Before you start looking around for help with your finances, it helps to understand the kind of services a financial advisor can provide.  A financial advisor is a certified professional who helps clients manage their finances in order to meet certain short-term and long-term goals. Essentially, an advisor develops a financial plan to make sure you meet those goals while helping you stay on track along the way. The term advisor refers to any kind of financial planner or investment manager. It can even refer to a digital investment platform, commonly known as robo-advisors. 

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A financial advisor, or financial planner, often helps clients navigate through trickier financial matters such as putting together retirement plans or finding the best life insurance policy or setting money aside for college educations. In addition to helping with investments, a certified financial planner like John Savadjian has expertise in dealing with other things that can affect your finances such as insurance and taxes. 

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Typically, a financial advisor will begin by examining your current financial situation to get an accurate picture of your assets, debts, and regular monthly expenses in order to identify areas for improvement. The next step is to inquire about your long-term goals and start to devise a thorough plan to help you meet them. The idea is to manage your investment portfolio by giving you the most current advice on investment products such as stocks or bonds. Along with planning for your retirement, a financial advisor can also help with purchasing real estate, refinancing current properties, or even debt service. 

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The Difference Between Financial Planner and Financial Advisor

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The two terms are pretty similar in that they both help people manage their finances. A financial advisor is a more wide-ranging term for anyone who deals with your money and your investments. A financial planner, however, is an industry professional who works with both individuals and companies to create a plan that will accomplish their long-term financial goals. Therefore, every financial planner is also a financial advisor while not every financial advisor is necessarily a financial planner.

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One of the simplest ways to look at it is that a financial planner is essentially a more specific kind of financial advisor. For instance, a planner may specialize in a certain area where he has extensive experience such as investments or taxes or estate and retirement planning. In other words, financial planners can be accountants, insurance agents, or investment advisors or brokers. Many advisors like John Savadjian have different designations such as a Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC). Other common designations include Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and Certified Financial Planner (CFP).

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The Value of a Fiduciary Advisor

 

One of the advantages of hiring a fiduciary financial advisor like John Savadjian is that they are held to a higher standard than a nonfiduciary. A fiduciary, by definition, is obligated to put a client's needs above his own and act in the client's best interest. Before making an investment recommendation, a fiduciary must engage in a thorough process to ascertain the client's best interest. Furthermore, they also have to explain this recommendation clearly to their client, so there cannot be any misunderstanding about it and the reason for the fiduciary to recommend it.  

 

For instance, a fiduciary cannot receive commissions from companies by getting clients to invest in their financial products. When a financial advisor acts as a fiduciary, it is essentially a guarantee that he will not recommend investments that benefit him without being the best option for you. 

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On the other hand, a nonfiduciary can steer clients towards products that pay him commissions, as long as they could also be suitable for their clients. A fiduciary, however, cannot recommend a higher commission product because paying more in fees wouldn’t be in the client’s best interest.

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A Financial Advisor You Can Trust

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At the end of the day, the decision to hire a financial planner is a personal one. Therefore, you need to be able to trust this person because he will have intimate knowledge of your finances. For this reason, John Savadjian encourages his clients to ask as many questions as possible because he wants them to be comfortable with how he works. He knows how much of a part he stands to play in his clients financial future. The good news is that John Savadjian's broad knowledge and expertise in the financial services industry make it easy for him to find the right solutions for his clients. As long as you are honest about your financial needs and goals, John Savadjian can provide the right kind of financial assistance to ensure you meet those goals. 

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