Main Menu
PERSONAL WEALTH MANAGEMENT SERVICES
PRIVATE WEALTH MANAGEMENT

Determining our worth.

There’s a lot that goes into providing competent wealth counsel and educating, training, supporting and maintaining an advanced-level multi-disciplinary wealth management team. It is a long-term endeavor that requires substantial ongoing investment (see our paper, Selecting a Wealth Management Professional).

As we think about how to best earn a profitable return on our investment in our people, their intellectual capital and expertise, our years of experience, our technology platforms, infrastructure and firm capital, we favor a compensation methodology that captures and reflects both the value and costs of the services we provide, while simultaneously creating some curbs for clients to protect them against “fee” creep (fees that get out-of-control).

The Hourly Fee "Hotseat"

While providing advanced wealth advisory services is a complex and time intensive business, most clients don’t want to pay the “all-in” hourly cost of an advanced level professional multiplied by an unspecified, open-ended number of hours of “billable” time.  This is because the hourly rate for top-shelf professionals now ranges from $500-$1,000 per hour, or more, depending on expertise of a particular professional and the local cost of living.

When A-Level professionals bill for their services by the hour, it immediately creates a “hotseat” dynamic for clients.  While we all want to have top-shelf professionals on our team, nobody wants to pay and sit in meetings at these rates.  Of course, this makes it very difficult for a professional to spend the requisite quality time with a client when the client wants to move through and end the meeting as soon as possible.

"Units" of Worth

To help mitigate this dynamic, we construct our compensation for the services we provide based on “units” of worth.  Each “unit” of worth is created from a blend of two components ‒ a value component and a cost component. 

We believe that compensation built around units of worth keeps everyone’s focus and alignment  where it should be:  on the client and what they are trying to accomplish.

Our value includes:

  • Mission development and management
  • Client  work product created, maintained and delivered
  • Problems addressed and resolved
  • Ongoing issue management
  • Mistakes and problems mitigated and avoided
  • Client skills development
  • Professional skills and services rendered
  • Relationship management and ongoing client care
  • Professional and resource availability and responsiveness
  • Market value for comparable services
  • Improved financial life management
  • Improved financial security
  • More time, liberty and freedom to live an aspirational life
  • Less worry and anxiety
  • 15

Our costs include:

  • Engagement breadth, depth and complexity
  • Advanced degrees and years of education
  • Advanced specialized training
  • Experience and expertise
  • Requirements for staff members with advanced training and experience
  • Managerial responsibility and workflow management
  • Operational, trade execution and market exposure risk
  • Time, resource and technology requirements
  • Presence or absence of other professional advisors
  • Number and experience of other family members
  • Client organizational and recordkeeping skills and responsiveness
  • Infrastructure, cybersecurity and overhead costs
  • Fiduciary costs
  • Federal, state and agency regulatory costs
  • Business continuity and disaster recovery costs

True Professional Fee-Only

To be clear, the only compensation we receive is our professional fee we receive from our clients, expressed and measured in “units” of worth, as detailed below.  We do not receive sales commissions or other third-party forms of compensation.  This is explicitly what it means to be a professional fee-only advisor.

Launch.

4 Basic Units
0 Advanced Units

Accelerate.

6 Basic Units
2 Advanced Units

Orbit.

10 Basic Units
4 Advanced Units

Explore.

20 Basic Units

Family Financial Discussions

Personal Wealth Education

Goal and Objective Setting

Investment Planning

Retirement Planning

Trust, Estate and Incapacity Planning

Charitable Planning

Lifestyle Asset and Net Worth Analysis 

Leverage and Debt Review 

Risk Exposures and Insurance Review 

Retirement Income Shortfall Analysis 

Client Risk DNA Analysis

Long-Term Care Coverage Cost Analysis 

Social Security/Medicare Gap Analysis 

Retirement/Asset Liability Study 

Investment Risk Capacity Study 

Critical Path Study 

Asset Allocation and Location Study 

Portfolio Risk Study 

Economic Scenario Study

Income Stability and Distribution Study

Tax-Advantaged Charitable Gift Study

Written Investment Strategy and Guidelines

Financial Services Value/Cost Study

Diversification Intelligence Study

Independent Investment Research

Dividend Coverage Study

Individual Security Portfolios

Individual Securities Held in Safekeeping

Tax Accountant Coordination/Collaboration

Estate Planning Coordination/Collaboration

Trust Advisory Services

Advisory Team Leadership

Periodic Review Calls and Meetings