Working With Us
Are you ready to start your journey toward financial success?
What to know about working with us
We work with a lot of people who aren’t sure what to expect (or what they should expect) from a relationship with financial advisors. Here’s what you should know up front:
We’re fiduciaries. We put your financial interests above our own. Seems like a no brainer, but we take it seriously and it needs to be said.
We aren’t product salespeople. There are lots of good insurance agents and investment only financial professionals out there, but our focus is on the plan, your entire financial picture. After that, some of our clients want help implementing recommendations. We assist you implement most of them. And many of them you can even implement through us – it's your choice. For those we can’t, we have trusted relationships with professionals to whom we can refer you.
We have no crystal ball. In fact, there is none. We can’t predict what the stock market is going to do, so the strategies we recommend don’t involve timing.
It’s a two-way street. We ask that if you agree to work with us, you make your best effort to hold up your end of our agreement, including getting us information and documents on the times we mutually agree upon. We view ourselves as your teammates, and teams can’t work together unless everyone is doing their part.
We have no minimum required to invest. We believe planning is for everyone, no matter how many zeroes follow the comma in your net worth.
Ready to get started? Schedule a consultation with us here!
What does working with Providers & Families look like?
We begin every relationship with a conversation.
Even if you’re 100% sure by now that you want to work with us, we like to speak face to face (or Zoom screen to Zoom screen!) to make sure we’re the right team for you to make your dreams become reality.
Usually, one meeting is a good indicator of whether we’ll be the right fit. We want to learn about who you are: what’s important to you, what your goals are, and more.
Ready to go? Schedule a consultation with us here!
Planning Agreement
Before getting started, we ask each client to sign a planning agreement and make an initial payment. We’ll go over all of this in our first meeting and will answer any questions before you sign.
We Love Data!
Next: since we’re in finance, we need data, so we’ll ask you to complete an intake questionnaire to give us an idea of your current financial situation, as well as gathering other necessary information about you.
Each of our clients gets an invitation to our financial planning software, where we’ll ask you to go in and link your financial accounts. We find this allows us to work with our ongoing planning clients more intimately, as it gives us a constantly updating and accurate snapshot of your financial situation. There may be times when you’re unable to link accounts, in which case we’ll ask for a recent statement so we have the best available data.
There are additional documents we’ll ask for that can’t be linked. You’ll have access to a secure portal to upload them. We prefer PDFs, but can make other arrangements if necessary.
Common documents we ask for include social security statements, 2 years of recent tax returns, paystubs, and documents on your workplace retirement and insurance benefits.
Dreams and Goals
We then schedule a face-to-face meeting interview to dive deeper into your goals and dreams. We ask that you be open and honest even in the face of uncomfortable and challenging questions (don’t worry, we’ll never ask you to share anything too personal.)
This is arguably our most important meeting – we don’t take lightly getting to know you on a deep level. Remember, your goals aren’t dollar signs. Dollar signs are just what it takes to make your goals happen. You can expect fewer numbers-based topics in this conversation.
Your goals aren’t dollar signs.
Dollar signs are just what it takes to make your goals happen.
Ready to start dreaming?
Schedule a consultation with us here!
Additional Info
Depending on where this conversation goes, we may ask you to provide us additional information before our next meeting. This isn’t uncommon, as new information comes up throughout the planning process, or you may be asked a question you haven’t considered and need some time to think about. Regardless, the behind-the-scenes work continues.
We take the culmination of the data you’ve provided us, our conversations around your goals, run scenarios and stress tests, and determine if you’re on track to meet your goals, or if adjustments need to be made. There’s no right or wrong outcome here – just the facts and how we deal with them. Don’t let the fear of being off track freeze you into inaction – you can make your dreams come true, and we’re here to support you.
Don’t let the fear of being off track freeze you into inaction – you can make your dreams come true, and we’re here to support you.
Delivery Meeting
We show you our findings, insights and recommendations in our delivery meeting. Recommendations might include reviewing the coverage limits on your auto, home and umbrella policy, updating your will, or making your investment allocation more (or less) exposed to stocks. The possibilities are nearly endless and totally depend on your goals and financial situation.
Action!
The work doesn’t stop there. It’s been said that a goal with a plan is just a dream. Well, a plan without action steps isn’t worth much either.
It’s not unusual for multiple recommendations to come along with plan recommendations, so we begin working with you to prioritize which action steps are most important to accomplish. Because it’s human nature to procrastinate, we believe in setting deadlines so that a year doesn’t go by without accomplishing anything.
It’s been said that a goal with a plan is just a dream. A plan without action steps isn’t worth much either.
Ongoing Check-Ins
From there, we move onto mutually agreed upon check-ins and progress reports. We like to meet with our clients a little more often, especially throughout the first year working together.
Ready to chat?
Our only ask is that you are serious about financial planning – not necessarily with us,
but with the idea that you’re going set out to accomplish this, because you can!
Who We Serve