PLANADVISER - July/August 2020 - 9

The Secret to Getting a Gig
Mentorship is key to the adviser industry's future
THE LATEST DATA from J.D. Power shows the
average age of financial advisers is about
55, and approximately one-fifth are 65 or
older. Clearly, the industry needs to attract
more young people.
Dominique Henderson, the founder of
DJH Capital Management, an independent
registered investment adviser (RIA) firm
in Dallas, also runs an advisory coaching
program called Jumpstart. He commonly
gets questions from people of diverse backgrounds
about " how to go from learning
about being an adviser to getting a real gig. "
" If I only have time to tell people one
it's to find a mentor, " Henderson
thing,
says. " I tell them to find someone inside
the industry who they admire-who they
can aspire to be like. That's not to say it's
easy to find a mentor, but doing that work
is very worthwhile. It's your best single
bet to success. "
" I tell them to
find someone ...
they can aspire
to be like. "
Through Jumpstart, which began as
an informal effort in 2016 before evolving,
year over year, into its current formalized
coaching framework, Henderson has
worked one on one with over 300 college
graduates and career changers. For the
most part,
these are people who have
some inkling they would like advising
but who lack connections in the industry.
Henderson's program is designed to give
them practical and actionable insight
about how advisory firms work, what
roles are available for people with a given
skill set, and more.
" The most rewarding feedback I've
gotten from people interacting with the
Jumpstart community is they are getting
something extra beyond what you would
get from your degree or your training for
designations, " he observes.
Henderson says the process of
mentoring or coaching a new adviser often
follows a similar pattern. First, people
need to learn the basics of getting started,
in terms of how their compensation may
work and defining what they want their
future to look like in terms of work-life
balance. Next, they tend to focus on finding
the confidence and creating a strategy to
actually make the leap, after which their
focus turns to more nuanced issues such
as choosing between designations.
Lee Bethel, president of Comprehensive
Benefit Services Inc., a retirement plan
and employee benefits practice centered
in the Washington, D.C., area, agrees that
mentorship is key to the industry's future.
He encourages firms to think about how
their compensation structures affect the
ability of young people or career changers
to actually enter this space.
" The entire advisory and insurance
industry has changed so much compared
with the early 1980s, when I was starting
out, " he reflects. " We simply do not employ
the same mechanisms for providing
adequate compensation to people of
modest means trying to enter this field and
to build a book of business. "
When Bethel, himself, entered the
field, it was common to see new associate
advisers training under mentors and
being paid through " draws " against future
commissions. " You don't find that setup
these days very often at all, especially
among smaller independent firms, " Bethel
says. " Without this type of consideration,
it's so hard for young people of any background
to establish themselves. "
Bethel says he was only personally able
to make his way into this industry thanks
to the generosity and guidance of his
mentor-an influential adviser in the D.C.
area named Lang Dixon.
" Today, there are plenty of programs
to help people get designations, and that's
great. But where are the programs and
solutions to help people actually secure
employment as an adviser? We all need to
do more. " -John Manganaro
ON THE MOVE
➜ Russell Morrison will be
global chief investment
officer of Aegon Asset
Management. He recently
left Barings and served
in the fixed income division
of First Union Bank,
among other companies.
➜ Nationwide has
entered the pension risk
transfer market, with Paula
Cole leading the new
team. Cole joins Nationwide
from Legal & General
Retirement America,
a U.K.-based specialist in
pension de-risking.
➜ Hall Benefits Law
added Robert Forman
as lead ERISA [Employee
Retirement Income
Security Act] counsel and
Kenneth Beaver as chief
operating officer.
➜ Alliance Pension
Consultants LLC acquired
Reed-Ramsey Inc., a
recordkeeping, actuarial,
compliance and human
resources consultant.
Robert Reed, president,
along with a team of
administrators, will also
join Alliance.
➜ Craig DeSanto was
elected president of
New York Life effective
immediately, replacing
Chairman and CEO Ted
Mathas. DeSanto will
oversee all businesses
of the company.
planadviser.com July-August 2020 | 9
➜
http://www.planadviser.com
PLANADVISER - July/August 2020

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