Almost every woman who sits down with me has worked with an advisor before. Sometimes two. And when I ask how that went, the answer is rarely that something went wrong. It's that nobody ever explained the plan.
The other version I hear often comes from women who have handled everything themselves, usually quite well. Good savers, disciplined, organized. But they're carrying three questions they've never gotten a real answer to:
Can I retire on time?
Will I run out of money?
What happens if something happens to me?
Those are planning questions. And in most of the meetings these women describe to me, the conversation was about investments.
That's the gap I'd pay attention to when you're choosing someone. Not the firm's brochure, not the office, not even whether you liked the person, though that matters too. Pay attention to whether anyone is answering the questions you actually walked in with.
Here's how to tell.
1. Notice What the First Meeting Is Actually About
Quick test: if most of the first conversation is spent on portfolios, performance, and what the market has been doing, you're being introduced to investment management. That's a legitimate service and some people want exactly that. But it isn't planning, and the two get marketed as though they're the same thing.
Planning means looking at how the pieces interact. What's coming in and where it goes. How your investments are positioned relative to what you actually need them to do. Your retirement timeline. What your decisions cost you in taxes. What happens if you can't work. Social Security and Medicare. Your estate documents and beneficiary designations. Education funding. And whatever decision happens to be sitting in front of you this year.
Almost nobody has one isolated financial problem. What people have is fifteen reasonable decisions made at fifteen different points in time, with no one ever looking at them together.
I'll be honest about my own bias here. I spent years at a large national firm, and by the end I had roughly three hundred households. What I did all day was portfolio reviews and bringing in new assets. I got into this work to do financial planning, and I was doing almost none of it. I built Soluna so that the planning would be the job rather than something I squeezed in around the job.
So ask a prospective advisor directly: "What parts of my financial life will we plan for together, and how often will we revisit them?"
The second half matters as much as the first. A plan built once and filed away isn't planning. It's a document.
2. Ask How They Handle the Decisions That Land Differently for Women
There's no single way women experience money, and I'm skeptical of anyone who talks as though there is. Some of my clients are the primary earners. Some run their household's entire financial life. Some are managing money on their own for the first time in their fifties.
But there are financial realities that show up more often for women, and a planner should be able to discuss them without being prompted:
- Time out of the workforce compounds twice. Years spent caregiving reduce retirement contributions and can lower the Social Security benefit calculation, which is based on your highest 35 years of earnings. A gap in the middle of a career shows up decades later.
- Longevity changes the math. Women live longer on average, which means the surviving spouse's plan often becomes the plan. That affects Social Security claiming strategy, survivor benefits, long term care planning, and how a portfolio should be positioned for a longer time horizon.
- Caregiving tends to arrive twice, once for children and once for parents, and often during peak earning years.
There's also a less technical thing worth watching for. If you're in a joint meeting and the advisor's attention keeps drifting toward your spouse, you have your answer.
3. If You Own a Business, Ask How That Changes the Conversation
For business owners the line between business finances and personal finances blurs fast. How much you pay yourself. How much cash stays in the business. Which retirement structure fits. What you're setting aside for taxes. Whether you're building any wealth at all outside the business.
An advisor who treats your business as an income source rather than as the largest asset on your balance sheet will miss most of what matters.
This deserves more room than one section. I've written about it in more depth in Financial Planning for Women Business Owners.
4. Make Them Explain How They're Paid, in Plain Language
Advisors are compensated in different ways: planning fees, a percentage of assets managed, commissions, or some combination. I won't tell you one model is universally right, because it depends on what you need and how you want to work with someone.
But there is a wrong answer, and it's an advisor who can't explain their compensation clearly and comfortably when you ask.
Worth asking:
- How will I pay you, and what does that look like in a typical year?
- What's included, and what would cost extra?
- How are you compensated on anything you recommend to me?
- How often will we meet, and what happens in between?
You can also ask for their Form CRS, a disclosure document describing services, fees, and conflicts of interest. Reading it is not rude. It's what the document exists for.
5. Credentials Tell You About Training. The Conversation Tells You About Fit.
CFP® professionals complete education, examination, experience, and ethics requirements established by CFP Board. That tells you someone has been trained across the full range of planning topics rather than one slice of it. It's meaningful, and it's why I did it.
It also isn't sufficient on its own, because you're about to have conversations that get personal quickly. Money conversations turn into conversations about your marriage, your parents, your kids, what you're afraid of, and what you want the next twenty years to look like.
One question I'd add to your list: "What do you do when a client asks you something you don't know?"
Everyone reaches the edge of their expertise. What matters is whether the person in front of you says so and brings in a CPA or an estate attorney, or whether they improvise.
6. Judge the Conversation by What You Understand Afterward
Not whether you liked the person. Whether you understand your own financial life better than you did an hour earlier.
That's the standard I hold myself to, and it's the one I'd apply to anyone you're considering. You should be able to explain, afterward, how that advisor thinks and what they'd look at first in your situation. If you can't, that's information. A meeting can be perfectly pleasant and still leave you with nothing.
The right relationship should make your financial life feel clearer, not more intimidating. If a conversation about money left you feeling behind or embarrassed, that's about the advisor, not about you.
If You're Looking in the Tri-Valley
Meet with more than one person. San Ramon, Danville, Dublin, Pleasanton, and Walnut Creek are not short on advisors, and there's no reason to hire the first one you talk to.
Ask about their process, their credentials, what's included, how they're paid, and who they typically work with. Then notice which conversation you're still thinking about the next day.
And if you leave a meeting still wondering whether you can retire on time, whether you'll run out of money, or what happens to your family if something happens to you, keep looking. Those are the questions. Someone should be answering them.
If you'd like to have that conversation, I'd be glad to have it. No preparation needed on your end, and no obligation on either side.
About Mackie Chaudhry, CFP®
Mackie Chaudhry, CFP® is the founder of Soluna Wealth Planning in San Ramon, California. Soluna provides comprehensive financial planning for women and families, with a special focus on women business owners and professionals.
Mackie helps clients bring the pieces of their financial lives together: cash flow, investments, retirement planning, tax considerations, insurance, estate planning, and the major decisions in between. Her approach is warm, organized, and judgment free.
Soluna Wealth Planning serves clients in San Ramon, Danville, Dublin, Pleasanton, Walnut Creek, throughout the Tri-Valley and East Bay, and beyond.
The information in this material is not intended as tax or legal advice. Please consult legal or tax professionals for specific information regarding your individual situation. The opinions expressed and material provided are for general information and should not be considered a solicitation for the purchase or sale of any security.
Cetera Investors is a marketing name of Cetera Investment Services. Securities and Insurance products are offered through Registered Representatives of Cetera Investment Services LLC (doing insurance business in CA as CFG STC Insurance Agency LLC), Member FINRA, SIPC. Advisory services are offered through Cetera Investment Advisers LLC. Cetera is under separate ownership from any named entity.