Wondering what it might be like to work with a financial advisor? Here’s a sampling of common questions to shed some light on how we at Curio Wealth approach our client work, and what you can expect from day one. If you’d rather watch than read, please do!
What should I expect on my first visit with you?
First of all, you’ll be doing most of the talking when you meet with us originally!
We’ll be asking quite a few questions at a high level — open-ended questions to get an understanding of why you came to see us, what you are looking to accomplish, what your vision of working with a financial advisor might be, and how we can help you. So expect to field those kinds of questions as opposed to just us telling you how we operate and what we do for you.
How should I prepare for our first meeting?
You might be surprised to hear it, but coming into our first meeting, you really don’t have to be prepared with a lot of financial information! You simply have to be willing to share as much as you can about what you’re trying to accomplish. And then it’s our job to help guide you in terms of where you want to go.
How will you design my financial plan?
We design every financial plan with “intention.” That means do the legwork to ensure we put a plan together that incorporates what matters to you most.
For example, if somebody comes in and says, “I want to retire,” we don’t just take that at face value. We dig deeper to find out what that means. Oftentimes, people don’t just want to retire. Maybe they want to have enough at the end of their retirement to provide for a family legacy, or they want to have enough during their retirement to be able to give to charity. That opens up and uncovers different ways of working with people.
If someone has the expectation that they want to leave money to future generations, we don’t plan for them to run out when they pass away. Instead, we plan for them to have enough to leave to a future generation. And we also think about how we can do that in a tax-efficient way.
How will you present your plan to me?
When you sit down with us to go over your plan, we’ll first confirm our understanding of your objectives. That’s number one. We’ll also let you know that this is your plan and it’s your financial life, and we will tweak it however it works best for you.
We also do our best to meet you on your level. So, if we’re going too fast or too slow, or we’re providing information that you already know about or that doesn’t matter to you, we encourage you to be open with us and let us know.
After that we’ll deal with the facts: your current financial situation, your assets, your liabilities, your income sources, and your spending. (Spending is one of the biggest drivers of the success of a financial plan!) So, we’ll home in on all that, as well as what you want to spend in retirement, and how that will tie to your goals and objectives. We’ll offset that with income sources that come in and assets that we’ll need to supplement any type of shortfall.
Then… the moment everyone waits for — the big “Aha!” moment when you get a visual of your personal financial situation!
The graph starts out showing where you currently are. It might show some accumulation in your wealth, and then it’ll show you not working. And it’ll show how long your assets will last; that’s really important for us to know. Will your assets run out at age 85 or will they last past age 100 — or some future date?
If your assets reach age 100, you’re in a really, really good position. If they run out before age 100, then you really have to dial in and make sure your spending is correct because there’s not a lot of wiggle room if your assets run out before then. The markets can change, your spending can change, illnesses can happen, and so forth.
You’ll be able to see the impact of your plan immediately. If, instead of spending $100,000 a year, you spend $120,000 a year, how would that affect whether or not your assets will last through age 100?
So we’ll talk about all that. We’ll ask you how you feel about it, and hone in on the things that you indicate are important to you. And we’ll give you some time to think about that. Then we’ll come back, have another meeting, and work on implementing and executing the plan.
I’m worried about market volatility! How do you account for that in my financial plan?
The market always has the potential to be volatile and unpredictable and go up and down as you go on your financial journey. There are no guarantees that the market will go up, and we expect a lot of volatility with the market.
You’re not alone with feeling anxiety or unease, or being scared, to be honest with you. It’s very normal from an investment perspective to have those types of feelings.
In addition to designing plans in accordance with your goals and objectives, know that we also work to minimize the impact of volatility.
If you’re in your late sixties or early seventies, for example, we understand you may not have a long time horizon and may not be able to withstand much volatility. So we might build a conservative portfolio to start and then tweak that up or down based on our conversations with you and our feel for your ability to deal with risk on an ongoing basis.
In challenging times, typically we recommend that you step back and revisit the plan you have in place, with the understanding that your investment portfolio is designed for the long term. We’re always happy to review your plan at any time and discuss the impact of market volatility. It’s our mission to make you feel comfortable and have peace of mind that, when volatility happens or when changes occur in your life, you are well-prepared to manage those risks.
