How Can We Help You?
That is the first and most important thing that both you and we need to determine, that’s why we want to make it clear that your initial chat is always at no charge to you.
It’s a chance for you tell us what you need and for us to determine how we can help.
There are two ways to work with us.
We can either provide a full holistic financial plan, targeted independent financial advice or indeed both. Details in the video and below.
Financial Planning
A Holistic Financial plan is about turning your finances in to a tool, that will enable you to live the life that you want on the terms you want.
It’s about what you’ll need, when you’ll need it and how to get it! Once your plan is in place you should have a clearer understanding of your finances.
Once your plan is in place you might also want us to provide targeted advice and ongoing support but your plan will leave you in a place that allows you to move forward alone if you so wish.
Targeted advice is about the details.
It’s about which pension plan / ISA / Mortgage etc. from the sea of available options is best for your personal circumstances.
Targeted advice is for solving a specific problem, at a specific time.
For some client this is all they want or perhaps at a certain point in like all they need.
Targeted Advice
The Next Steps
During your first initial chat if you decide that you want to move forward with us then we will agree whether we are initally providing full holistic financial planning or targeted advice.
We follow a straight forward step by step process for each type of advice for each service, described in broad terms, the fin details will of course be adapted to meet your specific situation.
Our Financial Planning Process
Defining Purpose
Fundamentally money is simply a tool to allow you the freedom to make choices. Choices that benefit you and the people that matter to you most.
If we are to advise you successfully we need to understand what’s really important to you, what your priorities are and ultimately what you want to do with your life!
Financial Snapshot
Once we understand what is important to you, we need to take account of the resources that you have available, and the commitments you already have.
This process involves us gathering a lot of data both from you, from the companies that you hold policies and plans with and even from the government.
We will need to understand;
- Your income, now and in the future
- Your outgoings, now and in the future
- Your current assets, property, savings, pensions, investments etc.
- Your future assets, inheritances business sales etc.
The future is anything but certain, and we know it will change, but without taking reasonable assumptions in to account you will never be able to make ‘all things being equal’ decisions.
Modelling The Now
Once we have all your financial information mapped in our software against your known goals we are able to ‘model the now’ and project in to the future.
With the ‘now’ thoroughly examined we can quickly identify any issues.
What if? How much? When can?
With your ‘now’ model in place we can start talking about and modelling the ‘What if…?’ scenarios.
When we consider the ‘what ifs’ we can cover an enormous amount internal and external factors and how they might affect your financial future.
Common scenarios we will look at;
- What if the economy crashes?
- What if one of us dies?
- What if one of the kids trains as a Dr and we need to fund 7 years at Uni and not 3!
- How much do I need to put in to my pension each month?
- How much will I need to retire?
- How much life insurance do we actually need?
- How much do I need to invest to buy XXX in XXX years?
- How much investment risk do I need to take to meet my objectives?
- How much investment risk can I afford to take?
- How much investment risk can I psychologically deal with?
- How much investment risk am I currently taking?
- How much wiggle room is in my plan?
- When can I afford to retire?
- When can I afford to go on my world tour?
- When can I afford to upsize / downsize my home?
- When can I afford to start my own business?
- What if everything all goes wrong? What is my plan B?
- What if I decide to completely change my life in 5 years time?
Optimisation
Once we know where you are…
We know where you want to be…
We know what you want to do on the journey…
We’ve looked at all your What if? How much? When can? questions…
…It’s time to draw up your new plan taking account of all the above we will put together and present for you a structured plan that lays out how much to keep in the bank, how much in each kind of investment account, and how to direct your income to keep on track. And finally what risk profile / asset allocation is right for you right now.
Actioning The Plan
Now you have your plan, and you know what to do you have two ways to proceed.
You can ask us to implement it for you, or you can take the plan and implement it yourself.
The plan does not recommend a specific product provider, just the product type to use to optimise for both tax and when you will need the funds. It won’t recommend a specific investment fund just the correct asset allocation for each type of account.
Product research, selection and setting up accounts is a separate job. We call it ‘Targeted Advice’.
If you decide to do it yourself we’ll give you a brief guide on how to go about it and how to identify the best accounts, what to look for and links to some consumer tools that you can use to help you on your journey, this will help you to compare them to your existing accounts and see if they need replacing. Or you can just restructure what you have.
If you want us to do the implementation for you, then we will move on to ‘targeted advice’ and we will give you half of your financial planning fee as credit towards the cost of the ‘targeted advice’ – we do this as recognition that for those who have a holistic plan in place the job of providing ‘targeted advice’ to select products and funds is a lot easier.
Review Update - Question!
Now that your plan has been implemented then it’s important to monitor and re-assess.
One of the biggest advantages of having a plan like this in place is that when your circumstances change or you have a financial decision to make we can efficiently update the values in the plan and model the “What if? How much? When can?” question of the moment so you can make an informed ‘all being things equal’ decision.
If you had us implement your plan for you through ‘targeted advice’ and elected to have an ongoing support service then an annual plan review is fully included in your service, and anytime you can arrange a meeting to analyse any scenario you need.
If you went ‘DIY’ for implementation and you want a review or an ad-hoc analysis of a situation then you can do so for a fixed fee, if it’s been more than 2 years since your last review though the fee is more than if it was update in that last 2 years. If you know that you will always want to ‘DIY’ your plans, but still want an annual review then we can set up a monthly instalment pre-pay if you wish. If you happen to need a review in less than a year you can simply put the current pre-pay balance towards the bill.
Our Targeted Advice Process
Setting the parameters
If we constructed a Holistic Financial plan for you prior to you asking us to provide you with targeted advice then this bit is a cinch as we already know what you need.
If you came straight for targeted advice then we will need to agree what a good outcome looks like for you. Typically you have a very specific need to address great examples and we just need to define what you want the outcome to be.
For example;
- You might have several pensions and want us to work out if they should be combined.
- You might have just bought a house and need life insurance.
- Maybe it’s a savings plan for the kids.
- Or you need to arrange a mortgage.
I’m sure you get the picture, you need something very specific arranged or analysed and we agree what a good outcome will be.
Something we will also consider is whether you plan on going it alone after our advice is actioned or will you require an ongoing support. It’s important as if you’re going it alone we need to make sure we arrange something that can be managed without advisory support. We will talk to you about what that looks like along the way.
Fact Finding
After establishing what we are doing for you and why we will carry out with you some very targeted “Fact Finding”.
We will ask you a lot of questions about your finances and situation that are relevant to the situation we are advising on. We might also need to go off an ask questions from any existing product providers about the plans you already hold.
Unlike when constructing a full financial plan we won’t go in to every detail of your financial life, the fact finding will be targeted to the ‘relevant’ information so if there is something unusual you think we need to know about then this is the time to let us know.
Clearly if you’ve just had a holistic plan drawn up we’ll know all this already.
Risk Assesment
As part of the process we will where relevant help you to understand the risk in essentially three parts.
- The risk you’re emotionally comfortable with.
- The level of risk you need to take based on your targets, and resources.
- The level of risk you can afford to take (capacity for loss)
If you’ve just had a holistic plan drawn up then we will know all this already.
Research and Analysis
Based on everything we covered above we will analyse your current arrangements in order to assess their suitability.
Once analysed we will compare them to everything else that’s out there to see if there is a better solution available within the parameters we agreed.
Presentation Of Advice
Once the research is over we will arrange a time to go through the advice with you.
This is an opportunity for us to talk you through the nuance and explain the why in clear terms and answer any questions that you may have.
We will also provide a written report documenting our recommendations, so that you can digest it in your own time.
If you need a follow up meeting to clarify anything or just have a few question you want to email in, it’s no problem at all.
Actioning The Advice
After you fully understand and are comfortable with the advice we will implement it on your behalf.
That might mean completing application forms, managing transactions etc. Or where a provider will only deal with you direct putting together a guide for you to follow and supporting you along the way.
Reviews & Ongoing Support
If ongoing reviews and support is something that you opted for and we agreed it was appropriate then that’s exactly what you will get.
We will be here year round as and when you need us and will formally review your arrangements at least once a year. We’ll give you a guide to confirm exactly what the ongoing service entails at your very first meeting.
If you opted not to have ongoing support, but something changes in the future or enough time passes and you feel it’s worth revisiting your situation a one off ad-hoc review can be arranged.
I would highly recommend John if you need good, clear, jargon free financial advice.
He really has your best interests at heart and makes the minefield of finance understandable and a lot less scary!
He’s friendly and approachable and a pleasure to deal with.
Tracy Dunn
02/11/2016
Good, Solid, No nonsense financial advice.
Bruce Nesbitt
13/11/2013
Amazing service from start to finish. Such lovely people who really understand your individual circumstances and go above and beyond to help. Many thanks
Marie Simpson
25/06/2024
Fast. Simply. Effective
Marian
12/09/2019
I have known John Bloomfield for over 10 years and highly commend the services of his company. He is knowledgeable, efficient, thorough and his expertise is beyond doubt one of the best in the market. He is precise and I value his determination to give the best commitment to his customers.
Mrs J Gooneratne
18/04/2016
All I would like to say is thank you to John for his advice and expertise and for being so professional and I would recommend his company to any one who needs financial advice
Maria Taylor
12/10/2017
Frequently Asked Questions
What's included in an ongoing service?
Quite a lot, we have a full guide.
It gets update quite often we’ll give you the most current version at your initial chat meeting but currently it offers (where relevant);
- All year round email / phone / meeting support.
- At least one formal annual review or plan update.
- Access to our inhouse portfolios
- No fees for moving money from one account we manage for you to another we manage
- Online client portal
- Deposit account research and report fee waived, whenever you need one.
- Adviser fee waived on standard mortgages
- Significant discounts on wills & powers of attorney
- Executor / Bereaved support
Why give a credit towards 'targeted advice' after a Holistic Plan?
The credit towards targeted advice is a recognition that when delivering follow up targeted advice we can virtually skip the first 3 steps of ‘targeted advice’ as we have already covered it.
For people who plan on carrying out the plan recommendations on a ‘DIY’ basis obviously you’d prefer the plan fee to just be cheaper.
If we just made the holistic plan cheaper we wouldn’t be making a profit… and who wants a financial adviser that doesn’t know how to make a profit!
How much are your fees?
Our fees vary depending on the services you require. If you visit the services section of this website and select the service you need the current fees will be clearly displayed.
Alternatively if you set up a free initial consultation we will provide you with a full list of fees at that point and highlight those that would apply in your circumstances.
Are you independent?
In a word yes!
We are independent in that we can advise on and deal with any provider.
We are also independently owned meaning no product provider has a stake in our business.
We are also directly authorsied by the Financial Conduct Authority meaning that we are policy and procedures are dictated by the regulations and our independent choices and not by a ‘principal’ firm or ‘network’.
What consumer protections apply to your services?
We are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority to provide financial advice within the UK. Our registration number is 769848.
Any regulated advice that we provide also affords consumers access to the Financial Ombudsman Service in the event of a complaint.
And our regulated advice is also covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
Not everything that we do is ‘regulated’ and wherever that applies we always make you aware.