Financial Advisor and nVest Advisors CEO re-introduces the Money n30 Podcast with a talk about how a difficult upbringing motivated him to become a financial advisor.

Podcast Transcript:

I'd like to thank you for joining us today on this sort of reintroduction to the “Money n 30” podcast. My name is Jeremy Torgerson and I am the CEO of nVest Advisors LLC. We are a fee-only, fully fiduciary investment advisory firm based in a northern suburb of Denver Colorado called Brighton.

I began my financial practice in the great state of Texas at the very, very southern tip in Brownsville Texas. We actually lived in a small community named Los Fresnos, which is very close to South Padre Island (if anybody's familiar with it) and began our business in what is one of the most economically depressed areas of the country . That's a very weird place to do a financial advisory firm but it was important to me. I want to share today some of the story of why I started there, what my motivation is for being an advisor, and just give you the opportunity to hear a little bit more about what this firm does and what it believes in.

First off, a quick housekeeping note on our podcast. We are going to obviously improve the quality of the podcast as we go. I'm not going to be too worried about it though - I have a performance and theater background so I can improvise pretty well. I hope I can carry a conversation even if I'm just talking to myself and you’re listening but I wanted to let you know that as the podcast continues we will definitely improve the quality. So hang with us! We're going to listen to your feedback as listeners, I'm going to get feedback from some of the people who love me - my friends and family, but also I want to get the feedback of industry professionals about the content, and then attack some of my performance friends and get their input on technical issues as well.

But I wanted to give you a little bit of info about myself and I'll tell you a little bit about this firm and why it is very, very different than any other financial advisory practices that you're going to look at. So if you are in the market for either your first financial advisor, or maybe you have one and are not necessarily happy with what's going on, or just not sure if you want a second opinion, I encourage you to interview a whole lot of us before you make a decision. It's supposed to be a long-term relationship with your financial planner and that means that you’ve got to go on a few dates before you get professionally “married” (if I can use that weird figurative language).

Let me start with this: let me give you a little bit of history about the firm and then I'll go into my own background. nVest Advisors began as an independent company called Palo Alto Investments in 2011 in Brownsville, Texas, of all places.

I'm a Denver native and my firm is now back in Denver, Colorado after I relocated my family and my company three years ago, but I had been living in Texas for about a year before I became a financial advisor. My first three years in this business I was with Edward Jones Investments and we built a small office in the beautiful but tiny community called Los Fresnos. It's very close to South Padre Island, if you're familiar with the very southern tip of Texas.

After three years of being with a major firm (I had been a business owner previous to becoming a financial advisor - I’ll kind of share a little bit of that later in the podcast), it became clear to me that there was no good way to work for my clients if I also had to work for a company. There were always production quotas, there were incentives given to put you into a product that maybe might not have been the best fit for you but would send me on a trip somewhere in the world, and those kinds of things. That didn't sit right with me. 

So you've been working with a financial professional for a while, but things just don't "feel right" anymore. Maybe the advisor is inattentive, or maybe you're just not seeing the results you'd hoped for. How do you know when it's okay to overlook some minor issues, and when it's time to leave? Here are 9 reasons why you should consider firing your financial advisor:

Quick but important note: you will see that "my investments are down" is not on this list of reasons to go elsewhere, though it's one of the most common reasons clients seek out new advisors. Investment markets will fluctuate - there is no getting around it. Just because your portfolio, hopefully crafted to meet your long-term investing needs, is down is not a sign that your advisor is doing anything wrong.

If they act like less of a planner and more like a pitch maker.

You know the type: big smile, really expensive pen, armed with glossy pie charts and the new account application still warm from the printer. Being good at selling something is nowhere near the same as being a good client advocate and "coach". True financial planners and advisors will actually take the time to listen to you so that they develop a very clear understanding of your situation and goals. Then and only then, will they provide advice and guidance that fits your specific needs. Beware of anyone who already has a solution in mind without carefully and fully understanding your situation.

If you never hear from them.

In my experience, a financial advisor has to walk a delicate tightrope between contacting his or her clients regularly, but not too regularly. And many times, that's entirely at the whim of the client. So your advisor may not be perfect in this regard, but there's a difference between a busy advisor and a lazy one.

A good financial pro will stay in contact on a regular basis (even if it's only every 6 months or so), to check up on you and make sure your financial situation has not changed significantly.

It is not often that market volatility will force me to make corrections to a client's financial strategy, but unexpected life events can cause us to make serious changes in a plan or investment portfolio. For that reason, it's vital that we stay in regular if not frequent contact.

If they work on commission.

Here's where we differ greatly from much of the financial services industry. We HATE commissions. Commissions are the antithesis of "serving the client's best interests", because the client, whether it's disclosed in a transparent way or not,  always gets stuck with the bill. It's also just common sense that a company or product that must offer a very high commission payout must either be making a mint on every sale, or else is something the customer isn't going to see much inherent value in (and will need a "nudge" by salesperson). The whole thing just reeks of conflicted priorities and questionable agendas.  (And you might guess, nVest Advisors does not work on commission.)

It's not that there aren't many wonderfully ethical and talented advisors and planners who earn commission on financial products they may use in your plan, but the products themselves can be ridiculously costly, come with hidden fees and charges all over the place, and can create potent conflicts of interest between the advisor and the client.  Advisors who earn commission are compensated to MOVE money between products, regardless of how they perform, so they tend to move money around often to generate commissions. I've seen many instances of an advisor selling expensive A-share mutual funds to a client, just to wait 2-3 years and do it again. (I even was expressly "coached" to do that by a mentor early in my career.)

Fee-based compensation means the advisor is paid eithe...

They seem to be in the news every day: investment managers, insurance agents, and stockbrokers found guilty of  Ponzi schemes, theft, fraud, or mishandling your money. Lives ruined. Fortunes lost.

Though there is no sure way to avoid every scheme out there, common sense and a little bit of insight from nVest Advisors' CEO Jeremy Torgerson can be of help.

In this podcast, we give you 6 tips to help you avoid a sketchy investment situation:

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Check your broker's history. (FINRA Broker Check, and the IARD)

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Avoid RIA firms or commissioned advisors/agents who take custody of your money.

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Insist on seeing financial records on any firm you want to invest with.

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Work with an advisor who acts as a full fiduciary.

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Avoid non-traded or thinly-traded investments (non-traded REITS, penny stocks, Promissory Notes, etc.)

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Keep your greed in check. That's where the con men hunt!

Please subscribe and share our Money n30 Podcast, and let us know what kinds of subjects you'd like to hear us talk about!

Have a student nearing college, or thinking about saving for school for yourself? One of the most common financial goals for parents and grandparents, is being able to help your child pay for the increasingly high (and oftentimes ridiculous) costs of a college or university education.

Planning ahead is very important. So is saving in the right way.

In this Money n30 Podcast, CEO Jeremy Torgerson gives you an overview between the various ways to save for college, with special attention paid to the two most common methods:

* Prepaid Tuition Programs

* 529 Lump Sum College Savings Plans

He'll also talk about the often overlooked college savings "life hack": using a ROTH IRA to help pay for college.

Join us for this 37-minute introduction into college savings plans, and if you have questions, be sure to give us a call or email us.

After the podcast, this booklet of information will go into much more detail, and answer many common questions about 529 college savings plans.

Want to hear more on money matters? Remember to subscribe to the Money n30 Podcast on iTunes, or listen as a subscriber on our YouTube channel!

 

In today's nVest Advisors podcast, we talk about recent news events and the way the media hopes to hold your attention with constant negativity. The unfortunate recent events in Dallas, TX and Orlando, FL are discussed, as well as the Brexit vote.

Three key takeways:

* Remember the media mantra: "If it bleeds, it leads." There is much more good going on around us that the media will cover.

* Emotional reactions to current events is incredibly hazardous to your investments. You must keep your focus on long-term goals at all times, and seek out a financial advisor if you find yourself reacting emotionally to market movements.

* "This too shall pass. " Recency bias causes us to feel much stronger emotions to current events, than to much more serious events that happened in the past. Time does tend to heal all wounds, but that misleads us into believing that what is happening now is more impactful than it really is.

It's been a wild few weeks in the market! What should the average investor know about how markets move during periods of uncertainty, and more importantly, what can you do about it right now?

CEO Jeremy Torgerson walks you through the concepts of market efficiency and irrationality, and why we need to be aware of our own biases, in today's timely podcast.

An inaugural podcast episode of the nVest Advisors, LLC Money n30 podcast. Join us and subscribe for relevant, weekly commentary on a wide variety of personal and small business financial subjects, presented in a casual, friendly, and often funny way by CEO and Senior IAR Jeremy Torgerson.

Today's podcast explains a little more about who we are, who we serve, and why we have opted to become a fee-only RIA firm.