Let’s rap about what passes for financial advice these days.
11 years ago, yours unruly stepped foot into the offices of one of the largest life insurance companies in the U.S. They owned several brokerage firms too…meaning they had a hugemungous array of investments at their disposal.
When I started in this biz, I was placed under the wing of 2 certified financial planners, an investment advisor, and a stockbroker.
I “shadowed” folks for months before selling anything on my own.
I learned a lot of “great” financial ideas too. Oh…we gave out lots and lots and lots of financial advice. Some paid. Some free.
When I left the firm to go out on my own, I spent several years doing my own research, building financial calculators, reading, and compiling data.
Long story short, a lot of the stuff I learned from the firm was bunk. Complete waste of time.
More:
Some of it probably cost clients money. A lot of money.
Here’s what I mean…
These financial planners would tell people things like:
- Pay off all your debts before you start saving money.
- Make a budget and track all your expenses.
- Diversify your investments to reduce risk.
- Use retirement plans to defer taxes.
- Make a financial plan and revise it every year.
- Shop for the lowest rates on insurance and loans.
- And so on…
All told, I think these CFPs were teaching me to teach clients to throw away hundreds of hours of the client’s time, waste at least $100,000 of very real money on strategies that don’t work over the long-term…and ten charge clients a fee for the privilege.
I’ll be covering a few of these pieces of bad advice (like the “debt is bad” myth that’s floating all over the Interwebs) on my upcoming webinar.
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