I recently came across an article that was titled ‘How wealthy do you have to be to afford a Wealth Advisor?’ I know what my answer is, so that piqued my interest, and I dove in.  

In the article, they describe a wealth advisor as somebody who does more than what your financial advisor typically does – offering holistic, comprehensive planning that include things like estate planning, tax planning, investment management, college planning, etc., etc. And, because of the “comprehensive nature” of what they do, you need to have at least $750,000 in investable assets to be able to qualify…um, WHAT?! 

There are plenty of advisors out there (insert subtle plug) who offer holistic, comprehensive planning with no asset minimums, to them it doesn’t matter how much you actually have. And here’s the other thing – those firms can continue to provide the same great service once you get to $1,000,000 and beyond. So, the biggest misconception in our industry is that you must have some large bucket of money if you want help building some type of comprehensive plan for your life. Like I said, there are plenty of firms out there that do this (comprehensive planning) with no asset minimums, you just have to understand who you’re working with.  

At the same time, the terms financial advisor, financial planner, wealth advisor – they’re all kind of interchangeable. The same company who pushed this article out, also said in a different article a few days prior that the difference between a financial advisor and a wealth advisor really is nothing, except the wealth adviser wants to work with higher-end clientele. Now I want to be clear, there is nothing wrong with having asset minimums! There are plenty of firms out there with minimums that do great work. It is a way to pre-qualify who you want to work with and it’s also a way to control capacity, ensuring firms don’t take on too many clients and not be able to provide good advice. But, the notion that you have to have a large sum of money to give to a financial advisor or a wealth advisor to get a comprehensive plan is just absurd!  

So if you are looking for advice, if you’re looking to build a comprehensive plan, figure out who you’re working with, understand how they get paid, understand the credentials behind their name, and don’t be afraid to look for this advice. If you don’t have $750,000, yet, find somebody who’s going to help you get there! Y’all have a good one!