Empowering Your Financial Future: Overcoming Planning Myths

Think you need a hefty bank account to consult a financial advisor? Think again. Join Rob Wolf as he smashes common financial planning myths that keep many people from seeking the guidance they need. We'll tackle the misconception that financial advisors are only for the wealthy and explore why this belief couldn't be further from the truth. By shedding light on the varied fee structures and account minimums, I'll show you how accessible financial planning can be, regardless of your current financial situation.

Moreover, let's confront the fear that financial planning is prohibitively expensive. Discover how avoiding professional advice can actually cost you more through unnecessary tax penalties, estate planning pitfalls, and missed opportunities. I'll guide you through essential questions to ask when choosing a financial advisor and explain why a good advisor is worth their weight in gold. Whether you're starting with a modest 401k or looking to safeguard a substantial estate, this episode will empower you to make informed decisions that secure your financial future. Don't let myths stand in the way of your financial success!

Learn more about Wolf Financial Advisory:
https://www.wolffinancialadvisory.com/

Disclosure: Robert Wolf, James Koenig, Sara Wolf, and Michael Rock are investment advisor representatives of, and securities and advisory services are offered through, USA Financial Securities. Member FINRA/SIPC. Additionally, Amanda Opulskas and Adam Wallace are registered non-solicitors of USA Financial Securities, A registered investment advisor. 6020 E. Fulton St., Ada, MI 49301. Wolf Advisory Services and Wolf Financial Advisory are not affiliated with USA Financial Securities. 

The strategies and concepts discussed are for educational purposes only and do not represent specific investment, tax, or estate planning advice. Investing carries an inherent element of risk and it is in everyone’s best interests to consult a tax, legal, or investment professional. The opinions expressed herein are not meant to provide specific investment advice or serve as a prediction for future stock market performance. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Securities and advisory services are offered through USA Financial Securities Corp., member FINRA/SIPC. A registered investment adviser. Wolf Financial Advisory and USA Financial Securities Corp. are not affiliated entities.

Transcript

Voiceover 0:00

The strategies and concepts discussed are for educational purposes only and do not represent specific investment, tax or estate planning advice. Investing carries an inherent element of risk and it is in everyone's best interests to consult a tax, legal or investment professional. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Securities and advisory services are offered through USA Financial Securities member FINRA/ SIPC, a registered investment advisor. Wolf Financial Advisory are not affiliated with USA Financial Securities.

Voiceover 0:33

Wolf Financial Advisory. When it's important to you, it's important to us.

Voiceover 0:40

This is the Wolf Financial Podcast. Here's your host, Rob Wolf. This is the Wolf Financial Podcast.

Rob Wolf 0:47

Good day everyone, Rob Wolf here with the Wolf Financial Podcast. Today we're going to be covering financial planning myths, specifically regarding the engagement with an advisor, and I want to talk about this today because, through the grapevine, we hear these things as far as the type of anxiety that can be created when meeting with a financial professional, and things that you really need to be thinking about instead. So, myth number one I have to have a lot of money to see a financial planner. Now, it always helps when you do have money, because if you don't have any assets of any kind, it does make it a little bit difficult. But, with that being said, the best place for you to start is where you're at currently, right now, because you got to start somewhere, and any financial advisory firm that you choose to engage with, one of the questions that you need to ask when you're doing your research, you're doing your due diligence, is does your firm have account minimums to take on a client? So if you have an old 401k from an old employer that you would like to roll over to an IRA and that 401k has $35,000, and you want to talk to an advisor about rolling that over, perhaps doing some Roth planning, things like that. One of the things you should be asking is do you have any account minimums? Now, some advisors will and some advisory services will not. If they don't, the next question should be if I do come in, who will I be seeing? Okay, because it's really important for you to understand some of the information. As far as the advisors that are part of that firm, I would encourage anybody that is looking to do some due diligence on a financial advisory firm to go to that firm's website and check out their staff, check out the experience to get some insight on who you may be dealing with. There are a lot of firms out there that have very low starting requirements to engage with them, because there's a lot of ways that advisors can make money. It's not just money under management that's one of the ways that advisors could be making but they can also charge a financial planning fee, and if you have a financial planner that charges a flat fee, it doesn't matter how much money you have. You can still compensate them for their services and you can still get the value that you're looking for. So, regardless of your situation and regardless of the amount of money you have, you can meet with the financial planner and have a reasonable expectation that you're going to be getting the guidance that you deserve.

Rob Wolf 4:33

The second myth that I've come across is it's expensive to deal with a financial planner. I would counter by saying it's expensive not to have a financial planner. It's expensive when you try to do everything on your own. You decide to pull money out of the wrong account and you end up paying an extra $50,000 on a taxable distribution that caused 85% of your social security to become taxable. It's expensive because you don't catch that beneficiary mistake and you end up leaving your life insurance to your ex-spouse. It gets expensive when you haven't done a properly planned estate plan and you end up leaving money to a minor and they get it all at age 18.

Rob Wolf 5:34

Folks, there's reasonable compensation that financial advisors make, just like you make reasonable compensation for doing what you do. I would say any financial advisor that's worth their weight is going to save you more than what they would cost you in the long run because of the planning process that they take you through. It's not all about what you make, but how much you keep. If an advisor can help you keep more of your hard-earned money by doing appropriate tax planning by helping you position money so it goes to the people you want it to go to on a tax favored basis. They are worth their weight in gold.

Rob Wolf 6:24

That brings me to myth number three. All advisors are like Bernie Madoff it's all about the money, the money, and there's no doubt there are some really bad, poor examples of financial stewardship when it comes to the industry, bernie Madoff being one of the biggest examples of this. That's why it's very important that when you're doing your due diligence because it starts with you you need to research the firm that you're looking into. For example, those people that come to my financial website, we have something called FINRA broker check. This is a place that will take you to FINRA, which is a overseas anybody that is licensed to sell securities, and you can actually check on that advisor's work history within the industry to see if there's been any complaints logged against them. To see if there's been any complaints logged against them, a good advisor will be able to tell you exactly what their CRD number is so you can plug that right into FINRA broker check.

Rob Wolf 7:49

Chances are, if you've been around for a long time and you have no, or maybe just one, issue, that they're probably going to be a pretty good opportunity to have a good relationship with. I'm so proud of my 29-year-plus career that I've never had any incidents to have been reported on FINRA broker check incidents to have been reported on FINRA broker check. But there are a lot of advisors that have. So it's up to the ultimate consumer not only to do research but the due diligence on the people that they're going to be getting the advice on, to make sure that they're dealing with somebody that is of good character and ethics. Number four my advisor will look down upon me because I haven't done the right things is by going through an education process with my clients to help share with them things that they did not know of previously, to help explain why things work the way they do and how they can do it better.

Rob Wolf 9:19

Going forward. To see that light bulb go on in their mind is precious, because I know immediately I've made a positive impact in their life. So it doesn't matter if you've made mistakes in the past. We've all made mistakes in the past because we're all human, okay, and you could be the most logical person when you're sitting at work. But because we're human and we have emotions, we will make mistakes and it's okay. It's okay to own them, it's okay to talk about them and it's best of all to learn from them, because once we learn, we gain understanding and we can move forward.

Rob Wolf 10:12

So, if you're doing your due diligence and you research the advisor that you're looking at going into, you check their FINRA broker check to make sure that their record is clean. Don't be embarrassed to come in and share your story, because good advisors have heard all the stories and they will help you move forward with confidence. And then, finally, for some people it just seems too complicated. There's just too many accounts. They don't understand how investments work. It's too. They don't understand taxes. They don't understand how their insurance programs work. It's just too complicated and so it's just not worth their time. They would rather bury their head in the sand than deal with a financial advisor, because it's like going to the dentist office.

Rob Wolf 11:13

Well, again, if you do your due diligence and you find an advisory firm whether it be from a introduction that a friend may make or you hear something good about them and you do your research, a good financial professional should not only make you at ease, feel comfortable, with sharing your story, but they will also help educate you as to what are and how things work, because, ultimately, the financial advisor is there to understand who you are and what is important to you. They are there to be a guide. You are ultimately the person that still makes the decision. The person that still makes the decision. The financial advisor just shares with you the benefits of either turning left or right or going straight, and it's their job to educate you on the pros and cons of any of those moves. Once you understand that, you will be empowered to make good decisions based on your personal, family and beliefs and everything else that's important to you.

Rob Wolf 12:31

So, again, don't allow the complexity or the thought of it's just too much to think about keep you from doing it, about. Keep you from doing it, because with a good financial advisor, you can be taken to things that you may have never thought were possible before, and perhaps that could be retiring a few years earlier, perhaps that's being able to do some amazing experiences with the family that you never thought you could do before. Whatever those things are, the sooner you're able to get in front of a qualified professional to share what's important to you, the sooner you can go and get to living your life as full as possible. This is Rob Wolf with the Wolf Financial Advisory Podcast.

Voiceover 13:26

Thank you for listening to the Wolf Financial Podcast. For additional information about our firm, please visit our website wolfadvisoryservices. com.

Voiceover 13:37

Wolf Financial Advisory. The strategies and concepts discussed are for educational purposes only and do not represent specific investment, tax or estate planning advice. Investing carries an inherent element of risk and it is in everyone's best interests to consult a tax, legal or investment professional. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Securities and advisory services are offered through USA Financial Securities member, FINRA/SIPC, a registered investment advisor.