FAQ

We do not charge for the initial consultation. Usually we spend about an hour together, using that time to get to know each other. We like to learn more in depth about your goals and concerns and what you expect from working with a financial advisor. In turn, we like our prospective clients to learn about us, and our financial planning and investment advisory process. We view the initial consultation as the potential start of a long term relationship, and like to give prospective clients enough information to determine if they would like to continue to pursue a potential relationship with us.

Typically, prospective client focus on the issues that are causing them the most pain at any given time. These issues can be retirement concerns, investment concerns, estate planning concerns or other issues. Often times client bring the appropriate supporting documents—investment statements, retirement options, current estate planning documents. It is important to note that we do not require prospective client to bring anything to the initial consultation except for a willingness to share their goals and concerns and learn about us.

We have prepared a Data Collection Form and Document Checklist to help you get started. The information requested in these documents allow us to perform our due diligence and prepare the most accurate financial plan and investment strategy for you.

Ivy League Financial Advisors works primarily with clients in the DC Metropolitan area; however, we currently have clients in numerous states across the country, as well as in several countries around the world.

Our typical clients fall into three categories:

Retirees and Pre-Retirees. By far the over-riding concern of these clients can best be addressed by this question, “Can we live the lifestyle we want to live in retirement without worrying about running of our money?” Estate planning concerns and long-term care concerns also tend to rank among the higher priorities of these clients.

Two-income professionals with children. These are attorneys, physicians, and corporate executives with extreme demands on their time. They know they have a myriad of financial planning and investment issues which need to be addressed, but simply don’t have time to address them all.

Small business owners. These are entrepreneurs who are trying to run and grow a business and need someone to help them assemble a team of professionals to address the numerous financial concerns they have.

We tend to work best with people who have $500,000 or more which needs to be managed. However, the typical new client we are bring on has $1-5 million in assets which need managing.

Unfortunately, the answer is no. We have found that we do not work well with “do-it-yourselfers” because 1) we never know if they will implement our suggestions, 2) they don’t have access to the same products and services we have and 3) we find it difficult to design a portfolio based on their limited investment options.

This is a detailed conversation we would have to have with you. There is a very close link between the financial plan we develop and the investment strategies we implement to support a client’s financial plan. It has been our experience that brokers do very little financial planning and almost never develop strategic investment strategies for their clients, and therefore, it is very difficult for us to work with them in a coordinated fashion.

As Fee-Only Financial Advisors, we are compensated 100% by our clients. Since the company was founded in 1999, we have never accepted one dollar from the sales of investment products or even from referral fees. Our compensation structure is explained extensively in our disclosure documents. Please click on this link to view them.

Typically the answer is that we do not charge separately for a financial plan (although we reserve the right to do so). We view the financial plan as a necessary part of the due diligence to make sure that we design a proper investment strategy for the client.

Typically the answer is “no”. We do not sell consultative services on a hourly basis—our clients are looking for an advisor to work with over a period of time to help them achieve their life goals, and we can’t do that on a hourly basis.