Find a Financial Advisor That Will Tell You the Truth and Thanks Dad

This week I am reminded of the first business lesson that my Dad taught me many years ago.  In fact, not just a business lesson, but a life lesson.  It is the main reason that I have survived over 21 years in the financial services business in Chicagoland.

My Dad is a retired attorney who ran his own small family law practice.  What that really means is he had to run a business as well as act as an attorney.  My grandfather (Dad’s Dad) also was a business man.  In fact, my grandfather and my great grandfather were in business together building houses.   In those days people might trade in a horse as a down payment on that first house.  As a fourth generation business person, I vividly remember the greatest business lesson that my Dad taught me.  The lesson was to tell the truth to everyone that you come into contact with in your business career.

My Dad taught me that everyone you sell your product of service to is spending their hard earned money in search of a product or advice that will help them.  For that reason, every person deserves the truth.  I once worked at a company where telling the truth to prospects and clients was ‘discouraged’.  Those companies find it especially hard to tell the truth when it could cost them potential business.  My Dad never got that memo.  In his business days, they only had memos; not e-mails.

The business world is full of half-truths.  My Dad always operated in the business world of the full truth.  Fortunes have been made by companies and individual who tell customers exactly what they want to hear; and leave the truth to be found out later.

In the attorney, home building, and investment advice business, the truth is sometimes hard to find. All of these industries produce advertisements by talking heads making bold and outrageous claims about what they offer.

My Dad told me to disregard what is advertised on radio and television about a product or service. He called it (and still calls it) the ‘boob tube’.  He taught me that the most important thing a person looking to buy something needs to hear is the truth from another human being.  I have never, ever forgotten that my Dad taught me to tell the truth.  Dad, I want you to know how much your lessons about truth have meant to me, your grandchildren, and to my clients too.

Cheers,

Ed Downey