We serve our clients as fiduciaries, which means we are morally and legally obligated to put our clients’ best interests ahead of our own. As a result, we do not push products or services that don’t create meaningful value for our clients. This means the advice our clients receive is honest, truthful, and in their best interest. Forming a relationship with a financial advisor revolves around trust. It is much easier to build that trust when your advisor is acting as a fiduciary.

We specialize in providing comprehensive, integrated, personalized solutions to help business owners, professionals, executives, and retirees develop and implement complex estate, income tax, business succession, retirement, and investment plans. We put the emphasis on each client’s unique needs, not a prepackaged set of solutions or ideas. We specialize in the numerous challenges faced by our clients and have developed a team of professionals that thoroughly understands their unique problems and opportunities. That translates into measurable and meaningful results.

The spectrum of professionals who claim to offer financial advice is a broad one — so broad, in fact, that it can be difficult to define exactly what “financial planners” are and the kinds of skills they should bring to the table in their work with clients.

Let’s be clear: Financial planning is not purely about investments or insurance. The problem is that the title “financial planner” and the term “financial planning” have been used for marketing purposes by many in the financial services industry to sell their investment or insurance services when what they are providing clients is not really financial planning.

To call him- or herself a financial planner, a financial professional should be trained and have demonstrated competency in multiple areas of finance, including cash flow, investments, retirement, tax, estate planning, risk management and insurance, and education funding. While financial planning and retirement planning are not the same you cannot have an effective retirement plan without a comprehensive financial plan. Professionals must also be able to demonstrate their ability to integrate these applicable areas into a cohesive plan that helps individuals determine if they are on track to achieving their stated goals.