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Tag: Plan

What Does a Financial Planner Do?

Written by support@seostats.com on . Posted in Financial Planning.

When I tell people I am a financial planner, I often get a friendly head nod with not much else.  On a few occasions people will ask ok, but what do you actually do?

A recent Northwestern Mutual survey revealed that while 68% of people do not have a professional adviser, 45% do not even know where to get the help they need as they move through life’s stages and need different financial solutions. And who can blame people when the financial service industry is riddled with jargon and three-letter acronyms that can make access to financial advice complicated and confusing.

I think then the real question that needs to be answered is – what can a financial planner do for you?

 

1.      Get Financially Organized

It might not sound exciting, but in order to know where you stand financially it’s important to organize and access your entire financial picture. A financial planner is either going to give you the tools to get financially organized or they will literally sit with you to sort through your financial life and create an organizational system that will work for you. From there, a financial planner can clearly see your entire financial picture – all your assets, debts, savings, investments, and anything else.

 

2.      Build a Financial Plan Around Your Goals and Values

Once a financial planner has a clear window into your financial reality, the conversation shifts from where you are today to what’s possible. A financial planner can help you better understand why money is important to you and help you align your wealth with your values. The financial plan created with you is more than numbers and recommendations, it is a series of thoughtful conversations that ultimately translates into a plan that details what is important to you and how your wealth is going to support your life.

3.      Help You Make Smart Choices with Your Money

A financial planner’s job is ongoing. Beyond helping you get financially organized and clear about what you want your money to accomplish in your life, a financial planner champions smart financial choices by working with you on an ongoing basis and keeping you on course. Creating a budget or a cash flow system is just one way that a financial planner helps you to get into good financial habits so that you spend less time worrying about money and more time simply enjoying life.

 

4.      Manage Investments

A financial planner can go beyond recommendations and manage your investment accounts. From setting up accounts to monitoring performance, rebalancing and sharing quarterly reports, a financial planner is on your team to keep an eye on your investments and alert you to any adjustments or opportunities that may make sense to help you reach your goals.

 

5.      Maintain Accountability

A financial planner helps to hold you accountable, as well as himself. Through close monitoring of your financial accounts, a financial planner makes sure that you remain on track financially. A good financial planner will always be working behind the scenes to maintain your financial plan. A financial planner will have a close and open relationship with you so that he can adjust your plan according to any new life circumstances that may impact your plan’s effectiveness. By monitoring your progress, a financial planner can help you manage any financial issues that may arise – planned or unplanned, whether it’s personal life circumstances or market conditions and the economy.

 

These are a few examples of what financial planners do for their clients. I guess you could summarize all this by simply saying that they try to help people live the best life possible.

To read more about how to select the right financial professional for you, check out this article by Wall Street Journal Reporter Jason Zweig.

If you would rather watch a short video, check out Episode 4 of The Build to learn how Financial Planners can help you!

How To Achieve Your Goals

Written by support@seostats.com on . Posted in Goals.

At Lake Road Advisors our business is built on helping our clients achieve their financial goals. This is no easy task as these goals can be extremely long term and very difficult to quantify.

So how do we do it?  By following these 4 steps whenever possible:

 

#1 Encourage Our Clients To Have SMART Goals

The SMART acronym first appeared in the November 1981 issue of Management Review in an article written by George Doran, Arthur Miller, and James Cunningham. It served as a framework to use when developing your goals:

·        Specific

o   The goal shouldn’t be “Save enough to pay for your child’s college”, but instead “I want to save $175,000 towards my sons college education so we can pay 100% of the tuition”

·        Measurable

o   Is the goal trackable, can you tell if you are on target?

·        Achievable

o   Is saving $175,000 realistic? Can you afford it?

·        Relevant

o   Does this fit with my overall goals? Is paying for my son’s education a priority for me?

·        Time Bound

o   Does the goal have a defined end date?

Incorporating these points will provide a solid foundation for developing your goals.

 

#2 Emphasize “Baby Steps”

Financial Planning industry expert Michael Kitces wrote a great article titled “The Importance Of Creating Small Financial Planning Goals” where he described how a Fitbit breaks down walking goals into manageable segments. Instead of trying to walk 1,825 miles in a year, try and walk 10,000 steps a day.

Here we apply this idea to the equally daunting task of saving for your child’s college education:

Can you save $175,000? Something that seems impossible to fathom now can becomes more attainable if we back into the goal and break it down into small pieces.  Having 18 years to invest and assuming a 5% return per year we would need to invest $6,221 annually. Breaking that down further, we would need to save $518 a month or $17 a day to achieve our goal. Saving $17 a day is reasonable for most people. Not to mention your child could go to a less expensive school, receive grants, scholarships, or other types of aid. Your once overwhelming goal has quickly become realistic.

In a recent Forbes article titled “How To Actually Reach The Goals You Set” Brett Steenbarger talks about how “the achievement of a goal tells us that our inspiring vision is indeed attainable, fueling the next set of actions. The bottom line is that we can actually achieve the goals we set by thinking big and acting small. Large aims can inspire us and keep us on a challenging path. Small, achievable goals can reward us and help us sustain the energy to traverse that path.”

 

#3 Start Now

The worst thing you can do with these large, almost inconceivable goals is nothing. The only thing that will guarantee you don’t meet your goals is to do nothing with them. There will be bumps along the road to achieving your goals that you will have no control over. You can control when you start, which should be now.

 

#4 Focus On The Process, Not The Short Term Outcome

Tony Van Dinther, President at Executive Fundamentals, Inc., is fond of saying “focus on the process, not the outcome” in his training classes.

This couldn’t be truer when it comes to long term investing. By nature, investing in the stock market is a roller coaster ride. There will be ups and downs. Taking a disciplined approach to investing by diligently rebalancing & reinvesting dividends and income are some of the core actions that will pay off in the long run.

Effective financial planning begins with goal setting. Well thought out goals will improve your chances of success.