“It’s Gotta Be a CFP®”

Many people know October as Breast Cancer Awareness month, but it is also National Financial Planning Month, a built-in pause on the calendar to take stock of what’s working in your financial life and what isn’t. What areas are you excelling in and what opportunities might you be missing? According to the CFP® Board, it’s a natural time of year to focus on getting organized, especially ahead of year-end moves like tax planning, social security and benefits elections, and charitable giving.

This year’s initiative aligns with the CFP Board’s public awareness campaign, “It’s Gotta Be a CFP®.” The message is simple and consumer-first: when you’re choosing someone to help you make high-stakes financial decisions, ask the most important question—“Are you a CFP® professional?” The campaign runs across TV and digital and uses memorable, sometimes humorous contrasts (like its “Electrician” spot) to show why qualification matters when the consequences are real. 

As someone who lives the CFP® standards every day, here’s the deeper “why” behind that tagline—and why a CFP® professional is different from a generic “financial advisor.”

What sets a CFP® professional apart

1) A clear, enforceable fiduciary obligation

CFP® professionals have both a legal and ethical responsibility to act as fiduciaries - that is, put your interests first - at all times when providing financial advice. CFP Board’s Code and Standards spells this out as the duties of loyalty, care, and following client instructions. Not every advisor in the marketplace is required to meet this standard in all circumstances; rules vary by license and business model. With a CFP® professional, the fiduciary line is bright and explicit. 

2) The “4 E’s”: Education, Exam, Experience, Ethics

To earn the marks, candidates must complete:

• Education curriculum  through a CFP Board registered program (plus a bachelor’s degree), covering an integrated curriculum (tax, retirement, estate, investments, risk, psychology of financial planning, and more).

• A rigorous 6 hour Exam that tests real-world application across all areas of financial planning. Test topics include the financial planning process and principles, tax planning, income and retirement planning, estate planning, risk management and insurance, among other important topics.

• Experience: A minimum of 6,000 hours of relevant planning work, or 4,000 hours under an apprenticeship that meets additional requirements.

• Ethics: A pledge to the CFP Board that you’ll serve as a fiduciary—putting clients’ interests first whenever you provide financial advice—and agree to stringent ethics and professional conduct requirements. You’ll also submit personal disclosures, and the CFP Board will run a thorough background screening.

This comprehensive standard gives you confidence that your planner brings both technical rigor and practical judgment to every decision point.

3) A defined, repeatable 7-Step Financial Planning Process

CFP Board specifies a seven-step process for discovering your goals, analyzing your situation, crafting advice, implementing, and monitoring it with you. That common methodology helps you know what to expect and naturally surfaces time-sensitive items—tax moves, open-enrollment choices, QCDs/charitable bunching, capital-gain harvesting, and beneficiary updates—so nothing important slips through the cracks.

4) Ongoing Continuing Education (CE)

According to the CFP® Board, continuing education (CE) is the planned and systematic attempt to introduce or review the competencies and knowledge that advances the performance of CFP® professionals. Obtaining CFP® certification, therefore, is not a once and done credential. CFP® professionals must complete 30 hours of CE every reporting period, including 2 hours of ethics, to keep skills current and the fiduciary mindset front-and-center.

Why the campaign says “It’s Gotta Be a CFP®”

The latest campaign communicates a universal truth: when the stakes are high—health, legal matters, money—we instinctively look for qualified professionals. Just as you wouldn’t let an untrained person perform surgery, you shouldn’t entrust your family’s financial outcomes to advice that isn’t grounded in a fiduciary commitment and proven competence. That’s the heart of “It’s Gotta Be a CFP®.” 

Beyond the tagline, the campaign is meant to be practical. It gives consumers one action step that cuts through industry alphabet soup: verify the credential. Then use October’s planning moment to tackle the basics—cash flow, debt strategy, emergency reserves, insurance fit, retirement savings rates, tax opportunities before year-end, and estate documents—ideally with a pro who will look at the entire picture rather than a single type of product or account.

CFP® professional vs. a “traditional” financial advisor: the real-world differences

“Financial advisor” is a broad label. It can describe brokers, insurance agents, investment adviser reps, planners, or a hybrid of roles - each with different regulatory obligations and scopes of service. Here’s how choosing a CFP® professional typically changes your experience:

1. Scope of advice
   A CFP® professional is trained to integrate all major areas of your finances—goals, cash flow, debt, tax, investments, retirement, risk management/insurance, estate, and behavioral coaching. Many non-CFP advisors do excellent work, but some focus primarily on investments or specific types of products, which may leave blind spots in tax, risk, or estate impacts. The CFP® curriculum and exam are deliberately comprehensive to mitigate those blind spots.
   

2. Standard of care
   With a CFP® professional, the fiduciary duty applies whenever you’re receiving financial advice; no ambiguity about whether the standard is “suitability” today and “best interest” tomorrow. 

   By contrast, the “suitability” standard (common for brokers and many insurance agents) only requires that a recommendation meets your needs, while “best interest” (such as for broker-dealers) requires putting your interests ahead of the firm’s at the time of the recommendation - but not necessarily as an ongoing duty. The CFP® standard extends a fiduciary obligation across the broader scope of all steps in financial planning, reinforcing that higher bar whenever advice is provided.

3. Process and documentation
   Expect a structured 7-step process—defining the engagement, gathering qualitative and quantitative data, analyzing, developing and presenting advice, implementing, and monitoring. That’s valuable for life transitions (new job, sale of a business, divorce, retirement) where coordination and timing determine outcomes.
   

4. Continuity and currency
   Because continuing education is required, a CFP® professional should be conversant in evolving tax rules, retirement plan changes, Social Security claiming strategies, and behavioral finance research—not just market headlines.
   

5. Consumer clarity
   The campaign’s aim is simpler decision-making: in a crowded market of titles and marketing claims, “CFP®” is a single, verifiable standard you can ask for—and check. You can search a professional’s name to confirm certification status on the CFP® Board website. 

How to use October to your advantage—with a CFP® professional

Here’s a practical checklist to take to a first (or next) meeting:

• Clarify goals you want funded over 1, 3, and 10 years—what will success look like?

• Update cash flow: are you saving at least your target rate after employer matches and HSA opportunities?

• Right-size your emergency fund and insurance coverages relative to risk, not rules of thumb.

• Evaluate investments: are allocations aligned with time horizon, tax location, and your behavioral comfort under stress?

• Assess year-end tax moves: charitable bunching, QCDs, capital gains harvesting, Roth conversions within your target tax bracket.

• Estate considerations: beneficiaries, powers of attorney, health directives, and (if appropriate) a living trust reviewed and up to date.
  

A CFP® professional can translate that list into an integrated plan and help you weigh trade-offs (for example, a Roth conversion that reduces future RMDs vs. today’s tax bill) within a consistent fiduciary framework and documented process.

The bottom line

Financial Planning Month is your prompt to act. The “It’s Gotta Be a CFP®” campaign gives you a simple filter to find the right partner. With a CFP® professional, you’re hiring someone obligated to put your interests first, tested across the full planning spectrum, vetted for real world experience, and required to stay informed and keep learning. That combination—fiduciary duty + the 4 E’s + a defined 7-step process + ongoing CE—is why the CFP® marks are widely recognized as a signal of comprehensive, trustworthy, holistic advice.

Whether you’re starting fresh or simply due for a check-up, October is the ideal time to ask the question the campaign was built around: “Are you a CFP® professional?” Use this time to your advantage. Reach out to us at Client First Capital, let us know you are ready to work with a CFP® professional, and let’s turn your questions into an action plan.