Hiring a Licensed Financial Advisor

| January 9, 2014

Hiring a Licensed Financial AdvisorIf you want someone to handle your personal finances, you can benefit from having a financial advisor at your side. They can give you the advice and guidance you need to make sound financial decisions, allowing you better benefit from your investments and make sure that you look after yourself and your family.

But financial advisors are not only reserved for private individuals; you can also hire a financial advisor to take care of your business’ finances. This is especially a good idea if you have a large company who need to make daily decisions when it comes to finances, purchases, contracts, investments and more. However, when you want to hire a financial advisor, make sure that you verify his or her credentials first.

Financial advisors can be licensed either as a CFA, a CPA or a CMA. They can all advise you with your finances, especially when it comes to a business. Business owners need to know where to invest and how to manage their financial liabilities, which is what a financial advisor does and this is why they are often paid well, too.

Consider Recommendations

When hiring a financial advisor, consider asking for recommendations from past clients. It’s always a good idea to know who you are working with and to find out if there were any issues. Also, you can see the size of the portfolio they handled, so that you know what they are capable of. When it comes to finances, results are crucial, which is why you need to ensure you choose the right person to work with.

You may also choose to speak to previous clients to confirm the individual’s work ethic and previous successes. This will give you a good indication of what to expect when working together and confirm that the individual will be able to handle your business and your specific financial requirements.

Licenses and Credentials

It’s important to work with someone that are properly licensed as this means they have the qualifications needed to perform their job; however, with license fraud being so popular these days it has become necessary for you to manually verify these license details. Luckily, there are many tools that allow you to do this, so that you won’t have to go and stand in a queue at your local licensing offices.

Being certified means that the specific financial advisor, you work with will have to adhere to certain codes of ethics; this means that you will always have someone that works with honesty and integrity while handling your financial decisions. This is extremely important, especially if you run a business.

Consider Compensation

There are different ways in which financial advisors can be compensated so if these important to discuss this beforehand. They can work on a commission only basis, meaning that they won’t charge you a standard fee that they will receive a commission from the products that they sell. Some financial advisors preferred to basket small fee, in addition to obtaining a commission for products sold.

License Direct provides a centralized license search for more than 20 million registered professionals across the United States.

 

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Category: Financial Planning

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