A career in Wealth Management has somewhat lost its luster lately. However, it is still very desirable among many students and graduates. In the common imagination, Private Bankers are dressed in immaculately tailored suits, commute between Monte Carlo, Miami, and Hong Kong, and visit clients on their yachts and at polo tournaments. In reality, a successful career in Private Banking requires mastering an arsenal of hard and soft skills.
The job of a private banker requires establishing and maintaining harmonious relationships with clients, advising them on their investments, and reliably providing them with various other services around their wealth. The following five skills will help you fulfilling the profession’s multiple demands.
Interpersonal Skills
Private Banking is a people business. An essential requirement is being able to establish and maintain relationships with existing and prospective clients. Wealth Management clients are not less diverse than any other group of people. Advising this clientele requires adapting to different personalities and creating a feeling of respect, mutual understanding, and being in good hands. Some clients prefer a formal relationship at arm’s length, while others don’t separate professional matters from their private lives, especially when dealing with financial issues. You should feel equally comfortable anywhere on this spectrum and adapt to the individual quirks of your clients.
Another critical aspect of the interpersonal skills of a private banker is the ability to establish rapport with prospects quickly. Every relationship manager is interested in growing their client book. That means having an entrepreneurial spirit, networking at events, and obtaining referrals from existing clients. You have only one chance to make a first impression and lay the seeds for a future client relationship.
Finally, your emotional intelligence will come in handy when resolving eventual conflicts or dealing with critical clients and their complaints. A private banker is at once representing his clients’ interests within the organization and the client’s point of contact with the bank. Balancing this dual role requires delicate communication.
Sales and Persuasion
Salesmanship is a skill that is closely related to emotional intelligence. Nevertheless, it requires a separate mention. Private Banking is a business that means selling yourself, the bank, and its services and its products to the client or prospect. Naturally, as a private banker, you must provide unbiased and professional advice to your clients. However, first, you must gain the opportunity to give that advice. Once granted, you have to convince the client to follow your suggestions.
One of the best ways to accomplish this is to employ a sales philosophy known as consultative selling. In a consultative sales process, the salesperson attempts to understand the client’s problem or need first, instead of having a product or solution in mind before even speaking with the client. After that need is clear, it is appropriate to reach into the toolbox and pick the right tools to fulfill the identified need. A critical skill for effective consultative selling is listening to the client actively, understanding their needs, and making the client participate in finding the solution. You should be able to walk a client of any sophistication level through the pros and cons of various options to tailor the final solution together and make your client all but arrive at the result themselves.
Another aspect of salesmanship is the ability to provide excellent client service. The best client acquisition and portfolio management skills will matter little if the client does not walk away from any interaction with you feeling to have received the best possible service. Undoubtedly, clients demand high returns with low risks from their banking relationships. However, as a private banker, you are ultimately in the business of providing your clients with a holistic and exclusive banking experience.
Financial Markets and Products
As a private banker, no financial matter is off-bounds in your conversations with clients. You will have to explain and advise on any financial product or concept a client might bring up in a conversation. These conversations can also touch upon related topics like wealth or retirement planning, tax matters, a mortgage, or yacht financing.
You can’t be an expert on every topic. Depending on the size of your organization, you might be able to draw on various in-house specialists. However, as the point of contact between the client and the bank, you will be responsible for translating that expertise into a language the client can understand and use for their decisions.
Besides financial markets and product expertise, clients will also expect you to stay up-to-date on major political and economic events impacting financial markets. It is also helpful to be well-read and have command of a wide range of topics outside of financial markets.
Organization and Time Management
Most private bankers manage a book of several tens of clients. Developing a system to keep track of every client relationship and stay on top of any to-dos and discussions with every client is every relationship manager’s responsibility.
Such a system is especially life-saving in moments of high stress when markets are volatile and client orders and inquiries keep rolling in one after another. You have to keep a cool head, stay organized, and find a way to prioritize your tasks and meet your clients’ demands.
Responding to client requests in a timely and organized manner will also make your clients feel important and well cared for, which is vital to strengthen the client relationship and develop trust.
Reliability
Staying on top of tasks and projects is essential not only in times of heightened client activity but is a requirement in the day-to-day life of a private banker. Managing other people’s money is laden with responsibility and has more significant consequences than many other professions. Therefore, for the sake of your peace of mind and the health of your client relationships, clients must feel that they can rely on you to execute their instructions and answer their questions correctly and promptly.
Unfortunately, mistakes are unavoidable when humans are at work. Nevertheless, it must be your priority to avoid them as much as possible, taking time to check your work. Many tasks, requests, and questions you receive from clients will be time-sensitive and sometimes involve large sums of money. Much of what you will do in financial markets will not be reversible without costs, so learn to work with precision while avoiding unnecessary time delays.
Being professional and reliable in everything you do will serve as the foundation for strong and successful client relationships.
Final Remarks
A career as a Private Banker for wealthy individuals requires many talents and skills, aside from financial markets expertise. You must develop relationships with different types of people, be solution-oriented, and stay on top of your everyday work and promises given to clients.
Add salesmanship and entrepreneurial spirit to the mix, the ability to grow your book, and your private banking career can take off.