Will I?

Mike: Hi, I’m Mike, and I’m here with Karen. Hey, Karen.

Karen: Good morning.

Mike: So Karen is our chief operating officer, and she is the one who makes sure that our clients

have a great experience. So she leads the operations team. And so she’s in charge of

everything that’s not giving, financial planning and investment advice. And that’s what I’m in

charge of. So today we want to talk about our process for new clients. You think we could have

that conversation, Karen?

Karen: Absolutely.

Mike: All right, so ordinarily, people come in and they’ll meet with us for an hour or so where we

talk about how we work. We ask them, like, what makes them think that a financial advisor is a

good choice for them? And we try to see whether it makes sense for us to work together.

Karen: An initial discovery.

Mike: Yeah, an initial discovery. Then after that, at some point, if people decide they want to

become clients, they will reach back out to us and ask Karen to start the process. So what I

wanted to do in this short video is to have Karen explain what that process is. So that people

have some understanding before they reach out to us. So, Karen, if someone wants to become

a client, do they have to get together, like, a million documents or some number of documents?

Karen: A number of documents. So, first of all, if you meet with us initially and you say, “let’s go,

I’m ready”, what I’ll send to you is our onboarding materials. That includes our investmentadvisory agreement and a checklist of documents for you to go through to gather that are

applicable to you. Things like that may be bank statements, investment statements, Social

Security, tax returns, as some examples. And you have the ability to upload those to a secure

FTP folder site with multifactor authentication if you choose to do that electronically. Or you

could simply gather that and we would schedule your next meeting to come in and talk to Mike

and Maureen and go through all of those documents. They’ll learn more about you in detail and

your goals and what’s important to you. So you would go through all that.

Mike: What if I’m not good technologically? Can I, like, put them all in a shoebox and bring them

in?

Karen: You certainly can put them in a shoebox and bring them in.

Mike: All right, So I am good technologically, but not everybody is. Although, my kids would tell

you I’m not great technologically, so we’ll battle about that. All right.

Karen: We just ask that you don’t email them because they contain personal information. So

that’s always important to point out. That’s not a secure method of means of delivery.

Mike: Please don’t email us your tax returns. Please don’t. It’s got your Social Security number

on it, and it, it’s bad. So we do everything securely. So either upload it using the FTP site or you

could bring it in and we could scan it and, and keep everything safe. And then we have that

initial meeting, which for me I think is like the most important meeting, because we really try to

get to know people, you know, both what they have and then how they make decisions. Right.

Like if something is important to them, something that they really want to know or find out. Like,

we really try to do an exploratory, like, deep dive with the clients so that we know what would be

good for them, really. Because a lot of the financial stuff is stuff where you could handle it

multiple different ways. And what might be, like, what we think is optimal, client might not like

but for us, plan B would be almost as effective. And if it is effective enough that it works, then

let’s do that. Right. That makes a lot of sense. So at this meeting we go through all this stuff and

then what happens after we have this meeting?

Karen: So we’ll take all that information and Maureen and Mike will analyze it and come back

with a summary of recommendations, a plan, action items, maybe for you, or that, “hey, you’re

in retirement, you can afford to retire.” Maybe you don’t need to be paying those life insurance

premiums anymore. It’s just a quick example. And then we’d have you come in for that. We’d go

through the plan, talk about the allocation and have you approve the whole plan of what we

would manage. We custody assets at Charles Schwab and Fidelity currently, and we would

begin the process of opening accounts for you, transferring your assets in kind. And it’s worthnoting that you sign off on that. We don’t just begin to. Because I often get the question, “are

you going to start transferring?” No, we, we cannot do that without your authority. So you’ll sign

off on that. To help, you know, with tax efficiencies, we, in some taxable accounts, we transfer in

kind so that we can implement the recommendations as you spoke with Maureen and Mike, in

detail.

Mike: Right. Let’s highlight that tax efficiency part. Right. As part of the financial plan, we talk

about, like, what you can do to keep your lifetime expected taxes as low as we can. Right. And

so we’ll talk about different strategies you can use to keep your taxes low. And as Karen said,

we are not going to just tell you, we’re not going to just like willy nilly sell your stuff in a taxable

account. Right. We’ll show you what is going to be transferred. It’s going to be transferred in

kind. And before we do anything that would cause any kind of a realized gain or loss, we would

go over with you. And so you know what those gains or losses are going to be and how they

would affect your tax return. And obviously we wouldn’t do it unless we made sure that it worked

for your plan. And so there are times when clients have holdings that they keep for two, three,

four years after they start with us that we would build around until it’s okay to sell those to make

sure that the tax hit isn’t a bad one. So we do all we can. So sorry to cut you off there with that,

Karen, but taxes are such an important part.

Karen: I think another important part to say is during that meeting, Maureen and Mike will go

through the scenarios testing of your plan to show your success. If you say you need X amount

to spend in retirement, you want to take X amount of trips or whatever that may be, let’s just say

as an example, in retirement, can show you the probability of success of your plan. So you will

know upfront everything and understand it, agree to it. And also you would see how we would

implement your assets with your allocation that is recommended. So you approve everything.

You’re part of the whole process.

Mike: When Karen’s talking about signing off on your allocation. So we will make

recommendations for accounts that we can’t manage. So say you have a 403B at work and we

can’t manage it, we can tell you, okay, well you buy these five funds and these percentages and

we’ll send you a reminder to rebalance it. Or if the software where you have your 403B allows it,

we could do that. So it rebalances on your birthday or any particular day that it allows. But then

for the money that we are going to manage at Schwab or Fidelity, again, we’re not going to just

do whatever we like. As part of your plan, we will figure out what the appropriate allocation

should be for you in our professional opinion. And then you’ll sign an investment policy

statement. So say for example, we think that you should have 65% stocks and 35% bonds.

You’ll sign an allocation that says, okay, well I’m okay with that and that’s what you do. And then

we will start the process of transferring your accounts to Schwab or Fidelity in a tax efficient

way. Often we consolidate old 401ks or 403bs into 1 IRA per person and then we will manage it

according to that investment policy statement. And it’s not going to be exact, right? Your

account’s only going to be exactly 65% stocks and 35% bonds basically the day we buy it.

Because then the stock and bond markets go up and down. But it’s going to be pretty close.Like you’re not going to see it 50/50. It might be 63/37, but it’ll be pretty close. And we will keep

that allocation until for some reason you or we think that allocation doesn’t make sense. Like if

you take a new job or if you retire or if you come into money or you need more money. But you

know, nothing is done without like prior written approval. Right. And it’s a thoughtful, kind of

drawn out plan, right? Because by the time we come up with that asset allocation, you’ll have

had a conversation on the phone with Karen, you’ll have had a meeting with me and Karen,

you’ll have a planned delivery meeting with me, Maureen and Karen. And at that point, after

going through all of your information and knowing you, probably for a month or two, that’s the

time when we say, okay, well, this is the allocation that we think makes sense. And if you also

think it makes sense, then I’ll sign that and you’ll sign that and that’s where we’ll go.

Karen: And it’s worth also noting that we have discretion. So we’re not going to call every time

and reach out to you and say, “hey, we’re going to place this trade.” The way you will know is on

your statements with Schwab or Fidelity, you’ll have your independent wealth management

advisor, Yardley Wealth Management. You will receive an email notification or the way that you

choose to receive your trade confirmations that you know, Mike Garry has placed to trade.

Mike’s very good at communicating why he’s maybe making some changes or “hey, at this time

of year we’re, you know, taking some gains or losses in the portfolio, so you may see trades.”

So you’ll have communication along the way from us. And so you have those independent

statements. But we also have our own website and app where you can log in and see all of your

accounts. If you have three, maybe you have an ira, a Roth, an individual brokerage or joint,

you’ll see that as one portfolio, we’re able to tie that together. Where you see your allocation,

you can view it single line, by account, by account, but also as one portfolio together, the

allocation that you signed for the previously mentioned investment policy statement. We upload

reports quarterly. And so after, for example, recent quarter end September 30th, in the first 10

days we bill our accounts and we upload your reports. You’ll get a notification that your report’s

ready to view and we upload in our vault there your signed agreements and other documents

that we share together. So it’s really a nice feature and people really like it, our clients, we get

good feedback about that.

Mike: So Karen is right, like people, we have people in this morning, they tend to like the vault

and seeing that, the statements there. And then we try to have after that like a 45 day check in.

So maybe that will be a phone call, maybe it’ll be a meeting, depending on how much is going

on. Right. Some, some people have busier lives than others and some people have more going

on financially than others. And so we will check in at that point just to make sure that like you

can log into everything, everything makes sense. If there’s something that you thought we would

be doing that we’re not, or vice versa. Like we want to catch that right away. We want to make

sure we’re not doing anything out of the ordinary or make sure that you understand how we do

things. Because there can be miscommunication. Right. So if there is, we want to catch that

early and then ordinarily we’d want to see you, you know, six months after your plan delivery,

just like for a little bit deeper dive then to make sure, okay, well, everything by now is invested

properly. All the accounts are set up. You can log into your vault, you can log into Schwab or

Fidelity. Everything’s working the way it should. And at that point there may be financial planningupdates. Maybe we’ll need to see if it makes sense to do a Roth conversion, or maybe we might

need updated tax. Often we’ll ask people if they’ve done the insurance things we recommend.

You know, so there’s a lot going on. And then after that, we’d like to see everybody at least

annually. But I know that, you know, sometimes people don’t like to talk about finances. And so

we will make the offer and then hopefully people will come in. But if not, it’s okay if it’s easier to

have a Teams meeting or a Zoom, or if you want to just have a phone call. The important thing

is you should never be afraid to reach out to us if there’s something on your mind. And it could

be a two minute call or an hour meeting or whatever it is, we’re here for you. Right. Like, it’s a

big thing. You entrust us with a lot when you have us manage accounts for you and oversee like

the financial planning and wealth management of your lives. And so we are available all various

ways to stay in touch and I want to make sure people aren’t afraid to do that.

Karen: Right. And specifically, if you have a life event or change to reach out and let us know, so

you can talk about it.

Mike: Yep, yep. And it, yeah, any kind of change jobs, have a baby, have a grandchild, any, any

significant life events are great reasons to reach out. Keep us updated, let us know. Maybe it

affects your plan in a way that, that you’re not thinking. No, that’s great. Thanks, Karen, for

having this conversation. This is really helpful to me because we look at things from different

points of view because we are concerned about different parts. Right. So the things that are top

of mind for me are different than the things that are top of mind for Karen. And so by having

Karen on this video and not just me going blah, blah, blah for 10 minutes, it’s a lot more useful

for the viewer and for the listener.

Karen: Well, I will also add something that Mike always forgets to include is that he is an

attorney licensed in PA in New Jersey. And we do prepare wills, healthcare directors, financial

powers of attorney and HIPAA waivers for current clients. So anything that when you become a

client and come on board, Mike can review what you have in place. Or we can help you prepare

those if you have none or need them updated.

Mike: So am I still suppressing that memory of going to law school in the early 90s? Maybe. I

don’t know.

Karen: It’s up to you.

Mike: I paid for it.

Karen: It ties in very nicely for our clients to have that. And yes, it works very well together.Mike: Oh, that’s great. Well, thanks again, Karen.

Karen: Okay. Thank you.