10 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Fiduciary Financial Advisor

Introduction

Where everyone looks eligible and claims to have the right qualifications – how will you choose the best candidate? Hiring the right fee only registered fiduciary financial advisor near you can be challenging given that the real evaluation occurs only after hitting the real-world scenario. After all, navigating the complexities of the financial world is a topsy-turvy road. Handling with ease requires an efficient team that values your goals.

Your hire should be clear on your priorities before taking up the role. A great deal also depends on whether you are asking the right questions. On this note, here are the 10 questions to ask before hiring a fiduciary financial advisor:

1. What are the qualifications and credentials of the advisor?

As a business owner or someone running a financial enterprise, you must hire a well-qualified and experienced candidate to take on the challenges of a financial advisor. The advisor must have fiduciary qualifications or have completed a certification program. You can look for a candidate who is a Certified Financial Planner or a Certified Public Accountant. You can also consider a certified Chartered Financial Analyst candidate.

2. Is your hire available for a full-time role?

Giving your hire the flexibility of full-time or part-time depends on your business needs. However full-time employees come with a dedicated mindset. He can provide comprehensive guidance and be more accessible for timely decision-making. This will also help you to curate a tailored strategy for your clients whenever needed. Additionally, the advisor can monitor your financial moves and enhance your overall financial planning experience.

3. How do you want to compensate your fiduciary financial advisor?

You may want to compensate your financial advisor on a fee-only basis. Type these keywords on your local Google searches namely ‘fee-only fiduciary financial advisor near me’. This way, you may need to provide the requisite fees for a one-time transaction only. Or, you may have to discuss compensation structures in terms of a monthly salary component or an annual CTC (Cost-to-the-company) package as may be applicable here. This is when you may have to arrange for a fiduciary financial advisor for the entire business year.

You may also hire financial advisors on a contractual basis covering 3/6/9/12 months. Therefore, you must plan to negotiate with a prospective advisor on how he/she may like to get compensated and how the company can budget the cost before you think of hiring the right fit for your company.

4. What kind of services do they provide?

You may want to hire a fiduciary financial advisor for a specific niche or genre that suits your business enterprise and the volume of your daily operations. You may need advisors that specialize in tax planning, and investment portfolio management or provide financial planning services for your high-end clients. Handling such clients needs a special skill set hence you should be clear on the services the advisor can provide.

5. Do they have client testimonials or samples of work?

Ask for testimonials. Testimonials are proof that the candidate has the right experience. Navigating the daily challenges of financial operations is tough and you want to make sure you are hiring the best. Alternatively, you can also contact the clients the candidate has worked with to cross-verify. By securing positive client recommendations, you get added validation to hire the candidate that is suitable for your business and commercial needs.

6. Do they understand your business objectives?

You must check if the advisor understands the financial goals or risk tolerance level you work with. The financial advisor must align with your business enterprise’s goals or objectives so that you can continue a solid relationship with the candidate you are looking for. Create mock scenarios and test templates and ask the candidates to answer. Their responses would let you understand if the candidate is suitable for the profile you are looking for.

7. What would be the mode of communication?

The fiduciary financial advisor may work for you in an office or have a working relationship with you by working remotely. Therefore it is always better to check for suitable lines of communication in case you want to reach out to the fiduciary financial advisor. You can get in touch via Skype or Google Meet to have a virtual interaction with him. Otherwise, you can ask the financial advisor to meet you in the office to discuss the protocols with the person. In-person visits and online interactions make sure the advisor is in sync with what you are looking for and as an employer, you set your expectations from the company’s point of view.

8. Can the financial advisor work with independent clients?

The financial advisor must not only be compatible with working with business enterprises or with high-end corporate firms. The financial advisor must be able to calibrate the customized requirements of independent clients too. You may have an independent clientele base who may need specific services like tax planning, retirement planning, or estate planning.

Here, you must check if the advisor can make personalized visits to client’s homes to have customized conversations with them to build their investment portfolios on a more holistic scale. Therefore, you must also check if the fiduciary advisor is capable of meeting the tailor-made or customized requirements of independent clients.

9. What metrics would you use to hire the financial advisor’s progress or performance?

You can feel free to discuss what metrics you would be using to track the progress or performance of the financial advisor you may have to hire for your firm. This is mandatory as you may have to gauge the performance potential of your hire from time to time. You can discuss this with the hiring candidate to keep things transparent and open. Also, this will direct your financial advisor to align his working methodology with your company’s requirements and not work in an ad-hoc manner.

10. What is your termination policy?

Although this is not a direct hiring question, it is still advisable to discuss what would possibly happen if you terminate the services of a financial advisor once your job requirements are complied with.

Whether you provide the candidate with a month’s notice so that he could look for a suitable profile elsewhere or would you extend the contract in case the services done by the hire are way too exemplary and you want to retain the hire? You should discuss termination rules and policies so that the candidate knows how your company’s termination policies work and if the candidate can align himself with the same.

The Bottom Line

Asking valid questions to hire the right fiduciary financial advisor is necessary so that your business credentials are not tampered with. You must look for someone who can give his best in the interest of the company. Having two-way communication between the hiring person and the candidate plays a key role in the selection of the right hire.