How to Find the Right Financial Planner in Canada | Ep. 46

Choosing a financial planner shouldn’t feel like throwing darts at a board and hoping for a bullseye. In this episode, Tré breaks down how to find an advisor who actually fits your needs, not just someone with a title and a sales target. He explains why CFP certification is the minimum standard, why insurance-only licensing is a red flag, and why your stage of life or business matters more than most people realize.

You’ll hear how to vet an advisor properly, what questions to ask before sharing your financial details, and why the best planner for you is usually someone who already works with people in a situation like yours. This episode is especially useful for Canadian professionals, business owners, and anyone serious about making smarter financial decisions.

What listeners will learn

• Why CFP credentials should be the baseline
• How to spot red flags in financial advice
• Which type of planner fits your stage of life or business
• What questions to ask in an advisor interview
• Why investment philosophy and values matter
• How to avoid becoming the wrong-fit client

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Transcript

Tre 0:00

Have you ever felt overwhelmed because you just don't know who to trust? There's tons of planners. Maybe it's very difficult to find the difference between or to see the difference between all of them in this episode we'll look at how to find a financial planner that will work well with you. My name is Tre. I'm a financial planner of TCU Wealth Management and Aviso Wealth. For more details, or to send in your questions, check out the show notes, trebyoe.ca/podcast or start with episodes one and two. It's been a while since we recorded an episode. Weird. I was just

Sierra 0:31

gonna say, I'm like, do I feel rusty or what? Like, I don't know. Maybe

Tre 0:36

a little, I dunno.

Sierra 0:37

It feels strange now. It's been over a month.

Tre 0:40

Yeah, it's been a while, but. Get back into it. So this, this episode is, yeah, a lot of people have, F have found that it's difficult to find a financial planner that works well with them. So I kind of wanted to go through a few things of what people would be looking for and kind of get maybe your idea of what you would be looking for in a planner from a outside the industry point of view. Uh, the first few things I will say when, like, if you're serious about finances. There is a few bare minimum things that I would want in to work with a financial planner. What do you think some of those are?

Sierra 1:21

CFP credentials.

Tre 1:23

Yeah,

Sierra 1:23

for sure.

Tre 1:23

So that's the certified financial planning designation. It's the, some people call it the gold standard in, in Canada. I would refer to it as the floor of of what I am, uh, of, I'm willing to, to work with. There are a lot of people out there that, uh, offer it. Financial advice that have no business offering financial advice, typically.

Sierra 1:47

This is what I hate.

Tre 1:48

Yeah. Typically they're gonna be salespeople inside of banks and things like that.

Sierra 1:53

Yeah.

Tre 1:53

It's just that the, the advice is very geared either towards what the bank wants them to learn and to understand and to know, or it's geared towards meeting sales targets. Mm-hmm. Um, which is just very different than what the type of advice that you actually want, if you're serious about. Doing something significant with, with finances. Yeah. And a lot of people don't realize it or realize that there's other options until not it's too late. I don't wanna say it's till it's too late, but till mistakes have already, till you've already fell into that trap. Mm-hmm.

Sierra 2:27

Um,

Tre 2:29

yeah. A big dead giveaway is if you are working at an institution and you open up your statement and what you're invested in has said institution's name in it. in it. it, Probably a good indication that you want to look somewhere else

Sierra 2:42

or at least like a little bit of a red flag maybe.

Tre 2:44

Yeah. Well I just can't think of an everywhere. It's not, I would wanna look somewhere else. Like you work, like you, if you're an investors group and you open your, and it's just investors group mutual funds at two point a half percent. Person's not, doesn't have your best interests at heart, right? Yeah. Like they might think they do, but they don't. But anyway, I'm getting sidetracked. Yeah. Okay. So that's one of them is the CFP is the bare minimum.

Sierra 3:07

Yeah.

Tre 3:08

What else do you think I would have as,

Sierra 3:13

is it, gimme a hint? Is it a qualification

Tre 3:17

kind of. It's more of a,

Sierra 3:19

sorry. I keep like kind losing my voice. We're both, we're all sick right now.

Tre 3:23

Yeah.

Sierra 3:23

And I'm like, oh my goodness. We haven't done a podcast in so long and. Yet here we are.

Tre 3:30

Um, I, I wouldn't say it's a qualification, it's more of a licensing

Sierra 3:35

sim.

Tre 3:36

No, not quite. Um, I wouldn't work with somebody that was just insurance licensed

Sierra 3:41

Ah, Ah, IIROC.

Tre 3:44

Is the name of an old regulator. Yes. Um, but you wanna make sure that

Sierra 3:49

the Bank of Canada, just kidding, I'm just throwing out random

Tre 3:52

stuff. Sorry. No. Um, that you just wanna make sure that the person that you're dealing with isn't just insurance licensed.

Sierra 3:57

Right.

Tre 3:57

cause if all you have is a hammer, everything is an nail.

Sierra 4:01

Mm-hmm.

Tre 4:01

So funnily enough, you will find, they'll find insurance solutions. I've seen insurance solutions pitched for everything.

Sierra 4:08

Yeah.

Tre 4:09

Kids' education. Insurance hold that policy. Borrow against it debt. Great. No,

Sierra 4:14

you should insure everything. You should insure your insurance. Is that a thing? I don't even know.

Tre 4:21

No, no, it's not. No. Um, yeah. Okay. So,

Sierra 4:25

so that's, so be a CFP don't only be licensed in insurance, but if they are licensed in insurance as well, that's like another tool that they can use. Yeah,

Tre 4:35

Absolutely. That, that's fine. It's just that there is a type of. of, Honestly, most of them will be weeded out by the CFP requirements, but there's companies out there that hire financial advisors en masse, get I they insurance licensed. I

Sierra 4:52

I know the company, I know the exact

Tre 4:53

company. There's, there's multiple, there's a few of them and they're very predatory. Um, yeah. And they, unfortunately, a lot of it is on people that lack financial literacy. So they prey on those people. Very bad, but

Sierra 5:07

yeah.

Tre 5:07

So that's what I'd say off the bat, those two people Out. Um, okay, so first thing that you need to understand is the type of expertise that you need as a, as a client. Okay? That's a really important thing when you're looking for advisors. Just like every other industry, not every advisor is, they're not all made equal. Mm-hmm. They don't all share the same skillset. Um. Depending on what you need should dictate what type of planner that you are working with.

Sierra 5:40

Okay. Wait time, time out for a second. Is there like, okay, so let's say someone is actually looking right now or is considering looking for an advisor. How would they, S how would they start that search, if that makes sense? Like you're just gonna go into Google and

Tre 5:59

No, they start the search by figuring out what they need.

Sierra 6:03

Okay, so we're starting at that step.

Tre 6:05

Yeah.

Sierra 6:05

Okay.

Tre 6:06

So, Hey, I'm Joe Blow. I need financial advice. I know I'm struggling with something. What am I struggling with, right?

Sierra 6:12

Mm-hmm.

Tre 6:13

If I'm struggling with retirement planning, that's very different than if I'm struggling with exiting a business. Tax efficiently. Tax efficiently. Mm-hmm. Right. Very different. Very, very different skill sets. Almost every CFP that you run into will be proficient at basic retirement planning. So if you are the type of person that you're a salaried individual, uh, with like a defined contribution pension plan, so where you put in, the company's put in, you have a big lump sum, that's the majority of Canadians. You basically, if you go to a CFP. Yeah, If you go to a CFP, you're probably gonna be okay.

Sierra 6:56

Yeah,

Tre 6:56

right. Uh, but then there's the other group of people that, where it gets a lot more complicated. So understanding what you actually need is important. Okay.

Sierra 7:05

Mm-hmm.

Tre 7:05

So, and I have, I listed a few different, I said like six different categories or so. So the first one I would say is you're just start, you're just starting out in. In life. Um, important thing about this category is this is the category that is shuttled into the, the branch level bank advice where,

Sierra 7:29

well, that's what I was gonna ask. Are you talking about like just starting out in life, like I'm going to school or I just finished

Tre 7:34

school and Yeah. So the people that put you on a trajectory, it's worth it. If your parents are gonna buy you one thing, um, it's worth it to. Book time with an actual planner because the where you start will be the trajectory that you, that you, that's the trajectory that you head down. Uh, the amount of people that I have met that they were put into typical one as RSP, you're told, put money away into RSPs when you're young. And they'd be doing the same thing into a variable like a high interest savings account type RSP. And they've been doing it for 15 years and it just, they've been doing it religiously 15 years. It hasn't grown. It grows at 1% a year.

Sierra 8:15

Yeah.

Tre 8:15

It's a very different trajectory than if they had sat down with somebody that actually was experienced enough to push them where they needed to be pushed to push them onto the right trajectory. Right. And then you could have left it for 15 years and maybe it wouldn't be perfect, but at least you are on the right trajectory.

Sierra 8:32

Yes.

Tre 8:33

Right. So I would say, even though I know that, because that's the group of people that will kind of get brushed off by, unfortunately, every. The vast majority of planners, um, especially depending on how they, they, if they don't have an hourly service or anything like that

Sierra 8:48

mm-hmm.

Tre 8:49

It's just, it's frankly not worth the time. Like it's, it's,

Sierra 8:53

yeah, that's what I was

Tre 8:54

gonna say. It's business, right? Like, it's just, it's unfortunately not worth the time for a lot of them to do, to do the work. So therefore, if they don't have an hourly just to be able to pay them, which is why I very, I think everybody should do at least some hourly work just so people have an option.

Sierra 9:08

Yeah.

Tre 9:08

cause I get the business side of things, but. If Somebody just wants to cover their time. There's a lot of value there. As an, as a experienced planner, you can give to somebody in an hour, two hours of your time, you can set them on the right course and give them hundreds of thousands of dollars more in their life just can you copy the layout of scene 3 and paste it for all scenes after 170?can you copy the layout of scene 3 and paste it for all scenes after 170? By spending that time with them. So yeah, starting out as best category. Uh, second category is salaried people. Typical defined contribution plan. Third salaried person with a defined benefit pension plan. Mm-hmm. So that's the one where it is guaranteed for life.

Sierra 9:56

Yep.

Tre 9:56

You can you copy the layout of scene 3 and paste it for all scenes after 170?can you copy the layout of scene 3 and paste it for all scenes after 170? Handle those two things very differently. So

Sierra 10:11

that was the, the teacher one.

Tre 10:12

Teachers are like that. There's a lot of federal, um, pensions that are like that. There's lot, there's lots that are different like that, but it is a different, the way that you plan around it for retirement is different. Okay. Uh, and there are some pitfalls there. So I would say if you're working with a planner that doesn't have any experience with can you copy the layout of scene 3 and paste it for all scenes after 170?can you copy the layout of scene 3 and paste it for all scenes after 170? That, that is an area that. If you'd want to work with somebody that has experience with that type of pensions. Um, but again, most CFPs, if you're dealing with somebody that's 10 years into their career or so, will get that experience somehow you should be pretty safe.

Sierra 10:56

Yeah. Yeah.

Tre 10:57

Uh, salaried with a corporation. So this would be like a lawyer or an like an accountant where you're buying into a firm, so you have a salary and then you have a corporation on the side. Maybe you've bought shares or you're going down that path. This is where the complexity starts to rack up very quickly. This is where, this is the point where you definitely want to be making sure you're working with somebody that has experience in this area and can demonstrate their experience in this area. Sole proprietors. Starting a business.

Sierra 11:28

Yep.

Tre 11:28

Again, can you copy the layout of scene 3 and paste it for all scenes after 170?can you copy the layout of scene 3 and paste it for all scenes after 170? Very different. Very cool tax rules and stuff that you can apply.

Sierra 11:45

Cool.

Tre 11:45

If you get,

Sierra 11:47

sorry, I just had to,

Tre 11:49

if you get a good planner during this phase of your life, it can be, it can snowball way beyond a lot of others because of the tax side of being a sole proprietor.

Sierra 12:02

So if you're starting a business and you're looking for a financial planner. That could also mean the difference between like saving a lot of money basically. Or earning a lot of money.

Tre 12:13

Yeah. Paying a lot more money in taxes and things like that.

Sierra 12:16

Right. Bet you everyone paused there.

Tre 12:18

Taxes. Yeah, but exactly. But that's the difference. This is where you start to see, um, I would say you're now in the area that the majority of typical financial planners are out of their comfort zone.

Sierra 12:32

Yeah.

Tre 12:34

Uh, Okay. Then you have a business owner. So you own a corporation. Everything runs through the corporation. Your business, you have the full choice about how much dividends, salary, all of that stuff that you take. Definitely outside of most people's, um, most advisors comfort zone. So I'd say for the first few, you're probably okay with just a CFP that has, has some experience. After that, you need to. Be vetting them a lot more, a lot more carefully.

Sierra 13:03

Yep.

Tre 13:04

Okay,

Sierra 13:04

So then step one is, okay, who am I in those categories sort of thing.

Tre 13:08

Yeah.

Sierra 13:09

Oh yeah. Keep going.'cause I'm, I'm about to ask questions in here and be like, okay, just hang on'cause I love to jump ahead.

Tre 13:15

Okay. Step two, once you kind of realize who your, who your category is, is, uh, you should ask friends and family for, for their opinions. For sure. I would say you should now go and interview no more than five. Um, the issue with dealing, unless you're very confident with personal finances yourself, everything starts to sound the same and kind of merges.

Sierra 13:46

Yeah. So, and you're trying to remember what this guy said. Yeah. Does that make sense to this thing and

Tre 13:50

all of that stuff, right. Yeah. And it's just, it's very difficult to do. Um. Also, you should probably understand the tiers of wealth management and financial planning as well. That if you have over$500,000, it opens up a lot more doors for firms that will be willing to take you on as a client.

Sierra 14:10

Okay, so wait, pause. What does that mean exactly?

Tre 14:13

Uh, so if you have over$500,000 in assets to invest,

Sierra 14:17

right?

Tre 14:18

So you're either like investible assets.

Sierra 14:21

So that's not like your house and your No. You gotta have the, the cash.

Tre 14:27

The cash, yeah.

Sierra 14:28

Yeah. To invest.

Tre 14:30

Yeah. It opens up a lot more doors for sure. Yeah, because now you're at the point in that most, most experienced advisors are now passed to that point of their minimum is around that range. Um, a lot of very good firms around the country. That's their minimum. Unfortunately, it's just very difficult to run a practice. The amount of work that goes into each client.

Sierra 14:52

Mm-hmm.

Tre 14:53

With less than that. So either it's gonna be very expensive or you are looking for, you're looking to make, be very good friends with the person. that'll take you on. Um,

Sierra 15:05

all of a sudden your dms are like filling

Tre 15:08

No, no, no.

Sierra 15:10

My bestie, Tre.

Tre 15:11

Yeah. Uh, and then again, another, another now over like one to one and a half million dollars. Again, there's very few firms that you couldn't work with. Yeah. Over 10. You're looking at private family offices and things like that. Um, again, there's pros and cons to all of it, but,

Sierra 15:32

but that kind of, it, it's, yeah, it probably goes both ways because once you have that much in assets, everybody wants you to be their client.

Tre 15:41

Mm-hmm.

Sierra 15:42

Like all the advisors are like, oh yeah, I'll take you on, no problem.

Tre 15:45

But then it gets even more careful the way that you bet. Them would have to adjust for that.

Sierra 15:51

You'd have, you'd have to take on a lot more of that, like research and knowing all that stuff.

Tre 15:57

But you also have access, so at that point you could be asking other professionals for their recommendations. That's

Sierra 16:04

true. Yeah, that's true.

Tre 16:05

Right? So So there's pros. There's pros and cons to it all. But,

Sierra 16:09

and I guess people in your, in like I almost said industry, but I mean like your. I'm gonna say this, and I hate the word because it makes me sound like so jargony, but I'm like in your orbit, like social. I know I'm cringing. Ew. Don't hold that one against me.

Tre 16:31

Would you just say you have to finish this?

Sierra 16:32

Just if they, like, if they're in your social class, like you're at an event, something

Tre 16:37

social class.

Sierra 16:40

Okay. I'm sorry, I don't have$10 million of investible assets right now, but I don't know what they call it. They're, oh, my friend Bill Gates, like, I don't know,

Tre 16:50

bill. You take your idea of, of money. Okay.

Sierra 16:55

Like, where's the shovel?

Tre 16:56

Yeah. He has a little bit more than 10 million. Let's,$10 million is like, I had a big farm, like I had a big farm. I had a big business and sold it. Right? Like it's, it's a more money than damaged person. Whatever.

Sierra 17:10

Yeah.

Tre 17:11

Spend.

Sierra 17:11

It's funny'cause you're probably like, it is a lot of money, but then you're like, but I also know a few people who have that money. You know, like it's,

Tre 17:19

and they're normal people, right? It's not a, I dunno, that's a different topic anyway.

Sierra 17:25

Yeah.

Tre 17:25

Um, so yeah, ask around. But when you're interviewing people, there are a few things that you, you want to know. I would strongly recommend that you get. Them to provide clients or ask them to have clients reach out to them, to to talk to them, talk to existing clients.

Sierra 17:48

Oh, Oh, that's interesting.

Tre 17:51

Yeah. Um.

Sierra 17:54

well, It does make sense.

Tre 17:55

Yeah, absolutely.

Sierra 17:56

But it would just be kind of a strange, like Yeah, you'd have to get their permission, like you said, right?

Tre 18:00

Yeah. You can't just, cannot. I can't, but, but I've had to speak people, like hand their information. No.

Sierra 18:04

Here

Tre 18:04

is their phone number. Motivation. But I've had people that, they've been looking for an advisor, they've been interviewing various firms.

Sierra 18:11

Yeah.

Tre 18:12

Um, and one of the things, yeah, it's, it's a very good thing for then I'll go to the said clients, they'll be like, do you have any clients that are in this, in this similar type of situation to me? I'll say, yes, I'll go talk to said clients and ask their permission to share information and then they can have that conversation. Right, and just

Sierra 18:31

mm-hmm. Right.

Tre 18:32

I, I think, I do think that is a good way to

Sierra 18:35

Oh, yeah.

Tre 18:35

Good way to approach it.

Sierra 18:36

Because you, it's almost like a job interview sort of thing where you're like, what, what are your references? Right? Yeah. Basically, but, but your clients don't really have any. They would be totally brutally honest and you'd never be like, you wouldn't know,

Tre 18:51

right?

Sierra 18:52

You'd never be the wiser. So yeah, it's kind of interesting.

Tre 18:55

I think it's a, it's a really good idea to do. Uh, the other thing that I would recommend you do is understand what they stand for. So this is something that

Sierra 19:07

when you say the, the advisor,

Tre 19:08

the advisor, you're looking for advisor. So this is something that is really difficult to explain. If you have very low financial literacy, but you've heard the saying, there's more than one way to skin a cat. Um,

Sierra 19:23

I made that

Tre 19:25

up by

Sierra 19:25

the way,

Tre 19:26

but I, uh, but it, it's also true when it comes to financial planning and you need to pick somebody that has very similar values to what you have.

Sierra 19:39

I almost wanna be like, I know a way that you could easily do that if the world just operated the way I want it to work. Do you know what I'm thinking?

Tre 19:46

You're thinking of MBTI or something?

Sierra 19:49

Yeah. Well,

Tre 19:49

uh, I would say, I would say more than that, I would say because there's, because there's so many different ways to invest, for instance.

Sierra 19:55

Yeah.

Tre 19:56

Right. So for instance, for me, I'm very heavily about, um, the data. Like what does, what does the numbers say? We make good. Statistically high chance decisions, right? And we focus on other areas that where we can add a ton of value. One of them isn't trying to pick stocks and trying to guess what the market is doing. Mm-hmm. But we have so much data that we know we have very, very good chance of being. Right. If we do said path and the risk of being wrong on other said, paths. Paths. While they might look like they might be better off in the short term. Over the long term, it is unlikely to be the case.

Sierra 20:37

Mm-hmm.

Tre 20:37

So I have a very strict investment philosophy. If you are talking to, in an interviewing advisors and things like that, and they cannot tell you what their investment philosophy is, it's a red flag for me. Mm-hmm. If they cannot tell you how they run a retirement, if that's what you're there for, it's a red flag for me. They, they should be able to answer those type of questions and explain what they. What their investment philosophy, what their planning philosophy is, right? Mm-hmm. Um,

Sierra 21:07

so what would you recommend, like, I'm just trying to make it, I'm thinking about it from a listener point of view. Of course. How would you recommend the steps? So you're like, okay, I'm a sorry again. Um, I'm a salaried individual. Um, I have 300 K in investible assets. Um. How is there, like, I guess is there a way to search up like a list of CFPs in your area or

Tre 21:38

whatever? Yeah, so you can go to the CFP website.

Sierra 21:41

Okay.

Tre 21:41

So FP Canada, um.

Sierra 21:46

Because you don't wanna just start Googling and now I'm thinking, oh, I guess there is like ChatGPT, but you don't have to vet that after. But you could be, you could put your criteria and see what it spits out.

Tre 21:56

Yeah. Yeah. But FP Canada, there's a planner directory is what it's called.

Sierra 22:01

Okay.

Tre 22:01

Um, and then you can pick the, so CFP certification. There's two. There's QAFP and CFP. QAFP is like the younger brother certification to the CFP. So it's like the intermediate CFP. So why would you,

Sierra 22:18

why want that when you could have have it all?

Tre 22:23

Yeah. You know, I just, yeah. I dunno why you, Yeah,

Sierra 22:26

someone went through all that work to be like subpar. That sounds, maybe that's really offensive. I don

Tre 22:31

dunno. It's your, I, I, I get it. It's your, it's your money. Ultimately the decisions that this advisor says and how they steer you is going to determine whether you meet your goals or not. Like that is a big responsibility. So I, I do get the whole, you need, like, there are people that need to grow in the industry and things like that. And ultimately, if you are not able to, if you don't have big enough goals or, or enough complexity to. Uh, to work with somebody that, you know, has been in the industry for 30 plus years or whatever it is. That's perfect. Pure scenario. there. There needs to be a, there needs to be an education program, and that's what the QAFP is. It's on, they're on the path to

Sierra 23:18

Yeah.

Tre 23:18

Nobody's gonna stop it. Stop it.

Sierra 23:21

They're like done.

Tre 23:23

Um,

Sierra 23:23

yeah, for sure.

Tre 23:24

But yeah, so looking at, looking at Saskatoon for instance, there's, there's tons. There's. I mean,

Sierra 23:32

there's a lot of pages. Oh,

Tre 23:34

well this is in Saskatchewan. This is like Alberta and all sorts, but like the first,

Sierra 23:38

oh, so it's in Canada?

Tre 23:40

Yeah.

Sierra 23:41

Not Sask.

Tre 23:44

I think I put 50 plus kilometers away from Saskatoon. Let's change that to five. Much better. better.

Sierra 23:56

Still quite a few though. I've still

Tre 23:57

got a few.

Sierra 23:59

Either way. Okay. So you'd start

Tre 24:00

Yeah. Point.

Sierra 24:01

You could look there then, you know. Okay. You could look there. These guys are definitely certified.

Tre 24:05

Yeah. They have their CFP. You could look at, um, you could Google it, you could look online, ask friends, go to your bro bank. Right. And ask, ask them to, to talk to people. Like you can find these type of individuals almost everywhere. Like it's not, it's not difficult to.

Sierra 24:25

Yeah.

Tre 24:25

Fine to them.

Sierra 24:26

Yeah.

Tre 24:27

Um,

Sierra 24:27

and I know every, like, a lot of people will be like, yeah, this is basic. Like, I don't, but I'm just trying to give like little tips for some people who might be Yeah. Wanting that, I guess. Mm-hmm. I'm just thinking of it from that point of view. Um, so then, okay, you've got a couple, like a handful of people that you're kind of. of. Thinking of.

Tre 24:47

Yeah. Then

Sierra 24:47

so

Tre 24:47

you've looked them up, you've looked at their socials, you've looked at their website. Their website. You know, you've done yours,

Sierra 24:52

read

Tre 24:53

the

Sierra 24:53

Google reviews and all that. Yeah.

Tre 24:55

Yeah. So you're like, okay, I want to reach out to this individual.

Sierra 24:58

You book like the 15 minute or whatever? Intro.

Tre 25:02

Intro call. Yeah, intro call.

Sierra 25:03

And what do, okay, so, but then this is the part where I was gonna stop you. So what do you ask them? Are there specific types of questions that you would recommend asking?

Tre 25:14

Yep. So ask them what the ones I just mentioned. So ask them, you should probably at this point know if that they have a CFP, but ask them that. Ask them how they're licensed. Ask them what their typical, the typical people that they work with is. Um, and I would ask'em this information before you share information about exactly who you are and what you are looking for

Sierra 25:37

to kind of start, maybe a tip would be to kind of, you're in control of the call, so they might try to be like. Hi, thanks for booking this 15 minute call. Like I'm gonna start by getting some information. I'm totally just making this up by the way. I'm just thinking that would be the way it would go. And you almost have to kind of flip it around

Tre 25:55

just still interviewing, right? You're just interviewing, know that you're looking for an advisor and

Sierra 26:00

Yeah, I'm interviewing lots of advisors and lots. I'm interviewing advisors to try to find somebody who would be a good fit for me. I just have a couple of questions before we.

Tre 26:10

Ask them what their fee structure is. Ask them.

Sierra 26:13

Yeah.

Tre 26:13

Those basic stuff. Um,

Sierra 26:14

so fees. Oh, and then you said investment philosophy as well.

Tre 26:17

Yeah. Ask them their investment philosophy is ask them what their typical client is that they work with.

Sierra 26:22

That's a good one. Yeah.

Tre 26:24

cause you want that type of information. Uh, they're not gonna, if you then ask for references, they're not gonna references at that point. That'd be insane. Uh, why so be, because imagine like, if I gave references to everybody that I spoke to about. About my services, it would just, it would be too many and I'd be asking my'cause it would be my best clients. That your

Sierra 26:45

clients would just be on the

Tre 26:46

phone, on the phone all the times talking about Tre's, What,

Sierra 26:50

your hype

Tre 26:50

men, what it's like to work with me now. So it would be, I would provide references after we went through the second or third meeting. Right, where they're, yeah, like we've actually met because they advise us they will need all of your information. Right. At some point you will have to provide. Your tax returns, you'd have to provide all your statements. They'll need a, a good idea of your whole financial picture. They'll talk about goals kind of to get better idea of exactly what, um, exactly what you need, exactly how they can help. And a good advisor will also tell you if you're not the right fit for them.

Sierra 27:28

Yeah.

Tre 27:28

Because that's, that's the case. That's, um, where it's a case of, but they might be able to help you find somebody. That is,

Sierra 27:35

that's what I was gonna say, like maybe they. It doesn't necessarily mean there's anything wrong. It just means like, no,

Tre 27:42

it's just

Sierra 27:42

that you don't, oh, this is not my skillset. Or I know someone who specializes in this area

Tre 27:48

Absolutely. Right. And people, people often, like, they might get a little hurt being like, okay, I'm not good enough, or something like that. It, that's not the case at all. It's just that you wouldn't, if you was a foot surgeon, you could work on hands. I'm sure you could, but. The area that you work on is feet. So you do all the feet surgeries and somebody else can do all the hand surgeries, right? Yeah. Like, it doesn't mean that you couldn't do the job. It's just, it's gonna be better for everybody if I stick to feet and I find you a hand surgeon that I trust, right?

Sierra 28:22

Yeah.

Tre 28:22

Because a lot of the, a lot of advisors, we know a lot of, a lot of other advisors, right. Especially, um. Especially in my circle, just with, so I'm also part of an organization called FPAC, which is like a financial planning association in Canada where basically to join you have to sign a fiduciary pledge. Right.

Sierra 28:43

Okay. That's, yes. Sorry, I did wanna mention that as another, like is that something you would recommend?

Tre 28:48

Absolutely.

Sierra 28:49

And what is a fiduciary?

Tre 28:51

So I would recommend people actually start with FPAC. Um, if you Google it, it's FPAC. Uh, Canada. Yeah. And they have a directory on there, and it's basically, they're all very, very likely gonna be CFPs, um, like I certified financial planners, but they've signed on to be held to a higher standard. So fiduciary duty is basically, they are promising to put the client's interests above everything else so that if. No matter what. So even if it's their own company or like their company is being pushed towards a certain, to be using certain things or whatever it is. Like if you go to, I, I feel like I'm picking on Investors' Group a little bit, but if you go to Investors' Group, pick

Sierra 29:40

somebody else,

Tre 29:40

Investors' Group is gonna want you to be buying Investors' Group mutual funds because that's, and that's what they train their advisors Yeah. To do. And they tell them that it's the best thing ever. And it's not until, for some advisors, not until they get out of that world, do they realize that they were being misled. So it's not necessarily just about the, it's not like the advisors are bad people. It's just sometimes the company does a really good job and has lots and lots of years of experience kind of pushing their advisors down a said route.

Sierra 30:10

Yeah.

Tre 30:10

If they're part of Fpac, you're you. I can guarantee you that their world is bigger than. Just the organization that they're part of,

Sierra 30:18

right.

Tre 30:19

cause they're getting, like, it's very dedicated to education. So improving the quality of financial planning. We do a lot of, um, a lot of talking with the governments for regulatory changes and things like that. It's a great organization that is somewhere that I would say yes would be a great place to start with when you're looking for a financial plan. Just because of this, the elevated standard

Sierra 30:46

Yeah.

Tre 30:46

That you're dealing with,

Sierra 30:47

because I just wanna say you have, as an advisor, you have to opt into that. Correct?

Tre 30:53

Yeah.

Sierra 30:53

Yeah. So that gives you a really good idea of that. Advisor's like, uh, what did you call it? You said something earlier. Basically their values. Yeah. Their morals and values. Why would, why would someone go through all that trouble to opt in to be, to sign this?

Tre 31:12

But it's not just that it's, there's a bunch of education there. It's like, it's uh, it's community. They're putting community of, so community advisors that instead of, if I need help with something, like I come across an issue that I have never seen before, that's where I'm going. Right? Yeah. And I get the ability to ask. Thousands of other advisors across Canada, Hey, who has dealt with this scenario?

Sierra 31:33

That's cool. Yeah.

Tre 31:34

Right. And there's, and when I was talking about like there's a hand specialist or a foot specialist and things like that, there are specialists there that deals purely with, uh,

Sierra 31:43

like the thumb on the hand.

Tre 31:44

Yeah. Basically

Sierra 31:46

the thumb fingernail. It's

Tre 31:46

like if I, if I have a question about US Tax Treaty, Canadian US Tax Treaty, I know exactly who I'm gonna go to because it's what she does every single day of. That's, that is her career. Is that so actually that as well. So, yeah. Anyway, uh, we tried. No, we tried. Yeah. Uh, so what was I saying?

Sierra 32:11

US treaty girl, she does that every day.

Tre 32:13

Yeah. So, sorry, the, so the. You find the person, you then ask them these questions you interview? I would say no more than five. Like our team say five is probably too many. Like three to five people.

Sierra 32:24

Yeah.

Tre 32:24

And you pick one and you listen to them.

Sierra 32:29

Why?

Tre 32:29

Because you are adopting. That's why it's, it is an important decision to make.'cause you were basically adopting their way of doing things. Yeah. I'm telling you right now, if you are the one client that they have that wants to do things a different way, you are the client that is going to get forgotten about.

Sierra 32:46

You are gonna get booted. Maybe

Tre 32:48

it's just Well, or you're gonna get subpar, subpar, uh, results.

Sierra 32:56

Yeah.

Tre 32:56

Because it's not how the advisor is probably investing their own money. It's not how the advisor is recommending their mother invest their money. Right. And if the client, if that advisor has a hundred households and 99 of them are invested one way. And you're invested this way, or your planning is slightly different in this way, you are the one that they're not gonna spend the time on because, because of everything. So it is an important decision. Don't feel bad if the advisor is saying it's not a good fit. You'll find a good, there is somebody for you, I promise you. Yeah. And the last thing you want is to be the smallest client for. For an advisor, it's the last thing that you want. Um, you want the advisor to be working with other people like you so that they're in the world of your problems. If you're a farmer and you're the only farming client that this advisor has, they're not gonna know the issues that are coming up with farmers.

Sierra 33:57

Yeah.

Tre 33:57

Because when they're, when they're meeting with all their other clients, they're not talking about farming issues. Yeah. They're talking about. Medical issues in the, in the hospital or that, the, whatever it is. Yeah. So you don't want, you want somebody that is working with other people like, like you.

Sierra 34:14

I feel like sometimes clients or people want to feel special and unique, but in this situation it's not what you want. It is not what you want. The world. You wanna be the same as everybody else they're

Tre 34:25

working with. Yeah. The world of personal finance is so big that it is impossible for me to know everything. About every area.

Sierra 34:34

Mm-hmm.

Tre 34:34

It's just, it's just not, it's not feasible, it's not possible. But a, there are certain areas that I know a lot about, and it's like if that individual is operating in those areas, very little, if anything, will slip through the cracks.

Sierra 34:48

Yeah.

Tre 34:49

But when it's an area that you know, I know absolutely nothing about, or it is very possible that it could. Right. Like, for example, I don't have any Ontario. Doctors, I don't have a clue what's going on with Ontario doctors. I don't have a clue. I don't know what they're dealing with on their, how their, how their personal plans at work is changing. I don't know what their. Provincial government is doing about healthcare. I'm nothing about, I don't, I don't care to know about it. Right? So if you are an Ontario doctor listening to this, I am not your guy.

Sierra 35:27

Yeah.

Tre 35:27

I'm not your guy at all.

Sierra 35:29

But maybe you know someone.

Tre 35:30

But I do know somebody. Yes. I can say, say, can put you in the right direction on the person. That would be your person for that. Yeah. Right? So just find the person that is right for right for you. That being said, if you are an engineer. That's, and Saskatchewan, that's my

Sierra 35:46

person, and that's why I made that small little comment that no one probably picked up on about MBTI. But I don't like saying MBT. I like to know how people think and make decisions, is a better way to put it. Because once you know how someone thinks and makes decisions, you can put. Categorize them easier.

Tre 36:07

We don't belong in a box

Sierra 36:08

and everybody can fit into a box, a special and individually unique box.

Tre 36:14

It makes a big box of lots of other boxes. Yeah.

Sierra 36:18

I won't go down that road.

Tre 36:19

No.

Sierra 36:19

This isn't the MBTI Sears podcast.

Tre 36:23

Absolutely not

Sierra 36:23

link below. Just kidding. Sorry.

Tre 36:27

Okay. Um. So, yeah. So once you, once you find out and pick the person and, and work with the person basically. Yeah. Uh, there is something else that you should understand as well. And that is this all set advisors into very different boxes and that's what they are optimizing for.

Sierra 36:45

Okay. Yeah.

Tre 36:45

There is a very, there's very different way that you approach retirement planning to your approaching wealth creation. It is two very different, we've spoken about this, this kind of before, but, and a planner that spends their entire time trying to have their clients not run out of money in retirement if, which is great.

Sierra 37:08

Okay.

Tre 37:08

If you are, I

Sierra 37:09

was going saying, I'm like, is that a bad thing?

Tre 37:11

No. Right. Why would that be a bad thing? It's a bad thing if the chance of you running out of retire money in retirement is extremely low.

Sierra 37:21

Yeah. Okay.

Tre 37:22

That's what I was thinking.

Sierra 37:23

cause now,

Tre 37:23

now they're making decisions from a lens of, okay, well, dying with more money is better. Uh, make the conservative option. Pick the, pick the, pick the option. That is still going to reduce the risk of me running out of money. Well, if you have enough that, that's a very small outcome. Other things become really important. Charitable giving becomes really important. Tax planning becomes really important. There are other things outside of, Hey, let me not run outta money. That is really important. But you will never, if the advisor doesn't spend their time there, just like everything else, you will be left behind. They will miss stuff. Mm-hmm. Because that's not what they are doing.

Sierra 38:06

Yeah.

Tre 38:07

Okay. So, um, that's the other thing that I said I wanted to say. Was really important for you to find out what that advisor is planning around, what they're optimizing for, and as always there. So there are plenty of advisors out there that are looking for clients that have very different skillsets and it's like they, if you use the client, if you used, if you find the advisor for you, for your skillset, it is worth it for you to. For you to do it. And honestly, if you, if you're even working with somebody, oh man,

Sierra 38:47

I know I'm Mike, you're so, I can see the look in your eyes where you're like, okay,

Tre 38:52

young. If you're, if you're working with somebody and you, you like the individual, but you think that it's not quite the right advisor for you, talk to'em about it. Right? Like it's not, especially for like successful advisors and things like that, it's. It's not that big of a deal. It's like, I want what's best for my clients. If there is any reason that they don't think I am the right fit, I will work with you to find the right fit for you. Yeah. It's when I, um, I inherited some clients from an advisor that was retiring, and that's why I said to every single one of them, like my first meeting with them was like, I am not the right advisor for everybody. My promise to you is that. I will not take it personally if you don't think I'm the right advisor for you. I am. I'm very strict. This is my investment philosophy. This is the way that I'm gonna push you to invest. I, I laid it out. This is, this is, this is what I work. Like, if you do not want to opt into this, that is absolutely fine. I will personally find you another advisor. Mm-hmm. That will be more what you are looking for.

Sierra 39:55

Yeah. Whatever that is.

Tre 39:57

Whatever that is. Right. It's not, I would much rather. Because everybody gets a much, much, much better experience if everybody's on the same page. Right? Yeah. And it's, and there's thousands, thousands. It's hundreds of thousands of people, thousands of advisors. There's, there's somebody for everybody, so

Sierra 40:16

mm-hmm.

Tre 40:17

Yeah. That's, that's what I, that's, that's what I would, that's what I do. Make sense?

Sierra 40:22

Yep. I think so. I think we covered it all.

Tre 40:26

Great.

Sierra 40:26

Perfect.

Tre 40:27

Well. See you in the next one then.

Sierra 40:31

Okay. Bye.

Tre 40:32

Bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Plain English Finance Podcast. Tre Bynoe certified Financial Planner. Chartered Investment Manager is a financial planner with TCU Wealth Management and Aviso wealth. You should always consult with your financial, legal, and tax advisor before making changes. This podcast is provided as a general source of information and should not be considered personal investment advice or solicitation to buy or sell any securities. The views expressed are those of the individual and are not necessarily those of Aviso Financial Inc. Mutual funds and other securities offered through Aviso wealth, a division of Aviso Financial, Inc.