Faculty Feature | Bryan Dar Santos

Bryan Dar Santos is a financial advisor with over sixteen years of experience. Bryan is the owner of FDI Financial Diagnostics Inc., a consulting service for financial advisors. He recently accepted a position with the Desjardins financial company as one of the Regional Directors of their Investment Centre.

Bryan joined Ashton’s Financial Services faculty in 2014, and currently teaching the Life Licence Qualification Program (LLQP). Bryan sat down with us to discuss the financial industry, and share his insight for students considering a career in the field.

What do you like the most about your job?

I really enjoy my work. One of the things I really enjoy is the fact that part of my job is to educate brokers and advisors on the topic of finance. I strategize how to most effectively present different concepts to different audiences and communicate information clearly.

Even though I am inherently an introvert, I like to speak in front of an audience, and I’ve always felt comfortable doing it. I aim to create presentations that are very clean, very sharp, with a clear message behind it, and I try to make them dynamic and graphically appealing.

How did you get into the financial industry?

In the nineties I was taking psychology courses and was working towards a career as a therapist. In the meantime, I was learning to invest on my own and began to study things like mutual funds. I began watching a lot of CNN during my breaks, but I wasn’t listening to what they were talking about – I was just watching the numbers in the corner because I was invested in their growth. It almost felt like gambling, just watching the numbers go up and down. This was when I developed an interest in investments and the stock market. It seemed like making money out of nothing! So I thought to myself: I need to get in on this.

At that time, technology was booming, and the industry was hiring a lot of people. So I took a Canadian Securities Course (CSC) at the CSI (Canadian Securities Institute) and was able to get a job easily. I remember getting to work at 6:30am and finishing at 1:30pm, when everybody was still working and I had a whole day ahead of me – it was a great time!

Later, of course, I continued my education and training in the field by taking more courses and learning more about financial services and products.

What was the best career advice you received?

I remember when I was discussing options [contracts that give the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an underlying asset at a specific price on or before a certain date] with advisors, it was clear to me that many of them did not understand what options even were. It appeared to me that some industry professionals seem to lose touch when things start to change. However, the financial industry and the markets are always changing; there are always new ideas and concepts, and it may be hard to keep up. I guess this taught me to continue learning, exploring and keep an open mind.

What financial advice would you give to people in general?

Don’t let your financial decisions be made solely by a stranger that you barely know. No one cares about your money more than yourself. The advisor and the bankers, of course, do their job the best they can, but they can only ask so many questions in order to understand what it is that you want and what you’re looking for. Remember that you can save (and earn) a lot of money by taking responsibility for your own finances.

I find it surprising that people are not interested in learning about finances. To me, it became a goal to help people realize that they need to take control and care of their own money and their future. I truly believe that, if given the right information, people will make the right decisions; so I choose to facilitate communication in the area of finance.

I understand that the language of finances can stop people from wanting to learn more – especially in insurance, where we can easily have five different terms for the same thing. What I try to do (whether it is in Ashton or at my job) is get the concepts with all the terminology that we have, break them down into individual components, and use plain language to explain them. I hope that after listening to me, people are thinking “wow that makes sense, now I can explain it to my clients.”

What advice would you give to students pursuing a career in the financial industry?

Number one: keep your eyes, ears and mind open. Don’t take anything at a face value, whether it is from a wholesaler, your instructor, colleagues or supervisors. You can listen to them, but you should always remember that there is more than one way of doing things.

Number two: be genuine and honest. If you are trying to be successful, you have to build trust with your clients. If you’re an advisor, you are in customer service; you need to communicate and you need to continue learning. Don’t try to be the person who knows and understands it all.

For students pursuing the LLQP: have a game plan, and understand what the industry requires from you. You should understand what you need to do to succeed, and you should be comfortable with it. You need to always look out for different options and different information to understand which solutions work best for individual clients. You also have to remember that the LLQP is not about building complex investment portfolios, programs and strategies – it is about providing protection. I feel like sometimes this thought gets lost, and we focus on selling insurance products instead of offering protection.

And in general – make sure that you like what you’re doing, and don’t get discouraged. Don’t be frustrated if you are not successful right away – keep trying. It’s a competitive world out there, and just because you are rejected, turned down, or even fired – it doesn’t mean that you are a bad person, or that you’re bad at what you do. Just go out there and do your best!

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