Franklin Madison Advisors: We help people get ahead in life financially.

Franklin Madison Advisors is a fee-only fiduciary financial planning and investment management firm based out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  We exist to serve a generation that has been underwhelmed by traditional paths to financial security and independence.

It has arguably become increasingly difficult for households to get ahead, financially, over the past few decades. This comes even as the stock market pushes to all-time highs and the U.S. economy appears to be steadily expanding. 

Nevertheless, the data show that many households are struggling to thrive as they contend with financial issues like:

• Stagnant wage growth…
• The rising cost of home ownership…
• Caring for multiple generations under one roof…
• Rising levels of overall household debt…
• Reported angst around retirement security…

It used to be that to get ahead in life financially, one could simply follow a traditional financial playbook that laid out finding a well-paying job, getting married, buying a house and steadily saving money to pay for future expenses like college or retirement.

getting ahead

/getɪŋ əˈhed/

to make progress with something or advance in something, especially a career, income, or quality of life

But times have seemingly changed and more often than not life happens in unexpected ways, dashing even the best laid plans when:

• The economy slumps…
• Jobs are lost…
• Marriages fail…
• Illnesses strike…
• We lose those closest to us…

A solid plan can help

Even so, studies have shown that households are more likely to feel financially secure when they have a plan for their money. What’s more, some findings even suggest that following a process of tracking, evaluating and periodically adjusting a financial plan to account for changing life circumstances can increase the likelihood of a household achieving its financial goals.

A structured process and a little help can make it happen

At Franklin Madison Advisors, our mission is to help people get ahead financially by providing comprehensive financial planning, investment management and ongoing financial advising services tailored to our clients’ ever-changing needs.

We do this by guiding our clients through a proprietary, structured process that includes plainly and clearly articulating an envisioned use for their savings, developing financial strategies to accumulate needed financial resources and applying best practices to help achieve long-term financial goals.

Franklin Madison Advisors can help you define a financial vision and purpose for your money

We believe that getting ahead financially means letting go of the notion of a traditional financial playbook, rules-of-thumb and other one-size-fits-all money solutions.  Taking an active role in creating a personal financial playbook tailored to allow for flexibility and adaptability can, over time, help you reduce money-related stresses, provide greater peace of mind and most importantly increase the likelihood of achieving life goals. 

Why vision is important

Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a professor at Harvard Business School says that a vision is effectively a call on our lives to become something more than what we are today.  In this context, a statement of financial purpose effectively helps to define the role that money will play in your life.  More specifically, it articulates a clear “why” to your money habits and lays the foundation for developing strategies that help you acquire, save and spend financial resources prudently.

Formation of a financial purpose statement begins with a vision for how events would ideally unfold throughout the course of your life, beginning with your final moments and working your way back toward the present.  One way to go about this is to answer questions like, “how do I want to be remembered by those closest to me?” or “what sort of legacy would I like to leave behind.” There are no easy answers to these questions by any means, yet the visualization process used to answer these and other similar questions can help crystalize the role that money will play in helping you navigate important life transitions. 

Vision helps set financial priorities

Moreover, the process of vision clarification helps to prioritize financial outcomes and identifies the types of opportunities, strategies and tactics for use in achieving your financial goals.  Taking the time today to develop a well-defined financial purpose statement has other long-term benefits as well, like creating a sense of financial stability by anchoring expectations during times of increasing economic and financial market uncertainty.  Indeed, a quick reference of your financial purpose statement during a time of financial instability or market volatility can help to calm nerves and potentially alleviate a desire to tap long-term savings at inopportunely. 

Ultimately, we believe that understanding what our client’s want out of their life vision is critical to the planning process because it sets the stage for connecting the dots between concrete life goals and the appropriate financial strategies to get there.

At Franklin Madison Advisors, our priority is to understand where you’re coming from

As a client of Franklin Madison Advisors, you can expect our planning relationship to be rooted in our desire for a thorough understanding of what’s important to you and your ideal life outcomes. To gain this understanding, we use quantitative tools such as our Financial Dimensions Questionnaire, to help us understand your financial inclinations and preferences. We then set aside time to have an in-depth discussion to learn more about your life and financial goals, meeting at a time and place (in-person, online or over the phone) that is convenient for you.

We make your financial well-being a priority

After gathering all the necessary information from you, we then develop strategies that help to establish a solid financial base, to give you a sense of well-being; addressing cash flow planning, emergency savings, and risk management needs.

We develop strategies for growing and transferring your wealth

After gathering all the necessary information from you, we then, through our fee-only financial planning process, develop strategies that help you establish a solid financial base with the intent of giving you a sense of well-being by addressing cash flow planning, emergency savings, and risk management needs.

We actively help you achieve your financial goals

Finally, one of our most valuable offerings is our ongoing financial advising services. This is because life has a way of upsetting even the best financial plans. Our monthly meetings monitor your progress toward defined milestones, evaluating and adapting financial strategies as life circumstances change thereby increasing the chances that you achieve your intended financial goals.

INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT FEES

Franklin Madison Advisors provides investment management services as part of our Tier 2 and Tier 3 Ongoing Financial Advising Services plans.

If chosen separately from the Ongoing Financial Advising Services program, the fees we  charge for investment management services include 1) an initial setup fee of $2,500 which includes risk tolerance and investment objective surveys, portfolio analysis, asset allocation strategies, and investment selection and 2) ongoing flat-rate investment management fee of $450 per month. 

What’s important to note is that our fees for service differ from typical asset under management (AUM) models in its transparency and that our fee remains fixed even as your savings grow.

GET STARTED TODAY

Give us a call or if you prefer, fill out the contact form here to allow one of our financial strategists to give you a call today.

CONTACT FRANKLIN MADISON ADVISORS