In the CFP Board’s “Ten Questions to Ask Your Financial Advisor ” they suggest, “Before establishing a relationship with a financial planner you will want to interview several people to make sure they’re the right match for you and exhibit key traits of a good advisor. Here are 10 important questions to ask before selecting a financial planner.”

In this series we are both providing an answer for Marotta Wealth Management as well as giving a longer analysis about the question, why the CFP Board may have included it, and how other organizations might answer if they were being truthful.

The fifth question is about client profile. The CFP Board likely includes this question as a way to ask, “Do I even qualify for your services?”

5. What types of clients do you typically work with?

Some financial planners prefer to work with clients whose assets fall within a particular range, so it’s important to make sure the planner is a good fit for your individual financial situation. Keep in mind that some planners require you to have a certain net worth before offering services. When you search for a CFP® professional on this site, you can specify your investable asset range to find a financial planner whose services best match your needs.

Some investment advisors use a minimum asset value as a selling point of their exclusivity. These advisor are often selling securities which are exempt from the regulations and disclosures required by the Securities and Exchange Commission unless sold to accredited investors. Not all investments using exemptions are bad investments. But being an accredited investor is not a selling point.

We believe that the basic principles of financial planning are the same no matter how many zeros you add or subtract.

When we accept a client, we aim to make the relationship a lifetime partnership and will strive to serve you for as long as we have together. We provide ongoing investment management services for our clients and investment advice for our clients’ families. As a result, our clients range from teenagers with a few thousand dollars in a Roth IRA to retired couples with millions of dollars. They include university professors and small business owners. They also include full-time artists and recent graduates from college. While most of our clients are frugal super-savers who have saved and invested to build wealth, some of our clients need help limiting their spending and living within a tight budget.

Our preferred fee structure, based on a percentage of assets under management, is intended to foster open door communications with our clients. Managed-account clients are encouraged to contact us throughout the year whenever they have financial questions at no additional charge. As fee-only advisors, the only compensation we receive comes from you, the client, allowing us to better provide unbiased financial advice.

Our fees are listed on Our Fees page. Clients who will benefit most from our services either have sufficient manageable assets or are willing to meet our annual fee for services. Although we recommend an ongoing relationship, we also offer an hourly fee for non-managed accounts and can quote a fixed fee to complete a specific service as needed.

If you meet this profile and are interested in considering our services, contact us. We look forward to meeting you!

For those who do not meet our profile yet, we recommend our Marotta’s Gone-Fishing Portfolio. A gone-fishing portfolio is a portfolio of just a few stocks which should weather the ups and downs of the market fairly well while only rebalancing twice a year.

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