As has become the tradition at Tiburon CEO Summits, four real and unscripted consumers (Josh, Sonja, Maureen, Keith) were interviewed by facilitator Tif Joyce (President, Joyce Financial Management) for the Ask the Consumers panel. While each provided a unique point of view, a number of common views were shared.

• Josh works for Cisco Systems and has been investing with his wife for years. He started his first financial advisor relationship based on a personal relationship he had out of high school. He is an active investor who values trust in his advisor more than anything else. He speaks to communications following mistakes, and says he will always go back to the expectations that were laid down in the beginning. He stopped investing his new assets with his first advisor because the management fees were too high, but fees are not the determining factor in how he values the people who invest for him. Part of the reason Josh moved along was because he couldn't be sure that his advisors could do much better than he could. Josh had a very bad experience with a leading national advisory firm where he had asked for a transfer of funds that was not executed, followed by a dip in the market where he lost money. The firm held several different positions as he pursued resolution, and as the decision was levvied against him, he decided not to ever work with that firm again. Josh then talked about what his ultimate goals are, and said they have nothing to do with how well his advisor is doing compared to his advisor's advisor buddy. Josh then addressed a question out of the audience inquiring how he made decisions to move from advisor to advisor, saying that he typically followed advice of his wife, his brother-in-law, his friends
• Sonja started by saying that she emigrated from Sweden in 1973 with no financial experience at all. Her husband had five businesses that he ran in the United States, and as they traveled she began reading the New York Times financials section, becoming interested in stocks. After a sale of one of her family's companies, she researched the stocks she thought were worthwhile, and chose her investments in 1995. In 2001, her portfolio crashed with the stock market, and then her husband died in 2002. She had been responsible for many of the family's original trading practices, but as the complexity of her portfolio increased with trusts and new investment devices, Sonja decided it would be a good idea to seek professional help. She followed an advisor from Merrill Lynch to Morgan Stanley in 2007, and then, in 2008, when the markets collapsed, she stayed with him. She felt that her advisor was paralyzed as he continued to tell her not to sell, that she should buy Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae, and when she did that and her assets plummeted, she decided to move on. Sonja was asked by an audience member how she made her decision to switch advisors, and she too said that she listed to friends. Her decision was based on her desire to have a more diversified portfolio under the management of an advisor who had a broad view of investments
  
• Keith is a financial services industry reporter who has invested for many years, and has chosen to delegate investment responsibilities to advisors based on his desire to maintain a little distance between his own professional interests and his personal financial interests. Keith has invested with several different advisors over time, and began to invest in alternative investments, specifically funds-of-funds and structured notes. Keith is very familiar with financial products and began questioning the wisdom of his financial advisors, and shared his concerns about structured notes with his advisor, specifically about Lehmans structured notes. He continued to question his advisor as the markets worsened. Two weeks before the Lehman bankruptcy, Keith agressively pursued getting out of the structured products notes again. Two major factors were not disclosed to Keith by his advisor: first, he was not told that the structured notes were basically unsecured corporate bonds; second, his advisor never told him that incentives were being provided to sell these structured products. Keith didn't even find out this information from his advisor, but from a lawyer who contacted him looking to sue the large firms. Keith felt wronged by his advisor, but attributes the behavior on a larger scale to the industry on the whole. Keith's trust was broken, and now Keith is looking for a new advisor. He is looking for trust and is therefore seeking referrals from his trusted friends. One of these referrals took him to a new prospect, who in the initial meeting, when hearing about the incentivized structured products sales, asked him - Well, how else are we supposed to make money? Keith has to laugh...
  
• Maureen is a retiree with a 401k, with the kids gone & graduated from university. Suddenly, financial conditions changed for her husband's family, as her father- and mother-in-law both started to behave oddly with their investments. Both in their 90s, and living in an assisted living facility, the elderly couple became convinced that they had no more money left. As it turned out ... the elders were not correct about having no money, but their concern speaks to the future nightmare scenarios surrounding increasing healthcare costs that come with the onset of dementia that is becoming increasingly frequent as age expectancy rises
  

The panel was extremely frank and the net impression was the most important quality an advisor can have is honesty and clarity of communication. A consumer in today's environment must question the motives and directives of the advisors available, and in response, it is vital that advisors respect their responsibilities to serve their clients' needs above all else.