The Future of Financial Advice Must be More Diverse

Written by: Matthew Phillips | The last words of the email stood out the most. “… the thing is … we are deaf.” This is how the prospective client closed her message to me in 2017.

When I agreed to meet with the woman and her husband, I was feeling uncertain about how to best communicate with them. To prepare, I added captions to my usual video presentation. But halfway through, I realized the couple was completely overwhelmed with the financial vocabulary I was using, which was entirely new to them. Improvising, I pulled up a blank Word document and started typing which allowed us to converse back and forth. I felt completely inadequate and regretted not preparing more, but did my best to connect with the couple.

To my surprise, the meeting concluded with the wife rejecting my handshake and instead grabbing onto me tightly as she began to cry. “Matthew, thank you for what you have done,” she said. “We have sat with five advisors, and none have come close to helping us like you have. I know we have missed out on financial opportunities because we are deaf.”

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If you didn’t grow up around people who invested, then chances are that you still may not know a whole lot about the process. It may seem like something you should do as an adult but otherwise difficult to wrap your head around. Particularly for young adults who entered the job market during the Great Recession, the idea of investing heavily in the stock market still carries a certain level of fear.

Yet, with the right knowledge and guidance, young investors are quite capable of successfully creating a portfolio that will deliver solid returns. To help you gain that crucial insight, 15 members of Forbes Finance Council share the most important things young investors should know about getting started with stocks…

Many view the stock market as a roller coaster, but they ride it the wrong way. Instead of a quick ride full of highs and lows, start the ride early, travel through the small bumps and know it will go back up in the decades between today and retirement. Remember, though, the key to financial success doesn’t depend on the market’s performance but on the sound financial decisions you make each day. -Jeff Motske CFP®, Trilogy Financial

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