanner enough variety. Maybe you are holding things back because you think, I don’t want to pass that over. It might be too much work for them. They might be interpreting that if you don’t trust them, you are not giving them those things to do. So make sure that you are not overwhelming your paraplanner with too much work but, equally, you are not making assumptions. Be clear on what the capacity is and where you can help each other. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking, I haven’t got time to show them how to do it, so I’ll just do it myself.

There may be a resistance to change. There could be resistance from your paraplanner toward working the way that you would like to work with your clients. Perhaps they’ve come from working for another advisor where they did things differently. So work together on that. Perhaps it’s your being resistant to change. Perhaps it’s your being resistant to the idea of working with a paraplanner and letting those things go. Having good communication means that you can understand where these challenges lie.

Make sure that you’ve got clearly defined roles and responsibilities. A lack of clarity can lead to confusion. It could lead to things being duplicated. You might carry out the same activity that your paraplanner’s done because you weren’t clear on who was doing what. You also want to make sure that things aren’t being missed or that time is not being wasted along the way. It’s important that each of you stay in your own role, stay in your seat. And don’t micromanage. This can also be an issue. Your paraplanner needs to feel that you trust them.