But the vetting goes both ways for financial planners with established practices.

We’re ready to guide you through an endless series of challenges in income planning, investment management, tax-reduction planning, health care planning and legacy planning.

We like to work with people who value our knowledge and experience in these areas and who are looking for competent caring advice.

Here are some examples of folks who are not a fit for our practice:

1. They expect guarantees of stock market returns.
   The Investment Advisers Act of 1940 doesn’t allow “guarantees,” nor should it.
   If investment returns are a person’s main interest, not financial planning, then that person is not a fit for our practice.
2. People focused only on the small pieces without taking the big picture into consideration
   Your complete financial picture is painted on a large canvas.
   Sometimes we need our clients to step back a bit, to see the entire painting.
   Maybe it’s how filing for Social Security while still working causes unnecessary taxes on Social Security benefits, for example.
   We like to work with folks who can grasp overall concepts.
3. People who have a hard time making and/or keeping appointments.
   People who can’t make appointments are impossible to help because they can never meet.
   People who are consistently late to their appointments can’t be allowed to eat into another client’s time, nor to waste our staff’s time.
   People who repeatedly can’t keep their appointments have to be released from our practice.
   In those extreme cases, I choose to resign as their advisor and help them transition their assets away from our practice.
4. They’re not engaged enough.
   Some clients don’t want to schedule their annual review meetings.
   They’re a bad fit for our practice because we only want to work with clients who are as invested in their annual progress, as we are.
5. People who “can only meet on weekends.”
   Not only is this inconsiderate and unreasonable, but these folks also don’t place the same importance to meeting with their financial planner as they do to seeing their doctor, dentist, accountant or attorney.
6. High-maintenance clients who consume far too much time. These folks can make it hard for us to service all of our clients.
7. The stubborn and un-coachable.
   All we ask is that you keep an open mind.
8. People who want to work with multiple advisors.
   We pride ourselves on designing comprehensive financial plans for our clients. Working with outside advisors can add confusion and unnecessary complexity to this process.