What does a financial adviser do?
A simple but often asked question: what do financial advisers do?
The Collin’s English Dictionary describes a Financial Adviser as a life insurance and investment specialist who tells you how best to invest your money and protect your and your family’s future.
This is a fairly accurate description but it definitely doesn’t tell the full story.
I like to think that my specialty lays in life planning. By life planning, I mean helping people and businesses identify what their goals are, what their hopes and dreams look like, but also what their worst nightmare would be.
I then use my expertise to build a plan and quite simply match products to goals.
Life planning sounds simple and to be honest, we want you to think it sounds simple. We want you to focus on your goals so we can beaver away in the background working on the more complex aspects. We’ll tell you everything you need to know but we’ll make sure to do it in a way that doesn’t feel complicated.
Why might I need help with my financial wellbeing?
Life is a bit like a jigsaw puzzle with lots of moving pieces. The ability to life plan and effectively manage your money can impact on so many of them puzzle pieces. Some people are great at it. Some are less great and in the words of one of our clients, some “need a fairy bank mother to keep us on the straight and narrow”. Honestly, their words not ours!
Understanding different products and the rules, regulations and tax consequences that come with them are what we have spent years studying for. Having a Financial Adviser is about having expert advice on hand so you can spend more of your time doing the things you love knowing that your finances are in good hands.
So whether it’s help budgeting, planning for the future or protecting against that worst nightmare a good Financial Adviser is definitely worth their weight in salt!
Choosing the right person to give you financial advice is a big decision
Having trust in your Financial Adviser is in my view likely to play a big part in you achieving your goals. You need someone you can talk to, who you can open up to and who you aren’t afraid to be honest with.
A good Financial Adviser will become part of your power team, a friend who you turn to for years to come. They’ll coach and support you but they’ll also give you some tough love when you need it.
So how do you find the right person? Here’s some pointers on what to look for:
- Ask for a recommendation from your family or friends. Who do they trust their life planning to?
- Look online for local financial advisers
- Check out their website and social profiles. Do you get a good feel about who they are and how they work?
- Read their client reviews and testimonials. What do their existing and previous clients have to say?
- Have a look at Vouchedfor – this is like trust pilot for Financial Advisers. It’s home to the UK’s most trusted
- Lastly, make sure your Financial Adviser is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority by checking their register
Working together
People who choose Yorkshire Financial Planning to help them with life planning start to get to know us quickly, and soon learn just how passionate we are about creating and maintaining financial wellbeing.
But, if you are new here, we’ve put together an ordered list of what do financial advisers do for their clients.
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Initial meeting
We’ll have an initial call or video meeting to see what help you think you need. Assuming we think we can help, we’ll arrange a longer meeting for us to talk about everything in more detail.
In this meeting, we’ll be able to answer any questions you have and in turn we will be asking you lots of questions about your situation. People often assume these questions will be purely financial; they won’t.
We want to know how you’ve got where you currently are, what’s important to you now and what you wish to achieve in the future. This will help to scope out and align what your priorities are. We’ll likely talk to you about lots of things you will expect, but also lots of things you didn’t!
What’s important is that by the end of this meeting you trust us enough to want to see us again for your personalised plan.
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Making a plan
Once we have all the information we need, we’ll spend time researching solutions to find what we feel is the best fit for you and your goals. We will meet to go through the plan together, taking time to make sure you understand how it works, what it will cost and why it is suitable for your needs.
Most importantly, we will take time to carefully explain everything and answer any questions you may have.
At this point you will need to decide on whether to proceed. Some people decide in this meeting, others want to reflect first. We will work to your timescales. What’s important to us is that you are comfortable and happy at every point in the process.
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Reviewing progress
Once your plan is up and running, it’s important for us to review it and ensure everything remains suitable for you. Sometimes your priorities will change – that’s not a problem.
We’ll review, amend, and update appropriately when this happens.
We like to ensure these reviews happen at least yearly, unless you have any changes in circumstances that need addressing with immediate effect. In addition to this, we are only ever a phone call or email away and you can contact us whenever you need to.
So what seemed like a simple question at the beginning clearly had a little more to it, but now you know what we do as financial advisers and why we love our job. I guess the question now is ‘Is a Financial Adviser the missing piece of your jigsaw puzzle?’
For more help and advice or to receive a complimentary guide covering wealth management, retirement planning or Inheritance Tax planning, contact Yorkshire Financial Planning on 01482 275540 or complete our contact form here.
