Your long-term goal planning begins with your meeting the financial planner. Typically, the job of the financial planner is to help you crystallise your goals, sensitise you to the risks and opportunities and help you design and monitor an ideal asset mix.

Financial planning is more like watching grass grow. It is a slow process and happens gradually. Let us now focus on what a financial adviser can do for you and what you need to confide in him/her.

The adviser will have various questions for you. We list here 10 things your financial planner must ask you:

Risk capacity

Risk capacity matters more than risk appetite.

You can be a person with low net worth but with the risk appetite of Captain Magellan. That will not really serve you well in financial planning because here your risk has to be calibrated. What matters is the risk capacity or the amount of risk that you should ideally be taking.

Fee plan

How the financial planner will be earning his income and you absolutely need to know this.

There are different models but never prefer a financial planner who is acting as an agent for the products. There is a clear conflict of interest. You want the financial planner to be loyal to your long-term needs not the principal whose products he is selling. Ideally go for a fixed fee plan.

Performance incentives

Whether there are any performance related charges in the plan.

This is something you must be very clear about at the time of signing of the agreement with your financial planner. When you have performance-related incentives, the planner is more inclined to suggest risky strategies to enhance your returns. You don’t need a financial planner who shoots from the hip. Focus on stable growth by paying a fixed fee to your planner.

Setting goals

The likelihood of reaching your financial goals is a key input that the financial adviser needs to give.

Here the financial adviser must be brutally honest. If the goals are too lofty or if the market conditions are unlikely to be supportive then the financial adviser must make a clear disclosure of the risks involved.

Honesty is the best policy

Financial planning is a boring and painful job and the planner must not paint it like a fancy job that can do wonders to your portfolio.

The planner must be honest enough to tell you that there is nothing like assured returns and nothing like fancy returns. Money is best made in the traditional boring way and that is what you must focus on.

Be prepared

Bad times will happen and you need to be prepared.

That is the primary warning that your financial planner must give. There will be years of negative returns and there also will be years of flat returns. Over the longer term you need to be prepared for that. In addition, there could be cataclysmic events like Lehman and 9/11 with disastrous consequences. The adviser must prepare you for such eventualities.

Get involved

The responsibility of reaching goals is still yours, so get involved.

Rather have a brutally honest financial planner rather than someone who tells you that he has a magic wand to take care of everything. The most important thing that your planner must tell you is to get involved in the planning and monitoring process from day 1. That is the only way you can ensure that your plan is aligned to your goals.

Manage debt first

Manage your debt and insurance before your wealth.

This is all about getting your priorities right. If you keep carrying high cost credit cards and personal loans, you are never going to create wealth. Get rid of your high-cost debt before you start planning your finances.

Remember, when you close a credit card on which you are paying 35 per cent interest, it is like buying an investment with an assured return of 35 per cent.

Biggest risk

The biggest risk is not taking any risk and that is what your financial adviser must tell in the beginning.

If you want to create wealth over the next 20 years, you need to be invested in equities. By putting your money in liquid funds, you can never create wealth even if you continue to invest for 30 years. Equities are not only wealth creators but also they are more tax-efficient.

Master document

A financial plan is your master document and all else is subservient.

It is good if your financial planner sensitises you to this reality. Once your financial plan is made, your tax plan or your holiday plan have to be subservient to the master financial plan. Otherwise the core purpose of the plan gets defeated.

In a nutshell, get a financial adviser who is willing to tell uncomfortable truths. In the long run, they will serve you better. Happy investing!

The writer is executive group VP and head-equity advisory, Motilal Oswal Financial Services