I worked for an independent, semi-retired CFP for a couple of years. Extremely well-regarded by his peers, and one of a very small list of financial experts in the state who are requested by attorneys (both prosecuting and defending) to testify in court.*
* A lot of otherwise qualified people don't like to be asked, as it requires reading all the documents involved in the lawsuit. He said that half the time, he had to tell the attorney that the claimant had no case, because they were using a broker whose only requirement was the infamous "suitability" risk assessment.
He has a select group of clients - a year before I came onboard, he "fired" 80% of them, sending them to other firms interested in taking them on. The customer service bar was very, very high there. It was quite an eye-opener to see how much hand-holding some of the widows needed; these were essentially our parents (my MIL was just like this), where the wife didn't work and the kids, if any, were grown and mostly lived well out of the area.
These widows had a valuable home and usually a big chunk of insurance $$$. They could budget for groceries but large sums and tax issues were out of their league. My ex-boss used to say half-jokingly that he spent half his time having to encourage retired clients that it was okay to now spend money on their own needs, and the other half having to rein in clients from spending too lavishly now but not looking to the future.
The latter, BTW, is VERY common for a widowed parent to give 'assistance' to one [grown] child or grandchildren who is always needy, but the other kids are getting zip and the parent is endangering their own future for when s/he hits their 80's and 90's.
The problem for almost all middle-class earners is that small accounts take as much time for an FA to manage as big accounts do - and very often more, because so much financial education is involved.
What most consumers do not realize is that really good firms actually don't do much, if any, "hard" advertising. They are getting clients as referrals or generational accounts. They prefer to be recognized by their peers rather than by "free dinner" seminars.
You don't use a good CFP to make the biggest investment gain. A good CFP is looking at your entire financial picture because they know, after talking with you, what your goals are. They want you to inform them when major lifestyle changes occur (death, marriage, birth, divorce) because they can be a resource when needed.
I contacted my ex-boss for a referral to three different firms when looking for a CFP to advise my MIL. I gave him our parameters (she definitely needed hand-holding if we weren't around!) and we eventually selected one of them, a independent firm which later we chose to handle our own retirement portfolio as well.
Do I need a firm to do my investing? No. I did it for our accounts for decades and achieved very good returns. But it does take time, and in retirement I didn't want to deal with it any longer. The firm handles our account in a tax-advantaged manner, and except for oversight, it's worry-free.
The CFP firm is our partner in continued financial planning. If you cannot or prefer not to have one, that's great and I'm happy for you. For us, having one relieves me of worries should I pass, because global finance trends is my interest, not my spouse's nor our heirs.
Using a firm is not cheap. But neither are serious financial mistakes, any number of which I have seen from the professional end.
