First year as a financial advisor: how to build a week you can repeat

Commission on a case arrives some time after the client signs, so the work and the pay are out of step, and the gap is widest at the start.

Build one week you can repeat. Work out a weekly number from your own rates and judge each week on it. Start a second source of clients early, and keep enough cash to cover the lean months.

As of November 2026.

Nobody can promise what you'll earn in year one, so this page holds no income figures. Your contract tells you how you're paid, and your weekly number is the part you control.

In Singapore you can't advise on or arrange life policies until you've passed the exams in MAS's Notice FAA-N26: RES5 plus M9 and M9A, or the combined CM-LIP module. Your firm then notifies MAS and certifies you as fit and proper, and your name goes on MAS's public register.

From the calendar year after your first, you owe continuing professional development every year: 6 core hours plus 24 supplementary hours for life policies. Keep your evidence, since the notice asks you to retain it.

Clients are told what to expect from you. MoneySense says that at a first meeting you should give your name, your company and the types of products you're authorised to advise on, and it tells them a Financial Needs Analysis is the foundation of any recommendation. Practise those steps with your manager early on, while the meetings are still few.

A weekly number turns a big goal into something you can hit or miss, so work back through your rates one step at a time. These numbers are made up to show the sums, and they aren't a typical first year.

1. Say your goal is 40 cases in a year.
2. If 1 in 2 closing meetings signs, that's 80 closing meetings.
3. If 2 in 3 first meetings reach a closing, that's 120 first meetings.
4. If 3 in 4 appointments turn up, that's 160 appointments set.
5. If 1 in 4 calls books an appointment, that's 640 calls.
6. Over 46 working weeks, that's about 14 calls and 4 appointments set a week.

You won't know your own rates in your first months. Start with your manager's estimate and replace it with your own numbers after 8 weeks.

A case you close this month usually started with a call weeks ago. A week with no cases can still be a good week, and a week with two cases can hide a month of no calls.

So ask yourself "did I hit 14 calls and 4 appointments?" If you did, your rates will show what follows. If you didn't, you know what to fix next week.

Most new advisers start with people they know, and that list runs short. Start your next source before it does:

• Ask for a referral after every signed case, and after you help a client with a claim or a question.
• Pick one group you understand well, such as a profession, a language community or a sport you play.
• Book a review with every client once a year.
• Go where your group already meets, and be useful before you ask for anything.

Contacting people you don't know brings in the Do Not Call rules. The insurance prospecting guide sets them out from PDPC's own guidance.

• Count the no. Every call counts toward your weekly number, whatever the answer.
• Set a minimum you'll hit even on a bad day, and let yourself stop there.
• Make calls in blocks at a set time. Deciding again each time whether to pick up the phone wears you out faster than the calls do.
• Pair up with another new adviser and swap numbers each week.
• Write down one thing that went right each day, because a slow week needs that list.

• You're working seven days a week and still feel behind.
• You put off calls you used to make without thinking.
• A single no ruins your day.
• You're avoiding your manager and your numbers.
• Sleep, exercise and time with people outside work have all slipped.

If you see two or three of these, change something that week. Take one full day off, set a time you stop working, and tell your manager what's happening so they can adjust the plan. If you feel low for weeks at a time, talk to a doctor.

• Work out what you need each month to cover your bills, and keep a cash buffer for the months before commission builds.
• Read your contract until you can say when commission is paid and when it can be clawed back.
• Look after the policies you've written, since your contract may take back commission when one lapses early.
• Never sell a policy to hit a number. MAS's 2026 information paper restates that representatives shouldn't "apply aggressive or pressure sales tactics", and that clients need sufficient time to consider a recommendation.

• A weekly one-on-one with your numbers on the table.
• Joint appointments in your first months, first watching and then leading.
• Help setting your weekly number, and a check of your rates after 8 weeks.
• Practice on the objections you hear most.
• A straight answer at six months on whether your activity is on track.

If you're worried about being watched, ask what your manager will look at and why. It's a fair question, and the answer tells you how they coach.

Look at the activity first. If you've hit your weekly number most weeks and your rates are improving, that's a reason to keep going. If you haven't been doing the activity, that's the thing to change, and it's yours to change.

If you've done the activity for six months and your rates haven't moved, go through them one by one with your manager before you decide. Then decide on the numbers, and leave your worst week out of it.

Each set, opening and closing is one tap on your phone, and you can undo a wrong tap. Your pledge sheet works down from a yearly FYC goal and a case size to sets, openings, closings and cases a week, and your target stays between you and your manager.

Your week streak needs one logged activity a week, and leave weeks don't break it. See how it works for financial advisors.

• MAS, Notice FAA-N26, Competency Requirements for Representatives of Financial Advisers (in effect 1 April 2024), read 2 November 2026
• MAS, Appointing a Representative for Licensed Financial Advisers or Exempt Financial Advisers, read 2 November 2026
• MAS, Information Paper on Good Practices of Market Conduct Controls in the Financial Advisory Industry (26 May 2026), read 2 November 2026
• MoneySense, Financial advisory process, read 2 November 2026