The 17+ Most Important Skills Financial Planners Must Master

When you think about the essential knowledge and skills you need to succeed as a financial planner, what comes to mind? You might instantly think about knowing how to read financial projections or understanding various investment strategies. Or maybe you focus on essential budget calculations and the key steps in retirement planning.

All of those are essential for success as a financial planner. But they’re not the whole story!

Being an effective planner (and an exceptional one) requires more than just the technical skills to analyze data and build comprehensive plans — that only matters in the context of a strong relationship with your clients!

People don’t hire a financial planner because they want someone who can provide them with endless numbers, calculations, and projections. There are plenty of computer programs and online tools that can generate financial data.

People hire financial planners because they want someone to help them make sense of that complicated information. They want someone who can help them better understand their money and guide them in a plan that aligns with their values.

To be an exceptional planner, you need to be a well-rounded professional. Let’s look at the crucial skills you should focus on.

Soft Skills Every Financial Planner Needs

In your classes and exam prep sessions, you learn how to build financial plans. But that’s only half the equation — you also need to be able to deliver them effectively to your clients!

In most cases, your clients won’t be impressed by your math skills or awed by some charts and projections. They’re going to remember how you made them feel about their finances.

Did you help them believe they could confidently manage their money? Or did they leave the session feeling more confused and anxious than when it started?

If you want to effectively interact with your clients, you need a well-developed set of soft skills! In case this is a new term, soft skills are defined as “personal attributes and interpersonal abilities that influence how effectively someone interacts with others.”

One note before we dive into talking about soft skills: Many people assume they already have these so they will skim right over them and move to the technical skills. In our experience, most advisors and planners do not have the soft skills they need to thrive, and everyone can dive deeper into them. Pay close attention and use self-awareness to admit where you may need to develop more.

Human-centered skills

These are the skills that help you build trust with your clients:

Communication: Clear, jargon-free communication helps clients feel informed and empowered rather than confused or overwhelmed.
Empathy: Practice stepping into your client’s shoes. You don’t have to agree with their choices to understand where they’re coming from.
Active listening: Don’t just listen to respond. Listen to understand. Reflect back what clients say to show you’re truly hearing them.
Emotional intelligence: Tune into the emotional cues beneath your client’s words and body language. Know when to pause, pivot, or reassure.
Patience: Clients may need to hear things more than once. Your calm presence is part of what makes you a trusted guide.

Reminder: These skills can be learned, refined, and practiced, no matter where you’re starting from.

Analytical and strategic thinking skills

These are the traits you’ll use to deliver personalized guidance to your clients.

Critical thinking: Go beyond the surface of a situation. Ask “why” and “what if” to uncover deeper needs or better options.
Decision-making despite uncertain situations: When there’s no perfect answer, lean on your values, research, and the client’s goals to make informed choices.
Synthesizing complex data into actionable, simple advice: Your job isn’t just to know the data. It’s to translate it into something clients can understand and act on with confidence.

These skills don’t always show up in a classroom, but they can absolutely be built through real-world experience and reflection.

Self-leadership and growth skills

The skills listed above are important, but here are the capabilities that will make you stand out from the crowd!

Time management and prioritization to balance multiple projects at a time and create systems to improve efficiency
Self-awareness to know your strengths and weaknesses
Personal accountability to identify your career goals, develop a personal brand, and build your professional network
Dedication to lifelong improvement with a growth mindset that’s always ready to learn
Emotional resilience to avoid taking things personally and diffuse stressful interactions

Why are these skills so crucial? They’re often the difference between a competent financial planner and an exceptional professional who drives the profession forward!

Foundational Knowledge for Advisors to Revisit

Even experienced planners find new depth in the fundamentals.

If soft skills help you connect with clients, the technical foundations of financial planning are the backbone of the advice you give.

Whether you’re new to the profession or years in, there’s always more to learn (and re-learn) within these core areas:

Onboarding & client care

A well-structured onboarding process sets the tone for everything. From your first meeting agenda to how you follow up, the details matter.

Cash flow planning

Helping clients understand where their money goes and how to align it with their values is one of the most practical and transformative parts of the job.

Retirement planning

Social Security timing, income distribution strategies, and longevity risks are just the beginning. This area evolves constantly with new tools and legislation.

Investment planning

Knowing portfolio theory is one thing. Helping clients stick to a strategy during market volatility? That’s where deep planning knowledge pays off.

College planning

It’s not just 529s. Understanding financial aid, tax impacts, and multi-child strategies adds major value for families.

Insurance planning

From life and disability to long-term care, insurance protects the plan. But it’s also where many planners feel least confident and is worth revisiting often.

Tax planning

While you may not prepare returns, understanding tax implications (like Roth conversions, capital gains, or charitable giving strategies) allows you to give forward-thinking advice.

Estate planning

Helping clients think through legacy, family dynamics, and beneficiary planning requires both technical knowledge and sensitivity.

Tip: If a topic feels dry or overly complex, don’t ignore it. That’s often a sign it’s time to dig deeper — and doing so might make you the planner clients never want to leave.

Technology Every Planner Should Know How to Use

While soft skills help you build relationships with your clients and your foundational skills help you keep them, technology will help you do your job better, faster, and more accurately.

Which tech should you focus on? Most firms expect new hires (even recently-certified planners!) to be proficient in industry-standard software and tools, such as:

eMoney for financial planning and projections
Morningstar for investment research and portfolio analysis
Asset-Map for client visualization and financial snapshots
Redtail for client relationship management
EncorEstate for estate planning

Mastering these tools — and understanding the core principles of how and why they work — ensures that you can deliver data-driven guidance to your clients. And if you can walk into your first job proficient in the top software platforms, you’ll have a competitive edge over your peers — and an easier learning curve as you start your career.

Sharpen Essential Financial Planner Skills at the Externship

Becoming an effective, successful financial planner isn’t just about checking off the education requirement and passing the CFP® certification exam. If you want to attract loyal clients (and land a job at a top firm) you need to build a well-rounded skill set!

And that’s exactly what you’ll do at The Externship! This virtual training program is all about helping you build your soft skills and technical competencies.

Human skills

The Externship includes several elements centered on human skills:

Watch real client meetings that feature complex situations and human interactions that traditional case studies just can’t cover.
Listen to seasoned financial planners explain how they handle emotional clients and challenging financial conversations.
Practice asking the right questions so you can communicate confidently with clients, colleagues, and managers.

Foundational planning principles

The Externship also helps reinforce the core areas that form the bedrock of your planning knowledge:

Cash flow and budgeting
Retirement and investment planning
College, insurance, tax, and estate strategies
Client onboarding and long-term relationship building

You’ll not only apply these principles — you’ll see how 50+ experienced planners use them to build trust, create structure, and serve clients through life’s biggest financial decisions.

Technical skills

You’ll also participate in exercises designed to sharpen your technical capabilities:

Complete hands-on training with industry-standard software: eMoney, Morningstar, Asset-Map, and more!
Walk through detailed financial planning exercises based on actual client scenarios.
Learn how to collect, study, and analyze real data to provide personalized advice to your clients.

With innovative technical methods and a balanced approach, The Externship ensures you’ll walk away feeling confident that you can show up for your clients, communicate well, and guide their finances effectively.

Build the Financial Planner Skills Clients (and Firms) Value

You might gravitate toward technical knowledge or soft skills — that’s OK! Most people naturally favor one or the other.

But when you invest time and energy into building the skills you find challenging (along with your natural gifts), your clients and employers will benefit — as will your career!

If you’re ready to dive in and grow your financial planner skill set, register for the 2025 Externship. This virtual, asynchronous training program gives you 8 weeks of comprehensive education, plus the chance to earn 500 CFP Board standard pathway hours — all from the comfort of home!

This year’s Externship is going to be the best one yet. Sign up today!