How to Fire Me

Somewhere in the back of almost every "should I hire an advisor" conversation is a quieter question nobody says out loud: what if I want out later? Will this be like canceling a gym membership, where suddenly there's a retention department and a certified letter requirement and a guy named Chad who needs to "hop on a quick call" first?

It's an understandable fear. The financial industry has certainly earned it. There are products and arrangements out there that are genuinely hard to leave, and I'll get to those, because knowing what the traps look like is useful whether you ever work with me or not.

But first, the actual instructions for firing me. Consider this the owner's manual page nobody prints.

Firing me, step by step

Step one: tell me. Email is fine. You don't need a reason, although I'll probably ask for one, because if something isn't working I'd genuinely like to know.

That's the whole procedure, honestly, and for many of my clients it's even shorter than it sounds. If you're a planning client, there are no accounts to move at all. Your email is the notice, you keep every document I've ever built for you, and we're done. Start to finish, it takes about as long as unsubscribing from a newsletter.

If I manage your investments, there's one more step, and it's mostly mine. I'll prepare whatever the transfer requires from my side, sign what needs signing, and your accounts head to the new custodian through an ACAT transfer, the industry's standard automated system for moving accounts between firms. Your investments move as they are, in kind, with their cost basis history along for the ride. No selling, no taxes triggered by the move itself, no repurchasing. That part usually takes about a week.

(A small technical note: in the transfer system, every move is officially a "pull" initiated by the firm receiving the account. So when I say I'll push your account out, what I mean is I'll do the pushing on the paperwork and the coordination. Same result. You don't lift much.)

Your billing is just as uninteresting... If I manage your investments, my fee comes out of the account, in arrears, which means you only ever pay for time I've already worked. If you're a planning client, you pay through a payment platform where you hold the controls, and you can cancel the authorization yourself, anytime, without asking me first. And if you leave early in the relationship, any unearned portion of an upfront planning fee comes back to you. It's written right into in the agreement.

And here's my actual policy on final bills: there isn't one. The day you give notice, billing is over. I've read stories about advisors who get a surprise transfer request and respond by invoicing the departing client for whatever fees had accrued. I feel strongly about not harrassing someone that wasn't happy for some reason. No termination fee, no minimum term, no parting invoice. If anything, your old custodian may charge a modest outgoing transfer fee, which is their toll booth, not mine.

The no-conversation option

Some people would rather chew glass than have a breakup conversation. I get it.

So here's the thing: you can skip it entirely. Open an account at the new firm, or with the new advisor, and ask them to pull your account. They'll initiate the ACAT from their side, the request lands at my custodian, and the system processes it. I find out my services are no longer required when the transfer paperwork does. It stings for about a minute, then I wish you well.

The transfer system was deliberately built this way, by the way. The firm losing the account doesn't get a veto, doesn't get a retention call, doesn't get to slow-walk it while somebody "reviews your file." You never have to ask permission to take your own money somewhere else.

One caveat, and it's not a retention trick. If a transfer request shows up with no warning, I'll probably send you a quick email first. Something like, just confirming this is actually you. That's not me negotiating. ACATS fraud is a real thing, criminals open accounts in stolen names and pull assets to themselves. The transfer doesn't wait on my email either way. But a thirty-second "yep, it's me" means I stand down and wish you well, and a "wait, what transfer?" means we just caught something significant.

What being trapped actually looks like

Since we're on the subject, here's what the real traps look like, because they exist and they're worth recognizing before you're in one.

Proprietary funds in a taxable account. Some firms put clients in house-brand mutual funds that can only be held at that firm. Leave, and those funds can't come with you. Your options are selling them, which can trigger years of built-up capital gains taxes, or staying. That tax bill isn't a fee, technically. It just works like one.

Annuities with surrender schedules. Many annuities charge a surrender penalty if you exit within the first several years, often starting somewhere between seven and ten percent and stepping down annually, though the terms vary widely by product. Some of these products have legitimate uses. But when the exit charge is doing the client retention, the product doesn't have to.

Whole life and other permanent insurance. Surrendering a policy early can mean surrender charges plus a taxable gain on top, after years of premiums. People stay in policies they regret for a decade because leaving feels like losing twice.

Private funds and lockups. Some alternative investments simply can't be redeemed on your schedule. Quarterly windows, gates, multi-year lockups. Illiquidity is sometimes the honest price of a strategy, and sometimes it's ball and chain.

The fee you don't think you're paying. I regularly talk with people who tell me, sincerely, that their current advisor doesn't charge them anything. They've never seen a bill, so it feels free. Then we look at the agreement or the firm's ADV together and find an asset-based fee coming out of the account every quarter, or fund share classes with loads and ongoing trails, or an annuity still paying the person who sold it.

None of it was hidden, exactly. It was disclosed, in documents most people never read closely, and rarely with a plain-dollar summary attached. But when the account just pays for itself, there's no bill to feel, no moment where the cost lands and makes you ask what you're getting for it. Free-feeling is one of the strongest retention strategies in this business, and it works hardest on the people paying the most. For what it's worth, my investment management clients pay from their accounts too. The difference I can control is that you will never have to go digging for the number. You'll know what you pay, in dollars, because I'd rather tell you than have you find out.

And the soft traps. The advisor who's also your neighbor. The statements you can't quite understand, so you're not sure what you even own or what you're paying. Complexity is a retention strategy too, it just doesn't show up on a fee schedule.

None of this is an accident, which is exactly why "how do I leave" is one of the most revealing questions you can ask anyone who wants to manage your money.

Why leaving me is boring

Part of this is regulation and part of it is design, and I want to be straight about which is which.

The regulation part: your money doesn't live with me. It lives at an independent custodian, in accounts titled in your name, where I hold limited permissions to trade and deduct my fee. You can revoke those permissions with one phone call to the custodian, no participation from me required. If I only do planning for you, there's even less to untangle, because I never hold trading authority on your accounts at all. Either way, I never have the ability to hold your money hostage, and you should be suspicious of any arrangement where an advisor does.

The design part: I build portfolios out of boring, low-cost, publicly traded ETFs, and one of the underrated reasons is portability. The funds I use can be held at virtually any major custodian in America, which means they transfer in kind, which means the door isn't blocked by a tax bill. Your financial plan is yours too. The documents, the projections, the account history. They go with you, and if your next advisor has questions about what we did and why, they can ask me.

The fiduciary part

Here's the piece that ties it together. As a fiduciary, I'm required to act in your best interest, and that duty doesn't have an exception for situations that cost me revenue. If this stops being the right fit, helping you leave well is the job. Not fighting you on it. Not tolerating it, either. Actually helping, including pointing you toward advisors or platforms that suit you better, because "best interest" occasionally means "someone else."

(Note: If your situation really does warrant a more sophisticated strategy, e.g. direct indexing, we would discuss the purpose and cost/benefits beforehand.

Questions to ask anyone, including me

If you're evaluating an advisor, any advisor, these six questions will tell you most of what the brochure won't:

• What am I paying, all-in and in dollars, including fund expenses and any commissions?
• How do I leave, mechanically, and what does leaving cost?
• Who holds my money, and what can you do with it without asking me?
• Will everything I own transfer in kind, or are there products that can't come with me?
• Are you a fiduciary on every account and every recommendation, all the time?
• What happens to my plan and my records if I go?

Fuzzy answers to easy questions are an answer in and of themselves.

The point

I can't promise you'll never outgrow me, or that I'm the right fit for everyone, because nobody honest can. What I can do is make sure the exit is never the reason you stay. My goal is to be easy to fire and hard to want to.

And if you'd like to work with someone who starts the relationship by handing you the keys to the door, well. You know where to find me.