Financial advice – why it has to be personal

One size never really fits everyone. If it does not work with suits or even socks, it certainly will never work for financial advice.

There are still financial advisers who try to arrange a standard set of products for every client – an off the peg financial plan. At Continuum, our approach is rather different. We prefer to create a solution tailored to your real goals and objectives.

Our clients are all individuals, and all have their own particular circumstances, priorities, goals and needs. They all need advice that reflects their uniqueness.

By providing it, we can help them avoid the pitfalls and financial provisions they don’t need, and focus resources on those they do. It means a tailored financial solution that could help them reach their personal goals faster, and frequently save money to do so.

The advice we offer one client might be completely different to the answers we provide for another – because they have very different needs.

Getting to know you

So how do we provide an individual service to every client we work with?

The answer is that we start with you. The first stage of our service is all about getting to know you and understanding what you are looking for. We start with one of our experienced advisers discussing your aims and ambitions.

This will help him or her understand the things you want to achieve in life, and the sort of lifestyle you want to enjoy now and in the future. It will also be a chance for you to get to know your adviser, and to start to build a trust in their skills.

Putting what we learn to use.

Once we know what you are looking for, we can start to build a financial plan which will help you achieve it.

We are independent and unbiased – so the recommendations we make and the products we select are based solely on your needs.

So, in the short term, your plan could potentially help you pay less for things like your life insurance and mortgage, for example, by using state of the art technology to source the most appropriate solution to suit your circumstances. We can use the same independent approach to help you make investments that could potentially grow your money faster, or more securely.

But our personal approach is designed to provide the solution for the long term, too.

Key to this is our lifetime cashflow forecast. This uses sophisticated financial planning software to provide views of your financial future based on your current finances. It will let you see how the decisions you make now could impact your future. You might see, for example, that you need to embark on a wealth creation plan to live the life you want – or you might discover that you could potentially afford to retire early.

It will help us build a list of the products and measures you need – a roadmap for making the most of your money.

Ongoing personal service

Of course, your circumstances will change as your life moves on. The financial solutions that are suitable for you must change with them.

This is why at Continuum, we aim at ensuring the plans we make with you have flexibility built in – and that we can work with you for the long term to help ensure that they stay the most suitable fit for your needs. We call our approach lifestyle financial planning. It must be based on a long-term relationship. When you need to look at your finances – when a family comes along, or when retirement is getting close – someone you already know and trust will be there to provide it.

We believe that our personal approach gives you the help you need to make the most of your money and your life – and an expert financial partner to call on at any time.

So, when is the best time to start? The answer is now. The sooner we start working with you, the sooner we can provide the tailored solutions you need.

The information contained in this article is based on the opinion of Continuum and does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to suitable investment strategy, you should seek independent financial advice before embarking on any course of action.

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