Financial planning will help you in timely achieving your short and long-term financial goals provided you draw those plan based on your past experiences.

Your financial experiences of the previous year could help you make better decisions in the new year. The beginning of 2021 is also the time where you should plan to overcome any financial setbacks that were brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Some of you may have gone off track in meeting your financial goals last year; in 2021, you have a chance to recover from the setbacks.

Here are 5 intelligent tips that can help you in laying down effective financial plans this year.

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  Mutual Funds: Reaping benefits of SIP in a market rally

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  Your Money: Pvt life insurers see low growth in Dec premium

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  Electronic pension payment order promises ease of living for senior citizens: Jitendra Singh

1. Review your investment portfolio

Start the new year by reviewing your investment portfolio that survived the financial storm in 2020. Due to the Covid-19 crisis, you may have been forced to redeem a portion of your investment or stop your SIPs or have suffered losses or couldn’t meet the objective of starting a new investment. The starting of the new year is the time to review your investment portfolio, identify the problems, and take corrective steps if required.

In the new year, you may plan to invest additional funds to match your financial goals. You may also restart your SIPs that were stopped in 2020 or start a new SIP. If your investment portfolio has become skewed towards a particular asset class like debt or equity, you may want to reinstate the portfolio balance by switching some funds. You may also invest more money in the asset class which you have ignored earlier. However, you’ll be well-advised not to rush through major investment decisions and seek the help of a certified investment planner, if needed.

2. Don’t let your guard down when it comes to financial preparedness

Due to Covid-19, many people lived on a squeezed budget in 2020. People who lost their incomes or suffered salary cuts had no option but to utilise their contingency funds to meet their financial requirements. You should try to start 2021 resetting your financial budget based on your current situation. That being said, don’t forget the pandemic is yet to end and you should not let your guard down while preparing for any other financial emergency in the near future. One helpful strategy should be to keep your discretionary expenses under control while focusing on maintaining adequate liquidity. If your cash-flow situation has improved, you also need to ensure you replenish your emergency fund at the earliest by exercising strict financial discipline.

3. Assess your insurance requirements

2020 was also the year when people understood the importance of having in place adequate life and health insurance protection for themselves and their financial dependents. As it’s the beginning of a new year, you should reassess how much insurance you will need so that it can provide you with adequate protection in the near future. Due to Covid-19, medical expenses have increased significantly. Dealing with them could be even more challenging if you simultaneously face income-related issues. So, it’s always better to get a comprehensive medical plan with a sum insured of at least Rs 5 lakh if you don’t have one yet. Do remember, your annual premiums would be much cheaper if you start your policy at a young age. You can also consider purchasing cost-effective top-up or super top-up plans to further expand your medical insurance protection ambit based on your requirements.

Similarly, if you don’t have life insurance protection, you must prioritise getting one to secure the final future of your dependents, especially after the pandemic exposed our vulnerabilities like nothing before. It’s always advisable to have a life plan with a sum assured of not less than 10x your current annual income. You may want to purchase a term plan for adequate protection whose premiums would be lesser if you start young.

4. Assess your debt repayment plan

The pandemic tested people’s debt situation and borrowing capacity. Due to job losses and income reduction, many were forced to live on borrowed funds to meet their regular spending requirements. Some opted for a moratorium on their loan EMI repayments while the interest thereof continued to get accumulated which significantly increased their loan obligation. So, the best way to start the new year is by assessing your debt repayment plan so that you can quickly recover the financial sheen that was lost due to the pandemic in 2020. An effective debt repayment plan will help you to strengthen your borrowing capacity that can later help you when you need it to accomplish your critical financial goals in the future. You should prioritise repayment of high-interest loans over the lower ones. If your finances permit, you should also aim to make adequate prepayments of big-ticket loans like a home loan so that you become debt-free faster.

5. Strengthen your credit score

Most banks have now linked their loan interest rate with the credit score of the borrower. It means a low credit score can cost you a higher interest rate on your loans. A very poor score can even leave you ineligible to apply for certain loans. As such, if you’re planning to buy a home, car or expanding your business with the help of a loan, it’s highly important to strengthen your credit score. The new year is a great time to push the reset button on your bad financial habits and start afresh with complete financial discipline when it comes to timely and complete repayment of your existing loan EMIs and credit card outstanding. You also need to minimise applying for multiple loans or credit cards in quick succession, limit your utilisation for revolving credit and avoid closing a credit card which you’ve used for a long time in a huff to improve your credit score.

In conclusion, financial planning will help you in timely achieving your short and long-term financial goals provided you draw those plan based on your past experiences. You need to build realistic strategies based on your goals and stick to them throughout the course. You also need to review them from time to time and make readjustments whenever required. I wish you all a very prosperous 2021!

(The writer is CEO, BankBazaar.com)

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Fidelity Investments is the latest brokerage firm to embrace a subscription fee pricing model for digital advice. The cost? Cheaper than a Netflix subscription.

Fidelity’s move could help the firm attract more young investors — and it represents another step in industry’s shift away from the AUM-based fee model.

For clients with $10,000 to $50,000 invested with Fidelity Go, the firm’s robo-advisor, Fidelity is dropping its 35 basis point management fee in favor of a flat $3 per month subscription. Customers with less than $10,000 will not pay any fees, while clients with more than $50,000 will continue paying the 0.35% fee.

Fidelity is the only brokerage offering this combination of account minimums, fees and portfolios with no expense ratio funds, says Kelly Lannan, Fidelity Investments’ vice president of young investors.

The new policy follows rival brokerage Charles Schwab’s decision to change pricing on Intelligent Portfolios Premium, a service that combines automated investing with access to a human CFP advisor, to a subscription fee in March 2019. Schwab charges $30 a month for accounts with at least $25,000, and offers a digital-only version of the service with no advisory fees.

“Every brokerage firm offers its own unique combination of product and service offerings; for many of us that includes lots of zeros,” a spokesperson for Schwab Intelligent Portfolios said in an emailed statement.

Last year, head of Schwab Advisor Services Bernie Clark attributed subscription pricing to bringing in $1 billion in new client assets, primarily from younger investors.

Fidelity’s new robo-advice fee is part of the launch of Fidelity Spire, a new mobile app the firm hopes will become a digital hub for young investors’ financial needs. Users can sync held-away accounts (using eMoney’s account aggregation technology), set financial goals, access educational material and open both cash management and brokerage accounts.

The app is free to use, even for people who don’t open a Fidelity account.

The Spire app will eventually include commission-free trading capabilities for do-it-yourself investors, Lannan says.

“We really want to help young adults who are just getting started on their financial journey feel more confident with their money,” Lannan says. “We’re trying to be that initial touch point … hoping that this is the first step in developing that lifetime relationship with them.”

Fidelity isn’t the only firm cutting fees on digital advice to coax younger adults into investing. Wells Fargo announced a new pricing model on its Intuitive Investor product in April for banking customers to make their “first foray into investing.”

Fintech startups like Betterment and Wealthfront have also been adding cash management features to robo-advice apps, and the strategy of offering free financial tools as a gateway to opening an account is one made popular by Personal Capital (now owned by Empower Retirement).

Lannan acknowledges that there is a lot of competition in the market and says the breadth of what Fidelity can bring together into the Spire app is what will differentiate it for young investors.

Beyond brokerages like Schwab and Fidelity, firms across the wealth management industry are also warming to flat subscriptions for advice instead of AUM-based fees. Broker-dealers like LPL Financial, Cetera, Ladenburg Thalman and HTK are using AdvicePay, a payment processing technology developed by XY Planning Network founders Michael Kitces and Alan Moore. The technology makes it easier for independent advisors to establish an ongoing retainer model.

The subscription e-commerce market has grown by more than 100% per year over the past five years, according to research from McKinsey. Subscribers are most likely to be 25 to 44 years old and have incomes from $50,000 to $100,000 — a market segment the wealth management industry is trying to tap into.

Vanguard is closer to launching the robo technology for advisors it has been building for more than a year.

The $5 trillion asset manager is in the testing phase for its new advice software for planners, says Tom Rampulla, managing director of Vanguard’s Financial Advisor Services division, who spoke on a webcast with financial advisors July 30. There are approximately two dozen planners testing the technology, he says, and Vanguard has been making new iterations based on feedback over the past six months.

“We built a great platform and we’re taking the technology of that platform and re-architecturing it so we can make it available to you, our clients,” Rampulla told advisors

Rampulla first told Financial Planning Vanguard it was building out robo software for advisors last May, citing demand from the thousands of planners who utilize the asset manager’s funds and services. Approximately $2 trillion of Vanguard’s assets stem from financial advisor recommendations, Rampulla said on the call.

Vanguard has two robo advice solutions for clients: Personal Advisor Solutions, which has a 0.30% management fee and offers access to a CFP, as well as its new Vanguard Digital Advisor, which officially launched this year as a purely digital solution with an all-in management fee of 20 basis points.

Vanguard’s Personal Advisor Services is the largest robo solution in the market, with over $148 billion in assets, according to Backend Benchmarking’s 2020 robo report from the first quarter.

Charles Schwab has also been building out its white-labeled robo technology for advisors, which it launched in 2015. Executives at TD Ameritrade, which Schwab says it will acquire before the end of this year, have said financial advisors aren’t interested in the technology.

Vanguard’s Rampulla says there is indeed demand. “We’re really excited about what that could bring for your clients,” he says.

A Vanguard spokesman did not immediately return a request for more details.

The U.S. economy suffered its sharpest downturn since at least the 1940s in the second quarter, highlighting how the pandemic has ravaged businesses across the country and left millions of Americans out of work.

Gross domestic product shrank 9.5% in the second quarter from the first, a drop that equals an annualized pace of 32.9%, the Commerce Department’s initial estimate showed on Thursday. That’s the steepest annualized decline in quarterly records dating back to 1947 and compares with analyst estimates for a 34.5% contraction. Personal spending, which makes up about two-thirds of GDP, slumped an annualized 34.6%, also the most on record.

The figures lay bare the extent of the economic devastation that resulted from the government-ordered shutdowns and stay-at-home orders designed to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus that abruptly brought a halt to the longest-running expansion. While employment, spending and production have improved since reopenings picked up in May and massive federal stimulus reached Americans, a recent surge in infections has tempered the pace of the recovery.

That surge, the result of America’s failure to contain the virus, indicates that the U.S. economy is likely to recover more slowly than places that have done a better job, such as the euro area. And the longer the pandemic lasts without a vaccine, the longer economic output will remain below pre-crisis levels, leaving permanent scars on many businesses and workers.

“We already know that activity rebounded strongly in May and June, setting the stage for a strong rise in GDP in the third quarter,” Andrew Hunter, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics, said in a note. “Nevertheless, with the more recent resurgence in virus cases starting to weigh on the economy in July, a continued ‘V-shaped’ recovery is unlikely.”

Jobless claims

A separate report Thursday showed the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits increased for a second straight week. Initial claims through regular state programs rose to 1.43 million in the week ended July 25, up 12,000 from the prior week, the Labor Department said. There were 17 million Americans filing for ongoing benefits through those programs in the period ended July 18, up 867,000 from the prior week.

U.S. stocks fell the most in a week after the data releases, and yields on 10-year Treasuries declined.

While the economic restart has helped put 7.5 million Americans back to work in May and June combined, payrolls are down more than 14.5 million from their pre-pandemic peak. The swift deterioration in the economy and job market explain why the Federal Reserve is keeping its benchmark rate pinned near zero and why it rolled out several emergency lending programs geared toward fostering liquid trading conditions in financial markets.

“We have seen some signs in recent weeks that the increase in virus cases, and the renewed measures to control it, are starting to weigh on economic activity,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said at a news conference Wednesday after the central bank’s two-day policy meeting. “On balance, it looks like the data are pointing to a slowing in the pace of the recovery,” though it was too soon to say how large – or sustained – this period would be, he said.

With the election only three months away, American voters will have to decide whether to re-elect President Donald Trump to a second term against a backdrop of the virus-induced recession and his response to the health crisis.

The second-quarter contraction was broad-based, the GDP release showed. Business investment in structures, equipment and intellectual property slumped an annualized 27% pace, the steepest slide since 1952, while residential investment dropped at a 38.7% rate, the most since 1980. More recently, figures have shown a pickup in home sales as Americans take advantage of record-low mortgage rates.

The pandemic’s toll on household spending for services was breath-taking: A 43.5% annualized slide during the quarter, subtracting nearly 23 percentage points from GDP. Meanwhile, outlays for goods took away 2.1 percentage points.

After passage in late March of the Cares Act, the largest U.S. stimulus package in modern history, government spending and investment increased an annualized 2.7% as non-defense outlays surged at a 39.7% pace, the most since the Vietnam War in 1967. However, state and local spending declined at a 5.6% pace, amid plummeting tax revenues.

The report also showed inventories subtracted nearly 4 percentage points from GDP, while trade added 0.7 percentage point.

The quarterly profile of the economy – as shown by the GDP report – paints a much different picture than monthly data do. As shutdowns gradually lifted and states began to reopen, economic activity stirred back to life in May and June – just not to the levels seen before the pandemic.

Millions of people headed back to work, and Americans ventured out of their homes to spend again at newly reopened stores and restaurants. Bolstered by relief payments and unemployment benefits, retail sales rebounded near pre-pandemic levels and consumer spending surged by the most on record in May – though still came in short of the February level.

Economy’s outlook

The rebound in activity will largely be captured in the third-quarter figures, which won’t be released until Oct. 29, just days before Election Day. But the surge in virus cases has led the economic recovery to stall for several weeks as consumers hold back on spending and traveling amid continued layoffs, according to the Bloomberg Economics recovery tracker.

Crucial lifelines in the pandemic, like the extra $600 in weekly unemployment benefits, are expiring at a time when the economic recovery is showing signs of teetering. Lawmakers are currently debating another stimulus package to support businesses and the unemployed, but the timing of the bill is unclear. Support from Congress has buoyed the economy in recent months, and further action will be crucial in determining the path of the recovery.

This is the first estimate of three for the second-quarter figures, and the figure will likely be revised over the next two months as the Bureau of Economic Analysis receives further data.

Should financial advisors make TikTok part of their digital marketing strategy?

The video sharing app has enormous potential for advisors hoping to connect with next-generation investors, digital marketing experts say. Not only that, TikTok’s algorithm makes it easier for an interested audience to find advisors’ content than other social networks, digital marketing experts say.

“The biggest advantage of TikTok right now is organic growth is still very possible,” says Anna Kloth, founder of The Pineapple Hustle, an online course in digital marketing for entrepreneurs. “In the ways that Facebook used to be 15 years ago and Instagram was five years ago, you can get a huge number of views and visibility and be discovered for free.”

But TikTok also presents unique challenges for financial advisors. For one, how to create engaging videos while also remaining compliant with securities regulations? There are also questions swirling about the data the app collects. Wells Fargo has gone as far as telling employees to remove the app from work phones.

Archiving, an important element of meeting compliance, is more challenging with TikTok, says Ian Bloom, an advisor and the founder of Open World Financial Planning. Bloom, who regularly posts educational videos to YouTube, has recently been uploading clips to TikTok.

As an XY Planning Network member, Bloom has access to a tool to automatically archive videos he posts on YouTube. Yet the program doesn’t offer the same functionality for TikTok, nor do archiving services Hearsay Social or Smarsh.

It’s not a deal breaker, though. TikTok makes it easy to save a copy of every video outside of the app, says Bloom. Advisors just have to manually upload that video to a storage folder.

“As far as I can see, it meets all the compliance issues facing a small RIA like mine,” Bloom says.

XYPN senior compliance consultant Scott Gill isn’t so sure, saying he would not recommend advisors use TikTok as a marketing platform.

“It always takes a bit of time for securities regulators to evaluate the functionality of social media platforms, and to create interpretative guidance that is specific to how each platform operates,” Gill says in an email. “Until that guidance is provided, it’s up to the adviser to create their own interpretation of the regulations and to articulate how their social media policy and practices are within the boundaries of those guidelines. This leaves a lot of gray areas for regulators to unilaterally disagree with the adviser, and to cite deficiencies in a regulatory examination.”

Another concern with TikTok is data privacy. U.S. officials have raised questions about parent company ByteDance’s relationship with the Chinese government.

Advisors need to be careful that any data TikTok collects isn’t in violation of the SEC’s Regulation S-P, which requires written policies and procedures addressing how broker-dealers and investment advisors safeguard client records and data, says Ben Marzouk, a financial services attorney with Eversheds Sutherland.

“In addition, there’s a whole host of state privacy laws,” Marzouk says. “If the information is susceptible to [being shared] with the Chinese government or a ransomware attack — as an advisor those are all concerns.”

Bloom says these concerns about data sharing are identical to those that swirl aroundFacebook, Twitter, YouTube or any other social network. Just to be safe, Bloom has TikTok downloaded on a personal cell phone that never stores or accesses client data.

These concerns have made advisors slow to adopt to TikTok, but the upside may be too large for them to ignore.

That’s true especially for new firms, says Pineapple Hustle’s Koth. TikTok has a rapidly growing and highly engaged audience, but isn’t yet saturated with corporate brands.

“It is harder [for advisors] because it’s geared towards younger audiences, but it’s … an audience who is used to finding information for themselves on the internet,” Kloth says.

Also, TikTok’s unique algorithm excels at surfacing new videos based on each user’s interests, Kloth says. That means users don’t “follow” someone to see their videos.

“So if somebody shows they have a little bit of interest in financial advice or investing, it’s going to keep showing you videos about that,” she adds.

The 60-second limit on videos also means a user will see far more videos from a greater number of producers in one hour than someone surfing another social media platform.

In just a few weeks of experimenting with TikTok, Bloom already sees how engaging the app can be. When Bloom first started on YouTube two years ago, his videos averaged around 10 views each. On TikTok, Bloom says videos average 150 views.

“And that’s with no subscribers or followers,” Bloom says. “So while [TikTok] hasn’t converted into massive success right away or some viral exposure, it’s way better than YouTube.”

Millennial women are approaching peak earning years, but female investors lag behind their male counterparts when it comes to investment knowledge and confidence. Empower your younger female clients with dialogue designed to build a healthy financial present and future.

Learn more about:
• How millennial female clients can position your firm for growth
• How financial advisors can better serve this demographic
• How to guide younger female clients toward financial independence

Axiom Planning and Profitability, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution, is offered through a relationship between Fiserv and Syntellis Performance Solutions, a leading provider of enterprise performance management (EPM) software, data, and analytics solutions.

“Financial institutions need real-time access to accurate forecasting and budgeting data to effectively respond to rapidly changing market conditions,” said Aldor H. Delp, senior vice president and general manager of the Digital Efficiency Group at Fiserv. “By offering Axiom Planning and Profitability, we’re able to empower financial institutions to plan for changes in their markets with an ‘at a glance’ view of their performance combined with insight into how it affects their overall strategy and operating model.”

Axiom Planning and Profitability is a financial planning and analysis solution that includes budgeting, forecasting, profitability analysis, scenario modeling, long-range planning, and management reporting. The solution will be integrated with the PrologueTM suite from Fiserv, a robust set of technologies designed to analyze financial health, enhance reporting accuracy and proactively manage risk.

“In this particularly challenging rate and economic environment, financial institutions need seamless integration between their financial systems and access to reliable, real-time data to advance their strategic goals and remain competitive,” said Kermit S. Randa, chief executive officer of Syntellis Performance Solutions. “We’re proud to work with Fiserv, another industry leader, to ensure finance teams and executives have the best tools for budgeting, forecasting, profitability and planning.”

In a world moving faster than ever before, Fiserv helps clients deliver solutions in step with the way people live and work today – financial services at the speed of life. Learn more at fiserv.com.  

How do advisors help clients plan for college when its value is unclear during the coronavirus-era of virtualized learning?

“We have a lot of parents who haven’t decided whether or not to send their kids to college this fall, which is crazy, since school starts in, what, a month?” says advisor Ann Alsina of CovingtonAlsina in Annapolis, Maryland.

In some cases using tax-deferred 529 plans may help clients navigate some of the uncertainty, especially with the passage of of two recent federal acts: the SECURE Act, federal spending legislation that includes provisions for retirement savings that passed in December, and the CARES Act, which became law in March to help Americans weather the pandemic. The changes are among a wide array of options offered by 529 plans that clients may want to reconsider now, advisors say.

The SECURE Act allows 529 funds to pay $10,000 toward a student’s college loan debt — or a parent’s debt, for that matter — on a one-time basis, among other benefits. The CARES Act permits any family member who funds a 529 to take tuition reimbursements from colleges where students have elected not to enroll due to impacts of COVID-19, says college planning specialist Deborah Fox of AdvisorTouch in San Diego, California.

“The majority of advisors don’t understand how much complexity there is [in 529 funds] and how much of a positive difference they can make for their clients,” says Fox, who trains other advisors in college planning. Some students enrolled in universities with high tuition bills are opting to attend community college instead for the first year or two, advisors say. In such cases, Fox often urges clients to pay the lower cost of community college out of pocket.

This allows families to funnel more savings into 529 accounts over a longer growth horizon, she says. In a down market, it may make sense to avoid taking distributions at a loss.

In such cases, students can take out loans for the first years of college and use 529 proceeds to pay off up to $10,000 of that debt in a later year, Fox says.

The $10,000 threshold may sound modest when stacked up against expenses at top-dollar institutions, says Fox, but it’s not limited to just one child. In fact, there’s no cap on how many kids in a single household could benefit from the one-time pay-off provision.

“For a family with three kids, that’s $30,000” in reduced debt, Fox says. “That’s a real benefit.”

Families who paid tuition before in-person classes were canceled and want a reimbursement from their 529 plans, the $2 trillion CARES Act allows families to get the money back from universities, Fox says.

However, to avoid paying tax on a non-qualified distribution, plus a 10% tax on any gains, it must be redeposited into the plan for the same beneficiary within 60 days.

At that point, Alsina sometimes advises parents use funds for a variety of other expenses under the SECURE Act. For example, she says, families can tap the money for private school tuition for younger children, up to $10,000 per child per year. Under the rules of 529 funds offered in more than 30 states, Fox says, that amount also can be used to reduce taxable income that year for parents or grandparents, or whichever family member opened the fund.

Alsina advises clients to deposit the cost of a child’s private school tuition into the 529 plan and then withdraw it the same year.

“Normally you would say, ‘Why would you want to use your 529 for schools now?’ ” says Alsina, who adds parents would otherwise access the investments after years of compounded, tax-deferred growth. But, she says, “being able to run your private school tuition, at least up to $10,000 [through the fund], does give you a tax break.”

Given that rules governing 529 plans vary by state, advisors should always check to ensure that this advantage, and any others, are covered by that particular plan, says LPL Financial advisor Irene Berner of Berner Financial Services in New Paltz, New York.

Berner cautions that families should keep watch of the rules and regulations that govern all 529 plans and how they differ state-by-state.

“They could change at any time,” she says.

Iraq Combat Veteran Brings Talent for Planning Commitment to Teamwork with Clients

During times of economic strain or life-altering events, leaning on a trusted advisor who has years of experience managing the unexpected is key. SCH Group has announced that its personal financial planning practice, SCH Financial Advisors, has hired Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and Certified Financial Planner ™ (CFP®) Chris DeBlanc, knowing that he brings more to its Personal Financial Planning team than his 11 years of accounting and financial planning experience. DeBlanc is a seasoned professional who has made a career out of helping his clients prepare for the unexpected.

Greg Horning, a co-founder of SCH Group and Director of SCH Financial Advisors, says he was impressed with DeBlanc’s swift ability to transition to the team and guide clients carefully through the COVID-19 financial crisis. Horning added that he has a “career-long exemplification of SCH Group’s core principles of teamwork, personal leadership, and client service.”

Before becoming a CPA and financial planner, DeBlanc served four years in the United States Marine Corps, where he completed two tours in Iraq, leading a platoon of 26 infantry Marines in ground combat. He also worked with the U.S. State Department in Iraq, supporting the U.S.’s diplomatic mission.

DeBlanc describes himself as a “planner,” drawing on all of his career experiences to best support those in need. Whether that be from his time developing combat missions, presenting insights and plans to educate national audiences, or plotting financial roadmaps for clients that align with their goals and objectives, he enables those he serves to “create a life full of purpose and passion.”

Adding to his robust foundation of experience, DeBlanc recently championed supporting sole proprietors and independent contractors across several industries to help them redefine and pivot their strategies as they navigated the CARES Act implications, PPP loans, and more.

DeBlanc graduated from the University of Richmond with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Accounting and went on to earn a master’s degree in Intelligence Analysis from the American Military University. He holds several licenses and certifications including CPA, Personal Financial Specialist (PFS), Certified Financial Planner ™ (CFP®), and Series 65.

An avid supporter of personal finance education, DeBlanc volunteers with the Society of Financial Service Professionals (FSP) at their community outreach forum, providing free financial advice to underserved Washington D.C. communities. DeBlanc also works with Junior Achievement to teach middle school students personal finance concepts.

DeBlanc says his passion is “providing the most value he can” to the lives of the people he serves. As a member of the SCH Financial Advisory team, DeBlanc says he aims to “help clients identify and set personal financial goals. Then, as life happens and circumstances change, adjust the plan to stay on course.”

DeBlanc will be speaking on SCH Group’s mid-year tax planning webinar on July 30th.

Advisory Services offered through SCH Financial Advisors, Inc. SCH Financial Advisors, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of SCH Group, Inc.

About SCH Group

SCH Group is a nationally recognized management consulting, audit, and tax firm serving clients from rapidly growing private sector businesses to Fortune 500 companies with global brands. The firm’s strategic practices provide leading-edge thinking and advice that transform our clients’ businesses and help them outpace the competition. We embrace the future and help clients prepare, innovate, and evolve their businesses in this complex and highly competitive world. For more than 25 years, SCH Group has demonstrated its commitment to delivering powerful minds, passionate teams, and proven results on each and every engagement. Learn more at www.schgroup.com.

Personal Finance Insider writes about products, strategies, and tips to help you make smart decisions with your money. We may receive a small commission from our partners, like American Express, but our reporting and recommendations are always independent and objective.

• No matter how your financial planner bills you, every client deserves outstanding service. However, there are a few things a client can do to get the most from their financial professional.
• Asking questions and remaining engaged in the financial planning process are two important ways to get the most from your planner and grow your money.
• Being transparent and open about your relationship with money and your financial reality also helps your planner offer the best advice.
• SmartAsset’s free tool can find a financial planner to help you take control of your money »

Depending on compensation structure, there are several ways a client can make payments to a financial planner. No matter what the service model is, though, clients deserve and should expect to get outstanding value.

It is definitely a planner’s responsibility to serve his or her clients, but the client can also take certain steps, which can help ensure success.

Here are three ways clients can get the most from their financial planner.

Ask questions

One goal at my firm is for every client to become more knowledgeable about money and truly have an understanding of how the decisions they make impact their financial lives going forward. I encourage clients to continuously ask questions throughout a financial planning relationship. 

Yes, the planner is being paid for their expertise and ability to handle concerns, but it is just as important for a client to understand why specific recommendations are being made. Also, the types of questions asked can reveal to your planner what is truly valuable or most concerning, which should always be the primary focus. 

These opportunities to provide answers benefit both parties in the relationship. Clients become more informed and feel valued because their voice was heard. Planners continue to earn trust and sharpen their own financial planning skills. As a result, everyone has been empowered.

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Stay engaged in the process

Many times, clients get involved with the financial planning process and are very responsive at the start of a relationship, providing them much benefit. The key is to continue this strong commitment throughout the time working together, which could potentially be many years. 

Generally, planners maintain some type of service/communication calendar for their clients, but ultimately, it is the client’s individual decision on how much contact provides value to them and what they want to do. 

Be transparent

For various reasons, it can be very difficult for a client to share all aspects of their financial life. Some clients might feel embarrassed, whereas others could have issues with trusting someone else. Due to these potential barriers, planners should take the responsibility to create an environment of effective communication. Once a client feels comfortable sharing, they should be open about what is really going on in their money situation and changes in life. 

At times, clients might just answer their planner’s questions, but not disclose exactly why they are doing certain things or have specific goals. Knowing the stories and reasons behind a client’s answers equips planners to serve them better.

Take this example. John received a legal settlement of $500,000 and wants to use it to help fund his retirement, which is at least 20 years from now. He hires Larry to specifically help him create an investment portfolio and manage these assets going forward. 

Given the time horizon until retirement, Larry’s recommendation consists of an aggressive asset allocation. John openly shares a story about his childhood with Larry. He explains that his father did not have favorable experiences with planners, which has created a level of fear in John. Taking this into account, Larry changes his investment recommendation to one with less risk. He and John agree that a moderately aggressive allocation would be a much better option.

Martin A. Scott, CFP, is the founder and financial planner of Lasting Wealth Principles, a fee-only comprehensive financial planning firm.