What Do You Do?

Today's Newsletter:

• What Do You Do?

• The Advisor Trap

• A Money Question

What Do You Do?

This newsletter edition is a bit selfish, but before you leave let me explain why you shouldn’t…

You see before I was a financial advisor, I was a client of several different advisory firms.

In fact, I have spent more time on your side of the table than on the advisor side.

It has given me a different perspective that I want to share with you to help you make better money decisions.

Today, I know a lot of financial advisors and one thing I am struck by is we all call ourselves the same thing yet it seems like everyone is doing something different.

By different I don’t mean nuances around planning or investments…I mean different things entirely.

The best comparison I can make is going out to dinner.

Imagine every restaurant was just called “Restaurant”, with no other defining markers they just served food.

You didn’t know what you were going to get until you sat down and saw the menu.

You might be in the mood for pizza but it turns out you went into the sandwich shop.

You might be looking for sushi but you walked into the steakhouse.

I think advisory firms are like this but you don’t get to see the menu until after you have become a client.

They all say we serve food (financial advice in our case).

Today, I want to share the three buckets I group advisory firms into. Two I would caution against, and one I would look to hire.

Let’s dive in!

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The Advisor Trap

I am going to say something you need to hear.

There are financial advisors out there (quite a few) that will do more harm than good to your financial situation.

They will pitch products, solutions, and advice with one goal in mind ~ To maximize their profit off of you.

Sorry to be so blunt, but it is a bit of a personal vendetta I have against this industry ~ you know the one I am in.

I share that because if you are anything like my parents, me, or any of our clients you have worked hard for your money. You didn’t win the lottery, you earned it.

You deserve to make sure your advisor is not pitching steak and serving leftovers.

Bucket 1 - The Investment Whiz

Growing up I didn’t even know what a financial advisor was and when I did learn about the industry, I thought, “Oh, like an investment guy.”

Turns out I was partially right. The industry is built around investments, talks about investments a lot, and often the pitch heard from advisors centers around why their investments are so great.

Now look, investments are important (like really really important) but they are just a part of what we do at Moment.

Talk to most firms and you will leave thinking that is all they do. For a lot of advisors, this is where the value starts and where the value ends.

Here is my issue with that, for me when I was looking for an advisor I needed someone who was touching every aspect of my financial life.

• My Family

• My Budgeting

• My Tax Planning

• My Insurance Strategies

• My Estate Planning Ideas

For me, the “investment whiz” is a red flag for a few reasons.

First and foremost, I would never be caught dead giving investment advice to someone that I didn’t understand everything else that was going on in their life.

That would be like the waiter at the restaurant telling you what to order before asking about dietary restrictions, preferences, or how hungry you were.

Second, I am going to let you in on a little secret ~ There is a lot a good advisor can do to maximize your investments and the returns but they are not the man behind the curtain.

So if you want the investment whiz and you feel that your financial advisor is the smartest guy in the room, more power to you.

I would just caution that my experience (and about 100 years of data) would point in a different direction.

Look for someone who is looking at the investments as a part of the overall plan, not in a vacuum.

Bucket 2 - The Tax Mitigation Expert

Someone asked me recently what is the biggest value we add for our clients.

The first thing that came to mind? Taxes.

Our clients earn a lot of money and as such pay a lot of money in taxes.

With nearly every decision we make we consider if it is optimized for their tax situation.

Ok, so you might be thinking if taxes are so important wouldn’t I want a “tax mitigation expert” guiding me?

Well in theory yes but stay with me for a second.

You see financial advisors are great for coining terms that sound great but mean something else.

More often than not if I see “tax mitigation” as a service offering on a financial advisor’s website it means one thing ~ The focal point of their practice is insurance sales (masked as tax mitigation strategies).

99.9% of people need some form of insurance but it is often sold in the wrong amounts for the wrong reasons.

So if I were searching for a financial advisor, I would 100% want one focused on optimizing my tax situation but want to avoid the salesman disguised as an advisor.

So if an advisor mentions they help with taxes ask them this: “In my specific situation (business owner, equity comp, W2 employee, athlete) can you provide me three examples of how you have reduced a client’s tax bill this year?”

Here are some tax planning moves we have helped this year for reference:

• QBI

• Asset Location

• State Residency

• Entity Structuring

• Roth Conversions

• Salary Calculations

• Tax Loss Harvesting

• Equity Comp Planning

• Quarterly Tax Estimates

• Legacy Planning & Gifting

• Gifting/Donation Strategies

Ok rant over, hopefully you get my point, hire someone who is doing real tax planning not selling a product under the guise of tax optimization.

Bucket 3 - The Financial Planner

There are endless terms in the financial advice industry. If I was hiring someone for financial advice the term I would be looking for is a financial planner.

Now just like anything in life, this does not apply universally but more often than not a financial planner is going to be looking at your entire picture.

This is what we are at Moment and we cover six areas for clients:

• Income Planning

• Tax Planning

• Risk Management

• Estate Planning

• Investments

• Team Coordination

Honestly, I can’t imagine giving advice in any of these areas without fully understanding how they all tie together.

Anyways, I did warn you this edition was a bit selfish but man it bothers me to no end seeing people get subpar financial advice.

You deserve to get the best possible advice for your specific situation.

One that looks at your entire picture, understands your specific situation, and is looking to optimize that over anything else.

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My friends I just want to say I appreciate you reading this newsletter.

Of all the content I produce, this is one of my most enjoyable things.

I try to write about things that matter to me and can help you get smarter with your money.

To learn more stories, advice, and learnings, have a blessed Sunday!

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A Money Question

What is the hardest part of building wealth?

Building wealth is simple, yet complex. It is straightforward yet a web. It is easy to understand yet hard to execute.

Consider today, what has been the most challenging part about building wealth.

For me, it has been building the muscle to stick with the plan even when it feels like it is taking forever.

What about you?

(Respond to his email with your answer)

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3 Ways I Can Help You

💰 Schedule an introductory call with Moment. We help athletes, entrepreneurs, and key employees build and protect wealth.

📹 Check out my YouTube channel. A safe place to get smarter with your money.

📷 Interact with me on Instagram. Where I provide bite-sized daily content to level up your money game.

Moment Private Wealth, LLC is a Registered Investment Advisor, located in the State of Missouri. Moment Private Wealth provides investment advisory and related services for clients nationally. Moment Private Wealth will maintain all applicable registrations and licenses as required by the various states in which Moment Private Wealth conducts business, as applicable. Moment Private Wealth renders individualized responses to persons in a particular state only after complying with all regulatory requirements, or under an applicable state exemption or exclusion. Nothing in this content is intended to be, and you should not consider anything in this content to be, investment, accounting, tax, or legal advice.