View Matthew Harrison’s profile on LinkedIn, the world's largest professional community. “I was thrown in the deep end working on my own in an estate agent.” Not long afterwards, two BDMs who had set up their own IFA practice approached him to join their new company as an IFA.Matt says he enjoyed the technical elements and the client relationship building of the adviser role but as the business moved into the new century, times got tougher and pressure was being put on him to aggressively sell products, Matt took a long look at what he really wanted to do and decided it wasn’t financial advice. Professional Paraplanner launched its first Technical Insight Seminar on 9 June 2015 at the Grange St Paul’s Hotel, London....They’re back! For a while he worked in the credit card fraud team at the UK’s first internet bank, Egg (owned by Prudential), and he was working in a financial services compliance department when, in 2007, he was approached by a growing IFA firm looking for someone to fill a paraplanner role. Once you put the jigsaw together, of which there are many pieces, then you can help clients go on their financial journey. That way you are getting the full flavour of every element of the financial services journey.“Exams are important if you want to be paraplanner but experience is key,” he stresses.To that extent, an apprenticeship scheme seems a far more valuable a route into paraplanning than a fast-track graduate scheme Matt believes.“I believe in the details and the principles and integrity of paraplanning and as much as I recognise and praise people for their ambition, more often than not you learn from your mistakes and it’s better that happens when you’re learning the job and it can be spotted and rectified than when you’re dealing with someone’s life savings.”“I’ll get in at 8am and check and update my emails. It’s much better to be able to look at what the client/provider has sent in and go back to them straight away to say there is something missing than to do it when you are half way through the report, which results in everything being delayed at a potentially crucial point in the process.”This ability to understand the detail underlies Matt’s belief that there is no short cut to being a good paraplanner. It’s the ability to have constructive disagreements and know each other well enough to come out from it with a positive outcome for the client; that makes it a good and healthy working relationship.”Taking exams and gaining qualifications is one way forward but it is this kind of interaction and relationship that cannot be taught, it is built up over time, Matt says.“To me, a fundamental part of what a paraplanner is there to do is to act as a sounding board for the adviser and to challenge them when needed. Matthew Harrison Brown, 49, of Cleveland, TN died unexpectedly Sunday, August 12, 2018 from an apparent heart attack. This proved to be the perfect job for him, making use of his 20 years of knowledge and his technical skills. Simple things like a letter of authority, for example; what information are you looking for, why are you asking for it and what might be missing when it comes in.“It’s this kind of attention to detail that comes from doing the job day-to-day that builds and hones your skills as a paraplanner. He’s now looking to expand the operation. Matthew Harrison – Brown Shipley. Get it wrong and that could be a problem not just for you but for the company you work for x-many years down the line. You need to be able to do that if you are going to be a good paraplanner.”So what can budding paraplanners do help them get the experience?“To my mind, you get that experience by working in every area and seeing the details that are needed to get the job done well. The big question is how to maintain a good working relationship with an adviser, as Matt has done, for close to a decade.“It’s down to our personalities.