ZenInvestor.org is a market intelligence and investment coaching website. What sets us apart from our competition is our commitment to unbiased commentary and highly customized coaching. We are able to offer unbiased advice because of the way our business is structured.
If you’ve looked at other coaching websites, you might have noticed a common theme. Most of them offer coaching as a sideline to their primary business of gathering and managing client assets. ZenInvestor is not in that business. We exist for the sole purpose of educating our clients. This frees us from the burden of trying to bring in accounts. It also allows us to tell the unvarnished truth, even if our clients may not like what they hear.
There may come a time when we can no longer claim to be the only pure coaching service available to investors. If you should find such a place, please email us the link at info@zeninvestor.org and you’ll receive a full year of Premium Membership for free.
There are some excellent websites that offer high quality information on how to invest, but they’re usually structured like online libraries, or encyclopedias, or glossaries of investment terms. This is very useful, as long as you know what you need, and where to find the right information. At ZenInvestor we go a step further.
We recognize that most investors who search for help aren’t sure about what kind of help they need, how much help they need, where to find help, or how much it will cost them. We address these issues by offering a free initial consultation, where the investor can explain what’s going on with their current investments, and decide whether or not a personal investment coach would be helpful and worth the cost. The benefit of having a personal coach is that the investor gets unbiased advice that’s tailored to their specific situation.
Why is this important? Because when it comes to making good investment decisions, bias is hazardous to your financial health. But bias in financial advice can be very difficult to detect. It can take many different forms. It can manifest itself as an inherent conflict of interest between the advice-giver’s needs and the advice-recipient’s needs. It can manifest as a hidden agenda, such as desire on the part of the advice-giver to get you to transfer your account to him or her. Or it can simply be a matter of incompetence on the part of the advice-giver, which could result in you basing your investing decisions on false premises.
Let’s start with your broker. He or she is probably a good person, as honest as can be, and as earnest you might expect. But your broker has to make a living. And the compensation structure of brokers virtually guarantees that there will be a conflict of interest in your relationship. Why? Because brokers get paid to gather assets. Therefore they will naturally tell you whatever they think you need to hear in order for you to agree to transfer your money to them. I know – I was a broker for ten years. If a new broker can’t demonstrate to management an ability to bring in new accounts, they wash out quickly.
What about financial planners? Aren’t they supposed to be independent and unbiased? Think again. Planners need to get paid too. The way they get paid is by implementing the plan that they so thoughtfully and carefully designed for you. The majority of a planner’s compensation comes from the implementation of the plan, not the fee they charge for the plan. So unfortunately, they’re biased too.
What about money managers? Let me ask you this – have you ever done business with a money manager who told you to sell all of your stocks and sit in cash? Of course not. Because if they did so, you wouldn’t need to pay them a fee, would you? And the management of their firm would soon push them out the door.
What about accountants? Accountants are good at what they do, but investing is not their strength. They know taxes, and can offer invaluable advice on how to minimize them. They understand debits and credits, assets and liabilities, and income and expenses. But don’t make the mistake of taking advice about how to invest from your accountant.
What about a financial advisor? My answer to this question is – what is a financial advisor? In most cases, a financial advisor is a glorified stock broker. It all comes back to the question of incentives – how are these people paid? If you’re willing to ask the tough question – “how do you get paid” – then you’ll discover why the advice you get is probably tainted.