Does Your Financial Advisor Pass the Test? Three Tips to Help You Find Out!
While we have not engaged in statistical research to prove the following, it is our experience that when Entrust Financial advisors provide Financial Planning and Wealth Management workshops—such as our most recent presentation for “Women in Nuclear” at Exelon—just as many questions are posed about selecting a financial professional as are asked about the primary building blocks of a sound investment plan.
We all want to select the right advisor for us and today’s blog may help: Does Your Financial Advisor Pass the Test? Three Tips to Help You Find Out! The following tips are intended to provide an easy framework for evaluating your existing financial professional relationship and/or to guide you in the process of selecting a professional who meets your needs.
1. Does your advisor utilize a consultative partnership approach to help you achieve your goals (preferred), or do your regular progress meetings focus predominantly on the “great” products and reputation of his/her firm?
2. Does your advisor use a holistic process to address not only your investment needs but your other financial concerns as well (preferred), or is your portfolio typically the primary topic of your conversations?
3. Does your advisor serve as your personal CFO (Chief Financial Officer)? For instance, an advisor serving as personal CFO gives you back more time. Assisting you with far more than investment management, your personal CFO does the homework of coordinating a wide network of experts to identify, develop, and implement sophisticated strategies customized to meet your financial needs. These needs may include reducing your income taxes, planning for a special-needs child, and/or preparing to generate retirement income throughout your lifetime, to name a few.
As you were reading, you probably began to mentally evaluate your current financial advisory relationship, or to consider what other perspective you need to feel complete confidence in your selection process. That was the experience of one the “Women in Nuclear” workshop attendees, Wendy. Wendy reported to us that after the presentation she felt motivated to visit the website of this national, completely independent resource—the Certified Financial Planner™ Board of Standards—which we introduced to the group on one of our workshop slides:
This website visit resulted in Wendy’s feeling confident enough to call us to discuss questions that previously kept her up at night.
We encourage you to follow in Wendy’s footsteps and click on the preceding links. After you do, contact us to schedule a complimentary Second Opinion consultation to confirm that your personal (and family) finances are on track to accomplish your most important financial goals: info@entrustfinancial.com or 610-687-3515.
Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc
