Successful Financial Planning & Crypto - Erik Olson

Erik Olson is a servant leader who helps clients meet their goals with financial planning.  I think you'll enjoy our conversation and it might just inspire you to do something wiser with your finances.  

https://www.linkedin.com/in/financialerik/

Arete Wealth Planning LLC — A financial planning and investment management advisory firm

Erik C. Olson, CFP®, CKA®

Clients who seek our advice tend to be bright, accomplished people who continue to enjoy their careers and families, but who recognize they are facing a variety of consequential financial decisions beyond their own expertise. These commonly include retirement, Social Security and Medicare, investments, insurance, caring for aging parents, tax planning, estate planning, and education planning.   

The clients who choose us over other advisors tend to value our rigorous and comprehensive planning process, our research-driven low-cost investment approaches, our independence, the access we offer to investment options normally reserved for institutions and the ultra-wealthy, and the exacting care we take to ensure our recommendations are demonstrably offered as fiduciaries focused on clients’ best interests.  

A subset of our clients also want investment portfolios that reflect their values, whether spiritual, environmental, social, or otherwise. As such we offer investment portfolios tailored to these values, including Biblically Responsible Investing portfolios, various customized Sustainable Investing (ESG) portfolios, and particular Impact Investments.  We currently are identifying potential opportunities for clients to invest directly in various Business as Mission and/or Kingdom-Impact businesses.

Our firm is dually registered as a Registered Investment Adviser (RIA) and as a broker-dealer (B-D). The main benefit of the B-D registration is that we can offer some carefully curated private equity and private debt investment opportunities to investors who qualify, and yet under the RIA registration offer these at a discount, stripped of the commission.  

That said, I am committed to acting at all times as a fiduciary, and as such I work almost exclusively on a fee basis.  In very rare instances, and only after extensive planning and analysis based on the client’s specific circumstances, it may be that the best solution for a given client actually is a commission-based product. When that is the case, I carefully explain why, with full disclosure of any potential conflicts of interest. The client is then equipped to accept or decline that recommendation.

I am a Certified Financial PlannerTM (CFP®) practitioner, and have emphasized developing special expertise in retirement income planning, tax strategies, estate planning strategies, and factor-based investing.  Our core team includes my two assistants, and we are then backed by our firm’s compliance officers, investment due diligence team, and home office administrative support.  We also collaborate with various investment specialists, insurance experts, estate planning attorneys, and CPAs to provide you with carefully examined multi-disciplinary advice.

In most cases we meet with clients about four times annually, typically ranging from 45 minutes to two hours, either in person or online via Zoom.  The full annual cycle covers the gamut of comprehensive financial planning topics, including goal monitoring, an update to the plan, investment reviews, insurance and beneficiary reviews, estate planning reviews, year-end tax planning, and much more.  For business owners and executives we address additional topics, including compensation planning, valuations, succession/exit planning, and advanced tax strategies.

You deserve more than “one-size-fits-all,” assembly line, cookie-cutter answers.  You deserve carefully considered, tailored guidance, which is what we provide.