Co-Authored by Chris Schreiner, MS, CFP®, CPA, Blaine Homan, CFP®, and Devin Johnson, CFP®, CPA | Mason Investment Advisory Services
Choosing a financial advisor is one of the most consequential decisions you can make for your financial future. Yet for most people, the evaluation process feels unfamiliar and time-consuming. You may not know what to ask, how to evaluate the answers, or what a genuinely strong response looks like.
This guide is designed to change that.
As advisors, we field these questions regularly from prospective clients. Below, we’ve laid out the ten questions we believe every investor should ask before engaging a financial advisor, along with the reasoning behind each one and how we at Mason would answer them. Our goal is to give you a clear framework so you can walk into any advisor meeting with confidence.
1. Can You Tell Me About Your Firm’s Background?
When you’re evaluating a financial advisory firm, stability and continuity matter as much as performance claims. You want to work with an organization that will be there for the long term.
For over 40 years, Mason has had one obligation: to the people we advise. No proprietary products. Privately owned and proudly independent. Just a deeply credentialed financial planning team, devoted to helping clients make better decisions and build lasting wealth. Since our founding, we have had no ownership changes, no name changes, no management shakeups, and no bailouts. We’ve maintained low employee turnover and a high client retention rate. Our focus has always been on building lifelong client relationships rather than short-term transactional ones.
What to listen for: A strong answer should speak to ownership structure, organizational history, and evidence of long-term client relationships. Be cautious of vague answers or frequent leadership changes.
2. What Capacity Are You Operating In?
Not all financial professionals operate under the same standard of care, and understanding the difference matters.
Some advisors are registered investment advisers (RIAs), bound by a fiduciary duty to act in your best interest on an ongoing basis. Others are broker-dealers or operate in a broker capacity, subject to Regulation Best Interest (Reg BI). Reg BI is a rigorous four-part standard that requires recommendations to be in the client’s best interest, with extensive documentation and disclosure requirements. Reg BI meaningfully raised the bar for broker-dealers and is more demanding than the older suitability standard it replaced. But there is a key distinction worth understanding: Reg BI applies on a transaction-by-transaction basis. A broker-dealer’s obligation is tied to a specific recommendation at a specific moment. Once that transaction is complete, the ongoing obligation ends.
A fiduciary adviser, by contrast, has a continuous duty to act in your interest across the full scope of the relationship — not just at the point of a transaction.
Mason is an independent fiduciary. We are required to identify and seek to mitigate conflicts of interest and are committed to acting in your best interest. Our independence gives us the freedom to search the full universe of investment options and select those we genuinely believe are best suited to our clients.
What to listen for: Ask for a direct “yes” or “no” on fiduciary status. If a financial professional says they operate under a “suitability standard” rather than a fiduciary standard, those are meaningfully different things. A suitability standard requires only that a recommendation be appropriate for that transaction, not necessarily optimal for the long-term.
3. What Is Your Client-to-Advisor Ratio?
This question gets at something that directly affects your day-to-day experience: access. A high client-to-advisor ratio can mean slower response times, less personalized attention, and advisors who are spread too thin to serve you well.
Mason currently works with 860 clients and a deep bench of senior advisors (excluding junior advisors), giving us a client-to-advisor ratio of approximately 61:1. That number only tells part of the story. Our senior advisors are supported by junior advisors, portfolio managers, and administrative staff. And at Mason, advisors do not “own” clients. We share clients and collaborate across the team on recommendations, which means you benefit from the perspectives of the entire group, not just one person.
What to listen for: Industry averages vary widely. Ratios above 100:1 can compromise service quality. Ask how advisors are supported and whether collaboration across the firm is standard practice.
4. How Much Does Your Firm Manage, and What Is Your Typical Client Profile?
Understanding a firm’s scale and client base helps you assess whether you’ll receive meaningful attention and whether the firm’s expertise actually aligns with your situation.
Of the 860 clients Mason serves, the average family account size is approximately $5.5 million. Approximately 125 of those families have $10 million or more invested with us. While our clients come from a variety of backgrounds and professions, most are corporate executives or retired corporate executives and their families. That focus shapes how we think about planning, tax strategy, equity compensation, and complex financial situations.
What to listen for: A firm that primarily serves clients at a very different asset level than yours may not be structured to serve your needs well. This works in both directions.
5. What Services Do You Offer?
Not all advisory firms offer the same scope of services. Some focus exclusively on investment management. Others integrate comprehensive financial planning. The distinction has meaningful implications for how holistic your financial picture will be.
Mason integrates financial planning with sophisticated investment management to deliver wealth management centered on your individual needs. Our multidisciplinary model means your investment strategy isn’t developed in isolation from your tax situation, estate plans, retirement income timeline, or other financial goals.
What to listen for: Ask whether financial planning is included in the advisory fee or billed separately. Understand whether the advisor will look at your full financial picture or only manage your investment accounts.
6. Can You Describe Your Investment Management Philosophy?
Every advisory firm has a distinct investment approach, and it should align with how you think about risk, time horizon, and long-term goals. Be wary of firms that can’t articulate their philosophy clearly or that change it based on market conditions.
At Mason, we believe successful long-term investing comes down to a few core principles — and we stick to them regardless of what is happening in the markets.
We start by building a personalized investment strategy around your specific goals and your comfort level with risk. Once we understand what you are trying to achieve and how much market fluctuation you can tolerate, we design an asset allocation plan — essentially a blueprint for how your money will be divided across different types of investments, such as equities, fixed-income, and cash. That plan is built with the long term in mind, not designed to chase short-term opportunities or react to the latest market headlines.
We do not try to time the market. In our view, there is no reliable way to consistently predict market movements, and strategies that try to do so often cause more harm than good. Instead, we focus on staying disciplined and keeping your portfolio aligned with your long-term strategy through a process called rebalancing — periodically adjusting your portfolio back to its target mix when market movements cause it to drift out of alignment.
To build and manage your portfolio, we primarily use mutual funds, index funds, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). These professionally managed investment vehicles allow us to give you broad, diversified exposure to various markets and asset classes. When selecting them, we are intentional and thorough, choosing managers and funds we believe are best suited to serve your long-term interests. Importantly, Mason does not create or sell any of its own investment products.
What to listen for: A clearly articulated and consistent investment philosophy is a sign of disciplined, principled management. Vague or shifting answers can indicate a reactive approach that may not serve you well over time.
7. How Do You Get Paid?
Understanding how your advisor is compensated is essential for evaluating potential conflicts of interest. Compensation structures vary widely across the industry and can influence the recommendations you receive.
Advisors can structure their compensation in a variety of ways – asset-based fees, flat fees, hourly fees, and others. Beyond the advisory fee itself, clients are typically subject to additional costs they should understand: fees charged by the custodian that holds their assets, costs associated with how uninvested cash is handled, transaction processing fees, and expenses built into the mutual funds and ETFs in their portfolio, such as fund manager fees and operating costs.
Some firms may also have revenue sharing arrangements with broker-dealers, money managers, or custodians. For example, the advisor may receive a percentage of revenue earned by the custodian on uninvested cash balances swept into interest-bearing accounts — a conflict that is easy to miss if you don’t ask.
Others may charge a “wrap fee”, which is typically a slightly higher asset-based fee that bundles most other expenses, including transaction fees, financial planning, custodian fees, and account administration fees. While an all-inclusive fee may seem appealing, wrap programs carry their own conflicts. For example, advisors in these arrangements may be incentivized to utilize “no transaction fee” funds in a client portfolio, which generally carry higher internal expense ratios. Wrap fee accounts may also be a poor fit for clients with minimal trading activity, who would otherwise incur few transaction costs on their own.
At Mason, we take a simple, transparent approach. We charge private clients an advisory fee based on the level of assets we manage for you and your family. Our private client fee structure is not tiered in the traditional sense — once an account reaches a higher breakpoint, the lower fee applies to the entire account balance, not just the portion above the threshold. We have no revenue sharing arrangements with broker-dealers, custodians, or the fund companies whose products we recommend. We strive to use the lowest cost share classes available for our clients.
What to listen for: Ask about all the ways an advisor earns revenue — not just their stated advisory fee. Ask whether commissions are ever earned on products like insurance or annuities. Ask about revenue sharing arrangements with custodians or fund companies. The full picture of compensation is where conflicts of interest, if any exist, are most likely to surface.
8. Who Is Your Custodian?
Your custodian is the institution that holds your assets. This is an important safeguard question many investors overlook.
Mason’s primary custodian is Pershing Advisor Solutions. As custodian, Pershing processes purchases, sales, and transfers for your account and transmits periodic account statements directly to you. Pershing Advisor Solutions, LLC is a member of FINRA, NYSE, and SIPC, and a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BNY Mellon) — a firm with more than 80 years in business that provides custody and administration for over $59 trillion in global client assets. PAS and its affiliates serve more than seven million investor accounts globally.
Through SIPC (Securities Investor Protection Corporation) membership, each customer is protected up to $500,000 for covered securities, including up to $250,000 of the $500,000 for cash balances. More information is available at SIPC.org. Beyond basic SIPC protection, Pershing provides additional protection through underwriters in Lloyd’s insurance market and other commercial insurers in the event of a member firm failure or unauthorized trades placed in your account. However, neither coverage protects customers against losses due to market fluctuation.
What to listen for: Your assets should always be held by a reputable, independent third-party custodia — not by the advisory firm itself. This separation is a fundamental protection for investors. Ask who the custodian is, how your statements are delivered, and what protections are in place.
9. How Will We Work Together?
This question gets at the client experience itself: how decisions are made, how communication happens, and what to expect from the relationship on an ongoing basis.
At Mason, our approach is interactive and thorough. We do not rely on cookie-cutter questionnaires or checklists. Our goal is to educate clients about our investment philosophy, communicate clearly, and set realistic expectations, because we believe that alignment between advisor and client is the foundation of a successful long-term relationship. Your Mason financial planner is your primary point of contact. Behind the scenes, a diverse team of financial professionals collaborates to build a strategy specific to your situation.
What to listen for: Frequency of communication, how the firm handles market volatility with clients, and whether the relationship feels like a true partnership or a one-way transaction.
10. What Makes You Different From Other Firms?
This is the hardest question on the list for any firm. It is easy to claim differentiation. It is harder to demonstrate it. Here is our honest answer.
We were built on a set of beliefs, not a market opportunity.
Mason was founded in 1982 on a set of principles that still govern how we work today: service before revenue, analysis before advice, integrity as a practice rather than a tagline, and a clear-eyed awareness that humility is what keeps a firm sharp over time. Those beliefs were written down at the founding. They have not changed. In an industry where firms are regularly acquired, rebranded, and restructured, that kind of continuity is rarer than it sounds.
Our stability is documented.
Since founding, Mason has had no ownership changes, no name changes, no management shakeups, and no bailouts. We have maintained low employee turnover and a 97% client retention rate. We are not a firm in transition. Over 40 years of that consistency shows up in the people who work here and the clients who stay
Our investment process is built on collective intelligence, not individual conviction.
Before a written financial plan or recommendation ever reaches a client, it goes through a Design Meeting — a deliberate internal review where Mason advisors, CPAs, and other specialists convene specifically to evaluate and constructively challenge the work. The same collegial rigor drives our Investment Committee, where debate is not the exception but the expectation. This process is how Mason has operated since its founding, and it is why the depth of our team shows up in the quality of the advice our clients receive.
We are large enough to be credible. Small enough to know you.
We have the infrastructure, credentials, and investment resources of a serious institutional firm — and the relationship depth of a boutique. We are large enough to compete with the country’s largest institutions, and small enough to know every client by name. That balance is genuinely difficult to find.
Our investment approach is tax-centric by design.
Tax considerations are central to how we plan and invest — not an afterthought. Our team includes CPAs who bring a tax lens to every financial plan and investment recommendation. We also coordinate with vetted third-party specialists in insurance, estate planning, and international tax so that the professionals working on your behalf are working together.
And perhaps most simply: we answer the phone when you call.
One of our advisors put it that way recently, and it stuck. In an industry where communication often lags during the moments that matter most, consistent accessibility is something our clients notice — and something we take seriously.
Taken together: 40+ years of independent ownership, a research-first philosophy, and a team-based approach to client service grounded in a fiduciary commitment that has never changed. We have had one obligation: to the people we advise.
Click here to read more about what sets Mason apart.
The Right Questions Lead to the Right Relationship
Finding a financial advisor who is the right fit takes time. The questions above are a starting point, not a complete checklist, and the quality of an advisor’s answers matters as much as the answers themselves.
If you’d like to learn more about how Mason approaches wealth management, or if you’d like to meet with one of our advisors, we welcome the conversation. Click here to schedule a consultation with a Mason advisor >>
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Chris Schreiner, MS, CFP®, CPA, is Co-Chief Executive Officer at Mason Investment Advisory Services, where he has served clients since 2000. He holds a Master of Science with a concentration in Tax and a B.S. in Accounting, both from the University of Virginia, and brings prior experience as a manager of tax and personal financial services at PricewaterhouseCoopers and as a senior tax consultant at Deloitte & Touche. Learn more about Chris.
Blaine Homan, CFP®, is a Financial Planner at Mason Investment Advisory Services. He earned his CFP® certification in 2021 and holds a B.S. in Finance from Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business. Prior to joining Mason, he gained client service and financial planning experience at Centurion Wealth Management. Learn more about Blaine.
Devin Johnson, CPA, CFP®, is a Financial Planner at Mason Investment Advisory Services. He brings a rare combination of tax and financial planning expertise to his work with clients, having previously served as a Tax Manager at The Carlyle Group and KPMG before joining Mason in 2022. He holds a B.S. in Accountancy from Brigham Young University. Learn more about Devin.
Mason Investment Advisory Services, Inc. is an independent, fee-based registered investment advisor. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute personalized investment, tax, or legal advice. Please consult a qualified professional for guidance specific to your situation.
