Give yourself a holiday season gift this year of a personal financial advisor who does indeed relate to you personally as well as financially.
And if you already have such an advisor, then give yourself the gift of appreciating how fortunate you are.
Advisor.ca tells the story of a newly divorced woman who went to her advisor with urgent questions about her immediate financial obligations – but was quizzed about her investment risk tolerance and retirement goals.
“I had walked into his office pretty much a broken person,” she said. “My entire future had done a 180. I didn’t know how I was going to pay my mortgage or my bills or my debts.
“The furthest thing from my mind was my retirement. It seemed like an obtuse and insensitive question for him to be asking me.”
Yes, there is a link between being newly single and investment knowledge as well as retirement plans. But the advisor should have been empathetic enough to sense those issues could wait.
What the woman needed now was reassurance – immediate financial coping steps and strategies but even more important, personal support.
I’ve always maintained that personal financial planning is 60 per cent personal and 40 per cent financial …and never more so than at times of personal crisis.
Rona Birenbaum, a fee-only financial planner with Toronto-based Caring for Clients, was quoted in the Advisor.ca article as saying she rarely hears people complaining primarily about poor investment performance.
“There are two things I do hear: ‘I feel like I’m always been sold to,’ or ‘I feel like I’m being talked at or talked over.’”
If this describes your adviser, you can tell him (or her) how you feel. Or if that is too confrontational – or you have hinted at this before without success – then it’s definitely time to change advisors.
Ask the advisor what s/he feels the personal-financial percentages should be. And even if s/he does put personal ahead of financial, ask how this translates into the relationship and advice provided.
Mike Grenby is a columnist and independent personal financial adviser; he’ll answer questions in this column as space allows but cannot reply personally - email [email protected]
