Posted by Anne Hagen on December 15, 2003 at 10:29:17:
In Reply to: Re: How Do I Find a Trustworthy Financial Advisor Looking Out for My Interest posted by Agent on July 04, 2003 at 11:30:17:
The first step in choosing a financial advisor is to identify your needs -- most importantly, a professional must be able to provide the specific information and unique advice that you require. And you must find a professional that can perform the services you desire given your personal constraints such as location, net worth, portfolio size, etc.
Identifying professionals that meet these basic criteria can be very difficult. Individuals often rely on crude search methods such as personal recommendations or even the Yellow Pages. Neither of these methods are ideal: professionals recommended to you, though they were obviously well-suited to the recommender, are not likely to also be a perfect fit for your unique financial situation, and the Yellow Pages can be even less effective because their ability to provide detailed information about individual advisors is severely limited.
We have sought to ease the initial search challenge by providing WiserAdvisor; it is a sophisticated matching service that can help you to quickly and easily find a short list of financial professionals ideally suited to serve you. It is free and there are no obligations it merely puts you in contact with a select group of people who can provide the help that you need. You can be confident that the matches WiserAdvisor determines for you are uniquely appropriate because our database of financial professionals has individuals that offer each type of service to any particular demographic in any location. And we have done our best to ensure high quality as every professional in our system has met strict qualification standards. In short, by using WiserAdvisor, you will quickly and efficiently narrow your field of choices to the few best options.
WiserAdvisor will display personal and professional information about each of the advisors matched to your needs you can view the advisors picture, services, years of experience, educational background, professional qualifications, types of investments handled, mission statement, etc. You should use this information to determine which advisors from the short list that you would like to be contacted by.
At this point, it is important to determine the best fit from a few choices with a thorough interview process. More detailed information about how to conduct interviews will be available after you finish your search on WiserAdvisor, but, briefly, things to know about your financial professional include:
* Investing strategy
* Profiles of existing clients
* Average account size
* Sample financial plan
* Risk tendencies
* Fees and commissions
* Favored investment vehicles
* Existence of liability insurance
* Availability of references
* Any disciplinary actions
Naturally, you will be the one to determine which of these factors are most important to you ultimate decision. Above all, you should feel comfortable with the professional that you choose. You want someone that you have confidence in; after all, this is your money that we're talking about. No matter what his or her title is, your professional should seem like the right choice to you.
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