How to Invest: Our 10 step Guide

When working with clients who haven’t used a holistic financial planning service like Aventur before, we often get feedback that it was a completely different experience (and usually more enjoyable) to what they were expecting when reaching out to us for help.

One of the most common misconceptions that we encounter is that we are stock picking ‘wizzes! 

We are qualified investing experts and we do our research. However, we can’t give you 10 stocks that will make you a guaranteed 50% return over the next year.

And we can’t tell you whether Bitcoin is going up, down, left, or right. (Ps. if anyone actually can do the above, please do get in touch as we want you managing our portfolios!)

So, if we can’t make you rich quick, what can we do when you ask us for advice on your investment portfolio?

Our job is to understand where you are now. Learn exactly where you want to get to, and put a plan together to help you get there. You can read some of the benefits of financial planning in our comprehensive guide.

For clients with long-term goals, this will usually involve some element of investing.

Read our 10 step guide below, and learn how Aventur will help you invest to reach your financial goals!

Getting to Know You

1.      Firstly we’ll have a quick call with you to introduce ourselves, and understand a little bit about what you’re looking for.

This isn't usually too intensive – just enough to make sure that we are able to do the preparation needed for you at our first meeting.

This also gives you an opportunity to gather a few bits of information we need as “homework” ahead of the first meeting.

2.      The first meeting will generally be an opportunity for us to get to know you, and for you to ask questions about us and what we do.

Ultimately, not every adviser is right for every client and vice versa – we are all about long-term relationships; so, it needs to be a good fit.

If it seems like we're a good fit, we’ll then need to know more about you. We will need to get a little nosey as this will involve your finances, but we’ll also ask about your family, and what you want to achieve in life!

We’ll ask questions like: what does that dream retirement look like for you? How much do you want to spend each year on cruises? What do you want the budget to be for the Porsche you are buying yourself as a retirement gift?

Follow Up and Planning

3.      Shortly after our meeting, we will send you our follow up.

This isn’t advice at this stage but is a summary of what was discussed with a few of our initial thoughts on what you might do and a proposed action plan.

4.      Often alongside our follow up, we will also need your help by signing any letters of authority to allow us to liaise with your current providers. 

We will also need you to engage us formally by signing our client agreement, which outlines key information and tells us that you want us to get to work!

Analysing Your Portfolio

5.      Once we have received the relevant paperwork, we’ll get busy contacting your current providers.

We are independent advisers, and the benefit of this means that we can look at how your finances are currently set up and see if there is a better option.

We don’t have set products to sell you, so to be able to identify potential improvements to make to your investment strategy and plan, we need to analyse exactly what you have, what service you’re getting, what returns you are getting and what you are paying.

This process can take a little while to complete, as there are several parties involved – so you can expect to see weekly updates on where we are with this.

Your Risk Profile

6.      Whilst we are doing that, we will also usually need you to do a little more homework. It's important that your investment strategy is personal to you, and you're comfortable with the level of risk.

We have created our own industry leading risk analysis and forecasting tool; so we'll send you a link to a short questionnaire to fill in.

Your Personalised Plan

7.      Once we have your risk questionnaire and all the information we need from your current providers, it’s time for us to make our recommendation.

This will outline what you have currently have. Whether it’s cash savings or investments, including how much it is costing you and how it is performing.

We’ll then provide you with a recommendation on what course of action would help you to achieve your goals. This may be to increase contributions, change funds or, if necessary, move your investment completely.

We’ll always provide reasoning behind our recommendation, and you can be assured we have done our research. We’ll provide a side-by-side comparison of cost and performance for you to compare, as well as our costs to carry out the recommendation for you.

At Aventur we use a discretionary fund manager to run our model portfolios. This means you’ll have the peace of mind that your investments are being taken care of on your behalf, without the need to sign multiple forms when changes are made.

Understanding and Approval

8.      Once you’ve had our recommendation report and had some time to digest it, we will need to catch up to make sure that you understand it and are happy with it.

We’re passionate about keeping things clear and understandable, and make sure our reports are easy to read. However, we appreciate that the amount of information means that you’ll have questions. This is why we’ll arrange another call to go through the advice and answer any that you may have.

If you’re happy with the advice and wish to go ahead, we’ll provide you with the documents needed to get the ball rolling.

As a certified B Corp, many of our processes are paperless, so you’ll be able to digitally sign your documents, allowing us to work more quickly and cost-efficiently.

Taking Action

9.      Once we have agreed a way forward and you have sent the documentation back, it's back to work again for us and our amazing administration team to make it happen!

Part of our service is to give you peace of mind in delegating responsibility for your finances to professionals. Which is why we’ll send you updates at each stage of the process and ensure that the advice is carried out as quickly as possible.

10.  Once our recommendation has been carried out, you’ll receive conformation from us and from the provider confirming any actions that have taken place.

So there you have it; how to invest with Aventur! At the end of this process, you'll have a portfolio put together by professionals, and a personalised plan to achieve your goals. 

Our Ongoing Service

As your Financial Planners, we also provide an ongoing service. This means we're here to help you at any point, and once a year we will provide you with an annual review of your plan.

We will usually plan to reassess your risk level in 12 months. This will also be to see if anything has changed that could impact the advice we provided previously.

If you're interested in learning what we can do for you and your finances, get in touch with our team.

*Capital at Risk. The value of investments can go down as well as up and you may not get back the full amount you invested.