Financial Planning Fundamentals

The Importance of Customized Financial Planning

Like a finely-tailored custom suit, financial planning advice is typically more effective the better it fits. Just as you may not be able to grab a jacket and shirt off the rack at a store and expect them to conform perfectly to your measurements, you may not be able to walk into a typical financial firm and leave with a financial plan best suited to help you reach your goals.

Many financial firms focus on selling you complex, often expensive products, like annuities, mutual funds, insurance or tax services. Many financial firms may not take the time to qualify your aspirations or assess what might be in your best interests, because they’re incentivized to sell you pre-packaged commission-based products.

At Fisher Investments, we focus on taking a personalized approach to financial planning—not on selling products for a commission. We understand every investor is different. Maybe you’re focused on finding ways to avoid running out of money in retirement. Perhaps you plan on growing your wealth or living a more comfortable lifestyle. Or you may want to pass money on to your children or grandchildren. Whatever your long-term financial goals, Fisher Investments will design a plan that aims to help you reach them.

Drilling down further, you might require help understanding how vehicles like trusts work and how to establish them. Or if you’re trying to assist a grandchild with college tuition, you might seek advice on how to proceed. Once we learn about you and your needs, we provide portfolio strategy recommendations, financial planning advice and actionable considerations on estate planning, Social Security and insurance. We recognize you require thoughtful, principled financial planning to meet your objectives and we’re determined to help you get there.

How Is the Fisher Retirement Plan Different?

Thoughtful and thorough attention to your comprehensive needs is just one aspect of Fisher Investments that we believe helps us stand out from the competition. Our fee structure is another important differentiator.

First, it’s important to understand what sort of fees you’d typically experience from other financial planning firms elsewhere. These may include ongoing “financial planning fees” even if there are no new updates to your plan or hourly fees, which may discourage you from spending the time necessary to develop a plan. At Fisher Investments, we offer personalized financial planning with no additional fees.*

Additionally, Fisher Investments stands apart because we don’t simply put your money into various investment products and call it a day. We take a holistic approach that examines your time horizon, investment objectives and other factors specific to you. Then, we help you construct a financial plan with your best interests in mind, taking into account factors such as Social Security and estate planning. In some circumstances, this can even mean referring you to outside experts like estate planning attorneys or Certified Public Accountants (CPAs).

When we work with you to build your financial plan, we go through several important steps. Our process seeks to:

Determine your goals. We recognize different people have different financial planning goals. Some want to avoid running out of money in retirement, while others are focused on maintaining their lifestyle or even improving it. Is increasing your wealth important? Have you thought about leaving something to your heirs? Or is it your goal to spend every cent?

Determine your investment time horizon. We base our comprehensive calculations on factors such as average life expectancy and family history and use those metrics to help guide our investment recommendations.

Understand your income sources and expenses. We drill down into all of your financial and lifestyle information to get a full understanding of where the money is coming from and where it is going.

Learn how long you plan to work. Some people want to retire early while others look forward to staying at work as long as possible. We talk to you about your plans, including what level of work you might intend to maintain and for how long.

Building a Fisher Investments Portfolio

Once we understand the details of your financial situation and long-term goals, we work with you to build a customized portfolio based on your cash flow needs, investment time horizon and long-term goals and objectives.

Our investment decision-making is managed by Fisher Investments’ Investment Policy Committee—a group with over 130 years of industry experience—and supported by a large and experienced research department. In addition, Fisher Investments provides a dedicated point of contact for every client, called an Investment Counselor.

We ask our Investment Counselors to take on four key responsibilities when they help with your retirement planning, such as:

Help you understand what is going on in your account and why. We regularly assess your account’s performance and explain to you what factors are at work.

Regularly review your investment goals. We won’t establish a plan for you and then let it stay stagnant. We regularly check in with you to see if your goals, objectives or financial circumstances have changed and evaluate how that might affect your financial planning and if it should be adjusted.

Evaluate your life changes and communicate appropriate updates. Life happens and that can affect your financial planning. Our Investment Counselors will regularly provide any updates to our Portfolio Evaluation Group to determine if any changes in your life are material enough to require portfolio adjustment.

Quickly handle your day-to-day needs. We are here to help whenever you have questions or require financial service.

Your Fisher Investment Counselor is your dedicated point of contact. They’ll help you understand what’s going on with your account and why. In addition, they’ll help you review your investment goals and objectives regularly and handle your day-to-day needs quickly.

If you’re interested in learning more about how financial planning can help you invest more strategically, contact Fisher Investments today to request an appointment. You can also browse our extensive selection of guides for more insights on how to develop your financial plan and investment approach.

*For qualified investors with at least $500,000 in investable assets. Nothing infers any right on any person to become a client of Fisher Investments, and Fisher Investments reserves the right to refuse or terminate any person as a client for any reason. Fisher Investments reserves the right the right to cancel, suspend or modify its financial planning services at any time and for any reason without notice. There is no guarantee that any account managed by Fisher Investments will achieve any specified level of performance. Investing in securities involves the risk of loss. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.