We know that you have a choice when it comes to managing your finances but that choice isn’t always easy. Wealth management is more than just picking and choosing investments, it involves planning for various life events as well: retirement, medical care, taxes, income generation, insurance, estate planning, and more. A good wealth management firm will understand your needs and ensure that you have an adequate plan in place for those needs.
Client-Centric Wealth Management
Peninsula Wealth was built around the idea that the right approach is the one where “client-centric” is at the heart of everything. After the 2008 credit crisis, our team recognized that our clients loved working with us, but they were tired of the banks themselves behaving badly. We looked at other banks, independent broker dealers, and other service providers and discovered that the only way to be a true “fiduciary” to clients was to form an independent Registered Investment Advisor firm with a SEPARATE safe low-cost custodian to manage our clients’ assets. This separation ensured that we would never be able to make a single penny for selling products and allowed us to be truly impartial in our recommendations to clients. Many firms claim to put client interests firsts, but the structure itself doesn’t allow that. This is not true with Peninsula Wealth.
We also know from experience that lack of understanding about the ways a financial advisor can have an impact on someone’s life and misperception about how a financial advisor may select investments can keep the average person from seeking out help when it comes to wealth management. Peninsula Wealth is here to help and we encourage our clients (and you!) to not be afraid to ask your financial advisor questions. Make sure the advisor is acting as a fiduciary and clearly has your best interests in mind. And make sure you understand how they are getting paid – is the advisor more of a “financial salesperson” and pushing specific products or are they recommending appropriate investments and being transparent about the fees? Lastly, as simple as it sounds, make sure your advisor is truly listening to you to understand your situation and your feelings, as well as your overall goals.
A Planning-Oriented Approach
Here at Peninsula Wealth, we operate as a planning-oriented firm that acts as a fiduciary and our team takes a holistic approach to helping clients plan for their financial and investment goals. We pride ourselves on our moral compass, the fact that we listen to our clients, and take the time to truly listen to their needs and educate them. We always act to be as transparent as possible and offer a reasonable fee structure, while focusing on keeping the costs of investments low. We are comprehensive in our financial planning approach and will never try to “sell” a product to our clients that doesn’t work with their goals.
Building the Right Team
The best part about working with clients is building relationships and becoming their trusted advisor. Our clients have worked very hard for their wealth and there is nothing more rewarding than developing the plan to help them achieve their financial goals and dreams. This belief guides us in everything we do from client services down to building our team. We don’t set out to fill specific roles but to find individuals who share the same values and beliefs in terms of how they feel clients should be treated. The Peninsula Wealth philosophy has always been to find the right individuals first and then create the role for them.
An added bonus? We’re located right across the street from Caltrain and can easily be accessed by many commuters who work in the city!