Finding an Advisor II

Go to the FINRA website, by clicking on the link.
Broker Check
Follow directions. If the person you are talking to is a registered representative, they will be listed here. So are many financial planners and other investment professionals.
A suggestion that there is a former complaint is not necessarily a strike out. FINRA has rigid rules regarding the reporting of complaints and they are nigh on to impossible to have removed, even if the complaint was dropped, or the matter settled. Frequently firms make a financial settlement to avoid the costs of arbitration. That does NOT imply the broker or the manager did anything wrong. It was a cost decision. An arbitration panel can rule in the broker's favor, but there are still costs associated with a formal arbitration, legal, fees, document searches, travel costs to go to the arbitration site. If an arbitration might cost a firm $30,000 or more, and the complaint can be settled for $15,000, then they may a financial decision to settle and everyone moves on.
If the broker has several complaints, got an adverse arbitration decision, or has any disciplinary actions, that's a different question. You will want to either investigate more thoroughly, or find a different prospective advisor. There are tons of advisors with no complaints at all, or some nebulous settlement that has no meaning. Find one of those.
Experience level. This is always a trade off. A broker with hundreds of clients almost guarantees you drop into anonymity fairly quickly. You are not going to be an active trader, you are not willing to pay more than 1% of the value of the transaction. If you don't mind paying an annual fee (usually charged quarterly) then pay no more than 1% total annually. This should include ALL costs.
Side note**Do NOT pay any fee for money market funds, especially now. Most money market funds aren't paying a 1% yield. If you have an additional fee of 1%, you are losing money just by being in the fund.
Again, if you agree to an annual fee, it is only on long term assets, not cash or cash equivalents.
A less experienced advisor has other issues. He or she is building their business, and trying to please the firm they represent. They are more subject to the demands of the firm to produce in certain favored product areas. A broker with a small client base may seem like a good choice, the logic being he or she has more time to focus on you. Problem is, they are focused on getting more and more clients. You choice is, big and possibly indifferent, or small and likely distracted.
Fortunately, you know by reading this blog, how to require an appropriate amount of attention without making yourself a pest. Trust me, 1% isn't enough to have a client that calls three times a week on every market gyration, or who wants an opinion of some stock Uncle Bob, who made a lot of money in the market, recommends.
(My reply was to ask the client to decide if he wanted me or Uncle Bob as his advisor. I was happy either way, but it was going to be one or the other of us, not both.)
For your fee, you should get a quarterly update of performance, compared to some related index or indexes. We'll go into what information this should include in future posts
Okay, now you have a bit more information on selecting an advisor. Good hunting.