Giving back and getting back

Mentoring is one of the most rewarding experiences a financial advisor can have. Aside from the satisfaction of giving back, mentoring allows advisors to draw on their past experiences, coaching advisors of all ages to improve themselves both professionally and personally.

Brian D. Heckert, CLU, ChFC, a 37-year MDRT member and Past President, realized upon coaching his mentees that he was teaching too fast. So, he learned to slow his pace while presenting topics. That adjustment filtered into his client work with positive results.

“A lot of people aren’t auditory learners; they’re visual learners,” Heckert said. “I’ve applied that in my practice. It helped me understand that you have to play to both the right and left brain. Doing that has helped me slow down my presentations tremendously.”

The most productive relationships are those in which the mentee leads the conversation. “I’m not a trainer; I’m a mentor,” he said. “My job is to help guide them on the non-product side so that they become a better person, a better businessperson and a better member of the financial community.”

Heckert emphasized to two recent mentees that they needed to drive the conversation “and they followed the rules 100%. They’re setting up the meetings and the agendas and everything else. It’s been so easy for me and so rewarding for them because I’m not telling them what to do. That is the best way to improve a relationship.”

For Mark D. Olson, CFP, MSFS, a 26-year MDRT member, the biggest benefit is that it forced him to take a closer look at his own business. “There are things you do that work, but you stop doing them and later realize you should be teaching them to your mentees,” Olson said. “It brings you back to the basics that we should all be practicing but fall away from over time. I think that’s one of the bigger benefits — the personal satisfaction and contentment you get from helping others.”

Olson believes advisors improve their teaching and leadership skills by mentoring. “There are people in my business who I’ve brought from being MDRT members to earning Court of the Table and Top of the Table honors, and that has really helped my leadership skills over the years.”

Mentoring affords an opportunity to create a successor for your practice, he said. “If you begin mentoring a younger advisor with the idea that they might be your successor, it’s the best way to find out how they interact with your clients. By mentoring them and helping build their career, you’ll know if you want to entrust your clients to them. Not everyone is a good match.”

Olson has created lifelong friendships through mentoring — another big benefit that all the advisors featured in this article were quick to mention.

Be all that you can be

Mentoring is a two-way street, as Elaine Milne, Dip PFS, a 17-year MDRT member, learned. An MDRT member who mentored Milne for nine years via a regular monthly call taught her that the mentor gets as much out of the process as the mentee. “As a mentor, I have to step back to prepare and put myself in a position where I can give you something of value,” he told Milne. “I get as much out of it as you do because I have to ensure I am the best version of myself.”

It has also been enlightening to learn to adjust her teaching style to different generations.

“People coming in now are 20 or so years younger than me. Younger advisors can tend to see the task but overlook the relationship,” she said.

One of the challenges is that the younger generation can see older ones as ‘old school’, but Milne’s 27 years of experience has been vital in helping them piece it all together. One young advisor she brought into the practice is a potential successor and sees the value that Milne has gained from older advisors that she now passes to him. Milne values the contributions of older advisors.

“I don’t want to see the 70- and 80-year-olds disappear from my profession or my Rotary Club, because they bring huge skills and life experience,” she said. “I’m in my mid-50s, and I now have the experience in life and professional skills that I have valued in others before me. There’s lots of room for everyone.”

She advises MDRT mentors “to be humble and have their own coaches, because it’s an investment that makes you more accountable. Take a step back and work on the business, not in it. You need that helicopter view and can’t do it alone.”

After qualifying, 32-year MDRT member Gregory Pogonowski, Dip PFS, Cert CIIMP, was mentored by MDRT Past President and 36-year member Caroline A. Banks, FPFS. “She wanted to pass on what she had learned to others, and I in turn have done the same,” Pogonowski said. “Caroline pointed me in the right direction which trebled my income in the very next year.”

He formally became a mentor after being contacted through the official MDRT mentoring channel.

Pogonowski estimates he has mentored six to eight people over the past 30 years.

“Most of my mentees are younger in both age and experience, which helps keep me fresh and relevant,” he said. “I need to stay up to date on regulatory and industry changes because there are new situations they’re going to need help with. For example, there’s artificial intelligence, which has transformed the financial planning industry and gives me great insight.”

He follows the MDRT’s structured mentoring program, straying from it when necessary: “I want to concentrate on the individual’s issues, not on things that are irrelevant to that person.”

Pogonowski periodically reaches out to his mentees to talk over new ideas and challenges. “It’s not so much about generational differences as it is looking at the stage the mentee is in with their business cycle. You must get to know their business and what they want to achieve; for instance, they might have issues with succession planning or mergers.”

He acknowledges that being a financial advisor can be a lonely experience for mentees. “If they don’t have a peer to talk to, I advise them to join a local study group where they can share ideas and experiences.”

Polish self-leadership skills

Nick Longo, MFP, APFP, an eight-year MDRT member, finds that mentoring others brings to the surface much of what he learned from his own mentors. Mentoring has strengthened his leadership skills, particularly self-leadership. “I get to really hone in on that during the monthly catch-up meetings,” Longo said. “That’s the most important leadership skill. It’s about continuous improvement and continuous development.”

Another important skill that can be refined through mentoring is discipline and commitment. This is achieved through daily victories, he said, and it must link into your vision. “It helps to revisit your vision when you’re talking to mentees about theirs,” he said.

Longo’s mentees are a mix of younger and older advisors. He has mentored five so far, located all over the world.

“Relationships like these have a unique way of reminding you what made your business work well, but you’re no longer doing,” Longo said.

Pogonowski wholeheartedly recommends mentoring to all MDRT members. “Look at the bigger picture,” he said. “It’s a natural progression. You’re training tomorrow’s leaders so that they have the right values and morals.”

Longo sums up, “Mentoring is good for the mentor because it gives compounded returns on one’s efforts, in turn compounding the growth of the practice. It recharges the mind.”