One of the most important, and generally overlooked considerations in working with a financial advisor is the answer to the question,"who do you work for?". We have all heard about the huge problems at firms with familiar names, some of whom have actually failed. Let's think about the problems of the firm influence the bahavior of their representatives. Obviously, there will be pressure to sell the products that generate the most revenue for the firm. Those products aren't necessarily the best ones for the client.

These same firms are aggressively developing more services and products to generate more revenue. The pressure will be on to present and to sell to all of their clients. In these lean times, the large, well known financial firms are seeing the impact of their significant overhead. These costs must be passed on to clients in the form of higher fees or higher profitability services and products.

One defense offered by the big firms is that they provide financial and investment research and this enables them to deliver better results to their clients. This was completely dispelled in 2008, as the proprietary products of major wall street firms actually underperformed the already dismal returns of the market in general.

Independents can deliver quality service, and experience at a fraction of the cost of the major firm They also work in an environment that is completely free of pressure to sell certain products and services. Independent advisors have the same oversight as the big firms, so clients do not have to worry that the independent is not under regulatory supervison to the same extent as other advisors.

There are fine advisors at large firms and there are fine independent advisors. The opposite is also true, there are poor advisors at both places. But, the large firms have no advantage over independents. In fact, in the current environment, when every penny counts, and when low costs are critical, the quality independent advisor has a significant advantage over the advisor working in a large brokerage firm.

Financial advice is important today, more than ever. Use diligence in selecting your advisor.