How to Choose a Financial Advisor (Especially If You’re a Business Owner)

A fee-only advisor is paid only by you, through a flat fee, hourly rate, or percentage of assets, and earns no commissions from selling products. A fee-based advisor charges fees but can ALSO earn commissions, which creates a built-in conflict: they may get paid more to recommend certain products. The one-word difference hides a big one. Fee-only removes the incentive to sell you things you don’t need. When you ask an advisor “are you fee-only, one hundred percent of the time,” a clear yes matters; hesitation is your answer.

A fiduciary is legally required to put your interests ahead of their own. That sounds like it should be the default; it isn’t. Many people who call themselves advisors are held only to a lower “suitability” standard, meaning a product just has to be suitable, not best, for you. A fiduciary has to recommend what’s actually best for you. Always confirm the advisor is a fiduciary at all times, in writing, not just when it’s convenient.

Ask five things. One: are you a fee-only fiduciary one hundred percent of the time? Two: how exactly are you paid, in writing? Three: do you coordinate my business and personal finances together, or just manage investments? Four: will you talk directly with my CPA and attorney? Five: what happens in our first year, concretely? The answers separate a true coordinator from an investment manager with a nice website. A real fiduciary will hand you a written answer without flinching.

Most don’t, and that’s the gap that costs business owners the most. The typical setup leaves you with an investment advisor, a separate CPA, a bookkeeper, and an attorney who never speak to each other, with you as the general contractor holding the whole picture. A modern family office is built the opposite way: one team coordinating business and personal together, because your owner pay, your taxes, your entity, and your household are one connected system. If you own a business, “handles both” should be a requirement, not a bonus.

Advisor pricing comes in a few shapes: a percentage of assets managed (often around 1%), an hourly rate, a flat monthly or annual fee, or a one-time project fee for a plan. Percentage-of-assets pricing can get expensive as your investments grow and doesn’t always match the work involved. Flat and subscription pricing tie the cost to the service rather than your account size, which many business owners find fairer and more predictable. Whatever the model, it should be transparent and stated up front, no surprise invoices.

You can absolutely do it yourself, and plenty of owners do for a while. The honest test is whether doing it alone is still working: are your taxes planned or reactive, is your owner pay set on purpose, is anyone watching the whole picture, and do you actually have the time. Running a business is already a full-time job. Most owners reach a point where the cost of an uncoordinated financial life, in overpaid taxes and missed moves, quietly exceeds the cost of help. If you’re not sure where that line is for you, a low-commitment strategy session is the cheapest way to find out.