Hiring an adviser is a two-way street. Be prepared to ask the right questions.

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Financial advisers and planners attend seminars and classes and read books so they can learn how to win your business or, if you’re already their client, to deepen the relationship. The customary procedure is for the adviser to ask you questions, orally and in writing, and for you to reply. Then the adviser considers the facts and tells you what he or she thinks.

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But when you decide it’s time to hire (or replace) a financial adviser, it is a two-way street. Are you also prepared to be assertive? You should be. Whether you’re working with a financial planner on general big-picture matters or an investment manager who will actually handle your money, you are retaining these people and their organization to work for you. This may cost you as much as 2% annually of your total assets that the adviser manages—probably more than you’ve had to pay an accountant or a lawyer. So there is no reason to be shy or to hold back in any introductory session. Tell the planner or broker or investment manager—in a genial but matter-of-fact way—that you would like him or her to answer a series of your own questions in writing. If you run into resistance, or learn something troubling, take your business elsewhere.

This proactive, educated consumer approach doesn’t play well with all planners. After I wrote a story in Kiplinger’s Personal Finance chronicling one family’s search for an adviser —a year-long process that included a thorough if somewhat cheeky questionnaire prepared by the investor—one planner wrote to me rather indignantly about my praise of this approach. The planner said the questions should have been How old are you? and What school did you attend, and then the more pertinent, What are your other clients like? The first two are irrelevant, as long as the adviser has recognized professional credentials and a clean record. On the third point, yes, if all the other clients are older and richer, or younger and with less-complex affairs, that’s a fair warning. You could end up as an afterthought to the adviser, the equivalent of being seated at the darkest table next to the kitchen, the last client to get a call returned.

So what questions should you ask? The AARP has a sample financial-adviser questionnaire, but it is overly weighted with bureaucratic matters such as Are you a registered investment adviser? (not all planners are, and anyway, it doesn’t make one competent) and Have you ever been disciplined by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the NASD, or other regulator? That’s important to know, but you don’t normally start by asking a professional if he or she is a crook. Perhaps there’s a regulatory blemish, but with extenuating circumstances. Better to talk this subject out.

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In all seriousness, many advisers are receptive to being interviewed. They have an incentive to get off on the right foot with you or any other prospective client. So concentrate on the nitty-gritty: the cost, the investment performance, the type of investments the adviser favors or is most expert about, and the way the practice operates to serve you. There’s also the issue of whether the adviser is a fiduciary (which means your interests legally come first) or a broker, which puts the pro in the awkward position of trying to improve your finances while owing primary legal allegiance to an employer, who may have sales quotas and other rules designed, first and foremost, to boost its profits. These are the areas you want to explore in your interviews and questionnaires.