Nice people who need our help. While this may seem like a simplistic answer it really is how we feel. Yes, you will need to have some money to invest. We generally work with portfolios ranging from $250,000 to over $10,000,000. That said, we don’t set account minimums. We like working with people who are different ages and have different circumstances. If we can find a way to add some value without giving our services away, we’ll tell you what we can do. So the money part has a lot of flexibility. But the “Nice people” and “need our help” parts are non-negotiable. Let’s break that down.
Nice people means that we have a natural comfort level with each other. Managing someone’s money is an extremely personal matter. Life is much too short to work with people you aren’t comfortable with. We don’t have to become best friends (although many of our clients are just that) but we do have to believe and trust in each other.
Needing our help recognizes that some people would rather manage their finances without the help of an advisor. Or they want to work with the lowest cost provider. These are valid points of view. They just don’t apply to working with us. We work with people who want help. We’ve spent literally thousands of hours developing our skills over the years. We think we’re pretty good at what we do. But that last thing we want to do is try to be all things to all people. You can do this on your own. We just think it’s a whole lot easier to let us help.