What Does A Good Financial Planner Actually Do?

Many people think they don't need financial advice. At Adviser Ratings our experience has shown that in many cases, people just don't know what a financial adviser does - and how an adviser could help them in particular. For those yet to experience the benefits of financial advice or who are unsure exactly what adviser do, Platinum adviser Liam Shorte has a great rundown. His first instalment is here.

I recently had my 16-year-old son do some work experience in the office and after a few days he asked “what do you do for your client’s dad?” I rattled off my elevator speech about my core belief that “I put people back in control of their finances and empower them to plan for a brighter future.” He looked at me as if I had two heads and said “yeah but what do you actually do?” Well that hit me like a brick and I realised that many people do not know what I actually do as a Professional Financial Planner. No not just a Financial Planner but a professional who lives and breathes his work and is building a business around the clients he takes care of and not around the amount of funds under management.

When I sat down with my business partner and our team and we looked at what we have done for clients over the last few decades. We split the role in to 5 parts:

• The financial plan designer who deals with the big picture of your goals and dreams and strategies to achieve them from a financial perspective. As part of this we help get back control by ensuring you are more organised.
• The relationship builder – someone who earns your trust, becomes your financial coach and guides you through your financial journey with confidence. We deal with many clients so understand the changes in lifestyle and monetary needs as you age.
• The investment strategist who chooses how to build wealth to fund those objectives. We bring that third-party view to help you avoid emotionally driven investment.
• The insurance adviser who makes sense of the options available and make an assessment of the needs of the family in terms of risk management and protecting the family’s financial future.
• The tax consultant (often with an accountant) to minimise the leakage from those returns and ensure compliance.

My next article will go into more detail for these 5 sections and the actual services we provide people that covers around 99% of what we do for our clients.

Liam Shorte is a Platinum adviser from Verante Financial Planning, servicing Castle Hill and Windsor in Sydney. Liam has 36 Client reviews and an average client rating of 96%.

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Liam Shorte

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