Although Cossack claims he always knew he needed to begin a
retirement plan, he allocated money to previous advisors without understanding
the investments. When he asked Berliner to look at his portfolio in 1991,
Cossack says, "He came back to me and said, ‘You have the worst portfolio and we
have to start over.’ I thought, how brave." Berliner set a goal of 8 percent
annual ROI, and Cossack admits that some years he makes better or worse.
Berliner directed Cossack’s capital into funds rather than individual stocks. "I
agreed to it and started giving him as much money as I could. With the previous
company, I didn’t know anything. I gave him everything, and it was in junk bonds
I shouldn’t have been in."
Neri also admits to being short on financial knowledge,
although her husband isn’t. "She takes it down to my level and explains it to
me," she says of her advisor. "Finance is not my thing." Neri says her previous
manager simply failed to advise them. "It was more, ‘What do you want to do with
the money?’ But with Laurie, I would tell her our goals and she would advise us
and say, ‘Now this is why.’"
Even financially savvy clients are not afraid to tweak
communication so that it happens on their terms. For example, Stolber did not
like certain aspects of the reports that Westmount Asset Management issued to
clients. "I wanted different information about how the assets were performing
against the benchmarks, and how individual managers were performing," he says.
The firm changed the report for him.
Stolber explains that he prizes this type of flexibility with
both Westmount and Homrich & Berg. "In cases where I’ve had discussions
about changing things, they normally go along with it. If I didn’t like what
they were doing, I’d take my money out."
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Additional Information
 The Top 100 Methodology Judy Martel is the author of The Dilemmas of Family Wealth: Insights on Succession, Cohesion and
Legacy.
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