← HerMoney with Jean Chatzky
HerMoney with Jean Chatzky
Ep 469: Financial Advisors Unfiltered: What They Do, What They Don’t, and What to Ask
00:39:22
The inside scoop on finding a trustworthy financial advisor.
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- [00:02]
Pam Krueger
I want to see that the advisor has humility because the minute I pick up on arrogance, I know I'm going to get a lecture. And I know that that's not what I'm looking for. I want to work with someone side by side and collaborate and I want to ask my stupid questions and I don't want to feel like they're stupid questions. And so when I'm interviewing them, I can tell if they're humble.
- [00:27]
Jean Chatzky
Hey everyone, I'm Jean Chatzky. Welcome to Her Money. I am thrilled to be with a returning guest and a very, very real and relevant conversation. Because today we are going to get completely unfiltered about financial advisors. What they actually do, what they don't do, and most importantly, the questions you need to ask before you agree to work with one. Because let's be honest, the world of financial advice can feel like Alphabet soup. Cfp, ria, cpa, Fiduciary broker, fee based fee only. It is to make your head spin. But beyond the acronyms and the titles, I think there's a bigger question lurking. And the question is, what's really in it for me? What will a good financial advisor actually help me with? How do I know if someone is genuinely acting in my best interest or just trying to sell me a product? And is it worth paying for? Take to cut through the noise, we're bringing in the perfect voice for this conversation. You know her because she's been here before. Pam Krueger is the founder and CEO of wealthramp, a referral service that connects consumers with vetted fee only financial advisors. No commissions, no strings, just real guidance. She is also a longtime investor educator. You may have seen her on PBS's Money Track, or you may be listening to her now on her Friends Talk Money podcast. Pam has spent her entire career empowering, empowering people to make smarter, more informed money decisions. We are going to take a quick break. When I first started out in magazines, I was making next to nothing. Like truly nothing. I was putting in the hours, staying late, taking on extra work, proving myself. At least I thought so. And yet my paycheck, it barely budged. And it wasn't until I learned how to advocate for myself, negotiate with confidence, and own my worth that things finally changed. The truth is, your career is your biggest financial asset. The more you earn, the more you can save, invest, and build the life that you want. But bigger paychecks, they don't just land in your lap. You have to go after them. That's where strawberry me career coaching comes in they match students and professionals with certified career coaches who help you get clear on your career goals so you're moving forward with purpose. So if you are ready to make your next career move, go to Strawberry Me Hermoney and claim your $50 credit. That's Strawberry Me Hermoney. We are back with Pam Krueger, founder and CEO of wealthramp. Pam, welcome back. Great to see you.
- [03:25]
Pam Krueger
Jean, thanks so much. I love being here. Thanks.
- [03:28]
Jean Chatzky
And I just want to tell people up front, we have partnered with Wealth Ramp to help our audience find the financial advisors that they're looking for. If you're looking for an advisor, you can go to our site. It's hermoney.com findanadvisor and the reason that we're partnering with Wealthramp is because Pam vets these advisors herself, which is highly unusual, but really, really valuable. Can you just talk about that for a minute or two so people understand the process?
- [04:07]
Pam Krueger
Absolutely. Jean, there are 500,000 individuals in the United States who are financial advisors. Now, out of that 500,000, about 60,000 or so roughly are independent advisors who are held to the fiduciary standard, registered with the SEC or the state. Those are the advisors I prefer.
- [04:30]
Jean Chatzky
Pam, we've talked here before about when people should hire an advisor. Today I want to go deeper, and let's start with a simple but often misunderstood question. What's a financial advisor actually supposed to do?
- [04:47]
Pam Krueger
When I think about all the years of TV commercials that I've ever seen in the marketing I've ever seen about what financial advisors actually do, the focus is always on a financial advisor's main role is to help me with the best and latest hot investment ideas so I can make money. Now, in reality, when you find the right financial advisor, it's going to be about every money decision you face. It's going to encompass every asset, every debt that you have. Financial advice has to be holistic. In other words, advice can't be advice without context. So it has to be inclusive. It's things on how do I pay down debt? What is the plan to fund my child's education? At the same time, I am trying to save for my own retirement. It's about the house. It's about maybe wanting to buy a rental property and really figure out if that's going to be a good proposition for me. It's your estate, your family, and yeah, it's your investments. But it's all in context. So your advisor has to start out by listening to you describe what it is you want to accomplish. Perhaps it's challenges or problems or worries right in front of you that you need to put to rest right now. Or maybe it's a longer term sort of desire to just build wealth and do it the right way and stay on track. Your advisor, number one, has to hear you. Then it's about pulling all these disparate pieces of the puzzle of your entire household's financial life together. So it's you and your family, and that includes parents that might be aging. So it's going to be decades of savings and layers of things that you've done and haven't done. It's your taxes, it's your spending, and again, yes, it's your investments. But notice I'm not continually talking about the stock market or about Wall street or investments. So it's doing that deep dive. Jean, to really thoroughly understand how has what you've been doing so far syncing up with your vision of what you really want to accomplish. Now let's work together and look forward so that we can really plan for that. And that's really the collaboration that describes the kind of collaboration.
- [07:19]
Jean Chatzky
Well, that's what you want. You want somebody who is a true partner. I think if you're, if you were to use the metaphor of a ship, right, you have to be the captain of your own ship. But the financial advisor should be a really good navigator, right? To help you dodge the bullets and help you figure out how to get where you want to go. Where does an advisor's job stop? I mean, what should people not expect from their advisor, right?
- [07:50]
Pam Krueger
It's so funny because you use the ship metaphor. I always use the car. Like the advisor is maybe steering the car, but you're in the passenger seat. So let's think about the things that you want an advisor to do and what you don't want them to do. So someone might say, will they pay all my bills for me and take on all those administrative tasks? And the answer is only a very rare handful of advisors is going to take on that kind of responsibility. Paying your family's bills. Some people who have big families and a lot going on, they want to turn everything over to the advisor. But there's a separation there and fiduciary fee only advisors. There's a separation between your role and theirs and they don't want that level of access to your money. Another example is actually filing your tax return. So they'll help you and they will work hand in hand with your tax preparer, your cpa. They're going to Be on top of everything, reviewing every detail, line by line. In fact, a lot of times it's the advisor who is catching the big tax mistakes and then alerting the cpa. But the only advisors tend to, and I do have some in our network that will prepare taxes and file them for you, but usually they don't do that. And they also tend not to be the ones to sell insurance, because the advisor's job is to make sure that you don't have too much insurance or that you have enough insurance. So they need to be unbiased. So they turn to outside experts. They are the experts looking at you, protecting you. Then when it comes time, if you do need insurance, they'll help you get it, but they won't sell you insurance and collect a commission for that because to them it's a conflict of interest. They want to make sure they're keeping everything separate. Estate planning attorneys is another area. They may or may not have estate planning attorneys right there within the firm to actually draft the legal documents and trusts and wills. But your advisor's role is to consult and work again, hand in hand, side by side with that attorney who's going to make sure that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing. And then one more. Same with divorce. So even if the advisor has 30 years of experience walking clients financially through a divorce, the advisor's role is to protect you financially, but to step outside that boundary. So as a couple, let's say that you've been working with Melissa as a couple, she's the advisor, and then you separate. Your world has just changed because as a couple, your interests no longer align. So the advisor can't represent both of you anymore. So I guess in the divorce, who gets the advisor?
- [10:37]
Jean Chatzky
Oh boy, is that always true. Because I actually know some advisors who have kept both parties in a divorce. And the couples have been okay with it.
- [10:46]
Pam Krueger
No, I think that if it's a friendly divorce, anything can happen. It all comes down to your ability to communicate with your spouse and with the advisor and figure out what's best for you. But in most cases, people need to go their separate ways.
- [11:03]
Jean Chatzky
You have said before that the key to a successful advisor client relationship is fit. It's a level of comfort where you can be open and honest with each other. But I want to talk first before we get there about credentials. You have mentioned the fiduciary standard. What credentials are important and how do we best ascertain whether our advisors have them?
- [11:33]
Pam Krueger
Well, I'm going to just be unfiltered I'm going to tell you that in my opinion, and this is my opinion, I've been around this a really long time. I, I think that some credentials matter, and frankly, some don't. I think that a cfp, which is a Certified Financial Planning Professional, is a designation that has become sort of an accepted baseline, if you will, for financial planning. It means they've gone through the exams and they've actually have boots on the ground experience with clients actually creating, drafting financial plans. And so that is a credential that can matter. Another credential that I really like that matters when it comes to investing is cfa. That's a Chartered Financial Analyst.
- [12:22]
Jean Chatzky
That is a hard one to get. I know. I took the test. I was working as a, as a junior analyst on Wall street at the time. I went through level one, and then I left that job and went back into journalism. And I was like, I am not studying for that test because it is really hard.
- [12:35]
Pam Krueger
It's so in the weeds and it's so detailed. That's what I love about it. But most individual advisors are not going to necessarily, even if they love investing, they don't have to be a cfa. But when I see a cfa, and I have many in my network, I love it because it means that they wanted to put themselves through the rigors of that exam. So CFA weighs a lot, and especially on the investing side. And the third credential that I think really matters is cpa. So when I see a cpa, I say, this is a person who prepares tax returns. No, not if they're an advisor. If they're an advisor, they're in the strategic tax planning complex, tax planning. And it means that they may not have to have their CFP because the body of work that's required to complete the cpa. Here we go with the initials. The Certified Public Accounting is encompassing what a CFP would do. So instead of trying to drive around and learn all these credentials and figure it all out in detail, it's better to just say, okay, there are a few that matter, that weigh a lot, and then there are lots and lots and lots that are just continuing education kinds of designations. And that is really nice to have, but you're not going to be able to memorize each one. And I promise you there are a few that matter. But the body of work and the experience and the expertise of the advisor is really going to trump everything else, including credentials. So that's what matters most.
- [14:11]
Jean Chatzky
Is there a certain number of years you want to see on the resume before you'd even work with an advisor.
- [14:17]
Pam Krueger
I like to see that they've been in and around this industry and in this business and acting in some sort of capacity as a financial advisor. Many of my advisors used to manage institutional money for pension plans and they get tired of being like in a corporate corner of an office and they wanted to work with individuals. But I like to see at least five years established in your own practice. I like to see 10 years experience really at the helm. So that makes me feel comfortable. But you know, Jean, I interview every advisor and so through that interview process, one by one, I really get the sense and I really determine where they are on that scale. Because you can interview someone who's got 10 years experience, but it's still not going to be the qualifications I'm looking for.
- [15:07]
Jean Chatzky
Adhering to the fiduciary standard is not a credential per se, but I know it's important. And yet there are advisors who are not CFPs who also adhere to the fiduciary standard. So where does that fall on the list of important things that you should look for?
- [15:30]
Pam Krueger
Well, let's take apart a little bit the adhere to fiduciary standard because let's just say that a CFP is a credential and to become a cfp you are ethically bound to behave as a fiduciary, which means that you are putting your client's best interests ahead of your own financially every, every time, no exception. Now that's an ethical standard CFP requires. Is it legal? Does it mean they're held legally? No. So the only advisors who are legally bound to the fiduciary standard are registered investment advisors who are supervised, regulated and monitored by SEC or state. And even then they need to be fee only to be 100% fiduciary all the time. Because otherwise if they're in the role of, let's say they're fee based, which is confusing, but it just means that they might be a CFP and they also are aligned with a brokerage firm or they might work at a brokerage firm and at the same time that brokerage firm also has a registered investment advisor. So it's really a muddle there a little bit. It can be very confusing. At the end of the day, if you want to know the cleanest way to really know that the advisor is 100% fiduciary, 100% of the time, it's fee only. And what that means is that the advisors only paid by fees directly coming from their clients and no third parties. Are involved. So once you cut and get rid of those third parties, then you've got a relationship only with the advisor who works only and directly for you. So the loyalty is only indirectly to you. That's the difference.
- [17:20]
Jean Chatzky
You interview a lot of advisors who do not make it into the database of people that you refer to. What are the red flags that make you eliminate people? What do you look for? And as we're trying to interview, perhaps our own financial advisor, financial planner selections, what red flags should we be looking for?
- [17:43]
Pam Krueger
So there's red flags, there's bright red flags, and then there's yellow flags. The bright red flags are disclosures. So any advisor that you're going to consider working with will have background records. And the way you check their background records is starting point. Go to broker, check all one word, brokercheck.com. when you go there and you type in the individual advisor's name, that's going to pull up a record. On that record you're going to see where there's a red disclosure. If there are any complaints, those are actually complaints that made it to the point of being so serious that they wound up on your background records. So when I see that, that right there is going to tell me that I'll look at it and I'll read it. But that worries me. That worries me. I don't like it. When advisors, when you're first talking with them, the ones that throw around, around the word guaranteed. This is guaranteed. That's guaranteed. There's nothing guaranteed. Okay, treasury bills, closest you can get to guarantee. But anything other than that, I don't like it. When the advisor is leading with investment performance. It makes me feel like they're selling themselves. So all the things that make me feel like they're giving me advice too quickly, you know what else I want to look at the background records which are on the SEC's website, and I want to look at their fees. I want to look at what kinds of fees they have and I want to make sure that they're all in line. And I want to make sure that they are fee only, which means they don't have third parties involved where they're getting paid by a third party to sell something. So those are the things that are the red flags. And then the more nuancey things are when I really get into the details of looking at the background records and I see that the team, it just doesn't look like they have the qualifications. It doesn't look like they have any credentials at all. You know, it just doesn't look like they have the experience to be able to pull off what they're advertising. So you start with the background records on brokercheck.com and it will kind of take you down a rabbit hole if you're interested. But the more you see, the more you will pick up on things that just don't feel like they jive. But for me, it's really easy, Jean, to say, I'm giving this advisor that I'm looking at right now the flic. The fee model doesn't work for me. The fees don't work for me, period. The experience doesn't look good. And, boy, I certainly don't want to see disclosures, complaints. A bedside manor is after. I've gotten into the interview with every advisor. This is the fun part. This is where, let's say that on paper, I fall in love with Gene Chasky. I say, oh, yes, Jean represents everything I'm looking for. Her fees are reasonable. She provides holistic service. She's got the background, she's got the, oh, I really want to work with her. Now. I'm going to interview you, and I'm going to talk to you. And from my perspective, I don't want to see that you have too many clients, and it looks like you're growing so fast that your priority is just to bring in new clients. I want to see and get a feel for how you treat the clients you already have. How much time do you spend with the clients? And a very, very important metric that is very much about personality is I want to see that the advisor has humility, because the minute I pick up on arrogance, I know I'm going to get a lecture. And I know that that's not what I'm looking for. I want to work with someone side by side and collaborate, and I want to ask my stupid questions, and I don't want to feel like they're stupid questions. So that's the kind of relationship. And so when I'm interviewing them, I can tell if they're humble, how many.
- [21:50]
Jean Chatzky
Clients are too many clients and how fast is too fast to grow?
- [21:54]
Pam Krueger
Well, every firm's going to be different because they have different number of people working in the firm to handle a different number. But let's just say that I want to make sure that given the workflows that I know they have with how efficient they are in their back offices and how many people they have in the firm to service the client, I want to make sure that for each situation, I determine that number of clients that Jean has given where you work and the context and who's helping and who's doing what with your team. That makes sense to me. That feels right. But If I said 50 clients, it would not be correct to say for everybody. Some advisors can have 100 households and still be at that level of really individual attention. So you know what, a great metric is really important. And you should always ask this. What's your client retention rate? Our advisors in this network have 98% client retention rates. That means their clients are really happy with them and they're not going to jump out of the car. I want you to continue steering the car and driving with me because I don't want to leave.
- [23:05]
Jean Chatzky
The other important question is how quickly will you call me back on a regular basis if they're too busy and they're not going to get to you for three days? That is too long to be worrying about my money.
- [23:17]
Pam Krueger
If they've got that many people in the pipeline and if they've got that aspiration to have that many people in the pipeline and they can't handle it, they can't be in this network because responsiveness is everything. It's a Saturday. You have something that happened. You need to know that you can pick up the phone, call Pam and say, look, I know it's Saturday and you might not even be there, but I need you to know XYZ just happened. We're thinking about selling our house. Can you call me back? You need to know this advisor works for you and they're going to call you back immediately on Monday and say, what's up? Let's talk this through.
- [23:53]
Jean Chatzky
You mentioned a reasonable cost. We are going to take a quick break, but when we come back, I want the definition of what is reasonable. We're also going to talk about women in the messy middle and what it means to be worthy of financial advice. I spend a lot of time in my apartment, working, recording, unwinding, cooking at the end of the day. And since I'm home so much, the quality of the air I breathe, it really matters. But here's the shocking thing. Indoor air can be up to a hundred times more polluted than outdoor air. That means the place where I spend most of my days and you spend most of yours could actually be exposing us to allergens, smoke, mold, spores and other yucks. That's why I trust air, doctor. This award winning air purifier removes 99.99% of harmful contaminants. And unlike standard HEPA filters, it captures ultra fine particles that most purifiers miss. Right now Air Doctor is giving my listeners up to $300 off. Just go to airdoctorpro.com that's a I R-O C T O R P R O.com and use promo code HERMONEY H E R M o n e y. You'll also get a 30 day money back guarantee and a free 3 year warranty and $84 value. Go to airdrpro.com and use promo code hermoney.
- [25:24]
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- [25:53]
Jean Chatzky
We are back with Pam Krueger, founder and CEO of Wealthramp. So you mentioned a reasonable cost and I know financial advisors get paid in lots of different ways, but what's reasonable if you are putting a dollar figure on it or a percentage figure on it for a year's worth of services.
- [26:17]
Pam Krueger
So let's look at it like it is a percentage. Let's just say that you had $500,000 in investable assets right now. Then the dollar amount that you would expect to pay year over year if you're in an ongoing full financial advice relationship is going to equate to at or under 1%. So it sounds like a lot. $5,000 is mind blowing, but that's because the advisor's being 100% transparent. And now you know every single fee.
- [26:53]
Jean Chatzky
Right. And I actually really believe that as your wealth grows, that percentage should go down. So it might start at 1%. But right now I pay my advisor 0.65%, 65 basis points. Right. And it's because I have more money than his minimum and that number has gone down over time. And I expect that as my wealth continues to grow, that number will continue to go down.
- [27:23]
Pam Krueger
That's right. Because the amount of work that Advisor is doing as your assets grow is not proportional to the up the fee at 1% at that level. So we use the half million dollar example. Let's take the million dollar example. You are not going to pay 1% unless you have something so complicated and so time consuming that it requires it. You're going to pay less than 1%. It could be somewhere between a half of 1% and 1%. So it might land at 0.75. Now you go up to 2 million. Okay. And you're not going to pay 1%. It's $20,000.
- [28:02]
Jean Chatzky
Right.
- [28:03]
Pam Krueger
You're going to pay probably more like a half of 1%. It depends. But you know, Jean, at the end of the day, advisors who are fee only, all of their fees are based on two things, time and complexity. So they're going to look at the scope of the work and say, Jean, here's the scope of the work for your family this year. Do you agree with that? Is this what you want to accomplish? Yeah, that's what I want to do. Okay, good. To do that, it's going to require approximately this much time from the team and it's medium complexity. So we're looking at 0.65, which on a million dollar portfolio, that's $6,500. Now, you could look at that and say, what? But if you go to different fee models that are not fee only, where, you know, with full transparency, every, every fee involved, you might be paying management fees and funds and things that are buried in there that cost you more. You just don't know it.
- [29:07]
Jean Chatzky
Let's switch gears here, Pam, and talk a little bit about do it yourselfers. For somebody who feels confident managing their own money, and there are a lot of my listeners who are confident, when does it make sense to go ahead and bring in an advisor anyway? I mean, what are the trigger points? What are the life events where you might say to yourself, now's the time?
- [29:29]
Pam Krueger
Yeah, I'd say that 80% of my audience are self professed do it yourselfers who are now saying, you know what, something's changed. It's either an event like a divorce, it could be the death of a loved one who left you an inheritance. It could be anything that comes up that triggers you, or it could be that you and your spouse together are kind of saying, we haven't really been on the same page for quite a while here. When we talk about what we're doing for retirement, maybe we ought to bring in a pair of fresh eyes from an unbiased expert who has these qualifications. So those are the bigger triggers and then the smaller triggers. There's simply that sense that I have a lot of people come to me who are engineers and they have been doing their own spreadsheets for years with their investments. But one day they wake up and they say, you know what? Because I'm getting closer to retirement. Maybe it's five years away. I don't want to drink my own Kool Aid. What if I'm wrong, you know? And they want to get together with an advisor and to do it these do it yourself prefer. And what I prefer for them. Don't dive into the deep end of the pool, right? Just wade slowly into the shallow end. Start with a one time engagement with an advisor. What's wrong with that? You want to have an assessment. You want to have an evaluation like a checkup and you want to say I want to know how I'm doing against what I'm really trying to accomplish. You don't have to get married on the first date. You can really just take it slow and hire that advisor for a fee to look at everything under the hood. Your insurance, your family, your aging parents, your long term care, everything that keeps you up at night. Because that's the only reason that we want an advisor is because something's keeping us up at night.
- [31:30]
Jean Chatzky
We also hear a lot from our listeners who I think of as being sort of in the messy middle. They're not brand new to investing, they're not ultra wealthy, they're doing well but they tend to doubt whether they are advisor material. They wonder if they're. Sometimes they use the word worthy of professional financial advice. But what they're really saying and you know this Pam, they're saying I don't know if I'm rich enough, I don't know if I have enough money to deserve an advisor. What do you say there?
- [32:01]
Pam Krueger
I think that we, this industry has done a terrible job of educating the public about what financial advisors actually do and how you get your money's worth from working with one. The very first thing that happens with someone who's in that kind of messy middle of like I'd like to, but I'm a little bit fearful or I'm a little bit intimidated by it. Is the first feeling is they're concerned about being judged. They think that the advisor is going to judge them with a big old lecture, a big old finger wag. You should have done this like going to the dentist, what you haven't flossed in how long. It's like that. It is the messy middle because you feel like I don't have enough money, an advisor's not going to want to work with me. That's not true. We have a lot of advisors who work with clients who are maybe they're in their 40s and maybe they just got behind and they're just starting women who are like hey, I had a Child, I've been through a divorce. I'm pretty much starting over again. No advisor is going to want me. That's not true. Financial planning is even more important for you. And we have advisors who are going to be there who are used to working with you and they're not going to judge you.
- [33:12]
Jean Chatzky
Yeah. And I just want to say I know that there are advisors who work by the hour. There are advisors who will work by the plan. You can work with an advisor, as Pam said, sort of as a short term therapist just to get yourself more comfortable with where you are and then maybe you come back to that advisor in a couple of years when you need another checkup. It's a much more democratic industry than it used to be. There are a lot of choices and there is a whole network out there. There's an XY planning network of advisors who are there to work with younger people who perhaps have less in terms of assets and they are charging monthly subscription fees. There isn't this square peg, round hole problem that we used to have. So much I know we've got a lot of who are headed for retirement. Women live longer, they earn less. That pay gap will not move. They take more career breaks than men. We take more career breaks than men. It makes retirement planning an even more crucial and more complex exercise for us. And one of the biggest fears that I hear from women is will I outlive my money? So what role should an advisor play in making sure that this does not happen?
- [34:36]
Pam Krueger
Two thirds of the people who come to me that I talk to every single day are coming to me for one reason. How do I know I'm not going to run out of money in retirement? I'm so scared. It's a monster under the bed. And it's like, this is why I want to scream it from the mountaintops. When you have the right advisor, that advisor is going to show you, not tell you, show you how you're not going to run out of money ever. And it might mean that I have to say, Gene, I would prefer it's going to look better. Let me show you why. Let's look at this together. If you can work two more years and put off tapping into your savings for just two more years, it's going to do this. Or if you could earn part time income, it's going to do this. You look at the worst case scenarios, you look at the monsters under the bed and you stress test those and you do it together so that. Now let's get back in the car. I'm the advisor, and I'm driving. You're letting me steer the car. You're sitting right here in the passenger seat next to me, looking through the same windshield at the same hazards, the same road conditions, the same detours, everything that comes at you. But you're collaborating and you're understanding it. That is what slays the monsters under the bed and makes you feel more confident because you're not turning this over to somebody and saying, you drive the car and let me know how it works out later. You're saying, I want to be in the car with you, but I don't want to drive. But I want to see that show and tell is dynamic. It's a dynamic, resilient plan that adapts as interest rates change, as road conditions change, as stock market changes. And you can plan around all the big monsters so you can see it. That's the job of a financial advisor.
- [36:27]
Jean Chatzky
Last question for you. There are some people, I have no doubt, who are listening, saying, pam, that sounds amazing. My advisor. Not that person. My advisor doesn't do that. My advisor. Now I'm feeling kind of shitty about at this point because I think I'm in the wrong hands. What words would you use to fire a financial advisor?
- [36:52]
Pam Krueger
Once I recognize that I'm not getting that and I realize I'm paying for it and I'm not getting it, then I know I'm going to fire the advisor. What I always tell people to say is the following. Don't make it personal. Just say my situation in my life has changed and I hope he can respect my decision. But I'm going in a different direction and I really need you to respect my privacy on this. Like, in other words, don't make it personal about him or her. Don't make it about the advisor. Make it about you. It's like when you're breaking up with a guy and you're saying it's me, not you, but leave it that I hope you can respect my privacy. I know you'll respect my privacy. Don't open it up for discussion, because what happens is then it becomes a game of, like, what did I do wrong? You know what? Lessons are extra, dude. Lessons are extra. If you want me to teach you what a good financial advisor is supposed to do, you got to pay me for that.
- [37:51]
Jean Chatzky
Pam Krueger from Wealth Ramp. You'll be back in a couple of days to answer questions for our listener mailbag. We appreciate that. We appreciate you. And again, if you're looking for an advisor, we are partnering with wealth ramp. You can go to hermoney.com thanks so much Pam.
- [38:10]
Pam Krueger
Thank you Eugene.
- [38:12]
Jean Chatzky
If you love this episode, please give us a five star review on Apple Podcasts. We always value your feedback and if you want to keep the financial conversations going, join me for a deeper dive. HerMoney has two incredible programs, finance Fix, which is designed to give you the ultimate money makeover, and Investing Fix, which is our investing club for women that meets bi weekly on Zoom. With both programs, we are leveling the playing fields for women's financial confidence and power. I would love to see you there. Her Money is produced by Hayley Pascalides. Our music is provided by Video Helper and our show comes to you through Megaphone. Thanks for joining us and we'll talk soon.