Published by Ron Carson
The digital world is filled with financial planning tools and apps that can help you take stock of specific aspects of your financial situation, whether that is how much you are spending on lattes or whether you are saving enough for retirement.
The challenge with many financial planning tools is that they don’t give you the whole picture in one place. You can see pieces of the puzzle, but it is hard to figure out how much they contribute to your net worth or toward achieving the goals that really matter to you. And often, when you use financial planning tools, there is a risk to your privacy. Some sites and apps are more secure than others, and it is hard to assess what they are really doing to protect your personal information.
At Carson Wealth Management, we offer our clients an alternative. Our Client Experience Optimizer, which has become my favorite financial planning tool, is a digital dashboard that allows clients to get an instant look at how their investments are doing. It provides constant transparency into our performance as wealth managers.
Clients can not only see the returns on their investments, but also their net worth at any given moment. It is easy to see how the value of assets such as their home and savings outside of their retirement accounts, such as 529 plans, contribute to the total picture. We also provide a clear picture of how their debts affect their savings.
Having this information in one place is empowering. For many of our clients, using our digital dashboard is the first time they have ever had holistic view of their finances.
However, that is just the beginning. It is not easy for a layperson to interpret financial data and put it to work for them on their own. By working with our wealth managers, they don’t have to take the DIY approach and risk making costly mistakes, as they might with a robo advisor. If they have a question on something, they can call their wealth manager and get an answer the same day.
Creating this tool required a considerable investment of time and money for our firm, but we believe it was absolutely essential. Wealth management is a collaborative process. We believe that when clients can see the total picture, our value to them is evident.
For some of our newer clients, getting a clear look at their finances for the first time is a wakeup call. They may be frustrated that they have not saved as much as they had hoped or an unexpected life event has led to more debt than they would like. We are there to help. When we onboard each client, our wealth managers spend considerable time preparing a personal financial plan for them that reflects what really matters to them. They are prepared to offer sophisticated strategies and solutions to turn around financial challenges, so our clients don’t have to manage them alone.
Meeting your financial goals isn’t about entering every dollar you spend at Starbucks into an app or online financial planning tool. Our wealth managers will help you to put the data in your dashboard to work for you, so you will be able to pursue your goals with financial confidence.
