by Kevin Slater, CEO, Lead Advisor, CFP®
Our goal at SoundView Advisors is to make a deep and lasting positive impact on clients’ lives by providing highly personalized, proactive, and comprehensive financial advice. Whether it’s taxes, insurance, employer benefits, estate planning, gifting, or education funding – There are many ways we can help you get ahead financially beyond just picking investment options.
It is a challenge to develop a fee structure which reflects this depth and breadth of service. The structure shouldn’t be confusing (for clients), onerous to manage (for us), or generate unexpected headaches (for anyone)! Over the years, we have considered numerous ways to calculate our fees; each has its own challenges.
For example, an hours-based approach may sound appealing, but there are drawbacks. It can discourage open communication. We don’t want a client choosing NOT to call us because they are worried about the cost—our advice might save them far more than our fees! An hours-based fee may also create unhappy surprises: how would clients feel about receiving an invoice for hours spent analyzing something we ultimately recommend against or spent resolving an issue on their behalf?
Ultimately, we settled on an asset-based approach to our fees that is reflective of our client’s total invested assets; and their whole portfolio. Think of it as a sort of simplified net worth-based retainer fee. It is intended to reflect our commitment to advise clients on any financial question at any time. We feel it is simple to calculate, while scaling to address the full complexity of each client’s individual situation and encourages communication about ANY question, at any time.
While our asset-based fee structure may infer (to some) that the value of our services is primarily in investment selection and trading, that is not our intent. As noted above, much of our work and value does not always directly correlate to individual account values. In the end, we chose a simple structure knowing that from time-to-time we may have to explain our thought process.
Thank you for allowing us to make a positive impact on your life. We are fortunate to be in a business that can do that every day.