It’s the Little Things

Written By: A. Suzanne Robertson, CFP^®

Typically, around this time of year, I would write a post about strategies I hope your financial advisor or accountant is discussing with you to help reduce your tax burden going forward. I would warn you about the upcoming changes to our tax code – specifically, the favorable provisions that will be expiring and the revisions scheduled to occur in December 2025. (My colleague, Marissa Waldron, CFP^® wrote about those in February. If you’re curious, I suggest you check out her post here.) This year, however, I decided to take a road less traveled and write my response to the other question I seem to be hearing every time I admit my chosen profession in public: How do I know if my advisor is right for me?

My general response is: It’s the little things. It seems a lot of advisors find it easy to give investment recommendations and take credit when the stock goes up but blame the markets when it goes down. How many of them, though, will call you to say, “I know your account is down. I could have done a better job for you there, but I think you should stay the course”? When you ask if your advisor is right for you, I will ask if your advisor contacts you in the bad times as well as the good. This, to me, is the most basic obligation of anyone who is managing your money. In fact, I think it’s more important for your advisor to contact you when the market is down than when the market is up and flying. In my opinion, a good advisor will contact you regardless of market conditions. But what makes a great advisor? That’s where the little things come into play. A great advisor will call and sincerely ask about what is on your mind. They will look for ways to continuously add value to your life, not just your investment account. To do that, a great advisor is going to focus on the little things, and in the process, they’re going to discover ways to protect you from making big mistakes that could cost you in your bank account and, subsequently, your quality of life.

I can’t help but think of the military clients whose advisor phoned to wish the wife a happy birthday only to learn she was packing their house. Knowing they had purchased the home a couple of years earlier, the advisor learned they had sold the house and would be closing in three weeks…one week short of the required 2-year period to be able to exclude the capital gains from taxes. Naturally, the advisor explained the rule to their client and sent her on her way to call the closing attorney to see about delaying closing by one week. When the advisor called back the next day, they learned that the buyers were not receptive to the idea because that would leave them living in a hotel for one week with their two young children. After discussing the financial ramifications of closing as scheduled with their clients, the advisor went to work and managed to arrange an 8-day vacation for the purchasers to visit Disney World and Epcot Center in Florida. Hearing this as an option, the family jumped at the chance to put their things in storage and delay closing. Yes, the vacation felt extravagant, but by delaying their closing (and keeping their primary residence status) until after the buyers returned from vacation, the clients saved over $40,000 in taxes. I shudder to think what would have happened had that advisor not called their client to say happy birthday, and I ask you: Would your advisor do the same? Would they call in favors for you and go that extra mile to make sure you are situated as well as you possibly can be, and save you $40,000 on your taxes? I’ll be honest. I don’t know a Carlson Financial advisor who wouldn’t.

One of my fellow Carlson Financial advisors created an expansive spreadsheet to help a prospective client visualize his debt situation and evaluate different scenarios to determine the best plan to get them out of debt. This is all before they became a client. Clearly, at Carlson Financial, our focus is on improving the lives of the people we meet without consideration of what we think they can pay us. We love what we do, and we are passionate about the value we bring to our clients’ lives.

At a recent dinner event, one of our guests mentioned she had just lost her horse, leaving her other horse lonely. After expressing my sorrow at her loss, I told her to call me when she was ready because I could happily give her a choice of foster horses. Her response, somewhat jokingly, was she is ready now and proceeded to tell me what she was looking for in her next horse. She was clear she did not want to foster any horses but wanted to adopt one (as a person who founded and runs a horse rescue this was music to my ears). Upon getting home that night, I reached out to my horse rescue contacts and spent the weekend helping our guest look for the perfect replacement. In the process, I also managed to secure a grant to help her with vet exams and transportation if she needs it when she does find the horse of her dreams. I do hope this lady decides to become our client, but if she doesn’t, that’s okay too. I can rest easy knowing I’ve done for her what I would want someone to do for me. This is the Carlson way. It’s the little things like this that, in my opinion, take an advisor from good to great, and are the things I believe you deserve from your financial advisor.

So, when you ask me how to tell if your advisor is right for you, don’t be surprised when I gently suggest you talk to the advisors at Carlson Financial. At Carlson Financial, not only can we help you, we want to help you!

Say What?

Looking for baby name suggestions for that grandchild on the way? Here are 5 common names of baby boomers that are making a comeback right now, according to baby name records with the Social Security Administration. Henry, Margaret, Dean, Walter, and Louis.

This week in history

1921 – First live sporting event broadcast on radio. A Pittsburgh radio station aired a boxing match between Johnny Ray and Johnny Dundee; four months later the first MLB game was broadcast on radio.

1947 – Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in professional baseball at age 28 when he stepped onto the field to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers. His jersey number, 42, was the first-ever number retired by all MLB teams.

1970 – Disaster strikes when Apollo 13’s oxygen tank blew up during the third manned lunar landing mission. Mission Commander Jim Lovell made the report to mission control: