Developing Skills for Financial Independence

Did you know that everybody has the same financial objectives? While they might vary in amount, every person wants to become “financially independent”. What does this mean?

Basically, we strive to improve our standard of living. Success is acquiring a standard which provides you with all your needs. Failure is not reaching that level. Clearly, to improve your standard of living you need to earn income.

Remember, however, that a time will come in the future, where you will be unable to continue to earn an income due to your age. This is the major concern of most people. When you have to stop working, will your standard of living need to drop?

Setting Yourself Up to Succeed

In order for us to continue living well once we have retired, we need to build income-producing assets during our working life. This is extremely difficult to do when your entire income each month is used to meet your expenses. As your standard of living increases, your expenses increase, and more income is needed!

For most of us, the biggest income-producing asset we will ever have will be our pension pay-out. However, for many people, pension funds are accessed when moving jobs and the amount available to you on retirement becomes insufficient. If you end up needing to be supported by your children as a result of this, you are not financially independent and do not have financial freedom.

We, therefore, need to set ourselves up in life to succeed. This means maximising income while limiting expenditure but still enjoying a decent quality of life. The excess of income over expenditure is then used to purchase income-producing assets.

What is the Best Income Producing Asset to Acquire? The answer may surprise you.

The biggest asset you can acquire is skill. With scarce skills, you can earn what you need to succeed financially. Riding a bicycle is a skill but hardly scarce. But beware! Understand the difference between skill and knowledge. Having all the knowledge in the world does not necessarily give you skills.

A skill is learnt. Knowledge is gained. In order to develop a skill, there must be an ability to take what you have gained (knowledge) and apply this knowledge in the workplace.

What Skill Would I Suggest?

Developing skills as a business banker can indeed be a very scarce skill and will ensure you the income you need to become financially independent. Taking on a task of this nature may seem daunting, but the Business Banker NQF level 5 qualification makes acquiring business banking skills that much more attainable.

The qualification is completed online and explores topics such as business banking concepts, understanding financial statements, business risk assessment and how to win business and close deals.

What can you expect from this qualification?

There are five modules to be completed. Bearing in mind that the ultimate goal is to develop the skills required by a business banker to assess and motivate all aspects of the client’s business to the bank, we need to start with a basic understanding of financial statements. Once there is a good understanding, only then are we able to interpret the information in order to identify and mitigate the risks of the client and make a bankable proposition to the credit division. There is also a great need to understand the legal aspects relating to the taking of collateral to ensure that this security cannot be challenged at a later date. Finally, as a business banker, you are the forefront of the bank and need to be able to build relationships with your clients in order to win new business and close deals on behalf of your employer.

Remember, learning is a change in behaviour, and not a change in knowledge. This qualification is developed in such a way that you are able to use your knowledge practically and effectively. Through the practical application of your knowledge, you will be able to develop a scarce skill and move closer to becoming financially independent.

Click HERE to view the Business Banking qualification page for more information.

Financial Independence  |  Financial Independence  |  Financial Independence

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