When it comes to rolling up your sleeves to help guide and counsel clients on their estate and retirement planning strategies and goals there’s absolutely no room whatsoever for sloughing off.
Everything is on the line, or should be for both the financial planner as well as the observant client. There is a time and place for every planning session, but every session is critical for the client to become well-informed and educated on the information presented by the financial planner.
Today the complicated verbiage and concepts with the stock market, bonds, mutual funds, life insurance policies and annuities have become like the ocean—endless disclosures, explanations and legal jargon. As financial professionals we are now being subjected to endless video training and testing to even to be able to sell products to consumers.
The big buzz words being forced down our throats are suitability, best interest practices and a plethora of disclosure documentation. Why? Because in our great country unfortunately there have been so many financial planners who have hoodwinked and downright stolen money from clients; especially the senior population.
This is why I realize as never before, a financial planner or financial professional simply cannot be sloughing off on the most insignificant portion of a financial plan or piece of advice with a client.
It is no wonder that the Securities Investor Protection Corporation came into being many years ago.
A lot of clients do not realize this:
The Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) had its origins in the difficult years of 1968-70, when the paperwork crunch, brought on by unexpectedly high trading volume, was followed by a very severe decline in stock prices. Hundreds of broker-dealers were merged, acquired or simply went out of business. Some were unable to meet their obligations to customers and went bankrupt. Public confidence in the U.S. securities markets was in jeopardy.
The SIPC does not protect against the decline in value of your securities. SIPC does not protect individuals who are sold worthless stocks and other securities. SIPC does not protect against losses due to a broker's bad investment advice, or for recommending inappropriate investments.
It is important to recognize that SIPC protection is not the same as protection for your cash at a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insured banking institution because SIPC does not protect the value of any security (asksipc@sipc.org).
And this is why I address the significance and seriousness of not sloughing off with clients and their hard earned dollars. When all is said and done, it’s ‘what the client actually wants,’ not the advisor. If the client says emphatically I do not want to lose any money whatsoever, the stock market is not for them.
When sloughing off takes place in our extraordinary and challenging financial practice, it’s usually because we do not listen well; and because we fail to correctly and precisely pinpoint ‘what the client needs, what the client wants, and perhaps most importantly what the client would actually like to do.’
Financial advisors are professionals who help clients manage their finances. According to the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, there are around 330,300 financial advisors employed in the country (Mar 15, 2024,
It doesn’t require too many of those baleful advisors that fraudulently slough off with clients assets to escalate a bad name and memory for that matter for our industry.
Recently reading Think Advisor I am thankful for Dinah Wisenberg Brin’s stunning purview into the (10 Worst Financial Advisors in America: 2023). She nails it perfectly by disclosing the Slough Offs out there in our great society who, what else can I say—are criminals.
We’re talking about a litany of unbelievable and inexcusable crimes by highly successful financial advisors: wire fraud, Ponzi schemes, murder, rape, mail fraud, securities fraud, money laundering—-should I go on?
Thank goodness you as an investor can go to FINRA.org and do a BrokerCheck on the financial advisor you are working with—I urge you, please do.
Perhaps I can say that Abraham Lincoln said it best when we slough off with any obligation we have to one another. The famous American President once declared, “No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.”
Hope my thoughts will inspire you and myself to help change people’s lives now and forever with a renewed determination to carry on ’sloughing-less.’
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