The
Pinnacle
Planning
Experience
If one advances confidently in the direction of his
dreams
,
and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will
meet with a
success
unexpected in common hours.
Comprehensive, industry-leading
financial planning.
Most people think financial planning is primarily about money management. But that’s like saying a cross-country family vacation is primarily about learning to read a map. In truth, financial planning involves deciding what kind of life you want for you and your family, and then determining what decisions you need to make to get there.
That's where we can help.
When an industry opinion researcher asked his focus group how they would describe the financial planning experience, they told him it was “a mix between a dental visit, math class, and marriage therapy.”
At Pinnacle, we take a different approach. After growing increasingly frustrated with the tedium of the status quo financial planning process, Michael Kitces(Director of Planning Research) andBarbara Ristow (Director of Planning) decided to create something new. The result was the Pinnacle Planning Experience-- an easy step-by-step process to help you build the future you want. We want our clients to actually enjoy planning... and we’ve spared no effort or expense in making sure they do.
Michael Kitces,CFP®, MSFS, MTAX, CLU®, ChFC®, RHU®, REBC®, CASL®
The sharpest mind in financial
planning.
Every industry has its stars — those individuals who not only distinguish themselves as experts, but whose thought leadership actually transforms their professions. In the world of financial planning,Michael Kitces, CFP®, MSFS, MTAX, CLU®, ChFC®, RHU®, REBC®, CASL® is one such person.
Financial Planningmagazine labeled him the industry’s “Deep Thinker,” and in 2010, the Financial Planning Association honored him with the Heart of Financial Planning Award — the industry’s greatest recognition. While generally given as a life-time achievement award, Michael won it at 33.
A popular speaker, he appears regularly inThe Wall Street Journal,Business Week,Investment News, theJournal of Financial Planning,Financial Planningmagazine,Financial Advisormagazine,Kiplinger,Money, SmartMoney.com, and theFinancial Post. In May 2012, the prestigious
Journal of Financial Planningnamed him the publication’s first Practitioner Editor.
With Michael as both a partner and Director of Planning Research, Pinnacle clients benefit from his cutting edge financial planning research long before the rest of the industry catches on. Our individual Wealth Managers use his work to guide their own planning, and consult with him directly when a client is facing an unusual financial problem.
"In Michael Kitces... the industry has its intellectual. Kitces thinks deeper than most people about a wide range of topics in this field."
Financial Planning Magazine "A major force in the planning profession... Kitces has been at the forefront of the evolution of financial planning."
Investment News
"Michael Kitces has become the profession's most reliable commentor on complex financial planning issues." Inside Information
"Kitces is bringing a fresh new voice to financial planning topics that have not typically gotten such thorough interpretation." Research Magazine
We do today what everyone else
will be doing tomorrow.
Through Michael's leadership and our commitment to innovative, research-based financial planning, we provide our clients with strategies and techniques that may take years for the rest of the industry to adopt.
For example…
How much you can safely withdraw.
Retired Americans who rely on their portfolios in retirement face an important challenge: How do you know how much money you can withdraw each year without taking so much that you run out of your assets early?
Planners have been researching safe withdrawal rates for years, with most concluding that 4% was a good rule of thumb. Michael’s cutting edge research moved the debate past the old assumptions when he demonstrated that safe withdrawal rates are actually tied to market valuations. If markets are undervalued, then your withdrawal rate can be higher; if they are overvalued, the withdrawal rates have to be lower. Pinnacle’s Wealth Managers use Michael’s groundbreaking research when they determine withdrawal rates for their own clients.
Use asset location to minimize taxes.
We use specialized portfolio management software that we spent a year helping to design that enables us to manage each client’s portfolio with extreme tax efficiency. We treat each total portfolio as if it were one large account. All of your assets remain exactly where they always have been, of course, but our software gives us the ability to place your most tax efficient assets in your taxable accounts and the most tax inefficient in your tax deferred or tax free accounts. In doing so, we’re able to minimize your taxes and significantly enhance your long term wealth creation.
Wealth Management All-Stars
Pinnacle Advisory Group has
assembled a veritable all-star team of professional Wealth Managers, with experience that goes well beyond what you’ll find at a run-of-the-mill firm. They’ve come to financial planning from a variety of fields: law, accounting, psychology, economics, chemistry — even theater.
While the Wealth Managers work with their own individual clients, they meet together regularly to discuss questions that arise with specific cases. As a result, the Pinnacle client benefits both from the personal attention of his or her own planner, and from the combined wisdom and experience of the entire team.
»
Retirement planning»
Tax planning»
Education planning»
Charitable giving»
Small business planning and exit strategies»
Estate planning»
Insurance planning»
And just about any other planning service you can think of…The Pinnacle Planning Experience.
The status quo approach to the financial planning process can be a tedious and unpleasant experience. Too many advisors treat their clients as if they're little more than walking numbers... or risk profiles... or tax-deduction candidates…
They forget that you are a person, with goals and dreams for the future. You cannot be reduced to an equation. If planning is to be truly effective, it must begin with that understanding.
After growing frustrated with the tedium of the status quo approach, Michael Kitces (Director of Planning Research) and Barbara Ristow (Director of Planning) decided to create something better: the Pinnacle Planning Experience.
The Planning Experience is broken up into three distinct
conversations or sessions:Dream,Plan, andExtend. Each session lasts about 90 minutes, and addresses a specific question related to your life and goals. If you become a Pinnacle client, your Client Concierge will help you prepare for each session, so you're able to spend your time focused on the conversation, and not trying to dig up some old piece of financial information.
While every case is different, on average,the planning process takes about four months, from beginning to end. By the time you've completed it, you'll not only have a picture of the future you want, but you'll also know exactly what you need to do to get there.
Session 1: DREAM
Every financial plan begins with a person and his or her dreams. That's why the first session of the Pinnacle Planning Experienceis focused on finding out exactly what those dreams are.
Your Wealth Manager will lead you through a series of questions and exercises designed to identify your goals, dreams, fears, and priorities.
You'll cover questions like:
•
Putting financial matters to the side: If you could do anything you wanted and didn't have to worry about a paycheck, what would you do?•
Close your eyes and imagine a random day in the future, when you're retired. You wake up in the morning, and what do you see? Where are you? How do you spend the day, and with whom?•
Imagine a sudden change in your financial health (either good or bad). Name all the people or parties who would be affected by it.•
You're lying awake in your bed in the middle of the night, staring at the ceiling. You can't get to sleep, because you're worried. What are you worrying about?•
If you found out you have one year to live, how would you spend it? What would you regret? By using questions and scenarios like this, our Wealth Managers will learn a great deal about your passions, hopes, and fears. As they do, they will create a mind map to visualize your relationships, interests, and priorities. If you're unfamiliar with the term, a mind map is a kind of diagram that is used to present complex, multi-layered information in a straightforward way. Once finished, your mind map will be like a window into your head and heart, and you'll be surprised how much you'll learn about yourself in the process. Clients routinely identify it as one of the more fascinating elements of the Pinnacle Planning Experience.By the end of the first session, you'll have a list of life goals -- both big and small -- and a better
understanding of yourself and your priorities. Now that you know what kind of life you want for yourself, you have to figure out how to obtain it. That's the subject of the next session.
Who are you and what kind of life do you want?
I have dreamed in my life, dreams that have stayed
with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they
have gone through and through me, like wine
through water, and altered the color of my mind.
Now that you've identified and prioritized the dreams you have for the future, you have to figure out how to achieve them. The second session, building on the first, will help you do that. Your Wealth Manager will look at your assets and match them up with your goals.
In this second session, you'll cover questions like:
•
Will I be able to reach the goals I've identified in theDreamsession? Are they realistic?•
How should I allocate my resources to my various goals?•
How will my life be changed as a result of this process?In the course of your conversation, your Wealth Manager will plug your numbers into a sophisticated but client-friendly piece of planning software that lets you visualize your financial plan and see how small tweaks and changes effect the outcome. (As a Pinnacle client, you'll have access to the online version of the app so you can "experiment" with your plan any time you like.)
By the end of thePlansession, you'll know which aspects of your ideal future are possible and which are more challenging (though not impossible). But more than that, you'll know exactly what you have to do to live the life you want.
Session 2: PLAN
What do you need to do to achieve the life you want?
He, who every morning plans the transactions of the
day, and follows that plan, carries a thread that will
guide him through a labyrinth of the most busy life.
As Donne wrote, no man (or woman) exists in isolation. We all have people or causes that we care deeply about, and we often hope to share with them the good things we've achieved. That's the subject of Session 3:Extend. In this final session, you and your Wealth Manager will talk about how to both protect and extend the goals you've achieved. You'll cover:
•
How to protect your accomplishments from being wiped out due to misfortune or poor health. Your Wealth Manager will walk you through a series of worst-case scenarios so you can be sure yourfinancial plan will sustain them. This part isn't fun, but it's vital for the success of your plan and for your own peace of mind.
•
How to ensure that the fruit of your hard work is shared with the people and causes you care about. Through careful estate planning, you can continue to exercise a positive influence even after you've passed away.A good financial plan will tell you not only how to achieve your life's goals, but also how to protect and share them. By the end of the third session, you'll know exactly how to do that.
Session 3: EXTEND
How can you share that life with the people and
causes that matter most to you?
No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the
continent,
A part of the main.
Who is Pinnacle Advisory Group?
Pinnacle Advisory Group is a private wealth management firm, founded in 1993 and headquartered in Columbia, Maryland, with a second office in Naples, Florida. We work with more than 800 families and manage over $1.3 billion in assets for clients both in the mid-Atlantic region, and around the world.
We serve as our clients' personal Chief Financial Officer, and ensure their financial goals are met in a responsible way, through the combination of comprehensive financial planning and active portfolio management.
Our team has a single mission:To help our clients live the lives they’ve worked so hard to enjoy. When we take on new clients, they become part of our extended family, and in the past two decades, we’ve developed multi-generational relationships with many of them.
Those we work with include successful professionals, corporate executives, business owners,
entrepreneurs, and individuals and families with substantial and complex assets. While our clients’ investable assets typically exceed $1 million, we are able to serve clients at every asset level.
