What Does A Financial Adviser do?
Our goal is to build long term relationships with each and every one of our clients. We take the time to get to know our clients and understand their objectives and priorities.
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What Does A Financial Adviser do?
Keith Clissold from Austin Chapel introduces the company and talks about the role of a financial adviser.
What exactly does a financial adviser do?
We’re here to offer guidance on financial planning for people’s needs, both now and in the future. We use our expertise to offer financial solutions that fit each person’s needs and requirements.
We look at what people want to achieve and provide relevant solutions such as pensions, investment, savings, life insurance or critical illness cover. People are often a bit nervous about these things, but we’re not going to force you into anything you don’t want to do. We want to help you and hope that you stay with us for a long time.
What services does a financial adviser offer?
- Pensions: We provide pensions both for self-employed and employed people, who may have existing pensions or don’t have a pension at all.Often people don’t know where to start – it can be very confusing, especially with features and benefits. Lots of people come to us with plans done many years ago where the costs are high or there’s no growth, because it’s poorly managed. This is vitally important because you need quite a lot of money for your pension.
- Investments: There are a multitude of options to grow your money – from putting it in the bank to keep it safe and secure, to investing for the long-term. We have over 30 years’ experience between us and use in-depth research tools to find the best plans to fit the client’s risk profile.
When you’re planning for investments you need to allow for immediate access if the boiler breaks or the car breaks down. You might be saving for a holiday in five years time and even longer term for when you retire. Those are difficult choices to make, so enlist the experience of a financial adviser to do that for you. - Wealth management. Once we’ve placed your money somewhere, we need to check regularly that it’s in the right places. We assess how it’s doing on an annual basis or more frequently, to make sure the advice we’ve given meets your needs.We’ll make changes to investment allocation and continue to achieve good investment performance as much as we can.
It’s a partnership, really, between a client and a financial adviser. If you haven’t got a partnership, it’s not good.
We offer a tailor-made service to your individual circumstances. Everybody’s so different. Each person wants something different and has a unique level of risk they want to take.e
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Here to offer guidance on financial planning for people’s needs, both now and in the future. We use our expertise to offer financial solutions that fit each person’s needs and requirements.
When should I see a financial adviser? When’s the right time?
Whenever you’re considering any of the things we’ve just spoken about. Any financial consideration – mortgages, life insurance, investment and anything financial, just speak to us. We’re not somebody to be scared of. We’re not going to push you into anything.
You can have a free consultation with us. We will talk to you on the phone for 10 or 15 minutes answering any concerns. You tell us what you’re looking to do, we can tell you whether we can do that for you and how we would go about it.
We can arrange to come and see you, or we could do a Zoom meeting. Once we have a plan. we just ask you to complete a service agreement so we both know what we’re doing and how we’re going to go forward.
We also do a ‘fact find’ document taking down your personal details, financial position, any debts or savings so we can advise you on where to go.
Once we have an idea of what work is required we would then confirm the cost of that advice. Then you have the choice to engage our services or not. Up until we have an agreement in place with you, we don’t charge you anything.
What should I expect if I called you today? What’s the process?
We don’t do anything without the client knowing exactly what they’re going to do, what we’re going to ask for and what the process is. Thankfully we have very strong administrators in the office who will manage all those details.
You will always come direct to the financial adviser but our administrators process all the documentation, keep in touch with you and make sure that everybody’s happy with what’s going on. We certainly don’t run off for weeks and then come back and say and this is what we’ve done. We keep you involved in what’s happening.
What is the normal fee for a financial adviser? Does it cost for that initial consultation?
The initial consultation is completely free. We don’t charge anything for that, even coming to your home if you want us to. It’s not just a five minute call on the phone.
We won’t do anything chargeable until we’ve both signed an agreement stating what we’re going to charge and what you’re going to accept. There’s no ‘normal’ fee, to be honest, because it depends on what work is involved.
It’s like having a plumber come round – until he sees the pipework and the electrics that go with it he can’t really give you a quote. He has to go away and cost up the parts. It’s very similar for us. We see what work is involved in each case.
Our maximum free is usually 3% of whatever the client is investing, but we do adjust that initial charge. The most important thing for us is to build a partnership with the client. We also have an ongoing fee of 1% of the fund, to keep managing it.
But we will agree that with you before we do anything that’s going to cost you any money.
What else should we consider with regard to financial advice?
Just don’t be afraid to pick up the phone. It’s very difficult to manage on your own. I used the analogy of a plumber – I don’t know anything about plumbing, so I get an expert to come in. I don’t try and do it myself.
Some people think they can with financial planning, but our advice and service really does pay for itself. Even if you decide after your free consultation that you can do it on your own, that’s not a problem. Just don’t be afraid to take that first step.
The value of pensions & investments and any income from them can fall as well as rise. You may not get back the amount originally invested.
HM Revenue and Customs practice and the law relating to taxation are complex and subject to individual circumstances and changes which cannot be foreseen.