Before looking into financial advisors, you need to determine what your needs are. During your first meeting with an advisor, you’ll need to explain your needs and ask some essential questions:

What Are Your Personal Values? 

Your Financial Professional will be dealing with some of the most sensitive information you have: your finances. Before working with an advisor, be sure you trust them. A good way to get an idea of a potential advisor is to ask about their personal values.

Ask the following questions to get to know your advisor:

• What are the core values that guide your personal life? What about your professional life?
• Does your firm work collaboratively, or do advisors tend to be more individual?
• When you're not working, what do you like to do?

What Is Your Investment Philosophy?

Depending on your needs and investment objectives, a Financial Professional can provide you with brokerage services, investment advisory services, or both at the same time.

As you consider partnering with a Financial Professional to manage your investments, ask the following questions:

• Considering my financial situation and goals, what approach should I be taking to my investments? Should I take a higher risk or more conservative approach?
• How will you choose the investments you recommend to me? How will you decide which one best matches my situation?
• What is your relevant experience, including licenses, education and other qualifications? What do these qualifications mean? Based on your licensing or other qualifications, are you limited to offering specific types of services or investments?
• How often will you monitor my account's performance? How often will you offer investment advice?
• What investment benchmarks do you use?

What Is Your Fee Structure?

Ask your Financial Professional to give you personalized information on the fees and costs that you will pay if you choose to work with them. You will pay fees and costs whether you make or lose money on your investments, and regardless of which type of account you select. Fees and costs will reduce any amount of money you make on your investments over time.

To better understand what fees and costs you will be paying, ask your Financial Professional the following questions:

• Help me understand how the fees and costs you charge might affect my investments. If I give you $10,000 to invest, how much will go to fees and costs, and how much will be invested for me?
  
• What effect will the types of investments selected (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc.) have on the overall cost?
  
• How are you compensated for providing services to me?

How Will We Work Together?

When making recommendations as your broker-dealer or acting as your investment adviser, Financial Professionals must act in your best interest and not place their interest ahead of yours. You should understand how your relationship with your advisor will look before deciding to work with them.

As you consider establishing a relationship with a new advisor, ask them the following questions:

• How will our relationship work?
• Who are your typical clients?
• How might conflicts of interest affect me, and how will you address them?
  
• How do you get paid?
• In addition to paying fees for investment activities, what other charges and costs do I pay you or third-parties?
  

Do You or Your Financial Professionals Have Legal or Disciplinary History?

SEC and FINRA rules provide that certain types of legal and disciplinary matters involving broker-dealers, RIAs, and Financial Professionals must be reported through the Central Registration Depository ("CRD") system. Both Cetera Advisors and some of our Financial Professionals have legal and disciplinary disclosures. For additional information about our Financial Professionals and services, visit Investor.gov or BrokerCheck.Finra.org.

To understand their legal or disciplinary history, ask your Financial Professional the following questions:

• As a financial professional, do you have any disciplinary history? What type of conduct? What was the outcome of the matter disclosed?
• Where can I get more information about any disclosures regarding you or your firm?
• If I have questions about the handling of my account, who should I contact?

Coombes, Andrea. “10 Questions to Ask a Financial Advisor.” NerdWallet, 1 Aug. 2024, www.nerdwallet.com/article/investing/10-questions-ask-financial-advisor.