Here are 11 ways that we believe set us apart from others:
1. We are independent business owners.
As independent business owners operating a MacLean Wealth Advisors financial advisory practice, our interests are completely aligned with our clients. Our allegiance is solely to our clients— not to any financial entity such as a brokerage firm, bank, or money manager.
2. We are experienced.
We have worked with hundreds of clients for over two decades, guiding them in their financial decisions that significantly improve their lives.
3. We do the right thing for our clients, no matter what.
We’re committed to always acting in our clients’ best interests. That means no selling; no convincing. We won’t ever try to convince our clients to do anything. We will only tell them the truth based on facts, and come to a mutual agreement of the plan and actions to be taken to achieve their financial goals.
4. We tell it to you straight up… here’s 3 things we can’t do.
1) We can’t forecast the short-term direction of the economy or the markets.
2) We can’t time when to get in and out of the markets.
3) And we can’t pick winning stocks or portfolio managers consistently over time.
In other words, we can’t predict the future…. because the future is unknown. And no other advisor can do this consistently over time either.
So what do we do, then? We develop a plan and investment portfolio based on your financial goals, practice disciplined diversification, and use low-fee investments… then keep you on track with your plan. Since we don’t know what’s going to happen or when something will happen in the future, the most prudent thing we can do is plan, diversify, use low-cost solutions, and follow the plan.
5. We provide you with a date-specific, dollar-specific, written plan. We help you implement it, and help you stay on track year after year.
We believe there is no lasting investment success without a written plan. As the saying goes, “Nobody plans to fail, they just fail to plan.” When do you want to retire? How much retirement income do you want each month for the rest of your life? How are you going to make this happen? This is what we do for our clients.
6. We focus on preserving your purchasing power over your lifetime.
We’ve all heard we’re living longer, therefore we need to plan for the reasonable probability of living to age 90 or even 100. That could be 20-30 years of retirement living. At 2.5% inflation rate, your cost of living doubles in a 30-year retirement. We help you plan and invest prudently to preserve your purchasing power over a multi-decade retirement life.
7. We provide relevant long-term perspective.
Since we’re making financial decisions and following a plan based on long-term issues such as providing a retirement income for the next 20-30 years, it’s imperative to frame the financial issues with a long-term perspective (as opposed to a short 1, 3, or 5-year perspective.) If our cost of living will double in 30 years, what type of investments will best preserve our purchasing power over those 30 years? That’s proper perspective.
8. We use low-fee index investments for our clients’ portfolios.
All investments come with a cost. And costs matter a lot with investing. All else being equal, the lower your investment costs, the higher your net return. For example, if you’re able to lower your investment costs by 1% per year on your mutual funds, that’s an annual savings of $5,000 on $500,000 invested. Over 20 years, that can result in an additional $275,000 in retirement savings on that same $500,000 invested.[i] That’s not a typo… an additional $275,000 more savings over 20 years, simply by lowering your investment costs by 1%. And here’s the real kicker: investment costs are one of the few factors that are known in advance, and we have complete control over them by the investments we choose for our portfolios.
9. We educate our clients about their investment portfolios so they have a solid understanding of their underlying investments.
Knowing about the investments you own as an investor, and having a general understanding of how the markets work, is critical to your long-term investing success.
10. We maintain patience, discipline, and confidence in the future.
Volatility is a fact of life. Successful investing requires the patience to ride out the temporary declines, as we remind our clients that “this too shall pass.” The discipline to remember the long-term advance in capital markets has historically been permanent (of course, no guarantee in the future), while the declines (though frequent) are temporary. Also required for success is reasonable confidence (or reasonable optimism) in the future. Which is to say, you cannot be a successful investor by being fundamentally pessimistic about, or fearful of, the future.
11. Your investing behaviour is crucial to your lifetime financial success. And your advisor is critical for this.
We believe a key part of our unique value to our clients is behavioural coaching. Investors’ emotions get in the way all the time. For example, how you react, or don’t react, to each financial “crisis of the month” and volatility of the markets will ultimately determine your long-term success. We believe most investors need an empathetic experienced advisor to guide them through the more challenging times.
[i] In this example, $500,000 invested over 20 years with a 5% annualized return results in $1,326,000. With a 6% annualized return the amount is $1,603,000. The 1% difference in lower fees results in more than $275,000 additional savings.