No doubt everyone recognizes the name Red Adair, the legendary fighter of oil-well fires. If you didn’t know who he was before the Gulf War — when he tackled the fires in Kuwait — you certainly did after.

But Adair was also good at what we journalists call “giving good quotes.” One of those arrived in my e-mail the other day. After listening to my long tirades about some of our “service” providers, my husband sent it along.

“If you think it is expensive to hire a professional to do the job,” Adair once said, “wait until you hire an amateur.”

I am sure that in Adair’s line of work, hiring someone to do a job who couldn’t do it was a very expensive proposition indeed. At Investment Executive, we may not have gushing oil wells, but we do have a few fires burning. And the principle still applies. Not having the job done right carries a high cost — and it costs far more than the price paid to an “amateur.”

That principle also applies to investors and to the client/advisor relationship. Choosing an “amateur” to handle money can result in a hefty price-tag for an investor; not only can the money be lost, but the opportunity for that money to make money can also be lost. For the advisor, it comes down to the concept of professionalism.

Much has been made of professionalism in the financial services industry in the past 10 years. Industry associations have gotten behind the concept of “planning professionals” and “investment professionals,” but I am not sure it has infiltrated the public consciousness. How do you make a business “professional”?

I can tell you how Adair made himself an undisputed professional. Born in Texas in 1915, he dropped out of school to help support his family. He worked as a labourer in various jobs until after the Second World War, when he went to work for Myron Kinley, the pioneer of oil-well fire and blowout control.

Adair left Kinley in 1959 to start his own company; what distinguished him were the techniques and equipment he developed to fight oil field fires. He was innovative — and his success was the result of the processes he developed and followed. He got results; he got the job done. That is what earned him the reputation of being a professional.

He did pretty well for himself, too. In time, he had a business that leased and sold the equipment he had developed to other oilfield firefighters. He became an expert in oilfield fire prevention and safety.

So what does it take to be professional? Certainly innovation, consistency and commitment. Becoming a professional is a big investment. It takes time, energy and money to develop the techniques and processes that guarantee results. Standing out is never cheap.

Is the financial services industry there yet? There are a growing number of professionals — people who are deeply committed to following a process, who have invested heavily in their education and in staying on top of developments in tax, planning, investment theory and products. But it isn’t universal. This is an industry that can’t agree on a basic designation, a basic knowledge level for “professionals.” This is an industry that is still putting self-interest ahead of client interest.

Adair didn’t seem to be afraid to set standards for himself and for those with whom he worked.

Adair died in 2004 at the age of 89. Writing his obituary gave various news agencies the opportunity to pull out yet another Adair quote.

“I’ve made a deal with the devil,” Adair told the Associated Press in 1991. “He said he’s going to give me an air-conditioned place when I go down there, if I go there, so I won’t put all the fires out.”

Tessa Wilmott, Editor-in-chief