Before You Trust Someone With Your Money

Start with the job, not the title

“Financial professional” can describe very different relationships.

One person may primarily prepare taxes. Another may provide investment advice. Another may sell securities. An agent or business manager may help coordinate contracts, payments, and other parts of an athlete’s business life. A parent may simply help keep records organized.

Those roles can overlap, but they are not interchangeable.

A useful first conversation therefore begins with the work rather than the title:

What are you going to do for me?

The answer should be specific enough that the athlete knows what is included and what is not. If the person is helping manage investments, for example, clarify whether the relationship involves ongoing investment advice, individual transactions, discretionary management, financial planning, or some combination.

Investor.gov recommends understanding the services a financial professional provides, the limits on those services, fees, compensation, conflicts of interest, and disciplinary history before choosing an investment professional. Investor.gov on working with an investment professional

The same discipline applies even when a trusted introduction starts the relationship.

A great agent is not automatically the right investment adviser. A knowledgeable accountant is not automatically responsible for portfolio management. A family friend who has done well financially is not automatically qualified to manage someone else’s investments.

Expertise in one part of an athlete’s financial life should not silently become authority over every other part.

Verify the person yourself

Athletes are surrounded by referrals.

A coach knows someone. A teammate uses someone. A family member has worked with someone for years. A professional athlete recommends a person who has helped several players.

A referral can help start the search. It should not end the research.

Investor.gov specifically recommends checking the background of an investment professional even when the person was recommended by a close friend or family member. Its search tools can show registration or licensing information and may provide employment history, qualifications, customer complaints, regulatory actions, and other reportable background information. Investor.gov on checking a professional

Depending on the professional, that research may lead to the SEC’s Investment Adviser Public Disclosure database or FINRA’s BrokerCheck system.

That check is different from searching the person’s name on Instagram or looking at a polished company website.

A professional-looking brand tells you how someone presents their business. Regulatory records can help tell you what business they are actually registered to conduct and whether there is background information worth understanding.

Registration by itself does not answer whether the person is right for a particular athlete. It gives the athlete a more reliable starting point for the conversation.

If something appears in the record, ask about it.

The goal is not to conduct an investigation worthy of a courtroom. It is to avoid hiring someone to manage meaningful financial decisions without performing basic verification first.

Ask how everyone gets paid

Imagine two financial professionals telling an athlete the same thing:

“My fee is 1%.”

That number sounds small until the athlete asks the next question.

One percent of what?

Consider a purely hypothetical example. An athlete has $50,000 being managed under an annual 1% asset-based fee. One percent of $50,000 is $500 per year. If that account later grows to $250,000 and the same percentage applies, the annual amount becomes $2,500.

That does not determine whether the service is worth the cost. It simply translates the percentage into a number the athlete can understand.

Investor.gov specifically advises investors to ask how and how much a professional is paid and, when a fee is expressed as a percentage, to understand what that means in dollars. Investor.gov on understanding fees

There may also be more than one layer of cost.

Depending on the relationship and investments involved, costs may include advisory fees, transaction-related charges, fund expenses, custody-related costs, or other charges. Investor.gov advises reviewing disclosure documents and asking the professional to explain the complete fee structure rather than assuming the most visible fee is the only one.

For an athlete, the useful question is not simply, “Is this expensive?”

It is: What am I paying, who receives the money, when am I charged, and what am I receiving in return?

A professional should be able to explain that clearly.

Understand conflicts instead of pretending they do not exist

Compensation and recommendations can interact.

A professional may earn more from one type of account, transaction, or financial product than another. A firm may have business relationships that create incentives worth understanding. That does not automatically mean a recommendation is inappropriate.

It means the athlete should know the conflict exists.

For registered investment advisers and broker-dealers serving retail investors, Form CRS—the customer or client relationship summary—is designed to make several of these issues easier to see. Investor.gov says the document can explain services, fees and costs, conflicts of interest, standards of conduct, disciplinary history, and questions investors should consider asking. Investor.gov on Form CRS

Investment advisers also use Form ADV. Its disclosures can contain information about business practices, fees, conflicts, disciplinary events, and the services the adviser provides. Investor.gov on Form ADV

These documents are not paperwork to accept without reading.

They are conversation starters.

If a disclosure says a conflict exists, ask what it means in your account.

If compensation changes based on a recommendation, ask how.

If there are multiple ways to structure the relationship, ask why one is being recommended.

A financial relationship becomes easier to evaluate when the incentives are visible.

Know who can actually do what

There is another distinction that matters just as much as credentials: access.

Someone can help an athlete understand money without necessarily needing the ability to move it.

Before granting financial access, an athlete should understand exactly what authority is being created. Can the person view an account? Make trades? Deduct an advisory fee? Transfer assets? Withdraw cash? Change account information? Communicate with another provider on the athlete’s behalf?

Those are very different permissions.

The exact legal and operational structure will depend on the accounts, institutions, contracts, and relationships involved, so athletes should review the actual documents rather than rely on an informal description.

The practical principle is simpler:

Give people the access their role requires, not every permission that happens to be available.

That is especially important when several people are helping at once.

An athlete might have a parent helping organize records, a tax professional preparing returns, an agent managing commercial opportunities, and an investment professional handling a portfolio. Those people may need different information and different levels of authority.

Financial organization does not require turning the athlete’s financial life into one shared login.

A simple money-team record can help. For every person involved, keep track of the role, what information they can access, what authority they have, how they are paid, and how the relationship can be ended.

That record does not replace contracts. It makes the contracts easier to understand.

You should still understand what you own

Delegation can be useful.

Blind dependence is different.

An athlete does not need to become an investment analyst simply because they have an investment account. But they should be able to answer basic questions about their own money.

• What accounts do I have?
• Where are the assets held?
• Roughly how much is invested?
• What am I invested in?
• What is the general strategy?
• What am I paying?
• Who can make decisions?
• How do I get my money if I need it?

If those questions are difficult to answer because only one other person understands the structure, the athlete has an information problem even if every investment happens to be legitimate.

Complexity should have a purpose.

Investor.gov warns investors to be cautious when an investment strategy is secretive, cannot be explained clearly, or relies on pressure rather than understanding. Its fraud guidance also flags guaranteed returns, claims of high returns with little or no risk, unlicensed professionals, and pressure to invest immediately. Investor.gov red flags of fraud

A sophisticated strategy can still be complicated. The professional should nevertheless be capable of explaining what the athlete owns, why it is being used, the meaningful risks, the costs, and how the athlete can exit.

“I handle this so you do not need to understand it” is not the same thing as financial expertise.

Athlete income changes the conversation

A traditional financial plan may assume relatively stable income.

Athlete income can behave very differently.

An athlete may receive meaningful NIL compensation during one season and much less the next. A deal may end. Playing circumstances can change. Professional opportunities may arrive—or may never arrive. Some athletes will experience their highest-earning years much earlier than people in conventional careers.

That uncertainty should be part of the conversation with anyone helping manage the money.

An investment or financial commitment may look reasonable when evaluated against this year’s income and look very different against the athlete’s baseline living costs.

This is why the professional needs to understand the athlete’s real financial life rather than simply the account being managed.

If an athlete has $75,000 invested but also has upcoming taxes, irregular future income, family responsibilities, tuition or housing costs, and no meaningful cash reserve, the investment account cannot be evaluated in isolation.

The numbers have relationships.

That idea is also why The Athlete Paycheck Is Different emphasizes building recurring spending around a sustainable baseline rather than the athlete’s strongest earning period.

The right financial professional should make those relationships clearer.

Watch what happens when you ask questions

One of the easiest ways to evaluate a financial relationship is to ask basic questions early.

Not trick questions. Normal questions.

• How do you get paid?
• Who holds the assets?
• Are you registered?
• Can I see your Form CRS or other relevant disclosures?
• What happens if I decide to leave?
• What are the major risks?
• Why are you recommending this instead of the alternatives?

The quality of the answer matters. So does the reaction to being asked.

Investor.gov identifies pressure to act immediately, promises of guaranteed returns, unlicensed investment professionals, exaggerated credentials, and requests to send money through unusual methods as warning signs of potential investment fraud. Investor.gov red flags of fraud

An athlete should also be skeptical of social proof as a substitute for explanation.

“Several professional athletes use this.” “Everyone on the team is doing it.” “Your teammate already invested.”

None of those statements explains whether the investment or professional is appropriate for you.

Investor.gov specifically warns that fraud can spread through trusted groups and that investors should independently research both the person and investment even when the recommendation comes from someone they know. Investor.gov on affinity fraud

Trust can open the door.

Verification decides whether you should walk through it.

Build a financial team without giving away the steering wheel

Good financial professionals can provide real value.

They can bring specialized knowledge, reduce administrative burden, identify problems an athlete may not recognize, and help turn a collection of financial decisions into something more deliberate.

The point is not to distrust everyone.

It is to understand the relationship before depending on it.

Know what you hired the person to do. Verify the relevant credentials independently. Understand every meaningful layer of compensation. Ask about conflicts. Know where your money is held and who has authority over it. Keep copies of your own documents. Review statements. Ask questions when something does not make sense.

Most importantly, do not let earning more money become the reason you understand less about it.

The athlete can delegate work without delegating awareness.

A strong financial team should leave you with more clarity about your money than you had before they arrived.

This article provides general financial education, not individualized investment, financial, tax, or legal advice. Financial professionals, services, registration requirements, compensation arrangements, and individual circumstances vary. Review relevant agreements and disclosures and consult appropriately qualified professionals for advice specific to your circumstances.