Here are some frequently asked questions asked about adding Investment Advisory Services to your practice:
Q: I’m concerned about managing someone’s assets or losing their money. How can I handle that?
A: We do teach you how to educate your clients properly so they understand the ups and downs of the markets and that nothing is guaranteed. We generally recommend avoiding any extremely risky investments and being overconcentrated in any sectors. We can teach you our process for investing management and how to manage your client accounts. Outside of this education, you are welcome to explain to your clients that you outsource the investment management to a 3rd party manager and if they start to not perform well then you can replace them with someone better. If you set the client expectation up properly and they know you’re not doing the day to day management then you’re alleviating yourself of a lot of responsibility. It all depends on how you set things up. You are also able to set yourself up as a solicitor only and refer business to another advisor and simply get a {bd988f8de975b1b0f518b51b220daf776f43c43836086c7409198c9b58a7360c} fee. In some states you may not even need to be licensed to do this. It all depends on your comfort level with everything. If you are conservative you could also get set up to only do fixed/index annuities and not get securities licensed. We can discuss all of this and talk about the pros and cons of every available choice.
Q: I am a CPA, I’m concerned offering investment advisory services is a conflict of interest.
A: There are cpa’s that offer investment advisory services in every state of the US. If you disclose the conflict in your engagement agreement then most concerns are satisfied. If you offer audit or attestation services then usually you can not offer investment advisory services to those clients due to the requirement to be independent. There can also be certain situations where you may need to decline potential business. Click here to read more in depth on conflicts of interest and CPA’s.
Q: I’m a tax professional and already have a book of business. How can you help me?
A: Most of this is addressed in our pages for experienced advisors. Please also read the sections for experienced advisors here.
Q. How will I get clients?
A. It is typically best to cross sell to your existing clients in the beginning. Then afterwards you would simply be looking for new investment clients the same way you would be looking for tax clients. In addition to these methods we can teach you ways of setting up professional referral networks, purchasing leads from certain marketing programs, and other methods. We also are working on our own in house lead generation programs for our advisors.