We hope you agree that as your Financial Broker we have had a significant impact on your financial life. We intend to have a very positive impact for many years to come, helping you to manage your money wisely and ensuring you have the very best portfolio of financial products in place to help you achieve your financial goals. We’re in your corner, helping you to navigate your way through your financial life.
We recognise that when you think about us, your thoughts might turn to the clarity we helped you achieve with regard to your financial situation, maybe the advice that we gave you in terms of building a portfolio of investment funds that suit your particular risk profile or maybe the advice we gave you about planning for your retirement. It’s possible you reflect on the sense of security and comfort we helped you achieve, through getting financial protection products in place for you and your family in case any unforeseen events should strike in the future.
We were delighted to help you in these ways. But we equally add value year after year in other ways, quietly working away on your behalf…
We keep you focused on what you can control
There are many things that you can influence in your financial plan, and some you cannot. We of course seek to understand factors you cannot influence such as the economic environment and the performance of markets, and we build a portfolio of products for you that take account of your views and appetite for risk with regard to these factors. And then we track them very carefully.
But we will work even harder to keep you focused on the perhaps more mundane factors that you can actually control. What are your spending habits and if they are running away from you a little, what impact will they have on your plan? How much are you saving towards your financial goals and are there opportunities to maybe achieve those goals a little earlier than anticipated? These are everyday areas that we encourage you to consider, as these are factors right within your control.
We help you cut out the noise
What will President Trump do next? Will Brexit be soft, hard or on a no-deal basis? Is there a big economic shock on the way? With the 24/7 access to information, we would all be excused for being paralysed by fear and uncertainty about what the future holds and the possible impacts on our investments.
Thankfully we are well accustomed to hearing and dealing with this short term noise. Because that is what it is – noise. We have worked with you in developing a medium to long term plan for your investments and retirement planning. We know that it is folly to react to every piece of market noise and indeed the most damage to investment portfolios is caused by people making hasty changes in reaction to market noise. So we help you plug your ears to the short term noise and keep your medium to long term perspective, as that is where your financial goals will be achieved.
So when we suggest you “do nothing” as a reaction to noise, I promise we’re not being passive and lazy! Instead we’re keeping you firmly focused on your long term objectives.
We keep you looking forwards
There is always a temptation to look at investment performance over the last decade across a range of different funds, pick out the best performer and wonder why you weren’t invested in it. Unfortunately lots of investors see this past performance as a guide to future performance and move their money to it. We certainly don’t advocate this approach, as past performance is definitely not a guide to future performance.
Past performance is over, and history has shown us time and time again that the best performing funds of the last decade are very unlikely to be the stars of the next one. So, yes we take any lessons from the past that can be learned, but then we go back to the plan. What are you trying to achieve? What is your appetite and capacity for risk? Are you invested in funds that offer the best potential to actually achieve those objectives? And then we keep looking forwards, not backwards.
We help you to avoid mistakes
Doing nothing when managing your investments is very often the most shrewd approach. Trying to time the markets and constantly tweaking your portfolio usually does significant damage over the long-term. The reason is because more often the not, the market won’t subsequently behave as you expected it to.
We help you think beyond products
As mentioned at the outset, we take our role as your financial guide very seriously. This entails a lot more than discussions about products and funds. We want to ensure you have all your other financial safeguards in place, and this is why we mention issues such as your will, Enduring Power of Attorney and your tax planning. We want to ensure you optimise every element of your financial life.
Yes, the product work we do with you is very important and we will continue to deliver at every turn in that regard. But as your Financial Broker we constantly seek to add value beyond products, and always welcome discussions about any aspect of your financial life.