As you follow the journey through the LongView process, we’ve now arrived at Mutual Commitment. This is the moment of truth for you, the prospective client, and for Hill. Having participated in both the Discovery and Planning stages, you now know a lot about Hill, as we do about you. We call it mutual because we’re both making significant commitments to each other. You are turning over your life savings for us to shepherd, and we are taking on a fiduciary obligation to act solely in your best interests. Yes. A significant commitment for both parties. This is a meaningful change for you if you’re coming from a large brokerage firm where their only obligation is suitability—meaning the broker is not required to put their interests below yours. Welcome to a higher standard.

Ultimately, your decision to make this commitment should be based on a feeling of trust and belief that all parties are better off working together than without each other. If we both agree to move forward, our team keeps it simple and as hassle-free as possible.

Click here to read a detailed summary of the entire process.

Recall from last month that Hill Investment Group has a defined process to introduce prospective clients to our firm and take them through the first 45 days as a new client. We call it The LongView Process. Last month I discussed Stage 1: Discovery, and now I’ll dig into Stage 2: Planning.

PLANNING
The Planning meeting begins with a review of everything that we captured in Discovery. Since then, we’ve translated your life into a Family Profile Map that categorizes everything with specific topic areas: goals, family, financials, etc. Once we’ve agreed that we have an accurate understanding of your family and finances, our team then walks through an outline of the transition, new allocation, and other improvements to be made.

One of the key topics you’ll understand clearly after the Planning meeting is what makes our philosophy on investing so different. We strive for after-tax, risk-adjusted, global market returns that few people actually get. Let’s pick that last sentence apart.

• “After-tax” returns are most important because we all pay taxes. No one can pay tuition or retire on pre-tax income. Our approach is highly sensitive to taxes.
• “Risk adjusted” means that we design a portfolio that reflects your willingness, ability, and need to take investment risk. We will do this by coupling your intangible desire to meet your goals with detailed modeling to paint a picture of potential outcomes…not just a single number.
• “Global” means that the typical equity portion of our portfolios reaches worldwide with approximately 12,000 underlying equities in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Emerging Markets.
• “Market Returns” means that your portfolio is designed to reflect the market with a tilt to value and small securities. We are not trying to beat the market. Rather, we are trying to build a portfolio that emphasizes those persistent and robust factors as identified in academic journals—those that have shown to outperform a typical market index like the S&P 500 over long periods of time (10, 20, 30+ years).
• “That few people actually get” means working with Hill will help you close The Behavior Gap. Simply put, individual investors tend to significantly underperform the market over time because of poor behavior. Driven by fear, they sell at market bottoms and subsequently (driven by greed) buy back into the market at its high—the exact opposite of what defines long-term investment success.

The takeaways are 1.) a clear understanding of your before & after, 2.) a well-documented summary of your personal and financial circumstances, and 3.) a deeper understanding of what makes our approach different. With these in hand, you are well situated to decide whether we’re the perfect fit.

Click here to read a detailed summary of the entire process.

Once prospective clients have a sense of our firm and philosophy, the next step is understanding what’s involved in becoming a client of Hill Investment Group. We have a simple, four-step process: 1) Discovery, 2) Planning, 3) Commitment, and 4) Review.

Over the coming months I’ll detail each step of the process, but for now let’s start at the beginning.

DISCOVERY
In order to build the most accurate and complete long-term financial plan, we believe it’s critically important for us to learn as much as we can about you and your family. Why? Our experience has taught us that no two families are alike, and, therefore, no two investment plans are alike. Our goal is to create a completely custom plan that fits you and your goals.

Using a comprehensive mapping process, we capture details about financial and non-financial aspects of your life—key relationships, goals and life priorities. We visually organize the information, and the resulting document becomes a living, breathing tool to capture changes in your plan over the course of our relationship. Seeing everything in one place allows you—and us—to identify gaps that need to be closed.

Done properly, we will know you better than anyone that doesn’t share your last name. It’s a great long-term fit for those who want to feel understood.

Click here to read a detailed description of the entire process.