THE MILLIONAIRE NEXT DOOR

“Choose a financial advisor who is endorsed by an enlightened accountant and/or his clients with investment portfolios that in the long run outpace the market. If you don’t have an accountant, hire one.”

“Another correlate of wealth accumulation is employment of a CPA^®, not a CPA^® just to prepare tax returns, but a CPA^® to provide various kinds of investment advice.

“Some CPAs are better than others at helping clients accumulate wealth. Choose one who has the highest concentration of clients who are Prodigious Accumulators of Wealth.

“The more intellect, time, and energy spent in hiring a financial advisor, the more likely you will be to find a suitable one. Perhaps you are not convinced about the need to exert yourself in this task. Look at it another way.

“Why are you not as wealthy as you should be? It may be because of the way you operate your household. Would a business, especially a very productive one, ever hire a key employee without doing a serious background check and in-depth interview? Yet most people, even those with high incomes, hire financial advisors after obtaining little or no background checks on these ‘employment candidates.’

“Some high-income people have responded to our view on this topic by stating: ‘But I’m not hiring an employee. I am just doing some investing with a fellow who called me.’ Our response to such a statement is simple: operate your household like a productive business. The best businesses hire the best people. They also patronize the best suppliers. Utilizing the best human resources and top suppliers are two major reasons the most productive organizations succeed while others fail. You should view all financial advisors who solicit you as a client merely as applicants. View them as prospective employees or suppliers for your households. And then ask yourself some simple questions. What criteria would a productive personnel manager use in evaluating each of these applicants? Would a skilled purchasing agent and/or a chief financial officer of organization buy investment information and products from this potential supplier? What criteria, what key pieces of background information, would be used to evaluate potential suppliers?

“Your ability to hire high-grade financial advisors is directly related to your propensity to accumulate wealth. This, in turn, relates to one of the fundamental reasons business owners outpace all other occupational categories in accumulating wealth. Most high-income business owners have more experience in evaluating potential suppliers, employee applicants, and human resources in general than do individuals in other occupational groups. Being in business requires a constant evaluation of such resources.”[1]