How to Choose a Financial Services Advisor
Throughout my decades of adult life, I have come to learn one key fact on this subject that I would like to share with you briefly.
That is, for most of us currently, when we search for a financial advisor of any kind, the primary attribute that we seek out is competency.
I would like to suggest that while this is indeed a very valuable capability to desire in an advisor, it pales in comparison to the importance of character.
Often we are able to find a high degree of both qualities in an advisor if we perform our search utilizing the best processes and objectives. But if you have to choose between a person with low competency and high character, versus a person of high competency and low character, you will always in the long run be happier with your results with the former rather than the latter.
In fact, if we are seeking out a financial services advisor in an area of practice in which we feel our capabilities are only marginal at best, the absolute worst thing we can do is to put an individual of high competency and low character into the position of advising us.
This is the person who will be highly skilled at doing us the most harm while making us feel ever so good about it, right up until the moment of discovery and the entire house of cards implodes in an instant.
Many today will tell us to seek out integrity, and while I don’t disagree with this, I’d like to suggest that integrity is simply a natural result of high-character. If we understand that our greatest barrier to a successful search process is deception, I believe we are far better served if we seek out more that just integrity.
By taking the time to read this, you have just taken the first step in the process of finding a financial services advisor that will provide you with a level of advice and service that you will benefit from today and far into the future.