One of the primary benefits of dealing with an investment counsellor is that they carefully align asset classes with your specific objectives. True high-end discretionary management also involves tailoring investment objectives to a particular client, which requires asset allocation and regular monitoring. Even though you hand over day to day discretion, this is done with the parameters that only you establish in the preliminary investment policy statement you create when you first begin your relationship with your investment counsellor, such as investment horizon, overall financial position, tax status, and benchmarks against which the portfolio returns are to be measured, leading to investment objectives for the portfolio. Counsellors are granted discretion to adapt the products to the client's personal investment profile, and you receive a personally tailored investment program.

Very few organizations are permitted to provide discretionary management where the portfolio managers make their own decisions in making and changing investments for clients. To be able to do so, investment counsellors and portfolio managers meet the highest conditions of registration and qualifications with provincial securities commissions. As a result of this up-scale registration requirement, investment counsellors impose minimum limitations on the size of the accounts they will accept, and these range from $50,000 to $50 million depending on the firm. Fees are lower, and tax deductible, and assessed for continuous management of the investment portfolio in contrast to brokers and dealers where there is more potential for conflict of interest as dealers are compensated by mutual fund commissions and trailers, especially with the recent surge in proprietary funds.

A major difference between investment counsellors and the traditional broker/advisor community is the relative absence of marketing by the counsellor. It's likely the average investor will not recognize many of the names of investment counsellors as few advertise to customers and even fewer worry about putting on national road shows to influence distributors and dealers. Think of the panache involved when you're at a cocktail party and everyone is talking about big name fund companies or brokerage firms. If you're a contrarian, you should relish the opportunity to drop an elite name likely new to everyone, such as Wickham Investment Counsel.