Your financial plan is not just hitting a ‘number’ for retirement. It’s about feeling secure to live the life you want.
Holistic Financial Planning
We work to help you along the path to long-term success. Our financial planning process strives to help achieve your goals. Our advice is rooted in a deep understanding of many aspects of financial planning, including investments, tax, estate planning, and insurance. Here’s what to expect from us:
Before we can plan, we need to know where you are and where you want to be. We begin with a free, no-strings-attached meeting that helps us understand who you are, what is important to you, and how we can help. We achieve a clear understanding of your short-term and long-term needs and aspirations. This process helps us learn more about your goals. We work to understand your current obligations, limitations, and preferences. For example, clients often have a short-term expected cash flow needs, like college planning. Other clients have investment restrictions based on their job. Incorporating all available data into our analysis is critical for developing a robust financial plan.
Fee Reviews
The financial industry has an ugly truth: excessive and often hidden fees charged for investment products run rampant. As part of our initial consultation with prospective clients, we offer a free fee review. This helps you understand the fees you pay on your existing investments, and covers any fees you may be paying for advisory, brokerage or custodial services, as well as expense ratios on your securities and fund investments. We also present potential options for you to save on fees through more cost-effective investment options.
Lowering the burden of unnecessary fees paid by clients is always time well spent. We often find that we can save clients a significant amount of money on fees, which is a fantastic mechanism to further compound your wealth. Simply put, the long-term impact of reducing fees is substantial. Even saving half a percent per year in fees has dramatic consequences on your wealth over decades.
We believe in an approach to financial planning that focuses on impact. The way you work with us depends on your style. Do you want to send us every financial document you have and let us figure it out? That's great! Would you like to focus on a specific area? That's perfectly fine too. No matter what your style, we work with you to identify your pain points, and then we find solutions to your problems. The issues that matter most to you now are typically the most important. Let's address them as soon as possible. Once those issues are taken care of, we will turn our focus to other items that help you, and repeat as needed.
The most valuable lesson from our years of experience is to focus on risk. This includes risk in the market as well as business and personal risk. For instance: while investors cannot control the return the market provides, they can control the amount of risk they take in the market. The ability and willingness to take risk is specific to each client. Another example: what's the difference between losing money in the market, versus coming out of pocket to cover repairs because your home is now underinsured? The answer: nothing! We’ll work with you to understand your unique situation, identify areas of risk, and determine the mix of solutions that are a good fit for your goals, time horizon, and level of comfort.
As our relationship progresses, we will work with you and your agents to implement your plan. For example, we will be happy to coordinate your plan with your attorney for legal implementation, your accountant for any complicated tax questions specific to your situation, or your insurance agent for any life or property insurance you need. If it's right for you, we will implement the investment portion of your plan ourselves. Our goal is to provide you with the best advice, putting your needs first.
Ongoing management of your financial plan includes working with you on specific areas that we can improve. This requires a personal relationship and open lines of communication with you. Once we begin working together, we check in periodically to discuss open items, monitor your progress, and ensure you are comfortable with the progress made towards your goals. Life changes often require updates to your plan and investment mix, and we will work with you to ensure we’re ahead of any issues you may be facing. Most of all, we want you to feel comfortable with your plan, so we are always available to discuss or answer your questions.
Martello Investments, LLC 201 E City Hall Ave., Suite 700 Norfolk, VA 23510 (757) 337-3599
This website is not an offer to, or solicitation of, any potential clients or investors for the provision by Martello Investments, LLC of investment management, advisory or any other related services. No material listed on this website is or should be construed as investment advice, nor is anything on this website an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any security or other instrument. Links from this website to third-party websites do not imply any endorsement by the third party of this website or of the link; nor do they imply any endorsement by this firm of the third-party website or of the link.
