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(616) 202-1881 or Toll Free (800) 223-7576

Why Us?

Services

Helping our clients find peace of mind is our primary service. Our clients want to feel at ease and be assured that things are going according to plan. More than just portfolio management, our approach includes complete financial planning. Our one cost-effective fee covers everything.
Unlimited Advisor Access: Ask your own dedicated, objective advisor unlimited questions pertaining to any aspect of personal financial planning.
Retirement Planning: You choose what’s most important: how much you save, how much you spend, or when you retire.
Debt Repayment Strategies: Should you pay it off? Refinance?
 
 
Estate Planning: What happens after you’re gone?
Protection Planning: Guard against controllable risks.
Education Planning: How much should you set aside?
Goals-Based Planning and Investment Management: You decide what life goals are most important, we’ll help get you there by monitoring and reporting the probability of achieving those goals in the future. When change occurs – to your priorities or the market – your plan will proactively change too. To support your plan, we’ll construct a portfolio that increases the likelihood of reaching your goals. Once implemented, we’ll monitor your portfolio on a daily basis to ensure it’s properly balanced and execute any needed trades to bring it back in line.

Meeting minimum standards does not make an advisor unique.

In an effort to stand out, financial advisors often list reasons why they are unique. Nowadays, these “unique” traits are becoming more and more commonplace within the financial planning industry. You may have heard an advisor promote:
“We are fee-only, so we are free of conflicts of interest. By not accepting commissions, we are objective and unbiased.”
“We use a comprehensive or holistic approach to wealth management.”
“We have a fiduciary duty to act in your best interest.”
“Our focus is on our client. We create a customized solution to fit you.”
“Our quality client service is our primary differentiator. Our clients come first.”
“We use a team-approach in serving our clients. Our experienced advisors are CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professionals.”
This is not to discount the importance of these statements. On the contrary, a quality financial planner should feature all of these attributes. The trouble is that many advisors cite these as reasons why they should be selected by a client. When many advisors tout the same qualities, the qualities cease being unique. Instead, they become the minimum standards of care that should be offered by all advisors! How can a person select a financial planner who will best meet their needs when all financial planners sound the same? Please read below to learn what makes us different.

We possess the qualities listed above, but here is what makes us unique.

We are forward thinking, not focused on the past.

The typical advisor’s report contains investment performance numbers for a time period in the past. Such a report makes no mention of the future, your goals, or your ability to live the life you desire. A quarterly or annual portfolio return percentage tells you nothing of these things. It’s hard to look at the road ahead while staring in the rear view mirror.

With us, you’ll always know where you stand in regards to your most important priorities. We report the likelihood of achieving your future goals, whether it be retiring at a certain age or paying off your student loans, and provide a calculated confidence level so you know you’re on track. Our approach is unique. We have the patents to prove it.

We don't want you to over save today and sacrifice your current lifestyle.

It’s not uncommon to hear a financial planner tell his or her clients to save more. In some cases this is good advice, but in other instances it’s the result of an overly-conservative, flat fixed rate of return used in the financial plan. Because they lack our stress-testing analysis, such financial planners advise clients to over save in the present. While we don’t want you to sacrifice the future for today, we also don’t want you to sacrifice today for the future!

We are proactive, not reactive.

As things change, we’ll come to you with proposed solutions. Change is certain, so financial plans must be proactive and dynamic. The market will change, as do people’s priorities over time. Small adjustments to a plan made over several years are easier to accomplish than a large, often unfeasible adjustment in the future. It’s the difference between steering a ship to account for the changing current and being blown way off course by a squall. One requires much more drastic measures to reach its destination. We actively monitor your plan to avoid drastic changes while maintaining a high confidence level that your goals are within reach.

Our competitors are diligent in reporting past investment returns, but how proactive are they in monitoring your progress towards future goals? Some advisors may review your progress annually while others may review once every few years. We do not think this is often enough. The client should not have to ask his or her advisor, “Am I on track?” We believe the advisor should answer that question every quarter.

We control what can be controlled.

When it comes to financial planning, there’s lots of uncertainty. Why add to it? Other advisors add complexity or strive to outperform the market in an attempt to justify their roles, but they add uncertainty in the process. Not here. We do our best to minimize uncertainty and control what is controllable.

Portfolio costs: No commissions, loads, or trailing fees. Our typical portfolio’s expenses are so cost effective, many clients often save money on total fees by switching to us, even if they were investing on their own without the cost of a financial advisor. No market-timing or day trading to drive up transaction fees. This means you keep more of your money and increase the probability of achieving your goals. Other advisors strive to outperform the market, but the majority of money managers fall short of this. When you save on costs, that’s a dependable return upon which you can rely.

Tax efficiency: Low portfolio turnover means fewer realized gains that demand tax payment. Proper asset location that places tax-efficient holdings in taxable accounts and less tax-efficient holdings in tax-deferred accounts.

Advisor fees: Our fees are below average for fee-based financial planners. Just one more way we help you keep more of your money.

Financial planning and lifestyle choices: No one can control or predict the market, but you can control the level of risk exposure in your portfolio, how much you save, how much you spend, when you retire, what happens after you pass away, and prepare for insurable risks. Our job is to help guide you through these decisions and find an acceptable balance of all variables.

We stress test your portfolio for all return environments: good, bad, and everything in between.

When planning for the future, many advisors assume an average or fixed rate of return over a person’s future years. While this is an easy calculation for the advisor, it is of little benefit to the client. The odds of receiving the exact same return every year for the rest of your life are miniscule, so how can you rely on such a plan? Instead we apply a sophisticated stress-testing analysis that simulates 1,000 market environments from now into the future, ranging from good to bad.

From these results we determine a confidence level for your financial plan. Your confidence level is the percentage of the 1,000 simulations that exceeded all goals of your financial plan. For example, if you exceeded your goals in 830 of the 1,000 tests, your financial plan would have a confidence level of 83%. Said another way, there would be an 83% probability that the goals of your financial plan would not only be met, but would be exceeded.