At Merriman Berkman Next , we manage more than $1.5 billion in investments for more than 2,500 households throughout the United States. And we offer free individual help without any obligation to serious investors even though they may never become our clients.

This article is about that free individual help. Specifically it’s about why you may want to consider booking a consultation with a Merriman Berkman Next financial advisor.

Most any financial advisory firm offers free consultations to prospective clients. But almost always these sessions are sales pitches of one sort or another. Ours are different. We use these meetings to give our best advice to investors, even those who are not in a position to become clients. I invite you to test my claim that we will seriously address your concerns without giving you a sales pitch for our services.

Doing this costs us a lot of time and money, and we don’t make this offer casually. While we love talking about investing, we aren’t much interested in spending time with somebody whose main concern is getting our opinion of some stock or mutual fund. If that’s what you want, you’ll find it in plenty of other places.

As anybody would expect who is familiar with our library of articles, we’re interested in the issues that really make a difference to investors, things that can change their lives.

The following are 10 questions that may help you determine if our free consultation could help you.

1.    Do you know the approximate rate of return you must have in order to meet your long-term needs? I have always been surprised at how few people can tell me this figure. Many people have no trouble at all “knowing” that their investments are – or are not – doing well. But how can they know this if they don’t know what they need?

2.    Do you know how much risk you can tolerate? Managing risk is one of the most important jobs facing every investor. If you get this right, you’ll have smooth sailing. If you get it wrong, you can wind up being an emotional mess and making counterproductive investment decisions. This isn’t an easy or simple topic, and we typically spend a lot of time on it with our clients.

3.    Do you know how much of your portfolio should be allocated to stock funds and how much to fixed-income? This is the most basic investment issue in putting together a portfolio, and it’s a critical part of the work we do with every client. Your answer to this will have an enormous impact on the results you get – and probably also on how you feel about your investments.

4.    Do you know how much money you’ll need in savings when you retire? If you are within 10 years of retirement, this is a very important number for you. This number will tell you how much you need to be saving and whether or not you can afford to stop working. It’s not hard to get a ballpark figure, but the closer you get to retirement, the more precise your calculations should be. We know how to figure this out.

5.    Do you know how much money you should be saving every year to achieve your goals? A few people may be saving too much, but most people aren’t saving enough. Our financial advisors are trained to work through this with you.

6.    If you’re retired, do you know how much you can afford to withdraw from your investments each year? When this is figured out properly, you can make a budget that gives you peace of mind. But if you don’t understand the variables that go into this, retirement can be an emotional roller coaster ride. We can help you figure this out.

7.    Do you know at what age you should start taking Social Security?  Too many people just can’t wait to start receiving Social Security checks, and they sign up for the payments starting at 62. This is perfectly legal and sometimes necessary.  But it decreases the size of the payments not only to you but also to a surviving spouse, if you have one. This decision could make the difference between penny-pinching and enjoying retirement. Our financial advisors can help you navigate through the tradeoffs.

8.    Do you have an idea what your portfolio will be worth at the end of your life? Unless you are on your deathbed, this number cannot be very precise; it must be an estimate. But a ballpark estimate will let you determine what might be available to your heirs.

9.    Do you know whether you should take your pension or roll the proceeds over into an IRA? And if you decide to take the pension, do you know how to choose the best payout option for you and your heirs? Do you know whether to roll over your 401(k) assets or leave them where they are? This is familiar territory for us, and we’d be happy to guide you through it.

10.    Do you own any investments you think you should sell? Our financial advisors can review your portfolio and help you identify assets that may not be working hard for you.

If you would like our help with one or more of these questions, that help is available at no charge. You don’t have to have a lot of money to qualify. However, our financial advisors’ time is very valuable. To get the free consultation you will have to convince us that you’re serious enough as an investor that you’re likely to benefit from our help.

The one necessary prerequisite is to complete a brief confidential questionnaire that you will find at www.MerrimanBerkmanNext.com, our corporate web site. Fill this out online using our secure server, which makes sure your privacy is protected. Or call our office and we’ll mail you a copy.

The instructions for the questionnaire ask you to gather some important information about yourself and your finances. Please bring this information to your appointment so our financial advisor can do the best possible job of answering your questions.

In addition, we strongly recommend that you educate yourself about our investment approach and philosophy before the consultation. You can do this by attending one of our free workshops, either in person or online. (To get the current schedule, go to www.MerrimanBerkmanNext.com.) If this isn’t practical for you, I suggest you watch my four-hour DVD, “Live It Up Without Outliving Your Money 2.0”, which is available from our office. It includes the most important parts of the workshop.

Another excellent step you can take to prepare is to read my book “Live It Up without Outliving Your Money,” available at Amazon.com and other booksellers as well as through our office and at many public libraries. A good alternative is to study the seven “must-read” retirement articles that you’ll find listed on the home page of www.FundAdvice.com.

With the benefit of these articles, the workshop and/or my book, you’ll be in a position to use your meeting to your best advantage. Without them, we don’t think you’re likely to get as much from our advice.

Our free consultations typically last from 30 to 90 minutes, depending on the issues that need to be addressed. These sessions are always scheduled in advance and can be conducted in person at our office in Seattle or by phone.

Approximately half our clients live outside Western Washington; in many cases they have never been to our offices. These clients have very low turnover, which tells me that we must do a very good job of helping people using phone, fax, mail and email. Most of these accounts were opened by people who requested a free consultation and became convinced that we were the right ones to help them.

These consultations are an expression of our passion for helping as many people as possible. If as the result of this article you decide to request a free consultation, I hope you will let me know how it goes for you, whether you got what you needed from it. You can give me this important feedback by email; my address is