"Built Different" (Part 1)
To begin, there is no paucity of financial planning firms that say they do financial planning. Most just want to manage client investment portfolios and merely pay lip service to the non-investment elements. At FPH, we are a true financial planning shop.
We do not accept clients who are solely interested in investment management. That is not to say that portfolio management is not important. It is, but in our experience there is tremendous opportunity to add tangible value by pointing out the mistakes, oversights and opportunities hidden among the non-investment elements of our clients financial lives. There is so much low-hanging fruit in tax planning, estate planning insurance risk management, and other non-portfolio management areas.
Deep-Dive Information Gathering Paired with Hand-Crafted Recommendations
Even among other pure-play financial planning shops, we stand apart. In contrast to most of our peers, we do not produce computer-generated financial plans. As I have shared in other posts and videos, the enormous amount of time we spend gathering information is unique, and many of the 20-30 or more findings and recommendations we deliver go far beyond the generic guidance that planning software and AI reviews tend to produce. All our plans are written by hand with no assist from Chat GPT.
A Platform that Grows with You and Keeps Your Plan Current Through Time
We also understand and appreciate that financial planning reviews are often out-dated after just a few years. Accounts change, jobs change, family situations change, etc. To solve for obsolescence, we give all clients a platform that allows them to centralize, organize, monitor and maintain all aspects of their financial lives over time. While our original paper review will eventually be obsolete, the platform effectively helps the original plan stay current.
Ongoing Engagement (We are Not your Dentist)
Our interactions with our clients over time are also unique. We do not call our clients to set up annual or semiannual reviews as most of our peers do. We are not your dentist. Instead, we inform our clients from the outset that we are working for them all the time and that we are available to meet with them as often as they wish and on their schedules. Consistent with this theme we provide our clients with a service calendar that maps out important tasks for them and us to do throughout the year.
Other Differentiators
While many of our peers devote their energy to attracting high net worth (HNW) and ultra-high net worth (UHNW) clients, we fish in a different pond. Clients who enlist our services for comprehensive financial planning that includes ongoing portfolio management tend to fall into the “mid-market affluent” segment. This is loosely defined as individuals and families with investable assets of $1million-$5 million. Our tiered asset-based pricing model declines to just .10% above $5 million, and we do not accept new clients with more than $30 million in assets.
Our flat-fee planning clients tend to be younger DIY investors who enlist our services because they don’t know or what they don’t know about the non-investment elements of financial planning. These are generally one-time engagements. We are agnostic to the asset-based or flat-flee decision.
We also have our own proprietary retirement simulation software and our unique and very popular client newsletter called Nest Egg News. The latter is an integral part of how we keep our clients informed of important planning related developments and how we engage and educate our clients over time.
We do not sell investment or insurance products. We are an advice only, fiduciary always financial planning shop.