Ideas in the Wild: Drew Richey and Shawn Perry are Empowering Each of Us to Take Ownership Over Our Financial Circumstances

Choosing how to obtain financial advice, especially during a major life transition, can feel overwhelming. Many people don’t understand the basics of the financial services industry, which makes it difficult to confidently hire a wealth-management team that best suits their needs.

In Finding Your Financial Advisor, Drew Richey and Shawn Perry explain why each of us need to take ownership over our own financial circumstances. They lay out the minimum standards for hiring a financial advisor, and show us what a core-value approach to wealth management looks like.

Throughout the book, they provide carefully constructed tools that will help with pre-meeting preparation as well as advisor interviews, and give each reader the confidence and knowledge necessary to debrief each meeting and make a final decision. I recently caught up with Drew and Shawn to learn more about why they wrote the book and the ideas they share with readers.

Why did you write this book?

When people seek financial advice or begin to search for a new financial advisor, it is usually because there has been a transition in their life, and they need help — retirement, the death of a family member, a divorce, or a career or lifestyle change. These transitions also come with a wide range of emotions and reactions — from anticipation and celebration, to dread, anxiety, grief, or even paralyzing fear.

During these times, the decisions made, and paths chosen, can impact a family’s financial legacy for years to come. If you are currently in one of these transitions, before you decide to work with a financial advisor, you need someone to help you see more clearly, or cut through the noise. You need someone who can help you know, with confidence, what to seek and how to recognize it when you find it.

This book is written in the spirit of advocating for individuals and families seeking financial advice and assistance with their financial goals, dreams, and needs. The reason for this book is simple: to help you understand the basics of the retail financial services industry and confidently hire a wealth management team that best suits the current and future needs of your family.

This book is not meant for financial professionals, nor is it for the experts. It is written for regular people who are working toward their own financial goals and seeking help. We explore the various arrangements you may have with financial advisors, highlight questions you need to ask, and guide you to resources to do your own research.

Ultimately, it is our intent to give you the knowledge and understanding you need to confidently make decisions on how you choose to manage your retirement, wealth, and legacy.

What’s an idea you share that really excites you?

There are simply too many moving parts to comprehensive wealth management to leave any aspect of it to chance or discretion. That’s why, before you sign on to work with an advisor, it’s important to conduct a thorough interview.

While the interview should cover several areas, one of the most important things to focus on is the prospective advisor’s investment process. This is not about what products they use, but about ensuring they have a disciplined approach to investing.

To get started, ask them some targeted questions:

• How many different strategies do they use?
• How do they monitor, evaluate, and adjust?
• Do their clients utilize similar strategies, or is each one customized?
• How do they control and minimize the less visible, internal investment costs?

Keep in mind the actual investment strategy they implement may be less important than having one that is thought out, easily articulated, and repeatable. For example, if you’re told that each client’s portfolio is completely customized, it’s likely that there isn’t a preexisting investment process established. There are many suitable strategies, but you need to ask questions to make sure their approach aligns with your goals.

As you go through the interview, remember you don’t need to fully comprehend all the factors that go into building investment portfolios to feel confident asking questions. Your goal here is to gain an understanding of how disciplined their approach is. To that end, dig deeper by asking them a few more questions:

• How do they balance portfolios among different asset classes (i.e. stocks versus bonds, large versus small companies, US versus international)
• Do they use professional money managers, mutual funds, exchange traded funds (ETFs), or pick individual securities themselves?
• Is their investment philosophy more strategic or tactical?
• Will there be a lot of turnover or trading?
• How often do they rebalance portfolios?
• How do they plan for client withdrawals/income planning?
• How do they implement investment strategies?

By asking questions like these, you can ensure they have a systematic and disciplined approach to the investment process, which will tell you a lot about whether they are the right advisor team to help you reach your financial goals.

How will following your advice improve your readers’ lives?

As we stated earlier, the reason for this book is simple: to help you understand the basics of the retail financial services industry and confidently hire a wealth-management team that best suits the current and future needs of your family.

In no way do we claim that this guide is fully comprehensive, or an end-all-be-all guide to hiring a wealth management team. There are a lot of options, different arrangements, and capable teams who can serve you. However, we do hope this guide will help enhance your understanding and better equip you to navigate the decisions you will soon be making.

No matter who you are or what your goals are, we hope you find this book helpful. If you follow the advice we lay out here, we believe you will be more comfortable and confident in hiring an advisor who will help you make the right decisions to reach your financial goals.