14 Key Wealth Management Questions for 2023

What are the key wealth management questions that you should be asking in 2023?

Managing your wealth properly is essential to pursuing your financial goals and seeking to secure your future. However, with constantly evolving financial landscapes and economic conditions, it can be challenging to navigate the world of wealth management effectively. That’s why it’s crucial to ask the right questions when it comes to managing your finances. 

Let’s explore some of the key wealth management questions to ask in 2023. By asking these questions and finding the right answers, you can make well-informed decisions that will help you plan for your future.

Why do these wealth management questions matter?

Wealth management can encompass the comprehensive management of an individual’s or a family’s financial resources. It involves financial planning, investment management, and the implementation of various financial strategies to pursue wealth growth, preserve assets, and ultimately achieve specific financial objectives. Wealth managers may help with:

• Investment management
• Retirement planning
• Tax services
• Some estate planning
• Philanthropy advice
• Social Security maximization

With such a range of options and approaches, it’s important to know the right questions to ask a wealth manager. Individuals can gain a clear understanding of their financial aspirations and identify the necessary steps to help reach their goals by asking thoughtful wealth management interview questions to help create a well-defined strategy tailored to their unique circumstances, risk tolerance, and time horizon.

Defining Your Financial Goals

One of the most important wealth management questions to ask pertains to your financial goals. Defining your financial goals is crucial because it provides a clear sense of direction and purpose in managing your finances. It helps to establish a roadmap for making informed financial decisions and ensures that efforts and resources are channeled toward specific objectives.

When working with a wealth manager, it’s important to ask some of the following questions:

1. What are my short-term and long-term financial aspirations?
2. What specific financial milestones do I want to achieve?
3. How much money do I need to accomplish each goal?
4. What is the timeframe or deadline for achieving these goals?
5. What are the potential challenges or obstacles that might hinder my progress?

Assessing Your Financial Standing

Knowing your current financial situation provides a baseline from which you can develop an effective financial plan. It allows you to assess your income, expenses, assets, and liabilities, providing a comprehensive snapshot of your financial health. This understanding forms the foundation for setting realistic goals, making informed decisions, and tracking progress over time.  

Here, you’ll want to work through a wide range of questions about your income, assets, and liabilities, including:

1. What is my current income? How stable and reliable is it?
2. What are my monthly expenses, including both essential and discretionary spending?
3. Do I have a budget in place? If so, is it aligned with my income and expenses?
4. How much debt do I have, including credit card debt, loans, or mortgages?
5. What are my assets, such as savings, investments, real estate, or other valuable possessions?
6. Am I saving for retirement? If yes, how much am I contributing, and is it sufficient?

Next, you’ll assess the gap between your current standing and your financial goals, and work with a wealth manager to bridge it.

Staying Up-to-Date with Financial Changes

In addition to the wealth management questions listed above, there are a few vital questions to ask a prospective wealth management firm before working with them. Perhaps the best question to ask a wealth manager is “how do you stay up to date on changes in the financial world?”

Ideally, wealth managers should read economic reports, pour over financial statements from companies, stay on top of current events, and track changes to retirement laws. Your financial advisor should be a student of market history to bring context. 

Also ask how a wealth manager will keep you up to date on all of these matters. At Dechtman Wealth Management, for example, we communicate in a lot of different ways:

• 1:1 meetings in person, via Zoom, and by phone
• Email communication
• Monthly email newsletters
• Educational webinars 

We send info on tax law changes, market matters, and more. We also host events, webinars, and in-person events. If our clients realized they would be affected by some changes, the next steps would be a meeting with our team to discuss the next steps. 

These questions are especially important in 2023, as the landscape is changing quickly. Many forecasters believe there is a high likelihood that there will be a recession by the end of 2023. A good investment strategy includes understanding what has worked well in the past during volatile markets, but also understanding how those lessons may be applied today.

As we explain on our website, faith in the markets is central to our approach: “Despite world wars, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, changing political landscapes, etc., the markets have proven to be incredibly resilient.”

A Final Question   

Ask your wealth manager this technical question: “Are you a fiduciary financial advisor?” A fiduciary is an individual with a legal responsibility to act with the best interests of their clients at heart. When financial professionals take the Fiduciary Oath, a highly revered code of ethics, they are obligated to follow several rules, according to The National Association of Personal Financial Advisors:

• To act with honesty, transparency, and in good faith
• To immediately make clients aware of conflicts of interest that could affect them
• To refuse compensation for referrals

This wealth management question will help you to ensure that your financial advisor is on your side. 

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