You are a smart, successful, and disciplined person. You understand the value of money and want to choose the right financial advisor to reach your wealth-building goals. However, we understand this can feel overwhelming. In 2019, there were almost 13,000 registered investment advisors in the U.S.(1) With the vast number of options, how could you possibly choose the best one for you? Here is some advice on how to choose the right financial advisor for you.
The best financial advisors ask the right questions.
The Right Choice in Financial Advisors
Some financial advisors think their sole responsibility is to manage your assets. They look at the spreadsheets and focus on where your assets are held. They only ask questions related to your investments. While this is one aspect of wealth management, it is only a piece of the puzzle.
Before focusing on your money, the best financial advisor asks, “What is important to you?” You know you have chosen the right wealth advisor when they are concerned about our critical values, relationships, and lifelong dreams.
Questions a Good Financial Advisor Will Ask
If you want to choose the right financial advisor, make sure they ask deeper questions. The video below explains why this is so important.
“In any journey, you gotta be clear about where you’re starting from. Then we gotta say, “Well, where are we going?” People don’t normally come to us thinking, “I want you to help me get really clear about my goals.” In fact, I had this great experience with a friend of mine who was a retired investment banker and he said he’d gone to all the big banks and brokerage firms and asked for help. He came to me and he said, “you know the big problem with your industry, sort of lumping us in with everybody else, is nobody has actually tied the decisions I’m making with my dollars, my investments, and my life.” Which, of course, was a shock to me because that’s all we do.”
It’s not a spreadsheet to us. It’s simply a dialogue about trying to figure out what’s really important to you. People often find themselves in our offices saying, “Help me. I need help investing this money. It might be my 401(k) or I’ve got a big goal. But something. You’ve gotta help me solve this now. That seems really technical, right? But first let’s get really clear about why. What’s the piece? What’s the piece that really matters? How do we find the really important stuff? It’s foundational. It’s the core of what we do. And I actually don’t know how else to do that other than with a really great advisor having that dialogue with you.
It’s just a natural human bias to not sit down and plan for the future. These are human tendencies. And so, imagine if instead of anxiety about the uncertain future, you get to this spot where you’re clear about where you are today. With a clear set of goals at least in terms of where we think we’re headed. And we’ve now got a process in place for getting there. Now you’ve identified a set of goals that you said were important to you, like spending more time with your kids. And then we literally have the ability to let go. The anxiety goes away and now you’ve found you can actually go do some of the things you’ve identified as your goals. What’s that worth? I don’t know what could be more valuable.
All of our clients are successful, disciplined people. Smart, successful, disciplined people. And so sometimes, one of the most challenging roles we have is to get them to flip that switch. To realize, you can now go do some of those things you’ve told us are super important. That’s why we’ve been doing this.
We’re saying, “Look, you’ve been telling me for ten years that your goal is to travel more. We’re there, brother. Take the trip. Put the golf shoes on. Go do some of those things you’ve been telling us about. That’s why we’ve been doing this work. The reality is we see past the spreadsheet to this set of your most important dreams and goals.”
How Cogent Strategic Wealth Can Help
Since 2010, our firm has been helping high-achieving professionals like you reach their financial goals while, taking into account your relationships, priorities and values. We can help you build wealth so you can enjoy the life you want. Make the right choice and call us today to get started.
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The opinions expressed by featured authors are their own and may not accurately reflect those of Cogent Strategic Wealth®. This article is for general information only and is not intended to serve as specific financial, accounting or tax advice.
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