11 Questions to Ask a Financial Advisor

Here is the list of important questions to ask a financial advisor. I know you want to hire a financial planner to ensure your finances are in order.

It is easy to hire a financial advisor. You can find financial advisor easily especially wen you’re residing in United States. You need to ask many questions to know how competent your financial advisor is.

You should not only hire a financial planner, make sure the one who’s helping you manage your finances has hands-on experience. He should manage his own finances.

He should practice what he preached. You should know the different characteristics of a good financial planner.

Questions to Ask a Financial Advisor

Ask this list of important questions to your financial advisor to know and analyze his or her competencies in financial planning.

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1. Are you a licensed financial advisor?

Only licensed or registered financial planner has the right to sell their services because we all know that when a person is licensed, he is proficient. If he is licensed, he has a legal permission to give personal finance advise.

2. How are you paid as a financial advisor?

You should know how your financial planner get paid and how much did he get paid. It is ironic if you will hire a financial planner but all the profits or money earned when you invest will only be use for the financial planning services.

3. Do you have a history of complains from your previous clients?

Of course he will say “No I Don’t have any complaints from my previous clients”. He may added “they are satisfied”. It’s your right to know if he has history of complaints. Search his personal information and ask other people about him.

4. Could I see your ADV?

Form ADV is a form used by professional investment advisors to register with both SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission).

5. What’s your educational background?

How can you trust someone if he has no knowledge and skills on the services he is offering? By looking at the educational background of financial advisor, it is easy to recognize whether he is knowledgeable or not.

Also, there are certain trainings attended by professional investment advisor. He will never become a registered investment adviser or never will he become a certified financial planner if he didn’t pass the examination.

6. How many clients do you have?

Knowing how many many clients does the financial advisor have can easily recognize him whether he is trustworthy and popular or just a newbie. The disadvantage when you choose a financial advisor with lot of clients is that he can’t accommodate you with all your questions. The quality of his services will be comprising.

7. Are your clients are in the middle-class or rich?

You will know easily if a financial advisor can give advise according to your situation according to the clients he have. It is easy for financial advisor to give advise to middle class and poor if he is giving financial and investment advises to rich people.

8. Can I talk to your clients?

If he is happy and confident to let you talk with his clients, this means he is not afraid to heard bad feedbacks. Talking to financial advisor clients is a good way to know whether he is providing quality services or not.

9. What’s your investment style?

I am sure financial advisor do know how to diversify and allocate assets accordingly. He will analyze the risk, manage the risk and make money whatever the financial market is.

10.What does your portfolio look like?

How come he can give you  better financial advise if he himself don’t invest for his self. That’s ironic. That’s why I mentioned in my introduction, a financial advisor should “walk his talk”.

Looking the investment portfolio of your financial advisor is a great way to whether he is good in investing or not. You can easily find out if he is investing in stocks, bonds, mutual funds and is he have his personal savings account.

11. How long have you been in this field/industry?

Of course, a financial advisor has many experiences in dealing in different financial situations if he spent many years in this field. Don’t expect a beginner to give you a good financial advise.

Those are some of the most important questions to ask a financial advisor. If you want to add other questions, kindly write them in the comment box.