Prospective clients commonly ask me what separates me from the rest and why they should choose me over another financial advisor. For someone with $5 million, $10 million, or $20 million to manage, that’s a reasonable question. There are plenty of advisors who can manage an investment portfolio, so the more important question becomes what you’re actually getting from the relationship and why one advisor may be a better fit than another.
I’ve worked on both sides of this equation. Before founding Inclinevest, I spent years working with high net worth and ultra high net worth households at large financial institutions, including managing and supporting other financial advisors. I also worked as a Wealth Planning Analyst at UBS, where I developed financial plans for high net worth clients. That experience gave me a close look at how large financial institutions operate, including both the advantages they provide and some of the limitations that can come with their size.
I don’t think there is one wealth management model that’s right for everyone, and I don’t believe an independent advisor automatically provides better advice than someone at a large institution. The more useful approach is to understand who you’re hiring, how they’re compensated, what they can actually provide, how much personal attention you’ll receive, and whether their experience matches the complexity of your financial situation.
Start With the Legal Structure
Before looking at investment performance, office size, awards, or how polished the website looks, find out who the advisor actually works for. Anyone can use the title “financial advisor,” including people whose primary business involves selling insurance or investment products, so the title itself doesn’t tell you very much about the relationship you’re entering.
The more important questions are who employs the advisor, how the advisor is compensated, what products the advisor can recommend, and whether the advisor has a fiduciary obligation to the client. Those details can have a much greater impact on the relationship than the title on a business card.
At Inclinevest, I’m a fee only fiduciary. Clients pay Inclinevest directly for financial planning and wealth management rather than having the firm receive commissions for selling investment or insurance products. That structure helps reduce certain conflicts of interest and gives the client a clearer understanding of how the advisor gets paid.
I’ve written more about this in Why Fee Only.
I would also encourage prospective clients to read an advisor’s Form ADV and understand how the firm is compensated, what conflicts exist, what services are provided, and what disciplinary information has been disclosed. The legal structure doesn’t answer every question, but it provides an important starting point for understanding who you’re hiring.
Look at the Advisor’s Experience
Once you understand the legal structure, look at the person you’re actually hiring and consider what they’ve spent their career doing. There are advisors with decades of experience who have spent much of their careers selling the investment or insurance products of one company, while others have worked across financial planning, investment management, wealth management, leadership, and other areas of the industry.
Those backgrounds can produce very different perspectives.
If you’re a business owner preparing to sell a company, a physician approaching retirement with $8 million, or a family dealing with concentrated stock, multiple retirement accounts, charitable giving, and estate planning, I’d rather know that the advisor has worked with situations like yours than simply know that the advisor has been in the business for 25 years.
I’m a CFP® professional, and my experience includes working with high net worth and ultra high net worth households at large financial institutions, working in wealth planning at UBS, managing and supporting other financial advisors, and eventually building my own independent wealth management firm. I’ve therefore seen the industry from several different angles, including the planning work, the advisor management side, the client relationship, and the operation of an independent firm.
There are many excellent advisors at large financial institutions, and I don’t think working for a recognizable company automatically makes someone a bad advisor. The point is to look beyond the company name and understand the experience of the individual who will actually be responsible for your financial life.
Look at the Relationship You Actually Want
For a high net worth investor, the service model may matter just as much as the investment strategy. Before hiring an advisor, ask how many households the advisor personally serves, who you’ll speak with when you have a question, how often you’ll meet, and how involved the advisor will actually be when something complicated happens.
Large financial institutions can operate on very different service models from a smaller independent wealth management firm. Vanguard, Fidelity, and other large national firms can serve enormous numbers of investors efficiently, which can be attractive to someone who primarily wants investment management, low costs, and access to a large organization. That model doesn’t necessarily provide the high touch relationship that many high net worth investors want.
The same issue can arise with an individual advisor at a large firm. An advisor responsible for several hundred households has to divide their time among those relationships, even when the firm has a large support staff. Turnover can also become part of the experience, particularly at larger organizations where advisors retire, move to another position, or leave the company.
For someone with several million dollars, that may not be the relationship they want. You may want the advisor to know your family, understand your tax situation, remember the details of your estate plan, know what accounts you own, and have enough context to help when a major financial decision comes up.
That’s the type of relationship I’m building at Inclinevest. I don’t intend to build a massive firm with thousands of clients, and I don’t want to. My goal is to keep the practice at no more than approximately 100 client relationships so I can remain personally involved with the people I serve.
A large client count isn’t automatically a problem, just as a small client count isn’t automatically a sign of quality. What matters is whether the number of relationships allows the advisor to provide the level of service you’re actually paying for.
Compare Capabilities, Not Just Company Size
One of the misconceptions I hear from prospective clients is that a large financial institution automatically has investment capabilities that a smaller independent firm can’t provide. That’s not necessarily the case because many firms, regardless of their size, rely on the same major custodians and institutional financial technology providers.
Inclinevest uses Charles Schwab’s institutional platform for custody and investment management infrastructure. Schwab provides capabilities that can be particularly useful to high net worth households, including lending, margin, donor advised funds, cash management, and other services.
A large wealth management firm can use Schwab as well. It can also use Fidelity or another major custodian. There aren’t dozens of major custodians providing this underlying infrastructure, so the mere fact that a large firm has access to institutional custody doesn’t necessarily give it an advantage over an independent RIA using the same platform.
The more important question is what the advisor can do with that infrastructure.
As an independent RIA, I can operate with an open architecture approach. I can evaluate investment managers, technology providers, direct indexing platforms, and other solutions based on their merits rather than being restricted to a proprietary product shelf. If an outside manager offers a better solution for a particular client, I can consider it, and if a technology provider offers a better way to solve a planning problem, I can evaluate that as well.
The ability to make those decisions independently matters because outside investment managers can’t pay me to recommend their products. The decision can be based on whether I believe the solution makes sense for the client.
Large financial institutions have extensive capabilities, and I’m not suggesting otherwise. The point is that many of the underlying capabilities investors associate with a large institution are now available through independent firms as well.
Large Firms Can Be Limiting in Other Ways
Working for a large financial institution has obvious advantages because the organization can provide enormous resources, a recognizable brand, extensive research departments, large technology budgets, and thousands of employees. That scale can be useful, but the same scale can also make certain decisions more difficult.
Large institutions may have proprietary investment products, preferred platforms, and technology systems that advisors are expected or encouraged to use. An advisor can still provide excellent advice within that framework, but the range of available solutions may be narrower than it would be at an independent firm with open architecture.
Technology can create another difference because a smaller firm can often make a change much faster than a large institution. If a better planning platform, tax planning tool, portfolio technology, or client experience becomes available, an independent firm can evaluate it and make a change without taking the proposal through layers of institutional approval.
Large firms have enormous technology departments, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they can move faster. Major institutions often have legacy systems that have been built over many years, and replacing those systems can be expensive and complicated. Once a large organization has invested heavily in a technology platform, changing it isn’t as simple as deciding that something better has come along.
Being small has disadvantages too because I don’t have the technology budget or resources of a multinational financial institution. I don’t pretend that I do, but wealth management doesn’t require a rocket ship to get to the moon. Most established firms use many of the same major financial planning platforms, portfolio management systems, custodians, and CRM systems, so there isn’t necessarily as much technological differentiation as the size of the firms might suggest. I don’t need a massive technology department or an enormous technology budget to provide a high level of service when sophisticated institutional tools are already available to independent firms.
What I do have is the ability to make decisions quickly, evaluate new technology, and choose the planning, investment, and client service solutions that I believe are most useful for the people I serve.
Be Careful With In House Tax Preparation and Estate Planning
High net worth investors should also ask what an advisor actually means when the firm says it provides tax planning and estate planning. Those services can be extremely valuable, but having them available inside the same organization doesn’t automatically mean the advice will be better than what you could receive from an outside CPA or estate planning attorney who specializes in the particular issue.
There are excellent CPA firms and estate planning attorneys that focus their entire practices on these areas. A large financial institution may have tax and estate planning professionals available internally, but the fact that they work for the same company doesn’t necessarily make them the best choice for your situation.
There can also be a significant economic difference.
If a household has $5 million managed at a 1.5% annual asset management fee, that’s $75,000 per year. At $10 million, that’s $150,000 per year. At those asset levels, investors should understand exactly what they’re receiving in exchange for the fee and whether every component of the bundled service is actually valuable to them.
If your CPA charges $1000 or $2,000 to prepare your tax return, the lower fee doesn’t mean the work is less sophisticated. Likewise, paying an additional tens of thousands of dollars each year for bundled tax or estate services doesn’t automatically make those services more valuable.
I generally think about this the same way I think about other professional services. A good CPA should specialize in tax, and a good estate planning attorney should specialize in estate planning. My role is to coordinate those professionals with the investment and financial planning strategy rather than assuming every service needs to come from the same company.
An all in one shampoo and conditioner can be convenient, but that doesn’t necessarily make it the best shampoo or the best conditioner. Wealth management can work the same way.
Don’t Put Too Much Weight on Awards and Rankings
A large firm name and a prominent award can create a powerful impression, but neither tells you whether an advisor will be a good fit for your particular situation. Rankings can provide useful information, but they shouldn’t replace your own evaluation of the advisor’s experience, legal structure, fees, capabilities, and relationship with clients.
The recent Forbes and Shook situation provides a good example of why investors should be careful about treating rankings as an objective measurement of who the “best” advisors are. Forbes and Shook Research suspended their 2026 advisor rankings following controversy surrounding a $6 million payment from Shook Research founder RJ Shook to former Forbes chief content officer Randall Lane. The situation raised questions about the relationship between the organizations and the ranking process. (WealthManagement.com)
You can read the WealthManagement.com report on the Forbes and Shook rankings for more detail.
I’m not suggesting that every advisor appearing on a Forbes or Shook list is anything other than a good advisor. Some undoubtedly are. The larger point is that a ranking shouldn’t become a substitute for doing your own due diligence.
The same principle applies to the research and thought leadership produced by major financial institutions. The leadership teams at large firms publish investment outlooks, market commentary, retirement research, and educational material that anyone can read. Much of the intellectual content investors associate with a major firm is therefore publicly available.
What matters more is how the advisor applies that information to your particular circumstances.
Look at What Actual Clients Say
Reviews can provide another useful piece of information because they allow prospective clients to hear directly from people who have actually worked with the advisor.
Some large financial institutions restrict or discourage advisors from using public reviews and testimonials. That can make it difficult for a prospective client to independently evaluate what existing clients actually think about the advisor and the experience they received.
An independent advisor may have substantially more public feedback available, which gives prospective clients another source of information when evaluating the relationship.
I think that’s worth considering because financial planning is ultimately a relationship business. You’re not simply buying a portfolio. You’re choosing someone who may be involved in major financial decisions for years or even decades.
Reviews shouldn’t be the only factor you consider because a five star review doesn’t prove someone can handle a $10 million financial plan, and a lack of reviews doesn’t necessarily mean an advisor isn’t good. Still, hearing what actual clients say can provide context that a marketing brochure or awards list can’t.
You can view Inclinevest’s Google reviews and see what clients have said about their experience.
Independent Doesn’t Mean Alone
Another misconception about independent firms is that the advisor is operating completely on their own. That’s not how I view independence because independent advisors have access to professional organizations, networks, custodians, technology providers, investment managers, and other resources that allow them to build sophisticated practices without being part of a large financial conglomerate.
Inclinevest is a member of NAPFA, Fee Only Network, and XY Planning Network. These organizations connect independent advisors with thousands of other professionals and firm owners, providing opportunities for continuing education, conferences, practice management discussions, and the sharing of best practices.
That matters because an independent advisor doesn’t have a large corporate headquarters providing every process and procedure. Instead, independent advisors have to be deliberate about building those resources themselves and staying current with developments in the profession.
Being part of a professional network means I can learn from other advisors who run independent firms across the country, compare best practices, continue developing my knowledge, and continually improve the way the firm operates.
Independence doesn’t mean operating in isolation. It means having the freedom to decide which resources, technology, custodians, investment managers, and professional relationships make the most sense for the clients.
Ask What Happens If Something Happens to the Advisor
Prospective clients regularly ask me what would happen to their investments if something happened to me. That’s a reasonable concern when you’re considering a long term relationship with an individual advisor, particularly when that advisor owns the firm.
The first thing I explain is that the investments aren’t sitting inside Inclinevest. Client assets are held with Charles Schwab, so if something happened to me and a client decided they no longer wanted to work with Inclinevest, they could choose another financial advisor to manage the assets while the investments remain at the custodian.
Inclinevest also has a business continuity plan designed to address an unexpected disruption to the business. The goal is to make sure clients have a process for accessing their accounts and receiving ongoing service if I’m temporarily or permanently unable to serve them.
This isn’t fundamentally different from what happens at a large financial institution if an individual advisor dies or becomes unable to work. The firm generally transitions those clients to other advisors within the organization while the assets remain at the custodian.
The difference with an independent firm can be flexibility because the client isn’t necessarily limited to accepting the advisor the firm’s management assigns. The client can choose another advisor at the same firm, another independent advisor, or another institution altogether.
Either way, the assets are held with the custodian rather than sitting in the advisor’s personal possession.
Understand What You’re Actually Paying For
Fees deserve more attention than simply asking whether one advisor charges 0.75% and another charges 1%. Ask what the fee includes, what conflicts exist, whether you’re paying for proprietary products, whether tax and estate services are bundled into the fee, and how much personal involvement you receive from the advisor.
For a $5 million portfolio, the difference between a 1% fee and a 0.75% fee represents $12,500 per year. As the portfolio becomes larger, those differences become even more meaningful, which makes it particularly important for high net worth investors to understand exactly what they’re receiving.
A higher fee can be justified when you’re receiving services that are genuinely valuable to you. The problem comes when investors assume that a higher fee automatically means more sophisticated advice.
Sometimes you’re paying for valuable planning and investment management. Other times, part of the fee may be supporting additional layers of the organization, proprietary products, bundled services, physical offices, marketing, and a large corporate infrastructure.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of those things if you value them. The important question is whether they’re worth what you’re paying.
So What Makes an Independent Advisor Different?
This is where I think the answer becomes more personal.
I don’t believe an independent advisor automatically provides better advice than someone at a large institution. There are excellent advisors at large firms, and there are mediocre independent advisors. The structure gives me certain advantages, but the person still matters.
My background is different from someone who spent their entire career selling one company’s products. I’ve worked with high net worth and ultra high net worth households, managed and supported other financial advisors, worked in wealth planning at UBS, and built my own independent firm.
That experience has given me a realistic view of what large financial institutions do well and where they can be limiting. I understand the value of their research, technology, resources, and scale, but I’ve also seen what can happen when an advisor is operating within a product shelf, technology system, or business model that they didn’t choose.
I can use institutional custody and technology through Schwab while maintaining an open architecture approach. I can access sophisticated investment solutions, evaluate outside managers, consider direct indexing platforms from other institutions, and adopt new technology when I believe it provides a better solution for a client.
At the same time, I’m not trying to build a firm with thousands of clients. I want to know the people I work with and remain personally involved in their planning, which becomes much harder to accomplish when the client base grows beyond a certain point.
Large firms have scale that I can’t replicate. They have enormous technology departments, research teams, compliance departments, marketing budgets, and resources that a small independent firm simply won’t have. There are also a few things large firms have that I have no intention of trying to compete with, including teams and teams of lawyers. If the competition comes down to who can employ more attorneys, I’m comfortable conceding that one.
At the End of the Day, the Person Still Matters
After going through all of this, there’s one uncomfortable truth about choosing a financial advisor. At the end of the day, many people choose the person they connect with, and I understand why because you’re trusting someone with a significant part of your financial life.
I don’t think that should be the only factor, though.
Someone can be personable, confident, polished, and easy to talk to while still not being the right advisor for your situation. Another advisor may not make quite as strong an initial impression while having tremendous experience and providing excellent advice.
The goal should be to get past the sales presentation and understand what you’re actually choosing. Who does the advisor work for? How are they compensated? Are they a fiduciary? What experience do they have with households like yours? How many clients do they personally serve? What happens when you need something complicated? What investment and planning capabilities can they actually access? Are they restricted to proprietary products? What does technology look like? Can you see what actual clients say about them? What happens if the advisor becomes unavailable?
Once you’ve answered those questions, decide whether you actually like the person.
That’s ultimately how I’d evaluate any advisor, including myself.
Putting It Together
There isn’t one wealth management model that’s right for every investor because people have different preferences, financial situations, and expectations for the relationship. Some people want a large institution with thousands of employees, extensive infrastructure, and a recognizable brand, while others want an advisor who personally knows their financial situation and can spend significant time with them.
Some investors primarily want investment management, while others need extensive retirement, tax, estate, cash flow, and investment planning. The important thing is knowing which relationship you’re actually buying.
At Inclinevest, I work with high net worth professionals and families who want a fee only fiduciary relationship, comprehensive financial planning, and investment management without being limited to proprietary products or a large firm’s standard model. I intentionally keep the practice small because I believe the quality of the relationship becomes harder to maintain when the number of clients grows too large.
I’m not going to claim that makes Inclinevest better than every other wealth manager because there are a lot of very good advisors. The right choice ultimately depends on the person, the firm’s structure, the advisor’s experience, the capabilities available to you, and the needs of your household.
What I can say is that I built Inclinevest around the type of relationship I’d want if I were sitting on the other side of the table with several million dollars to manage.
That means an independent, fee only fiduciary structure, institutional custody and technology, an open architecture investment platform, access to outside investment managers when appropriate, comprehensive financial planning, and a relationship where the advisor you meet is the person actually responsible for the relationship.
For someone approaching retirement with $5 million, $10 million, or more, those details are worth understanding before deciding who should manage the next several decades of your financial life.
Key Takeaways
- Start by understanding the advisor’s legal structure, who the advisor actually works for, how the advisor is compensated, and whether the advisor serves as a fiduciary.
- Look at the advisor’s actual experience rather than relying primarily on the reputation of the company where the advisor works.
- A large client count isn’t necessarily an advantage because high volume models can make a genuinely high touch relationship difficult to maintain.
- Ask how many households the advisor personally serves and who you’ll actually be dealing with when you need advice.
- Don’t assume a large financial institution automatically provides greater investment capabilities because many large firms and independent RIAs use the same major custodians and institutional infrastructure.
- Independent firms can use open architecture investment platforms, allowing them to evaluate outside managers, technology, and investment solutions based on their merits rather than relying exclusively on proprietary products.
- Large financial institutions have substantial resources, but their size can also make technology changes and other business decisions slower.
- Tax and estate planning can be valuable components of a financial plan, but having those professionals under the same corporate roof doesn’t automatically make them the best option for your situation.
- Public reviews can provide useful insight into the client experience, particularly when comparing firms where advisor reviews and testimonials may not be readily available.
- Professional organizations such as NAPFA, Fee Only Network, and XY Planning Network give independent advisors access to continuing education, conferences, best practices, and other firm owners.
- Ask what happens if your advisor becomes unavailable, including where your assets are held, how the relationship would be transitioned, and whether the firm has a business continuity plan.
- Don’t choose an advisor solely because you like them, but don’t ignore the relationship either. Experience, structure, capabilities, and personal fit all matter.
About the Author
Gabriel Motta, CFP®, MBA, is the founder and principal of Inclinevest LLC, a fee only fiduciary wealth management and financial planning firm based in Greenwood Village, Colorado. Gabriel works with high net worth professionals and families approaching retirement, providing comprehensive financial planning, retirement income planning, tax aware investment management, and wealth management.
Before founding Inclinevest, Gabriel worked with high net worth and ultra high net worth households at large financial institutions, including managing and supporting other financial advisors. He also worked as a Wealth Planning Analyst at UBS, where he developed financial plans for high net worth clients. His experience across financial planning, wealth management, advisor leadership, and independent practice management gives him a perspective that extends beyond investment management alone.
Gabriel is a NAPFA, Fee Only Network, and XY Planning Network member. Learn more at inclinevest.com or schedule a conversation.
Sources
- Forbes and Shook Research, “Forbes and Shook Suspend Advisor Rankings for 2026,” WealthManagement.com. Read the article.
- WealthManagement.com, reporting on the Forbes and Shook controversy and questions surrounding advisor rankings. Read the article.
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Investor.gov, resources on investment advisers, fiduciary obligations, fees, and conflicts of interest.
This article is for general informational and educational purposes only. It isn’t personalized investment, tax, or legal advice, and it shouldn’t be relied on as a substitute for guidance specific to your situation. Inclinevest LLC is a registered investment adviser. Registration doesn’t imply any level of skill or training. Please consult a qualified professional before making decisions about your own financial circumstances.
