What Is Wealth Management?

Once you’ve reached a certain level of success, you may find the financial responsibilities difficult to manage. Your decisions about your money become more complex, your taxes increase, and you have new financial responsibilities that divert your attention from the other things you need or want to do.

That is where a wealth manager can step in. They may call themselves by a different title, such as a financial planner, financial advisor, or wealth advisor—but their role is to give you breathing room by managing your wealth for you. You gain back your time while receiving the benefits of a financial professional who has the expertise to take on the financial complexity for you.

Working with the professionals in our Kansas City, MO-based wealth management office, you receive a range of services, including:

• Customized investment recommendations

• Tax analysis and planning

• College funding

• Health care and insurance planning

• Employee benefits review

• Advice on stock options and restricted stock

• Estate and beneficiary review

• Charitable giving strategies

• Additional services for business owners including exit strategies and calculations of business value

As your wealth management firm, we pull together all these focus areas into a cohesive and comprehensive blueprint. You can gain a more complete picture of your wealth, make informed decisions about how you can leverage it, and sleep better at night knowing that fiduciary financial professionals are watching out for you and your money.

We think of wealth management as helping you expand on your success so that you enjoy prosperity—your vision of prosperity. Whatever your goals may be, the right wealth management advisor can go a long way toward helping you attain them.

The Wealth Management Process

Your wealth manager should follow a structured process to help account for, protect, and grow your assets. This process will vary from firm to firm, but the purpose is to understand your needs, design the appropriate strategies, and implement them.

At Prosperity Planning, we call this process the Prosperity Planning Blueprint™, and we use it to create your personalized wealth management plan.

Here's how it works:

1. It’s All About You

Your hopes and dreams. Your worries. What keeps you up at night. We collect your facts and figures, including important details that are often overlooked. We go above and beyond, taking time to understand your personal financial story and values.

2. BRINGING YOUR NUMBERS TO LIFE

Together we look at scenarios to envision your future. Our process is highly interactive and visual. What if you retire sooner? Or buy a second home? What happens if markets take a sudden decline? By looking at the possibilities, you can focus on the things you can control—like how much to save or spend, and how to invest wisely. You can have confidence that your financial plan is sustainable, even in a world of uncertainty.

3. WE PUT IT IN WRITING

Talk is cheap, but documentation is indispensable. Your Prosperity Planning Blueprint™ summarizes your facts and figures along with the recommendations created just for you. This helps ensure your finances are organized, coordinated, and maximized to meet your most important goals. Your Blueprint is a living document that is updated regularly, so it also serves as an essential reference for you or your loved ones in case of an emergency.

4. MAKING IT HAPPEN

We guide you every step of the way in implementing your plan. This includes fine-tuning your investment strategy, updating beneficiaries, and much more. We also proactively collaborate with other professionals to update wills and trusts, refinance mortgages, plug insurance gaps, and implement tax-saving strategies.

5. PROACTIVE UPDATES

An effective plan needs to keep up with a changing economy and life events. We monitor your investments, track your progress, meet with you regularly, and keep your Blueprint up to date. You also have unlimited access to a CFP® professional for any financial question that arises.

What Areas Does Wealth Management Address?

To put it in a nutshell, your wealth management plan should address all the financial areas of your life. It should pull them together into a cohesive plan of interrelated strategies.

Because everyone’s life and financial situation are unique, we create a tailored financial plan for each client. Areas we commonly address include:

• Customized investment recommendations: Our objective with ongoing investment management is to help optimize the returns you need to achieve your goals.

• Tax analysis and planning: We are a tax-centered wealth management firm, and you receive ongoing tax planning from our Certified Public Accountant (CPA).

• College funding: Your financial plan includes recommendations for tax-advantaged savings vehicles for higher-education expenses.

• Health care and insurance planning: We review your current and future needs and advise on coverage to help protect you and your family.

• Employee benefits review: Even if we do not directly manage your 401(k), we review it and your other benefits as part of your overall wealth management plan.

• Advice on stock options and restricted stock: Decisions around equity compensation can be surprisingly emotional, especially if you’re receiving conflicting advice from colleagues. We help provide an objective perspective so you can make the right choices for you.

• Estate and beneficiary review: Your estate plan should help protect you while you’re living and carry out your wishes after you pass. We provide ongoing reviews of your estate documents and beneficiaries to make sure they still align with your legacy wishes.

• Charitable giving strategies: If you’re charitably inclined, you should have a giving strategy that enables you to tax-efficiently support your favorite organizations. We help you decide on the right strategy for you.

• Additional services for business owners: We have expertise with business owner planning, including exit strategies and calculations of business value. Our objective is to help you create more value, control, and flexibility in your company so you can exit on your terms and create the lifestyle you desire in your next life chapter.