Who is the Best Financial Advisor in St. Louis?

If you’ve spent any time searching online, you’ve probably typed in things like Best Financial Advisor St. Louis ; Financial Advisor Near Me ; Financial Planner Near Me ; Retirement Planner St. Louis ; Fiduciary Financial Advisor St. Louis.

That’s understandable. Retirement is one of the biggest life transitions most people will ever face, and finding the right advisor can feel overwhelming.

The problem is that there is no official ranking of financial advisors. There isn’t a governing body keeping score. There isn’t a committee deciding who gets the trophy this year. And there certainly isn’t a universally accepted definition of who is “best.”

The Internet Can’t Tell You Who Is Right for YOU.

When people search for an advisor, they’re often hoping for a simple answer. Unfortunately, it’s rarely that simple.

Many financial advisors have specific specialties or areas of focus just like physicians do. A Dermatologist has a focus of practice that is much different than a Cardiologist. However, they are both doctors.

Some advisors focus primarily on insurance planning for young families. Other advisors specialize in working with professional athletes and the challenges they face. Other advisors like at our firm (RetireStrong Financial Advisors) specialize in helping nice people 50 and older plan for a successful retirement.

Some charge commissions. Some charge ongoing advisory fees.

Many websites make these advisors look almost identical. Everyone claims to provide great service. Everyone says they care. Everyone says they put clients first. That doesn’t make the decision any easier.

Ask Better Questions

Instead of trying to find the “best” advisor in a certain area, I believe we should focus on asking better questions.

Here are some fantastic questions to ask as you interview different advisors:

What does your typical client look like?
Do you have any areas of specialty or credentials?
How are you compensated?
How often will I hear from you & meet with you after becoming a client?
What is your investment philosophy?
Other than investment management, what other services do you offer?

The answers to those questions will tell you far more than any online ranking ever will.

What We Believe

At RetireStrong Financial Advisors, we want to be known as the best financial advisor in St. Louis!

There’s simply no objective way to prove we are or we are not the best, other than by asking our clients to gauge their satisfaction with us.

However, what we can tell you is what we believe. We believe retirement planning is about much more than investment management. We believe taxes matter. We believe Social Security decisions matter. We believe Medicare decisions matter. We believe legacy planning matters.

We believe most pre-retirees and retirees would be in a much better position working with an advisor who really understood them and their unique goals and truly cared about their success.

And we believe clients deserve proactive communication instead of only hearing from their advisor when it’s time for a review meeting.

Be Careful With Online Lists

That doesn’t mean the advisors on those lists are bad. It simply means you shouldn’t assume that a website can determine who is the right fit for your family.

The advisor who is perfect for your neighbor may not be the right advisor for you. Your neighbor might be looking for an advisor to provide them with totally different services than you are looking for.

The Bottom Line

The goal isn’t to find the advisor with the best marketing. The goal is to find someone whose philosophy makes sense to you, communicates clearly, answers your questions, and earns your trust over time.

Therefore we suggest the following when considering hiring a financial advisor:

Interview several advisors
Look at the advisor’s reviews on Google
Investigate their background online : https://brokercheck.finra.org/
Ask difficult questions
Take your time

And choose the one who feels like the best fit for your retirement planning—not the one who simply appears at the top of a search result.

Gregg Gonzalez, Certified Financial Fiduciary®, CFP®

About the Author:

Gregg is a Certified Financial Fiduciary® and a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional. Gregg founded RetireStrong Financial Advisors to be different than most firms out there. He found that people want more from their advisors. They want personalized and caring guidance, impactful financial and tax strategies, and real forward-looking planning, instead of a cookie-cutter or “one-size-fits-all approach”. People also want an advisor who speaks on their level, in plain-English. He developed a simple mission for RetireStrong Financial Advisors: To care more about our clients than they expect us to care.

Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, a registered investment advisor, Member FINRA/SIPC.

Two notes: the bullet glyphs came through as unrecognizable characters in the source, so I substituted standard bullets. The em dash in “retirement planning—not the one” is the author’s, so I left it alone.