The financial advice business is riddled with conflicts of interest, hidden fees, and financial incentives that can cost you dearly if you don't know how to protect yourself.

This is not some crazy conspiracy theory. It is just the way the business works. It is baked in the cake.

In a nutshell, you represent a pile of money to investment sales companies. The bigger the pile you have (net worth), the more attractive you are as a client. They are trying to make money off your money, and you are trying to make money off your money. It is an inherent conflict of interest.

This doesn't mean all brokers and advisors are bad apples. Quite the opposite is true. There are many wonderful people in the investment business doing their level best to serve you. Unfortunately, it is very difficult for you to understand all the problems lurking behind the scenes let alone defend your nest egg from potential wrongdoing.

It's not your fault. After all, terms like broker, financial advisor, and certified financial planner mean nearly the same thing to the untrained consumer; whereas, they carry very different meanings to industry insiders.

What can you do to protect your investments?

Related:

In this 8th episode of the Financial Mentor podcast Jeff Rose, CFP, from GoodFinancialCents.Com gives you an inside look at how the investment sales business (brokers, financial planners, advisors) works. Jeff's had a wide ranging career starting with the wire house model before being recruited at Merrill Lynch and then going onto independent brokerage working as a Registered Investment Advisor and gaining his Certified Financial Planner (CFP) designation.

This depth of experience gives Jeff an unusually well-qualified perspective to help us understand the various investment product business sales models – warts, blemishes and all – so you can improve your investment performance and manage risk more effectively.

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