Over dinner tonight, my other half asked me a poignant question:
"So are you a financial advisor or a product seller?"
"I am both," I replied. "If not why would I become an independent financial advisor? The difference between me and a 'tied' advisor is that my advice can be independant of the product. I can give you the comparison of whole life plans in the market and you pick your choice. But my advice cannot be independant in itself. I cannot provide you with alternatives that run contrary to commonly-agreed notions. I cannot tell you how to spend your way to wealth. The notion of such independent advice is absurd. All advice are dependant on commonly-agreed notions of earning, savings and prudent investment. The 'tied' advisor will tell you this. I will tell you the same thing.
But the most important aspect of why I am a product seller is the fact that people are not that interested in holistic cures - they prefer to get products which they perceive they have precise use for. Take a look at the healthcare stores. So you need vitamin C? Take the Vitamin C tablets. You need calcium? There's the calcium pills. You don't go to a pharmacist and get a planned meun that prescribe the foods you can take to increase your vitamin C or calcium intake. You get specific pills - a product, not a holistic cure. Maybe a dietician is better, but then how many people go to a dietician when they feel that they lack Vitamic C?
A more thought provoking example would be cancer treatment. You go to the specialist, and he will prescribe chemotherapy. A cocktail of drugs to 'kill' the cancer cells. He wouldn't put you on the Gerson Therapy. He wouldn't ask you to change your lifestyle and be a vegan. You can go ahead and live the same way. The medication is independant of your lifestyle. That's the interesting thing about 'western' medication. The 'eastern' medication, such as Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) emphasised on holistic cures - the belief that food is medication and you are what you eat. But maybe it is way harder to change your entire lifestyle, than to swallow a cocktail of pills.
"So are you a financial advisor or a product seller?"
"I am both," I replied. "If not why would I become an independent financial advisor? The difference between me and a 'tied' advisor is that my advice can be independant of the product. I can give you the comparison of whole life plans in the market and you pick your choice. But my advice cannot be independant in itself. I cannot provide you with alternatives that run contrary to commonly-agreed notions. I cannot tell you how to spend your way to wealth. The notion of such independent advice is absurd. All advice are dependant on commonly-agreed notions of earning, savings and prudent investment. The 'tied' advisor will tell you this. I will tell you the same thing.
But the most important aspect of why I am a product seller is the fact that people are not that interested in holistic cures - they prefer to get products which they perceive they have precise use for. Take a look at the healthcare stores. So you need vitamin C? Take the Vitamin C tablets. You need calcium? There's the calcium pills. You don't go to a pharmacist and get a planned meun that prescribe the foods you can take to increase your vitamin C or calcium intake. You get specific pills - a product, not a holistic cure. Maybe a dietician is better, but then how many people go to a dietician when they feel that they lack Vitamic C?
A more thought provoking example would be cancer treatment. You go to the specialist, and he will prescribe chemotherapy. A cocktail of drugs to 'kill' the cancer cells. He wouldn't put you on the Gerson Therapy. He wouldn't ask you to change your lifestyle and be a vegan. You can go ahead and live the same way. The medication is independant of your lifestyle. That's the interesting thing about 'western' medication. The 'eastern' medication, such as Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) emphasised on holistic cures - the belief that food is medication and you are what you eat. But maybe it is way harder to change your entire lifestyle, than to swallow a cocktail of pills.
So its nonsense to say that I am not a product seller. Of course I am a product seller, because I serve the needs of product buyers - clients who come to me for the purpose to purchase a prescription. Some clients come to me for a total revamp - they want a holistic cure and they want to know how to balance their finanical diet but managing the different aspects of earning, spending, saving and investing at various life stage. For these clients I am a financial advisor.
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