Becoming The Highly Successful Professional
Once having done a university course in a vocational area that gave you a body of specialised knowledge, a set of related skills and a qualification that gave you an accompanying license to practice, you had everything you needed to be successful. You had a career, not just a job. It gave you status, power and influence, above average income and an expertise that the ordinary person did not have that allowed you to control your knowledge and resources.
There is a revolution going on in all the professions and the reality of professional life is now very different. It is being radically disrupted. All professions are being challenged to rethink their traditional role as globalisation, technology and a changing generational demographic redefine the work of professionals. If you don’t take heed of this change then you will be left behind. This disruption has the potential to send many financial services firms to the wall if they cannot or do not adapt to this changing professional reality.
The one part of being a professional that has not changed is that all professions have a value base that is characterised by service, trust, integrity and putting the client first. It has been the profound breech of those value characteristics by professions in recent times that have seen them lose respect and credibility with their public and the financial services sector has been highly criticised in this regard.
This workshop is about bringing this value base of the professions back into focus by putting your clients at the centre of everything you do. It is about recognising that they now want far more from you than compliance, tax and robo advice. They want a relationship with a trusted adviser and authority, someone whose interpersonal and communication skills are as well developed as their technical skills. They want you to be able to articulate the value you can offer them in advancing their wealth creation or growing their businesses because only then will they pay you for that value.
This workshop is about helping you develop those soft skills for leadership that will see you be the successful professional for and with your clients.
It will discuss how you can:
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Build your personal brand which is a huge differentiator and moves you beyond the sea of sameness in your profession.
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Learn to be the emotionally intelligent professional who can respond to whatever presses your buttons in a calm and professional way.
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Be pro-active, solution focused, a can-do professional.
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Be resilient with and for your clients in these challenging and uncertain times, able to bounce back from whatever adversity you and your clients face.
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Manage your energy so that time-management is not an issue for you.
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Build connections and commitments with empowering and empowered people who enhance your professional life and support its advancement.
This workshop can be contextualised to the differing situations that accountants and financial planners find themselves in at the present time. Accountancy has been acknowledged as a profession for some time, while financial planning is in the process of creating a professional identity for itself, adopting and implementing the criteria demanded to call yourself a profession. Parallel to this is the blurring of knowledge boundaries that is occurring between the two sectors. While acknowledging these realities, the content of the workshop is relevant to all finance professionals.