Client Pledge
The J Ward Financial Client Pledge
When you are a client of J Ward Financial Services,
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- We pledge to focus on your goals and your success. We will use our Vision-Focused Planning™ process to create a financial future.
- We pledge to simplify your financial life and provide educated guidance to keep you from veering off into the wrong direction without understanding the circumstances and the potential for known risks.
- We pledge to use straightforward language and ideas
Our Principles
Quality Financial Planning Changes Lives™
What do you want your life to look like? How will you create the life you want?
Every successful business needs a Chief Financial Officer (CFO). At the highest level, we’ll serve as your Personal CFO through our Vision-Focused Planning™ process, assisting with the goal of creating the freedom, quality of life, and outcomes you wish for yourself and your family.
Our Client Pledge is based on our principles:
Interdisciplinary Approach
We use a time-tested process to assist you in accomplishing realistic goals that are important to you. We use a truly interdisciplinary approach to wealth because we have the background and expertise, and because that’s what we think is critical for our success with you. An interdisciplinary approach, in simple terms, allows us to see things a bit differently than others.
Good communication is critical to our joint efforts at achieving the goals for you and your family.
Hands-On Support
We’re here to leverage our interdisciplinary experience to help you with your financial life plan, and to ensure it remains relevant and up to date over time.
Strict Confidentiality
We keep your personal information personal unless you’ve given us authorization to discuss it with certain named individuals. We use advanced data security and protection protocols to keep your information confidential, but we also share your information with attorneys, accountants, and other professionals once you’ve authorized us to do so.
Proactive Attention
We’re always available to return calls in a short amount of time. Additionally, we schedule regular meetings to keep you up to date, and we reach out to you whenever we see opportunities or obstacles for your planning.
Achieving Your Vision
We use our Vision-Focused Planning™ process to help you focus on what’s important to you and yours, and to guide us in helping you achieve that vision for:
- Tax Planning
- Estate Planning
- Retirement Planning
- Investment Planning
- Protection Planning
That’s what we refer to as our Five Star Planning Approach. These are the five critical planning elements. Each part of the Vision-Focused Planning™ process is critical to reach the end goal. And we know that things change in your life over time, so we’re here to help you deal with those changes and adjust to them.
Timely Response
We strive to be readily accessible for our clients whenever they reach out to us. We do our best to return calls within one working day, and answer emails within one working day.
Flexible Engagement
We always remain flexible in how and when we engage with you because you’re the client, and we value our clients. We consider it a privilege to serve our clients. That’s why we tailor our meetings to accommodate your preferences, whether that be in-person, by phone, or via video conferencing.
Seasoned Advice
We always advise you according to what we think is in your best financial interests. This advice may not always be what you want to hear, but it will always be what we believe you need to hear for your long-term success through using evidence-based and evidence-backed results tracked over several decades.
Transparent Costs
As described under our principles, we serve as a fiduciary 100% of the time, and we always disclose our total fees. We are a FEE-ONLY advisor. We do not receive any commissions or compensation on the products or services that we recommend.
We don’t hide our fees. We’re transparent and we want you to know what we charge.
Fiduciary Commitment
What people really want, but seldom get, is a purely fiduciary relationship with their advisor. We put this in writing — not just in verbal promises that might be misunderstood or aren’t clearly defined.
The term “advisor” comes from advice, which means guidance or recommendations offered with regard to prudent future action, but many people don’t realize that they may be getting tainted advice.
What is a fiduciary? It means that I’m personally liable if I give bad advice. It requires me to act in the best interest of my clients. It’s unique in the industry.
We will always advise you to do what’s best for you and yours, according to your own financial interests, and this is critical for you.
What You Can Expect From Us
We provide an experienced interdisciplinary perspective to our clients. That’s something that very few financial advisors or wealth managers can offer. An interdisciplinary approach is something that simply allows us to see things a bit differently than others.
In addition to being a CFP® RICP®, which itself is a measure of experience and education and considered by many industry professionals to be the “Gold Standard” in the financial industry, Jim is also an experienced Estate Planning and Elder Law attorney with a post-graduate specialization law degree in Estate Planning. Both credentials together, combined with the experience of counseling thousands of clients, is what brings together our interdisciplinary approach to true wealth management for our clients. It’s something that almost no other advisor can bring to you and your family. We’re very unique in this way.
Besides being a former business banker and real estate lender, I’ve also held a real estate broker license for years (I do not buy or sell for clients), and I formerly held stockbroker licenses (now expired) and an insurance license (now inactive). This varied background and training truly helps me to provide special expertise to benefit my clients.
We look at the various aspects of your life to create an ongoing financial plan that fits your goals, values, and resources; maximizes your biggest opportunities; manages your greatest challenges; and seeks to sidestep the various pitfalls encountered along the way. That’s what we call our Vision-Focused Planning™ process. Yes, it’s a well-defined process geared towards fitting what’s best for our clients.
What We Expect From You
We expect you to participate, together with us, in your financial planning on an ongoing basis. We bring the expertise and knowledge, but, at all times you must remember that it’s your money, your family, and your plan. We can only advise based upon what we know about you and yours. You have to keep us updated on changes in your family and changes affecting your family, and we have to work together on this. You understand that each part of the J Ward Financial planning process is connected to other parts of the planning, and everything requires your input as we move ahead.
By delegating your plan’s implementation and monitoring to J Ward Financial, you understand you are hiring us to do what we do best on your behalf, so you can enjoy life more fully knowing that a dedicated fiduciary is at the helm working for you and yours. You understand that if you make significant decisions or changes to your situation or goals without our input or knowledge, this may affect our ability to provide the best advice for you.
We ask that you promptly respond to our emails and phone calls and follow up appropriately on requested data and documents that we request from you. Many financial planning and tax issues are time-sensitive, and we need to work together for the best outcome.
We expect you to receive documents electronically via email or your secure client portal unless you have specifically requested that you receive those documents through regular mail.
You understand that J Ward Financial only accepts clients who agree with the evidenced-based and evidence-backed investment strategy that we employ through our Vision-Focused Investing™ for long-term protection and growth through a passive investment strategy. Furthermore, you understand that we cannot serve the best interests of clients who are unwilling or unable to embrace a patient, low-cost, globally diversified approach and who do not believe in the eventual growth of the capital markets.
You also understand that J Ward Financial will not support your efforts to buy financial products or participate in speculative ventures that do not complement an evidence-based investment approach.
You understand that while we consider it a privilege to serve our clients, we do not accept all people as clients, and we have to work together with our clients that we do serve to obtain the best results for them.