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Best Financial Advisors: Do You Really Need Them?

You might think you can manage your wealth and assets all on your own. But when it comes to matters of liquid assets worth $5 million to $500 million, you really don’t want to take any risk, and it’s best that you leave it to the professionals. This is where the best financial advisors come in. Financial advisors have loads of experience in dealing with high net worth and ultra-high net worth individuals and know all the ins and outs of financial services. But is it a good idea to hire a financial advisor? Honestly speaking, yes. Here’s a comprehensive guide on choosing the best financial advisors for investors worth $10 million in liquid assets or more.

7 Secrets minified

STRATEGIES FOR FAMILIES WORTH $5 MILLION TO $500 MILLION

7 Secrets To High Net Worth Investment Management, Estate, Tax and Financial Planning

The insights you’ll discover from our published book will help you integrate a variety of wealth management tools with financial planning, providing guidance for your future security alongside complex financial strategies, so your human and financial capital will both flourish.

Clients frequently share with us how the knowledge gained from this book helped provide them tremendous clarity, shattering industry-pitched ideologies, while offering insight and direction in making such important financial decisions.

At Pillar Wealth Management, we have some of the best financial advisors on board to help high net worth and ultra-high net worth individuals grow and protect their assets and also investment management services. Located in San Francisco, PillarWM managers spend a lot of time with all our clients to fully understand their financial services, aspirations, and values in life to create tailored financial plans that help them achieve financial success and serenity. We offer a broad range of services such as investment management, risk management, retirement planning, estate planning, tax planning, and a lot more. Click here to book a consultation session with us to learn more about our services or start your wealth management today.

In this blog, we’ll be discussing why you really need the best financial advisors, some signs that you need to change your financial advisor, and whether you can trust financial advisors or not. Let’s get started.

What Do the Best Financial Advisors Really Do?

Just going by the name, you might think that the best financial advisors, well, advise you on your finances. In reality, though, the best financial advisors do more than just that. They help the investor achieve their financial goals by turning vague goals into more actionable targets. The best financial advisors help you manage your various assets like cash money, real estate, and so on. They guide you across various aspects of your financial life, such as how much you save, how much and where you should invest, which assets you should go for, how to start saving for retirement, etc.

In short, the best financial advisors help you grow your wealth in a sustainable manner to achieve your short-term and long-term goals while protecting your assets as well. You can find out more about protecting your wealth by ordering a free hardcover copy of our book, The Art of Protecting Ultra-High Net Worth Portfolios and Estates – Strategies for Families Worth $25 million to $500 million.

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Based on CNBC’s 2022 ranking, the top five financial advisors are Woodley Farra Manion, Dana Investment Advisors, Albion Financial Group, Heritage Investment Group, and Edgemoor Investment Advisors.

Someone better than a financial advisor is a financial advisor with a certification, such as CFP, CFA, or ChFC, among others, particularly if that certification ensures a fiduciary relationship.

You’ll be paying the advisor, so you should get an advisor when you need one; for example, you have a large number of assets to manage, or you don’t have the expertise to make smart investments.

You have a good advisor if they are helping you meet your financial goals; in particular, you are getting a reasonable return on your investments, and you’re on track to a comfortable retirement.

Clients often leave their advisors due to poor communication, usually after between two and five years. But if you have a good relationship, it can last much longer.

You can expect to pay an annual fee of around 1% of the value of the assets managed by your advisor; this percentage will decrease for assets valued over $5 million.

You can manage your retirement accounts on your own; however, if you’re unsure about which investments you should choose, an advisor can make some recommendations.

With complex financial situations, millionaires will use financial advisors, for example, to develop an estate plan with a trust fund or to invest large sums of money.

Think about the reasons why you’re leaving your current advisor. Those reasons should guide you in choosing a new one. Take plenty of time to discuss those issues with a potential new advisor.

Before seeing an advisor, you should identify the financial goals you want to achieve, the services you need to achieve those goals, and how much money you are willing to spend on an advisor.

Why You Really Need a Financial Advisor

The best financial advisors offer services such as financial planning, estate planning, investing, retirement planning, and managing your bank accounts. When the work is done, the investor receives the profits from their investment. For individuals with $5 million to $500 million in liquid assets, a financial advisor can be the difference between financial success and failure. Here are some other reasons why you really need a financial advisor.

1. Get Access for Personal Advisor Services

Wealth management does not look the same for everyone. For instance, for high net worth individuals, their financial decisions offer much greater rewards but carry that many risks as well. That’s why they need the best financial advisors to help them make the right decisions based on their experience and expertise.

The best financial advisors know how to work with a large and diverse set of assets and incorporate different strategies to help high net worth individuals get the most returns, quantitative and qualitative, from their portfolios. That’s just one aspect of it. You can learn more about the shifts you must make to maximize your portfolio growth strategy from this handy guide.

2. Setting Financial Goals and Creating a Financial Plan

If your current financial plan consists of saving $100 million and setting it all aside for your retirement, we have some bad news for you. That’s not how retirement planning or wealth management works. You might have some vague financial goals like wanting to travel or living a certain lifestyle.

Working with the best financial advisors can help you turn those goals into reality. They will work with you to understand where you want to go and then point you in the right direction. They will devise the right financial plan that helps you get there as soon as possible.

3. Gearing for Retirement

A retirement plan is not a one-day plan that you can whip up immediately at the age of 60 or 65. If you really want to retire comfortably, you need to plan for it way ahead of time, and the best financial advisors can play a big role in that. They can tell you exactly which decisions to make that will eventually help you reach your retirement goals. Even if you’re starting your retirement planning a little late, you still need a financial advisor.

In fact, we’d say you need a financial advisor even more in that case. According to which stage you’re at, retirement and investment strategies are vastly different. For instance, when you’re nearing retirement, investing in equity might not be the best option, and only a financial advisor can tell you what is.

4. Minimizing Tax and Other Expenses

Growing your wealth is pointless if you’re going to lose half of it in taxes and expenses. And that is precisely what happens when you try to manage your wealth on your own or with an inexperienced private bank or broker. The best financial advisors know that every financial decision has some tax implications, and therefore, they take the appropriate steps beforehand to minimize your tax-loss harvesting and other expenses.

At Pillar WM, our team of experienced wealth managers and financial advisors offer various services, including tax planning and optimization. Click here to begin a conversation with our advisors about your tax liabilities.

5. Assisting with Estate Planning

Estate planning is no simple task. You not only have to grow and preserve your wealth but also ensure that it is distributed properly to the right beneficiaries in the smoothest way possible. The best financial advisors assist affluent individuals with estate and legacy planning so that they don’t have to worry about their loved ones’ financial security when they’re gone. If you have any philanthropic plans, a financial advisor can help put those plans into action.

6. Ensuring Financial Serenity

If you want true financial serenity that truly allows you to be fully confident in your financial position and doesn’t let you even think about your wealth, a financial advisor is a way to go. It could be that you don’t have time to manage your wealth on your own, or you might not have the expertise for it. The best financial advisors have both.

Moreover, as a fiduciary advisor, she or he is totally committed to helping you achieve your goals so you can attain financial security. Besides, a fiduciary advisor must be registered on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). You can read about other ways to achieve financial success and security through our comprehensive guide on improving portfolio performance by clicking here. If you’re wondering, “Who are the best financial advisors?”, they’re the ones who help you achieve financial serenity.

Signs that You Need to Change Your Financial Advisor

Now that you know about the best financial advisors, let’s take a look at the other side of the coin as well. Here are a few signs that your financial advisor is ripping you off, and you need to find a new one. For more detailed information, read our ultimate guide on choosing the best financial advisor.

Bad Investments

One of the most apparent signs is that your advisor is leading you towards bad investments. He or she might tempt you with investments offering high returns at low risks. But at the end of the day, you won’t be seeing much of a difference in your ending balance. Sometimes, this ends up being a Ponzi scheme, which is often considered fraud.

Other than that, the advisor might keep pushing you to buy the same products. This usually happens when they are benefitting from the sales of those products directly, as is the case with brokers usually.

Not Achieving Your Financial Goals

The wrong financial advisor will also not help you achieve your financial goals and other targets in life. In fact, they won’t even know your goals since they won’t bother to understand what you really want. Therefore, any advice they give or decisions they make may only be fulfilling short-term performance targets and won’t help you get any closer to your long-term financial targets.

Excessive Transactions

If you start noticing a lot of transactions on your account without any significant increase in your wealth, it’s a sign that your financial advisor is not acting in your best interests. Also known as churning, this usually happens when your advisor is working on a commission-based model where he earns a commission every time you buy or sell a security.

You can avoid this by going for an advisor that charges a flat fee instead. More importantly, you should switch to a fiduciary advisor, such as the ones at Pillar WM, that truly works in your best interests only. Click here to start chatting with one of our managers to learn how we manage our clients’ assets.

All Talk, No Results

Another obvious sign is that your advisor will keep making promises and claiming results without ever achieving them. They might keep pushing you towards certain investments without actually providing any solid reasoning or research behind it. They will keep on boasting that they can beat the market, which is a very dangerous sign on its own.

Not Accounting for Major Life Changes

The best financial advisors not only have to develop the right financial plan for you but also keep adjusting it, especially when you have major changes in your life taking place. If your advisor keeps giving you the same advice, regardless of anything else happening in your life, such as a divorce or someone passing away, then you need to find a different financial advisor right away.

No Monthly or Quarterly Reports

Even if you have left all your wealth management to the financial advisor, you should still be getting regular reports on the state and performance of your assets. If your advisor is only contacting you once a year, and that too, without any information over your assets, it is a big warning sign. Do you have $10 million or more liquid assets? It is time that you need a financial advisor or financial planning services either you are in Chicago, Beverly Hills, Washington D.C, Michigan, New York, or anywhere.

Best financial advisors

Can You Trust Financial Advisors?

Understandably, you might be questioning now whether you can really trust financial advisors or not. While there are definitely some not-so-great ones out there, there are some really good financial advisors too, such as at PillarWM.

The trick is to see if they are truly fiduciary advisors, as only fiduciary advisors will give you the best advice and direction. Even if it means suffering some loss themselves, fiduciary advisors will only suggest decisions that help you meet your own personal goals. You can check at Investopedia, there are numerous financial advisors. Such as Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo Advisors. However, do you think those advisors can help you to achieve your goals? PillarWM can do better. With a highly experienced investment advisor, Pillar WM can fulfill your financial needs help.

How to Find a Financial Advisor that is Right for You?

As important as the best financial advisors are, it’s not easy finding one for high net worth and ultra-high net worth individuals. If you’re concerned about your financial future, you need to have a consultation with a financial planner that is more affordable than a wealth adviser. It is the time where you need medium-cost financial planners. Only the best financial advisors can help you achieve your financial goals, assist with retirement, estate planning, and taxes and strive towards financial success and serenity. Here are a few factors on which you can evaluate whether a financial advisor is the right one for you.

• Experience and Expertise

• Results

• Advice

• Constant Monitoring

Before deciding on the right financial planner for you, there are several types of financial planners you need to know about. Those are a certified financial planner (CFP), broker-dealers, financial coach and consultant, investment and wealth advisor, and Robo advisors. A Robo advisor is slightly different from the other financial planner. While the others are human financial advisors, Robo is a digital platform where you can also get the personal capital for your financial planner.

6 Tips for Finding the Best Financial Advisor

Finding a financial advisor is a critical task that can affect your financial and emotional well-being for years, if not decades. You should do extensive research on a range of investment firms, banks, and independent advisors before making your choice. Talk to several advisors until you find one with whom you feel comfortable discussing your finances. And follow these six tips.

1. Find a real fiduciary

A fiduciary advisor is a financial planner or investment advisor whose certification requires them to prioritize their clients’ interests above their own.

One indication that your advisor is a fiduciary is that they follow a fee-only compensation model. That means their income is based only on the fees their customers pay. Another clue is that the advisor remains up-to-date with finance-related laws and regulations through ongoing training. This can have a significant impact on your tax return’s bottom line.

As they say, “The proof is in the pudding,” so while there’s no guarantee that your advisor is a “real” fiduciary, you should expect to meet your goals by working with an advisor.

2. Check those credentials

Once you’ve selected an advisor with whom you may want to work, verify their credentials by going to the relevant organization’s website, such as cfp.net, which registers certified financial planners.

3. Understand how the advisor gets paid

If you plan to work with an advisor working for an investment firm, it’s important to know how the advisor is paid. The fee model they use may be fee-only, fee-based, commission-based, or a combination.

You’ll want to know whether the advisor is compensated for selling the firm’s products, which may be a conflict of interest.

An independent financial advisor or firm is more likely to offer you products that align with your best interests.

In any case, find out if the advisor is bound by the fiduciary standard of care.

4. Look for fee-only advisors

If an advisor adheres to the fee-only compensation model, meaning that they are paid by you and other clients, then they can be motivated to work in your best interests, not their own. And often, as your wealth grows, so does their income.

5. Expect clarity

Your advisor should have a clear understanding of your financial situation and your needs and goals for a better future. The advisor should be a good listener, showing concern and empathy for your financial situation. They should be able to explain clearly how they will work with you, which products they recommend and why, and what you will pay them in fees.

6. Find an advisor who keeps you on track

By working with you on a financial plan, implementing an investment strategy, and preparing you financially for retirement, your advisor should take every opportunity to make you a better investor. You should become better educated about finance by working with an advisor who is able to communicate clearly how you will achieve your goals. Your increased understanding will assist you in navigating the ups and downs of the markets.

Pillar WM is a 100% fee-only wealth management firm. We offer a wide range of services, from investment management, credit cards management, risk management, and retirement planning to estate planning, tax planning, accounting, and more. Our team of wealth managers and financial advisors has experience of more than 30 years, which equips them with the skills and knowledge to best serve our affluent clients. Visit our website and accept the cookies permission or Click here to book a consultation session with one of them today.

Pillar Wealth Management, all rights reserved, advertiser disclosure.

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