2 Hours a Year: The Ugly Truth About Advisor Availability
David had a question about his portfolio. Nothing urgent — just a thought about whether he should shift some bond exposure given rising rates. He emailed his advisor.
Three days later, he got a reply. From the advisor's assistant. "David, thanks for reaching out. [Advisor Name] is in client meetings all week but I've flagged this for his review. We should be able to get back to you by early next week."
A week and a half after his initial question, David finally got a 15-minute phone call. The advice? "Let's stay the course."
David is not an unusual case. He's the norm.
The Business Model Math
To understand why advisors are so hard to reach, you have to understand their business model. Here's the math:
- Revenue per client: A typical advisor manages $500,000 per client at 1% AUM = $5,000/year
- Target income: $300,000/year (after firm overhead)
- Clients needed: 60–80 clients at minimum
With 80 clients, a solo advisor has — optimistically — about 6 hours per client per year. That includes:
- Quarterly check-in meetings (15 minutes each)
- Annual review preparation (2 hours)
- Portfolio rebalancing (1 hour spread across all clients)
- Administrative emails and paperwork (1 hour)
- Actual strategic thinking about your finances (90 minutes — maybe)
If you're a smaller client with $100,000 in assets ($1,000/year in revenue), the math gets even worse. You might get one meeting per year and a quarterly automated report that the advisor glances at for 30 seconds.
The 80/20 Rule (Applied to You)
Like most service businesses, advisory firms follow the 80/20 rule: 80% of revenue comes from 20% of clients. Those top-tier clients — typically with $2M+ in assets — get the real attention. Everyone else gets a template.
If your portfolio is under $1 million, you're almost certainly in the "everyone else" category. Your quarterly review might be:
- An automated performance report
- A 10-minute check-in call (from the junior associate, not the advisor)
- A generic market commentary that was written for all clients
You're paying 1% of your entire net worth for a service that spends less time on you per year than you spend watching a single season of a TV show.
When You Actually Need Help
The real problem emerges when markets get volatile. March 2020. October 2022. August 2024. When the S&P drops 5% in a day and you want to talk to your advisor, so do 79 other clients — all at the same time.
In a market crisis, the average response time for a traditional advisor balloons from days to weeks. By the time they get back to you, the moment has passed. Your decision — to sell, to hold, to buy the dip — was made without professional input.
And if the market is calm? Your advisor has no reason to call you either. After all, no news is good news, right?
The Assistant Buffer Zone
Here's a test: look at your last 10 communications with your advisor's office. How many were with the actual advisor vs. an assistant or junior associate?
A 2024 Cerulli study found that approximately 70% of all client communications in traditional advisory firms are handled by non-advisor staff. The advisor only gets involved for "strategic" conversations — which, in practice, means onboarding, major life events, and moments when you're threatening to leave.
The rest of the time, you're talking to someone who can't make decisions, can't give advice, and is essentially a human message-relay system.
The Alistair Answer
Alistair is available 24/7, instantly, with no assistant buffer. Ask a question at 11pm on a Saturday — you get an answer. Market volatility keeping you up at night? You get clear, level-headed perspective in seconds, not weeks.
We don't have 80 clients competing for 40 hours of weekly attention. Every user gets the full analytical engine, every time, with no tiered service levels, no assistant gatekeepers, and no "let me get back to you."
Because when it comes to your money, "let me get back to you" isn't good enough. It never was.