Old World.

You decide you need an advisor.
You find someone within driving
distance who is just suitable.

New World.

You decide you need an advisor.
You utilize technology to find and
connect with the advisor who has
the expertise most specific to your situation
regardless of their location.

We Advise Team Members

We are proud to say that a number of our clients are Wells Fargo team members. As team members ourselves, we are in a unique position to provide highly specialized advice to colleagues. While each person’s financial situation is different, certain commonalities exist among those sharing an employer and career arc. Your position at Wells Fargo includes access to many strong benefit offerings that play a role in your overall financial landscape: a complex 401k plan w/ employer match offering, unique executive compensation structures, health and life insurance offerings, and team member pricing to name a few. All of these have their own financial, investment, and tax-related consequences. While most advisors at Wells Fargo understand team member benefits to a degree, our team has intentionally acquired a deep knowledge of the comprehensive benefits and investment packages available to team members in order to better serve our clients.

Because workplace benefits are easily placed on autopilot, it is easy to become complacent, determined that you are “probably saving enough,” and leave it at that. We urge you not to. Optimizing is essential.

Your Benefits: Checkpoints

For our Wells Fargo team member clients, we review over 30 checkpoints of the employer benefits package to be sure they are apprpriately taking full advantage of what is available to them. Because workplace investment benefits are easily placed on autopilot, it is tempting to become complacent, determined that you are “probably saving enough,” and leave it at that. We urge you not to. Optimizing is essential. Download our free guide, 'Your Benefits: Checkpoints' for a list of the most overlooked features of the benefits package.

We are in a unique position to help answer this question, so we will attempt to do so. If investing and personal finance bring you satisfaction and you enjoy staying on top of industry and workplace changes, then you might consider doing it yourself as outsourcing to an advisor may be a frustrating experience for both you and your advisor. Alternatively, if these responsibilities feel more like a burden and you’d prefer to collaborate with someone who remains on-watch looking for opportunities, then outsourcing to the right advisor may help you to both increase wealth and decrease stress. Your time is better spent on career, family, and true hobbies. Finding the right advisor is critical. As with your position, a good advisor may produce value far in excess of costs.

Beyond the minimum criteria, it comes down to “fit”: Do the advisor’s services match the functions you want outsourced? Does the advisor understand the needs of people in your stage of life and with your career arc? Do you like this person? Can you envision working with him or her for a long time? Do they live by the Wells Fargo mantra, “Clients first, always”?

The short answer is that we think so and our clients do too. The truth is that only you can answer that for yourself. Consider the implications of not addressing the following:

a.        Investment allocation that is too conservative for your goals

b.       Investment allocation that is too aggressive for your goals

c.        Taking full advantage of pre & post tax contribution opportunities

d.       Regularly rebalancing investments (both WF 401k and other investment assets)

e.        Diversifying tax status of investments

f.         Utilizing tax advantaged health benefits

g.        Exercising stock options w/o understanding tax implications

h.       Inconsistent beneficiaries among investments and insurance policies

i.         Understanding your trade restrictions

j.         Monitoring concentration of company stock

k. Benefits of HSA/Flex/HRA

l.         Ongoing benefits/compensation package updates

m.     Understanding investment options within Deferred Comp/Executive Comp packages

n.       Life insurance offered through the workplace

o.       How your assets transfer when you die

Most that we work with appreciate having one point person to discuss all of this with. As Wells Fargo team members ourselves, we stay up to date with plan changes over time.

“Holistic” investment planning means examining all elements of your financial landscape and analyzing them as a whole in order to make the most informed decisions about the optimal path forward. The opposite of holistic planning is simply making isolated decisions (or not) about each part of your financial landscape without regard to how it impacts the landscape in aggregate. The distinction is fundamental: you either believe that your investments and benefits may interact in way that justify intentional, big picture analysis (holistic), or you prefer to make isolated decisions as needed without consideration of the whole picture (not holistic, not planning). While there are those that reside on either side and end up ‘just fine’, if you believe that collaboration with someone that acutely understands options available to you, we may fill a role that is valuable to you. As a team member at Wells Fargo, you have access to high quality yet complex investment options. Understanding how your employer related investments can complement your external investments and then making decisions that eliminate redundancies and fill gaps may pay off nicely over time.

Affiliation and Associated Costs

While we are team members of Wells Fargo & Co., we provide services to the general public, not exclusively to team members Wells Fargo & Co. Any associated costs of services provided are at the sole discretion and expense of the signatory. We require that you confirm the understanding of associated costs, fees, and suitability of services before working with our firm.