6 Key Benefits of Working with a Financial Advisor
Are you considering working with a financial advisor? There’s likely some motivation prompting you to do so, whether it be to get a retirement plan in place, plan for a major purchase, or ensure your family is financially stable and secure. Whatever your reasons, choosing a financial advisor can be a daunting task. There are many firms, teams, and individuals to choose from that all offer a varying array of services and fee structures. Perhaps you may not even understand the key benefits of working with a financial advisor or why you should work with one in the first place, so this article seeks to cover the key benefits of working with a financial advisor, the why behind each, and give you a place to start in your quest to improve your financial future.
Key Benefit of Working with a Financial Advisor #1 – Organization
A good financial advisor will help you bring order to your financial life by helping you get your financial house in order. This level of organization happens at both a “macro” level of your investments, insurance, estate planning, taxes, etc. and at a “micro” level of your household’s cash flow.
If you’re like most people, your financial life is a smattering of different bank accounts, credit cards, investment accounts, and life insurance policies held at different institutions. You may not even know what all you have or where. A good financial advisor helps you bring all of this into focus, create structure around managing it, and help you consolidate where needed.
Key Benefit #2 – Accountability
What good does a financial plan serve if it’s never implemented? We can get advice all day, but if we never follow through on implementation, that advice is worthless. A good financial advisor will help you follow through on your financial commitments by working with you to prioritize your goals, layout the steps needed to achieve them, and be proactive in regularly reviewing your progress.
Just like many people avoid going to the doctor, a lot of people also avoid addressing their financial health. We let life, fears, insecurities, or worries get in the way of doing what we need to do and getting us where we need to go. A good financial advisor will help you keep your financial goals and the work you need to do to achieve them front and center as you go about your everyday life.
Here at Forefront Wealth Partners, we believe accountability is one of the most important aspects of delivering quality financial advice. Not only do we meet with our clients twice per year to review their financial health and progress towards goals, but we also regularly check in on them throughout the year to address items as they come up, make sure they are staying on track between review meetings, and not letting anything slip through the cracks.
Key Benefit #3 – Objectivity
Let’s face it, managing your money can be a highly emotional endeavor. Money is a necessary tool to help us survive and thrive, and when we lack it or fear losing it, we can often make very rash decisions. A good financial advisor will bring objective insights to the table to help you avoid those emotionally-driven decisions when it comes to your financial life.
They will make themselves available to consult with you at key moments of decision-making, and will do all the research necessary to ensure you have all the information you need all while also managing and disclosing any of their own potential conflicts of interest. A good financial advisor is invested in your success and will do everything they can to help you make the best decisions possible.
Key Benefit of Working with a Financial Advisor #4 – Proactivity
Life can change dramatically for anyone at a moments’ notice. It could be a career change, a death in the family, an inheritance, you name. As you enter these different stages and transitions in your life, it’s important to be financially prepared for them so they don’t send you veering off course.
A good financial advisor will be proactive in helping you anticipate these life stages and transitions and be prepared for them by regularly assessing any major changes that might be coming, and creating an action plan that will successfully address and manage them ahead of time. The more planning you can do ahead of time, the more prepared you’ll be, and the better your outcomes are likely to be.
Benefit # 5 – Education
It’s impossible to know everything you need to know about managing your financial life. Laws, rules, and regulations can change over the years just as much as economic environments and market conditions do. A good financial advisor will explore what specific knowledge you will need to be successful in your situation, and help you gain your own grasp over the information in a way you can understand.
A good financial advisor will take the time to fully understand your specific situation, what your goals and motivations are, and the fears and worries that could get in the way of your success. A good financial advisor will then also provide the resources needed to make smart decisions around those goals, and help you understand the options and potential risks associated with each choice.
Benefit # 6 – Partnership
A good financial advisor won’t just work for you, but with you. Achieving the best life possible is not attainable via a purely transactional relationship. To truly drive value and provide the most high-quality, impactful advice, a good financial advisor will take the time to clearly understand your background, philosophies, needs, and goals, and work collaboratively with you and on your behalf while providing the utmost transparency around their own costs, compensation, and motivations. The most successful client-advisor relationships live on a two-way street that’s built on long-term partnership and the highest level of trust and confidence in each other.
The Bottom Line
Choosing the right financial advisor for your needs can be a daunting task, but having the right advisor in your corner can also be one of the most positively impactful and life-changing decisions you can make.
Understanding the key benefits of working with a financial advisor is the first place to start before you go about finding an advisor who’s a good fit for you. Here at Forefront Wealth Partners, we pride ourselves in the deep, lasting relationships we build with our clients and the long-term value we create in their lives.
If you want to see what it’s like to work with us, schedule a free virtual coffee meeting today to see how we can help you take that next step!
Advisory services are offered through Forefront Wealth Partners LLC.
Securities offered are through Calton & Associates, Inc., member FINRA and SIPC.
Forefront Wealth Partners LLC is not owned or controlled by Calton & Associates, Inc
