No, I did not just walk in and dump my info and walk away.
No, I wasn't expecting my financial planner to make me a crapload of money. I was expecting him to provide me with options and advice on where to put my superannuation.
That's fair enough. Did he not provide you with options and advice? If not, then how were your investments placed? Did you not get a Statement of Advice?
"You control your wealth creation, if you leave it in the hands of someone else, you get what you deserve." - and your customers get what sort of return from your advice?
My clients get great service (incidentally, they're not 'my' clients - I'm the paraplanner, not the adviser). I've had a number of clients tell me that they enjoy talking to me as I actually listen to them and they feel that I actually care about what it is they are trying to achieve.
Let me ask you this: How many planners did you interview before you went to the planner you became a client of? Note that I said 'interview'. When I went looking for a planner (as a client), I interviewed about 10 planners, none of whom were suitable for me. Before I went and saw them, I had a good idea of what I wanted to achieve as an investor and I wanted to see if they understood and would support my goals. It wasn't until I joined this forum that I found a planner I could work with and subsequently became a client, then an employee of.
It may interest you to know that at the time, I was working as a cook making 29K a year.
Ultimately, the end result of any transaction with a planner is your responsibility - it is your money afterall and you are the one that has to live with the consequences of choices that are made. Using the excuse 'I'm not investment savvy' doesn't cut it. If you feel you don't understand the recommendations that are being made or why they are being made, it is up to you to ask questions. Did you ask your planner lots of questions until you reached a point where you felt confident that you understood everything or did you just take everything said to you at face value and sign on the dotted line, walk away and hope for the best? Did you read the Product Disclosure Statements that would have been given to you as part of your plan?
I spend a great deal of time either talking on the phone or answering emails from clients who want a better understanding of their investments - I fully encourage
all of them to call or email me at any time if they have questions - I want them to feel comfortable with the investments that have been made on their behalf. If your planner does not or isn't willing to do this for you, then why didn't you take your business elsewhere?
If you accept mediocrity, why are you surprised when the results are mediocre?
Glad your not in my "car repair", "health", "safety", "fitness" and most definately my "wealth" team. I picture you as a body gaurd looking over the unconscious body of his principle and saying "I'm a part of his protection team - he should have taken more personal responsibility" then shrugging your shoulders and walking away.
It's quite the opposite actually. I spend a lot of time looking at a number of different options for each client when setting up a structure. I take their goals and risk profile into consideration and make choices accordingly. As part of a client's advice team, I take full responsibility for my role (as I do with every role in my life) and do the best job I can for each and every one of them. When a decision is made as to where to put the client's money, I am on a certain level responsible for that decision so it is one that I do not take lightly.
I'm quite confident that if you talked to the people I deal with, you'd be pretty hard pressed to find anyone that has realistic expectations that is unhappy with the service I provide to them.
Did you take an active or a passive role with your planner? That is, did you endeavour to understand the recommendations made, did you ask questions, did you ensure that you were satisfied that the recommendations were in line with your goals (active) or did you just say to yourself 'Well, he's the planner, he knows more than I do, so I'll just believe whatever he says' (passive). No one expects you to be an expert, but if you want to get the most out of your relatioship with your planner, then you need to have at least a general understanding - and it is up to you to get the education.
I can understand your frustration with what seems to have been poor advice, but at the end of the day, you're the one that is ultimately responsible for what happens to your money, because it's your money. Putting all the blame on the planner is unproductive and simply shifting the responsibility.
Look at it like this. You run a business (your investments) and you have employees (accountant, conveyancer, planner, real estate agent, mortgage broker, etc). Now those employees are acting for and making choices on your behalf, but as the business owner, the buck stops at you. Any and all decisions made affect you directly so why would you not be involved and take control of your business interests instead of leaving them in the hands of someone else?
Even though I work in the industry, when it comes time to make investment decisions, I still discuss my options with a handful of people I trust and whose opinions I value. They provide a different point of view and bring a lot of great info to the table. I would never consider making an investment decision without consulting my team first. But I also fully understand that I am responsible for any choices made. Now before you say 'oh, but you work in the industry, that's different' - I felt exactly the same way when I was a client.
When I talk to my accountant or mortgage broker or whatever, I have a number of questions ready and I explain in full detail what it is that I want, what I'm trying to achieve and ask them which is the best way to get there. I take the information given to me, dissect it and go back with more questions, because I want to understand what it is that I'm getting into. I trust my team absolutely and have absolute confidence in all of my 'employees' because I personally hand picked every one of them and have absolute faith that when I need them, they are always willing to provide the best service they can.
Mark