Investment advisors come in many varieties, and prospective clients need to figure out just what are the priorities of their potential advisor.

“Are they pushing a particular product, or do they have the intent of meeting their clients’ needs?” said James E. Adkins, president and chief executive officer of Strategic Financial Associates, LLC. “Having everybody on the same page leads to a more positive relationship.”

Strategic Financial Associates based in Bethesda, Maryland, provides wealth strategies, estate planning, risk management, and insurance services primarily to business owners, executives, professionals and families. The firm, however, does not maintain a minimum to invest and is willing to serve anyone whose financial goals align with Strategic Financial Associates’ services.

Adkins encourages prospective clients to ask hard questions and sort out whether an advisor is right for them. The relationship between an advisor and client is key, he said.

“We can’t control the stock market, we can’t control certain individual circumstances in a client’s life and so, as a result, it’s about creating that pathway in a client’s life and a pathway to make change,” Adkins told “Advisors Magazine” during a recent interview.

Strategic Financial Associates takes a holistic view of clients’ finances and works with them to refine their life goals. The firm also provides services to business clients such as employee benefits and insurance. Clients can expect to be educated and empowered to make important financial decisions, said Adkins, who has 22 years of financial advising experience.

“We want to engage the client from a 360-degree perspective,” Adkins said. “We look at it as a problem solver or consultant. Where is the client today? Where do they want to be in the future?

And, how do we help them to get there?”

Adkins works early on in the relationship with new clients to guide them to an understanding of their financial situation and the goals they want to achieve. Without goals, a financial plan consists of empty “numbers on paper,” and those plans never get clients to where they want to be, he said.

And while many financial advisors chase returns, Adkins prefers a more customized approach.

“We tried to get away from [the alpha approach] many years ago because we’re not advising on money for sport … Our guidance for clients’ money and investments is relevant to a plan and an end-game,” he said. “Certainly, we’ll benchmark returns. We’ll try to make sure that given the risk in a portfolio and given the portfolio’s design that it’s competitive with applicable market returns, but it has to be aligned with ultimate goals and objectives.”

Strategic Financial Associates takes a comprehensive look at clients’ situations. Through his relationship with Eagle Strategies LLC, a Registered Investment Adviser, Jim Adkins serves as an Investment Adviser Representative and acts as a fiduciary in his advisory capacity, meaning client interests take precedence over the bottom line.

“We’ll look at the [clients’] objectives, whether it’s retirement or college planning, or risk management and tax planning, or legacy planning, and try to make sure that the overall plan is consistent with that,” Adkins said.

Educating clients remains a challenge, and one Adkins tackles upfront. Client education often requires multiple meetings and a concentrated effort to break down barriers to comprehension that many clients struggle with. Though they are certainly intelligent people, they may lack the nuanced understanding of finances that an advisor has.

“Many times, our industry uses jargon or lingo or language that, frankly, the average person may not comprehend,” Adkins said.

New technological tools can help clients educate themselves, and Adkins said he welcomes do-it-yourself investors to take advantage of the new applications at their disposal. The downside, however, is that the tools – so-called “robo-advisors” – lack the real ability to determine what a specific client needs not only now but also in the future.

“The challenge, I think, with anything, is that a lot of times tools are simply that. They’re not a customized solution, but really tools to create a generalization,” Adkins said.

To get a truly customized solution that aligns with clients’ hoped-for financial future, considerable face-time with an advisor – a human being – remains a better choice than inputting numbers into an app.

“[We want to] guide them down the financial highway of life. Our goal is to keep them east or west of center and put guardrails along the side to keep them from falling off. We know they’ll never be in a perfectly straight line,” Adkins said. “If we do that, we’re confident the client will eventually get to where they want to go and achieve their financial goals.”

Life, and the market, can change rapidly. People’s plans can change, circumstances such as the death of a spouse or a divorce can greatly alter financial goals and projections. Likewise, the market can be roiled by a financial crisis like in 2008, or by a more mild recession such as the dot-com bust in 2000.

“As life unfolds and changes, people’s plans change,” Adkins said, adding that he stays on top of developments in the market, financial industry, and his clients’ lives to help adjust their plans to real life.

No matter what changes, however, the clients still come first. Adkins said that if the firm puts clients ahead of other interests, then the long-term success of his firm is all but guaranteed. And, of course, clients who see that their advisor is looking out for them tend to feel reassured, even when things seem to be going wrong in the outside world.

“The numbers tend to continue to work … It’s a marathon and not a sprint, but at the end of the day the clients appreciate it,” he said.

For more information on Strategic Financial Associates, LLC, visit: sfafn.com

Strategic Financial, LLC is independently owned and operated from Eagle Strategies LLC and its affiliates.