Paladin Registry

Interviewing Advisors

Interviewing advisors is the second to last step when you select a financial advisor. It's your opportunity to obtain additional input and to get to know the professional who will influence or control your financial future and assets. However, it's also one of the most dangerous steps, because it gives advisors the opportunity to use their personalities and sales skills to win your trust and sell their services or products.

Following is a list of criteria that impact the advisor selection decisions of investors. We also describe the importance and relevance of the criteria.

Personalities

Most advisors are nice people with pleasant personalities. Advisors know that if you like them, winning your trust and assets will be easier.
You let your guard down when you like someone – advisors know that.
You tend to trust people you like. If you are like most investors, you have trouble believing someone you like will take advantage of you for money, but it happens everyday.
Personalities have absolutely nothing to do with advisors' competence, integrity, and business practices.

Sales Skills

Lower quality advisors use their sales skills to convince you they are financial experts. This strategy works as long as they know a little more than you do.
Advisors use this strategy because they don't have any mandatory disclosure requirements.
Advisors tell you what you want to hear to win your assets. For example, they say they can produce high returns for low risk.
Advisors have heard all of your questions before and they have developed effective slick responses.
Sales skills have nothing to do with advisors' competence, integrity, and business practices.

Process of Exclusion

You may review the credentials of five professionals, conduct initial interviews with three advisors, conduct a final interview with the two advisors you believe are the best qualified, and select one advisor.
This is a 5:3:2:1 process of exclusion. You start the process with five professionals and end the process when you select one. You have to exclude four advisors from your search process.
You want to be sure you exclude the four weakest advisors so you select the most qualified advisor.

The Agenda

Either you control the interview agenda or the advisors will.
When advisors control agendas, you only hear what they want you to hear. They leave out any information that would cause them to be excluded from your selection process.
Advisor-controlled agendas have another major downside. Each presentation will be substantially different making direct comparisons extremely difficult. For this reason, you should prepare an agenda and require all advisors to provide that information.
Advisors don't have track records that document their results. Therefore, you should focus on characteristics that impact their ability to help you achieve your financial goals: credentials, ethics, business practices, and services.
Don't be distracted by personalities, sales skills, or information that does not impact the advisors' ability to produce competitive results.
You have to control the agenda so you obtain the same information from each professional.

Meetings

Is it your intent to meet face-to-face with advisors to interview them?
If yes, do you meet the professionals' at their offices or your location?
What happens if a meeting is not convenient for you or the advisor?
What if you are in a relatively remote location so it's difficult to convince advisors to come to you?
You should meet in the advisors' offices whenever possible because you will obtain additional input for your selection decision.

Telephone

Is a telephone interview acceptable?
If yes, how do advisors provide you with copies of their presentations and other content? Email, facsimile, FedEx?
Telephone is the least desirable method for interviewing professionals and should be used as a last resort.

Communication Skills

This is your opportunity to evaluate the advisors' communication skills.
Does an advisor use a lot of jargon and technical terms that you don't understand?
Does an advisor talk down to you, lecture you, or make you feel uninformed?
Does an advisor have a big ego that seems to be out of control?
Does an advisor seem motivated to help you expand your knowledge?
You want an advisor who is a clear, logical, succinct communicator and educator.

Professionalism

This is your opportunity to evaluate the advisors' professionalism.
Pay attention to the appearance of the advisors and their offices.
Observe how you are treated by the advisor and his or her staff.
Are you treated with respect even if you have a smaller amount of money?
You want an advisor who is professional in every sense of the word.

Two Interviews

You should have a substantial amount of information about each advisor before you meet with them.
You can use the Internet to obtain the information: PaladinRegistry.com, advisor websites, and Google searches
Initial interview agenda: Focus on the advisors' credentials, ethics, business practices, and financial services.
Final interview agenda: Check first impressions and focus on how the professionals will help you achieve your goals.
You can get by with one interview, but there is less risk when you use a two-interview process to pick the advisor who is going to help you achieve your most important financial goals.

Timed Interviews

Each advisor should have the same amount of time to present the key features and benefits of his or her services.
Paladin recommends 40 minutes for their presentations and 20 minutes for your questions.
No advisor should have the competitive advantage of extra time.