The Difference
The average fiduciary financial advisor in the United States can easily tell you they know a little bit about a whole lot of things in your financial world. We believe knowing a little bit about a whole lot to be selling our clients short and choose to specialize.
By doing so, we believe we provide a more robust and experienced engagement with clients who have very specific needs. We can be generalists too, as evidenced by our credentials but believe we serve our clients far better by not trying to be everything to everyone. If there is a specific issue in your financial picture that we do not believe fits our competency, we will find an expert to consult and collaborate with.
- Divorce
- We are nationally known experts in the financial intricacies of Divorce, Divorce Financial Planning and Post-Divorce Wealth Management.
- Divorce is the largest financial transaction of your life set amidst the most emotionally chaotic time of your life. The financial decisions made during and after your divorce will very likely be the most difficult you will ever make. The decisions you make today will affect your financial safety and security for years to come.
- Divorce is our specialty. Divorce is a special circumstance that your current advisors are likely not fully equipped to help you with. For instance, attorneys think in terms of laws, they don’t think of long term financial security or how to manage your money. So when you have a complex financial picture, you’ll need more help than your lawyer can give you. CPAs, Accountants, and Tax professionals are trained to look at your financial picture from a backward looking perspective, at what’s happened in the past. We look toward the future with you, to help you plan for your safety and security. Financial Planners have a deep knowledge of financial products, but they’re often overwhelmed by situations involving conflict and unfamiliar with financial intricacies of divorce. We can help diffuse interpersonal conflicts to help you work towards a satisfying solution. We understand the intricacies of how the law intersects with your money, and we help ensure your long-term financial well-being in an understanding way.
- Our sister company, Wellspring Divorce Advisors, serves individuals and families during the divorce process and now has seven offices and affiliates across the United States. Learn more at the Wellspring Divorce Advisors website www.wellspringdivorce.com
- Strategic Financial Planning – The Architecture of Your Financial Decision Making
- Strategic Financial Planning involves:
- Precisely defining a client’s personal financial goals,
- Identifying and quantifying financial resources such as current assets, debts, incomes and expenses,
- Devising a plan for use of these resources towards the achievement of the client’s financial goals
- Establishing procedures for collecting and analyzing financial data
- Making financial decisions with the guidance of your financial planner
- Tracking and analyzing progress and any variances between projected and actual performance to identify problems and take appropriate corrective actions.
- Strategic Financial Planning involves:
Fiduciary Standard of Care
- Our Fiduciary Creed
- I am a Fiduciary Financial Advisor.
- I will assist each individual in their efforts to become a well-educated, highly motivated, diligent and disciplined financial decision maker capable of building and maintaining a safe and secure financial future for their family.
- I will instill pride in all I work with. Pride in self, in financial decision making and in financial independence.
- I will insist that each client be an active and engaged participant in the financial planning process. I will insure that my clients never feel they are making decisions alone. I will not be afraid to give bad news.
- I will always disclose conflicts of interest.
- I will lead by example, never requiring a client to attempt any task I would not do myself and always putting their interests ahead of my own.
- First, last, and always, I am an Architect of Your Financial Decision Making. I do not dictate I strategize.
- Sworn to defend your family’s Financial security against fear, confusion, greed, complacency, ambiguity and lack of education or experience. I am a Fiduciary Financial Advisor.
- Fiduciary Defined – A fiduciary’s responsibilities are both ethical and legal. When a party knowingly accepts a fiduciary duty on behalf of another party, they are required to act in the best interest of the party whose assets they are managing. The fiduciary is expected to manage the assets for the benefit of the other person rather than for his or her own profit, and cannot benefit personally from their management of assets. This is what is known as a prudent person standard of care, a standard that originally stems from an 1830 court ruling. This formulation of the prudent-person rule, required that a person acting as fiduciary was required to act first and foremost with the needs of beneficiaries in mind, and that they must work to preserve the estate or corpus of a trust, as well as the amount and regularity of income. Read more: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fiduciary.asp#ixzz4GOnctjJD
Independence
- We are independent. We do not have shareholders or corporate executives setting limitations, guidelines and rules for what products or strategies we can employ . The only entities that have input into how we serve our clients are the clients themselves, government regulatory agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and credentialing organizations such as the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards.
- Don’t rely on Big Banks – We do not have relationships with big banks unless they act as strategic partnerships for mortgage financing or providing custody services for our client accounts.
- Always Independent – We choose to be independent because we believe it is the best model for putting our clients’ interests at the forefront of our business practices.
- No proprietary products – We are not required to use proprietary investment products pushed by many of the big banks and broker dealers. We use only the products determined to be the best fit for our clients.
- Choose cutting edge technology – We choose advanced technology tools such as performance reporting software, financial planning tools and investment research tools.
- Agile and Flexible – Because of our independence we are able to be agile and flexible in serving client needs.