AseanOutlook.com – We’ve covered everything about financial advisors, what they are, and what they do in our previous article, but what we haven’t covered because of time restriction is how you as their client can prepare for your meeting with your financial advisors.
It’s a bit nerve-wracking, after all. Working with someone for a long period of time with your wealth and finance at the stake. So, the more prepared you are, the better it’ll be. And with that, let’s start with what you need to bring to a meeting with a financial advisor, shall we?
What to Bring to a Meeting with Financial Advisor
Financial advisor won’t be able to help you reach your goals for the future if they don’t know where the starting line for said goal is or even what keeps you from reaching that goal.
Which is why you’ll need to bring some information to your first meeting with your financial advisor. While it can differ from different advisor, some of the commonly-included paperwork are:
- Investment plans
- Mortgage and debt statements
- Pay stubs
- Most-recent tax return
- Monthly budget
A good document to prepare first out of this list is monthly budget. You want to give your financial advisor an accurate insight into how much you earn and spend in a month.
They can look at your spending patterns which then will allow them to determine how much you can save and invest on a monthly basis.
Questions that Need to be Asked
A good financial advisor will take their time in answering your questions as thoroughly as possible so you can make the best decision with your wealth. If you have no idea where to start, these questions will be a good starting point for you:
- What service do you provide?
- Their investing philosophy
- How will they communicate with you?
- How they measure and evaluate your investments’ performance.
- How they’re getting paid
What to Expect from A First Meeting
Generally, treat your first meeting as if you’re applying for an interview for a new position on your team.
Which mean, don’t look at this meeting as a one-way conversation only. Your first meeting with your financial advisor is the perfect opportunity for you to determine whether that professional advisor is a good fit for you or not.
Don’t forget to pay attention to the service from the rest of the staff too. Make suer you feel comfortable with everyone you interact from the front desk to your advisor’s office.
Last thing, never invest in something that you don’t understand. So, don’t expect to make big and bold decisions the first time you’re meeting with your advisor. There’s some learning and growth that need to happen first.
What Happens after the Meeting
By the end of your first meeting, you should have a clear understanding of everything that you just discussed with your advisor, and this includes the next steps too.
Starting on the second and third meetings, you can expect things to get more technical. Then, based on the goals that you shared with them, your advisor will help you develop a timeline and monthly savings plan for each and every one of your goals.
And this time period is where you will decide where to spread your investments that will determine the long-term return of your portfolio.
So, after your first meeting, you should have a strong understanding of where you are financially, where do you want to be, and the means you can use to get there.
Make sure to have a plan on coming back for annual check-ins as this will give you and your advisor a chance to review your investments thus far and to ensure that they’re performing as you wanted to be to reach the end-goal that you set for yourself.
The Closing Line
That’s all we can say in order to help you prepare your first meeting with your financial advisor. Keep in mind that these are general advices that work for us, at the end of the day, it’s up to you as their client to make the decision on following this guidance or not.
But we can at least say that if you’re still in debt, don’t think about investing in something or even getting a financial advisor to help with that said investment. Just focus on paying off your debt. Everything else can come later after that.
