The financial concerns of successful families can be summarized into five major categories of planning. As you consider these five categories, chances are many of your major wealth concerns fit within this framework. As you probably realize, no single one of these five major wealth concerns stands in isolation. They are interconnected in various ways. Wealth protection, for example, is often interrelated with wealth transfer needs. And charitable giving may be structured to support and enhance retirement income goals.
Many financial advisors and their firms claim to offer what they call “wealth management.” However, all too often, the real focus of their activity is facilitating the sale of investment products that may not be right for you. Lacking a professional financial planning approach, most such financial advisors don’t recognize many of the major concerns of affluent individuals and families if they are not somehow connected to products their firms sell.
The consultative wealth management process is an integrated series of steps that brings an elegant clarity, focus and simplicity to often highly complicated financial circumstances of many affluent families. For such people,“wealth” extends far beyond financial considerations and extends into human, intellectual and social factors expressing their deepest values.
To understand whether you are getting help with what matters most, consider this formula used by some elite wealth advisors to explain what wealth management should cover.
WM = IP + AP + RM
- Wealth Management =
- Investment Planning + Advanced
- Planning + Relationship Management
A consultative process enables elite wealth advisors to uncover a client’s deepest needs, values and goals,to design a long-range wealth management strategy to meet those concerns effectively, and to build strong client relationships that ensure that advisory services continue to add value over time as personal and world events continue to change.