It's a sad fact of the industry

that most people who call themselves "financial planner" or "financial advisor" don't do any planning and render very little valuable advice. Most of the people with those titles are financial salespeople masquerading as planners or advisors. Sort of like the pharmaceutical rep posing as a doctor.

So it's largely up to each individual to try and navigate these shark infested waters to find a true financial advocate. Here's some basic information to point you in the right direction:

1. Narrow your search by focusing only on Certified Financial Planners. The CFP designation represents the highest level of competency in the financial planning profession. Only about 20% of people who call themselves financial advisors are a CFP. You can search for CFPs in your area at cfp.net

2. Then look for those who work for an independent Register Investment Advisor (RIA). An RIA is a legal entity that is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. RIA employees are legally held to a fiduciary standard to put their clients' interest first. This is the highest legal standard in the profession. You can verify a firm's registration and learn about its operational practices at sec.gov.

3. Generally speaking, avoid brokerage houses, banks, insurance companies, and Ameriprise. While you might find someone good, the odds are stacked against you. These firms are designed for product sales and profit maximization. Their employees are measured largely on how much revenue they produce for their employer, not the quality of their advice.

4. Another good place to search for financial planners in your area who meet this criteria is the national Financial Planning Association. Go to plannersearch.org.

the CFP thing is kind of funny

you know who really encourages their reps to get the CFP?

(from your post)

brokerage houses, banks, insurance companies, and Ameriprise

This is complete B.S.

Let me guess: you work for an RIA and have a CFP? Let me also surmise that you have never worked at a wirehouse, or, more likely, started at one and couldn't get through the training program and now have an axe to grind.

It is laughable that you RIA types actually believe that you are the only ones held to a fiduciary standard. Are you kidding? Do you even have an active series 7 license? It's like you guys were given a script your first day at work to use against the big bad wirehouse advisor and you are dumb enough to believe all of it.

Almost 100% of your post is myth.

1. There are plenty of competent financial planners who don't have a CFP designation. And there are plenty of idiotic scumbags who have that designation.
2. This is patently false. FA's at wirehouses, if under a wrap-fee platform, have the same fiduciary standard, not to mention several more layers of oversight.
3. I will agree with the notion that insurance-based planners often steer clients towards insurance products, but this isn't always the case. I do find it interesting that you seem to be making a claim that you are evaluated based on "the quality of advice that you give"? How so? Are you making 2 and 20? This is B.S. You, like everyone else, are getting paid based on fees that you bring in to the firm, not on how good your advice is to the client. To infer otherwise is completely disingenuous.

You reek of someone trying to sell something.

Edited for spelling/grammar

Whoa, looks like I struck a nerve.

I'm not selling anything. On the contrary, I listed impartial websites where the OP could research financial planners on his own and draw his own conclusions.

Given your response is riddled with erroneous assumptions and insults, I think that might prove my initial point.

Well, when people say things that are completely wrong

About my profession, and do so in a manner that suggests they actually know what they are talking about (when in fact you clearly do not), I tend to get frustrated. The OP came on here looking for advice and you gave him dogshit, slanted, inaccurate "facts", and you did so with so much confidence that people who don't know any better would possibly believe your drivel. So I am doing the board a favor by making sure people understand that you are full of shit.

Except it's not wrong.

It's opinionated, yes. I pulled back the industry facade and presented an alternative approach to traditional, entrenched business models. But it's an approach that I think, after significant professional experience, is superior.

It sounds like I've threatened your business model. My apologies.

Well, if my business model consisted of trying to somehow

Get clients by way of an Internet message board, then I suppose you would be correct. As stated previously, I am simply making sure that the OP and anyone else who happens to read this thread is properly educated and doesn't simply trust a blowhard charlatan like you when it comes to picking a financial professional for themselves.

Heh, it's the one time a year I'll come to Swine's defense

But your characterization and personal attacks are completely wrong. You are entitled to disagree with his opinion, but without going into details he is definitively and eminently qualified to have a highly credible opinion on this matter. And he hardly needs an internet message board or any advertisements for that matter to get clients.

On this we agree.

Swine may be a pig, but his professional ethics and principles are above reproach.

I can no longer trust your judgment on anything *