Client FAQs

Yes, I am considered a fiduciary.

A “fiduciary” is someone who is bound to act in the best interest of someone else, not for themselves. I charge a fee for providing financial advice based on what I believe to be in the best interest of my clients. I do not sell any products for commission. I don’t sell insurance, annuities, stocks for commission, etc. I can advise on those types of products but I refer to others that have a license to sell those products.

Those that have licenses to sell those products are not considered “fiduciaries” when the are selling those products for commissions. A non-fiduciary financial professional can often sell insurance, for example, that is “suitable” or “ok” for you, but with heavy interest for the advisor because they are getting a big commission on it. I don’t sell products for a commission so that doesn’t pertain to me or my clients. If you need insurance or a commissionable product, I can point you to licensed professionals that can help you and sell it to you for a commission.

A financial advisor with a Series 65 or 66 license is generally considered an investment advisor representative (fiduciary). A financial advisor with a Series 7 or other financial/investment/insurance sales license is generally considered a registered representative (non-fiduciary).

Some financial advisors can be registered as an investment advisor representative (fiduciary) and as a registered representative (non-fiduciary). These types of financial advisors have the ability to not act as a fiduciary when selling commissionable products. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, but that should absolutely be understood by the client. I’ve chosen to only focus on being a fiduciary and focus on fiduciary relationships to try to not cause any confusion for clients.

As a registered investment advisor representative (advisor search), a member of the CFA Institute as a CFA Charterholder (member search), and as a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER^TM, I am bound by their ethics and professional conduct standards to remain active. Feel free to dig into the requirements to become and the ongoing responsibilities of a CFA Charterholder and CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER^TM .

I only charge fees for providing financial advice. I do not receive commissions for selling financial products.

The term “fee-only” is used when a financial advisor only provides advice for a fee, not commissions. In addition, in order to be considered a “fee-only” advisor, the firm that the financial advisor works at needs to only charge fees for advice and not sell products for a commission.

Since the firm I work at does have financial advisors that sell products for a commission, even if I don’t sell products for a commission, I cannot call myself a “fee-only” advisor. I have to call myself a “fee-based” financial advisor.

I know it’s unfortunately confusing (a lot in our industry is), just remember that I only charge fees for my financial advisory services. I don’t receive commissions for selling products because I am not licensed (my choice) to sell commissionable products.

Yes, I am an independent advisor that leverages a team of experts and technology to help support my clients to the best of my ability.

Although I work at Freedom Wealth Alliance, I am not an employee of Freedom Wealth Alliance. I am considered an independent contractor and I have my professional license with Intrua Financial, the parent company of Freedom Wealth Alliance.

I do not have to report to a sales manager forcing me to meet firm sales goals, do not have to use any firm-based investment strategies or products, and do not have pressure from the firm to do things that I do not want to do. If I feel that I am not receiving the support from Freedom Wealth Alliance that I need to support my clients, I have the freedom to find another firm that does and my clients can follow me to that new firm. Some financial advisors bounce around from firm to firm for higher compensation, etc. but that’s not how I operate.

My only goals are focused on providing great service to my clients within the strict regulatory framework of the financial industry.

In this business, the “strategy” is to find a niche and build a business around that. I totally get it, but my niche is “kind human beings that need help from an experienced investment and wealth management professional”. Like generally attracts like so I start there. It doesn’t matter to me if you are an institutional client or a retail client, I have the experience and the desire to help both types of clients.

Some financial advisors might have hundreds of “clients”, but I can’t even comprehend how someone can really get to know that many clients on a deeper level, so I keep the number of client relationships significantly lower than that.

Working on the institutional investment management side of things for years, I’ve always had a desire to help anyone with wealth management/investment management needs. Based on my independent business structure, I can help anyone I want to.

I don’t focus on AUM, high net worth clients, lower AUM retail, etc. I can easily have an investment discussion with a firm that manages billions of dollars, an ultra-high net worth family that needs full wealth management services, or a young professional just starting out. I do have a minimum service fee though, which helps align my services with client needs and it’s respectful to my current clients that are paying for access to me and my services.

Being able to service any type of client that needs my help has been my dream, so that’s what I’m doing, even if it’s not what the financial advisor business strategy “gurus” state that’s what you should do. Those that appreciate my more altruistic approach often work really well with me.

Based on my extensive experience on the investment side of things, and the type of help people need, I have two types of clients: institutional and retail.

Institutional Clients

For me, “institutional” clients are other investment professionals. Other investment professionals hire me for help. I’m essentially an investment consultant to other wealth management firms. My institutional clients appreciate that I can bring institutional quality investment research and support with direct experience working with financial advisors and retail clients. I understand their investments, their business and their clients.

I’ve worked with financial advisors as an investment consultant since 2007 and have deep knowledge on investment manager research, portfolio management, trading and general investment management platform infrastructure. For this reason, other financial advisor wealth management firms hire me to help them create, manage, provide guidance, etc. on their own investment management platforms for their clients. Like a retail client, having another independent set of eyes on things is extremely important and my wealth management firm clients understand that.

My institutional clients range from single financial advisor to multi-billion dollar firms. Some institutional clients may need a little help with their investment portfolios while other clients may need help across several investment strategies, trading, technology and investment commentary generation. I can typically add value in several different areas that my institutional clients may need now or grow into in the future.

I actually love these institutional clients as I feel like I can help even more people (my institutional clients’ clients) with my experience, even if it is a bit more indirectly.

Retail Clients

For me, “retail” clients are generally considered non-investment professional clients. This can be an individual, a family, a non-investment-related business, business owner, etc.

My retail clients are generally looking for help with full-service personal wealth management (financial planning, investment management, etc.), investment management only (portfolio management, trading, etc.) or just financial/investment consulting on a one-time basis. My retail clients appreciate that I am the one who deeply understands and manages investments for institutional clients, and not just outsourcing to other investment managers and charging a fee on it.

With the help from my broader team of experienced professionals, I can provide guidance on investments, financial planning, retirement, estate planning, taxes, and insurance and provide technology solutions to help you better understand your financials. I’m not an attorney or a CPA and I don’t sell insurance or other commissionable products, but I can work with your team of professionals or point you to other professionals (internally or externally) to help you with specific estate planning, tax and insurance needs and execution.

Types of Retail Clients

I often get asked what types of retail clients I work with. I can work with anyone but as previously stated, like often attracts like.

I’m happily married, a father of three in high/middle school, have aging parents, and I am a professional services small business owner. I often get client interest from others in similar situations as I can clearly relate. I also love working with those just starting their careers because getting started on the right path early is really important.

I’m not afraid of detailed-oriented clients. My father was an engineer during his career, I started in engineering in college before switching to business, I’m a detailed investment portfolio manager, I passed the three CFA exams (talk about analytics!) and I love digging into technology. Other financial advisors have told me that engineers and analytical people are the worst clients because they want too much information. I embrace detailed-oriented clients as I’m the same way. We can definitely get detailed on the investment side of things if needed. If you want to keep it simple, we can do that too.

I absolutely love retail clients because there are a lot of less than qualified financial advisors out there and I’ve just wanted to be another available quality option for those looking for help.

I’m a big fan of utilizing technology in an efficient manner. I’m very comfortable with technology and my clients are often comfortable with technology as well.

I believe communication via e-mail is essential, virtual meetings are easy, in-office meetings are great, client financial planning portals are important, enhanced client reporting should be utilized, and embracing new technologies to enhance client experiences is key.

For my retail clients, I need at least an annual meeting, with discussions throughout the year as needed. For my institutional clients, I’ll have monthly or quarterly meetings, with discussions throughout the year as needed.

I manage various investment strategies for different clients, but at the core, I like to keep things simple. As an investment analyst, I perform due diligence on various investment strategies, from traditional to alternative strategies and in my opinion, based on my experience, simple is best. Check out the About Me page for more insights into my investment philosophy.

When clients work with me, they are directly working with the investment analyst and portfolio manager on these strategies that are being managed in their accounts. I am the one performing the deep investment research on the investment strategies, having the calls with the investment managers, running the various analytical reports on the investment managers and strategies, determining the investment allocations, writing the investment commentary, etc. This level of deep investment management is why my clients are willing to pay a premium to work with me versus a different financial advisor that outsources investment management and doesn’t have the deep knowledge of the investments.

For both institutional and retail clients, I primarily manage and/or advise on core investment strategies across U.S. Core, Income and Total Return strategies at various risk levels. I also manage or help manage other non-core strategies with different investment objectives, with some strategies utilizing a form of leverage. Even though I’ve covered various complicated investment strategies as an investment analyst, I believe most clients just need simple investment strategies to help them achieve their financial objectives. I don’t believe clients need to fall for sales pitches to allocate to overly complicated investment strategies that they really don’t need.

In all of the strategies I manage, I only utilize mutual funds or ETFs. For my clients, I do not invest in individual stocks, bonds, options, or any other individual non-packaged product security. Based on my experience, there is no added value to the client for me to do so. I don’t personally invest in individual stocks/bonds myself, I only invest in mutual funds and ETFs, so I wouldn’t do something for my clients that I wouldn’t do myself.

For clients that feel they need more sophisticated investment strategies, which may require clients to be accredited investors, I can allocate to non-traditional strategies including hedge funds, private equity, private credit, real estate, direct indexing, etc. For those clients that prefer exposure to individual stocks or bonds, I can allocate to third-party managers in an SMA structure that can provide that exposure.

I’ve structured my business to get paid in a number of different ways, depending on what the client prefers and the services I provide. I charge clients how I would want to be charged if I was working with a professional advisor (attorney, CPA, etc.).

I also prefer to pay more for quality in everything I do, as I do in for my investments, so I probably charge a premium relative to the “average” financial advisor out there. It may price some people out from working with me, but that’s ok as I can’t always work with everyone in every capacity. I still try to be able to help everyone I can and I have a service/fee structure that I think could work for everyone, starting from no fees up to high fees.

I’ve run into too many people that need help but don’t have enough assets under management under a “traditional” financial advisor fee model. I can’t stand that people that need help can’t get help, so I’m doing things a little differently.

Fee Structure

No Fee: Free access to KulwickiInsights.com to receive my updated insights on the financial markets and other financial topics.

Lower Fee: Access to my investment education content for $179/year. This is where I try to provide a deeper dive into everything that I know from an investment perspective, including going over the basics of investing, teaching how to analyze different investment products, defining portfolio management strategies, providing guidance when working with financial advisors, and sharing a deeper insight into how I manage my own personal money. This is probably a good resource for those do-it-yourselfers, those that are already working with a financial advisor, or those that want to get a better sense of my knowledge and experience before they work with me directly (for a higher fee).

Moderate Fee: Depending on the client and their needs, I can provide financial advice on an hourly or project-based fee. Maybe a client needs a one-time financial planning review without portfolio management. Maybe a client just wants a one-time investment model for their accounts to follow and they implement on their own. I charge a minimum project fee of $5,000 when working on a more ad hoc basis for wealth planning or investment advice.

Higher Fee: I charge a higher fee when clients need a deeper ongoing financial planning and/or investment management relationship. These are deeper relationships where I gain a much better understanding of who you are, your dreams, financial goals, retirement strategy, estate planning, risk management through insurance, tax planning, investment management preferences and execute your investment strategy on an ongoing basis. This fee is generally split across wealth planning and investment management, with pricing based on bundled wealth planning and investment management, planning only or investment management only. I like to give my clients choices and not just a “one-size-fits-all” approach.

Highest Fee: I charge the highest fee for my institutional clients as there are a lot of things that I can help with: investment research, model management, investment commentary, frequent meetings, technology guidance, ad hoc requests, etc.. These clients often consider me an extension of their own team, which I absolutely love.