How We Start Together
Our first phase of the planning process is to learn more about your financial needs and position. We do this over a video conference, where we build the plan live together on your computer screen. We find this more effective than handing you a 10 page “Fact Finder”.
Taxes are the single largest expense we all face during our lives. We do a deep dive review of your tax situation. This allows us to provide recommendations around real estate, equity compensation, small business taxes and more. For our clients enrolled in Advisory Services we also will review your prior year Tax Return for tax saving opportunities.
At the foundation of your financial plan is your portfolio and balance sheet. We look for opportunities to ensure you have a fortress of a balance sheet and a portfolio that aligns with your objectives and a MDRN world. This includes understanding your asset allocation and location of assets for tax optimization and cash flow planning.
If you are looking for a firm that sells life insurance or annuities, we are not the firm for you. However, we understand asset protection is a key part of financial planning. This includes ensuring you have adequate life insurance coverage, a disability policy that protects you and your family, long term care planning, personal liability coverage review and more.
Benefits you have available or utilize through your employer can be powerful tools to maximize your wealth and protect your family. This can include strategizing around your equity compensation (RSUs, Stock Options, ESPP, etc.) reviewing your 401k allocation and contributions, health insurance, deferred compensation review and more.
Retirement planning is more than just knowing if you have enough savings to last the rest of your life. Our version of retirement planning includes constructing a retirement specific tax strategy, maximizing your cash flow, and more. We will also talk through Trust and Will planning to create a distribution strategy at the end of life that ensures your loved ones are taken care of. This includes strategizing around Revocable Living Trusts, Charitable Remainder Trusts, SLATs, and more.
We don’t believe that a 5-question risk tolerance questionnaire is sufficient to present an investment strategy. Through our interactive discovery process we create a custom, institutional style portfolio for you and present it. We don’t shy away from showing you all the holdings, performance data and more. Most advisors run when it comes to details, we take pride in our approach because we firmly believe it is the best in the industry.
After going through all the items above, we set up a second meeting to discuss the investment strategy and your financial plan. When we present your financial plan, we’ll go over recommendations that we believe could optimize your financial position. Just like our investment management, we show all you the data and will break it down in an easy to explain yet detailed manner. Once you enroll in Advisory Services, we move on to the evolution phase.