How to Choose a Financial Advisor With Purpose
You’re good at what you do. Really good. You’ve built something—a career, a business, a family, a life with a lot of moving parts. And most of the time, you handle those parts with confidence.
But at some point, a question surfaces that’s harder to answer than the rest: What is this wealth for?
That’s the moment people need to find TrueNorth.
Pause. Breathe. Then Find the Right Financial Advisor.
Here’s something most financial firms won’t tell you: the best thing you can do before choosing a financial advisor is slow down.
The world is wired to move fast. To optimize, to decide, to execute. But when it comes to choosing the person who will help you steward your wealth, your legacy, and your family’s future, speed is not a virtue—clarity is.
The right advisor won’t rush you either. They’ll hold space for a bigger conversation where you can dive deeper than your portfolio balance and explore what you want your life to look like. That kind of conversation takes time. And it takes the right person on the other side of the table.
CFP® and CFA®: Why Certifications Are the First Thing to Check
The financial industry is full of titles. Advisor, planner, consultant, or wealth manager can all mean very different or similar things. What you want to look for is a designation that requires real expertise, real accountability, and a real commitment to putting your interests first.
CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ (CFP®)
Earning the CFP® mark isn’t easy. It requires that a financial advisor completes a comprehensive education program, passes one of the most rigorous exams in the industry, accumulates thousands of hours of professional experience, and commits to ongoing education throughout your career. More importantly, CFP® professionals are held to a fiduciary standard, which means they are legally and ethically required to act in your best interest. Not their firm’s interest. Not their own. Yours.
Bryan and Troy, the co-founders of TrueNorth Wealth & Impact, are both CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professionals with more than 45 years of combined experience. That’s four-plus decades of helping real families navigate the kind of complexity that comes with market cycles, life transitions and generational wealth.
What a CFA® Designation Means for Your Investment Strategy
Bryan also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA®) designation—one of the most respected and demanding credentials in the entire investment industry.
If the CFP® is the gold standard for financial planning, the CFA® is the gold standard for investment analysis and portfolio management. Earning it requires passing three levels of rigorous exams covering economics, portfolio theory, asset valuation, ethics, and quantitative analysis. It typically takes three or more years to complete which includes working the required 4,000 hours of professional experience.
What does that mean for you as a client? It means that when TrueNorth is evaluating your investment strategy, the person looking at your portfolio isn’t just a good planner. Bryan brings an institutional-level depth of investment knowledge to every client relationship—the kind of analytical rigor typically reserved for endowments, pension funds, and the largest investment firms in the world.
Purpose-Driven Financial Planning: What Sets Our Advisors Apart
Here’s a common experience people have with financial advisors: you walk in, they look at your numbers, they recommend a product, and you walk out with a plan that could have been written for anyone.
We don’t do that.
At TrueNorth, our financial advising process starts with listening, really listening, before a single recommendation is made. We create a space where you can think out loud about what matters most to you without feeling judged or rushed. Then, we take everything we learn and build something that only fits one person: you.
Working with TrueNorth feels like taking a meaningful pause in the middle of a life that never stops moving. It’s a chance to look inward. To reconnect with your purpose. To ask what you actually want your money to accomplish for your family, for your future, and for the world around you.
From that foundation, Bryan and Troy build a customized, written financial strategy that reflects your whole life. Not just your investments. Your goals, your values, your timeline, and the legacy you want to leave. Every plan is unique because every person living it is unique.
Financial Advisors for Executives, Families, and Philanthropists: Is TrueNorth Right for You?
TrueNorth works with families and professionals each year. Their clients come from different places in life, but they share a common thread: they want their wealth to mean something.
For executives and high-income professionals: You’ve done the hard work to get here. Now the question is whether you’re making the smartest moves with what you’ve built. Are you maximizing every tax-advantaged opportunity available to you? Is your equity compensation being handled strategically or just reactively? Are your investments structured to grow with your career, or are they still set up the way they were ten years ago?
For young professionals: Starting intentionally is one of the most powerful financial advantages you can have. TrueNorth’s financial advisors work with ambitious professionals who want to build wealth with purpose from the beginning.
For families thinking about legacy: If you’re thinking about what you leave for your children, your grandchildren, and the communities you care about, TrueNorth specializes in this kind of planning. Multi-generational strategies, tax-efficient wealth transfer, and the conversations that turn financial plans into family legacies.
For givers and philanthropists: True to their name, TrueNorth Wealth & Impact, giving is central to their mission and their practice. Bryan and Troy believe that generosity is one of the most meaningful things wealth can enable. They help clients find their giving purpose, build a philanthropy strategy that maximizes impact, and experience what it feels like to see your resources change lives. The joy that comes from that, they’ll tell you plainly, cannot be quantified on a spreadsheet.
6 Questions to Ask a Financial Advisor Before You Hire Them
Whether you’re considering TrueNorth or evaluating anyone else, these questions will tell you a lot about who you’re dealing with.
This is the first question worth asking any financial advisor, and the word “always” matters more than most people know. Some advisors are only required to act in your best interest in certain situations, not all of them. A CFP® professional operating as a full fiduciary holds that standard across every recommendation, every conversation, every time.
Credentials aren’t everything, but they tell you a lot about how seriously someone takes their craft. The CFP® designation requires years of education, a rigorous exam, and a commitment to acting in your best interest. If an advisor can’t point to that standard, or something comparable, it’s worth understanding why.
This one matters more than most people realize. Some advisors earn commissions on the products they recommend, which can create conflicts of interest that are hard to see from the outside. You deserve a straight answer here before you trust someone with your financial future.
Generosity is powerful. But generosity with a plan behind it can be transformational for your community, for the causes you care about, and for your own financial picture. If giving is part of who you are, make sure your financial advisor knows how to make it work harder for everyone involved.
Life doesn’t stay still, and neither should your financial plan. A great advisor doesn’t just build a strategy for who you are today. They stay close enough to know when it needs to change, and they’re ready to have the hard conversations when it does.
This one will tell you everything. A financial advisor who jumps straight to solutions without helping you find clarity first isn’t really listening. The best answer involves slowing down, asking better questions, and creating the kind of space where the real goals have a chance to surface.
What to Expect From Your First Meeting With a Financial Advisor
TrueNorth offers a complimentary 60-minute introductory meeting with Bryan and Troy. No pressure. No obligation. Just a real conversation about where you are, where you want to go, and whether TrueNorth is the right partner to help you get there.
Not ready for a full hour? TrueNorth also offers a legacy plan checklist and a complimentary financial checklist to help you start exploring your financial purpose at your own pace.
Values-Based Financial Planning:
Why TrueNorth Wealth & Impact Stands Apart
The things that bring TrueNorth the most joy cannot be measured in returns or revenue. The moments that matter are the ones where a client finally has a plan that reflects who they really are. Where a family sees their generosity make a tangible difference in their community. Where someone walks in overwhelmed and walks out with a sense of direction.
Bryan and Troy have built something here that goes well beyond wealth management. They’ve built a place where people can take a breath, reconnect with what matters most, and move forward with the kind of confidence that only comes from a plan truly built for them.
That’s your TrueNorth. And they’d love to help you find it.
Schedule your complimentary discovery meeting below or call 417-434-9400.
TrueNorth does not provide tax or legal advice.
