0:00 welcome to people making money I'm your host Kevin bemel and we are here every Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. Pacific Time 3:30 PM eastern time with an hour in for Central and Mountain to talk about issues relating to uh job searching professional success and wealth building so um these are the sort of core topics of the um of the finances Realm of the three pillars of attainment and um and that's why we spend an hour together uh
0:36 each week talking about them and today I'm going to talk about um how to choose a financial advisor so in in you know prior times the idea of anyone other than someone who was very wealthy having a financial advisor probably didn't seem very likely so what do I need a financial adviser for right um maybe I need to have an insurance policy but I'll have my insurance man as they used to call them deal with that um but now that um for example most uh retirement
1:12 plans are are private um even even if we have a 401k sponsored by our company um that's still a private plan it's not a government sponsored plan and that 401k um will go with us or can go with us um if if we leave that particular company to go to another one so a lot of people don't know that um but indeed um you can take your 401K with you um you subject to certain terms depending on
1:47 the plan and all that but but in general you can take it with you as well if you have IRAs of course those are completely private because those are things that you've funded yourself um and so in in these days when you know the vast majority of middle class people um have you know some kind of savings plan especially retirement savings plan so it's much more important that we have solid Financial advice to help us make good decisions and so this uh this idea of choosing a financial
2:23 advisor looms much larger um than it would have certainly when I was uh even young man let alone a kid uh you know way back in the Dark Ages right um but in any event I'm going to I'm going to talk about um eight um uh issues with respect to choosing a financial advisor um and and and going to talk about them in some depth so that you can get an idea of what it is um you need to be aware of uh when you make
2:58 this decision so I did put together a little a little PowerPoint um you you know I I they say uh it's it's easier to uh learn things um when we can both see and hear them so so that's what we're going to do here um okay this over all right so choosing a financial advisor um talked about the you know three pillars of attainment I already mentioned the one on the wall is is is slightly different I just realize finances is up here but that's okay um
3:33 and okay so I'm going to talk about two categories um with respect to matters affecting who you would choose as a financial advisor uh one is what I call qualifications and the other is practical matters and and when I when we look at the two categories you'll see um what I mean by um these these two different uh aspects of of making a choice okay so we're going to look at qualifications first we're going to talk about four areas of qualifications type
4:11 of advisor experience credentials and conflicts of interest okay so let's let's jump right into it and let's talk about type of advisor okay so there are many many many types of advis financial advisors out there these days some uh I mean even insurance agents these days typically they won't call themselves you know a life insurance agent they will call themselves a financial advisor and for good reason a lot of insurance products these days have some kind of investment aspect to
4:49 them and um and so um when when you're being advised about insurance um aside from just the insurance part of it there there may be a significant ific Financial part to the policy itself as well the purchas purchase of insurance is one part of an overall financial plan and it's usually something that you're going to consider first um in order to protect well if you're you know if you have a driver's license so you're you're you uh you're going to have to have automobile insurance you you you you
5:25 know need to have health insurance okay and and so insurance is one of the first products um that a financial adviser is going to look at um as they help you develop a financial plan okay so you want to you want to protect yourself against um the the dire consequences of certain things like for example God forbid you know being hospitalized right so um I spent a a day in the emergency room a few weeks ago and that that one day
6:00 cost um I want to say somewhere in the neighborhood of like $155,000 or something right um and and and that that's a lot of money I mean no matter how you cut it right um but that's what we have you know medical insurance for um and and so um that so getting back to types of advisors um what the the areas of expertise that an advisor has it will will be one of the key factors in determining who you choose okay so the
6:36 more sophisticated your financial situation is the more sophisticated the skills of the financial advisor will need to be okay so for um you know for someone kind of you know typical middle class right where we need some insurance maybe we have a couple of retirement accounts so you know someone who has experience in those areas that's that's what we're going to be looking for as opposed to you know someone who's got you know maybe several million dollars in assets um who at that
7:14 point probably needs to be looking at a wealth manager okay um while some people like to manage their own Investments if you are you know if you if you're working if you're a professional or you have your own business or whatever so it may difficult to manage your finances manage your Investments and also take care of your professional responsibilities or run your business and so in that case um it may make sense to get a you know a more sophisticated financial adviser what's oftentimes called a wealth
7:50 manager okay and in that case they're going to oversee um you know your your portfolio or or whatever it is that you've got um typically excluding real estate okay um but they're going to oversee all of your uh financial investments okay they they may or may not um handle your insurance for you that'll depend on on the particular uh company okay and by the way if you have a very complex life you know you may decide to hire what's
8:25 more like a business manager you know someone who's not only going to take care of your Investments um but also take care of your you know monthly payments um those kind of things and and a and a a business uh manager you know they may have a part of their um organization that that manages uh you know real estate as well in fact they may have a service where they'll take care of repairs in your H so you know again as as you as you raise the amount of wealth and the and the size of the
9:00 assets that you have so then the types or the options available to you expand as well and so when you're looking for a financial advisor I think the first thing to do is is you know make a brief summary okay what do I have to be managed and approximately how much is it worth okay and if you got you know maybe you have a couple hundred, do or maybe you have $50,000 in in a retirement account something like that so so then you know some like a I have a friend who
9:35 works for Trans America I have a friend who works for Primerica um you know someone in in that category that's what they do they work with the typical um middle class person and and they have a fairly broad uh range of Knowledge and Skills to bring to the table in order to make sure that they can take care of people you know in that range okay now some companies as you as you um build your career and build your wealth so that they can they may be able to like Primerica I know offers Wealth Management Services um as
10:12 well um and depending on who your representative is um they may be able to offer you those Services as well now keep in mind that the type of advisor you have or I mean the I'm sorry the skills that a particular uh or the Services I should say that the T that an advisor can offer is going to be um constrained by the licenses they have so a lot of states for example require that advisors have a life insurance license
10:48 okay some states require that they have a different license to sell what's called Casualty Insurance things like home and auto insurance okay if they're going to sell any kind of mutual funds even for retirement accounts so then they're going to need to have Securities licenses and if they're going to sell managed products like wealth management so then that's that's an even another security license okay so when you talk about type of advisor a sort of a a subp part of that is you know what licenses
11:23 do you have okay because that will also tell you some other information we'll talk about that um in some of the other qualifications okay but it but it will it will give you an idea of of how um broad their their knowledge is okay so that's that's type of advisor next is experience in this case we mean I'm talking about both the the the quantity and the quality of um an advisor's experience so how many for how many
11:58 years have they been a financial advisor or been in you know financial services so somebody may have been you know dealing an insurance for 10 years and then in the last two years they've expanded into offering uh mutual funds those sort of things okay so what is their overall experience what is their experience in the various areas um where where you need help okay and um what is their experience with clients like you okay SOC excuse me again um if you're a high
12:36 net worth individual so you know what what what amount of um of assets does this particular financial representative have under management okay is it 10 million which actually isn't a whole lot is it you know 800 million okay that's that's very substantial right um some of the top ones of course will have billions of dollars under management I'm talking about individuals now not you know large asset management companies like Brookfield or whatever that may have you know hundreds of billions of dollars under management but for an
13:11 individual financial advisor okay there are some that that you know have even a billion dollars or more under management okay so that's you know if if you're a very high net worth individual that's the kind of financial advisor that you're going to want or wealth manager that you're going to want on the other hand someone at that level if you're just starting out that that probably is not the right individual for you okay because it's going to be very hard for them to justify spending the kind of time with you that um you know
13:49 that they need to spend with their wealthier clients number one and number two it may be a long time since they've dealt with the kind of issues um that that you need to deal with and so while they may have had experience in that you know 20 30 years ago things have changed substantially in that time and so they may not necessarily be you know up to dat so to give you an example I had a meeting yesterday um with a um a young woman um who's with an annuity company um and we were talking
14:24 about how the annuity business has changed so much over the last decade or two so you know what what annuities were when I was a young man completely different than they are now okay in fact I'm going to try and get her on a future show because it's a um annuities have become a a bigger part of financial planning um for middle class people whereas annuities used to be thought of as something really only for for the wealthy um these days there's so many options in that category okay so what is
15:01 the length of their experience what is the length of their experience within the the types of services that you need and what is their experience dealing with clients who are similar to you okay take all of that into account ask those questions okay next credentials so credentials come in basically two categories I mentioned one of them um a few minutes ago and that are those are State and essentially
15:37 Federal level licenses okay and the other are essentially Pro credentials from private organizations so I'm I'm going to take the this the second one first so you may have heard of what's called a cfp certified financial planner I remember when I was much younger um my mother decided she was going to get the cfp designation um and it was it was a it's a lot of work lots and lots of classes exams um and you really have to know you know know your stuff in
16:13 order to get that that designation okay so um that's that designation comes and and off the top of my head I remember the name of the organization that that gives it but it's not a government entity it's a private organization okay um other types of uh credentials um there's a a chartered financial planner which I believe is um out of uh England um and then you could have someone who's a CPA okay obviously a CPA is certified public accountant that doesn't necessarily mean that they have expertise in in insurance or Securities
16:50 or whatever um however um they have experience in taxes probably and that could be be a key part of what you need in a financial advisor okay and then there's there are designations like that that you can get for insurance um I think clu I think it's called um chartered life underwriter something like that um so those are all um designations that an individual earns typically by taking classes passing exams okay and and earning it's sort of
17:26 like a certificate it's it's almost like I don't want to say it's like getting a college degree because you're typically not going to school you know for three or four years but it's the the the level of the classes are are typically at you know kind of the the the college level and you take several of these classes um and then you you get that credential so the other side of credentials is the one I was talking about um earlier and that is um state licenses and things like security licenses so so we I talked about state licenses a little bit um it
18:03 could be uh anything from a uh life insurance license a casual insurance license if someone is involved in real estate they're going to have to have a real estate license whether it's to um help people buy and sell properties whether it's to um manage properties um whether it's um so now if somebody now this wouldn't be a financial advisor per se but if someone is appraising property uh for federally related um transactions so that person is going to have to have an appraisal license okay if they're um
18:40 if they're arranging loans the person has to have a a mortgage license okay so those are all well most of those are state licenses I think the mortgage license is now a federal license um and and I think I think you have to have both a real estate license State real estate state license and a Federal Mortgage license to be work for a mortgage lender nowadays okay so so but in the general category of real estate Insurance those are state licenses generally speaking you'll take some kind of training typically it's really more oriented to
19:16 passing the exam okay and then the person has you know takes the exam they have to pass okay and then usually they'll be fingerprinted and and run through to see if they have any kind of criminal record that prevent them from getting the license and then the license is issued okay and if um well it's going to be too small for you to see I think but right right here here's my list of licenses right and among them is my life life insurance licenses right there okay um then there are securities licenses now they're they're not this was a misnomer I had um U you know way
19:53 back when that that the the Securities and Exchange Commission issued security licenses that used to be the case quite some time ago now there's an organization called finra um and please don't ask me what finra stands for financial something or other blah blah blah blah blah um so finra is uh issues um licenses that that have a a nationwide scope so for example a series six license that would allow you to sell mutual funds okay no matter where you
20:28 are in the United States if you if if if an adviser is going to sell mutual funds they need a series six license now some states require them to have a series 63 as well okay now the series 63 the test is administered by NASA not the space organization that's the nasaa nation Association of security um Administration Association or something like that um so in for
21:06 example here in California financial advisors that sell um mutual funds have to have a series6 and a series 63 okay now you'll see that that under the list of finra license designations you'll see both of those but in fact finra um manages this the Series 6 test and NASA manages the series 63 test okay so if if someone is if a a financial advisor sells individual stocks they
21:41 have to have I believe it's a series seven okay so part of checking out a financial advisor is what credentials does that advisor have and do those credentials actually allow that advisor to offer the services that you need so if one of the things you want um from an advisor is help with um your uh retirement plans which probably means you're going to be buying mutual funds or maybe ETFs extra exchange traded
22:17 funds so that financial advisor has to have those that that six and six those 6 and 63 licenses in order to be able to advise you okay and in fact in order to be able to solicit business from you okay so you you know a person who is um trying to get your business even if they don't get the business they they still have to have the licenses just to talk to you about potentially being a customer okay so if someone is um looking to get your business as a financial advisor to help
22:53 you with your retirement accounts and you say hey by the way what credentials do you have and they're like um well I got an insurance license oh uhhuh and I mean do you have any uh thra licenses no I don't okay so that's probably not someone you want to do business with because they are soliciting business from you that they're not allowed to solicit right so you know not not something you want to do now by the way you may have someone who's you know new to the business and they have maybe they have their life
23:28 insurance license and they and they and you're talking to them and you're saying you know I I want help with um you know with my you know managing in my retirement accounts so they may say to you you know what I'm not licensed to do that but my colleague you know Bob um is licensed to do that and I work with Bob um so that in situations like this um you know Bob can come in so um if that's something you want to talk about you know either you know let me get Bob on the phone or let's set up another meeting um so that
24:04 so I can introduce you to Bob and he can talk to you about that but since I'm not licensed in it I'm not permitted to do that now that's perfectly legitimate by the way okay and and and oftentimes financial advisors will work in teams so you know you may have someone um who specializes in Insurance all different kinds of insurance okay um and they may be teamed up with someone who is an expert in retirement accounts right and so they're going to offer you kind of a a a team service so it's not going to be
24:39 just one individual really it's going to be more of a firmwide effort to take care of you and and that may be uh you know a good solution as well okay so when when we I should have mentioned this when I talked about type of advisor but it doesn't necessarily have to be one person it could be you know a group of two people or or a group of people okay all right so so that's that's credentials okay and then the last qualification is conflicts of interest okay so in so a a financial advisor is going
25:18 to be working in what's called a fiduciary capacity so for anyone who's watched any of my shows that term comes up um fairly fre quently because anyone these days who is in this sort of advisory capacity especially if they operate under any kind of license is typically op operating as a fiduciary now what that means is they must put the best interests of their client above their own okay so for example let's say
25:53 that um you're talking to a financial adviser about life insurance okay and in talking about the different life insurance products they offer one of those particular products may be better for you in terms of what you need but another product may give them a larger commission okay the their fiduciary obligation requires them to sell you the the policy that's right for you even though it means a lower commission for them okay if they were to sell you the
26:29 higher commission product that isn't as good for you that would be a breach of their fiduciary obligation okay so um when we talk about conflicts of interest okay there there are there could potentially be situations where um their fiduciary obligation comes in conflict with taking care of you and that could potentially be a problem okay so this needs to be addressed upfront okay before you agree
27:05 to work with any particular um financial advisor okay so um for example um um the you the company you work for um they may have a financial advisor okay that handles the company's retirement plan okay and that's that's great okay um and then you may be looking for someone um to help you with your personal financial planning your
27:40 your you know your personal situation okay well so if if the if the company's Financial uh financial advisor runs the the 401K plan and you're a member of that 401k plan okay that may not be the best situation to have them um uh representing you as an individual as well because there's a there's a conflict of interest there so for example you may have um all of the assets of your 401k in the stock of the company you work for okay and that may
28:16 be convenient or good for the company and the advisor you know may want you know it may be in the advisor's best interest to keep those those 401K fun there um however um it may not be in your best interest for you to have all of your 401K funds in the stock of the company you work for it may be better to diversify them and and and look a lot of this will depend on what the 401K allows and all that of course but there may be a conflict of interest there where on the one hand
28:51 they're working for your employer on the other hand they're working for you that may not work out so well okay so those are the kind of things that you want to be on the lookout for um um okay and I'm going to I'm going to talk about um another potential conflict of interest um in in the next group but it'll it'll make more sense when we talk about um that that particular issue there okay so let's let's move on now all right so now let's talk about some practical matters these aren't so much these are not the qualifications of the individual these
29:26 are the Practical matters associated with you know getting you taken care of making sure you're properly served okay so I'm gonna talk about four things again oh four things again four things um again um investment philosophy communication style fee structure and availability okay so let's start with investment philosophy so some financial advisors have a particular investment philosophy that they work with okay and
30:04 they that's the only philosophy they go with and and that's fine okay they're most likely going to disclose that up front now if that investment philosophy meshes with your own or it's a philosophy that works for you great but if it doesn't then that particular financial advisor is not the right person to be working with you okay now other uh financial advisers they talk to a client and figure out what is the
30:40 correct investment Philosophy for this particular client okay recognizing that at different stages in people's lives they there's there's probably a different investment philosophy they need people have different levels of of risk tolerance which also determines what the investment philosophy should be okay so when you're talking to a financial a prospective financial advisor it's critical that you discuss with them what is your investment philosophy okay and
31:17 some will tell you well my my investment philosophy is XYZ okay others will say well you know if if we end up working together so we're going to start out by talking about various aspects such as what you're trying to accomplish what stage you're at professionally and financially what is your risk tolerance what kind of obligations do you have etc etc etc okay um and and so then they're going to build in essence an investment
31:52 philosophy tailored to you okay now is it going to literally be tailored to you like bepoke you know like a suit that's made exactly for you no because the reality is while everybody's circumstances are different they're not so different that there needs to be you know 330 million investment philosophies for all you know the entire population of the United States but there you know you're going to fit into one of a set of categories for the most part okay um so
32:27 you may be you know new to the workforce starting out unmarried um but nonetheless you don't have a tolerance for very high risk okay that'd be one that would be one category um you could have all the same things but you have a tolerance for a lot of risk so that'd be maybe a second category right um and then you know someone who is uh married and has two children is more midcareer um and and again you know maybe has a a medium risk or has a low risk tolerance
33:02 so that's another category right so that's what they're going to look to do in terms of figuring out an investment Philosophy for you okay and based on those different aspects then that's going to determine in terms of things like insurance coverage um um um types of Investments for your retirement plans typ of Investments for other um you know for other Investments you have outside of retirement that's going to all then play into what those what those are okay so
33:38 investment philosophy um you you know before you choose your investment advisor um you may not know specifically what the investment philosophy will be um you all you may know is well the initial part of the process is figuring out what investment philosophy is right for you the client okay and that that's that's perfectly fine otherwise if the person if the financial adviser has a said investment philosophy then it it is what it is okay and if it's not right for you then that's not the right um
34:14 advisor for you okay next communication style so the the critical issue in communication style is when you you're talking with this person are they explaining things in a way that you can understand them okay some Financial concepts are you know pretty easy to understand so term life insurance okay so term life insurance basically is life insurance that lasts as long as you make the payments and has a set term maybe
34:50 10year term fiveyear term 30-year term something like that okay um typically the premiums don't change and the the the policy does not build up any value so you know you can pay your premiums for 10 years and the What's called the the the policy value is still zero okay that's that's term life insurance right as opposed to something like whole life where part of your premium goes into building um an investment value or a policy value um that that hopefully
35:28 increases over time although not not necessarily it depends on how well that's managed okay and again there are different philosophies about whether you should have you know term life whole life I mean you know I come from the philosophy that you know buy term life and take the additional money that you would spend on whole life and just invest that directly that's a better way to build wealth okay I was excoriated by um a friend of mine that oh how could you you possibly say that blah blah blah blah blah that's you know blah blah blah blah blah um but but in any event um you will you will find different
36:04 philosophies um and if and if you're interested in that discussion you know go to my YouTube channel and find uh the discussion on insurance and um and and you can see why I I advocate for what I advocate for okay but in any event going back to communication style so um you know if you are relatively new to dealing with finances you don't have a lot of knowledge about things like compound interest and uh Net Present Value and and these these Concepts so um
36:40 you're you're I I you know I recommend you you you choose or or look for a um investment advisor who uses language that you can understand okay um whereas if you're very sophisticated you know having someone talk to you in very basic langu language may you know frankly be annoying it's like okay yeah I yes I'm I'm not in kindergarten anymore you know I've been doing this a long time please you know speak to me at my level okay now that's not to say that financial advisors only speak at you know one particular level just like you know many
37:17 financial advisors will craft an investment philosophy that is right for you as an individual um most financial advisors will talk to you at the level that that you need in order to be able to understand what they're saying okay now having said that if you recall I talking about um uh um wealth uh wealth managers so by the time you're dealing with a wealth manager they're probably
37:53 going to assume that you have a certain level of sophistication in financial matters and so they may not be used to talking at a very um Elemental level and they may struggle to be able to explain to you exactly what's you know exactly what's going on um because they're used to dealing at a much more sophisticated level okay so that's all part of what that so the communication style could also be a factor as you look at the type of um advice ier that that you um look
38:30 to engage okay in any event when you're talking to perspective investment advisors uh financial advisors I mean um what you you know what you want to do is you know do I understand this person you may even say hey um you know I'm I'm not a very sophisticated uh you know I'm not very sophisticated about finances so um please explain to me um a a a a complex Financial concept so I can see if if if I can understand what you're saying to me I think it's perfectly legitimate to
39:05 you know ask that um and and so for example you know explain to me how compound interest works right um and and the person should be able to do it so so it makes sense to you okay now if you're a sophisticated investor okay you you you may do you know kind of a similar well well so explain to me what is an change traded fund okay um and they should be able to explain to you uh you know what that is how it works and how is that different than a mutual fund for example you know you ask them you and see how they communicate with you so
39:40 you're not so much looking you know for for the knowledge per se it's how do they explain these things to you okay so communication style very important because presumably this is going to be a long-term relationship Okay and like in any relationship uh communication is an important the ability to communicate clearly is an important aspect okay now fee structure this is obviously another very very important practical matter to deal
40:15 with okay so um financial advisors generally work in one of two ways with respect to fees okay one way is they get um fee for product okay so if they if if you buy a life insurance policy they'll get a commission on that sale so it it doesn't cost you anything technically okay because the life insurance uh company is going to pay the commission but of course where is that
40:51 money coming from it's coming from the premiums that you're paying okay in theory if they didn't have to pay the commission they could charge you lower premium okay but in any event um in a product based fee structure okay you are not coming out of pocket in addition to the cost of the products for the financial advice that you're getting okay so again maybe they're you know they're setting up a retirement account for you um and you're investing money in that account so the fee for that is going to come from you know the mutual
41:27 fund company that they invest your money in okay it's not going to come from you now the other type of fee structure is what's called a fee for service okay and fee for service typically they're they'll charge either an hourly rate or a flat rate um uh for the services they render so if they spend you know 10 hours with you a month um discussing financial matters and and handling whatever transactions needed to be handled and their their rate is $200 a
42:03 month so then your fee for service is $2,000 okay or maybe they charge you a flat $1500 a month and and you know for the for that for that fee they handle whatever needs to be handled and every any given month in one month they may spend you know 20 hours on taking care of you and the next month may only spend two but it doesn't matter it's $1,500 a month okay another sort of fee for service is a percentage of your portf
42:44 oops sorry about that they're doing a national alert today and um I I I figured it was going to come right while where we were doing the show okay um so another type of fee for service structure is a percentage of portfolio value is usually how it's calculated okay and and the way that works is so let's say you've got a portfolio with a value of uh $3 million okay so you'll be charged 1% of your portfolio value okay for for
43:20 a Year's worth of service and so it doesn't matter how many trades they make how much time they spend talking to you meeting with you on the phone whatever doesn't matter 1% of your portfolio value for the year is is is what you're going to be charged okay and typically by the way it'll be calculated on a monthly basis and so it will it it will probably vary month-to month because your portfolio probably isn't going to literally be worth you know $3 million consistently over the year it might vary a little bit it might go up over the you know over the year hopefully it does
43:55 right they're doing a good job and so um you know but but in in in point of fact you know it's it's essentially a a fee for service okay um as opposed to um a fee for product now I mentioned um a little while ago that um uh there could be an inherent uh conflict of interest there was another con potential conflict of interest and you could see that in a situation where
44:32 um uh a financial advisor is is is fee for product okay um and this is actually this is essentially the you know the same example I realize now that I gave you before where they're selling you products they're getting a fee based on the product they sell you okay so not only is there um an incentive to um sell you the more expensive product I mean the product that will not the more expensive product the product that will yield the larger commission
45:07 there's also an incentive to sell you products you don't need okay now do do you know product fee based or um Financial uh advisers do they all do that no absolutely not um you know most are are are honest you know and and they don't want to do things like that because it's not good for their long-term business okay but you know that is a you know for someone who is is a fee for product paid advisor
45:43 that is an issue uh that that should be raised so you know well you're getting you're getting paid if I buy a particular product how does that work okay so how do I know um um that you're you know giving me the best product for me as the as opposed to the one that will maximize your income right and and I would ask them that straight out and and listen to their answer okay um and and and it's probably going to be somewhere on the lines of you know what advisers who do that they're not in it for the long haul
46:19 because eventually that will get discovered and then those clients are going to drop them like a hot potato if not um see that they are disciplined um by the Bas by the different regulatory authorities so I I don't do that because I'm looking to create a long-term relationship and so my business is based on serving you with what you need um and and if we're talking about a particular product one of the things I'm going to talk to you about is uh suitability of that product for you and is it something
46:54 that you absolutely need is it a nice to have is is it something you don't really need this but I mean if you absolutely want it you know we can get it for you but I I don't see it as being anything that you particularly need okay and and and you know again this a reputable person that's they're going to probably say something like that okay um but but do address you know that potential conflict of interest in in fee structure okay all right so fee structure okay and now the last one is
47:30 availability okay so um is you know if you have a question how do you get that question answered and how quickly can you get that question answered okay are are you g to be you know dealing with an individual or are you going to be dealing with um you know kind of like a customer service um person so if your financial advisor is uh Robin Hood I'll I'll pick on them they get picked on a lot right so um you're probably not going to have a a dedicated individual
48:05 that you call in order to you know get your questions answered okay you're probably going to call or or send a message to a general customer service department and someone will respond to you okay that's as opposed to say Schwab or you know which is now I think TDM a trade is actually part of Schwab's nowledge um so you're going to have a specific representative there that that you can call okay there may also be a general customer service line for you know getting a a particular form or
48:41 whatever um but in you know most cases you're going to have a specific person that's going to be the case I mentioned earlier you know Trans America Primerica those companies you're going to have a specific person who is your financial advisor or you maybe you're going to have a team of a couple people okay so what is their availability how quickly can they respond to your questions what are the different avenues that are available for getting questions um answered okay so um for example can you text message them so generally speaking
49:16 the answer to that is going to be um unless it's to like confirm a meeting the answer is going to be no so like like if you s send a financial advisor um a text message asking you know what is the quote on you know IBM today okay they're not going to respond through text messaging with that um because most a lot of companies don't allow that okay so um because um uh financial service companies need to be able to track the
49:52 communications of their people to make sure that they complying with all the vast array of regulations that apply in this area Okay so if they say well you know um text messaging you know I can only deal with you know this part of it okay that may not be you know they're just saying that because they don't want to have to deal with text messages um that may be because you know this issue I was talking about about the their company being able to properly supervise them so if there if you have a particular if you have a preferred
50:27 means a preferred way of communicating and a particular person you're talking to doesn't seem to be able to do that I would ask them why oh what you know like I I don't I don't communicate through text messages oh why is that well because you know in order for my company to properly supervise me um we're not permitted to use uh text messages oh so like if I'm late to a meeting can I is can I not send you a text message to let you know I'm on my way oh no no in that case it's fine but but in terms of any kind of financial matters we can't do
51:02 those over text messages okay so um can you talk on the phone yes can you you know use emails typically the answer is yes because it's going to be emailed through the company's email system and that way they're able to track um what's what's going on okay so um figure out the means of communication excuse me and and how quick you can expect um to get an answer and does and does that work for you okay I know for me you know in general the people I work with I don't want them feeling like like they've got to get
51:37 back to me you know the minute I get in touch with them that's just uh it's it's it's it's it's too much stress for people okay but um but on the other hand you know I do want them to get back to me in a reasonable period of time okay now there are other people I you know they want people getting back to them right away and if you're if if you're of that mindset then I recommend you you know you address that issue and make sure that the person can accommodate you um in the way you want otherwise it's just going to be a lot of friction um and it's not going to be a very satisfying relationship okay so those are the um
52:16 eight uh aspects of um excuse me of uh choosing a financial adviser so if you have any questions comments criticisms here's some of the ways um to get in touch with me or get in touch with the show um we are on some other social media now we're we're on Instagram um we are on um Pinterest um and um and you can also leave comments on on YouTube so um any place uh you want to feel free um I do my best to uh to get back to you
52:52 quickly um although you know typically not within a couple of hours necessarily uh I guess I I you can see I I haven't switched Twitter to X here but anyway all these and others will be in the show notes after the episode posts and then I think we've got some here's the legal stuff and here let's go ahead and and and stop the sharing okay so that's what I have for you today um on on the way to wow show people making money um again you know you know if if you're if you're younger and just starting out okay you
53:28 may consider um finding a financial advisor who's kind of just starting out as well obviously you want someone who has the knowledge and experience to be able to help you but if you're starting with someone who's more kind of your age starting out you can grow together okay so this is not to take away business from you know old guys like me um but um um you know if you're just starting out on your career and you're going to be dealing with finances for another you know 40 50 years so um do you want to be in a situation where um you know at at
54:06 some point you're gonna have to find someone new this this is what happened to my mother for example she had the same financial advisor um her really her whole um adult life and recently he retired it's like oh shoot um and so now she has to find somebody new well this actually happened I think uh earlier this year but but in any event you know she has to find somebody new and it and it's it's difficult um you know she's been working for with the same person for literally decades he knows her very well she knows him and and so it was a a
54:42 very nice relationship one that you know was was very you know easily workable and now I don't want to say she's starting over completely but you know it's it's going to be creating a new relationship so um you know if if if if your adviser is a lot older than you that's more likely to happen than if someone is is more you know kind of your age peer um and so you can grow together so that is uh what I have for you today and this is uh the last uh episode the last my last show for this week so we
55:17 will start the cycle again next week on Monday at 10:00 a.m. with trusts and Estates weekly and then Tuesday at 11:00 am these are all Pacific time uh business lessons from the military and then uh a week from today at uh 12:30 pm Pacific time will be the next edition of people making money so I invite you to uh join me again next week and uh and and every week really um hope you en enjoy the information hope hopefully
55:53 it's it's um it's helping you with your uh your professional and financial life um and uh just a a quick note um if you are not a subscriber to uh our YouTube Channel please do consider subscribing that way you will be notified anytime um a new uh show goes live Andor posts and and you'll always be uh the most up toate with all of the way to wow shows so I thank you very much for joining me uh wishing you a Wonder F rest of the day and uh a good rest of the week um to
56:30 um my uh my my Jewish friends and and viewers um uh uh wishing you a a happy um wrapping up of the the holiday season and and that just leaves me to sign off by saying Marie darling you are my bell as always so thanks again for watching look forward to seeing you next week