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The Discovery Meeting
Before we put pen to paper on your personal financial plan, it is crucial that we spend time listening to what motivates you, what concerns you, your goals and aspirations. The foundations of any financial plan are only built by having a forensic understanding of your life, and where it is that you want to go.
Our first conversation is in many ways the most important, because it ensures that we understand what will determine the success of our relationship in your eyes.
This meeting will be undertaken at our cost, as it allows us to get an initial sense of whether we think that we will be able to help you. If we feel that we can, then we will explain how we charge for our services and provide you with a copy of our Terms of Business.
Preparing your Financial Plan
Over time our finances can become tangled and disorganised. Other priorities crop up, and we can be left with little time to ensure our own affairs are kept in order.
A key initial step in the financial planning process is to review your current financial position. This exercise will involve establishing relationships with any financial product providers that you work with, and/or any professional connections that you have – for example your solicitor or accountant.
In order to make properly informed recommendations to you, we will need to have a comprehensive understanding of your circumstances, as well as your knowledge and experience when it comes to financial matters. So while we will again undertake this step at our own cost we ask that you are open and, where required, involved in this process.
Presenting your Financial Plan
Our second meeting represents a key staging post in our working relationship. We will sit down with you, in person, to present your personal financial plan.
The software that we will use to build your financial plan is designed to answer one simple question – “am I going to be ok?”. The future is impossible to predict, and therefore we lean on over a hundred years of economic and market data to determine the probability that you will have enough money to last you for the rest of your life. And more than that, that you will have enough money to do what you want to do.
This plan forms the bedrock of our working relationship, and we will use the findings of this exercise to provide the rationale for any initial recommendations that we make to you. These recommendations may include changes to your investment strategy, or making alterations to how much you save – but they all have one thing in common. They will increase your odds of financial success.
At this stage, if you are happy to proceed we will ask you to commit to a working relationship by signing a copy of our Fee Agreement. We will take the time to explain clearly not only what fees and costs you will incur, but also how these can be paid.
Making Our Recommendations
Once we have established the best way forward, we will compile a report for you which sets out in clear English the recommendations that we are making, and the total costs and charges involved.
These recommendations will only be made following a thorough assessment of their suitability and a comprehensive analysis of the whole market.
Before we implement these recommendations on your behalf, we will meet with you again to ensure that you understand the proposals that we are making and agree that you are happy for us to proceed.
Implementing Our Recommendations
A plan is nothing without action. Once we have your agreement to proceed, we will take the required steps to implement the various recommendations that we have made.
Where any action is required from you to assist with this process, we will make this very clear to you. In the weeks following your agreement to implement our recommendations, we will provide you with regular updates on progress and check in with you to ensure that any actions which were required from you have been undertaken.
Once the implementation process is complete, we will provide you with written summary of the actions undertaken on your behalf. You will also be provided with online access to view any new accounts that we have established on your behalf, and we will take care to ensure that any client documents are stored securely for your benefit on our system.
Ongoing Review & Counsel
Once we have built your financial plan, circumstances will inevitably change and so your plan will therefore need to evolve over time as well. This is to be expected, no journey will ever be straight from point A to B. But by having a plan we have a reference point that we can return to over time, to ensure that you remain on track.
As a minimum standard, our ongoing service provides for an annual planning meeting where we will revisit your plan and discuss any amendments to your finances which are required in light of changes either to your circumstances or to legislation.
Outside of this annual meeting, should you have any financial queries, you and your family will have unlimited access to Dave - either over the telephone, by video call or email during weekday working hours.
Communication is the key to a successful working relationship, and we believe strongly in being available to address any concerns that you might have as soon as is practicable.
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