Who do you typically serve?

Clients who prefer to delegate financial matters but still wish to be actively involved and engaged throughout their financial journey typically are a good fit with The Center. These folks commonly find deep value in a professional relationship, have clear financial goals and have diligently saved over the years. The Center prides itself in its ‘deep bench’ – meaning our team has a wide range of knowledge and expertise in many ‘niche’ areas of financial planning (ex. Elder care, divorce, retiree/distribution planning, high net worth planning, etc.). Over the years, we’ve found that many clients decide to partner with us during periods of life transition (ex. upcoming retirement, recent inheritance, job loss, marriage, death of a spouse, divorce, etc.). In most cases, we typically work best with clients who have attained at least one of the following financial milestones:

1. Net worth greater than $1,000,000

2. Have currently or are close to amassing $500,000 of investable assets

3. Annual income greater than $200,000

Will you do more than invest money?

We sure will! We are passionate about our process of ‘improving lives through financial planning done right’ which means that we’ll be having in depth conversations both early on in our relationship and on an ongoing basis, on various financial planning topics that extend well beyond your investments (ex. how to manage current and future taxes, which retirement account to contribute or draw from upon retirement, Social Security filing advice, college planning, estate/legacy planning, risk management, etc.). Regardless if we end up working together or not, we encourage you to expect your current or future advisor to do the same. If not, there’s a very good chance critical items within your overall financial and investment plan will likely be missed.

What are your qualifications and level of experience?

One of our firm’s core values is “Commitment to the Financial Planning Process” and we walk the walk when it comes to this. As of 4/23/2024, The Center is proud to say that over half of its employees are CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® (CFP® professionals), a highly regarded designation in the financial planning profession. This includes 100% of our client facing financial advisors, as well as various team members within our internal investment department and client service department. In addition to the CFP® marks, many of our advisors have additional education, experience and designations that allows them to better serve clients. Collectively, our team has over 100 years of experience! Despite our wide body of knowledge, we’re humble enough to know we don’t have it all figured out. For over 20 years, The Center has maintained its “Monday Planner Meeting” that brings our entire advising team together to discuss legislative changes, the latest financial planning techniques and collective idea sharing for client cases. This is a very rare practice that our firm plans to always continue – our clients deserve it!

How often will we meet and be in contact with one another?

Each year, we’ll want to have a formal, comprehensive planning/strategy session. This gives us an opportunity to share updates on your portfolio, address things that have changed in your life that could affect your financial goals, check-in on the progress of your financial plan and of course address timely financial planning items (ex. tax legislation, retirement plan updates, changes in the investment/economic world, etc.) that could impact your situation. In addition to our more formal annual meeting, our planners are in contact with clients at least quarterly. As your life changes, rest assured that we’ll be with you ‘on call’ when needed. In some years when life transitions occur, more meetings and overall contact will be necessary. When this occurs, our commitment to working together does not change whatsoever. We’ll be there for you and spend as much time as needed to help with whatever life has thrown your way!

What is your investment philosophy and process?

The Center currently manages over $1.525B of client assets on a discretionary basis (as of 4/10/2024). This means that discretionary clients have given us the authority to place trades on their behalf that are aligned with our agreed upon investment strategy and overall risk tolerance. Our number one goal is to help them obtain the rate of return designed to help achieve their financial goals. We commonly use low cost, diversified mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs) to help create a customized portfolio that makes sense for their situation and goals. When appropriate, we’ll also utilize individual stocks, individual bonds, CDs and other instruments for clients to help maximize returns while also appropriately managing risk. Taxes are also a key focus for us as we spend a considerable amount of time constructing an investment plan that will be as tax efficient as possible and maximize the tax attributes various investment accounts possess. While we are not believers in ‘timing the market’, we do believe that market inefficiencies can and will occur over time. Because of this, we are not advocates of a ‘set it and forget it approach’. Our dedicated internal investment team members typically do not serve as lead financial planners for our clients – this is done intentionally so they can be laser focused on collaborating with planners to manage client portfolios and also leave considerable capacity for market/economic research and trading.

I see The Center is affiliated with Raymond James - What does this mean for me?

Being that Center for Financial Planning, Inc. is an independent, privately held firm, we are NOT employees of Raymond James (RJ). There are many advisors that are in fact employees of RJ, but this is a separate division and is structured much differently than our arrangement with RJ. The Center has hired and pays RJ to serve as the ‘custodian’ for our clients. While your accounts are held at Raymond James and your statements will come from them as well, our firm has complete independence from RJ and makes its own investment and financial planning decisions. For over 35 years, we’ve had a fantastic relationship with RJ. We do not see any changes in the foreseeable future, but we will always keep you informed.

How are you compensated?

Having clarity on how our firm is compensated is incredibly important to us. Ensuring full transparency on this aspect of our professional relationship is essential to build and foster a trustworthy relationship. For nearly all clients, The Center primarily offers fee-based advisory services, which entails charging a flat fee based on a client’s total assets under advisement – this is also commonly referred to as an ‘asset under management’ fee. This means the client is paying us for the work our team performs, as opposed to our firm selling a product and being paid a commission. However, if deemed appropriate and in our client’s best interest, we also provide commissioned brokerage services. For decades, The Center has operated under the fee-based model which we feel helps mitigate conflicts of interest and puts us on the ‘same side of the table’ as our clients. In some cases, if a comprehensive financial plan is being prepared when first engaging with our team, we may charge for this initial, up-front work but on an ongoing basis, the asset under management fee would be the cost of working with The Center (no trading fees or hourly fees for meeting or time spent with your advisor). For your convenience, fees are deducted directly from your investment account(s) on a quarterly basis and are completely transparent on your account statements – no writing checks or bills sent in the mail. Is our cost fair? *Studies would suggest so, as our team consistently benchmarks our fees against peers. From reviewing these studies in detail, we’ve found that our cost of working with clients is in line with the industry average, however, we believe the depth of our advice and service we provide is above average as compared to peers.

What happens if things don’t work out?

The Center works best with clients who are seeking out a long-term relationship with a professional advisor/consultant. These are the folks we work best with and we’re proud of the firm’s high level of client retention. All of this being said, in some cases, things don’t always work out. If this occurs, we will help provide a smooth transition to your new advisory firm and in some cases, even help you find an advisor who could be a better fit for your needs. When we partner together, you are not signing a contract ‘locking you in’ to working with us for a specified period of time. There are no restrictions or penalties if you, or our team, ultimately decides to end our professional relationship.

What does your technology look like?

Creating a seamless and memorable client experience is paramount to our firm. In conjunction with some of the incredible tools Raymond James provides, The Center invests heavily in several financial planning, tax planning and investment management software tools. Make no mistake, technology does not replace the human touch! These technology solutions simply allow our team to better serve our clients and give our planners full access to your entire financial picture at our fingertips. In addition to our firm’s proprietary software tool we’ve named “CenterLink”, we also offer a secure client portal (also available as a mobile application) that provides an overview of the investment accounts clients trust to our care. The portal also offers a secure document exchange ‘vault’ that clients often find helpful.