CFP Board Mentor Program: mentor Kit Taylor Fealy tfealy@cfpboard.org 202.379.2257

Program objectives Thank you for volunteering to be a CFP Board Mentor! The CFP Board Mentor Program provides support to prospective CFP® professionals, ensuring that those pursuing CFP® certification understand the unique benefits of the certification and have guidance through the process. Your role as a mentor is to: Provide advice and support to prospective CFP® professionals Help advance the profession by expanding access to competent and ethical financial planning and building a more diverse community of planners

Program Requirements and expectations A mentor’s responsibilities: Mentors and mentees are expected to have a minimum of two interactions by phone, email, or in person throughout the engagement. CFP Board mentoring engagements vary in length. Typically, we see engagements lasting anywhere from several weeks up to, and exceeding, 6 months. If you hit it off, we encourage you to continue your relationship with your mentee beyond the mentorship program. If your mentee is in your geographic area, we strongly encourage you to set up an in-person meeting. Share with your mentee what it means to be a CFP ® professional and to be a part of the financial planning profession. Use your own professional background and your experience with the certification process to guide your mentee. Challenge the mentee to develop a plan for certification success. Discuss barriers they see; ways to balance work and life while preparing for the exam; how to get employer support for their study plan. Help the mentee stay motivated on achieving certification. Provide honest, constructive feedback. Celebrate milestones and achievements with your mentee. Upon completion of the engagement, mentors and mentees will be asked to complete a survey to help CFP Board measure success and continue to improve the Mentor Program.

Getting started Checklist Getting Started on the Right Foot: Getting off to a good start is an important part of the mentoring relationship. While it is your choice how to communicate with a mentee, here is a checklist of things to consider when getting started: Introduce yourself to your mentee as soon as possible after accepting the role of mentor and before arranging a first meeting. Request a link to your mentee’s LinkedIn profile. If he/she does not have a LinkedIn profile, request a brief bio from them before the first meeting. After reading the mentee’s initial communications, jot down a few questions you can use as conversation starters in the first session to begin to understand what stage your mentee is at and what guidance they might be looking for. Identify options in your calendar for regular meetings or conversations so you can offer dates and times for future sessions during your initial call. Suggest a date and time for your first conversation, with a specific start and end time for the meeting. If you are planning to meet in person, choose a safe, public location. Start and end your first session on time to establish a good boundary with your mentee. Convey your enthusiasm and make a personal connection via the tone of your email or phone communication. (e.g. “I look forward to getting to know you.”) This will help relieve your mentee of fears that he or she may be inconveniencing you. Follow-up immediately after your initial session with any actions you have agreed to. Always confirm the date, time and location of the next mentoring conversation.

Tips for 1st Meeting Agenda Your first session: Your initial mentoring session sets the tone for how the relationship can develop. To help you get started, here is a suggested agenda for the 1st meeting with a mentee: Introductions – while you likely have shared some information via email already, take some time to better understand the person you are talking to. Cover your respective understanding of the mentoring process. Discuss any boundaries of the relationship (confidentiality, etc.). Make sure they understand your role is to help support them through the certification process. Ask them where they would like help in the four “E’s” of CFP® certification – education, exam, experience and/or ethics. Go over the areas with which the mentee is seeking the most help, ask them to send you 2-3 goals/takeaways they hope to gain at the end of your engagement (keep these in front of you during your future mentoring conversations). Let them know that, although you will probably take the lead initially, you expect this to change as the relationship grows and that they will eventually lead the process. Discuss and agree to your approach for how often you will maintain contact with each other. Set up the time and date for your next call, establish times for regularly scheduled communications.

Connecting While the way you approach the conversation with your mentee is up to you, we wanted to provide some sample questions for starting discussions with your mentee:   Why did you decide to seek a mentor? What is the best way to communicate with you? How often shall we meet? What do you believe are the main benefits of becoming certified? How do you feel getting certified will impact you both personally and professionally? Where are you now in the process of getting certified in terms of education, exam prep, and experience? Do you have a target exam date in mind? Have you had any difficulties entering the financial planning profession? What interests do you pursue outside of work?

resources Additional resources relating to mentoring and CFP® certification can be found in the Resource Library of the CFP Board Mentor Program. You may get questions about the certification process that you are not fully sure how to answer. In situations like this, we encourage you to ask your mentee to post the question to CFP Board’s Candidate Forum. This is a tool where candidates can connect with each other, asking questions and getting helpful responses from the community. The need for qualified financial advisors is great…and growing. For some telling statistics on why CFP® certification matters, visit: getcfpcertified.org. Do you think your mentee would benefit from a one-on-one conversation about a certain element of certification? Let them know they can contact the CFP Board Stakeholder Services team at 1-800-487-1497. If you have any questions or concerns related to the mentor program, please call Taylor Fealy, 202-379-2257 or email her at tfealy@cfpboard.org.

Thank you Taylor Fealy tfealy@cfpboard.org 202.379.2257