Stop Paying Hidden Investment Fees! - How To Get Unbiased Advice For The Right Fee So You Can Reach Your Financial Goals Years Earlier

The purpose of this book is to help you make smarter choices regarding your money. It will allow you to become better informed about the investment industry and to understand the vast array of hidden fees being charged by the people and institutions you are being asked to trust. It will also show you the impact of those hidden fees on your ability to reach your financial goals.

In addition, we will discuss, tax deductibility, active vs. passive investing styles and the comprehensive services you should be getting from your financial advisor and what you should be paying for those services.

It is imperative that you understand the massive IMPACT that hidden fees have on your ability to achieve your financial goals and ultimately live your ideal life. As we will demonstrate later in the book, avoiding these fees could enable you to retire a DECADE earlier! (Some people don’t like the word “retirement.” They prefer financial independence, or Freedom Day! or some other term. Our point here is that whatever financial goal you wish to achieve, you can reach it years earlier by reducing the impact of fees on your investments.

We will show you the different ways that advisors are paid and what services an advisor should be providing for the fees you are being charged. It is very likely that right now you are being ripped off by your “advisor” and you don’t even know it. Yes. Ripped off. I know that is strong or even inflammatory language, but I believe when you understand how much you are being overcharged, you will agree with me that you are being ripped off.

I have written this book for successful business owners, entrepreneurs and professionals of all types who appreciate a higher fiduciary standard and a culture of full disclosure. These successful people simply want to work with someone they can trust, who can provide full disclosure and transparency regarding the products, services, or advice they seek to achieve their ideal future. This is a reasonable request. Sadly, it is not the reality for most Canadians today. My hope is that by reading this book you will get a better understanding of the fees you pay, their impact on the achievement of your goals and your options to course correct your current situation.

In my interactions with savers and investors who seek my advice, I have observed with overwhelming consistency that the vast majority of people are completely unaware of all the hidden fees that are buried in the financial products they own. Some even tell me that there is no fee, it’s free! (Almost never true!)

When discussing their investments they are unaware of the total annual cost in dollars or as a percentage of their investments. Additionally, they have very little understanding of how these fees impact their rate of return which directly impacts their timelines and ability to actualize their goals and live a better life.

Unfortunately, you probably don’t know how much you’re paying because your financial advisor and the institutions you trust have made it an art form to not disclose these fees. They hide them for one simple reason. Hiding the fees makes it nearly impossible for you to comparison shop. If you knew what the actual fees were, you would likely NOT pay them! These hidden fees can be thousands or tens of thousands of dollars per year which can add up to millions of dollars over your investing lifetime. These unscrupulous advisors and institutions are getting rich on the hidden fees they are charging you.

Let me be perfectly clear about one thing right up front. I don’t have a problem with any fee or commission that any advisor or institution wants to charge…as long as they are clearly disclosed and communicated to the client UP FRONT in plain English. With full transparency and full disclosure, an educated client can make an informed decision. My beef with the industry is their widespread adoption and acceptance of hidden and undisclosed fees and commissions.

What they call “disclosure” is often in the form of a prospectus consisting of hundreds of pages of legalese which no consumer can reasonably be expected to read or understand. You should not need a lawyer to make a simple investment. I believe this is dishonest or at a minimum disingenuous.

You deserve the right to make informed decisions, to understand your fees, the impact they have on your ability to achieve your financial goals as fast as possible and to take the right corrective actions needed to get on track and stay on track to your goals.

Like great magicians, the industry is masterful at generating distracting misdirection and counterproductive noise and information that focuses your attention on anything but full transparency and full disclosure of the exceptionally high fees they are charging you.

This is compounded by the fact that virtually anyone can call themselves a financial planner. With the bar set very low, there are many unqualified advisors in the marketplace creating confusion and irreversible damage. Many unsuspecting investors engage salespeople and / or “financial advisors” who are only paid when they sell a product. Salespeople on commission (regardless of their title) rarely have your best interests at heart and the investments they sell are often less than stellar investments precisely because of the percentage of your investment that goes directly to commissions. How can you get a great return on your investment if a huge chunk of your money is paid out as a commission on the front end? The short answer is that you can’t.

The sad reality in Canada is that anyone can call themselves a financial planner and even the “legitimate” advisors are not mandated to provide any kind of standardized services and or deliverables to a client. Further, advisors are not held to a fiduciary standard, meaning that legally, they are not required to put your interests ahead of their own at this point in time.

There are over 18,000 individuals formally qualified to call themselves financial planners and tens of thousands more calling themselves financial advisors, financial consultants, investment advisors or wealth managers. Today in Canada, outside of Quebec, anyone can call themselves a financial planner. There is no regulation that restricts the use of that title. Just like any other profession, there are some great people who work as advisors and some not-so-great people.

Here is a quote directly from the organization that develops, promotes and enforces professional standards in financial planning, The Financial Planning Standards Council:

Allowing anyone to hold themselves out as a financial planner leaves Canadians confused and at risk. Half of Canadians believe financial planners are regulated. They are not. The need for unbiased financial advice has never been more urgent.

While many financial planners voluntarily seek out rigorous education and certifications, some people who call themselves financial planners don’t have the skills or qualifications to provide financial planning and are not accountable to any oversight body or subject to government regulations. This is a pretty scary reality, especially when you consider the importance of finances in one’s life and that money and financial issues are one of the single biggest sources of stress for most people.

Yet, few consumers ever question what sort of education or experience their advisors possess, or the professional standards their advisors are held to. Most people just assume that their financial advisors have their best interests at heart – and I believe we have shown in this book that it is generally NOT the case.

Can anyone call themselves a surgeon, accountant or dentist? No. Why then, is an industry so critical to your survival so lightly regulated?

Canada’s regulators must require a fiduciary standard. They currently do not.