How to Elevate Your Advisory: a Guide for Financial Planner and Wealth Advisors
As a financial planner or wealth advisor, you know planning the future of the firm is essential for long-term success.
At Centura Wealth Advisory, we focus our growth across the following five practice area pillars:
- Marketing and business development
- Financial planning solutions
- Life-based estate solutions
- Alternative investments
- Practice management
In this article, we’ll discuss each of these pillars as well as provide examples of some of our go-to alternative investments.
Marketing and Business Development
How are you leveraging your network of Centers of Influence? Creating opportunities for shared thought leadership through tools like podcasting – such as our Live Life Liberated podcast – or hosting events can prove beneficial through deepening connections, sharing best practices and even increasing referrals.
Financial Planning Solutions
Most financial Advisory firms offer:
- Goal based financial planning
- Cash flow based financial planning
- Needed services after the above is accomplished
How does your firm differentiate your planning offering from the competition? Can you define & articulate your planning process?
Financial advisors can assess their financial planning solutions by asking the following questions about their various process:
Income Tax Planning
- What income tax planning strategies do you offer that produce 10-100X+ returns relative to cost?
- How do you save your clients 20-80% of their income tax liability?
- How are you making clients’ CPAs life easier?
- Are you in the driver’s seat of your client’s income tax plan? Or is their CPA?
Wealth Transfer Planning
- Are you leading the strategy for your client’s wealth transfer plan? Or is their EPA?
Balance Sheet Optimization
- Can you optimize your clients balance sheet to maximize returns, minimize risk and ensure assets are held in optimal account locations for tax purposes?
Investments and Alternative Solutions
At Centura, we understand the power of alternative investments. We look to add exponential value through these alternative investments – such as private equity, private real estate, private credit, hedge funds, cryptocurrency and more.
Chris Osmond, Chief Investment Officer at Centura Wealth Advisory, describes how we approach alternative investments.
Private Credit
Investors may enter private credit investments because of their floating rate loans, which will limit the interest rate risk associated with other forms of investment, such as traditional fixed-income investments.
Additionally, private credit transactions are direct negotiations between the lender and the borrower. This allows investors to access a wide range of private transactions and negotiate terms that best work for their situation.
Life Insurance
Life insurance can be a powerful vehicle for alternative investments. It provides downside protection, high liquidity, and an attractive upside potential relative to investments with a similar risk profile.
Check out episode 31 of our podcast, Live Life Liberated, to learn more about how life insurance solutions can be used as an alternative to fixed-income investments.
Life-Based Estate Solutions
How do you access the best life insurance solution(s) for your clients?
For example, main business lines include:
- Cash Management
- Income Tax Planning
- Wealth Transfer Planning
- Business Planning
- Death Benefit Planning
Or, advanced Planning concepts, such as:
- Split Dollar – Private, Business & GSD
- Premium Finance
- Charitable Trusts
- GRATs, SLATs
- IRA Optimization
Check out our retirement checklist, here.
Practice Management
Financial planners and advisors can elevate their advisory through streamlining their systems and processes.
What are Financial Management Processes?
Financial management processes are, in their simplest terms, plans and procedures which will help an individual, family or institution reach their financial goals. These processes can include a series of steps, such as:
- Identifying financial goals
- Gathering financial and personal information
- Analyzing financial information
- Developing a customized financial plan to achieve these goals
In order to assess their current solutions, members of a firm can ask questions such as:
- How do you Capitalize on your Financial Genius?
- How do you build depth in your organization? What is the level of expertise of your #2?
- How do you leverage teams in your practice?
- What tech stack solution has unlocked revenue and time in your practice?
Learn more in our blog, The Importance of Systems and Processes in Financial Management.
Connect With Centura
At Centura Wealth Advisory, we go beyond a traditional multi-family office wealth management firm to offer advanced tax and estate planning solutions which traditional wealth managers often lack in expertise, knowledge, or resources to offer their clients.
We invest heavily into technology and systems to provide our clients with fully transparent reporting and tools to make informed decisions around their wealth plan.
Read on to learn more about our 5-Step Liberated Wealth Process and how Centura can help you liberate your wealth.
Disclosures
Centura Wealth does not make any representations as to the accuracy, timeliness, suitability, or completeness of any information prepared by any unaffiliated third party, whether linked to or incorporated herein. All such information is provided solely for convenience purposes and all users thereof should be guided accordingly.
We are neither your attorneys nor your accountants and no portion of this material should be interpreted by you as legal, accounting, or tax advice. We recommend that you seek the advice of a qualified attorney and accountant.
For additional information about Centura, please request our disclosure brochure as set forth on Form ADV using the contact information set forth herein, or refer to the Investment Adviser Public Disclosure website (www.adviserinfo.sec.gov). Please read the disclosure statement carefully before you engage our firm for advisory services.