9 Things A Financial Advisor Should Do For Their Clients
1. Always Clarify Objectives and Be Focused on Results
What do you want to accomplish? Why do you want to accomplish it? Gaining this clarity by answering these “big questions” seeks to lead to better outcomes and a higher chance of success.
When you get clear on your objectives, only then can the best strategy be put in place to accomplish them. Being intentional about the results you want will keep you focused on the goal and prevent poor decision-making that can derail your investment strategy and your financial plan. As Stephen Covey says, “Begin with the end in mind.”
2. Individually Tailor Advice to Each Client
This is not a “one size fits all” world. All clients have different visions about what financial success looks like for them. No two people have an identical balance sheet, risk constraints, spending profile and investment objectives.
It’s for these reasons that our process is designed to begin with a discovery process so that we truly understand who you are and what you are trying to accomplish with your wealth. It’s only after this deep level of understanding is achieved can tailored advice be delivered.
3. Being Comprehensive Works Towards Better Outcomes
Your goals, objectives, liquidity needs, and time frame all have implications on the best investment strategy for you. Similarly, your financial goals, estate objectives and charitable wishes will all impact your financial plan.
By setting up a comprehensive system that integrates all your assets, financial goals and personal constraints the likelihood of success should improve.
4. Focus on Teamwork and Expertise
Better results are usually achieved when all parties are working toward a common goal. That’s why we spend so much time understanding our clients and their goals and objectives.
A team of professionals is necessary to deliver expertise in all the areas of wealth management required to pursue your goals. Managing wealth is not a simple exercise and true expertise is needed to deliver the best advice in the critical areas of wealth management such as: Investments, Financial planning, Taxes, Estate, Insurance, Charitable-giving and advice delivery.
We do not believe that any one person can be an expert in all these areas and maintain the deep relationship with clients necessary to provide advice and understand their goals.
5. Results Matter
We believe in doing what we say we will do. It seems simple, but unfortunately uncommon today. Part of doing what we say is working hard to get the results we want for our clients. Is your portfolio performing as expected? Do your financial results match your financial plan? Are we on track to meeting your goals?
Tracking and measuring results, then holding yourself accountable to them is the best way to stay on track and achieve your goals and objectives.
6. Continually Strive For Improvement
Intel’s CEO Andy Grove once said, “Only the paranoid survive” and we take this focus on continual improvement to heart. We are consistently seeking ways to make what we deliver to our clients even better, in an effort to make their lives easier.
7. Protecting Client’s Capital
Any good investment process starts with a focus on attempting to protect our client’s capital. As Warren Buffet said, the first rule of investing is to not lose money.
Our process, starts with a risk assessment to determine how much risk our clients are willing to take with their portfolio and then continuously monitoring your portfolio to make sure you remain within these parameters. Focusing on the risks you take with your investments can limit losses by not getting too aggressive when you may feel like it (when times are good) but that will ultimately hurt you in a down market.
Next, we build a diversified portfolio, so that your assets are not concentrated in any one investment (e.g. one stock, one sector, or one rental property). This diversification process makes it possible for your portfolio to perform in various economic environments and limits the chance of permanent loss of capital that is a huge risk with any concentrated investment.
8. Always Look For Ways To Enhance Returns
After putting in place a strategy to protect your capital, there still exists opportunities worth pursuing to enhance your returns. Taking advantage of proven factors of return like: value, size, quality and momentum may improve the returns you receive from the market over time.
9. Do The Right Thing
Doing the right thing means an unwavering commitment to our clients. We are passionate about helping clients work towards their financial goals so that they get the most out of life.
There is no guarantee that a diversified portfolio will enhance overall returns or outperform a non-diversified portfolio. Diversification does not protect against market risk.
