Customer, Client, Patron. While nuanced, they all mean the same thing.
You are the reason any organization continues its existence. Sure, the proprietors, partners, or shareholders may own it, but without a steady stream of new revenue sources every business eventually fades.
When you are looking for a product or a solution to a specific problem, and start asking questions, the salesperson helps provide answers. If they know what they are doing.
From their viewpoint, the goal is to figure out what will get you, the customer, to buy something that they have to sell.
Salespeople make transactions happen. They get paid commissions. They have limited products to sell, and by-darned, they are going to figure out what you need to hear to consider purchasing their product.
Advisors are different.
While they may still earn commissions, they start with you, the client, to comprehend what you want to accomplish.
A skilled advisor is going to ask lots of questions about your family, goals, income, assets, and most important, your aspirations. If you are uncomfortable being forthright, that’s ok. Just remember that without a clear understanding of your long run objectives, no advisor can do justice to your issues.
To get comfortable, maybe you need to know more about the advisor and the firm. In today’s world, that should be easy to find. Either they maintain a website with up-to-date information, or they don’t.
If not, let that be one strike against them.
Check out their background on the regulator’s sites. If they have lots of black marks on their record or they are not regulated by either FINRA or the SEC, they are probably just insurance salespeople.
Strike two.
After all, how can a person allowed only to sell insurance products even think about looking at your whole picture?
By the way, insurance is important, and we have friends that specialize in property and casualty, Long Term Care, Medicare, and Healthcare insurance. Each of those lines are transactional by nature, so a commission is appropriate.
But then there is the life insurance business.
You buy investments, but life insurance companies know they need to sell you their policies.
Who wants to be sold?
Except for providing liquidity, called a death benefit, when you die, life insurance products are rarely the best solution to your life’s financial milestones. But the agents are taught many innovative ways to twist their product into spectacular-sounding, iron-clad programs for future security.
Let’s face it, no one really knows the future.
That’s why genuine financial planners need to know all about your situation so that they can build flexibility into their advice, while helping get you through the current life’s crossroad that brought you into their presence in the first place.
Ralph Bender here, for Enduring Wealth Advisors®
We pace our clients through life’s crossroads and financial milestones, providing wise counsel so that you can keep focused on your long run.
Gotta run!
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