FROM THE BLOG

Ask an Advisor: What does a good financial advisor do?

Transcript

Aaron: 00:09
Hi, my name is Aaron Puckett. I’m a financial advisor with Puckett and Sturgill Financial Group, here with Jacob Sturgill and this is our Ask An Advisor series where we have a chance to hear common questions or receive questions in through our website and provide answers, so question that we’re going to address today is what does a good advisor do?

Jake: 00:32
That’s a great question, Aaron, and so what I think a good financial advisor does is really boiled down into four main things. The first thing is to clarify your financial goals, right? That’s just simply to say who is it and what is it and when is it that you want to do whatever it is that you want to do. From there it’s to take a look at your current situation and define your current reality and that’s just taking a comprehensive look at all of the factors of where you are today and then to plot the course of how do we utilize those assets and where you are today to get you to your financial goal. That’s the financial plan.

Jake: 01:16
But we all know that life isn’t linear and so this is point three, is it’s really to make the course corrections along the way because I’m sure your life hasn’t gone in a perfect … And you’ve had some surprises along the way, so it’s to provide the course corrections along the way. So what you notice here is I left the investment component out to last because well, investment management is important and is a core component of what we do, the investments really need to be designed to fit the financial plan and to change when the financial plan dictates not when the markets or the news make it seem like we need to make changes, so to fit them into the plan and not the other way around.

Aaron: 02:02
Yeah, so setting my goal, helping me understand where I am, what I need to do to get there, but then maintaining that relationship along the way so that we’re constantly changing and amending the plan and helping prevent any missteps along the way. Yeah, and really, I mean behind all of it is the relationship because a good advisor is going to have a good relationship built upon trust and understanding with their clients and if you have a good relationship with an advisor, I think it allows them to be a good advisor.

Jake: 02:36
Exactly.

Aaron: 02:36
But if there’s not a good relationship there then I don’t think that advisor is able to do a good job.

Jake: 02:43
Exactly.

Aaron: 02:44
Thanks for sending us your questions. I hope that you won’t be slow to call us or e-mail us if you have any questions. We want to provide good answers so thank you for joining us.

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