Asking yourself: “What will a good investment adviser do for me?”
We’d say that a good investment adviser does a lot more than just advising on investments. They should start by understanding you, your lifestyle and your financial goals, then build a plan to help you achieve those. Ironically, the smallest part of the job is to actually give investment advice.
- You might be looking to choose an investment adviser for the first time
- Maybe you already have a stockbroker or a wealth manager, but they’ve let you down somehow
- Perhaps you’re concerned their fees are too high for the results and level of service you’re getting
First, you need to understand the different types of financial advice service you can choose.
Financial advisers pick funds for you. They are get paid in line with the products they sell you.
Active fund managers keep moving your money around between funds. They charge a high fee for doing this. However, the evidence shows that the results they generate are typically lower than picking low-cost funds in the first place and then sticking with those funds for the long-term. If you read our articles regularly, you’ll know the latter approach is the one we recommend.
Stockbrokers and wealth managers are usually big names in the City. They earn their high fees by doing asset allocation followed by regular rebalancing.
Although we sometimes get called ‘financial advisers’ and ‘wealth managers’ because we give financial advice and manage wealth, that’s not an accurate description of our role. We are financial planners. That means we get paid for building you a financial plan. You can follow the plan yourself if you want to, or we can look after your money for you as well. In that sense, our job title doesn’t accurately convey the whole range of the services we offer. So here’s a fuller explanation.
Why choose a financial planner
Here’s some of the added value you get when you choose a financial planner:
- We build you a plan that gives you a tax-efficient way to fund your retirement
- We’re unbiased about the products we recommend
- We do lifestyle planning, which is based around you and your needs
- You benefit from behavioural coaching at no extra charge
Most importantly, Vanguard research shows that financial planners like us bring 3% more to the table than the cost of our service. This difference is called ‘Alpha’.
I created this mindmap to show the seven areas where we add Alpha:
View/download the Adviser Alpha mindmap in PDF format
Why choose us
Lance Baron is a Certified Financial Planner, as indicated by the CFP accreditation after his name.
He’s based in East Sussex, and provides financial planning services to local clients who are nearing retirement with £250K or more to invest.
New clients typically find him through word of mouth recommendation, and he works with them directly.
Unlike some financial planners, he doesn’t work via stockbrokers, wealth managers or big names in the City for the reasons explained above – you might like to take this is as a sign of his ethical approach to doing business.
If you’d like an initial conversation, call Lance on 01435 863787 anytime during normal working hours.
Related reading
- Comparing financial planner vs financial adviser
- What does a financial planner actually DO?
- Day in the life of a financial planner
- The seven roles of a financial planner
- 2+2=4. Or does it?
- Investing that’s as easy as A,B…F