I like to take a deep dive to understand my prospective clients.  I want to know what’s important to you about the money you are considering investing with me.  What do you want to do when you retire or how do you spend your retirement.  Next I assess how much risk can your portfolio take.  My objective is to protect your portfolio from pullbacks.  A series of a few questions allows me do this.  I want to measure the amount of risk you can handle & still sleep at night.  Your definition of conservative is different than mine or my other clients.  The questions you answer will allow me to accurately measure your risk, build your specific portfolio & allow you to sleep at night.  I use software called Riskalyze which was developed by a Nobel Prize winner.