It started with a question. An interesting one I hadn’t thought about for a decent stretch of time…

“Why does a wealthy person need a financial adviser?”

…and initially I didn’t have an answer!

I know many of our clients are relatively wealthy (and all wealth is relative – more on that later in this article), I know they tell us on a regular basis.that they appreciate and value the work we do for them and I know they tell us why!

However for that particular second when the questions was asked….I didn’t have a clear enough answer. Maybe because there are a number of reasons our clients work with us. Maybe it’s because we don’t talk about it enough….or maybe it’s because I was having a senior (maybe not senior but an over 40’s) moment!

However it did make me think and therefore I decided to write this blog to share the 10 reasons why our wealthy clients decide to work with us…

1) Delegation is the key to success…

Most of our wealthy clients are experts in their field and have built their wealth by building businesses relating to this particular field. Typically they’ve made money by being pretty good at what they do…

However part of their success is also about recognizing what they’re amazing at and building a trusted team around them to help them make good decisions in different aspects of their lives.

This may include an accountant, a business coach, lawyers…

…and with our clients usually includes a financial planner

We help them make good financial decisions by specifically being the experts in this area.

2) We provide an independent third party perspective
We’re lucky enough to work with some pretty smart clients. Clients who certainly have the intellectual heft to make important decisions financial or otherwise.

However we get told on a relatively regular basis that clients value the fact that we provide them with an independent third party perspective on a decision they need to make.

All of us need help with making decisions. Often we’re too close to the decision. Sometimes emotion skews our perspective. Every single time it’s worth having an expert on hand to ask the right questions, provide a different perspective and this allows our clients to make a more informed choice.

3) We consistently add value
The reality is that we’re not low cost. We’re actually unashamedly expensive to work with.

However one thing we insist upon is consistently adding value….up to the point that if we don’t believe we can add significant value over and above our fee we won’t take on the client.

This might be adding value by building our client a proper financial plan designed to inform all of their future choices, or reducing their inheritance or capital gains tax bill, or investing using evidence instead of guess work, or the research we conduct to ensure they retain their deposit based savings in the right place

However our clients carry on working with us because they’re not focused on the cost….they’re focused on the value we add to their lives in a range of different ways, and choose to work with us because of that.

4) Technical expertise
Most of our relatively financially secure clients rely on us to be on top of our game from a technical perspective. They don’t want to worry about technical changes in the pension world, or changes in capital gains or inheritance tax rates.

Supporting our clients with reducing their inheritance tax liabilities is an interesting one as often a ‘side effect’ of accumulating wealth is that you could end up paying a chunk of it to the government when you die…and often you need someone with the expertise in carefully planning to potentially reduce your liability whilst everything else is equal to support you…but you certainly need someone who knows their beans technically.

5) Taking away the hassle
Part of the work we do with clients is to ensure that we manage the process of dealing with their financial products on their behalf….and from experience this can be an absolute pain.

The amount of man hours we spend dealing with banks, investment and pension companies and all sorts of financial product providers on behalf of our clients is a decent amount…time which our clients now don’t need to spend to get all of the information they need to make better decisions.

6) A nudge in the right direction
Regardless of how financially successful you are or have been we all need a nudge….and certainly with our clients we gently remind them of a number of actions they should take to maintain their financial health.

This might include using their tax efficient allowances (like ISA or pension allowances), reminding them of the work we’ve agreed we were going to do at certain times of the year and reverting back to what our clients have told us what’s important.

One particular point here…

For most of us the important thing isn’t just more accumulation of wealth….it’s about spending time with the people we love the most.

That’s why the nudge we provide sounds like this…

“How are you spending your time making sure you’re loving life as much as possible?”

7) Making things direct and simple
Often our clients want the information they need to make an informed choice in a direct and simple way. They are looking for someone who can communicate with them clearly and in plain English. They appreciate that decisions can be complicated and nuanced but want advice delivered in a straightforward way without all of the waffle.

Therefore our clients value the fact that we allow them to make informed decisions better by removing all of the waffle and giving our advice in a clear and direct way.

8) Help to link an individuals financial goals with their life goals
All wealth is relative….Clearly someone who ‘has enough money for the remainder on their life depends on a number of factors including how much do you spend on a regular basis and your particular age.

Often with individuals who have been working hard building wealth they’ve never taking the time to think about what they might want to achieve personally and how they might want to change how they spend their time in future years.

Our role is to help our clients do this and ask questions which gets to the core of what someone really wants to do with their lives.

9) Asking challenging questions and putting the money into perspective
We see the relationship with our clients as a two way one. We’re certainly not ‘order takers’ and have a professional obligation to often challenges peoples perceptions.

The Smart, successful people who are our clients get that sometimes they need someone who challenges and questions they thought process. They understand that someone just performing what they say might add value. However what adds more value is the ability to ask important but often challenging questions.

Sometimes these questions are to provide clarity on an individuals financial goals but often it’s more about making sure we challenge and ask quesitons about what our clients want their money to do for them!

10) Saving time
All of the ways we help our (relatively) wealthy clients with our clients do one thing…

They focus on giving our clients more of a resource which is actually more finite and more valuable than money…

Time
Regardless of whether we’re taking on some of the laborious admin duties which sometimes comes with managing money or helping people make financial decisions where they’ll achieve financial independence a few years earlier….the reality is that our job isn’t only about freedom of money.

It’s just as much about freedom of Time.

Our clients often don’t want to spend every day worrying about making financial decisions.

They don’t want to spend every day reading about tax changes, or understanding investment propositions.

They want to spend their time doing what they love.

That’s why it makes sense for them to work with a financial planning professional….working together saves them time!

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So that’s 10 of the reasons why our particularly wealthy clients work with us….and I’m sure there’s more reasons I’ve missed!

If you’d like to understand more about how we can help you feel free to call us on 01708 606 202 or email Hello@Cervellofp.co.uk