Business Philosophy

Our Philosophy

The following principles guide us in providing you with professional, trustworthy, objective advice:

• We are a fee only financial planning practice. We are compensated solely and directly by our clients. We receive no commissions or compensation from any third parties. Our recommendations center on objectively achieving your goals, not on compensation that can be earned from commissions on products you may buy.
• We strive to provide value for our clients. Our packaged service and hourly fee compensation arrangements provide clients with economical access to financial advice. Clients can also control the costs of financial advice by paying only for the services and time they require.
• We understand that there are more facets to planning your future than those that are solely financial. We introduce aspects of life planning into our client discussions to obtain a broader perspective on the goals clients set. Do both spouses have the same views on retirement planning? What role does your extended family play in setting your goals? What experiences in the past now shape your views on money, risk and saving habits? We recognize these things can be important influences on your overall financial behavior and goals. Discussing these matters can help you understand and fine tune your motivations and help us design an action plan that is sensitive to these influences.
• We recognize and fully accept the fiduciary role we have in our relationships with clients. This obligates us to put our client’s interests before our own interests. While this is a standard of CFP® professionals, many financial service providers are not bound by this requirement.
• Our practice focuses primarily on the middle and upper middle class segment of the population often ignored by investment advisors looking to tap into the lucrative market of the wealthy. We don’t require a specific minimum net worth or investment portfolio size. Our goal is to provide helpful advice to those who seek guidance.
• Our clients benefit from our emphasis on investment frugality. The core of our typical investment portfolio recommendations emphasizes low cost, reputable, performing fund families. Low cost investment options can provide meaningful investment return advantages over similar funds with higher expense ratios. In addition, our investment management services are typically based on an hourly management fee, rather than a potentially more costly % of assets basis.
• With GC Financial Advisors, you retain control of your investment portfolio and your costs. Comprehensive financial planning is still the most thorough and broad based review of your financial condition. However, you can pick and choose our services on an a la carte basis to target the specific areas where advice can be most beneficial to you. When providing investment management advice, it is you, not us, who has access to your investment accounts. We are there to assist you with investment strategy implementation. We also can be retained on an hourly fee basis for monitoring and updating your investment portfolio and strategies as market or personal financial conditions change.