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it is invested, what its purpose is
and how it functions to provide
for their financial needs.”
Bentley said that he often
hears some version of this statement
from husbands, “I am not
concerned while I am here, but
if something happens to me,
who does she turn to who has
the experience, the background
and the education to help her?”
“It’s an excellent question,”
Bentley said, and he has an answer.
Turn to people such as
himself, with more than 18 years
of experience and industry certifications
to prove his credentials
and his partner, G. Kevin Metzler,
chief advisor and president
of Family Wealth Group, with
more than 35 years of financial
and retirement planning under
his belt.
After the financial debacle of
2008 and 2009, aptly dubbed the
Great Recession, Bentley and
Metzler put together a firm brochure
insightfully titled, “Who
Can I Trust?” The brochure
details various methods and
agencies prospective clients can
search to do background checks
on the financial advisors they
are vetting. Readers are directed
to the federal Securities and Exchange
Commission, the Better
Business Bureau, the National
Ethics Bureau and Dunn and
Bradstreet to seek information
regarding financial advisors.
“Anyone can tell themselves
and their clients, ‘Hey, trust
me,’” Bentley said. “But trust
takes time to build. Clients
should start by making sure
their chosen advisor has the appropriate
background. Unfortunately,
the rules are just not
set in place that one has to have
this background, this education
and that certification to be able
to call themselves a financial
advisor. Someone can just walk
off the street, put up a sign on
a building and call themselves a
financial advisor.”
This alarming trend is part of
why he supports the establishment
of a uniform national fiduciary
standard governing the
work of all types of financial advisors,
whether they be compensated
via a commission model
or a fee-based only model.
Bentley believes a nationwide
standard would force a clear
definition of what standards a
financial advisor must meet. He
thinks this would drastically increase
the client’s ability to understand
what qualifies someone
to claim to be a professional
financial advisor.
Bentley and Metzler run their
firm as what he describes as a
“true fiduciary” in which the
standard is a management process
dedicated to overseeing the
client’s accounts with their best
interests only – and not that of
the firm – as the guiding principle.
They provide the gamut of financial
planning services – income,
tax, estate and Social Security
– under their one roof,
creating a complete suite of
services for their clients. In his
opinion, clients have too much
at stake for both partners not to
*Investment Advisory Services offered through Global Financial Private Capital, LLC, an
SEC Registered Investment Advisor.
www.thefamilywealthgroup.com
be fully involved in all aspects
of their financial lives employing
their full fiduciary standard
in all decisions.“Money makes
people do crazy things,” he said.
That unfortunate fact is part
of why he and Metzler seek investment
growth between five
and seven percent for their clients
while still in the accumulation
phase. It’s a steady, realistic
goal that does not dramatically
increase risk.
Post 2008 and 2009’s Great
Recession, Bentley said that it
took many of the now-retiring
baby boomers five years to recover
from the losses sustained.
“They haven’t forgotten that experience,
either,” he said. They
are worried; his over 700 different
clients are far more cautious
than in previous decades.
“It used to be you were able to
just throw a dart at a board and
the investment it hit would yield
an average of ten or 15 percent
or even more,” he recalls, adding
the sour truth that perhaps
such easy success spoiled investors
for the realities of coming
bear markets. “I think investors
are beginning to see that their
expectations of the market were
a bit skewed due to all the good
times we had and that now it is
time to switch to a capital preservation
mode instead of a capital
appreciation mindset.”
THE SUIT MAGAZINE p.27