Looking for a Financial Planner or Financial Advisor? If so, I know I can help in your search. It will also help you determine if me and my team fit for you. Or if we don’t.
Whether this is the first time you are searching for a Financial Planner or if you are not happy with who you are dealing with now, here are some questions to ask yourself to clarify who fits for you:
Is it important to have a Financial Advisor with a broad and deep level of experience or are you okay with getting a base level of knowledge and experience from who you are working with?
Do you see money as a way to gain freedom and flexibility in your lifestyle or do you like to gather and absorb all kinds of financial information? Do you want a disciplined, low maintenance Financial Plan or do you want to be at the edge of new trends, changing things on the fly? Do you enjoy talking about investments with your friends?
When a question or concern comes to you on a Friday night, over dinner or while watching something on TV, would you want to be able to email those thoughts to your Financial Advisor and not have to wait until Monday (or Tuesday) to get a reply?
If you asked someone to help you on a project, would you want a reply back saying, “I’ll help anyway I can. When and where do you want to do this and what is the most convenient place for you to meet?”
Is it frustrating for you that, someone you become so accustomed to dealing with, like your dentist etc. is replaced by someone who doesn’t really know you? Why then put up with that with a forced change made to you, with your current Financial Advisor?
Would it give you peace of mind knowing that the Financial Planner you have come to trust, the one who knows you so well and you him, has hand picked a Financial Planner, from all the other financial service providers out there, to continue serving you should your Financial Planner become disabled or worse yet, die?
Here is how we approach the Financial Planning relationship with our clients, using ATTENTIVE, ATTUNE, ATTAIN as our guide:
We work from the ground up and go over your entire situation. Through a lot of discussion and communication with you, we want to dig deep to really understand how you currently live your life and how you want your life to look and feel. We want to discover what worries you, what frustrates you and of course, what you love and what is most important to you.
You’ll get a small taste of that by going through our “Lifestyle Questionnaire” (LSQ) – one of the many tools we use to develop your own Financial Plan – along with good old fashioned face to face communication.
We can advise you on EVERYTHING, your RRSP, RESP, TFSA, pension plan, investments, your insurances, your bank deposits, your mortgage, how best to pass your estate on, tax saving ideas, your Will etc. Of course, we aren’t the experts on everything and we aren’t licensed to make transactions on all the financial products or solutions out there. That is why we have a deep team of experts to work with. This ensures you have a cohesive financial plan, where all parts work together excellently, with the best possible advice in every area. Do you have a successful and long working relationship with your accountant? We recognize the value of good relationships. We’ll work with them and fill all the other voids.
The meetings we have must be at a time and place most convenient for you. Although, I take Saturday and Sunday off from formal work, I am available for meetings at almost anytime during the week, from early morning to well into the evening, at a location that is most convenient for you. For most people it is at their office or home and I fit most of my meetings into “road days”. I encourage you to read more about that on our contact / meeting page.
We do this because it makes your life easier. Also, it’s much greener and much more efficient. The most important reason though is that it helps us get to know more about your personality and your lifestyle. What better way to really get to understand you? That way the work and advice we give will be tailored to your uniqueness. Also, we are here to serve you and this is a practical way we can remain cognizant of that.
The clients we work best with have a very balanced view on life. They want it to work as efficiently and as hard as they do but they don’t want to talk about it every day. They have other interests and passions and simply want their money to be able to support that and the lifestyle they envision.
Although it’s not always possible to respond right away to a question or concern you put to us, we are readily accessible to reply 7 days a week, no matter where we are or what day it is. We can’t guarantee we can get the answer to you right away but we will respond as quickly as possible so that you will know when we will get back to you with a full response. The bottom line is, you will definitely know that we are your Financial Planning partner, walking alongside you, in every step.
If I am out of town and you want someone to talk to, face to face or want something dealt with right away? You will know who to contact on our team, someone who can help you in my place. Of course, through that process, I can be reached, no matter where I am, to help in any way I can.
I’ve been a Financial Advisor since 1987 and am deeply committed to dealing with you for the long term. I love and want to be excellent at what we do for you and I feel a strong sense of obligation to see things through. Because of that I envision working with you for at least a couple of decades more. If however, I am unable to perform my role as your Financial Planner due to some catastrophic event, I have handpicked the professionals who will take my place. I have had this formal agreement in place for over a decade. You can be assured that, should the worst occur to me, you will be well looked after.
Questions? Concerns? Do you want to take the next step in further determining if you, me and my team would work well together? Whatever it may be, I welcome you to drop me a note by e-mail to carey@careyvandenberg.com or call 604 541 2690.
Financial Planning is not a one-time event, it’s a lifetime process. Therefore, in your quest for a Financial Planner or Financial Advisor, I hope the questions above help lead you to a place where, 10 , 20 , 30 or more years from now, you will be able to look back with great satisfaction and fulfillment, on what you have accomplished, with the help, guidance and friendship of the Financial Planner you have chosen today.
Sincerely yours,
