BlountFinancial.info Landing Page - Step 2

YES - the RightCapital access, Values Alignment Session, and the follow-up 6 week Bible study is absolutely FREE to you, but not to us! We pay thousands of dollars each year for the software. Also, we will be prepared ahead of time, to meet with you for about an hour. We've even paid for the ad to reach you because we're serious about this message!

We only say this to add perspective - we have a significant investment of our time and capital in this process also. We realize that your time is valuable, and so is ours. We have clients that pay us a minimum fee of $150 per hour for consulting, but you will not pay for the time we give you in our initial meeting. So, the first $150 is on us, and we won't even bill you for our access to RightCapital!

(OK - so that was a bad joke but here's the more serious part...)

We believe that most of the very LOUD marketing noise you hear in this industry is designed to motivate you toward action, based on the two things which sell headlines and make consumers act, with those two things being fear and greed.

We desire to help you cut through all of that noise and speak with clarity on the vast menu of financial choices you have to make. 

We strive to make our communication direct and unbiased.

We value Faith, Family, and Finance so you can value the integrity of our Faith-focused Wealth Management with A Process To Believe In™.

In return, we ask that you place a high priority on honoring our appointment when the Values Alignment Session is scheduled, or cancel it by text/email at least 24 hours before it is scheduled to begin, if possible. (Don't worry, we send reminders!) We know life gets busy and sometimes legitimate last-minute issues come up. But, we hope this is important to you, and we've made it a priority for us. No-shows for appointments make it hard to re-schedule in good faith, so if you make an appointment, let's mutually commit to honoring each other's time. Remember - the first meeting is for your education and for us to extend goodwill. There's no commitment or guarantee that we will offer to work together if we can't help you so the risk is very low for you when you schedule the Values Alignment Session, so relax and keep the appointment if you set one!

You won't be asked to pay for, or buy anything, in the Values Alignment Session we schedule. Governing bodies allow us to collect fees as we give tangible financial and investment advice to potential clients during Alignment Sessions, but we find it's not good business. We would rather provide a real service to you first, and demonstrate our value, before you are charged for consultation or asked to invest in anything we recommend. The Alignment Session will not be difficult for you at all, because we place importance on values first, before products. In this meeting you will experience a process unused by any other firm, to our knowledge. We will work to create your Financial Values Unity Map™. This is a process in which we determine what is really valuable to you, and how to best plan for these values. We've worked hard to make sure that this is a special process for our clients.

Therefore, it does not make sense for us to use "hard" sales techniques to align values - in fact, we believe it is impossible to align client and firm values using aggressive sales patterns.

In the call we will see if you've received all the information we are planning to send you, and we'll walk through your Financial Values Unity Map™ and RightCapital demonstration.

We'll also make sure you receive access to our FREE Bible studies on faith-focused finances if that is valuable to you. (If this is not a resource of value to you, that's okay - at least you'll know the perspective from where we begin with our clients!)

If you're new to the online consultation process we use, we understand your apprehension. We've been on the receiving end of phone and videoconference "consultations" that turned into "hard-to-get-out-of" sales pitches for the last 20 minutes of the call, and we dislike that process. (Anecdotally, we can give some pretty good excuses to get out of sales calls, though, and we definitely don't want to give you any reasons to make up more of those good excuses!) That's why we tell you this ahead of time - you won't be asked to buy a product on the call.

However, IF there is already a high level of values alignment between you and us, or an obvious way that we can help you... we will give you fair warning now... we will ask for you to consider using us to help you manage your investment or insurance objectives. We will outline some "next steps" and ask to start taking those steps in follow-up Asset Alignment Sessions, if we mutually agree there is a fit. But, we know we aren't a fit for everyone, so we can take (and give) a "no" when it's the right answer.

And, since we are telling you ahead of time that we may extend an offer to work together... well, at least this way, we know it won't surprise you if it happens... but you also should not expect it to happen just because we have a Values Alignment Strategy Session. We talk to many people and strive to give valuable advice, even when it's not a fit to work together.

It's free because this is how we thrive! We have found that no serious potential or active client, who is a long-term investor, expects us to deliver expert investment and financial advice for free in a one-hour Values Alignment Strategy Session. Our best clients also understand that in order to meet their goals, a longer period of engagement and considerable time is expected to be devoted by both parties to the process, and we've come to appreciate that mindset in the best households we serve. So, while our initial Values Alignment Strategy Session is provided without charge, our investment advisory and brokerage services are, of course... not free.

All investments have costs associated with them. When discussing our fees for services, we tell our clients that "we can't and don't always compete to become the least expensive option available to manage their investments... but we can and will always compete to become the best option to manage their investments according to their values".

We say this because we've found this mindset causes expectations to be higher for us and for our clients. Because we are an independent financial services firm, we are able to deploy various compensation models, depending on which products and services meet a client's needs.

Blount Financial Stewards holds itself to a high fiduciary standard and uses fee-based advisory accounts, for most of our clients. We offer different levels of service with current annual fee ranges from 1-2.5% in these accounts. The lowest fees are available on accounts or household aggregate amounts above $1M, which receive our highest level of services provided. Sometimes the assets of a client don't meet certain minimums, or they have a need that is best met with a brokerage product. In these cases, many considerations, including the investment holding period and a deep level of conversation about the sales charges, will be necessary in order to establish the appropriate course of action.

A similar process occurs with insurance planning.

Most of our financial planning clients compensate us for their plans via the investment advisory fees associated with their accounts. However, we also deliver written financial plans a la carte for fees ranging from $1,500 to $3,000 with a minimum of 10 hours of consultation and planning included. Consulting for individuals or business owners with no investments at our firm is billed at the rate of $150/hr.

A note about this - planning fees are often waived for our Employer Sponsored Retirement Plans such as 401k's and other qualified retirement plans unless the plans have higher levels of sophistication. We offer this optional service for business owners as part of our employee financial wellness programs when a business sponsor chooses us to manage their 401k plans. We currently provide in-house management of 401k plans with up to $10M of investable assets, depending on the number of plan participants and assets invested. The management of 401k plans over this size is typically outsourced while we focus on employee financial wellness and support. Our employee financial wellness support can be faith-focused or not, and we have a vast library of online resources to help teach employees about financial concepts.

In all cases, the costs to work with Blount Financial Stewards are openly discussed in a transparent way and provided in written documentation via proposals before any purchase. We practice proactive communication and follow up on all purchases with trade confirmations, then monthly statements (for brokerage accounts), and quarterly statements (for advisory accounts). We proactively communicate so our clients understand what they will pay before any investment decisions are made. In addition to this, all advisory clients must participate in, and receive an annual review.

We are a private, boutique wealth management firm.

But don't let that discourage you from engaging with us in discussions! Our underlying support is provided by LPL Financial, the largest RIA and Broker/Dealer in the United States for independent wealth management firms. As of early 2023, LPL currently holds over $1 Trillion in Brokerage and Advisory Assets Under Management. As a result, we can provide simple solutions AND our resources are also endless to meet even the most complex needs. For ongoing communication and account monitoring, clients also have 24/7 digital access to their accounts via LPL Financial's AccountView (online and mobile app) and the Blount Financial RightCapital software (also online and mobile apps).

For fee-based, actively managed accounts, we find it is often a best fit when investors have at least $250,000 of investable assets, because this asset mark is where the need for our speciality of more in-depth financial planning usually begins. However, when needs are not that complex, clients looking for managed account solutions with minimums down to $5,500 have favored our Guided Wealth Portfolio (GWP) Accounts. The GWP Platform is very useful for pursuing model-based management with daily rebalancing based on market algorithms. The platform has historically led to highly competitive performance, while also providing low minimum investment entry points and low fees for managed accounts.

Also, we sometimes use brokerage solutions for smaller accounts below $250,000.

All clients may obtain access to our RightCapital financial planning software for free. However, clients with accounts over $500,000 receive more personal interaction between us and the software, because we use it to deliver written financial plans which must be updated annually.

The standard answer still applies here - any investment involves risk and past performance of investments can't guarantee future results. Concerning satisfaction guarantees and refunds... in truth, most investment advisors or brokerage services offering satisfaction "guarantees" also provide layers of caveats in order to receive refunds, or offer to credit them back to clients "over time" or in less than transparent ways. We do not entertain this practice.

Blount Financial Stewards doesn't provide either performance guarantees or refunds of advisory fees. However, we value long-term investment advisory relationships which provide mutual benefit to our clients and our firm.

What does this mean? Simply put, we operate within a highly competitive business and we know that a client can leave our firm if they aren't satisfied in working with us, therefore it is in our client's and our firm's best interests for us to deliver a high level of quality service in order to maintain the relationship. As a result, we prefer to be in a relationship in which we continually have to earn clients' loyalties through ongoing, fee-based investment advisory and client service. In doing this, we provide a transparent investment process that places the best interests of our clients first, especially while striving to act as an investment fiduciary.

We believe that often the best way to manage capital investment risk for individual investors, is to develop proper asset allocation strategies which are dependent upon their desired risk profiles, their financial goals, and their desired outcomes. This is an ongoing process and must be accomplished in the context of current market scenarios, considering reasonable expectations of economic forecasts, balanced with historical and future returns. All of this is based on asset classes and investment techniques suggested in a written financial plan, which is updated at least annually because client goals inevitably change over time. The documented plan is often the most valuable piece of the overall investment strategy because it can help individual investors stay focused when market conditions turn volatile. Furthermore, we coach our clients to understand that our Faith-focused Investments with A Process To Believe In ™ does not provide guarantees, nor serve to prevent the risks associated with investing in capital markets.

Our primary office is located in Ruston, (North Central) Louisiana. However, if you have found us online and have moved along this far in your research, you can interact and do business with us like the majority of our clients do - online. We serve clients online or at satellite meeting locations in LA, TX, MS, AR, MO, and MD with many new states being added soon. If you are able to use email and ZOOM for the video conference Values Alignment Session, login to RightCapital, and use AccountView on your computer or mobile device, then you have all you need to get started and maintain an excellent ongoing relationship with Blount Financial Stewards.

Meeting times are available for our clients on-demand via phone and video conferencing. After the events of 2020 and COVID-19, most people find that online access to us and the ability to join a meeting from their own home or office is more convenient and safe from a health standpoint than visiting a brick and mortar retail financial services business.

We operate by appointment only and prefer to do all first meetings online via ZOOM so that we can share screens and interact as personally as is possible. We will have very much important information to share with you over the screen, so it's best to sit at a laptop or larger-screened mobile device. We want to see you too, because studies say that 70-90% communication is non-verbal, so be sure to turn on that video as we take the first meeting!

(If you are local or special circumstances exist, we may also be able to accommodate meetings in your home by appointment.)