I think the question for advisers should be not ‘would your mother pay your fees?’ but ‘would you be happy to charge your mother this much?’ We are, in relative terms, cheap. We charge 0.5% a year, many charge twice as much. We reduced our initial fee to 2% last year, many still charge 3%, St James Place 4.5%. When we’ve asked existing and long-standing clients if they’d prefer us to charge by the hour rather than take our fees from their investments, the answer has been a resounding ‘no’. And we’re taking on as many new clients as we can handle. So that means, I’d say, we’ve got it about right. If not, market forces (and/or you), would soon tell us. Wouldn’t they?
“Letter of authority: Why now is the right time for change”
This may sound like a non-issue from outside the world-of-financial-advice bubble. It is the bain, however, of the daily working lives of many of us, particularly of those paid by we advisers to do the dirty work of dealing with the many providers with whom we have to work.