What Professionals CANNOT Do

We've covered ways NOT to get advice--from people who don't know what they're talking about, or who may have axes to grind. Of course, there are good places to get advice and lots of options. We'll get to that later. Meanwhile, before you call a professional financial planner, you should have a broad idea of what you can and cannot get from them.

Financial planners provide a range of services that may include one of more of the following: setting up and managing an investing portfolio; advising on retirement plans and insurance; tax advice, often in conjunction with a tax professional; estate planning; and college financing.

However, financial planners are not in the guarantee business. A prominent financial planner I know was being interviewed on TV, and the first question he was asked was "where will the market be at year-end?" To which he replied: "I have no idea." It flummoxed the reporter. But the planner was right: there was not profit in figuring our a year-end result. That was not a service he was pretending to sell to clients.

Financial planners are not fortune tellers. They will deal in probabilities and risk models, but not in short-term predictions. They're concerned with the likelihood of a comfortable retirement in 20 or 30 years, not market movements in the coming days or even months.

So don't ask a financial planner to pick hot stocks. Don't expect them to make you money in every kind of market: there will be quarters, even years, when you will be down. Remember, you're looking at the long term. This might seem counter-intuitive, especially if you see someone else, also with a planner (maybe even the same planner!) making money while you're losing it. But you have to remember, again, the planners are not picking a set group of stocks designed to go up for everyone. Another investor may have a higher, or lower, risk tolerance, meaning their ups and downs will not sync with yours.

Understanding the long-term nature of investing will keep you focused on the ultimate goal--and not on the closing of each day's market.