Before our first meeting, we will provide you with the following:
This initial meeting is much like a blind date – an opportunity for us to meet and determine if we are a good match for each other. We’ll discuss our services in detail as well as your goals, objectives, financial concerns, and any questions you may have. We want to hear what you have on your mind and what motivated you to seek the help of a financial adviser. Once we decide to work together, we will review and complete the Investment Advisory Agreement.
Once we receive all of the relevant documents from you, we will draft a financial plan, outlining your financial future from now through your life expectancy. We will meet to review the draft of your plan, confirming your goals and objectives while reviewing all assumptions and data. Most importantly, we will be discussing our recommendations for how to improve your finances and reach your financial goals. We will answer any questions you have and solicit feedback on the data, assumptions, and goals included in the plan.
After receiving feedback on the draft plan, we will make any necessary changes, complete our analysis, and meet once more to present the final version of the plan. If you have an interest in our wealth management services, we will also then discuss our investment process as well as the investments we typically use to help you understand our reasons for selecting them, and we will ask you to complete a risk assessment questionnaire.
For ongoing wealth management clients, we will put your financial plan into action by developing a personal Investment Policy Statement (IPS), tailored to your specific goals, needs, and risk profile. The IPS will outline our proposed asset allocation for your investments to achieve the target investment returns set out in the plan. We will complete any account applications and related forms that are necessary to move assets under our management and make recommendations for current employer retirement plans or education savings accounts held outside of our management.
We will manage your investments attentively, facilitating withdrawals or savings as needed and looking at your accounts regularly to evaluate whether we need to rebalance them in light of your target asset allocation. We will meet with you at least annually to review the performance of your investments and to discuss any financial issues you may be facing. We are available, however, throughout the year to provide advice on financial issues as they arise. We provide maximum value to our clients when they keep us informed of any changes in their financial lives, so that we can provide recommendations on how best to react.
We are committed to building long-term client relationships by establishing a high level of trust, providing timely and well-informed advice, and interacting with our clients in a calm manner and without pressure.
Given our investment principles, we primarily utilize the passively managed, low-cost mutual funds offered by Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA). You can learn more about DFA on their site: Why Dimensional. Dimensional Fund Advisors does not offer funds directly to individual investors. Instead, they choose to make their funds available through a select group of fee-only financial advisors, like us.
We use Schwab to provide comprehensive brokerage (e.g., trading) and custody services for our clients. As such, we do not have possession of client investments; our clients are always the ultimate decision makers in the investment management process.
If you have any questions about your financial future, we're here to help. Please use this form or feel free to call or e-mail us.
(703) 385-0870
