The Spotlight Hog
Lately, we’ve been thinking that maybe our $500 flat-fee pricing model is a bit of a spotlight hog.
Please don’t get us wrong. We are thrilled to be able to offer a low, flat fee. We believe strongly that our pricing model serves our advisors and their clients well. It allows us to fit more easily into our advisors’ practices, and it allows the clients they serve to keep more money in their pockets as their account values grow.
But our flat-fee pricing model is just one of the things that gives us a sense of pride and purpose at First Ascent. You may or may not know our company story. The First Ascent team came together from various parts of the industry with a shared passion and a mission to do a number of things differently – and hopefully better – for our advisors and their clients.
Our vision includes a lot of other benefits to advisors and their clients that we believe can add significant value for them. For instance, we:
- Reexamined many of the traditional approaches to portfolio management and developed an elegantly simple approach that has produced very strong performance for our clients.
- Combined active and passive management together in our flagship portfolios so our clients get the benefit of both approaches to investing.
- Structured our investment committee with both internal and independent members to avoid common pitfalls that other firms face and to allow us to make better decisions.
- Leveraged technology and outsourcing so that we can stay laser focused on building quality portfolios while still providing high-touch service and support.
- Utilized our website, social media, and a more modern approach to interacting with the advisors we work with to communicate more effectively and more efficiently with them.
- Questioned everything about the portfolio outsourcing business to see what really makes sense. We start every question by asking, “What is best for the clients we serve?”
We are just as passionate about, and proud of, all of these benefits we can provide to advisors and their clients. And yet, most of the publicity we seem to receive is still about our “cheap” pricing. We sometimes laughingly bemoan the fact that in our opinion, the flat fee isn’t even the best part of our offering. It just doesn’t fully express the DNA of First Ascent!
So, if you haven’t already connected with us, please reach out and schedule a call to hear all of the ways First Ascent can add value for you, your practice, and your clients.