Business Owner's Playbook - The Hartford

GrowingInvestment Advice: Whereto turn for help.Depending on your situation,you may find it helpful to workwith a financial professional whocan provide guidance aboutinvestments and other financialplanning needs. At various timesin your life, you might consult aninvestment advisor, a financialplanner – or both. An investmentadvisor can help you make andmanage your investments. Afinancial planner can help youwith insurance, retirementplanning, and estate planning aswell as investments. However,beware: not all financial plannerstake such a comprehensive view,and anyone can use the title.It’s important to seek helpfrom someone with verifiablecredentials.Registered representatives,often known as stockbrokers orbrokers, must pass exams to belicensed to sell securities andmust be registered with theFinancial Industry RegulatoryAuthority (FINRA). It may alsobe a good idea to look for anadvisor that holds either of thefollowing designations:Certified Financial Planner professional can offer adviceon retirement, taxes, investing,employee benefits and real estate.A CFP ® professional must havea bachelor’s degree and threeyears’ experience, and must passa 10-hour exam overseen by theCertified Financial Planner Boardof Standards to use the trademarkedCFP initials or logo. Youcan find a CFP professional inyour area, or verify credentialsat www.cfp.net.Chartered Financial Consultantis a financial advisor with advancedknowledge in wealth accumulationand retirement planning. AChFC ® must have at least threeyears’ experience in the financialservices industry and pass anexamination on the fundamentalsof financial planning, includingincome tax, insurance, investmentand estate planning.When choosing a financial professional,it’s important to:1. Seek help from someone with verifiable credentials.2. Meet with a potential advisor to make sure he or sheunderstands your needs and objectives.3. Find out up front how payment works, whether it is an hourlyor fixed fee, commission-based, a combination, or anotherarrangement.For more information about selecting a financial professional, visithttp://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/invadvisers.htm orhttp://www.finra.org/InvestorInformation/index.htm.You may want to createan Independent AdvisoryBoard.While not required, many smallbusiness owners have also begunto assemble a board of advisors, agroup of people who cometogether to share their knowledgeand experience. Your board canbe made up of the network ofspecialists whose services youalready use or others, includingsome in your own field ofbusiness and a customer or two.The advisory board has nolegal responsibilities or rights,but can be as much of a valuableresource or sounding board asa (legally required) board ofdirectors is to a public company.The key is to sharply define whatyour board will do – what adviceyou need, what you don’t need,when you will meet, etc. Avoidhaving employees on youradvisory board; they might deferto your opinion, even if youencourage them to speak freely.Seek out a mentor orprofessional coach.At this stage, you’ll often findyourself in need of someone withwhom you can talk about businessand issues in a confidential,peer-to-peer way – a mentor (whenyou’re at the top of the company,it’s hard to have such conversationswith associates). A mentor istypically a more experiencedowner of a small business whohas faced the same challenges thatyou are facing now. He or shemight be someone you’ve met at aprofessional gathering, or in thecourse of your work. Or it mightbe someone you’ve found througha mentoring program sponsoredby the local entrepreneursassociation, a trade group oreven a retired businessperson’sorganization (such as SCORE).However, make sure that assuccessful as these individuals havebeen in building companies, theyare also good in advising others inthe growth of a business. You canlook for such a professional coachat www.coachfederation.org/ICF.27