NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast - Stop Worrying About Your Financial Advisor and Start Finding the Right One

Episode Date: June 25, 2026

Learn what financial advisor fee structures could mean for your wealth and how to find someone who won't sell you out. What new threats are emerging for identity crime victims? Host Sean Pyles, CFP®, and news colleague Rick VanderKnyff are joined by Mona Terry, chief operating and programs officer of the Identity Theft Resource Center, to walk through the ITRC's 2026 Trends in Identity Report. They explore why more than 1 in 4 victims now face two or more simultaneous identity incidents, how device compromise differs from the scams most people think to watch for, and whether AI is already making identity crimes harder to detect and resolve. Do financial advisors have a built-in conflict of interest that could be costing you money? Sean is joined by co-host Elizabeth Ayoola and NerdWallet Wealth Partners CEO Ryan Sterling to tackle a listener’s question about whether they should hire a financial advisor. They dig into how different advisor fee structures — from AUM (assets under management) percentages to flat-fee plans, hourly rates, and commissions — create different kinds of conflicts, what the fiduciary standard actually guarantees (and what it doesn't), and what red flags could signal that an advisor's priorities aren't aligned with yours. Learn more about working with a financial advisor at NerdWallet Wealth Partners: https://nerdwalletwealthpartners.com/smart  How to Prevent Identity Theft: Warning Signs, Protection Services and More https://www.nerdwallet.com/finance/learn/how-to-prevent-identity-theft  Read the ITRC's 2026 Trends in Identity Report: https://www.idtheftcenter.org/post/2026-trends-in-identity-report-hacked-devices-overtake-scams Subscribe to our podcast’s free email newsletter for bonus content and more from our hosts at https://smartmoney-nerdwallet.beehiiv.com/  Want us to review your budget? Fill out this form — completely anonymously if you want — and we might feature your budget in a future segment! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScK53yAufsc4v5UpghhVfxtk2MoyooHzlSIRBnRxUPl3hKBig/viewform?usp=header To send the Nerds your money questions, call or text the Nerd hotline at 901-730-6373 or email [e-mail]. Like what you hear? Please leave us a review and tell a friend. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, Elizabeth, we have to talk about the newsletter. What newsletter are you talking about, Sean? You mean the new, free, smart money email newsletter? Yes, and I have to say it is so good. It really is. It has clips, episode roundups, and behind the scenes takes from me, you, and our producer, the stuff that makes you feel like you're really part of the show. And listeners, for the record, you actually are part of the show.

I'm going to be sharing personal stuff. You know, I love sharing my business, and I'm going to be sharing parenting tips from an eight-year-old. a single mom perspective. And I am loading up the newsletter with my favorite gardening tips and lots of cute photos from my garden, including my pets, just napping among my flower beds. It's kind of adorable. And the best part is that this newsletter is totally free. So head to nerdwollet.com slash podcast to sign up. For the record, that's nerdwollet.com slash podcast. Come hang out with us. Psychopaths, narcissist, Machiavelli's, you could barely describe these types of people as evil. along with scammers, pedophiles, and let's say murderers.

Should we add financial advisors to the list? That's a question that came across our transom and one that we'll tackle head on. Welcome to Nerd Wallet's Smart Money Podcast, where you send us your money questions, and we answer them with the help of our genius nerds. I'm Sean Piles. Later this episode, we'll be asking a really big question.

Are financial advisors evil? Shoot, I mean, I certainly hope not, since I am a financial advisor, But first, our weekly money news roundup where we break down the latest in the world of finance to help you be smarter with your money. Our news colleague, Rick VanderKnefe, is back and he's talking with a guest about something truly evil, identity theft and scams. Hey, Rick.

Hey, Sean, is great to be here. And yes, we're here to talk about scams and ID theft. The Identity Thept Resource Center released its 2026 Trends in Identity Report. And it's got some new ways in which people are getting scammed. and we all need to know what to watch out for. So last week, I spoke with Monetary. She's the ITRC's chief operating and programs officer, and here's our conversation. Monetary, welcome to Smart Money.

Thanks so much. I'm glad to be here. I'd love to start by touching on some of the trends that you're seeing in your latest report. For instance, more than one in four victims who contacted the ITRC. We're now dealing with two or more simultaneous incidents. Can you walk listeners through how one, compromised account can cascade into a full identity crisis. One of the things that's jumped up is people saying that their devices have been hacked,

and then they're finding out that their email account was taken over or their social media account was taken over. They were in a data breach, and it was their username and password, and now they're finding other accounts that with that username and password have been impacted. So it's no longer someone coming to us with kind of a one-and-done type scenario. It's really, hey, this one thing happened, and now I'm starting to realize there's lots of other issues. yeah, that touches on another thing that the report spells out unauthorized device access up something like 78% year of a year.

Can you describe what this looks like and what the impacts could be? Yeah, I think what's hard for us is when people come to the ITRC, they're like, my device has been hacked. My phone's been hacked. My computer's been hacked. But they don't know how. They don't know what's happening. So the biggest concern for us when people say their device has been accessed is what's available, right? So what pictures do you have stored?

We know that there's certain apps that don't close automatically. So emails, right, email accounts typically don't close automatically. Social media accounts don't close automatically. So it's really understanding what apps are downloaded on that phone, what victims have kind of open already. They don't log out of. And then what is protected? And then we kind of walk through what are all those apps, what's open and what might happen and walking through kind of all of those steps. Is there something particular that someone should do the moment they suspect their phone or laptop has been?

accessed without their permission. Yeah, disconnect from the internet is the very first thing. Disconnect, especially if someone's installed malware, if you really don't know what's happening on your device and then logging out of anything that's logged in. Here's a stat that caught my attention. Among victims who reported three or more financial impacts, the report says zero percent reached resolution. What's broken in the system and who bears responsibility for fixing it?

I think what's hard with the financial impact is if it's something simple, like there's a credit card charge you don't recognize or kind of a single charge. A lot of times those are easy to fix and quick to resolve. It's easy to detect that type of fraud. But when it's more complex types, especially when it's new accounts being established in someone's name, that type of financial account is a lot harder to recover from. We know that the more accounts that have been accessed, right, so people need that immediate access to their money. So when those accounts are compromised, and they're having to wait the 30 days, right, to go through that fraud process, they maybe didn't provide the right information up front or they aren't able to successfully show that it was a

thief that was in their account, not themselves. I think that's where it starts to get a lot harder. So it's that burden of proof is really on the victim. So I think that especially when you're dealing with something like your finances, that's something that's impacting your everyday life. And so I think that right, your emotions get involved. Every day life is getting involved, especially if the accounts are with different institutions. Every institution has their own resolution process. So right, you see one account with one institution and that's going to take a certain amount of time. But as that goes across other institutions, it takes that much longer. Let's talk about scams a little bit. The report says that in 74% of what are called account

problem scams reported to you, the victims shared high value BIA or personally identifiable information. What kind of information are we talking about? It really depends on the scam. So what we know with job employment scams, they're sharing the most sensitive information. So they're selling sharing social security numbers, driver's licenses, those really super sensitive pieces of information that thieves can then misuse in so many different ways. A lot of times it's, it's account information. So log in information for certain accounts. Sometimes it's just financial information just up front. So it's just a lot of different types of information, but almost always involves some type of personal information. So driver's license, something to identify that person as themselves.

How do we know when we're being scammed? What does some of these scams look like? The biggest red flags are that sense of urgency. So kind of they start in kind of really hard and fast and, hey, there's a problem. And before you have a chance to start thinking through what's happening, they have you emotionally reacting to what's happening. Right. You're going to be thrown in jail and kind of all of these big things that gets you to think, really not think and use your kind of react with your emotions. They're getting really good at that.

And so I think that's the piece that is a big red flag. Is anything that says you have to take action right in that. moment. You can't pause. You can't stop. You can't take a moment, call them back. Anyone who says you have to do something right now and you can't take a moment for yourself, that's the biggest red flag. We see that's where kind of the scammers have moved. They want to try and keep you engaged and just kind of throwing things at you at rapid fire for as long as possible to keep you on the phone as long as possible. So I'd say that's kind of the biggest red flag that you're dealing with the scam is you have to do something right this moment and that you can't talk to anyone else about it is another red

I'd say those are the two biggest red flags we see. Is it too early to know if AI is changing the ID theft landscape? I think it is. I think what we are seeing is that AI is making a lot of those attempts to reach people more realistic. So if it's messages, whether it's text messages or email, they look like they're from either an existing institution or company or it looks like a legitimate company. If you're applying for a job with a company you're not familiar with, they have a website. site that looks real. They have people that look real. Everything looks legitimate. And I think that's where AI is really helping. I also think that where thieves may not have had the technical

skills or the skills to really kind of enact their things at scale, AI is enabling that. So I think it's too soon to tell to what degree, but we absolutely know we're starting to see more of it. Are ID crimes in general getting more sophisticated? And are there more of them? I feel like the number of scam texts and phone calls I get is increasing pretty steadily. As the thieves become more successful, they are getting kind of braver. And so they are reaching out more. I do think that also because we are seeing, like we talked about multiple types of identity theft, so it is becoming more sophisticated. I know the types of identity theft that we're hearing about at ITRC, we're just hearing more about people's information actually being misused than just hearing about compromises of

information. So your organization works with real people facing real problems. Can you share any anecdotes about identity theft victims and what this looks like to them in real life? Yeah, it runs the gamut. I mean, I think it's people's everyday life. So they're checking accounts, their social media accounts, kind of things that they interact with every day. We know that people are getting into those things like Venmo, right, where they're sending money to people, their kind of buy now, pay later account. So they're getting into the accounts that people use every single day. And so it kind of goes from simple transactions to things that are a lot more complex, like someone committing a crime in their name. We had a parent, for example, who was renewing their benefits and they weren't able to because

it showed that their child was working. Someone had to use their child's social security number for work. And so they were denied those benefits because it showed that the child was applying, even though the child is a minor. So talk us through what the emotional impact can be in addition to over and above the financial impact. Yeah, people are talking about, they feel angry, they feel frustrated. I think the one that's hardest for us to hear is scam victims feeling like it was their fault. They felt like they were to blame for what happened. Like you said, it's not just the financial impact, but it's really that serious emotional impact. We know the more serious the identity crime is, the more serious the emotional impact is.

So we know that people who are facing like criminal identity theft, for example, face higher rates of depression. It definitely has a serious emotional impact. So it sounds like one general takeaway is that being vigilant and taking maybe some of the right protection measures can help prevent a financially devastating mess. What's your main advice for people to try to avoid what can be a truly awful experience? The biggest things are freeze your credit, so no one can open new financial accounts in your name. set up any type of protective kind of monitoring that you can on your accounts. You know, you can set an alert for a dollar limit over a certain dollar limit, kind of anything that you could do to regularly review your statements.

Unfortunately, a lot of it is on the individual, but staying on top of those, setting up alerts to help automate that for using your credit, using unique passwords, setting up multi-factor authentication, where you get that text code right to your phone or using an authenticator app, setting up past keys, making sure those are unique for each account. And really taking the time to do that with all your accounts, I think that we had a victim who had set up multi-factor authentication for all of their new accounts, but they had an older account that they had not even thought about doing that for. And the thief was able to get into that account and they were locked out. So really just making sure that everything you're doing for all of your new accounts, you're going back and looking at all your old accounts as well. We'll post a link to your annual report, along with NerdWil articles on identity theft in the show notes. Monetary, thanks so much. Thanks, Mike.

Up next, even though we just profiled some real evil, Elizabeth joins us, and we'll answer a question that came to us asking if financial advisors are evil. But before we get into that, a reminder to send us your money questions. Whatever's on your mind, hit us up on the Nerd Hotline at 901-730-6373. That's 901-730 nerd. you can text us or leave us a voicemail there. You can also email your questions to podcast at nervalid.com or drop us a comment on Spotify or YouTube. We'll be right back. Is it really possible to get unbiased financial advice without getting ripped off? And can you actually trust any financial advisor to have your best interest at heart? Today's question gets to

these issues and more. The question is pretty long, so Elizabeth and I are going to trade off reading it. Here we go. Hey, Sean and Elizabeth. I would love your perspective on a debate I've been having in my head for years. Are all financial advisors evil? There's a little hyperbole there, but seriously, I've wrestled for years with how and or whether to enlist the services of an advisor. I've long been persuaded by books like the index card, which advises caution with advisors. And more recently, I've been reading remit seti, who is much bolder. He says never allow an advisor to manage your assets and run away as fast as you can if they also sell products like insurance and annuities. Part of me feels like I benefit from another set of eyes on our finances, even just to tell us we're good.

And I know there might be some tax and other blind spots where an expert might be helpful. But, but, but, I just can't get over my suspicion that the entire profession is built on one massive conflict of interest. If personal finance is simple and if most people can manage things on their own and if no one can beat low-cost index funds, how will it ever make sense to pay someone a boatload of money for them to, in quotes, manage our assets. I know about the fiduciary standard, but I'm sorry. I can't believe that someone won't try to sell me stuff I don't need if it's their living.

Saity says that if you must work with an advisor, then pay by the hour or for a plan. Maybe that is the answer, although that adds up fast too. One advisor I just checked asked $6,500 for a financial plan, which feels excessive. How many hours of work will that take them? I'm intrigued by subscription financial services where you pay a monthly or yearly fee for access and there's supposedly no selling, although I guess I wonder about the quality of advice and my suspicion of being upsold remains. Can't someone just offer some reasonably priced, unbiased, tailored financial advice?

It's also frustrating that it feels like there are no objective voices in this debate, as everyone speaking has something to gain. Sign, Suspicious in Spokane. Suspicious in Spokane has some good questions. And to help us answer them, we are joined again by Ryan Sterling, wealth advisor with NerdWallet Wealth Partners and affiliate of NerdWallet, Inc. Welcome, Ryan. Thanks for having to be back.

Thanks for having to be back. Good to be here. Hey, Ryan. You know, I think we should really get to the big question first, which is, are all financial advisors evil? And Ryan, are you evil? Okay, so are all financial advisors evil? Let's start there.

The answer is no. Not all financial advisors are evil. Shocking. Are there some questionable financial advisors? Yes, there are some questionable financial advisors, just like any industry. Am I? Are we evil? No. But I do appreciate the question. I think it's an important question. I've been in the wealth management business for two decades now, and I've seen it done really well, and I've seen it done poorly. There are a number of advisors that I trust that I would refer my family to, and there are people who I when, When they walk into room, I get to the other side as quickly as possible. So how can you tell? It's hard to tell. And, you know, we could start with the fee arrangements because, of course, that does drive incentives. It's not as clear in black and white as if someone charges on the AOM model and someone charges on the flat fee model, that the flat fee is better. I have a unique perspective here in the sense that I've tried everything.

And I can tell you why we've settled on the AUM model. Even though it's not perfect, I find it to be the best, especially for people who are in the growing wealth stage of their life. Well, I want us to get into the different fee structures in a minute and we'll talk more about assets intermanagement, which our listener referred to here. But I want to get to their concerns starting with conflicts of interest in financial planning. So can you address some of these, starting with when it makes sense for someone to have their assets managed by an advisor versus is doing it themselves when it's actually quite difficult for an advisor to, quote, quote, beat the market. So one of the things that she said that was really interesting is she goes, if it's so simple. And I always like to say, kind of like a lot of things in life, well, they're simple but not easy because they're two different things.

So I think number one is like we say this all the time that so much of this business is simple, but again, not easy. The distinction there is that everything in and of itself is very doable for people to read books, for people to watch. YouTube, so on and so forth. But actually executing it is a completely different story. And the reason it's hard as it relates to wealth is because we're emotional. And I always say that, you know, so long as human beings remain emotional, it's going to be really hard for AI to replace financial advisors. I can say, like, I've been in this business for two decades. I have an advisor. And the reason being is because when it comes to my own wealth, I'm prone to emotional decision making. And And I think that's where having an independent advisor, it's almost kind of like, why do

therapists have a therapist? And why do a therapist exists where you can read books and listen to podcasts and go to seminars? And the reason being is like, yes, you can understand all of this at a very intellectual level, but it's very different when you're trying to execute it at a very personal level. And that's where we come in to play. But so where do some of the conflicts of interest arise?

Let's talk about the AOM model first. It really comes down to, you know, we. We make more money as we manage more money. Now, some firms will say that we are aligned with our clients' best interest and that we make more if our clients make more over time. So on the one hand, some people would say, well, it actually kind of solves that conflict because we're aligned with our client's success. Other people would say, well, it just becomes an asset grab where if someone comes to us and says, hey, I'm thinking about paying down my mortgage, you know, should I? And it requires, you know, $200,000 to leave the portfolio. we're going to make less money if the person pays off their mortgage.

So are we incentivized to say, no, no, no, no, no, keep it in the account because we want more money to manage. So that's where the skeptic would come in and to say, like, that's where our incentives are. Ryan, you've mentioned AUM. That's assets under management. It's a fee structure that's pretty common in the financial planning space. And the general idea is that you have, you know, maybe a million dollars and they're being managed by a financial advisor and they're taking a small percentage. of that. And this is where it seems like our listener is pretty skeptical of how this whole thing works. Can you talk about how AUM is really structured and what the range might be and whether it's actually as bad as they maybe think it is? Yeah. So it's basically everything you just said in terms of it's a percentage of the assets that are being managed. Now, that range can be anything from as low as, call it half percent on the low end up to I've seen two or two and a half percent on the high end. It also depends on how much money. you have being managed. So typically smaller balances come with higher percentages and it scales down

over time. So that's how we're structured. So again, we're based on assets under management. The highest fee starts at 0.9 percent and that's where balances under 500,000. Once values get above 500,000, it goes down to 0.8%. And then it scales down from there. But it's important to note that, and this gets a little technical, a lot of firms, what they'll do is they'll charge, you 0.9% in the first 500,000 or so, and then 0.8% on the next 500,000. We actually have cliffs. So once someone gets above a certain asset point, everything gets charged the new lower percentage. And the reason we put those cliffs in place is actually avoid some of these conflicts of interest. So there have actually been times where clients have taken money out of their account,

and we've been completely neutral because they've gone from one fee to a higher one because their assets are lower. But on a revenue standpoint or a fee standpoint, it's actually stayed the same. So that's part of the reason we put those cliffs in place was to at least try to mitigate some of this conflict of interest. And AUM is in contrast to other fee structures like the hourly or per plan rate that they mentioned. That's how I have my financial planning firm structured or also fee based or commission based. Can you talk about how each of those works and how they kind of compare on the spectrum of evils or not compared to A1. Maybe where we can start is, like, I can tell you all of the fees structures that we've

experimented with. So the first one was doing a one-time planning fee where someone comes to you and they just want a one-time plan and it's a one-time fee, just like you would go to an attorney for a trust or any sort of kind of legal opinion or a legal document, you pay a one-time fee. And the reason that works well is because, again, there are zero upcharges, there are zero commissions, it's a very straightforward. I'm going to charge you $4,000, $5,000. This listener was quoted $6,500,000 and we're going to do a one-time plan and that's going to be it. Okay, so what are the pros and cons of that? As again, I mentioned the pros, it's very easy to

know how you're paying the advisor. The cons are, this is why we stop doing this, is that when you charge a one-time plan, at least for people who are in the wealth-building stage of their life, life is so dynamic and things change so I can build the world's best plan for you and charge you $5,000 and then two months from now that plan could be completely obsolete. It then also goes back to this being simple but not easy in that I just noticed when I was working under that fee structure that again we'd have a plan that works and here's the plan, go execute. And then I'd check in six months later and people get busy. People have lives.

They change jobs. they have young families and nothing gets done. And next thing you know, they paid $5,000 for something just that's out of a drawer. And I'm someone where like I'm very outcomes focused. And like when I work with my clients, like I want to see the transformation. And it was really hard to see where it's like, gosh, like this person paid so much money. And we built the plan for them that, you know, again, we felt was the right plan going forward. And then they just didn't execute on it.

So that was where it just became kind of like really frustrating working under that. model and I just felt that the clients that were paying us under the flat fee model weren't having the best outcomes. Okay. So then there's the hourly model and I experimented with that. And the problem with that is that people then get obsessed with hours and then they don't reach out to you because they don't want to be charged and it just becomes a very difficult kind of stream of communications because again, it's very unclear about, oh, are you charging me or not? And again, it just felt hard to execute on the plan and strategy on the hourly model. Okay, what about kind of the monthly retainer model? We were paying a flat amount per month. Okay, like there are some pros with that similar to the

flat fee model, but the issue with that is what happens is, you know, there might be three or four months where like everything is on cruise control. And then they say, I'm actually going to pause right now. And then they pause. And then next thing you know, life changes and they don't reengage you. And then they come back, you know, a year and a half later. And it's like, we have to to re-underwrite the entire plan. So that's why I was like, gosh, the people that are having the best outcomes are the ones that stick with us for a long time. And for me, the fee model that scaled the best with people over time was the assets under management. I will also say, too, there's a bit of also meeting people where they are. So for example, for clients that start

with us with $100,000, that fees $900 a year. So it was hard to charge someone $5,000 a year when they have 100,000 in investable assets. So that's where it's like, gosh, like, how can we align this over time? And that's where, again, the AUM model is it takes them to get above 500,000 before they're paying us by $1,000 a year. But at that asset level, they're better equipped to be able to spend that. So it's kind of like I went back and I was like, I don't want us to get in our client's way of building wealth. So how do we do that? And that's what we're having that percentage was the one that made the most sense.

So, Ryan, it sounds a lot like, from what I'm hearing you say, it's less about whether a financial advisor is evil or not, and more about how the fee structure fits their values and also what they want to get out of their business. Is that right? Yeah, that's right. And again, like, the evil piece, because there are conflicts, let's just, like, take a more of a global look at this. Like, there's conflicts of interest within every industries. I think about, I've had the change of that three or four times because there have been certain vets that have wanted to put my dog on. the knife faster than others, and, like, they get paid more for surgeries that they do. I think about dentists. Like, I've moved dentists a couple of times. I've been upsold in the chair so many times that it was just getting frustrating. The dentist that I have now, who doesn't upsell me, I've referred, like, 30 or 40 patients to her.

So I think about just across the board in every industry, there are conflicts of interest. So, like, to me, like, I think just because conflicts exist doesn't mean professionals are evil. Yeah, but that said, there are certain fee structures where there may be more conflicts present than others. And I'm thinking here about commission-based or fee-based. In that case, someone might be getting a commission or they are getting a commission because they're selling you that insurance product or that annuity that our listener mentioned. And that could incentivize pushing products that people simply don't need. Whereas with AUM or with fee-only or an hourly rate, there just isn't that same incentive to be directing a client

into a specific product because you're not getting any money from it. That's exactly bang on. And that's where, you know, I've stayed away from any sort of commission fee structure because once again, like, that is where I think the most conflicts do exist. Now, I will say, I'm sure there's an advisor out there who's listening, who's saying, I operate on that model and like, I'm doing what's right for my client. And I'm sure that is the case for a lot of those people. However, I think if there is a conflict that exists, that's probably with the biggest

conflict where I would get paid a commission from putting clients into a certain investment vehicle or annuity structure. And that's where, again, like, we don't have any of those types of conflicts. And again, I think it makes a lot cleaner. Just the perception of a conflict can make people feel uncomfortable. Because, like Suspicious in Spokane mentioned, you know, you can still be a fiduciary and have a conflict. But at the end of the day, as a fiduciary, you do have to put your client's interest ahead

of your own. And just because you're making a bit of money off of providing an insurance project, for them doesn't mean that you are a bad advisor. When I think about what our greatest incentive is, it's to keep clients for a long period of time. We want to have multi-decade relationships with our clients. The only way that can exist is if trust exists. And if we're consistently telling clients you take action

that benefit us only, at some point in time, there's a certain level of skepticism that's going to seep through and that trust is going to be eroded. So I think about this, there's been plenty of times that I've recommended a client take money out of their portfolio to pay down a mortgage or to pay cash for a car or whatever it may be where, yes, technically speaking, there's less money for us to manage, so we're not making as much. But it was the right thing to do for the clients. And again, it builds trust with those clients because they know, even though

we're making less now because of that move, that we recommended it because it was the right thing for the client. So again, like I look at like my biggest incentive and everyone here on the team at wealth partners, our number one incentive is to keep clients for a long period of time. Well, what can people like suspicious in Spokane, who are skeptical but maybe want to work with a financial advisor? What are some things that they can look out for? Because as a client, you don't know what you don't know, right? So they are coming to you because they have blind spots in their financial lives or portfolio. So what are some things that they can do, maybe some research on their end, to maybe look out for some evil red flags? Yeah. Well, I mean, I think,

you know, again, this isn't going to be perfect. But I think, you know, Sean referenced, like working with firms that are on the fiduciary standard. Like, again, yes, it's not going to be perfect, but that's a good first step. Looking at, you know, is the advisor you're working with, do they have a credential like the CFP? Because the CFP has really high standards. So if they're a fiduciary and they had their CFP, again, they are obligated to operate at a very high standard. And there's a duty of care to the clients that those professionals take very seriously. Now, is that 100% of the time? No. But again, you're in. inching towards the goal of finding someone that it's going to have your best interest at heart.

And then I think it's interviewing advisors and just getting a good sense of like, do they understand you? Are they listening to you? Do they know what your long-term goals and incentives are? Do they work with people who are similar to you? And ultimately, again, like, what do you pay for? Like, you're paying somebody to build the plan for a lot of people. They need help then executing on that plan. and then they need help staying accountable to that plan going forward. Is this someone that you're going to be able to work with who's going to be able to see the entire plan out in its entirety? One thing I always want to highlight when we talk about finding a good financial advisor

is that the term financial advisor isn't regulated. Any Joe Schmoe on the internet can call themselves a financial advisor. It really is having someone who is credentialed, like being a certified financial planner, professional, a CFP, someone who has that designation is held. to a certain code of conduct, which includes a fiduciary standard. So really look for those credentials as well. They referenced something about, you know, how much time does it take an advisor to do something? And I would also say, like, I don't know that's the right way to look at it.

Like, I'll just give one very quick example. So there's someone that I know who was looking for an advisor, and they had a very specific issue in that they wanted to know how many options they should exercise at the company that they work at. And they met with an advisor who charges an hourly. fee. And that person quoted them 20 hours because it was going to take a lot of time to research and execute this. And I told him, like, I can figure this out for you in 10 minutes. And I was able to pull up to spreadsheet because we have a lot of clients who have options. And I was able to do it in 10 minutes. The reason I give this example is because executing the right way could translate

into thousands of dollars saved over time. So should you just want to pay somebody, you know, $25 for 10 minutes of their time to do it? Or, again, are you paying for the expertise that even if it takes someone 10 minutes to do, they have decades of experience to be able to provide that advice to you very quickly, which saves you time and energy. But then also this person is saying, well, I'm going to have a lot of these questions over time that I don't want to be charged 20 hours every single time I have one of these questions. So I would say like the time to answer isn't necessarily the right metric. Like if I go to the doctor and I need a surgery and the surgery takes 10 minutes to do or 15 minutes to do and it's super easy. I don't want to

skimp on that, right? Like, I'm fine with the doctor paying what they have to pay. Like, I don't need to elongate it to three or four hours and have a much longer recovery to make the hourly rate go down if that makes sense. Yeah, there could be almost an incentive to make things take longer at that hourly rate, right? That's exactly what I'm getting at here. So like, I don't know that that's necessarily the best measure to judge an advisor on. Ryan, also, I think the underlying question for suspicious in Spokane here is, is a financial advisor valuable to me? Now, based on people that you've worked with, Ryan, in your almost two decades of doing this, have you met people like Suspicious in Spokane who maybe have their stuff together, are not so emotional about investing, have done

their research, and what other value do you add aside from helping them make money? Yeah, I mean, I tell people all the time that, like, you might not need us, right? Like, if you're someone who, who, you know, you're financially savvy, that, you know, you aren't prone to emotional decision making, that you're a good executor and that someone can give you a written out plan and you can execute it. Yeah, depending on where you are, like, yeah, maybe spending a couple thousand dollars for one-time plan is the right thing for you. We've directed plenty of people in that in that direction. I would say the clients that we work with are those who they know themselves and they know that life is going to get busy and life is going to evolve.

So they want somebody in their corner for the next decade plus. For me, I would say that building wealth is like anything in life, that it can take you decades to build and a couple of bad decisions to erode it. And that's where I think having somebody in your corner, I think having a professional that's along with you on the journey, that adds an enormous amount of value over time. And I think our clients, especially our clients who are long-term clients with us, they see that value.

But again, if someone's comfortable doing it on their own and they trust themselves and they're not going to be prone to those emotional decisions and they're going to be able to execute on it, you might not need an advisor or you might just need the kind of all one-time check-in every five years or so. And for someone who does want a financial advisor who isn't evil, who is competent and trustworthy, where do you think they can begin to look for that individual? Because it's not easy. There are so many advisors and you never know if they're going to be quite the right for you. Yeah, I mean, I think number one is, you know, getting personal recommendations, I think is a great place to start, especially for people who are like you and share the same level of skepticism or in the same place in life. If you have someone that's worked with someone who's been very helpful, that's probably a good place to start. Again, I think looking for people who are CFPs, looking for people who have years of experience, it's like anything. It's like, you know, when I've had to hire an attorney or hire a doctor, again, you look for credentials, you look for referrals. It's the exact same thing.

And similarly, I would add that you can have some informational and interviews with different advisors and really just get a feel for how they are in person. You might find a conversation that they have a specialty that really suits your needs or maybe they're lacking that specialty and then you can carry on and talk with someone else. But take your time with this decision too. I will say too that when we meet with prospective clients, you say, hey, like by the way, just like full transparency, I'm interviewing like four or five different advisors. I'd love hearing that. Like, yeah, you should. As people are interviewing advisors, like we also want to interview your clients. And we want people that, again, that we're going to want to work with over time. So I feel

like when someone hires us after speaking with four or five other advisors, that usually is a good sign that this is going to be a good relationship over time. And what you're saying highlights how working with a financial advisor is really a professional partnership. It's not something where you're just going in, dumping all of your info and hoping for the best. Almost like when you work with the CPA for your taxes, right? I think people assume you can just drop off all of your information and they do it all for you. The same thing isn't necessarily the case with a financial advisor. It's more of an ongoing dialogue if you're doing it in its best form. It's funny. I mean, for listeners who have heard me before, I think I use this example, almost every single interview I do,

I have a personal trainer. And again, I can go on YouTube, I can listen to health and wellness podcast, I can read books on it, and I can watch instructional videos. But like, why do I pay a trainer a couple times a week. It's because they get me to show up and they get me to just do a little bit more than I would do if luck to my own devices. And I can tell you, like, I'm the type where if I don't feel like it,

I'm probably not going to go. However, if I'm paying the trainer, I'm going to go. And I know people, like one of my colleagues here who's incredibly fit, he doesn't need a personal trainer. He knows what to do. And like, maybe he'll go in and just kind of do a session every now and then, but he doesn't need to pay one on a regular basis.

I do. So what is the verdict? Are financial advisors evil? As the non-financial advisor, no. They're not evil, but there are some financial advisors that I would stay away from, just like any industry. And I think that's just an ethics and morals and values thing versus the industry itself, right? This also opens up a conversation around what does it even mean to be evil? We can go make this a philosophy podcast if we really care to.

But just a quick wrap-up question, just in case people are still wondering what might be one, to three signs that an advisor you're working with doesn't actually have your best interest in mind. I would say if they are pushing products on you, specific products, I think that's number one. I think it's also important to understand that if they are recommending something for you, like, how are they being compensated for it? If there are questions that they're not able or willing to answer, I think that's also a red flag. So again, I would say the biggest conflicts here are what you highlighted before Sean or like, again, the people who are pushing products. So again, if you're getting that feeling that they're pushing something on you versus listening to you,

understanding your situation, and then again delivering that roadmap of what the plan's going to be and how you're going to solve this financial pain point, I would say away from it if, again, the main objective is to just push product on you. Got it. Okay. Well, Ryan Sterling, thank you so much for joining us again on Smart Money. Yeah, thanks for having me. Once again, Ryan is a wealth advisor with NerdWallet Wealth Partners.

If you're considering working with a financial planner like Ryan, then you can visit nerd wallet wealth partners.com slash smart. We're going to include a link to that site in today's episode description. And that's all we have for this episode. Remember that we're here to answer your money questions. So send them our way. You can turn to the nerds and call us or text us your questions at 901-7306373. That's 901-730 nerd.

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