In the world of Financial Services, there have ­been many phrases “coined” over the past century on what Financial Advisors and Las Vegas and Missoula Wealth Management Advisors would like their business to be called. In the past “financial advisors” have been called everything from an Account Executive to a Stock Broker. As individuals, families, and businesses have had to evolve in this ever-changing world so have the professionals who help them. Financial advisors today need to be up to date with the latest options, understand the different options available, have numerous strategies to imply and a well thought out implementation process needed to give sound advice. Our world and economy have changed dramatically over the past decades to where when dealing with a financial professional, he or she needs to truly understand your entire financial picture, objective, and everything from your tax situation to estate plan.

Today the most “coined” and generally accepted name for our business is Wealth Management. But this phrase brings up a lot of controversies especially among the baby boomer demographic.

This is our personal definition but it’s also a widely acceptable definition in the financial community. A “qualified” financial advisor is a an individual who may have a professional credential such as Chartered Financial Consultants, Certified Financial Analysts, Chartered Financial Planner, or an MBA and/or has a deep understanding of Investment Management, Insurance Planning, Retirement Planning, Income Planning, Estate Planning, Risk Management, and employee benefits. It has been generally accepted that the Certified Financial Planner or CFP® designation is the gold standard in the financial planning world because these are the core topics of study.

It may be easier to explain what is not a financial advisor, but if your “financial advisor” cannot offer you the client many non-biased options and talk through the reasons on why the recommendations make sense vs. another option, the advisor isn’t truly giving their client the best options for them.

So this brings us back to our definition of Wealth Management. A Financial Advisor who states they work in wealth management, in our opinion, needs to offer the following advice and be able to quarterback the relationship to the other professional partners of the client if need. The financial advisor needs to be able to have legal resources, tax professionals, Trust services, and give advice on Investment management.

A good financial planner should be able to communicate with your CPA, Attorney, etc… to make sure everyone is on the same page in regards to reaching the client’s objectives.

Many baby boomers have come from humble beginnings and they worked hard their entire life building a nice nest egg and do not consider themselves wealthy. Many baby boomers just have the fear that they do not want their hard earned money to be used up before they die and they are very skeptical on who to trust with many recent scandals over the past few decades. Not even to mention the wild swings the market has experience the past 15 years has made it difficult for investors to want to allocate a large portion of their assets to the Stock Market. Your traditional Wealth Management customer may have an investment asset of 100k to 2 million, but this amount does not make the customer feel wealthy! For this reason alone many customers feel like they don’t have “enough” money to be a Wealth Management customer and feel they do not qualify for quality advice. In a nutshell, Wealth Management in my opinion is when a “qualified” financial advisor truly offers Full Financial Planning to their clients like we do at Link Financial Advisory in Las Vegas, NV and Missoula, MT.

There should not be a dollar amount associated with what is a Wealth Management client, but as the Financial Advisor you are your own business and have to choose what type of clients and assets size is appropriate for your business from a service level and profitability level. So before we begin our full definition of Wealth Management, I’ll explain “qualified” financial advisor.