Lesson 3 | Phase 2: Creative Solutions (6:15 minutes)
Phase 2: Creative Solutions
In this segment, I want to talk about The Creative Solutions Phase, and this is the second phase down in the lower right hand quadrant of the process that you can see. So, as you look at this phase on the tool that we've provided, and all the steps, I want to kind of walk you through what's happening here, because this is critical.
In The Creative Solutions phase we're really bringing the advisory team, the collaborative advisory team together for the first time into the room, or maybe we're doing it virtually so that people would have to worry about travel and things to that nature. But, we're coming together to really assess the situation and the opportunities to really solve the goals that the client is trying to achieve, or the obstacles they are trying to overcome or avoid. Things of that nature. So, this is really the first time that we're coming together here to really start to begin to work on their behalf.
It's critical at this point in time, that we've shared The Discovery Phase with all the other advisors in the collaboration, because in order for them to be able to really jump in and engage into this phase of the discussion, they have to have really understood all the inner workings of the client. The things they're trying to achieve, what their current structures and things of that nature look like today. So that's critical that we've already really shared that information with them as a part of our kind of discovery report.
The one thing that we start off with here, and kind of the first segment if you will of the creative solutions phase, is what we call the team briefing. As you'll kind of see there, the team briefing is about, really, simply that, briefing the team on what's going on. We're making sure that we're addressing all questions, and anything that's coming out of their review of the discovery phase as things happen there. This is about briefing them, and answering questions, and getting everybody on the same page, and getting everybody comfortable.
When we start to jump into the second step of this, it's really all around the strategy design session. So, in the strategy design session, the power of having a collaboration together is that a clients got a goal, and now we look at it from a collaborative standpoint. Through all of our lenses. In this phase, we should have a multi-disciplinary team of advisors sitting around the table. In our world that typically is comprised of somebody from the legal world, somebody from the tax world, somebody from the investment world, somebody from the insurance world. Many of those people are wearing kind of that planning hat if you will.
So as we start to look at ways to solve problems, ways to accomplish goals, and objectives, and things that are important to this client, it's amazing to be able to bring all those different experiences, and lenses, and knowledge to the table to kind of vet out and talk about what are the potential ways that we can actually design this. So that's the strategy design session. Let's talk about what are some of the things. Throw things out, go back and forth, and talk about the best ways and structures to be able to solve this.
The next step is what we call the strategy design team assignments. Clearly there are going to be specific areas of competency amongst this core team on behalf of the client, and because of things that are going to be outcomes as a part of the strategy design session, there's going to be clear assignments where somebody needs to take the lead, because of their competency, their area of work, and their expertise. So that's kind of the third phase. Is once we've really designed what the sessions are in the third phase, it's all about let's talk about the assignment so we can actually now go and work on these specific pieces to get them tightened up, and pulled together, and really setup to a point where we can pull all these pieces together.
That leads us into kind of the fourth step, which is what we call the proposed wealth design. The proposed wealth design is going to be where we're actually designing the plan and the recommendations, all the strategies and solutions that we've collaborated on at this point in time, and we're coming together and we're looking at how do we pull all these pieces together, and actually put a complete plan, and what we call the wealth design together. So, what's that look like, how do we pull it all together and really make this a very tight planning process and approach for the client?
Once we've gotten to that point, and we've really kind of vetted all that out, and everybody's on the same page, then we're actually ready for what we call the client briefing. We started off with the team briefing, getting everybody on the same page, but now we're in the client briefing. The client briefing is, we're at a point where we're all aligned, we're all onside, we've put together what we believe to be what's in the best interest of the client, the most legal and tax efficient way to do this. The best way for them to accomplish the things that they're trying to accomplish in their life, for their planning, for their goals, all of those things.
In the client briefing we're now actually presenting this to the client to get their buy in, to show them how what we're proposing actually helps them to accomplish the things that they're trying to accomplish, the things that are most important to them.
This is The Creative Solutions Phase. Again, starts off with the team briefing, then we move into the strategy design session, and then we move into the strategy design team assignments, we can assign them out to the team. Then we come up with our proposed wealth design, and then the final step is the client briefing where we're actually going to present this now to the client. You can kind of look at the tool we've provided, and the steps, and what's happening in each of these. Again, hopefully you see this as a powerful structure for The Creative Solutions Phase that you can bring to your collaborations.
