We understand that your objectives are different from others, so we take time to get to know you and what you’d like your future to look like. Over time we’ll build your financial confidence that will allow you to understand your finances as we keep you on track for your long terms goals.
Engagement
The first step is an informal meeting at our expense. At this stage we’re trying to establish where you are now, what problems you face, if any, and what shape you’d like your future to take. We’ll explain to you how we work and how we’ll be able to help you moving forward.
When engaging with an adviser for the first time, or even when comparing advisers, you need to be happy the relationship will work. We spend a lot of time working with our clients and we try to make sure it’s an enjoyable experience for both of us. The best relationships are when both parties are engaged to make the plan a success.
Our aim is to help you improve your financial situation and we do this by increasing your understanding of your finances and the options available to you.
Discovery
This stage of the process is all about you. We’ll spend time getting to know you, your personal situation and your aims for the future. Building an accurate picture of your current financial, and family situation, gives us the platform upon which we build your future lifestyle plan.
If you have pensions and investments already, or even surplus income that you’d like to put to better use, they could have valuable options that we can use. Knowing how to use them to achieve your goals is where life planning comes in to its own.
Gauging the level of risk you are comfortable with, is a key part of this stage. You should be able to sleep at night knowing where your money is invested, and we need to establish this before we move to the planning stage.
Planning & Strategy
Now that we have the information we need, we can bring the pieces together to design a strategy that works for you. Just because peoples’ finances are similar doesn’t mean they need the same solution. Your plan will be made to measure, not off the shelf.
Lifestyle planning takes in to account your existing financial assets, your personal needs and how you would like to shape these to meet your future objectives. To demonstrate what this looks like we use cashflow modelling to build a picture of your future needs. We’re basically putting the pieces of the puzzle together to see if you have any gaps, and if you do, we can always show you how to fill them.
Using cashflow models allows us to test your plan against various scenarios to ensure it is robust enough to cope with the unexpected.
Implementation
When we are in a position to deliver our advice to you, we’ll sit down and discuss how this is to be implemented. This is the stage when we agree with you what needs to be done, and by when.
We may recommend changes to existing plans or even that new plans are needed. Our aim is to put you in a better position than when we first met, and we’ll make sure you are comfortable with any recommendations before we agree the way forward.
Once the plan starts, it’s the beginning of a continuous process to ‘make it work’. We do this by agreeing with you how often we need to sit down and check your progress.
Staying on Track
Starting a financial plan is one thing but making sure you stay on track is another. There is a saying, “life is what happens when your busy making plans”, and having worked with our clients for many years, this is something we understand and keep at the heart of any plan.
Life tends to throw up unexpected events, so our regular reviews are a great opportunity to deal with any adjustments that are needed. When we meet we’ll revisit the cashflow models and see how you’re doing against your plan. We’ll also check what’s on the horizon for the year ahead to see what we need to plan for.
Over time we are aiming to build your financial confidence and help you work towards financial freedom.