If you are picking stocks for your own portfolio, then you are competing against all of the smart stock pickers in the world. In fact, when you're buying or selling, there's someone on the other side betting against you.

While it may be fun, this may not be profitable in that you may end up underperforming the stock market as a whole. In fact, there's a greater than 50% chance, you're losing money by picking stocks.

I believe that everyone, no matter how much investment experience they have, should learn how to take control of their investing, buy a well diversified portfolio of index funds, periodically rebalance their portfolio, and allow their money to compound without fees. So do Warren Buffett (read what he wrote about fees), John Bogle, David Swensen, and other investment industry luminaries. This is because the fees charged by the financial industry, over time, decimate investment returns.

But many people just want investment advice. Most people will spend more time shopping for a car on the weekend to save $1000, than to understand the true cost of the investment advice they are receiving on the nest egg that they're spending their entire working lives building. If you must, here are some tips that I think will help you minimize the damage and give you a shot at having a successful relationship with your stock broker, financial adviser or investment manager.

1. Show Me The Fees. If your financial adviser is charging a fee to oversee your investments, he is probably investing your money in mutual funds that also have fees. Ask for a comprehensive list of all the fees you are paying each year including each fund, its fees, and his fees. Try to get these aggregate fees below 2% per year. My friend has a $6 million account with one of the largest four brokers and to make my point, I calculated his mutual fund fees, loads, and fees to his advisor. Last year he paid about $138,000! He is considering switching to index funds and where he would pay $18,000 per year.

2. Get Invoiced. Most financial advisors "debit" your account either in advance of the quarter or month. Ask them to send you an invoice and write them a check. That way you'll stay aware of the cost for these services.

3. Show Me The Commissions. Ask your adviser to disclose the exact amount of commissions, credits or any form of compensation he or she is paid as an incentive for having you invest in a certain financial product like a mutual fund, annuity, or life insurance product. Also ask for the cost of an index fund alternative so that you can understand exactly what it is costing you to be "sold" a particular product and so that you can justify its price in the future.