Most people spend more time researching a used truck than the person who'll manage their retirement. Not because they don't care — because nobody ever handed them the checklist. Here it is. Use it on everyone, including us.
Start with the public record
Every licensed advisor in the country is searchable for free. BrokerCheck (brokercheck.finra.org) and the SEC's adviser search (adviserinfo.sec.gov) show licenses, work history, and any disciplinary events. Five minutes, before any meeting. If someone's record has issues, you want to hear their explanation of it — and if someone's website makes claims their record doesn't support, you're done early.
While you're at it, read their Form CRS — a short, plain-language document every firm must provide describing services, fees, and conflicts. Ours is linked in the footer of every page on this site. If you can't find a firm's easily, that's an answer too.
Ask how they're paid — then keep asking
"Fee-only," "fee-based," "commission" — the labels matter less than whether the person will give you a dollar figure. The question that works: "In a typical year, what would I pay in total — your fee, plus the expenses inside the investments, plus anything else?"
Watch what happens next. Good advisors answer with numbers. The other kind answers with a brochure.
Ask what happens between meetings
Anyone can hold a good annual review. The real difference between advisors is what happens the other 364 days. Ask: who looks at my accounts on a normal week? What's your process for catching a problem in month two of a quarter? When something changes, do I hear about it, or find out at the next review?
There are honest answers of every kind — some practices review quarterly and say so plainly. What you're screening for is a specific answer. "We monitor everything constantly" with no description of how is not a process; it's a slogan. (We recheck every holding every market day and send clients a written note each Monday — and the reason we can say that is that it's specific enough to be falsifiable.)
Ask them to describe a mistake
Any advisor with real tenure has calls they'd take back. Ask for one. You'll learn more from that answer than from any performance chart — you'll learn whether they keep records, whether they review their own decisions, and whether they'll tell you the truth when something goes wrong with your account. Someone who's never wrong is someone who's never checked.
Trust the boring signals
Do they return calls? Do they explain things until you actually understand, or until you stop asking? Do they ever tell you not to buy something they'd profit from? Were they on time? Boring signals compound. The relationship you're starting is measured in decades, and decades are made of Tuesdays.
Then make them prove it
Whatever anyone tells you in a first meeting — us included — is marketing until demonstrated. That's why we built a 30-day Test Drive: watch how we'd actually handle things before you move a dollar. However you feel about our answers to the questions above, take the checklist with you. It works everywhere.
The information in this article is general in nature. Advisory services and their availability vary by firm and program; review any firm's Form CRS and disclosure documents before engaging.