What Your Clients Want to Know
We recently came across a blog post that Jason Zweig of the Wall Street Journal wrote about 19 questions clients should ask their advisor.
As I read through the article, it seems to me that the one concern driving many of the questions is: How do I know I can place my trust in you?
Trust is one of those big, abstract concepts that can be hard to define specifically and concretely, but Zweig did a great job of breaking down the general idea of “trust” into specific, measurable questions. These 19 questions can help give your clients and prospects the assurance they are seeking from their financial advisor.
Are you a fiduciary? What are all of the ways in which you are compensated? What do you believe as it relates to investing? And are you willing to put all of that in writing? Those were just a few of the topics that the list addressed.
It also occurred to me that most of the list could be relevant questions for advisors to ask of First Ascent. Do you believe in market timing? How often do you trade? How do you report investment performance? For us, our business model, investment philosophy, and transparency make it easy to answer these questions in a way that satisfies and assures the advisors who work with us.
If you’d like to talk to us about that list, either as it relates to your clients’ questions for you or your questions for us, please reach out to us! I’m sure together we could come up with one more to make it a good game of 20 questions.