Freelance
News Service 
Financial Planners Earn Their Keep
By William Cracraft
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After twenty years in business, Wendell Cayton stumbled into financial planning by accident. He found he liked the work, went back to school for training and over the past fourteen years built a successful financial planning business. Raul Pomares, 28, who chose the field carefully to suit his skills and personal goals, started out just one year ago.
Cayton started out marketing health & insurance services to small business, "I took that job not knowing what to expect and not even expecting to be in it that long, but suddenly found I really enjoyed working with people and applying my 20-some years of business experience to their lives and financial situations," said Cayton.
Cayton recognized client needs went beyond insurance to include securities like stocks and bonds and a better understanding of tax liabilities, so he did two things. "I got a securities license so I could sell securities, but I also went back to graduate school," he said.
Cayton earned his masters in financial services at Golden Gate University and has continued to take courses, earning certificates such as a Charter Life Underwriter (CLU) and Charter Financial Consultant (CFC). Other courses he’s taken include taxation and estate planning.
"I began to develop a financial planning business where today we deal with long term planning needs, risk management which is the insurance side, tax planning and goal achievement, which for most people is two things, educating your children....and retirement," said Cayton. Between Boomers and the technology boom, the Bay Area needs financial planners.
"This is a very good market because there are people with lots of needs. We have lots of estate planning issues that come up because of the appreciation of property and the higher estate values we have here," he said. Cayton said there are several ways to get into the financial planning arena. "You can go from the retail side where you lean how to sell financial services like insurance and securities, in which case you would either align yourself with an insurance brokerage operation or registered broker-dealer, or get a securities license so you can sell securities."
Another alternative is to work for a financial planner as an administrative assistant and learn the business from the inside. "In other words, find yourself a mentor and work for them. There are a lot of people that get into it that way," Cayton said. Challenges are different with each age group Cayton advises.
"With a young person, the biggest challenge is getting them to save and not spend, the biggest challenge with people in their forties and fifties is that they need to be accumulating more, while they’re still dealing with supporting their children, and as they get older dealing with their fears of not having enough. Cayton likes his independence.
"It’s like every other business in the sense that I had to invest something in it, and what I had to invest is diminished earnings in the early years of the business. I could have gone out and been somebody’s manager and made a five or six-figure income. Someone coming into the business has to be prepared to make that investment," he said.
Pomares chose to begin investing his time working with an existing organization, The Equitable, an insurance and financial services company. Life Insurance based in (where). "What I like best about it, you truly control your destiny in terms of your compensation and earnings potential. I like being in a business where the harder you work the more you are rewarded," said Pomares.
When job hunting Pomares chose Equitable because "the way they work the emphasis is on planning not on pushing products." He was finally convinced to take the job because of the internal support Equitable gives its representatives.
"When you’re out there looking at jobs people are offering you and telling you all kinds of things and you have to weigh it all, take it with a grain of salt. Of everyone I interviewed with and spoke too, I felt (Equitable) was the most sincere. Education seems to be critical in the industry. Pomares holds a business degree from the University of San Francisco and state-issued licenses to sell life, health and disability insurance and a National Association of Security Dealers (NASA) Series 6, and Series 63 securities licenses, allowing him to sell mutual funds and variable products.
In-house company training includes First School, a one week course followed by an eighteen week Second School consisting of two 1.5 hour training meetings each week. "You have to have continuing education in order to keep your licenses. More importantly, because this business is constantly changing, you have to stay up to speed on tax laws changes, etcetera," said Pomares.
"We have monthly meetings in which industry trends and changes are discussed as well as two or three day conferences a couple times per year on what’s going on." Other training programs include coursework towards certification as a financial planner (CFP), Pomares added. Like Cayton, Pomares found the job is all about building on relationships.
"Its not a question of walking up and trying to sell them some type of product. In some clients the trust is developed in four or five meetings, some times it takes a year or two years, its a question of really working with your potential client and developing a strategy for what they want to accomplish," he said. The toughest part of the job is self-discipline, said Pomares.
"Because you have the ability to drive your compensation you definitely need to be self-motivated and willing to be out there meeting people all the time. You start working with friends and family, or whatever natural market you may have, and as you learn more and build up, you work in to higher markets,"
There are two career tracks Pomares can go down within Equitable, a personal producing track focused on bringing in clients and developing a personal business, or management track where you bring in people and them develop their careers. Pomares is leaning towards the latter, and has set his sights high.
"In five years, I’d like to see myself, and I plan on seeing myself, with a very comfortable six-figure income." Both men agree sincerity and hard work bring the payoffs. "What will make a person’s success in this business I believe, is their ability to listen, their integrity, how they come across as a caring individual, as someone that can be trusted," Cayton said. With Pomares, enthusiasm counts.
"I probably ‘work-work’ 60 hours a week, but I see it as my work never really stopping. Whenever I’m in social settings or the community, I’m always in the back of my mind considering how I can help people," he said.
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