Surviving and Thriving in the Early Years.

Financial professionals must assume many roles, each with vastly different skill sets. They are responsible for marketing themselves, setting appointments, preparing and delivering presentations, processing paperwork, understanding products and strategies, making recommendations, handling objections, making sales, understanding compliance and operations, providing customer service, and maintaining client relations. This can be overwhelming for anyone, but especially for new advisors, who are pulled in so many different directions with little time to concentrate on what is most critical to their business: finding people to speak with and learning what to say and how to say it. This article discusses five areas which are essential for a new agent to master if he or she is to be successful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]