Our Process
Reaching For Your Highest Potential
Meet Our Team
1.
Discovery:
Regardless of what your specific goals entail, our process always begins with discovery. During our initial meeting, we will help you articulate and prioritize your goals. Is it retiring comfortably? Sending children to college? Passing wealth to your heirs or your community? Probably some, if not all, of the above. Setting goals is vital, but so is prioritizing and understanding the tradeoffs.
2.
Planning:
With goals in hand, we can make informed decisions about the most appropriate Guided Financial Plan. Throughout this stage in the planning process, we will develop strategies in many different areas: savings, income, investments, healthcare, social security, taxes, and estate planning.
3.
Implementing:
Next comes implementing your Guided Financial Plan. It is important that there is clarity on what items need to be completed and by whom so that each key strategy in your plan is implemented correctly. We will be that accountability partner to help ensure your financial life in order.
4.
monitoring and review:
Finally, all financial strategies of your Guided Financial Plan are monitored faithfully. Are you on track for each goal? If not, what should be changed? Our team will continually review your plan, meet with you on a regular basis, and make adjustments as your life, circumstances and goals change.
Whether you are looking to articulate and prioritize your goals, establish a new Guided Financial Plan, or reposition your current portfolio, we will collaborate with you to ensure your goals are being actively and purposefully pursued.
We help our clients gain clarity on their financial goals and dream big. Financial goals often feel like climbing a tall mountain summit. If fact, some financial goals seem so far-fetched that it is incomprehensible on how they are going to reach them.
When climbing a tall mountain,
it takes a lot of planning, preparation, and hard work. But most importantly you need someone on your team that has the experience to help you climb the mountain and get back down safely. This person is often a hired professional guide. This trusted guide has been up and down that mountain hundreds of times and knows the problems, challenges, pitfalls that you will face and knows how to help you prepare for the climb and how to get you to the top and back down safely. Retirement is no different. It takes planning, preparation, and hard work. While you are climbing this path toward your retirement goals and journeying through retirement, the environment and situations change and you will face unexpected challenges. You will need a team of retirement guides to help you plan, prepare, and climb towards retirement and then safely journey through this time of your life.
To do this one needs a well-designed and executed Guided Financial Plan.
Guided Financial Plan
The Summit View Difference
Your Guided Financial Plan is centered around your goals. We will help you articulate and prioritize your goals. Then we will start developing strategies for the key components of your plan like saving strategies, income strategies, investments, healthcare, social security, taxes and estate planning, all for one purpose to help you pursue your goals. As we make this journey together, we will be there to help you, guide you and to be your accountability partner so that you can work towards your highest potential.
Save
Retirement saving strategy
Most people have no idea how much they need to save for retirement. They know that they might get some money from social security. They know that they are saving a little bit in their 401K. They may have a rental property. But combining this all together into one retirement saving strategy and helping someone know exactly how much they need to be saving is what we do. So now you know the monthly amount that you need to be saving, but what tax type of accounts do you save money in? Do you save them in pre-tax accounts or post-tax accounts are taxable accounts? How much money to save in each tax type account is very important so that down the road when you start taking money out of your accounts during retirement, you will enjoy more of your hard-earned dollars and not give them away to taxes.
Income
Retirement income strategy
How much money can you safely take from my accounts and not run out of money? Are you going to need to take a pay cut if the market goes down or if there is a recession? Which accounts should you pull money out of so you are paying the least amount of taxes throughout your retirement years? Is your money going to last as long as you are? What happens if your spouse passes away? Will he or she be taken care of? These are the questions that we answer in a well-developed retirement income strategy.
Investment
Investment strategy
What investments should you be investing in during this stage of your life? What do you do with your investments if there is a recession? What if you retire in a year that there is a recession? Will you still be able to retire? How do you need to change your investments as you approach your retirement goal? Do you need to have more conservative investments as you enter and go through retirement? Your investment strategy needs to be developed well before any of these questions need to be answered so you have a plan you can stick to and follow in challenging times.
Healthcare
Healthcare Strategy
What do you plan to do for healthcare when you retire? How do you plan to pay for healthcare in retirement? What are you going to do for dental and vision which are not covered under original Medicare? Nearly 70 percent of retirees feel somewhat or very concerned about both their health and the cost of health care heading into retirement. The top three spending concerns in retirement all relate to health care. Most advisors offer solutions for not running out of money, but very few advisors offer solutions for what to do with health care and have expertise in that field. We work with hundreds of people on Medicare and are experts in this field. We will develop a healthcare strategy tailored to your needs and situation.
Social Security
Social Security Strategy
Do you have a Social Security strategy? When are you going to take Social Security? Do you start Social Security when you retire or do you continue to let it grow? How does social security affect my tax situation? We guide our clients through these questions and decide on the best social security strategy to use while taking into account all other financial resources in a tax-efficient matter.
Tax
Tax Planning Strategy
Do you have a 5 year, 10 year, or even a 15-year tax planning strategy? Most people are trying to do tax planning at the very end of the year or even after the year has finished. Does this sound familiar? At this point, it is too late. We review our clients tax returns and look for planning opportunities not only for that year but develop a long-term tax strategy to help save more on taxes over a long-term horizon. Sometimes paying more taxes now can help someone pay much less in taxes over their lifetime. You can only know this if you have a properly developed tax planning strategy.
Estate
Estate Planning strategy
Have you experienced an emergency before? We are sure you have and learned through that experience that when an emergency happens, it is too late to plan for that emergency. No one wants to be in a bad accident and unable to make decisions on their own. No one wants to die prematurely and leave loved ones behind. Do you have the proper documents in place to ensure that your loved ones and your care are taken care of if an accident happens? If you did die, will your assets be passed to the intended heirs and beneficiaries. These are important questions to address. We help our clients make sure they have a proper estate planning strategy in place in case of an accident or premature death.
Accountability Partner
Accountability strategy
Financially successful people are not much different from those that are just doing “ok” financially. Their financial IQ is about the same. They have similar financial goals and opportunities available to them. The big difference, however, is the financially success person actually does the things that they know they should be doing, and the financially mediocre person does not. Life happens and gets busy. Many important financial things do not happen because other less important, but more urgent things come up. Don’t worry, we get it. Life is no different for us. But we can help. We will ensure that all steps in your Guided Financial Plan are implemented and executed. We are your accountability partners. We will help you get those financially important things done and off your to-do list.
