The QuickStart meeting allows you to ask questions to a fee-only financial advisor online. You pay for advice and information, and you are not required to transfer assets, invest money, or buy any products.
With this arrangement, my only goal is to provide helpful information. You’re paying a fee to get answers—not for a product or service—so there’s no pushy sales pitch or “product of the day.” As a flat-fee financial advice offering, I don’t have any reason to hold back information or steer you toward certain solutions.
Highlights: One-Time Advice
This is truly a one-time financial advice solution. If you’re hesitant to turn your life savings over to somebody, you can still get professional guidance.
- Fiduciary advice: I’m required to put your interests first.
- No investment required: If you prefer to do it all yourself, that’s great.
- Discuss any topic (investments or anything else): Want to talk about your loan choices, insurance, retirement planning, or other topics? No problem! But retirement planning and investing are my primary areas of focus.
- Get investment reviews and advice: I can review what you’re currently doing and share my opinion along with any pointers that come to mind.
- Specific investment recommendations: I can provide an investment model using index funds or ETFs for you to implement yourself (including ticker symbols for Fidelity, Schwab, or Vanguard). In other words, this can be financial advice for DIY investors.
- Get a second opinion: If you want to confirm that you’re on the right path, get a second opinion on the financial strategies you’re considering or your DIY investment approach.
- Available nationwide: Although I’m in Colorado, I can work with people in all 50 U.S. states.
- Financial advice only: This is a way to get guidance without hiring an asset manager.
What to Expect
Not everybody needs an in-depth financial plan right now. This may be the right solution when you have a pressing issue or just want a second opinion on something.
Here’s how this one-time consultation works:
- An 80-minute phone or video call devoted to your questions and your situation.
- You can upload documents securely before the meeting so I can access everything quickly during our call.
- Ask your questions and voice your concerns. If I know the answers or can find them during our time, I’ll tell you.
- I occasionally glance at the documents you provide beforehand, but do not count on that.
- I do not prepare reports or conduct any analysis outside of our time together.
- We can do back-of-the-napkin math or some basic spreadsheet work during the meeting.
- Fully online process, including signing the agreement and payment by credit card or bank draft.
Important: Unfortunately, I might not know the answer to every question, or I can’t complete a sufficient analysis during a brief one-time engagement. If that happens, you’re welcome to engage at a deeper level (I currently have a multi-hour minimum) or explore other ways to work with me. It’s best to tell me what you want to talk about before you sign up so that I can tell you if this is a good fit.
Payment Details
- You pay $685 before the meeting.
- Payment is typically by credit card or bank draft.
How to Get Started
Let’s have a short discussion to help me understand your needs. Start by scheduling an introductory call. The best way to do that is to send a message to Info@ApproachFP.com. Please don’t include any confidential or sensitive information in your message.
The introductory call is optional if you’re already 100% certain that you want to do this. But please read all of the information below carefully before signing up.
Who Should Not Sign Up
It’s okay if we’re not a perfect fit—somebody else may be better for you. Please don’t waste your time with me if any of the following apply:
- You want to invest your 401(k) or IRA savings in real estate that you own or manage.
- You want a detailed analysis of individual stocks or bonds. Generally, I’m not a fan of individual holdings, although I realize you may be stuck with some legacy holdings that we may need to deal with (and I might be able to provide ideas on that).
- You want a detailed retirement income plan that projects specifically how your investments, Social Security, taxes, pension, and other resources work together and might unfold year-by-year. Please consider my one-time or ongoing services instead. I can’t pull that off in 80 minutes.
- You want ongoing access to an hourly financial planner (see below on working together after the meeting).
- You want a “comprehensive” financial plan.
$685 Just to Talk? That Seems Expensive!
Perhaps, although it depends on how you define “expensive.” Consider some of the alternatives available. This isn’t to criticize other advisors, but rather to encourage an informed decision.
Some advisors might give advice that you don’t pay a fee for, but you pay commissions instead. Let’s assume you’re starting with something as small as an annual IRA contribution of $7,000. With the standard 5.75% upfront sales charge on loaded funds, you’re paying $402.50 upfront, and the broker’s firm gets an additional 0.25% per year indefinitely (in addition to other internal fund costs—please see a prospectus). Plus, they might only recommend products that pay commissions, ignoring the broader universe of options available.
More importantly, you might want advice that goes beyond which investment to buy.
Some financial planners want a bigger commitment than a one-time meeting. That’s understandable, as there are only 24 hours in a day, and they might not be able to accommodate small engagements. Planners often want you to sign up for annual or monthly payments that amount to thousands of dollars per year, and they may prefer to go in-depth on every possible topic (instead of just answering focused questions). Meanwhile, some advisors require you to transfer assets for them to invest, with potential tax consequences and an average advisory fee of roughly 1% per year (and they might have asset minimums). Again, no judgment—every advisor gets to design their own offerings, and there are certainly people who want what they’re offering.
When you don’t need investment management services, your $685 might buy you more clarity on when you can retire and how that might look. That might be all you need to make some decisions, or it might help you find the right path if you want to do additional research and calculations on your own.
Ultimately, I hope that the value you get out of this meeting—over the coming years—exceeds the price. But I can’t guarantee anything, so you’ll have to decide what’s best.
Potential Drawbacks
- Again, I might not know all of the answers to your questions or be able to find them during the meeting.
- I may not be able to calculate everything for you, especially with multiple moving parts.
- Sometimes the most creative ideas come after I think about things for a while and explore. One-time engagements don’t lend themselves to those “Aha!” moments.
- I don’t implement things for you—you’re on your own to complete any tasks, although I do my best to coach you, and sometimes we work through everything together online.
- What might seem like a simple question can require digging into numerous areas. That takes time, and may require information that’s not immediately available. In those cases, we do our best, and I coach you on what to ask, look for, and think about as you move forward.
- Remember that this is a one-time meeting only. Clarification or follow up questions are not included, so be sure to clarify everything during the 80 minutes.
- There may be other pitfalls as well.
All that said, clients generally walk away with more clarity than they started with, they say the experience has been valuable, and I feel good about the guidance I provide.
I Don’t Know What Questions to Ask
You don’t need to know all of the right questions. You’re probably looking for advice because you have hopes, challenges, or goals—but it’s not clear how to get there. I will most likely have clarifying questions that help us understand the possibilities available to you (as well as your preferences).
Can We Keep Working Together After the Meeting?
The QuickStart is designed to be a one-time offering, although you’re welcome to ask about additional services down the road. Here’s what you should know:
- A small percentage of people decide to have me manage investments. However, most QuickStart clients are DIY investors and they do not want investment management.
- It may be possible to add one full hour within 30 days of your QuickStart meeting, if necessary. Again, this is rare. But if we run out of time or you want to ask clarification questions, it might be an option.
As far as checking back in every 6, 12, or 18 months, I don’t make any promises. As of now, the answer is yes, clients are able to do followup meetings. As long as I’m offering the service, you’re welcome to keep coming back. But there might come a time when I say, “I don’t do those anymore.”
The best I can say is this: Consider the meeting a one-time consultation for financial advice. I believe you’ll walk away with more clarity on retirement and investing. But if an ongoing hourly relationship is the highest priority, it might be wise to keep looking.
FAQs
Is one-time planning just a trick to get investment clients?
Some advisors use bait-and-switch tactics to get a foot in the door, but this is truly a one-time financial planning option for DIYers or anybody else who just has questions. You are not expected or required to invest anything—you just pay a fixed fee for advice. Over the years, a small percentage of one-time advice clients might choose to become investment management clients. Some people use one-time services to “kick the tires” and see what it’s like to work with me. But the vast majority do not (and will never) hire me for investment management. That’s perfectly fine.
Can I talk to an advisor just once?
Yes, with one-time financial advice meetings, you can start getting answers and advice without going through numerous meetings. We typically start with a short introductory meeting to make sure this is the right fit for you, but you can skip the intro meeting if you prefer to start asking detailed financial questions immediately. There’s no need to jump through hoops only to find out that it’s not a good fit or that an advisor is really selling something different.
Can I ever just talk to a financial planner without investing?
Yes, it’s possible to get answers to your questions and guidance on your situation without needing to transfer or invest money. Instead of paying investment management fees, you might pay a one-time fixed fee or hourly fees. If you prefer to keep DIYing the investments, that’s perfectly fine.
Am I required to invest money with you?
No, you can just ask questions and we can discuss your existing plan or strategy (or help you start developing one) with no requirement to invest money. This is ideal for DIYers, those who do not have significant assets, or those who have have money that cannot be moved elsewhere and managed by a financial advisor.
Can you give tax advice?
Yes, we can discuss how various strategies might affect your taxes today and in the future. The main area of focus is retirement planning, such as pre-tax, Roth (including conversions), and taxable accounts. Other factors include Social Security claiming and how that affects your taxes, Medicare IRMAA surcharges, capital gains, and more.
Can you tell me when to claim Social Security?
Yes, we can discuss when it might make the most sense to start Social Security retirement benefits based on your big-picture finances, including your retirement accounts, other sources of income, spousal and survivor benefits (including divorced ex-spouses), and more. The level of detail depends on the engagement, but you can often learn a lot and understand the key drivers—and common misconceptions—in these meetings.
Can you give investment advice in these one-time planning meetings?
Yes, we can evaluate your current investments, and I can give you a model for an easy-to-maintain portfolio of index funds, including the ticker symbol and suggested percentage for each holding. I generally recommend ETFs or mutual funds, but if you have other holdings, we can take a look.
Are you a fiduciary, and is this fee-only advice?
Yes, this is fee-only advice with no commissions or product sales, and I am a fiduciary financial planner.
What experience and credentials do you have related to retirement planning?
Justin Pritchard, CFP® has over 20 years of experience working with clients, he has an MBA from the University of Colorado, he has the Retirement Management Advisor (RMA®) designation, and he has focused on retirement for most of his career. He doesn’t know everything about everything, but he frequently talks with clients about retirement planning topics like Social Security strategy, taxes, withdrawal and income strategies, investing, and more. He has written hundreds of articles on personal finance, many of them on retirement planning, and been quoted in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Consumer Reports, Investopedia, Kiplinger, Financial Planning, and other outlets.
Will you review my financial plan and tell me if it’s going to work or if I’m missing something?
Yes, I can look at your plan or your spreadsheet with you and share ideas. I’ll let you know if it seems reasonable, review the assumptions, and discuss anything that looks concerning to me. That said, since I’m not creating the plan myself, I can’t guarantee that I’ll catch every single thing. Still, it’s hard to find people who offer this service, so I’m happy to do it as long as you acknowledge there are limitations to this one-time offering. People generally appreciate the “sanity check” or second set of eyes on their own planning.
Financial advisors won’t talk to me unless I invest money with them or meet a $1 million minimum? Are you like that?
I’m happy to work with clients who do not invest money with me. My one-time meeting is designed for DIY investors, as well as people who do not have significant assets available to transfer. Your money might be tied up in a 401(k) plan, or you might not have significant assets to invest, and that’s okay.
More Information
- See the questions you should ask a financial advisor before hiring them.
- Justin Pritchard, CFP®, is a fee-only fiduciary financial advisor.
- Curious why you might work with an advisor online? See the pros and cons of online planning.
- You can learn more about Justin Pritchard’s background and experience on the About page.
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