The pursuit of financial success begins with a plan

Financial Planning

It sounds like a cliché, but Financial Planning is about you, not your money. It’s about gaining a deeper understanding of your family, charitable and career goals.

In fact, our team spends most of its time, especially at the front-end of the relationship, learning all about you, your life experiences - from childhood to adulthood - and the values that you treasure today.

Before we ever discuss your finances, we will take a deep dive into the qualitative aspects of your plan. This process reveals how well you believe you have prepared for the future and uncovers what remains to be done; most importantly, the process helps us get to know you better.

The planning process moves on to the quantitative phase in which we analyze your estate plan, income taxes, insurance coverages and asset allocation, just to name a few. This process is modeled after the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards and is all-encompassing.

At the completion of the financial plan we will have formed a trust that will serve as the foundation for a lasting partnership – one in which you can think of us as your trusted advisor.

The Planning Process

In the initial meeting, we focus on the events and ideals that shaped your life, as well as the personal and family goals you maintain today. Focus is placed on short, intermediate and long-term objectives to uncover planning opportunities. Our first meeting concludes with a request for items needed to prepare the financial plan.

Once we have come to know you better and fully understand the scope of the financial plan, we will move on to your finances. Examples include protecting your assets against inflation or litigation, retirement cash flow planning, and legacy planning.

At the conclusion of our analysis, we present to you the financial plan with specific focus on a document we create called our Observations and Recommendations. The Observations and Recommendations document will confirm where you stand from a goal-achievement perspective. It will emphasize what you’ve done well and will include the actions necessary to achieve your end goals.

Our last meeting in the financial planning process is the implementation meeting. We pride ourselves in partnering with you to aid in accomplishing the objectives which were identified and agreed to in the Observations and Recommendations. This is perhaps the most important part of the entire process; the plan is most meaningful if the Observations and Recommendations are acted upon.

Whether you plan to help your family, make a gift to your alma mater, launch a business or transition to retirement, you need a well-conceived plan to succeed and KGWP can help.

“Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree long ago.”
- Warren Buffett

The pursuit of financial success begins with a plan