M Advisor Consists of Fiduciary Financial Advisors:
Along with technical mastery, a true financial advisor is an empathetic listener who can see the world from another person’s viewpoint. M Advisor exists to listen to each individual and create a financial plan based on the client’s desires only. We are committed to our own education to be subject matter experts where needed, and we are committed to developing and sharing our relationships to seek guidance where appropriate.
Money can be a difficult subject to discuss, especially with those closest to you. We have many kinds of connections to our closest relationships. With our spouses, we have emotional, spiritual, and physical aspects to our relationships. It’s very common that the financial relationship isn’t developed, and there isn’t much openness in financial goals and vision for creating a meaningful life; thus, the long-term plan goes uncommunicated, ignored, or not created. M Advisor exists to provide one-size-fits-one financial plans to align financial actions with life’s intentions.
The Problem We Battle:
The term “financial advisor” has been misused by financial product salespeople – let’s call them financial professionals. Many people mistakenly think every financial professional is a financial advisor, yet that is not the case. In fact, these financial professionals in the form of product salespeople already know what they want to sell before ever talking to the client. The salesperson ponders, “How can I get this person to purchase this product,” instead of asking, “What does this person really want and need?” Often their “financial plans” are rendered as rubber stamped product sales where everyone gets the same product. The planning methodologies don’t normally include customer suitability; rather, they are based on employment contract agreements and guidelines to maximize compensation.
When seeking professional advice for any aspect of your life, the decision that is best for you and your family shouldn’t impact the advice-giver. When a financial professional’s career is based on selling specific financial products, all roads lead to that product. In the Law of the Instrument, Abraham Maslow famously wrote, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail.” People are more complex than a one-size-fits-all approach to financial advice.
What makes financial planning such a complex task is that every possibility can be considered a correct path. When financial planning is successfully completed, the vast array of possibilities is narrowed to just a few opportunities that are cross-examined and thoroughly evaluated.
Dissimilarly in the cutthroat world of product sales, a suite of manufactured financial products are positioned as the only way forward, where maximizing profits for the product manufacturer are the primary motivation for every transaction. Too often the financial professional doesn’t even know or understand that unsuitability exists because the education and training are skewed and delivered directly from the financial product manufacturer itself. Distorting suitability even further, financial product manufacturers require difficult product sales requirements based solely on volume to keep pressure and focus on selling financial products. As a result, these unsuitable transactions often result in lost money, lost time, and deep regrets for the customers; and they tend to create problems instead of solving them.
Furthermore, the medical community specifically has been grossly exploited by the financial product manufacturers through unsuitable product transactions. These financial product manufacturers have targeted physicians due to their high incomes and busy schedules. Medical professionals don’t normally have the time and capacity available to research complicated financial products, so suitability often goes unchecked, and financial products get placed without accountability and without suitability considerations.
How M Advisor Responds:
Just like a physician treating patients, information is needed to gain insight into how a patient wants to be treated; there is not a single treatment option that is suitable for every patient interaction. Medicine has a precise level of customization to care, and M Advisor has dedicated itself to mirroring that same effort as it pertains to financial planning. Patients seek a physician’s care to improve their lives; M Advisor holds that same worthy goal for our clients.
M Advisor educates clients to help provide clear decisions in complicated and emotionally clouded situations. Simplifying and organizing a complicated financial situation brings clarity to the decision-making process. M Advisor creates financial plans and implements them where desired. Clarity and education lead to quality advice. We have no financial product manufacturer telling us what to do, and we have no quotas to fulfill. As fiduciaries, our job is to listen and learn about your life. Until we understand our clients’ perspective, we have no advice to give.