1. Fees can have a major impact on portfolios over time. Charging a Flat-Fee rather than tying fees to your assets can help you accumulate more assets and have greater economic security.
2. Financial plans should be built around your goals; not the stock market. We can’t control the stock market, but you can control your behaviors.
3. Each client’s situation is unique. Help clients identify, prioritize, and quantify goals.
4. The cornerstone of a well-crafted goals-based financial plan is cash flow analysis.
5. Establishing goals and focusing on cash flow allows you to better see how your income, saving, spending, investing, and insurance decisions are interconnected.
6. Diversification* and Re-Balancing are the key to successful long-term investing, not market timing.
*Diversification does not assure a profit or protect against market loss.
7. Prepare for safety first, the larger your safety bucket the more risk you can withstand.
8. You can’t have a plan without addressing death, disability, and medical care.
9. Everyone wants to minimize taxes and maximize investments returns.
10. Teach clients to see long-term so they will not be distracted by short-term noise. We agree with Norman Lear who said, “the societal disease of our time is short-term thinking”.