Carlson Capital Management

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What the Fiduciary Rule and Telling the Truth Have in Common – and Why Both Are So Freeing

Gregory Carlson
Gregory Carlson, CFP®

CEO and Founder
507.645.8887
Email Greg

  Clients don't just trust us with their money, they're trusting us with their financial lives, they're trusting us with their future...and they're trusting us with some of their dreams.  

Professional Biography
Gregory A. Carlson is a founding principal of Carlson Capital Management. As CEO his primary responsibilities include developing and setting the vision for the firm. In addition, Greg is actively involved in managing client relationships. Greg is a 1982 graduate of St. Olaf College, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics. Greg went on to earn his designation as a Certified Financial Planner™. He worked for four years with IDS/American Express as a financial planner and manager, then established Carlson Capital Management in 1987. Greg has provided investment counsel and advice to clients for three decades and is a speaker and writer on the topics of financial, estate and philanthropic planning.

Greg is an active community member and has served in leadership roles on numerous boards and committees of civic, professional and religious organizations including the Northfield Rotary Club, American Center for Philanthropy, Northfield Area Foundation, Bethel Lutheran Church, Mt. Carmel Ministries, St. Olaf College, and TIAA-CREF Institute. Greg is also the co-founder of 5th Bridge, which is now a part of Northfield Shares, an organization founded to advance philanthropy, inspire volunteerism and promote collective leadership. Greg and his wife, Nancy, live in Northfield, where they have raised their three daughters.

Personal Thoughts
I have learned that wisdom comes from experience and experience is gathered over time. Over the past 30 years, I have seen and worked with most of the technical issues people face in developing financial plans. But more importantly, I have been a part of our clients’ lives. I have seen the joys and challenges of wealth. I have experienced births and deaths, nursing homes, divorces, retirements and layoffs. I have witnessed the best and worst of families, the ups and downs of the stock markets, the comings and goings of trends and fads. I have seen goals set and achieved and opportunities created that no one thought existed. I have seen good and bad investments (and even invested in a few bad ones myself in the earlier years). Through all of this, I have learned the importance of being technically strong, disciplined and trustworthy and to be of uncompromising integrity. I am proud to have formed, and to be a part of a firm, which has these principles at its core.

Much of who we are as adults is steeped in our formative years as children and young people. I grew up on the prairies of western Minnesota where I was exposed to hard work, discipline and honesty. As one of five children of a school teacher and mother who stayed at home during the child-rearing years, my life revolved around family, church and sports. I was expected to do well (which meant only my best) in my education, sports and work, but always with a respect and concern for those around me.

When I was 12, and in the sixth grade, one afternoon my teachers gathered the entire class together to review a math test that we had all taken. Before beginning the review, Mrs. Halvorson wanted to draw attention to two students who had done exceptionally well–I was one of them. As she proceeded to go through the correct answer and method to each question, it became clear to me that she had not corrected my paper accurately. As I watched my “A” slip to a “C”, I began erasing the wrong answers for which I had received credit and replaced them with the new correct answers. At the conclusion of the review I stared at my paper now 100% correct. It took me only moments to re-erase the correct answers and replace them with the wrong answers and trudge to the front of the class to inform Mrs. Halvorson that I wasn’t the bright shining student on that exam.

Honesty is a value I hold sacred. Honesty means always telling the truth, even when it hurts. Honesty means being transparent in how I conduct business and in all aspects of my life. Most importantly, honesty means being authentic even when it shows my flaws.

It is the foundation of the first 22 years of my life, with the experiences of the following 35 years, that have guided me in working with the clients of Carlson Capital Management and developing our firm into a successful wealth management firm. I have a strong desire to excel at both the client and company level, but only by earning it. It is my philosophy that we need to always excel at taking care of our clients first and that in turn will shape who we are as a firm--our success will follow.

Gregory Carlson
Gregory Carlson, CFP®
CEO and Founder

Many of you have been hearing or reading in the news the discussion on what is referred to as the “Fiduciary Rule.” A version of the Fiduciary Rule was originally proposed in 2010 by the Department of Labor (DOL), then quickly withdrawn amid great protest in the financial industry. Essentially, the concept is and was to overhaul ERISA (Employee Retirement Income Security Act)—originally enacted in 1974 to regulate the quality of financial advice surrounding retirement. In 2015, President Obama reintroduced the concept, explaining, “It’s a very simple principle: You want to give financial advice, you’ve got to put your client’s interests first.” In April of 2016, the final rulings were issued and were slated to phase in from April of 2017 to January of 2018. In the headlines as of late is that effective with the new administration, a bill has been introduced as well as a presidential memorandum that will most likely delay the rule’s implementation in a move that many believe will materially change, if not eliminate, the ruling.

The crux of the matter is that dating back to 1974, and even earlier in other forms of rules and legislation, the government has worked to enact standards, laws, regulations, rules and guidelines to protect consumers and investors. One of the strongest ways to do that is to require the professionals that give financial advice and manufacture investment products to always ACT IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE CLIENT. That, in essence is at the heart of the Fiduciary Rule.

CCM’s Approach

Carlson Capital Management has provided wealth management to clients under a fiduciary standard of care for many years. Acting as a fiduciary is truly at the core of our relationships, processes, decision making, advising and culture. In our view, the Ruling as proposed doesn’t even go far enough since it applies only to retirement (ERISA) plans. We would support a rule that requires adherence to a fiduciary standard for all investment professionals, not just those who advise on retirement/ERISA plans. Quite frankly, we cannot imagine why the whole industry has not been required to follow the fiduciary standard in all financial planning matters. Why wouldn’t an investor/client deserve to be guided in a manner that is in their best interest?

While we are monitoring the news about the Rule, clients of Carlson Capital Management should be clear on the fact that while we advocate the broadening of fiduciary standards as required by the Rule, its enactment would/will have little impact on CCM. Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs), by the nature of choosing to offer clients advice in a transparent, independent, fee-based manner, uphold fiduciary standards as inherent to the way we do business. It is one of the key differentiators in the way we work with clients versus our “competitors” who are not RIAs.

Fiduciary standards are of such importance to us that each year, we voluntarily go through an independent third-party assessment by the Centre for Fiduciary Excellence (CEFEX) who evaluate our adherence to the industry’s best fiduciary practices. In 2007, we were one of the first investment advisors globally to complete the CEFEX process.

What the Fiduciary Standard Means for our Clients
(and our Colleagues)

The following values are at the core of our fiduciary commitment at CCM. They are “why” a fiduciary standard is so important to us.

  1. Best Interest of the Client. As a fiduciary we are required to act in the best interest of our clients. That should be a given—why would anyone hire a financial advisor that wouldn’t agree to that relationship? We wouldn’t. The kind of standard that stands in opposition to the fiduciary standard is the “suitability standard,” which is the standard by which the majority of the country’s financial advisors abide. The suitability standard means that an advisor only has to provide advice or a product that is suitable for your goals, not best, even if it costs twice as much as an identical solution. What is the reality of that situation? One example is that under the suitability standard an advisor can offer “suitable” investments that allow them to get compensated much more –and at the client’s expense. In this case, the advisor is looking out for their own interests. At CCM, we are compensated through an advisory fee, not by selling products. It is in our clients’ best interest that we provide the lowest-cost options that produce the intended results.
  2. Transparency, Objectivity and No Conflicts of Interest. When the “lights are fully on,” there are no secrets or conflicts of interest and clients are best served. We have chosen to build our firm upon each of these foundational tenants. Our clients never have to wonder if there is any hidden motive behind any of our recommendations. They know we are committed to recommendations that we believe are solely in their best interest.
  3. Standard of Care. A fiduciary not only pledges to operate without conflict of interests, but also to provide a continued standard of care. While this may seem obvious, the suitability standard does not require this. Therefore, the majority of advisors in the U.S. are not obligated to provide a continuous standard of care after they have “sold” an investment product to a client. At Carlson Capital Management, at the core of our service model is to continually and routinely monitor and update our clients’ financial plans.

As a father of three daughters, and a founder of a company with now over 40 colleagues, I have always tried to instill a culture and ethic of honesty and integrity. I have shared this creed often, “If you always tell the truth, you never have to remember what you said.” In essence, each interaction builds upon always telling the truth. That same logic and creed applies equally to the fiduciary standard— “If we always act in the best interest of our client, we never have to look back and wonder what we did, for whom we did it and why we did it.” In our next, and every interaction, we just need once again to act in their best interest. The fiduciary standard is one we deeply believe in for our clients and colleagues as we deliver the CCM Experience and build an authentic wealth management firm.

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Published March 15, 2017 Topics: CCM Women's Initiative, DOL Fiduciary Ruling, Fiduciary Rule, Fiduciary Standard, Financial Advisors, Financial Planning, Financial Planning for Women

unique-approach

What is an Independent Wealth Management Firm? This four minute illustrated video clip explains how, as an independent firm, we apply a fiduciary standard and an integrated platform to provide our clients with a Unique Approach to Wealth Management.

CEFEX

Read More about CCM’s Fiduciary Standards

Fiduciary

Fiduciary Matters: Relationships of Trust, an informative paper outlining the role of a fiduciary within a wealth advisory relationship.

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