5 things to expect when working with a wealth advisor

For advisors: this is what a prospect expects before they ever sit down with you, in the words of a CFP® professional talking to people deciding whether to hire one. Use it to check your own first-meeting process, or send it to a prospect before discovery. What it means for your firm is at the end.

You might have hit a different point in your life where you think, "I need some help with my financial picture, my whole plan. I need to reach out to a financial planner." Maybe they're a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional, a CFP® professional.

Here are five things to expect when you work with them.

When it makes sense to talk to a professional

A lot of times people reach out when they're in that retirement phase. Maybe they're thinking about selling a business. Maybe they just inherited a lot of money. Or maybe they just realized, "I have more wealth now than I had before. I've hit a $500,000 number or a million dollar number."

Mistakes can be a lot more expensive when you hit those larger numbers than when you're just first starting out.

I think everyone deserves to have a financial plan. There are places in most people's lives where it makes sense to start talking to some professional about this rather than just doing it yourself. There is a time and a place for both.

1. They're going to ask you a ton of questions

The first thing is that they're going to ask you a ton of questions. They're going to ask about your income, your debt, your family, your goals, what you want your retirement to look like if you're in the retirement planning stage of your life. They're going to have to understand all your needs and all your priorities to make a good financial plan for you.

Be comfortable talking about your money with some stranger. You want to find someone you can trust, who you can be open with, who you're not going to feel embarrassed about. That's the kind of person you want to work with, who is going to help you make a great financial plan for whatever stage of life.

2. They're going to collect a lot of financial information

The second thing is they're going to collect a lot of financial information. You might feel uncomfortable with that because they're going to ask for things like your account statements from all your brokerage accounts, your traditional IRAs, your Roth IRAs, your 401(k)s, maybe 403(b)s. I can go on about all the different accounts. They're going to want to see all of that and how it's invested.

They're going to ask for tax returns. If anyone ever tells you you need to send them a social security number or anything like that on the tax return, they're lying to you. You can always redact sensitive information like the account numbers or social security numbers when you get started.

If you want to transition those accounts to whatever custodian they're with, then they will need those account numbers to do that ACAT transfer or non-ACAT transfer when that time comes to move the money, if that's the kind of relationship where they're managing your assets.

They're also going to look at your spending. They might use a budgeting software to track your total expenses as a family. They could look at the insurance coverage of your household. If you have home, auto, or umbrella insurance policies, they might want to see those to see the coverage limits. They would also want to see things like whole life or term life policies.

Anything that touches a dollar sign, most planners will want to see.

Make sure that you send that to them in a secure portal environment. You don't want to send that over email. You want to make sure that it's safe while it's traveling to that person if you're doing it all remotely.

3. They should lead with value

Another thing you should expect is that the advisor should lead with value. That might sound a little weird, but it's how they think about what is the actual advice they're giving to you. What is the deliverable? What is the plan that you're getting?

That's identifying opportunities for you to either increase your wealth, decrease expenses, optimize investments, or optimize taxes so you pay less taxes over the course of your lifetime. Whether that's through a Roth conversion strategy or different ways of contributing to elective deferral plans like your 401(k)s. You might have heard of backdoor Roths or mega backdoor Roths, all those things.

For 2026, the IRS caps 401(k) elective deferrals at $24,500 but total plan contributions at $72,000. In plans that allow after-tax contributions, that gap is the room a mega backdoor Roth uses.

Products should not be the main selling point. If someone comes up and says this life insurance policy is all you need to fix everything, that might not be the best person to work with as a financial planner. Life insurance or a whole life or permanent policy might make sense in some situations.

A good advisor is not leading with the product. They're leading with the value of the plan.

They're leading with where they can identify opportunities for you, or where they can reduce time that you spend. You might be able to do all this, but your time has a value, and you don't want to spend all day researching different things to make sure you're doing it right.

Look for credentials and a network

You want someone who does this for a living and does this as a job. They went to school for this, they're well-experienced, or they have advanced certifications like the CFP® certification, the CPA license, or the CFA, the Chartered Financial Analyst. Or they're an enrolled agent with the IRS, which is the highest credential the IRS awards.

You can check whether someone holds the CFP® certification, and whether CFP Board has publicly disciplined them, with CFP Board's verification search. The SEC's free search tool at Investor.gov covers registration and disciplinary history for advisers and brokers.

Maybe even a tax attorney or an estate planning attorney could be brought in. They have a network of professionals that they can refer out to when it does make sense, because not everyone's going to know everything about every topic that relates to personal finance.

You want a team. You don't just want one person when doing this. You want someone who knows who to go to for these things.

If you're selling a business, you want people who are familiar with selling businesses, who have been with business brokers or within an investment banking team with experience in M&A, and who know who they can refer out to when it makes sense.

4. The investments should be grounded in realistic expectations

The number four thing is that the investments should be grounded in realistic expectations. Advisors today, by and large, are not telling you that they're going to beat the market. They're not going to beat the S&P 500 every year on a risk-adjusted basis.

The data backs that up. S&P Dow Jones Indices' SPIVA scorecard found that 79% of active large-cap U.S. equity funds underperformed the S&P 500 in 2025, and 67% did in the first half of 2026.

You can get lucky, for sure. You can absolutely get lucky. For most financial planners now, though, the portfolio is kind of table stakes at this point.

A lot of people can use things like an index fund and tilt towards different areas like small cap value or highly profitable companies. Not that that's any financial advice or investment advice, but a lot of people can create portfolios now that are well diversified and make sense. It's not about swinging for the fences, and most firms acknowledge that when you become a client.

"How do you do on investments?"

A lot of clients come in and they've never worked with a financial advisor before. One of the things that makes sense for them to ask is, "How do you do on investments?" That's a question you should ask an investment advisor.

They'll tell you, "That doesn't matter," and that might be a red flag to you. My pushback on that is that they're not there to just give a portfolio. If the only value they're providing is the investment piece, then they're missing a lot of other important things that do matter, that you could be served by a better financial planner that fits your needs a little more ideally.

Built for your cash flow, and for down markets

Diversification doesn't prevent every kind of loss, but they're setting up the portfolio in a way that makes sense for your cash flow needs. They have those buckets set up, or they have the bond funds or whatever it is that they're doing to set up the cash flow.

The idea is that you sleep easier at night when you work with an advisor.

You're not as worried about the things that you can't control, like the markets. You're in a position that you're going to be OK for those down market scenarios, because they are going to happen. No one's denying that markets will drop again. That should be part of the plan, and you should have an idea of what we're going to do when that happens.

5. Understand what you're paying for

The fifth thing to expect is to understand what you're paying for. Know exactly how the advisor is being compensated, whether it's on an hourly basis, a flat fee basis, or assets under management.

You don't necessarily always want to work with the cheapest advisor, the same way you don't necessarily want to always buy the cheapest car. You essentially get what you pay for when you work with an advisor.

Make sure that you understand how you're paying the advisor, and that there's no hidden fees anywhere that you're not expecting.

Registered advisers have to give you a relationship summary, called Form CRS, that covers their fees, conflicts of interest, and disciplinary history. It includes questions the SEC suggests you ask, including this one:

If I give you $1,000 to invest, how much will go to fees and costs, and how much will be invested for me?

Whether it's a one-time plan or an ongoing relationship, know what the support looks like and how many annual reviews you're going to be doing. Know what to expect when you work with this person long term, because you want this to be a long-term relationship unless it's a one-time plan.

Do your homework before you meet them

There's a lot of benefits to working with a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional. It's important to do your homework before you meet them and shop around. Compare how one person makes you feel, because a lot of people can do the same types of things now.

There's no secret information in this profession.

There's a lot of different ways that someone can add value to your life, and having a good relationship with them over a long period of time is probably what makes most people feel most comfortable.

For advisors: what this means for your process

Each of the five expectations above maps to something a prospect will notice in your first few weeks together:

• The questions. A discovery questionnaire they can fill in before the first meeting, so the meeting is about goals rather than data entry.
• The documents. A secure upload instead of email, and a clear note that they can redact account and Social Security numbers until it's time to move assets.
• The value. A deliverable they can point to: the plan, the opportunities you found, and the time you saved them.
• The investments. A ready answer to "How do you do on investments?" that talks about cash flow and down markets, not beating the index.
• The fees. How you're paid, in plain terms, and how many reviews a year they should expect.

CFP Board owns the certification marks CFP® and CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® in the U.S.