What If I Need Help?

Feb 20, 2008 - 10:43 AM PST

Hiring a financial advisor, or someone who can help, is an important decision. I have clients who come to me in their 20’s and 30’s. Sometimes it is a life event, like an inheritance or a new job, promotion, death, marriage, birth, etc.

WHAT DOES A FINANCIAL PLANNER DO?

We match a client’s goals, dreams and hopes with a financial roadmap to achieve them.

A favorite planner adage…..If you fail to plan, you plan to fail!

Here are my words of wisdom for you. There are many letters, designations out there. It looks like alphabet soup. There are so many people in the financial space. The problem is you don’t know the difference.

There are approximately 2 million people calling themselves planners. Approx 700,000 brokers, 500,000 life insurance agents, 300,000 CPA’s. To narrow the field, there are approximately 50,000 Board Certified Planners in the USA. As far as designations, the most important one is CFP, which stands for Certified Financial Planner. This utilizes the 4 E’s: education, ethics, exam and experience. You need all of the above.

You can learn more by going to www.cfp.net.

This would be a starting point. I also believe in Fee Only. This is another topic. There are approx 1200 Fee Only Advisors in the USA. You can learn more at:

http://www.focusonfiduciary.com/
www.napfa.org

You should ideally look for someone who is a CFP and Fee Only. This way you get objective unbiased advice and are not sold a product. This follows the model of how an attorney works.

You can choose to pay a few different ways:
• Flat Fee or Project
• Hourly
• Assts Under Management

It really depends on what you are looking for. Be prepared to pay anywhere from $100-$300 an hour, based on experience. If you are looking for a full financial plan, that takes approximately 10-30 hours, depending on the complexity of the plan. Most planners will meet with you first for no charge so you can feel each other out. If you do your homework, you can really get some great advice!

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