Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with financial planner,

speaker and consultant Michael Kitsis to hear stories of how leading financial advisors

navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success and get insight from leading

industry consultants about how to break through to the

next level in your advisory business. And now here's your host, Michael Kitsas. Welcome, everyone.

Welcome to the 212th episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast. My guest on today's podcast is

Alex Hopkins. Alex is the founder of Simply Paraplanner, a jobs board and training portal for virtual

paraplanners across the U.S.

What's unique about Alex, though, is her vision for Simply Paraplanner, not just as a way

for para planners to find job opportunities and firms to find virtual paraplanning help, but

to support the ongoing evolution of paraplanning from an

entry-level support role into a dedicated professional services career path unto itself.

In this episode, we talk in depth about what paraplanners really do in an advisory firm to make it

more efficient and effective. The best way to divide tasks between a paraplanter

and a lead advisor, how the internal process of crafting a financial plan must change when a

parraplanter develops the initial plan, but the lead advisor has to get up to speed on the details

and recommendations in order to actually deliver it, and how the technical demands of the

paraplanar role have risen in recent years, to the point that designations like the financial paraplanar qualified professional are no longer necessarily sufficient, and firms increasingly want someone with CFP certification, or at least who has completed the CFP educational requirement and passed the CFP exam to be in the paraplanter role.

We also talk about the simply Paralyter platform itself, how advisory firms have become split about hiring part-time or full-time

paraplanners based on their own current size and needs, the support services that Simply

Paraplanner provides for firms that aren't sure how to pick the right paraplanner for their own firm. And the portal that Simply Paraplanner is developed to help newer virtual

paraplanters get the training they need to be successful, from guidance on how to set up a virtual

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