Wealth Management New Orleans

Wealth Management is all about smart financial planning for high net worth and ultra-high net worth portfolios. Many people may think of wealth managers as Ivy League graduates dressed in sharp suits sitting in fancy downtown offices. However, the reality is far different. Wealth managers, as the name suggests, are professionals who manage the wealth of affluent clients. Therefore, wealth management New Orleans firms are supposed to be very personal and approachable. It is only when you trust a wealth manager that you will feel convinced to let them handle your hard-earned money, right? We have discussed some of the important topics related to wealth management in this guide for choosing the best advisor for those who have $10 million or more in investible liquid assets.

STRATEGIES FOR FAMILIES WORTH $5 MILLION TO $500 MILLION

7 Secrets To High Net Worth Investment Management, Estate, Tax and Financial Planning

The insights you’ll discover from our published book will help you integrate a variety of wealth management tools with financial planning, providing guidance for your future security alongside complex financial strategies, so your human and financial capital will both flourish.

Clients frequently share with us how the knowledge gained from this book helped provide them tremendous clarity, shattering industry-pitched ideologies, while offering insight and direction in making such important financial decisions.

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Whether to go for wealth management services or self-manage your own finances is a personal decision. Wealth management works well for those individuals and families who have a diverse set of requirements with regard to their finances. Pillar Wealth Management has been dealing with such requirements on a daily basis for its clients, who have anywhere between $5 million and $500 million in investible liquid assets.

To make your decision a little bit easier, we have decided to write an informative article on wealth management for the benefit of those living in the New Orleans area. We will cover important points like the desirable attributes of a New Orleans wealth management professional, the key benefits of working with the best wealth management firms, and how you can find top wealth management firms. We will also include some additional points that you can consider when deciding whether to go for wealth management or not or even when you are trying to select a wealth advisor to work with.

Table of Contents
New Orleans Wealth Management Professional Best Wealth Management Top Wealth Management Before you start finding the best wealth manager… What’s so special about Pillar Wealth Management?

New Orleans Wealth Management Professional

A top New Orleans wealth management professional should have a reasonable amount of experience working with high net worth and ultra-high net worth individuals. The issues faced by people with tens of millions of dollars in liquid assets are unique and require a specific type of expertise to address. It’s like this, imagine that you want to sell a $50 million property. Would you work with any average real estate advisor or someone who has advised celebrities and business moguls? Pillar Wealth Management has an extensive combined experience of over 60 years in working with individuals and families worth $5 million to $500 million.

A reputed wealth management firm will also ensure that it does not forget about you once a wealth plan has been created. The financial situation of every person constantly changes as the world around us changes. Therefore, the approach of making a plan once and then just sending out pre-made templates of update reports does not really help a high net worth client. Sometimes, the financial goals and the financial situation of a particular client can also change. Therefore, a wealth manager has to be proactive and constantly evaluate every portfolio. Feel free to start a conversation with Hutch Ashoo to discuss anything about the approach towards wealth management.

A successful wealth manager has to have as much “EQ” as “IQ”. EQ stands for emotional quotient. It means that the advisor has to be able to draw out information from the client about life goals, motivations, lifestyle requirements, and other personal stuff. We talk about the nuances of high net worth portfolio management in this complimentary book on selecting the best financial advisor for individuals with $5 million to $500 million in liquid investible assets.

Some other features of top wealth management firms

One attribute or feature that seems to define successful wealth management firms is ethical behavior. Ethical behavior isn’t just being honest, but also always doing what is right for the client. Doing what is right could be recommending the right fund to invest in, covering potential risk areas, thinking about the longer-term impacts of a decision, etc. Basically, doing everything that is in the best interests of the client and pointing out any conflict of interest is something that a top wealth manager would do.

High net worth and ultra-high net worth clients can therefore seek out wealth managers who are also registered fiduciaries. A fiduciary is an advisor who is bound by law to always act in the best interests of the client. The fiduciary has to register with the SEC or the state regulator. So, it is serious business to be a fiduciary and act correctly to maintain that registration. Feel free to reach out to Pillar Wealth Management to know more about fiduciary wealth managers.

Another way to evaluate the alignment of the wealth manager’s behavior with the best interests of the client is through the fee structure. This might not be obvious at first, but how you incentivize any financial advisor goes a long way towards how that advisor acts. If your life goals require a moderate rate of return, then there is no need for the advisor to recommend a more expensive higher-risk fund simply in the hope of earning a commission. Fee structures involving commissions can incentivize the advisors in the wrong way. We have talked about active vs passive investing in our short guide on 5 critical shifts for maximizing portfolio growth strategies for families worth $5 million to $500 million.

Best Wealth Management

A good wealth manager is someone who works full-time on analyzing portfolios, researching investments, managing risk, and handling important topics like succession, taxation, estate planning, retirement planning, etc. So, one of the key benefits of working with someone knowledgeable is that you don’t have to spend time learning all of that.
The best wealth management firms will also explain the nuances of investment management to their clients and help them fully understand the implication of each financial decision. You can learn all about portfolio management and the investment costs that most advisors don’t talk about in this guide on improving portfolio performance for investors with $5 million to $500 million in investible liquid assets.

Another key benefit of working with a wealth manager is holistic decision-making. Working with one person for taxes, another one for investments, and someone else for issues like succession and estate planning can lead to siloed decision-making. The tax advisor does not know what the succession planner is thinking and the decisions made by the investment/fund manager can have major tax implications.
If one person can handle all those areas and know exactly how each decision will impact taxation, retirement, inheritance, the return on the portfolio, etc. then the decisions will be that much more effective for the high net worth client. We encourage you to get in touch with Hutch Ashoo or Chris Snyder from Pillar Wealth Management to learn more about the inner workings of wealth managers.

In conclusion, a wealth manager helps his/her client live stress-free. The client does not have to worry about what is going to happen to the portfolio because of an ongoing economic crisis. The wealth manager structures finances in a way that allows clients to meet their goals and sleep peacefully at night.

Top Wealth Management

Finding the top wealth management firms is simple but not quick or easy. But, it requires some time and effort from your end. The first thing you can do is search online for experienced wealth management firms in your area. The radius for the search could either be your county, the city of New Orleans, or the state of Louisiana. Once you start finding wealth managers who cater to a portfolio size that fits your liquid investible asset size, then that is a starting point. Bear in mind that almost every wealth manager has a portfolio size threshold that they will accept.

As you start reading the website of individual wealth managers or wealth management firms, check the list of services that are offered and the services in which the wealth manager has a good amount of experience. We talk about the attributes and experience levels of wealth managers in this book called The Ultimate Guide to Choosing the Best Financial Advisor: For Investors With $5 Million to $500 Million in Liquid Assets.

You should also check if the wealth manager is a member of any local or national organizations or associations. You might be able to find more information about the wealth manager by approaching the mentioned association or organization. This information may be independent of the marketing pitch on individual websites and can be a good reference point. The educational background and relevant qualifications should also be checked.

Once you find a wealth manager to be good enough, go ahead and schedule a phone or video call with him/her. It is only when you speak one-on-one that you will get to know the personality of the wealth manager. It is also why we encourage you to start a conversation with Hutch Ashoo.

Before you start finding the best wealth manager…

Having armed yourself with important information about wealth management, you cannot wait to get started with the search process. Some of you may have already started looking for a wealth manager and, as a result, ended up here. We just have one piece of advice to give you before you start that search process.

Self-introspection is essential before you look for a wealth manager or speak with them. By self-introspection, we mean knowing what you want out of your engagement with a wealth management firm. You should first create a list of goals that you want your money to allow you to achieve. You should list out key decisions that need to be made, whether it is business succession, retirement planning, real estate management, etc. Once you know what you want, you can then look for professionals who can provide you help with all of those priority areas.

Without knowing a little bit about your financial life, you won’t be able to communicate with the wealth manager on what is it that you are looking for. Getting to know your financial situation and your goals are one of the first things that any wealth manager will do. And as a high net worth individual, the stakes are higher for you. Your time is valuable and you would want to get started with the wealth decisions as soon as possible. So, it is a good idea to prepare yourself in advance.

What’s so special about Pillar Wealth Management?

Pillar Wealth Management is a boutique wealth management firm. It may be based in California, but it very much serves customers across the US. The unique thing about Pillar Wealth Management is that it isn’t obsessed with assets under management. Unlike the big Wall Street firms, Pillar actually isn’t afraid of turning down business in order to take up fewer clients on whom it can focus completely. The firm’s philosophy is to provide white-glove level of services. Pillar took up 17 new clients last year, that’s it!

Pillar Wealth Management also places a special emphasis on optimizing costs. It commits to saving the client $100,000 for every $10 million in investible assets that it is asked to manage. This kind of commitment is not common in the industry. For Pillar, costs can be higher taxes, higher fund fees, and higher investment costs. Making the right choices that can save on costs while still allow the client to reach all financial goals is what Pillar Wealth Management does.

Lastly, Pillar Wealth Management knows all its clients by the first name. It stays within the client throughout their financial journey and is by the client’s side whenever a tough decision needs to be made. The personal touch is something that the firm strives for as it understands that money is a personal matter.

Hutch Ashoo and Christopher Snyder are the expert founders of independent, fee-only, and fiduciary wealth management firm Pillar Wealth Management. If you would like to speak with them or simply ask any questions about how custom and trusted wealth management advice is offered to highnet worth individuals with $5 million to $500 million in investible assets, then feel free to start a conversation.

Authors

Hutch Ashoo

Chris Snyder

To be 100% transparent, we published this page to help filter through the mass influx of prospects, who come to us through our website and referrals, to gain only a handful of the right types of new clients who wish to engage us.

We enjoy working with high net worth and ultra-high net worth investors and families who want what we call financial serenity – the feeling that comes when you know your finances and the lifestyle you desire have been secured for life, and that you don’t have to do any of the work to manage and maintain it because you hired a trusted advisor to take care of everything.