8 Questions to Ask Your Advisor

A Guide To Finding The Best Advisor For YOU

To find your best match, first, consider the type of help you want. Then explore fees, qualifications, your working relationship, investment details, and more.

Before you commit to a financial advisor, you want to make sure you’re hiring the best person for you and your situation. Start by checking out the 8 questions you should ask them before hiring one.

What services do you provide?

In our opinion, managing investments is not enough. At RGWM, we provide a one-stop solution to address your retirement planning, tax planning, investment planning, and estate planning needs. More details can be found here.

Who will be my primary point of contact?

As a client, you will always have a dedicated CFP® professional to discuss your financial plan with. Additionally, we take a team approach to the client relationship, so if your traditional point of contact is unavailable for any reason, there are several individuals familiar with your situation and prepared to help. We’ve had clients come to us that had to begin an advisor search at an advanced age because their advisor became ill or retired unexpectedly – we don’t want our clients to ever experience something like that.

What certifications do you have?

Our clients have access to a suite of highly qualified professionals, including 5 Certified Financial Planners (CFP®), 2 Certified Investment Management Analysts (CIMA®), a Certified Public Accountant (CPA®), an Accredited Investment Fiduciary (AIF®), a Level 1 Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA®), and various Master’s degrees in Finance, Economics, and Accounting. Ongoing education is important to our clients, so it’s important to us – we’re always adding new qualifications to the list.

Are you a fiduciary?

Yes! While some brokers with a current Series 6 or Series 7 license can legally give advice without your best interest in mind, Rhame & Gorrell and its advisors operate under the true fiduciary standard at all times. Most other advisors may only be held to the lower “Suitability” standard of care.

What technology do you use to help me?

The RGWM team has invested in dozens of financial software solutions to provide our clients with the most advanced planning tools in the market today. Some of our capabilities include:

• Bloomberg Terminal – The Bloomberg Terminal brings together real-time data on every market, breaking news, in-depth research, powerful analytics, communications tools, and world-class execution capabilities in one fully integrated solution.
• Bloomberg Tax and Accounting Service – Bloomberg’s Individual Tax Solutions allow us to prepare extensive tax analysis for clients over and above what most CPAs provide.
• Tamarac Reporting – With Tamarac’s Reporting, we provide our clients with an award-winning client portal available on any Apple or Android device with robust performance data and analytics.
• Envestnet MoneyGuidePro- We build every client a comprehensive retirement plan using the best financial planning software on the market. We customize your plan using future savings and expenses, project investment returns and inflation expectations, and calculate a Probability of Success for your desired retirement outcome using Monte Carlo Analysis.
• FinaMetrica- We use FinaMetrica’s risk tolerance tools to easily identify your risk appetite, and personalize your portfolio with your Risk Score in mind.
• Riskalyze- Using Riskalyze’s Portfolio Risk tool we Stress Test your portfolios through different market conditions (2008 Financial Crisis, 2013 Bull Market, 2020 Pandemic) to ensure that your portfolio matches your tolerance for risk.

What about my taxes?

Not only do we have an in-house CPA and the tax tools mentioned above to offer thorough tax planning, we also cover the cost of personal tax return preparation through a local CPA firm we’ve partnered with for those clients that maintain $2,000,000+ in assets with the firm.

What are your assets under management?

As of November 2021, we have roughly $530M in assets under management at custodians like Charles Schwab and Fidelity.Where is your office located?RGWM is centrally located in The Woodlands and its advisors have been providing sound financial advice to the community for over 25 years.

If you want a local advisor or a wider array of financial advice you may decide if a traditional local financial advisor is right for you.