Your First Year
We develop a financial plan with you through a series of educational meetings that teach us about you, your goals and your needs. These meetings also provide the tools you need to make critical decisions about your financial life.
Our goal is to answer every question and concern through an interactive process that links all the disparate aspects of your financial life into a comprehensible whole. Although we normally address strategic planning topics in the order presented below, we realize that life does not always happen “on schedule.” If you have a critical issue or problem that needs attention, we are happy to address it immediately.
When you join us, you will have a Lead Advisor and a Service Advisor as part of your advisory team. This team works with you through the entire process and is present at each of your face-to-face meetings. This ensures consistency throughout the process. Your advisory team consults with other team members and professional partners so that your plan benefits from the multiple talents and resources that we can provide.
You can expect each meeting to last an hour and a half to two hours. Our goal is to complete the first five meetings listed below within six months. Before the first meeting, we tell you what important documents to bring to that meeting.
Goals Clarification Meeting: Using open-ended questions, we develop a set of goals and objectives for your financial life that are unique to you. The results of this meeting are used and further refined throughout the rest of our Wealth Management process. At this meeting, you provide the important documents we asked you to bring. After the Goals Clarification Meeting, we can build a financial model and executive summary that represents your entire financial life. At this point, we provide specific recommendations given your explicitly stated goals.
Financial Independence Planning Meeting: Our goal in this meeting is to provide you with a firm understanding of how much you need to save (if you are in pre-retirement) and how much you can spend each year (if you are already financially independent). We can create multiple “what if” scenarios so that you can understand how changes in assumptions can affect your long term plan. For example, you might want to understand the consequences of early retirement, buying a second home, or providing for college education for children or grandchildren. During this meeting, we also review the basic tenets of proper portfolio management, including a discussion of how to best balance growth-oriented and defensive assets in your portfolio.
Investment Policy and Portfolio Recommendation Meeting: We review a set of written guidelines for your portfolios and make specific recommendations for how to invest funds in your portfolio. We give due consideration to short- and long-term goals, the income-tax impact of choices, cash-flow needs, and the cost of implementing recommendations.
Risk Management and Tax Planning Meeting: We address concerns revolving around insurance (for example, property, automobile, long-term care, life insurance, disability). We review the quality and cost of existing coverage and make recommendations where necessary. We also review current income-tax returns and when possible make recommendations about how you might save income taxes in the future.
Estate Planning Meeting: We review your current estate plan with you to confirm that it meets your goals and objectives for your family. If changes are necessary, we will work closely with your estate planning attorney to implement these changes. If you need to engage an attorney, we will assist you in selecting the appropriate individual and will work with you through the implementation process.
How We Review, Update and Maintain Your Living Financial Plan
After the initial implementation of your plan, we work with you on an ongoing basis to make sure that your plan remains a living tool – one that allows you to take advantage of every reasonable financial and investment opportunity. Each year, we meet for a Renewal Meeting to anticipate plan changes that would better support you as your intentions change. If your circumstances or goals have changed, we work with you to successfully navigate these mid-course corrections.
We offer to hold two face-to-face meetings a year, however, you are free to contact us at any time.
