A look at why objectivity matters in the financial services sector
Financial life planning is focused on doing something few services can, which is taking a business process and turning it into a personal process. Typically, finances are all about the numbers, focused on the nitty-gritty of debt instruments and so forth. However, financial life planning brings a personal element to the table.
From retirement planning to investment advice, money should be approached on a personal level. Those are funds for your retirement years following a lifetime of work. That is capital aimed to put your children through college. Starting a business you are passionate about takes your time, your energy and your devotion.
This is why Titus Financial is getting personal. Here are a few areas where it is easy to see that personal financial services are more likely to yield success than big business or big finance.
Accountability in financial planning and financial services
A few investors and big-time financial execs getting greedy might have been practical 25 years ago, when Gordon Gekko said “greed is good.” Today, however, the financial sector is populated by tens of thousands of junior partners, loan officers, Wall Street players and commission-focused brokers — all of whom agreed on greed.
The Department of Justice is still struggling, more than four years later, to prosecute in the fallout of the 2008 credit crisis. The DOJ is a shark in a school of guppies. Which of the banks or executives is really to blame? Which one of the thousands of potential targets is worth making an example of? It is an embarrassment of riches in the worst way possible. “Too big to fail” was the motto, and now it is “too many to punish.”
Personalized financial life planning simplifies the issue. A certified financial planner gets to know you, and helps establish goals that are practical and clearly defined. No marketplace ambiguity; no confusing ideas that promise huge returns despite making little or no sense. Accountability comes down to your relationship with the financial life planner. This professional will keep it simple to avoid greed, to avoid catastrophic losses and to focus on risk minimization for returns you can live with.
Practical goals for real people
Wall Street is all about the numbers. From tickers on the bottom of the screen to hundreds of pages of financial statements, everything done in the big time is reduced to a number. This is necessary in such a large system, because major financial executives would not have time to get to know hundreds of clients.
Financial life planning goes the opposite direction. Your goals are written down, and careful planning is put into each move that a client makes. The numbers still matter, but the connection between a financial planner and client is the first priority.