Meeting with a prospective client is a bi-directional opportunity: They find out about my services and how I may help them, and I find out what they are looking for in working with a planner.
Are there ever any clients I wouldn’t work with?
Yes: Someone who says to me that they ‘don’t have the time’ to care about their assets ‘just as long as they go up’ or ‘are beating the market’.
If someone doesn’t care enough about their financial future to work with me on articulating their goals, how am I supposed to know the right asset allocation to manage, let alone recommend, for them?
If a client doesn’t want to take the time and put the thought into what kind of financial life they want for themselves and their family, how am I supposed to know which assets are the appropriate ones for them?
Working with someone who wants me to ‘grow their assets’ without knowing their goals or to ‘outperform the market’ with no regard or insight into their risk capacity, let alone goals and values, exposes me to liability and risks I am not able to make.
That, and I simply can’t blindly pull rabbits out of a hat without insight into what the client wants to accomplish.
(Full Disclosure: I am a Fee-Only Financial Planner. Here is my website.)