Why We Do It This Way
We conduct our financial planning process in this way to ensure we are answering all of your questions in a thorough and concise manner. More often than not, when one question is answered, several more questions arise. The purpose of the financial planning process is to “connect the dots” between all aspects of your financial affairs so as to ensure that you are deploying your hard earned financial resources as effectively and efficiently as reasonably possible.
Our Purpose is to help you gain maximum mileage from your financial resources. This means that we are always paying attention to the 5 Great Killers of Wealth, looking for ways to always minimize taxes, fees and expenses, we strive to help you reduce risks while helping you retain more income and build more wealth systematically over time (for more information on each of these areas, go to the RETURN TO HOME section of this website and read through each of the options provided across the top).
Our Financial Planning Process is a time intensive process that is comprised of the following steps:
Step #1: Compiling and Assessing Your Current Situation.
Time is required to ensure we have a good understanding of:
- The issues that are important to you today and in the future.
- Your current, personal situation as it relates to you, your spouse, your family and your business.
- Your current financial picture, including your income, expenses, net worth and taxes. This is what we refer to as your Financial Core. Your Financial Core needs to be strong as it is the core that then greatly influences the outcome of all of your financial objectives and preferences.
- The risks that you may be exposed to today.
- Your various investment, insurance and real estate portfolios as well as your business interests.
Step #2: Modelling Future Scenarios and Measuring The Outcomes:
Once we have a good understand of where you are today, we then turn our attention to the future, where we begin to build multiple future scenarios based on different strategies and assumptions. From the outcome of these various scenarios we begin to see the pros and cons of each approach and which combination of decisions would be most beneficial to you and why. This process takes time to complete and then reflect upon so as to ensure that the pros and cons of each alternative scenario are considered thoroughly.
In our typical financial planning process, clients will see the outcomes of 3 to 5 scenarios.
Step #3: The Interim Meeting: Once we have a good understanding of your current situation and future potential scenarios, we get together with you to share our findings. Your feedback and perspective at this time is crucial to the planning process. For this to be “your plan”, you need to contribute to the process. From this discussion, we will have greater clarity as to your personal preferences and priorities, based on the information we have now shared with you.
Step #4: Further Analysis and Plan Completion: After the interim meeting, we can now begin to complete a final draft of your new custom financial plan. At this stage we complete our calculations and begin to write our commentary throughout the plan, providing you with specific conclusions and recommendations throughout. Every table provided and every word on the page is our own. This is a truly custom financial plan.
Step #5: Presentation and Communication To You:
At our next meeting we review the final plan and discuss with you each of our findings and recommendations, so as to gain your additional feedback. You receive a bound, written plan, complete with all tables, analysis and recommendations for next steps and future key dates.
Our Value: In total, a typical plan takes 20 to 30 hours to complete from beginning to end, including three or more meetings with you. The planning process is dynamic and interactive, so that it is truly customized to your unique situation, preferences, priorities and goals.
Throughout the process we provide value in four specific ways:
- we provide very specific recommendations,
- we provide broad and deep analysis, connecting the dots between your personal lifestyle goals and your income, taxes, net worth, portfolios, insurance, Wills and estate,
- we provide a lot of additional educational resources in our meetings and within the final plan and
- we provide our perspective and experience to help you make meaningful and important decisions.
With this in mind, if your planning fee was $4000, then you are effectively paying $1000 for each of these four benefits (recommendations, deep analysis, education, experience). This is a very small cost given the value that you receive in each area.
Our Experience in this area has taught us three important things:
- Pay Attention To The Details: One small difference in one year could add up to be many tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of difference over your lifetime.
- Connect the Dots: It is very important to connect the dots between all aspects of your financial plan. One negative outcome in one area of your plan could easily undo all of the good things achieved elsewhere in your financial plan. When you connect the dots between all aspects of your financial plan, you are ensuring that you are deploying your hard earned income and capital in the most effective manner.
- Review your plan regularly. This helps to make sure that things remain on track over time.
If you would like to know more about how we can be of assistance to you, please contact us at 204-956-0519 or contact us online to book a time with one of our financial planners.