Category Archives: Career

5 Steps to Becoming a Successful Wealth Manager

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Are you good with finances and numbers, and are quick to find solutions then a career in wealth management can be your calling. It is a way different than a career in investment banking or just a financial advisor. As a wealth manager you will have the chance to manage a person’s wealth and different aspects of it. Most importantly you will be in charge of the well-being of your client as you help them find ways to increase and effectively manage their wealth.

So, what exactly do you need to do? If you want to know how to become a wealth manager then this article is for you. Know more about wealth management and how to begin a career in it.

Here are some important pointers for your considerations:

What is Wealth Management?

Wealth management is a vast area encompassing various things. It is a professional services provided by a professional wealth manager. A wealth manager offers financial and investment advices, accounting and tax services. They are also responsible for helping the client plan for the future like retirement planning. Additionally, wealth management includes legal or estate planning as well.

As a wealth manager it will be your task to collect information from client’s attorney, accountants and insurance agent. You can also advice your client to participate in social services or activities for the welfare of the community.

Is it for you?

Before asking how to become a wealth manager many people would like to know if it is a profitable career. Wealth management is a rewarding career. It includes finance, taxes, property management, legal and real estate advice. You can wear many hats by becoming a wealth manager.

In case you are thinking how much you can earn with a career in wealth management then the numbers are not bad. At the start of your career you can earn up to $30,000 per year. And, once you get the relevant experience your earning could go up to $80,000 per year. As the time pass and you gain a reputation your earnings will only go higher along with the bonuses.

Education Requirements

Unlike other professions wealth management doesn’t have a stand-alone degree or certification. This is probably because it requires knowledge and expertise in finance and other related subjects. If you have a degree in finance, business management, economics or math then you can easily enter the field.

What you really need is the employer-based training program. It can prepare you for the career in wealth management by teaching you the essential points. It is one of the best ways to start your career in the field.

Experience in Finance

If you don’t have the degree, don’t get worried. Having an experience in financial services can open the career doors for you. If you have been doing accounting or taxes for quite some time then you can a land a job as a wealth manager. You will be working with clients with different requirements. You can find the right opportunity by focusing on the job descriptions. Some employer may need an extensive set of qualification and experience while others may me need of a few things like taxes or accounting.

You need to keep adding to your experience and technical qualification. The profession is regulated and will require you to get qualification from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) Appropriate Qualification list. The qualification requirements will depend on the job role you are looking for.

Additionally, you need to stay updated on the latest development regarding the qualification requirements. There can be changes in the regulations or procedures so you need to be well aware of it.

Skills Required for Wealth Management

There are skills essential to wealth management. You need to have the necessary skills to perform your job well and to succeed in the field. Analytical skills are very important as you will be required to analyze a lot of information. You should have the ability to understand complex information to recognize what it is. Calculations are a part of the job, so you need to be good in math. You don’t have to be a math genius for it, but you need to have decent calculation skills.

Communication is essential for all types of jobs including wealth management. So make sure you have good communication skills. The skills can be learned and mastered with practice. As a professional wealth manager you need to have clear communication skills so that you can effectively present your ideas.

The Bottom-Line

There are a few essential steps to how to become a wealth manager. If you have the skills and qualification for the job, it is one of the most rewarding careers. Understand the requirements and qualification and you can become a successful wealth manager.

Strategies to Earn Money When You Are a Freelancer

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Freelancing has become the best alternative for the traditional jobs that most people are forced to choose at one point or another. We all need to make the ends meet, many of us have higher aspirations and standards, so there’s got to be a solution to what we need without sacrificing 8 standard hours every, single, day.

Well, in today’s post, I’m going to teach you several strategies to start your freelancing journey in the most effective and productive way. Pay attention, take some notes, and make sure that you put this useful information in implementation the moment you commit to begin working.

Treat It Like a Business

Freelancing is very similar to business. Just like businesses sell products and services, freelancers do exactly the same thing, only in a different way.  As a freelancer, you have limited time, energy, and resources, therefore you’ll have to carefully strategize your future actions, habits, and decisions.

Choose Your Niche

Like in business, you need to choose a product/service to develop and/or promote. In freelancing, the product is basically the service you’re offering. You can become a:

  • Content writer
  • SEO writer
  • Digital Assistant
  • Graphic Designer
  • Web Developer

The list could go because there are hundreds and thousands of opportunities. You need to establish what you want to do, what skills you need to develop, and what clients you’ll have to search for.

Create a Professional Website (domain, hosting)

Obviously, a professional website is necessary for a steady growth. Every successful independent contractor is already working on his/her online presence. The website is the first thing you need to consider when starting out your freelance career.

Choose a domain, select a hosting plan, and start learning how to use WordPress– it’s easy and most newbie freelancers can take advantage of it. There are a lot of tutorials on the web on how to start a website, so you should definitely take your time to learn.

Establish Your Target Audience

Who will you be targeting? This is a very important aspect that you can’t neglect. In today’s marketplace, most clients are looking for specialized freelancers. For example, if a health & wellness magazine needs extra content, they’ll look for content writers which are specialized precisely in the health & wellness field.

This means that they know the language and the lingos, they can use a language that would be perfect for the client’s audience, and it also means that the writer’s compensations will be above average.

Therefore, after choosing your niche, you need to establish your specific target audience and guide your marketing efforts in alignment with your audience’s characteristics.

Develop a Strong Online Presence 

A strong online presence is absolutely critical in today’s times. Your future clients are already searching for you online, in different places, offering different opportunities. However, for you to be accessible, and to look trustworthy and valuable to your audience, you must consistently promote your personal brand in the online medium.

Get Visible on Social Channels

Start by developing a professional presence on one or two social channels. Ideally, it should be Facebook and LinkedIn. Make it truly professional, which means that you should abide by posting anything that you believe that it won’t be suited in a formal environment.

On your social channels, curate and/or create quality content around your niche. Secondly, you may showcasea few samples of your work.

Complete your profile – add pictures, contact information, past work experiences, and everything else until you have it all. Lastly, start being active. Publish, comment, reply, mention, engage.

Build Relationships with Influencers

To improve your personal brand’s reputation, you must first make it visible. Leveraging social media influencers (people/pages with lots of followers/subscribers/likes) is a great strategy that most businesses are using today.

Develop relationships by offering free services or by simply paying for a promotion. If the results are satisfying and your return on investment is positive, you should keep promoting your services with the help of social influencers.

Network, Network, Network

In today’s digital and social environment in which communication is instant, it would be foolish not to network.Simply put, start reaching out your target audience and offer your professional services. You can develop a networking strategy that’ll help you accomplish your specific goals. For example, you may offer a 50% discount for every client who’s willing to order after your first presentation.

Sustain and Improve Your Freelance Career 

Freelancing is a long-term journey. Everything’s hard at first, and freelancing is no exception. In fact, I’d say that a freelancing career is not for the weak souls. Building highly valuable skills in a specific niche is one thing. However, preserving your work power, cultivating discipline, and maintaining your consistency are also essential aspects of a thriving freelance career.

Don’t Quit Your Job Too Fast

Don’t quit your job before you’re absolutely sure that your freelancing efforts are enough to sustain the lifestyle you want. When you go freelance, you basically take a risk. You don’t have clients yet, and your skills are barely developed. To minimize the risk, keep working your normal job until you’ve got something better.

Develop Concise Freelancing Goals

What do you want to achieve with your freelancing career? Success is extremely subjective, and each person has its own version of it. Depending on what you want to accomplish from a professional point of view, you need to specifically state your goals. Make them very concise and split them into smaller pieces, called mini-goals. Take each mini-goal on the side and work on it separately until you build the big picture.

Grow Your Standards as You Grow Your Skills

As Mark Cursus, HR manager at Assignment Masters suggests, “The difference between successful and mediocre individuals lies in the difference of standards that people have concerning their professional life. Some freelancers would be happy to earn $10a day while others wouldn’t be able to work for less than $50.”

The best thing you can do for yourself and for your long-term future is to adopt a growth mindset. Grow your mindset, shift your attitude, and develop higher and higher standards. To support these new, high standards, you must also consistently grow your skills.

Stay Organized

Organize your personal time well and strive to become a disciplined individual. You can’t afford missing important deadlines, meetings, or other requests. Your clients depend on your availability so make sure that you don’t disappoint.

Stay Consistent

Consistency is the most important aspect of a successful freelance career. Knowledge, skills, passion – they are necessary, indeed. However, without consistent involvement and work, freelancing is not worth pursuing because it’ll never get you where you want.

Stay Persistent

Persistency, like consistency, is key to a successful progress in the freelance domain. When life gives you a lot of trouble, it’s easy to slip off and become distracted. Distractions will make your freelance work becomes inconsistent and unreliable.A persistent mindset will help you get back on feet and start going again.

Takeaways

Becoming a freelancer is easy.Becoming a successful, recognized, and truly professional individual is another totally different story. My advice would be this. Start gathering knowledge, improve your skills, build connections, be calculated, stay organized, consistent, and persistent, and never look back. I wish you the best of luck!

7 Things to Consider Before Pursuing a Career in Finance

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If you want to major in finance as your major during college, you will require a particular range of skills, or should I say abilities, in order to be successful. Too many financially savvy college students enter into the finance business simply because of the allure of the financial business and the prospect of big salaries only.

However, if you do not have the aptitudes necessary to not only apply for, but to actually be employed at a corporate finance job, you will have a very hard time finishing your studies or finding a position when and if you do graduate from college.

But we are here to help you here today. Here are some of the top aptitudes that every finance student should have if they wish to pursue a career in the finance industry.

You Like Competition

The finance sector is a highly competitive one, and a healthy love of competition is most certainly necessary in order to make it in this business. However, you should not become so engrossed with competition to the point of failing to be a team player.

Too many people take MBA jobs in finance thinking that their associates are so called “competitors” that should be vanquished at any cost so they can further their chances for advancement. Unfortunately, these people never do prosper because they do not use their strength for the good of the team.

You Have Resilience

Employers value employees who are resilient and can overcome challenges in a hurry. With corporate finance jobs, you will be burdened with lots of responsibilities and there will be good and bad days like everyone has. Staying optimistic is therefore important and you should not be bogged down by stress or negativity when your investment decisions don’t happen to pan out.

You Are A Quick Learner

When you work in finance, things do move very fast and you have to be a quick learner if you want to survive. Your approach towards learning is what will set you apart and give you a better chance of succeeding. Be sure you are able to learn on the go if you want to pursue a career in the financial services industry.

You Have Superb Communication Skills

When you hold financial discussions with clients, things can get really complicated very very fast. It is for this exact reason that you need superb communications skills in the workplace and an ability to vulgarize very complicated concepts on the go. I can’t stress just how important it is to properly communicate with your clients when dealing with financial issues.

You Are Calm Under Pressure

How do you handle a rough situation that happens in your personal life? Do you freak out? Or do you stay calm and assess the situation carefully? How you answer this question determine whether or not you have what it takes to turn to the finance world for a life long career.

The financial world can be a chaotic place, and you need to be capable of staying calm under difficult situations. When the stock markets plunge, some might fall prey to panic, but your ability to stay calm under the storm will set you apart from the competition.

You Focus On Details

In some sectors, a small typo may not be such a bad thing; but a decimal placed wrongly or an additional zero in a financial report can land you in hot legal water. This is why an attention to detail is capital if you want to succeed in the financial field.

You Solve Problems

Being good at solving problems is a great skill for anybody to have. But it is of utmost important for any finance major. From negotiating deals to providing solutions to clients, you will stand head and shoulders above the rest if you can handle complicated situations without breaking a sweat.

From the above descriptions, it is clear to see that majoring in finance isn’t for everyone. You need a certain set of skills in order to succeed in the finance world. But if you can make maximum use of your natural skills and abilities, you will have tons of success in the financial sector.