Strategies for Protecting Wealth
by Darrell Aviss

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The Private Client Management (PCM) Process

Discovery Meeting

This initial Discovery Meeting is our opportunity to discover everything that is financially important to our client, and to collect all information necessary to assess client suitability and determine whether we can add substantial value to our client’s situation. If it appears unlikely that we can make a strong positive impact, we’ll be more than happy to refer you to another firm that might be a better fit.

Where appropriate, we will create a Private Client Profile which we will use to craft an Investment Plan and a Wealth Management Plan. This Private Client Profile is at the heart of this initial Discovery Meeting and covers seven key areas:

• Values

  Understand the facts that will form the basis of the profile such as your age, gender, profession, income, net worth, and other relevant demographics.

• Goals

  Understand your personal and professional goals and objectives, and your intentions for your family and loved ones.

• Relationships

  Understand the relationships that are the most important to you and those that carry some financial or emotional obligation.

• Assets

  Understand your current sources of income and any factors that may impact them in the short or intermediate term, as well as the structure, registration, and location of assets and liabilities.

• Advisors

  Know your other advisors that you work with on a regular basis, including accountants, attorneys and business managers, and understand the role and influence each has in your life.

• Process

  Understand your preferred method and frequency of interaction, and level of detail you require.

• Interests

  Understand those activities and topics that occupy your time and money, including hobbies, religion, politics, medicine, and philanthropy.

As you can see, our inquiry into who our client really is goes much further than the fact-finding process used by most advisors, which is typically limited to assets, net worth, time horizon, investment goals and risk tolerance.

While these topics are clearly important and need to be assessed, they do little to reveal what really matters most to our affluent client’s.

The Wealth Management Consulting Process