Most people have a wealth manager, and don't know who it is. It's their friendly neighborhood banker. Or rather, they are clients of a wealth manager. They deposit funds, the bank pays them interest, and gives them access to and security for their funds.

Going up from the basic savings account, there are certificates of deposit (which pay a higher rate of interest for inaccessibility), money market funds and mutual funds. As bank customers (and hopefully, readers like you) accumulate more money, proactive wealth management begins to make more sense. Unfortunately, it's a discipline that tends to get short shrift in the common press.

There's an adage in financial services – the best way to make a small fortune is to start with a larger one, and most inherited fortunes tend to be winnowed down to nothing in side of four generations, going by historical trends. Bucking this trend and the aforementioned saying is one of the reasons why wealth management is an important service, especially in the current economic times.

The fundamental precept of wealth management is that professional money managers can look after asset allocation and diversification more readily than an individual can. While there are notable exceptions (Warren Buffett comes to mind), the vast majority of people who have enough wealth to manage are better off hiring someone else to look after things for them.

A lot of the first time clients for wealth management firms are people who have either inherited money, or gotten a medical settlement or a trust fund. Other examples are customers who have started a business that grew explosively, or who have signed a large professional contract for the first time in their life; rookies in the NBA or NFL are some of the archetypal clients of a wealth management company.

Wealth management focuses on wealth preservation rather than trying to gamble with existing funds to get double digit growth rates. They aim for diversified portfolios, and tactical asset allocations (moving things from equities and bonds and vice versa), and try to provide a sufficient income off of the assets to keep their client from dipping into the initial capital reserves.

While wealth management conjures up images of millionaires, it's not always the ultra rich who need (or benefit the most) from these services. Anyone who owns their own business can probably benefit from this type of service; your talents are better focused on running your business and growing it, meeting the needs of your customers and clients. The minutia of bond and asset allocation is something you can farm out to a professional, and likely should.

Other places where wealth management companies can come in handy include setting up college tuition funds and sheltering money from taxation, or setting up trust funds for your children. Basically, anything where you want to establish rational and economic supervision of funds is a candidate for good wealth management practices.

When looking into wealth management services, always look at your short term, medium term and long term objectives. Your livelihood is going to depend on them.