In his financial advice book for individual investors, personal finance expert David Bromelkamp shares step-by-step instructions to search for and find a financial advisor you can trust.
Did you know anyone can call themselves a financial advisor, financial planner, or wealth manager, regardless of the quality of their financial advice?
Did you know they often work on commission? Or receive bonuses for enrolling their clients in certain products?
Most so-called financial advisors work for companies that expect their people to make sales—offering incentives, demanding quotas, and creating conflicts of interest that affect how they serve the consumer. Working under these pressures, how can financial advisors be truly objective when providing you with retirement advice or investment options?
When profits are the main emphasis, people tend to come second. Even well-intentioned financial advisors can be influenced by company pressure to sell certain products, whether or not the client truly needs them.
Unafraid to call it like it is, personal finance expert David Bromelkamp takes on the Goliath financial industry in this empowering, informative, and easily digestible guide for the individual investor.
David Bromelkamp is the founder of Allodium Investment Consultants, an independent, fee-only Registered Investment Advisor firm in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is an Accredited Investment Fiduciary® (AIF®) with over forty years of financial planning experience. In 2005, Bromelkamp left his commission-based investment securities brokerage firm in favor of a fee-only advice model, and he hasn't looked back. The same option is available to you as an individual investor—no matter your age, circumstances, or net worth.
Bromelkamp established AdvisorSmart® in 2018 with a mission to educate investors to find better financial advice. As an investor advocate organization, AdvisorSmart® aims to help millions of individuals gain a better understanding of today's financial advisory industry so they can seek and hire a trustworthy financial advisor.
Whether you're just getting started investing or taking a closer look at your current financial advisor, learn how to:
- Avoid biased financial advice and identify conflicts of interest
- Recognize the characteristics of good advice
- Understand the value of a fiduciary standard of care—and other industry terminology
- Distinguish between fee-only and fee-based financial planners
- Find and hire an independent financial advisor you can trust
Backed by evidence-based research and dozens of expert interviews, AdvisorSmart for the Individual Investor is packed with knowledge to help you to seek, find, interview, and hire a trusted advisor who fits your unique needs and keeps your best interests in mind.
Avoid the Wall Street charlatans; it's time for better financial advice.
David Bromelkamp is the founder of Allodium Investment Consultants, an independent, fee-only Registered Investment Adviser (RIA) firm in Minnesota, which oversees hundreds of millions in investment portfolio assets. Allodium is the first ever Minneapolis-based firm to earn the esteemed CEFEX certification, demonstrating fiduciary excellence for a firm based on a fiduciary best practice standard. David is an Accredited Investment Fiduciary® (AIF®) with over forty years of real-world financial experience. His career in finance has included working in his early years as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) for various public accounting firms, in his middle years at a New York Stock Exchange-member investment securities brokerage firm, and more recently owning and managing a NAPFA-member, fee-only financial planning firm. Bromelkamp is a member of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) and has been a member of the Minnesota Society of Certified Public Accountants (MNCPA) for almost four decades.
After serving investors as a financial advisor for more than thirty years, Bromelkamp established AdvisorSmart® in 2018 with a mission to educate investors to find better, more objective financial advice. As an investor advocate organization, AdvisorSmart® aims to help millions of individuals gain a better understanding of today's financial advisory industry so they can seek and hire a trustworthy financial advisor.
David Bromelkamp is a public speaker and speaks frequently to professional trade associations on the best practices of fiduciary investment management. He has taught continuing professional education courses on fiduciary investment management for the Minnesota Society of Certified Public Accountants (MNCPA) and the Minnesota State Bar Association (MSBA). Additionally, Bromelkamp has taught graduate courses as an adjunct instructor in finance at the Opus College of Business at the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
David has served as a director on the nonprofit boards of both the Minnesota Society of Certified Public Accountants and Catholic Charities Twin Cities. He is currently a member of the Planned Giving committee at St. John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota, and previously served as a founding member and director on the board of the Center for Board Certified Fiduciaries™ (CBCF™).
