The six questions that will find you the right Financial Planner

Since we began our journey at Metis Ireland in early 2014, we’ve spent a lot of time and effort on marketing initiatives to make our brand synonymous with world class financial planning. We’ve engaged outside marketing experts to help us set out exactly what we do for our clients.

It’s an ongoing challenge, because the reality is quite different from what most people think we do.

What we do

We help busy, high achievers to get really important stuff done by creating a long-term financial and lifestyle plan that helps them to live the life they want. As we tell our clients, it’s your plan, for life!

How we do it

We have a team of highly qualified experts who use the latest technology to deliver an intelligent, easy to understand long-term lifestyle and financial plan.

Our standards

In three words, we’re:

You can read more about the vision and values that underpin everything we do in ‘Our Contract With You’.

What we don’t do

We’ll never tell you we know what’s going to happen with the stock markets in the short term. We don’t make market predictions, we don’t focus on the short term and we’ll never, ever, sell you a financial product.

What’s my problem?

I’m getting exasperated at the number of firms saying they’re offering financial planning when in fact they’re the quintessential product-selling financial advisers. Just because your website says you’re a financial planner doesn’t mean you are. Just because you can copy and paste from our website, doesn’t mean you can deliver the expert service that we deliver at Metis Ireland. Finally, copying our tagline ‘Honest Experienced Financial Planning’ doesn’t mean you deliver Honest Experienced Financial Planning! (You know who you are, so please stop!)

For sure, there’s a growing number of firms that have seen the light and turned to real financial planning as a means to add value in the long term for their clients. But we remain in the minority. I fully expect more firms to follow the example that Metis Ireland and a handful of others have set in an Irish context. The evidence from the US and UK markets suggests that firms who don’t introduce long-term financial planning to their clients will struggle to survive in the medium term.

But how do you tell the difference?

I can understand that it must be daunting for someone outside the financial business to decide which firm to deal with and who to entrust with their hard-earned money. After all, the wrong decision could mean you don’t get to enjoy financial independence when you’d planned to, or put another way, you don’t get to live the life you want.

Here are the six key questions that I believe will help you to determine which firm you should work with.

1. Do you provide a long-term financial plan that’s updated each year to ensure we’re on track in terms of our finances and lifestyle goals

 

2. Can you tell us right now how much the annual fees will be?

 

3. Do you have an investment strategy and house view that your entire firm sticks to?

 

4. Will you tell me the truth about our money and not just what we want to hear to make a sale?

 

5. Do you have real testimonials from existing clients who’ve been through your financial planning process and are happy to recommend your firm?

 

6. Are there exit fees on our financial contracts that mean we’re tied into your firm for a period of time?

 
 
There are lots of other questions that you could ask, but if you start with these and pay close attention to the answers, it’ll take you a long way towards deciding who’s right for you.

To the real financial planners out there – keep up the great work.
To the pretend financial planners – step up or step aside.

Time to make the call? Call us on 061 518365 or email info@metisireland.ie

Carl Widger
Co-Founder and Director