Changing My Expectation of Financial Advisors

In the beginning, I looked for financial advisors to offer me products that I couldn't get on my own or products that I wasn't aware of yet.  The first brokerage financial advisor I worked with gave me access to stock investment firms at a significantly reduced cost, 1% of AUM instead of 3% AUM if I went there on my own.  This enabled me to invest with well known investment firms at much lower costs and much lower initial investment amounts.  Some of the major brokerage firms have followed with this model, and some also offer doing privileged internal recommendation. 

Other non-brokerage investment advisors offered different products such as annuities, guaranteed index ETFs,  and other similar products.  Many of these products I evaluated and didn't have much interest either because of fees or risks.

In most cases, financial advisors have developed their own "standard" methodology that they advocate.  I understand the reason for doing that.  It gives them focus on specific expertise and scale for their business for providing financial services.  However, many times the methodology is limited in financial scope or services.

I now have a new expectation of financial advisors.   I want an advisor to tailor their services and recommendations to my specific situation.  I still want them to present investment opportunities that I am not aware of.  However, I want them to be able to enable management of our investments as I would do them.   I also want to do this at reasonably low cost and without committing the majority of our funds to be under the direction.

I started search for "Financial Concierge" on Google.  Most the response were vague about depth of services provided and didn't provide any costs or required funds to be undermanagement.  None shared the cost of such services.  The information sounded like the services and costs for people with much more funds than us.

Luckily, I did come across one brokerage firm that claim to have such services and offers a free consultation.  Since I already have funds at the firm, I plan to schedule an appointment with them to discuss what is offered and the costs.

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This is not financial nor advisor advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

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