1. Select a practice structure.
Financial planning practices can be structured as sole proprietorships, general partnerships, S corporations, C corporations, or limited liability companies. Each structural option has a unique character, set of benefits, and legal limitations.

2. Prepare a business plan.
All new and established businesses need some sort of written business plan. A good business plan starts with the business environment, that is, the market, competition, opportunities, and challenges. The plan describes the objectives, strategies, and specific actions the person or company will follow over time to master the business environment. A good business plan carefully estimates the resources and contingencies necessary to achieve objectives. Where is the business today, where is it heading, and how will it succeed are questions answered in a polished business plan.

3. Find a mentor.
There is absolutely no substitute for experience. The speed with which new financial planners establish their product portfolio and client following is directly related to the number of mistakes they make along the way. The best proven method to keep practice start-up snafus to a minimum is to find a mentor. To expedite your entry into the marketplace, you should team up with somebody who has been in the business for a while. Get under a mentor's wing, and you can learn from his or her experience and profit from firm guidance in the right direction. You can find mentor candidates speaking at financial planning society meetings, running seminars at local educational institutions, or through professional forums on the Web. Professional society gatherings and publications normally feature programs that place entry-level practitioners with mentors. Mentorships are often an integral part of the financial planning curriculum offered by graduate learning institutions. Check the business curricula offered by colleges in your area.

4. Get the credentials.
Financial planning is technical. There is a large body of information a financial planner needs to master in the process of getting started and even more for staying current. Practitioners need to understand macroeconomic principles, financial markets, basic and advanced asset valuation methods, and today, the Internet. 

5. Create an advisory board.
No successful planner has the time to prospect for new clients, maintain a client base, develop new products, and remain current with the enormous volume of fast-changing information affecting the business. You will need an advisory board of directors to bring expertise, information, advice, and credibility to your practice. The more impressive your advisory board, the more certain you should feel about the quality and professionalism of your practice. Ideally, these people will provide big-picture guidance: pinpointing potential pitfalls in your business and marketing plans, providing solutions to the ongoing practice problems you will inevitably encounter, and making themselves available for the casual reality checks every business leader needs to fine-tune new ideas.

6. Build a back-office team.
As part of your business infrastructure, you will need to hire personnel to carry out many of the tasks described in your business and marketing plans. A part-time generalist with prior experience in service enterprises is a valuable, cost-effective investment. You will not want to spend your time administering the business. Your job will be sales, product development, and implementation. Many new financial planners have tried to run multiple aspects of a new practice. Invariably, the new financial planner gets diverted in accounting software, business cards, cold-calling, and other activities better suited to a strong administrative assistant. Early on, establish a system that enables your staff to do whatever needs to be done to free you to address client issues. Build the right culture in your practice from the first employee forward.

7. Use information technology.
In an age in which technology is a threat and an opportunity for the service provider, it makes sense to purchase the best technology and train your staff to use it. This includes business software-contact management, graphics packages, and database tools, for example-and business hardware-video conferencing, scanning, and high speed/high resolution printers, for example.

8. Develop a marketing plan.
A marketing plan is the road map you follow before and while you inform the public about your practice. Marketing, like advertising among consumer product competitors, can be addictive. Many planners do not know when to start a marketing program, or worse, when to stop. Marketing a professional financial planning practice does not need to be expensive, but it needs to be focused and monitored. An important element is an analysis of pricing. Product managers, whether selling a service or corn flakes, have to decide how to price. Is the goal to optimize price per unit or total units sold? Manufacturing organizations traditionally strive for high volume with low price points. Service organizations, on the other hand, tend to strive for high revenue per unit, as in the case of a consulting firm. The financial planner has to make a similar trade-off: many less-comprehensive planning assignments at lower revenue per unit, or fewer more-comprehensive planning projects at high revenue per unit.

9. Comply with all regulations.
Financial planning is a recognized professional service and is regulated accordingly. With the immense power to affect client quality of life and financial well-being comes the obligation to protect the public. Attorneys, physicians, educators, certified public accountants, and other service providers are governed first by personal ethics but also by professional licensing bodies and governmental agencies. The financial planning industry has more regulatory and compliance issues to address than many other service professions.

10. Develop and implement standardized procedures in your practice.
Establishing an organized and logical set of procedures is essential to client-centered financial planning. PIPRIM is an acronym for a systematic approach to assessing and achieving client financial goals. It spans from the very beginning, when you first meet a prospective client, through the point of providing solutions, to measurement of performance. The six-step process is so comprehensive that it applies to all clients in all phases of a service relationship. PIPRIM stands for:

• Preliminary meeting with a client
• Integrated goal setting and data gathering
• Putting it all together
• Recommending solutions
• Implementing the plan
• Monitoring the plan

Getting Started as a Financial Planner by Jeffrey H. Rattiner is available on Amazon.