Our Process Principled, Practical, Powerful

THE NEWA PROCESS

The wealth work we do with our individual and family clients—from developing your financial plan, to creating or evaluating your investment portfolio, to leveraging your assets—rests on 5 pillars.

• DISCOVER

  Our complimentary, commitment-free Discovery Meeting helps us achieve a number of foundational purposes, which include:

  • Getting to know your current context, short-term objectives, and long-term goals as we develop a sense of your values and the kind of life you’re working toward.
  • Introducing the 6 areas of financial planning, the types of financial products and services we offer within each, and how we utilize them.
  • Sharing our perspective on the market; the philosophy that governs our approach to financial advising; and our team-based system for offering value.
  • Explaining our fee-based compensation model.
  • Addressing your questions and concerns.

   

  As part of the discovery process, you’ll take a risk tolerance assessment to measure the level of account volatility you’re most likely to be comfortable with. This is important because your assets will inevitably rise and fall in value over time. If the peaks and valleys of a high-risk account feel too extreme, or if the steady progress of a low-risk account feels too slow, you may be tempted to abandon ship before reaching your destination. Knowing your risk tolerance score significantly increases the likelihood that the course we chart is one you’ll see through to the brighter future you envision.

  If you’re looking to evaluate an existing portfolio, we’ll guide you through a series of Wealth Management Process (WMP) questions to determine whether your assets are allocated optimally given your goals, timeline, and risk tolerance.

  The more we know about the present state of your financial affairs, the more realistic and effective the recommendations we can make. To get the most out of our meeting, we recommend you arrive with:

  • Organized statements (e.g. savings, 401k, IRA, brokerage, insurance)
  • Last year’s tax return
  • Documentation of investment options available at work (e.g. profit-sharing, employer-matched retirement plan contributions)
  • Documentation of benefits available through work (e.g. health insurance)

• DELIVER

  If you would like us to draft a formal financial plan, we’ll use state of the art tools to analyze the information obtained in our Discovery Meeting. This will help us ascertain the range of options available to get you where you’re going on time and in a manner that’s consistent with your context, values, and risk tolerance. We’ll then apply the principles we’ve developed over 30 years in business to evaluate which options are likely to serve you best.

  In our Delivery Meeting, we’ll explain the pros and cons of possible paths forward—or, in more technical terms, alternative ways of allocating your resources—so you can make well-informed, “stickwithable” decisions about how to invest in your financial future.

  If you would like us to assess the effectiveness of a preexisting plan, we’ll produce a portfolio performance report to explain a) what we believe is the ideal asset allocation of someone with your investor profile, b) how your portfolio would have behaved if it matched that ideal, and c) how your actual portfolio performed in comparison. We’ll then provide you with actionable “What now?” guidance.

  We can create plans and reports on an hourly basis if you’re undecided about an ongoing relationship with us or at a fixed cost if you know you want to hire us for implementation and management.

• IMPLEMENT & MANAGE

  If you decide to hire us, you’ll develop a working relationship with one of our exceptional Personal Service Representatives—Laurel, Chynna, or Jean. They will guide you step-by-step through the paperwork and procedures necessary to implement your plan, grant you access to online account management tools, process your financial transactions, and address your administrative questions and concerns.

  Once your plan is in place, Don will oversee your investments so you don’t have to. He will conduct research, monitor market dynamics, educate himself in new products and services, and reach out to you if course adjustments seem warranted in light of prevailing conditions. He’ll also be readily available in-person, online, or over the phone to discuss any of your advisory concerns such as questions about your portfolio’s performance or the financial implications of life changes.

• EDUCATE & INFORM

  Our commitment to helping you achieve financial literacy doesn’t begin and end in the Discovery and Delivery meetings. We’ll not only send you portfolio performance reports and equip you with tools for managing your account online, we’ll also help you transform the tremendous amount of available data into information you can actually understand, evaluate, and use.

  As you approach plan milestones, we’ll anticipate your questions and concerns with relevant insights, resources, and referrals to take you the extra mile.

  And to ensure you’re aware of developments that could impact your financial wellbeing while providing you with the context necessary to counteract typical media hype, we’ll share our perspective on the market via email newsletter and social media commentary.

• LEVERAGE

  Creating wealth is one thing; knowing how to access and utilize it to maximize your profit is another. Different kinds of investments are governed by different rules, regulations, and tax consequences, all of which change with some frequency. If you lack a well-informed strategy, it is easy to withdraw funds and liquidate assets in a manner that incurs unnecessary penalties or that depletes higher-performing investments, resulting in needlessly diminished returns.

  So whether you’re looking to sustain an ideal lifestyle or to accommodate unexpected expenses, we’ll help you leverage your portfolio in a manner that’s optimized to support you and your loved ones for a lifetime.