Services

Comprehensive Financial Planning aims to prepare you for everything life can throw your way. From assessing your cash flow to making sure your liability risk is buttoned up, no stone is left unturned.

Comprehensive Financial Planning

The Goal

Personalized Approach

We prefer to use a more manual process for planning that uses software as a compliment, not a crutch. This process involves in-depth conversations, proprietary data collection questionnaires with a focus on behavioral psychology, and an emphasis on the nuances often present in individual situations. Our goal is to leave you feeling fully prepared and comfortable with the details.

What You Should Expect

Make no mistake, Comprehensive Financial Planning can be a lot of work for both advisors and clients. One common mistake people make is thinking they'll only need to answer a few simple questions and provide some basic financial data. Unfortunately, it's not that simple and that's where things can fall apart.

Be prepared to compile your detailed income and expenses, dig out your insurance policies, gather your tax and financial statements, etc. Also, you can expect to answer a lot of detailed questions about a wide range of topics. It doesn't have to be difficult, but it does have to be thorough in order to provide you with the most beneficial experience.

With or Without Asset Management

While we can include financial planning as a part of managing your investments, we also have the ability to provide these services on an hourly basis for clients that want to manage their own accounts.

Investment Advice / Management

Investment advice/management is one of the most misunderstood aspects of working with an advisor. Many clients hire an advisor believing they will use their knowledge and experience to add value to the investment process. The reality is that fewer and fewer today play an active role in managing client investments at all.

In many cases, advisors outsource investment management completely, or follow a paint-by-numbers sort of approach to creating generic allocation models. In the end, clients end up paying a premium for something they could easily get elsewhere for next to no cost.

If you'd like to learn more about this issue and why financial planning isn't always sufficient to justify the fee, check out this blog post.

Perception vs. Reality

A Relationship That Fits

Sometimes it's best for clients to keep their investments elsewhere and receive investment advice on an hourly basis. Whatever the reason, our initial process of getting to know you involves determining which path makes the most sense.

How We're Different

We believe that if a client is paying an ongoing fee for investment management, we need to bring more to the table than generic allocation models. As mentioned, those can be obtained at widely-known providers virtually for free.

There are alternative investments and approaches that can help diversify returns and manage risk. These can be especially useful when risk management becomes more important, such as leading up to or during retirement. However, it can also be valuable during periods focused on growth.

Advisors will have varying levels of ability to offer alternative strategies based on the firm they work for, their skillset, and their own willingness to provide custom solutions. Our experience has been that very few advisors like to go beyond the generic model approach, even if able to. In contrast, we pride ourselves on understanding additional ways we can add value to clients' portfolios, as well as having the ability and willingness to use them where appropriate.

Flexible / Free-form Consultations

It's difficult to find an advisor that will work with you on an hourly basis and focus on specific areas that you choose. Whether you want to discuss your current investment strategies or certain financial planning topics, almost anything is on the table.