1. Introductory Call or Meeting
Our first contact is usually a short 15-minute call or meeting to talk about your situation, questions, goals and dreams. It’s an opportunity for you to learn who we are and how we help people and to make sure that we’re the right choice to work with in achieving your desired future.
2. Educational workshop (meeting or webinar)
If it is at all possible, this is an essential first step. We want our clients to feel completely confident in their investments, know what to expect from them, have peace of mind about their future, and feel safe knowing that they’re invested in ways suggested by some of the brightest academic minds in the world.
We don’t believe that you should choose a financial planner/advisor/broker and just hope that they know what they’re doing. That will always leave doubt lingering in your mind about your investments, especially when the market is volatile and you see your portfolio values changing. You will always wonder if the investment recommendations were right for you.
The alternative is becoming educated about why you should base your investments on Nobel Prize-winning concepts. This way you can sleep well knowing that your money is invested in ways supported by academic research and evidence-based prudent choices, as opposed to gambling and speculation.
3. Personal Planning Meetings
It typically takes 1-3 meetings to gather all of the information we need, ensure we understand all of your goals and dreams, analyze your situation, and work with you to establish recommendations and a plan that will work for you.
4. Implementation of recommendations
Creating a plan and recommendations won’t do you much good if you don’t execute on the recommendations! Therefore, an important part of our service is helping you to implement the recommendations.
5. Ongoing management, education, and coaching
We believe one of our most important jobs is to help our clients maintain their discipline through thick and thin, when things are good and when things are bad. We do this through ongoing coaching and education events, constant communication through mail and email, phone calls, and one-on-one meetings. We have a process in place to touch base with our clients regularly to remind them of the principles of evidence-based investing to help our clients keep their commitments to themselves and their futures.
This is important because when everything is going well in the markets and the economy, it’s easy to have peace of mind about investments, but it is difficult when the markets are volatile, such as in 2000-2002, 2007-2008, or the coronavirus of 2020. Panic and worry set in because there are so many different messages coming across the TV, internet, magazines, and newspapers, which make it confusing and difficult to know what to believe. These are the times when investors can make financially devastating mistakes. The reverse is also true – when markets are going too well, people tend to make overly aggressive decisions; they might invest in something just because it appears to have a good track record. Our ongoing management, education, and coaching are designed to prevent destructive mistakes, relieve our clients of worry, and keep their plan in place.