Main Street Business

Navigating the Financial Universe with Nicholas Stuller

By Published On: July 5th, 2020

Nothing can be as swift as the winds of change when it comes to managing money — especially when those winds shift with sudden, and dramatic force. For Nicholas Stuller, one of the foremost authorities on financial advising, captaining your economic ship requires a steady hand, some calculated risk and a patient predilection for seeking knowledge. “I have always been curious about the financial services industry,” says Stuller who began his career at Shearson Lehman Hutton (now Morgan Stanley). “Together with being an avid reader and, of course, allowing myself to being open to taking risks, have opened the doors for opportunities to explore and be a part of exciting ventures.” After leaving the firm as a financial advisor, he began a successful career selling to financial advisors at firms such as Waterhouse Securities (now TD Ameritrade) and National Regulatory Services (acquired by the Thomson Company). Stuller is also the founding CEO of two of the largest financial advisor database companies in the U.S. and has built the most inclusive web-based directories, which include deep data and intelligence on the two million U.S. financial and insurance advisors. As a gifted entrepreneur, sales professional, and author of The Truth Shall Set Your Wallet Free: Secrets to Finding the Perfect Financial Advisor, bent on creating unique directories of critical data on financial advisors, Stuller has seen the most cosmic shifts in the nation’s economy, including in the years after 9/11, but perhaps none as sustainably uncertain than the effects caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

“It is vitally important in our current reality to find a financial advisor because money and wealth impact every aspect of life,” says Stuller. “Getting help in this volatile, complicated and ever-changing industry will allow one to maximize their life and financial comfort during this time.” Stuller has taken these interpersonal principles of financial advising to the next level with the founding of MyPerfectFinancialAdvisor, a site which Stuller says he intends to be the “eharmony” of matching investors or consumers to advisors, regardless of how little or much money one has. “I make the analogy to medical doctors, in that we all have gotten to be better consumers of medical information, thanks to services like WebMD and others,” says Stuller. “However, we all go to doctors because we understand they have expertise and going it completely alone is not wise. The same holds true for managing one’s wealth. Income and assets do not matter, as there are advisors for literally every slice of investor, from the uber-rich to the impoverished and every strata in between.” Finding ways to maneuver personal finance has become especially imperative over the past few months, an aspect of life that has been hauntingly complex for millions of Americans since the coronavirus pandemic began accelerating in mid-March.

Through his three decades of experience selling to thousands of advisors, Stuller says he’s seen the industry change with society despite the public’s perception of financial advising still maintaining that it is only reserved for the wealthy. “When I first started in the 1980s, the percentage of advisors that were just selling a stock or some investment product was dramatically higher than it is now,” says Stuller. “Today, the majority of advisors are looking at a client’s entire life, doing financial planning and offering services from college planning to inter-generational wealth transfer. Still, people think that you must be rich to get or need an advisor. This in fact has never been true in my working life, it was just much harder to find an advisor 20 years ago that catered to modest means investors. Today, it is much easier to find an advisor catering to folks just starting out or who have no assets-there are thousands of advisors catering to these investors.”

Given the rife amount of market uncertainty driven by COVID-19, it is perhaps most critical now more than ever for those perceptions to change. With the rapid advance of digital communications platforms like Zoom making services more accessible than ever before, there is hope on the horizon for those unsure where to turn for financial help. As Stuller predicts, “more people will seek out a financial advisor because they are worried about the ups and downs of the market and are tired of not having a big enough emergency fund.” He continues, “More people are beginning to see the connection between health and money in new perspectives. I also believe more investors will find and work with an advisor purely digitally thanks to the effectiveness of services like Zoom.”

For his part, Stuller has begun to reach out to the surrounding community and members of our area’s business community offering his expertise in order to help folks navigate through the confusion. On Thursday, July 9 at 11am, Stuller will join an expert panel of advisors and investors via Zoom to discuss the new and changing issues surrounding money management during the COVID-19 economy. Stuller will explain the advisory landscape, how it has changed in light of past events and how it will continue to change post COVID-19. One of the most dramatic societal events of our generation has brought age-old terms to the forefront of our collective minds once again. However in today’s tech-driven economy, perhaps the most relevant term is advice, and help has perhaps never been closer than in this present moment.

To register for this FREE event, visit mainstreetmag.com/our-events

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For more information on Nicholas Stuller, or to find your ideal Financial Advisor, visit myperfectfinancialadvisor.com