Over the last twenty years, the financial industry at large has neglected the education and training of their advisers and insurance professionals. This neglect is a direct result of the industry’s cost to turn out qualified representatives. It’s expensive. Often a new agent or representative receives little to no education and training from the company who hired them. And depending upon the sector they entered, they generally become “single shingle” thinkers: i.e. wirehouses promote asset allocators, tax outlets center on developing tax consultants and insurance companies create agents who sell life insurance and annuities. Very few financial advisers are holistic and multi-dimensional enough to design plans for college, retirement and eldercare. The Academy of Coaching and Education (ACE) endeavors to educate financial professionals from the ground up and mentor them with one-on-one training. ACE has an approach similar to the altruistic consumer educators, The Society for Financial Awareness, whose mission is to deliver financial education to consumers. The methodology of adult education is quite different from high school and college students and ACE reflects those differences in its customized adult programs on money, financial planning and product fulfillment. The centerpiece of Ace is their case studies, real life applications of   Read more…

It’s an amazing fact that the largest economy in the world has little to no financial education for its citizens compared to other western nations. Yes, public schools offer courses from basic math to advanced calculus, but not a course on balancing your checkbook. Even private parochial schools don’t teach how to handle debt, or save for college and retirement. But this vacuum of financial literacy could and should be filled by financial professionals as part of their “giving back” to their communities. Promoting your practice as a premier provider of financial education and services can push your business to the front of the line in the minds of consumers. It has to be altruistic and educational at its heart. It has to be about learning and not selling. It exists to offer a benevolent education to those in your sphere of influence, i.e. entrepreneurs, friends from your places of worship and those you interact with in financial sectors, like CPAs and attorneys. Even human resource departments experience difficulty in finding financial professionals who will offer mandatory 404c compliant education for their participants in their employer sponsored retirement plans. Many consumers in or near their retirement years attend multiple seminars   Read more…