Financial planning is about guidance. It helps you form a road map for your life, accounting for your personal circumstances, key milestones, tolerance for risk, and long-term aspirations.
But the guidance or advice you receive is only as good as how much trust you have in it, and your willingness to follow through on it. Otherwise, it’ll likely fall on deaf ears.
Trust is vital in life. It can make or break friendships or relationships and may influence many of your most important decisions.
Learning to openly trust someone can be a tricky hurdle to overcome. But it is key when dealing with a financial planner, if you want to reap the maximum benefit from their advice.
Opening yourself up to someone will likely give you peace of mind through knowing that the person you’ve hired to guide you on your financial journey has your best interests at heart.
Here are some important aspects of a client/planner relationship, as well as some valuable insights into why working with a financial planner you trust could benefit you.
Working with a financial planner you trust will likely put you first, and any solutions second
The experience of having someone really listen to you can be reassuring and often helps to foster a strong, trusting relationship. It is something we firmly believe in.
Before we start to talk about your wealth, we’ll talk about you. The conversation might focus on your:
- Dreams and personal goals
- History and past experiences
- Loved ones and existing relationships
- Worries and fears
- Tolerance for risk.
This is what we believe financial planners should be doing – and it’s what we promise.
Only once we understand you and your objectives do we start to talk about your money.
The decision to work with a professional when it comes to your personal finances can require a leap of faith. It relies on a lot of trust and an acceptance that your selected financial planner will work in your best interests and not in line with their own agenda.
This is why the Grey Parrot mantra is “people first, solutions second”. We want to build a relationship with you, so that you can rest assured that we have your back.
Our experience tells us that, once that trust is built, you’ll likely benefit both emotionally and financially.
Working with a financial planner you trust could allow you to take a step back and focus on other things in life
Once we understand your goals, we can help to devise a plan to get there. Cashflow modelling is an integral part of this process and can enable us to forecast your financial future.
We are likely to look at your:
- Financial history and experience with risk
- Current income, savings, and assets
- Tolerance for risk
- Necessary safety nets
- Long-term goals and the growth needed to reach them.
Once we have all this information, we’ll be able to build a clear map guided by both your personal input and the data behind it.
It will account for your goals and personal milestones, as well as prepare you for any obstacles you might have to navigate along the way.
Getting your financial plan right, and correctly aligned with your personal circumstances and goals, is essential – and that heavily relies on you trusting your planner with as much personal information and insights as you can provide.
If trust is there, you can take a step back, relax, and begin to focus on the important aspects of life, such as spending time with your family or doing the things you love.
Working with a financial planner you trust could reduce costs
There are two common ways that financial advisers typically charge you for their services — fixed- and percentage-based fees.
We believe trust can’t be built without fair and honest charges. For us, this means a fixed-fee service.
The majority of firms opt for a system that charges you a percentage of the value of your investments. At Grey Parrot, we instead opt to charge a fixed fee based on the time it takes to deliver a service to you.
Percentage-based fees aren’t necessarily fair, as they tend to be more expensive for you – especially if your investments significantly grow over time – and could potentially cause conflicts of interest.
If your financial planner charges a percentage, they are effectively incentivised to encourage you to invest more, or in riskier investments, which might not be in your best interests.
A fixed-fee approach means no matter how much you’re investing, you receive the same service from us.
It also means that, in 10 years’ time, even if your portfolio has seen significant growth, your fees won’t have changed beyond any routine adjustments for inflation.
We believe that if your adviser has their own agenda, such as pushing for greater investment growth based on percentages, it can undermine the fundamental trust with their client.
We want you to know, that our focus is firmly on sourcing the best solutions for your specific needs. Consequently, you can trust us to continue to guide you, not just in the near future, but over the course of your financial journey across years or decades.
Working with a financial planner you trust could boost your emotional and financial wellbeing
A study by Royal London found that clients who fostered trusted long-term relationships with their advisers typically reported better outcomes, as shown by the graphic below:
Source: Royal London
In fact, those who sought out holistic advice from their advisers, rather than just financial insights, reported the greatest levels of satisfaction with their service.
One person surveyed was quoted as saying: “The most important benefit for me is the fact that my financial adviser is a trustworthy person with excellent feedback from other clients”.
Trust is essential in fostering a positive, long-term relationship and one in which conversations about a diverse range of topics, such as events in your personal life, or challenges you’re facing, can be openly discussed – rather than simply your financial objectives.
Royal London’s findings also discovered that those who had an ongoing relationship with their adviser were on average 50% financially better off than those who hadn’t sought advice or had only received it once.
Remember: working with a financial planner you trust could benefit you emotionally and financially.
Let’s start the conversation and get to know you
We know that the key to starting a solid working relationship is to get in touch and begin the work required to develop a trusting partnership.
If you’d like to see if Grey Parrot is the right fit for you, please reach out to us by emailing info@grey-parrot.co.uk or calling 02039 871782.
Please note
This article is no substitute for financial advice and should not be treated as such. To determine the best course of action for your individual circumstances, please contact us.
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