{"id":4081,"date":"2014-06-11T06:00:07","date_gmt":"2014-06-11T13:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging-prblog.paladinregistry.com\/blog\/?p=4081"},"modified":"2014-06-10T18:06:36","modified_gmt":"2014-06-11T01:06:36","slug":"financial-advisor-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.paladinregistry.com\/blog\/advisors\/financial-advisor-real\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a Financial Advisor? Are they Real?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"what<\/a>One would think that the question of What is a Financial Advisor<\/a> would be easy to answer.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it is one of the most abused titles in America.\u00a0 Wall Street has turned the title into a joke because anyone can use it to sell investment and insurance products.<\/p>\n

Wall Street employs or licenses hundreds of thousands of sales representatives. And, it knows you do not want salesmen investing your assets \u2013 in particular substantial amounts of retirement assets<\/a>. How does it gain control of your retirement assets with salesmen? The answer is as simple as it is manipulative. Wall Street salesmen tell you they are financial advisors to hide their real role \u2013 selling products.<\/p>\n

How pervasive is this practice? Just a few years ago 70% of all financial planners were actually insurance agents. These sales reps used cookie-cutter financial plans to sell large amounts of insurance products to unsuspecting consumers. There was little or no sales resistance because the plan recommended the products. Consumers seemingly forgot the salesmen controlled what the plans recommended.<\/p>\n

Advice vs Recommendations<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

So What is a Financial Advisor?\u00a0 A real financial advisor provides investment advice and ongoing financial services. Salesmen use sales pitches to make sales recommendations. Not one investor I have talked to has ever known the critical difference between advice and recommendations. That\u2019s because there is no difference. Wall Street deliberately obscures the difference<\/a> so salesmen can masquerade as real financial advisors.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Types of Financial Advisory Services<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are four primary types of financial services. A financial advisor may provide one of the services or all of the services. Or, the advisor is part of a team that provides the services. For example, an advisor provides planning and investment services and a local CPA provides tax advice and services. The four types of financial services include:<\/p>\n