[l2ridehd]

As already said, ALWAYS understand how they are paid. Also understand how expensive the products they want you to use cost. Things like front end loaded funds, transaction fee's, expense ratios on recommended funds and any other costs. Most advisors will end up costing you close to 2% a year for the money they manage. Their fee's plus the cost of products and transactions. That means they have to do 2% better then the markets just for you to break even. Most can't do it.

Again as already been said a mix of very low cost index mutual funds from Vanguard, Fidelity or Schwab that cover total stock market, total international market and total bond market will beat most advisors. That can be accomplished using a single fund like Vanguard Life Strategy moderate or conservative growth fund with a very low cost. That fund is made up with a fixed % of 4 other funds that cover all the diversity any investor needs.