As a part of our partnership with Taylor Mitchell and Ameriprise Financial, he is going to be providing nuggets to our readers throughout the year that will hopefully provide a glimpse into how their practice works with coaches around the country. This first interview we did was designed to give you a better idea of how they work with coaches and the various tools that they have at their disposal to help you along the way.
What is a Financial Advisor?
When someone hears “Financial Advisor,” they typically think of someone that sells investments or insurance. While we certainly provide these services to our clients, we first make sure we have a clear understanding of our client’s circumstances, needs, and goals. We do this by taking every new client through our financial planning process. This helps us to better understand our client’s hopes, goals, and dreams. By working through this process together, we can help our clients establish clear financial goals and develop a plan to reach those goals. We provide this customized approach to coaches at every level of football.
The foundation of our firm, Ameriprise Financial, and our practice, is built on providing financial planning advice to clients. If you don’t know where you are or exactly where you want to go, how can you even begin to take steps to get there? It’s just like preparing for a football game on Saturday – to be successful, it is critical that you have a well-developed game plan.
We help families take inventory of their current financial situation and establish their long-term financial goals. Whether it’s purchasing a first home, sending a child to college, or preparing for retirement, we have a wide variety of products and solutions to help get you there.
In what areas can you help?
The most important engagement with our clients begins with the Comprehensive Financial Planning Service. We begin by helping them establish concise, long and short-term goals. Next, we create a plan to help our clients reach their goals.
Another critical aspect of the Financial Planning Service is that we help evaluate one of the unique aspects of being a coach, your employer benefits. We can help you make informed decisions and take full advantage of these critical resources. This can include helping you select your health insurance plan each year at open enrollment, choosing your retirement plan when you change jobs, making sure you are properly insured, and helping you with the investment management of all your retirement plan assets. Here are a few examples below:
Health Insurance – Which health insurance plan are you enrolled in? Does your spouse work or do you have a family? If both spouses work, which spouse should carry the children? Should both spouses be on one plan? Do you have a High-Deductible Health Plan available at your current employer that allows you to open a Health Savings Account (HSA)? Are you currently utilizing a Flexible Savings Account (FSA)?
Retirement benefits – The decision of which retirement plan you elect at a public employer is often an IRREVOCABLE DECISION. When you take your next job, how will you decide which retirement plan to enroll? Do they offer multiple retirement plan options? Do they have both a defined benefit and a defined contribution plan? What are the vesting rules for the new plan? Are there additional retirement savings vehicles available to you that you can use in conjunction with the designated retirement plan? How long do you expect to be employed in this state or at this job? How do you manage retirement benefits in multiple states or plans? Do you have an inventory of all your plan assets and a clear understanding of how each plan works? How do you coordinate and synchronize all your plan investments to make sure they are working together for your family? Are your beneficiaries up to date on old retirement plans?
These are just a few examples of how we take a deep dive into these nuanced areas for our clients as a part of our financial planning process.
Working remotely with coaches, what kind of service can they expect?
Our practice and team is committed to providing a world-class experience. No matter who we work with and where they are located, we have four commitments that we make to all of our clients.
- We will understand and document your financial goals, provide you with advice to help achieve them and track your progress toward them.
- We will recommend investments and solutions based on your goals, and we will use a robust asset allocation process to manage those investments.
- You will be able to see the investments and solutions you own and how they are performing, as well as your financial goals and your progress toward those goals, at any time, any place, from any device you choose.
- As your advisor, I will reach out proactively at least four times each year, including at least one face-to-face or screen-to-screen meeting. And, we will always return your call or email the same day.
At Ameriprise Financial, Taylor (a former college player & coach) and his team offer coaches & their families custom, comprehensive financial advice and a broad range of solutions to help you and your loved ones live brilliantly, now and in the future. To learn more about the services provided by Ameriprise or schedule a phone call please visit here.