What’s in a name?
Maybe nothing.
After all, Google and Zappos invented new words, and then built great companies with names that had no prior meaning. Clearly a name isn’t that important, right?
On the other hand... What’s in a name? Maybe, everything.
From here on, our firm’s new name is Fiduciary Financial Advisors.
Our old name - ‘Action Point Financial’ was fine. No one objected to it. We never lost a client because of it. We could have used that neutral name and still delivered exceptional value to our clients for years to come.
Changing was actually a lot of work. It’s been a multi-month investment of time, money, and energy that we didn’t have to put in. So why do it?
To have 20/20 vision means ‘to see clearly with one’s eyes, what others should also be able to see.’
Well, it’s the year 2020, and we find ourselves in a time and place in society where we desperately need more transparency, clarity, and integrity from the business world; meanwhile our industry of Investment Management and Financial Advising remains committed to non-transparency and hazy conflicts with clients.
Did you know that over 90% of professionals with the title “Financial Advisor” can still put their own financial interests ahead of yours when they recommend investments or give you advice? (source: Paladin Registry) To make matters worse, most friendly, well-intentioned Advisors actually don’t have a choice. They are required to follow the protocols established by the firms they work for.
Imagine if your Doctor could knowingly recommend a prescription that he knows is bad for you, but recommends it anyway, simply because it pays him more. Not good for you.
Now imagine the Doctor works for a large, profit-focused healthcare system that dictates how to charge (usually as much as possible), and requires conflicts of interest be resolved in a way that benefit the entity, but damage you, the actual patient. The Doctor has no say in the matter. Even worse situation for you, right? (Thankfully your Doctor is a Fiduciary.)
The definition of the word ‘Fiduciary’ is: “A professional who has a duty and obligation to put the best interests of their clients ahead of their own interests.” In our industry, a Fiduciary Advisor cannot act in a transactional broker capacity, cannot collect commissions or hidden kickback fees, and cannot recommend investment products that we wouldn’t own ourselves.
Every Financial Advisor on our team is required to act as a Fiduciary on all investment recommendations and financial advice. 100% of time. For every client. In the past, we’ve taken that a step farther by publicly committing to the Fiduciary Oath for all to see here. And now, we’re taking yet another step forward by naming the firm accordingly.
We stand under our North Star of the Fiduciary Oath proudly. This alone makes us very different from almost all of the other financial firms in the marketplace.
Our view is that every single person that wants to hire a Financial Advisor, Financial Planner, Investment Advisor, etc. should hire a Fiduciary, and run away swiftly from anyone who isn’t. From the beginning, we’ve stuck by our firm credo ‘In God we trust, everyone else must bring data’ and now our name reflects that.
The reason for our name change is simple. What is in our name means EVERYTHING.
We are committed to being transparent and clear about who we are, how we operate, and what we stand for.
After all… it is 2020. And we are seeing what we need to be clearly.
Sincerely,
The entire Fiduciary Financial Advisors team
