Which do you think is more important – the quality of financial products, or the calibre of your financial adviser and correspondingly the substance of his financial advice?

The obvious answer would be that both are important and go hand in hand together, but the reality is that people put too much emphasis on one over the other.

It is common for people to better relate to financial products, being more concerned with which stock they should purchase next, or which insurance policy has the most bells and whistles. The industry knows this very well, and hence they position themselves accordingly. Their marketing efforts are focused on elaborating on the features of their products, they solicit business with product-centric roadshows (coupled with free gifts), and of course, they remunerate agents with commissions made from product transactions.

While it is definitely necessary for any product to be evaluated before purchase, a ...