When it comes to financing, individuals, businesses, and organisations put their trust in the hands of those who can increase their net worth. These highly trained individuals are called financial advisors. 

Both organisations and individuals utilise financial advisors to direct their financial strategies. Personal financial advisors provide advice on investments, insurance, mortgages, college savings, estate planning, taxes, and retirement to help individuals manage their finances. 

Financial advisors must be knowledgeable of the stock market and be exceptionally good researchers and critical thinkers. They counsel clients on investment opportunities, purchasing decisions, and how to save for the future. 

Financial advisors have many duties they must perform to ensure the success of their clients: 

• Meeting with the clients to understand their goals, assets, and risk-tolerance.
• Getting detailed reports from the clients to determine their income, expenses, insurance coverage, tax status, and their financial objectives. 
• Researching the market and looking for worthwhile investment opportunities. 
• Communicating investment opportunities and risks related to specific investments. 
• Providing up-to-date information to the clients regarding current and anticipated industry trends.
• Regularly review and revise financial strategies,as necessary. 
• Provide verbal and written documentation and explanations.
• Help clients plan for specific circumstances or life changes, such as education expenses, marriage, or retirement 

In addition to keeping a keen eye on financial trends and investments, financial advisors must also be good communicators, and they must be very respectful of the trust their clients place with them. Part of maintaining this trust is providing regular reports and explanations of the state of their finances and investments to ensure that the client understands any changes. With the baby-boomer generation reaching retirement age, the demand for financial advisors is rising. 

Skills required: 

Critical thinking 

• Use data to analyse and predict future trends, 
• Develop multiple situation-specific strategies. 

• Evaluate timelines. 
• Anticipate life changes and shifting client needs. 

Collaboration 

• Determine client goals, assets, and priorities. 
• Establish and communicate expected timelines. 

Communication 

• Clearly communicate analyses. 
• Provide oral and written reports. 
• Delineate risk factors for each strategy. 
• Pitch your ideas and services to clients and potential clients. 

Creativity 

• Engineer multi-faceted solutions. 
• Create custom plans based on available resources. 

MyStemKits, a MimioSTEM curriculum solution, has related kits for this field of study. These include:  

Subjects: Mathematics, Science 

Grade levels: Primary 

Strand: Algebraic Thinking, Physical Sciences 

Reinforce an understanding of the value of coins and currency with this innovative kit. Use specially weighted coins on our balance to allow students to explore value combinations. 

To watch a video, click here: Balancing Currency Kit

Subjects: Mathematics, Science, Engineering 

Grade levels: Primary, Secondary 

Strand: Algebraic Thinking, Geometry 

The perfect building blocks of a solid foundation for understanding graphs, this kit can be used to reinforce mean, median, and mode while creating visual distributions in bar graphs and histograms. 

To watch a video, click here: Stacking Blocks Kit & Engineering Expansion