Questions to Ask A Financial Advisor in An Interview: PillarWM

There are plenty of benefits of working with a financial advisor, especially if you have a net worth in the millions. For example, financial advisors can offer you customized financial plans and help you make research-backed decisions. In this article, we will talk about the different types of financial advisors and how they can help you manage your wealth. Nevertheless, hiring a financial advisor is certainly not an easy task as it requires a lot of time and research. To make the task easier for you, we recommend you read our guide for investors worth $10 million and more and get an insight into the questions to ask a financial advisor in an interview.

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.

CLICK HERE to qualify for your FREE COPY of this Book

At Pillar Wealth Management, our team comprises of two highly competent financial advisors who exclusively work with individuals and families who liquid investable assets ranging from $5 million to $500 million. To know how our advisors can enhance your financial situation, click here to sign up for a free consultation with us.

Table of Contents
What Are the Types of a Financial Advisors? Do I Need A Financial Advisor? Why Do You Need Tax and Estate Planning? Questions to Ask A Financial Advisor in an Interview

What Are the Types of a Financial Advisors?

A financial advisor is an expert who provides a range of financial services to their clientele. The best financial advisor will develop a comprehensive understanding of your financial objectives and use it to develop a strategy that will help you attain them.

There are many types of financial advisors. So, if you’re wondering, what are the types of financial advisors, continue reading to get the answer to your question.

Transactional Financial Advisors

Transactional financial advisors are those who rotate money between a savings account and mutual funds. They even invest their client’s money into several stocks, bonds, and other financial and investment products. These advisors may even sell their clients financial products, including annuities or life insurance.

Transactional financial advisors will occasionally develop and share updates with you to apprise you of your portfolio and investment performance. We highly recommend you peruse our guide, Improving Portfolio Performance, to get an insight into the strategies for receiving the maximum investment performance.

Wealth Managers

Wealth managers usually work with ultra-wealthy individuals and offer comprehensive financial planning and investment advisory services. This is because ultra-wealthy clients typically have very distinct financial and investment planning needs that call for a unique collection of financial planning expertise and skills. Hence, wealth managers can help their clients with almost every area of their financial life, such as services like insurance, estate, and retirement planning.

Due to the complex range of services they provide, wealth managers generally have higher account minimums for their client’s assets under management (AUM). In fact, a large percentage of wealth managers work with families and individuals who have a minimum net worth lying between $1 million and $5 million. For instance, our wealth managers at Pillar Wealth Management offer comprehensive wealth management services to individuals and families who have at least $5 million worth of liquid assets.

Financial Planner

A financial planner is a type of financial advisor who closely works with their clients to develop a plan to help them accomplish their short and long-term financial goals. These professionals may offer advice regarding risk management, financial planning, tax planning, investment management, estate planning, and retirement planning.

Certified Financial Planners

Financial advisors who are Certified Financial Planners (CFPs) have met the intensive training and experience requirements of the CFP Boards. Moreover, these financial advisors have cleared the certification exam and have to adhere to a strict code of ethics.

Asset, Investment, or Portfolio Manager

Whether the designation is that of an investment manager, portfolio manager, or asset manager, these professionals do precisely what it sounds like – they manage their clients’ investment portfolios.

An investment or portfolio manager may solely deal with their client’s investment portfolio. However, they might provide a range of financial planning services as well.

Irrespective of the type of financial advisor you pick, the primary purpose is essentially the same – managing your investment portfolio and financial affairs is comparatively easy if you get assistance from a competent and experienced financial expert. For more details on how to pick the most suitable financial advisor, make sure to read our ultimate guide on choosing the best financial advisor.

Do I Need A Financial Advisor?

The age-old question:Do I need a financial advisor? Deciding whether to use a financial advisor or manage your wealth and assets on your own is a major decision. Not everyone requires a continuing relationship with an investment advisor or a financial planner. However, several investors, especially those who have a net worth of $5 million or above, do benefit from working with a wealth manager.

Here are some signs that indicate you might need to hire a financial advisor.

You Aren’t Well-Versed About Investment Opportunities.

Since we live in a world of inflation, any money you save in cash or in a low-interest account falls in value every year. Investing in the right places is the sole way to grow your wealth and live a comfortable and peaceful post-retirement life.

Moreover, if you have a net worth of millions and you’re just investing in bonds and stocks, you’re losing out on various lucrative investment avenues. Alternative asset classes, including real estate, gold, and commodities, are all excellent investment options. Opting for a financial advisor who specializes in investment management will help you leverage the different available investments to grow and build your wealth.

Lastly, you might have invested your wealth, but you might be continuously losing it instead of increasing it. In such cases, you need a financial advisor to help you identify what you are doing wrong and fix your course before it gets too late.For a detailed insight into how you can get the highest investment performance, read our guide, 5 Critical Shifts for Maximizing Portfolio Growth Strategies.

Your Payments to Uncle Sam Are Rapidly Increase

The only downside of getting a positive return on investment is the taxes that accompany it. Since taxes are an unavoidable aspect of investments, a well-designed tax optimization strategy can help you save hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars.

Tax optimization plays a significant role in securing and increasing your wealth. Our experienced financial advisors will review your finances, including your assets and liabilities, to develop an ideal tax strategy that will help you successfully attain your financial goals. For example, we can help you take advantage of governments’ compelling incentives on specific types of investments, which can effectively lower the amount of money you need to send Uncle Sam.

You Are About to Make a Major Life-Changing Decision

Independent financial advisors don’t just create a financial plan for you but also alter it in accordance with any major life-changing decision that you make.

Deciding to retire, selling a business, buying a luxury home with cash, taking a lump sum over a pension, even getting a divorce are all instances of significant financial decisions. In fact, you might also be deciding by not taking any action at all. For instance, if you exercise stock options but don’t have a strategy to diversify and sell, you risk your entire portfolio if the stock crashes.

Being a high net worth or an ultra-high net worth with millions at stake, you definitely need to hire a financial advisor’s services. Having an experienced advisor on board will assist you in quantifying the decision, understand how it will influence other aspects of your life, and evaluate your alternate options.

You Don’t Have a Current Estate Plan.

Estate planning is the process of designating heirs for your assets, whether it’s a stock portfolio or a summer house. The primary objective of an estate plan is to determine how your heirs will receive their inheritance. If you don’t have an estate plan set up, the courts will usually decide who receives your assets and wealth – a process that can last several years, pile up fees, and get quite ugly. You can learn more about the challenges associated with estate planning in our book, The Art of Protecting Ultra-High Net Worth Portfolios and Estates – Strategies for Families Worth $25 Million to $500 Million.

In such a situation, a financial advisor can help you develop an estate plan to ensure your wealth and assets are handled according to your wishes after you pass away. They will also make sure that your beneficiaries receive their inheritance without having to pay any unnecessary taxes. Plus, if you aren’t adequately insured, a financial advisor can assist you with that as well! In fact, a fee-only financial advisor may be able to give you less biased advice than an insurance agent can.

Is It Worth Paying A Financial Advisor?

If you’re still wondering, “is it worth paying a financial advisor?” then do check out some additional ways in which a financial advisor can assist you.

Extensive Expertise and Access to Data

Financial advisors have comprehensive skills and expertise when it comes to managing the finances of individuals. They are fully aware of the various investment and financial products and keep an eye on the ever-changing market trends to swiftly capitalize on any profitable event.

Moreover, as a high net worth or an ultra-high net worth individual, you might not have the time to look up and make sense of past financial data, which is imperative for developing financial plans. If you’re fortunate enough, you might get a couple of decades worth of data, but that really isn’t sufficient! Nevertheless, financial advisors who have been a part of the industry for a long period have access to rich data that they analyze to develop the most suitable strategies for their clients. At Pillar Wealth Management, we have financial data that goes back nearly a hundred years which we use to provide impartial and unbiased suggestions to our clients. Get in touch with our team and start working on your data-backed financial plan.

Customized Financial Plans

If you depend on Google for financial advice, be certain that you will only get non-specific recommendations that may or may not be suitable for your financial needs. Even if you own the same amount of wealth as another person, your financial requirements will be quite distinct, requiring an entirely different technique and approach.

On the contrary, financial advisors won’t just give you standardized, cookie-cutter financial solutions. Instead, they will conduct in-depth meetings with you to gauge your financial goals and then develop a plan that helps you attain them. At Pillar Wealth Management, our team strives to provide customized financial advice to our clients. As a matter of fact, we only onboarded 17 clients the past year, so we could maintain our ability to offer customized financial solutions to all of them. Want to get started with your tailored financial plan? Visit our website and book a meeting with our team of financial advisors!

Questions to Ask A Financial Advisor in an Interview

Now that you know how a financial advisor can benefit you, you might be considering hiring one for yourself. While researching the web for the top financial advisors is a good practice, the best way to go is to meet with a couple of financial advisors, either in person or via video call.

Be mindful of the fact that this is a professional who you will possibly work with for many years, even decades, in the future. Hence, it’s vital that you have a comprehensive understanding of how they work and their approach to financial advisory. To prepare for such a meeting, we have made a list of questions to ask a financial advisor in an interview.

• How long have you been working in the industry?

• What services do you offer?

• What type of clients do you typically work with?

• Do you follow a fee-only, fee-based, or commission-based model?

• Do you use an active or passive approach to investment?

If you want to learn more questions that you need to ask a financial advisor, read our guide for investors worth $10 million or more.

Start making intelligent financial decisions with the assistance of Pillar Wealth Management. Book a free meeting with our experts today!

Authors

Hutch Ashoo

Chris Snyder

To be 100% transparent, we published this page to help filter through the mass influx of prospects, who come to us through our website and referrals, to gain only a handful of the right types of new clients who wish to engage us.

We enjoy working with high net worth and ultra-high net worth investors and families who want what we call financial serenity – the feeling that comes when you know your finances and the lifestyle you desire have been secured for life, and that you don’t have to do any of the work to manage and maintain it because you hired a trusted advisor to take care of everything.

You see, our goal is to only accept 17 new clients this year. Clients who have from $5 million to $500 million in liquid investable assets to entrust us with on a 100% fee basis. No commissions and no products for sale.