THE FEE-BASED FINANCIAL PLANNING DIFFERENCE

Retirement isn’t just about a series of investments. It’s much more than that.

Yes, a successful investment strategy is an important part of financial planning, but it’s just that: a part. At Guardian Wealth Management we help you develop a holistic plan for your family’s finances that will guide you to and through retirement. There are many components to this, including:

• Investment Risk Assessment
• Portfolio Analysis Review
• Tax Review & Analysis
• Social Security Optimization
• Retirement Income Planning
• Healthcare & Medicare Review
• Long Term Care Planning
• Legacy Planning

We offer all this to you in a fee-based model. What does that mean? Well, for starters, it means we don’t have any skin in the game other than our fiduciary obligation to helping develop the right plan for you. We aren’t developing a plan to generate commissions off the retirement products you choose. You pay for our time and engage us to help you craft a plan and strategy, and that’s it.

No hard-sell tactics, just honest and transparent, fiduciary family financial planning. Our only goal is to guide you toward the retirement of your dreams and the legacy you want to leave behind.

YOU’RE THE BOSS. BUT WE’RE THE CFO

If you’re someone who loves being the CEO of your financial plan and enjoy managing it yourself, you’ll love our Family CFO Consulting service. Through this innovative approach, we provide a quarterly review of your goals and investments to check for opportunities and vulnerabilities, and to make sure things are still on track. Think of it as having a trusted partner who is looking over your shoulder to ensure you’re not missing anything.

This is a fee-based service, which means you’re paying for our time — and we’re not steering you toward any particular investment vehicles because we’re going to get a compensated by a commission. You can feel confident that this advice and perspective is coming from someone who understands your goals and shares your values.

On your journey to retirement, you’re the boss. But it’s still important and often helpful, to have good people on your side, and that’s what you get with Family CFO Consulting.

ACTIVELY MANAGED

A lot of investment strategies include the “buy and hold” philosophy.

Over the long term, that philosophy tends to have success, because the market tends to trend upward historically. If you look at a long enough time period, there’s a chance you’ll see a diversified portfolio go up in value.

In our view, the problem with the buy-and-hold approach is that losses hurt you more than gains help you. Think of it this way: If you have a portfolio of $500,000 and it drops by 50%, its value is $250,000. In order to get back where you started, that $250,000 must increase in value by 100%. Recovering from those losses requires a more substantial movement in the market than the loss itself required.

That means that you don’t have to wonder if a trade was done with your best interests at heart or if your stockbroker was just trying to generate income from the commission.

• Build a portfolio that attempts to anticipate market declines
• Discuss plans of action for unfavorable markets in advance
• Engage with our clients to anticipate certain actions when economic and market challenges or opportunities arise

Finally, we are different from stockbrokers because we work on a fee basis and not a commission basis. That means that you don’t have to wonder if a trade was done with your best interests at heart or if your stockbroker was just trying to generate income from the commission. Our fiduciary obligation means we are bound by acting in your best interest.

We’d be happy to discuss more with you.

Prepare your business for the future

For some business owners, planning for the future can feel doubly important. They have to plan for their own future and for that of their business — while they’re still there and once they’ve moved on.

An important step of the business planning process can be developing a proactive and purposeful plan for current and future needs. Likewise, it’s often a good idea to develop a thorough and thoughtful succession plan for what will happen with your business once you elect to move into the next chapter of your life.

Our business planning & consultation services help provide you with comprehensive, case-specific and tax-efficient solutions to manage your concerns and increase the efficiency of your business for as long as you own it, and then some.

Our business and succession planning concentrations include:

• Asset protection
• Risk management
• Continuity and succession planning
• Business owner/key executive
• Compensation and benefit planning
• Employee recruitment and retention strategies
• Employee incentive plans
• Tax reduction strategies
• Non-qualified deferred compensation alternatives
• Supplemental retirement plans
• Exit strategies

Our goal is to help you identify your business’s needs and match them with the strategies most capable of accounting for them. Contact us to learn more.

Guardian Wealth Management, LLC does not offer formal tax planning or legal services, but may provide references to accounting, tax services or legal providers. They may also work with your attorney or independent tax or legal advisor.

ENSURE YOUR LEGACY LIVES ON ACCORDING TO YOUR WISHES

What will become of your legacy once you’re gone? It can be important to your retirement plan to have an answer to that question that you feel good about.

Legacy planning can help ensure that your legacy carries on for your loved ones and that your final wishes are respected. And we can help you get there. We start by working with you to truly understand your desires — for instance, is it more important to you to preserve assets for future use or to transfer wealth to your beneficiaries?

It is important to carefully plan for the transfer of your assets to allow the wealth you’ve worked hard for to serve a meaningful purpose. From starting the conversation with you, to guiding you through the actual transfer of assets, we at Guardian Wealth Management, LLC are here to educate you on the process and guide you through every step.

It’s important to understand helpful instruments to use during the legacy planning process, including:

• Wills
• Revocable living trusts
• Powers of attorney
• Advanced medical documents
• Asset Titling & Transfer on Dealth

In addition, both term and cash value life insurance and long-term care insurance policies may be options to consider. These policies can be designed to serve different helpful functions.

Overall, legacy planning and preservation of your wealth and assets require a coordinated effort. Our firm is uniquely positioned to provide protection and peace of mind to yourself, your loved ones and any of the channels in which you wish to eventually distribute your wealth and assets you’ve worked hard over time to accumulate.

A LONG-TERM PLAN TO MANAGE RISK

Although some people view life insurance as a way to replace lost income or pay off debt after the passing of a loved one, it also can offer a number of potential benefits that may make it a valuable tool to accomplish different financial goals in retirement.

In addition to the death benefit — and the peace of mind it may provide that the insured’s loved ones will be taken care of financially in the event that they pass away — life insurance may offer helpful ways to reduce or avoid certain taxes. Some of these benefits may include:

• Policy death benefits paid to beneficiaries may be income tax-free.
• Some life insurance policies may allow the death benefit to be accelerated out before the insured’s death due to terminal or chronic illness, and that benefit may be income-tax free.

Tax-free exchanges: