FAQs

Maybe you just want partner for your next member guest. But seriously, we love educating and empowering our clients to take control of their finances. We pride ourselves on the ability to make complex financial topics easy to understand. We use some of the most sophisticated tools to help you plan, but we boil it down to a few pages rather than hundreds.

Operating under a fiduciary standard of care, we have a duty to operate in the best interest of each and every client and we take that responsibility seriously.

We offer an objective perspective, free from any conflict of interest throughout the planning process. Whether you’re looking to get started with planning, looking for an analysis of your current financial picture or you’re ready to make changes to your financial plan, we are here for you.

First Financial Group is the general agency in which we operate under, bringing years of experience to every conversation we have. FFG brings a community of advisors along with a unique approach to your finances.  The community that they have created aligns with our values at CWS. Together, we bring subject matter experts to your planning with new and innovative ideas along with years of experience. With FFG, they bring together our broker dealer relationship with MML Investor Services LLC.

There are three ways that we receive compensation:

1. If we help you implement a strategy using a financial product, the company through which the product is placed would pay us a commission.
2. If you decide that you’d like CWS to manage your money, we charge a small percentage of the assets we’re managing or a commission depending on the situation. We always have your best interest in mind when that is decided.
3. We can create a financial plan for a flat fee that ranges depending on the complexity of your situation. We make objective, actionable recommendations that you can choose to implement with our firm or anywhere you feel comfortable.

We value transparency and you can count on us to be straight with you on how and when we’re paid for your situation.

We can. But first and foremost, we’ll create a financial plan, which doesn’t require you to hold any of your investments with us. We won’t suggest investment options without performing a financial analysis of your entire financial picture and some advice must take into account your overlapping and sometimes competing goals. So we first educate , then plan, and then if we come to an agreement, we’ll advise and provide investment services.

You might be able to. However, it is what we do really well: reviewing, revising, and implementing financial plans. We are kind of obsessed with financial planning and since you really only have one chance in life to get your plan “right”, are you confident you have the bandwidth to take on that responsibility?

Both! We like meeting with our clients face-to-face when we are able to but also work virtually across the country.

Totally fine! Our objective analysis will provide you a full view of your entire financial world. As part of the plan, we’ll give you our recommendations, but you’re by no means obligated to implement them with us. In these instances, we’d typically charge a planning fee.

The short answer is “No.” We work with people at various stages of life and help them build a plan to work towards their financial goals.

We can certainly help with that! We classify these as SCAD - Specific Concerns, Analysis and Decisions. Basically, that means we'll help you identify what you are looking for to address your concerns, analyze what the best fit is and assist you with putting that in place.