The 5 Whys of Fee Only Financial Advice

1. Why should I write a check to a fee only advisor when I could just pay a commission on a financial
product I buy?
Commission‐tied financial products are not free and the commission can be huge. For example, when you purchase investments from a commission‐tied financial products sales person, your dollar amount invested goes down by any front‐end commission being charged, before the investment is even made. What you pay in fees to a fee only advisor, you often save on commissions, and then some.

2. Why should I trust the advice of a fee only advisor?
Fee only advisors don’t have to recommend a financial product as the solution to your problem in order to get paid. In fact, they might even recommend that you get rid of some of the financial products you already own.

3. Why is fee only advice so effective?
Fee only advisors are free to recommend brand name investments or insurance products from all available sources. Because they are not tied to the financial products lineup of one specific brand name, they are free to build you a financial, investment, & insurance plan using the leaders in each specific area of each specific plan.

4. Why is fee only advice so objective?
Imagine if your doctor had to recommend that you take a drug, in order for him or her to get paid. What if your accountant got paid a higher fee, based on which tax deductions he/she chose to recommend? Certified Financial Planner™ Practitioners who operate on a fee only basis are professionals who feel that their advice should be just as objective as that of a doctor or CPA or attorney.

5. Why should I hire an independent fee only firm instead of a brand name institution?
Fee only advisors use brand name institutions to execute the recommendations that they make. For example, fee only advisors custody your investments at best of class investment brokers such as TD Ameritrade Institutional or Schwab Institutional. Or they simply give you a plan that you can implement at a compatible brand name broker of your choice. Fee only advisors focus on advising and let the brokers focus on brokering the transactions that are recommended by the advisor.