How to Find the Best Financial Advisor Near You

Pillar Wealth Management offers wealth management services that include financial planning, investment management, tax minimization, portfolio planning, and more. We work exclusively with individuals having $5 million to $500 million in liquid assets. Click here to book a free consultation session with us.

First and foremost is, what does “best” mean? And, does being the best financial planner have anything to do with their location?

Need more help? Get The Ultimate Guide To Choosing The Best Financial Advisor, For Investors With $5 Million To $500 Million In Liquid Assets

This article will unpack these and the issues listed below in great detail. We’re doing this because deciding on which financial advisor to work with is probably the second most important relationship you will ever choose to have in your life, right behind your spouse.

Is that a surprising statement?

Consider this: Many investors work with the same financial advisor for decades – longer than they will work at most of their jobs. And money is one of the essential things in life. Learning how to grow it, manage it, use it, and protect it is something everyone needs help with, and it doesn’t get more comfortable with age. Your financial advisor will play an exceptional role in your life and maybe with you for many years. Kind of like a spouse.

So with that in mind, let’s look at how to identify the best financial advisor for you, who may or may not be near you.

Table of Contents
Pros and Cons of Working with Financial Advisors Near You Finding the ‘Best’ Advisor Understand the Types of Financial Advisors Investment Management Advisors – Retirement Specialists

How to Choose a Financial Advisor 

A financial advisor is someone who offers financial planning services such as investment management, retirement planning, tax management, and estate planning.

You may be looking for a financial advisor because you know you need help planning for retirement as well as investing to grow your wealth. You may have noticed that finding a financial advisor that meets your needs and can help you achieve your investment goals is not an easy task.

Here are seven tips for finding the advisor who is right for you.

1. Evaluate your financial needs

Because different financial advisors provide different services, you need to review your financial situation and determine what your needs are.

You may have debts and would like help with debt management, and you may find it hard to stick to a savings plan and budget. It could be that you have some money to invest but don’t know enough about investing. Perhaps, you have investments, but they don’t seem to be earning what you’d like.

You may want someone to work with on an estate plan or giving to charity.

By doing this analysis, when you’re ready to talk to an advisor, you’ll be able to express what you need clearly.

2. Understand the different types of financial advisors

Financial advisors have the education and training required to provide financial services. They do not all have the same certifications, however. Many are certified financial planners or chartered financial analysts, but many are also certified public accountants.

So, there are plenty of options. A bit of research will explain the differences between these certifications. You’ll want to talk to a potential advisor to learn more about their training and work experience.

3. Learn about financial services

Financial advisors offer a variety of services to their clients. One of their primary areas of expertise is providing investment advice, and as brokers, they can make investments on your behalf. You’ll want to know more about their approach to investing.

A financial advisor can work with you to build a financial plan, which is a framework for implementing a strategy for achieving your financial goals.

An advisor will work with you to create a retirement plan that will provide you with an income stream when you retire.

You can expect a financial advisor to help you with tax planning, estate planning, and philanthropy.

4. Know the cost of a financial advisor

As you consider your financial situation, you should also think about how much money you’re willing to invest in a financial advisor.

Financial advisors charge fees for their services. If you’re concerned about conflicts of interest, look for someone who is a fiduciary, which means they prioritize the client’s best interests.

So, for example, it’s important to know whether or not the advisor earns commissions on products they sell.

Many advisors do not earn commissions or receive any other incentives for selling certain products or services. They are known as “fee-only” advisors, and their income is based only on the fees paid by their clients.

Some advisors use a combination of fee structures; they may charge hourly fees or flat fees for some of their services. What’s critical is that you know how your advisor is compensated.

5. Do some research

You may be familiar with some of the big investment companies and brokerages, and you’ve read some positive reviews of less well-known firms. You may have gotten recommendations from friends or family members.

Once you have a shortlist of potential advisors, you can reach out to them for an initial conversation.

This is your opportunity to determine which advisor would be a good fit for you. By asking the right questions, you’ll be able to make the right choice.

Ask the advisor to tell you about their background, training, experience, and certifications. Ask them what they like about their work. Talk about what services you need, and they can tell you how they can help you. Find out what kinds of investments they would recommend and why.

By the end of this conversation, you will have gotten a feel for whether this advisor is someone with whom you can have a rewarding relationship.  

6. Don’t settle for less than the best

Don’t be in a hurry to find an advisor. Take however long it takes to interview potential advisors until you know you’ve found one who meets your requirements. You want someone who respects you, listens to you, and takes the time to answer all your questions. It’s your money, after all!

7. The right advisor makes you smarter

A good financial advisor wants to help you gain control over your finances. Having a trusting, open relationship with your advisor will provide plenty of opportunities for you to learn how to invest and how to manage your assets. You can become a smarter investor through your relationship with a good advisor.

Pros and Cons of Working with Financial Advisors Near You

You want to find the best financial advisor, but you may also feel like their location should be close to yours, at least in the same state, if not the same city or county. But – does location matter?

Local Advisor Advantages

There are some advantages to working with a local advisor. Here are a few:

First and most apparent, you can meet them in person. If you envision needing to sit in the same room for multiple meetings, proximity would be convenient for everyone.

Furthermore, if you have any interest in working with a financial consultant who also has expertise in real estate investing, business investing, or startups, it might benefit you to work with someone who knows the local markets to some degree. Also, a financial planner near you will have more in-depth knowledge of the state and local tax laws. Depending on your situation, there are some benefits to gain from having a financial advisor near you.

Non-local Advisor Advantages

That said, there are several reasons the location doesn’t matter and may limit your options.

With technology today, meeting online is pretty much just as easy, if not more comfortable, as meeting in person. So the idea of needing to ‘look them in the eye’ doesn’t require a local advisor like it would have even ten or twenty years ago. And with the coronavirus lurking around for the foreseeable future, maybe virtual meetings are the better option, even if your advisor is local.

Furthermore, if you think that looking someone in the eye and shaking their hand helps you trust them better, it’s not necessarily true. Hucksters and scammers succeed in part because they have learned how to communicate and win the trust of people who want to believe in what they’re selling. And when it comes to advisors, this is easier in person.

The truth is, trusting your financial advisor doesn’t have anything to do with meeting in person. It has to do with their ability to listen, and then to create a 100% customized plan that you have high confidence will help you achieve all your goals and desired lifestyle outcomes.

Furthermore, you can get all your investment performance updates through email. And your money will be held in custodial accounts that are national. Pillar uses Fidelity as our accounts custodian. (If you’re not sure what this means, we’ll elaborate on it more later. For now, the point is that your money isn’t held locally. Thus the location of the advisor isn’t relevant to the process).

So, given a choice between the ‘best’ advisor, however that gets defined, and an advisor near you even if they aren’t the best, which would you pick?

In most cases, we recommend favoring expertise and experience over the location of anyone you consider going to for financial advice.

To learn more about this, click here to arrange a free consultation with our wealth managers.

Finding the ‘Best’ Advisor

For now, just keep reading. You’re in the right place!

What does ‘best’ mean, when looking for a financial advisor? Put simply, the best financial advisor for you is someone with three core qualities:

1) They align well with your life situation

2) They are trustworthy

3) They are exceptionally skilled in the ways you need them to be

For instance, if you have high net worth or ultra-high net worth, you need an advisor specializing in your market. Your needs are unique. Your expectations are different. An advisor trying to be all things to all people isn’t going to provide the service you want. A big bank or large brokerage firm won’t offer the personalized service or 100% customized planning you need.

But that’s just one type of advisor, also known as a wealth manager. Let’s look at some others.

Understand the Types of Financial Advisors

An ultra-high net worth financial advisor caters to one group of investors and families. Here are some other qualifications to help narrow your search:

• Independent or large firm?

Financial consultants and advisors at big banks are working for someone else in addition to you. They have quotas to meet, products to sell, commissions to make, and stockholders to please. You are not their only concern. Big banks sometimes feel safer because they are known brands. But in reality, they are often less safe. Why? Three reasons:

1) Less experienced – by and large, most big bank advisors are less experienced, because they hire more people right out of college

2) Conflicts of interest – they put their company’s interests before yours

3) Less trustworthy – their track record demonstrates lower levels of trust, as seen in numerous scandals, lawsuits, fines, and in some cases, complete shutdowns (Lehman, Washington Mutual)

In contrast to large firms, an independent financial planner will not be bound by sales targets, and in most cases, can offer a more diverse set of investment options, since no one is whispering in their ear after you leave the room. Independent advisors can offer more excellent protection and better service – see six ways

• Fiduciary or non-fiduciary?

There are many ways a non-fiduciary financial advisor can cost you and even hurt you financially. We’ll discuss these more later when we talk about fraud and how to find professional financial services you can trust.

A non-fiduciary has much more freedom to offer products and recommend solutions that may not be best for you, though they may generate commissions or higher pay for the advisor.

The point for now is, a financial advisor who is both independent AND a fiduciary will provide a very different experience than one who has just one, or neither, of those qualifications.

Here are some other titles of various financial advisors, and how they align with the terms just discussed:

Investment Management Advisors – Retirement Specialists

This type of advisor is now held to the Department of Labor’s fiduciary standard. They must disclose fees, and any conflicts of interest, and cannot recommend products that conflict with other investments in your retirement account.

Fee-Only Financial Planners

These tend to be independent advisors, so they can voluntarily bind themselves to the fiduciary standard or not. The surest way to find out is simply to ask them. These types of advisors charge flat fees, or a fee based on a percentage of assets under their management. They do not accept commissions. Pillar charges a percentage-based fee, with a sliding scale as the amount invested increases. We also require a $5 million minimum.

Broker-Dealers

Also regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, these advisors do not have to be fiduciaries either, but are bound by the suitability standard, a much more relaxed guideline. Broker-dealers tend to charge commissions, so they will often recommend products or other investment vehicles that benefit them as well as (hopefully) you.

Insurance Brokers

These and other specialists, like tax accountants, are not held to a fiduciary standard.

There are many other terms, acronyms, and designations, and it can become kind of messy to keep up. Keep reading to learn how to narrow down your choices from the multitude of options.

Seek a Financial Advisor with a Top Reputation

This is harder than you might think, because financial advisors are not allowed to be reviewed based on the investment performance of their clients. Without this kind of authoritative first-hand information, how can you be sure who really knows their stuff?

One of the simplest and most effective ways is simply to examine their website.

If a financial advisor has a tiny website with just a few pages, that’s an indication they aren’t investing a whole lot of time or money in their business. Anyone can just throw up a website.

Contrast that with an independent financial advisor, like Pillar, who offers a wide array of resources, detailed clarity about their services, values, and investment philosophies, and multiple ways to engage with them. With so much information, you can have a clear picture of their reputation and trustworthiness before you even talk to them.

Putting up a robust and authoritative website is expensive and time-consuming. Few if any disreputable advisors have the stomach for it.

Another way to assess an advisor’s reputation is simply to reach out to them. Test the waters.

Any advisor who doesn’t get back to you promptly – within 24 hours at the latest – should be viewed with a little less confidence. You might extend that time a little if you email them late Friday night…

Schedule a Free Call with CEO and Co-Founder Hutch Ashoo

Reputation also is demonstrated by expertise, and expertise is demonstrated by authorship. If your financial advisor has produced books or other authoritative written works, you can have greater confidence in the strength of their reputation and service. You will do even better if you read them.

Below you can find our most authoritative book on The Art of Protecting Ultra-High Net Worth Portfolios and Estates – Strategies For Families Worth $25 Million To $500 Million.

You can also check out our guide that explains how we achieve investment performance for our clients.

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