WHY IS LIFESTYLE DIFFERENT?

Goal Orientation

We have a genuine interest in understanding and helping you achieve your financial and life goals. We do this by formally addressing and documenting:

• Your future plans, intentions and major life events.
• Your financial goals, which will allow you to pursue your life goals.
• Importantly, we constantly readdress the above and ensure they are prioritised, quantified and all have target timeframes.

Living Plan

Your Plan is an ongoing work in progress and must change when you change in order to maintain its usefulness and relevance.

Our ongoing service agreement ensures your plan is adapted for change by:

• Formally updating your plan at least annually.
• Providing ongoing advice between Annual Reviews when required.
• Encouraging you to consult with us on “every major financial decision”.

Lifetime Relationship

We are committed for the long haul. This is evident by our:

• Many existing long-term clients, both personal and employer clients.
• Team structure – An experienced team of Planners & Portfolio Managers look after your ongoing needs in a timely and professional manner.
• Private Client Service Agreement – We outline exactly what we provide on an ongoing basis.
• Fee structure – LifeStyle is remunerated by providing ongoing service to our clients rather than receiving disproportionate up-front fees and commissions.

Portfolio Managers

As well as a personal relationship with one of our 4 Planners, Lifestyle’s clients also have a relationship with one of our Portfolio Managers. A Portfolio Manager’s role is to proactively and reactively provide ongoing service and advice to clients. Outside review meetings, your Portfolio Manager is the first point of contact as they are more accessible on a day to day basis (as planners are often in client meetings) and can usually resolve ad hoc issues immediately and more promptly than a planner. On average, our team of Portfolio Managers have each been with Lifestyle for more than 5 years and are also Certified Financial Planners or are in the final stages of obtaining that qualification. As our Portfolio Mangers and Planners all work together as one team, there is always someone you can speak to at Lifestyle who can assist you straight away.

Not institutionally aligned

As Lifestyle is privately owned, and our Licensee is a private company which is majority owned by individuals, not financial institutions, we have no restriction as to which financial products we can consider for our clients. We proactively research the marketplace, constantly in search of better options for our clients. We consider this research function of the business as central to the ongoing service package that we offer our clients.

Financial Plan Development and Implementation

Should you become one of our clients, and choose to undertake a full financial plan, we will take you through the following four essential stages.

Stage One - Situation Analysis:

Objective: To identify your goals, clarify your financial position and explore some strategy options.

At the end of this stage, we will give you our professional opinion as to whether the benefits of our financial planning process will significantly outweigh the costs. There is no obligation to proceed past this stage.

Stage Two – Strategy Development and Portfolio Construction

Objective: To determine the strategy options upon which we will construct your plan. This includes:

• Strategy Development – the discussion of your strategy options and the relative pros and cons of each option.
• Portfolio Construction – to determine the required asset allocation and most appropriate investment structure.
  

Stage Three: Financial Plan Construction and Presentation

Objective: To outline how we can help you achieve your goals through the presentation of a personalised written plan called a Statement Of Advice (SOA). This includes:

• Details of the chosen strategies.
• Details of our Portfolio Construction process (where appropriate).
• Recommended wealth preservation and protection strategies.
• Projections of your future asset position (where appropriate).

Stage Four: Plan Implementation

The final step of the process involves:

• Meeting to personally “walk you through” the relevant documents.
• Preparation and completion of all paperwork.
• Lodgement and follow-up with financial service providers

We ensure all investments, mortgages, insurances, etc that are recommended in your Plan are set up correctly, and notify you on the completion of each step of the process.

Ongoing advice and reviews:

To ensure our advice is always up to date and relevant, at each review, we prepare an updated plan which reflects changing circumstances and goals, and tracks progress toward set goals. This process is essentially the same as the initial planning process, however, it is not as time consuming for clients as we provide the information we are aware of and just ask clients for detail of any changes.