Are You Ready To Grow As a Financial Advisor?
At C2P, we’re always looking to improve our process to help our advisors and, ultimately, American families. Traditionally, some advisors, agents, reps, and planners have used an outdated version of the Bucket Plan to sell financial products.
Wealth professionals would make a pitch about how their product or service solves specific financial concerns like discretionary spending or legacy planning. This approach may not take the time to figure out what’s best for the individual client.
We have developed and refined our proven process with field testing from advisors around the country.
The Bucket Plan® is a holistic financial planning device developed by C2P’s CEO and founder Jason L Smith. The Bucket Plan works to incorporate all the client’s assets into one comprehensive financial plan that addresses individual needs by categorizing assets based on income, time horizon, and tax qualifications.
The key to a successful bucket plan is strategically positioning and then protecting a portion of the client’s assets to buy a time horizon that allows them to invest the remainder for long-term growth. This is done with three buckets: Now, Soon, and Later.
Now BucketThis is the client’s safe and liquid money that they keep at a bank in a checking, savings, or money market account. The Now Bucket has three primary purposes:
The Now Bucket contains easily accessible funds for planned and unexpected expenses in the first few years of retirement. This bucket achieves minimal returns that likely will not keep pace with inflation, so don’t overfill it.
The Soon Bucket contains the money the client will use sooner rather than later. If a client is younger, this would be any money they could access penalty-free if they needed to draw from the Now Bucket. If they are retired or getting ready to retire, this is the money needed to fund the first retirement phase.
The Soon Bucket should include an inflationary hedge, so there are enough funds to increase the income to keep pace with inflation when drawing from this bucket during the first phase of retirement.
The Soon Bucket is for the first ten years of retirement plus a hedge for inflation. The client will need this money sooner rather than later, so invest it conservatively to offset the client’s increased cost of living in retirement. This mitigates the risk of withdrawing at a market low, as you should not expose this account to extreme market fluctuations.
Now that the client has purchased a time horizon with the money in the Now and Soon Buckets, it’s time to review the Later Bucket. This is the money the client will not need to draw from until the later years of retirement, so we can confidently invest it in more long-term, growth-oriented investments.
As the client spends the money in their Soon Bucket over time, the Later Bucket replenishes it. In addition to growth and income, educating the client on long-term care, disability, and legacy planning in the Later Bucket is critical.
The Later Bucket is designed to house investments for long-term growth in the later stages of retirement. Long-term investments are more aggressive because the client has more time to cover any potential losses.
Are You Ready To Grow As a Financial Advisor?
Successful advisors need a reliable process that is not only efficient but also helps them close more build better holistic plans for their clients in a way that can be easily replicated.
The Bucket Plan® holistic financial process is a proven turnkey financial planning process for holistically gathering data, documenting findings, and delivering asset-positioning strategies in your clients’ best interest. The Bucket Planning approach offers financial advisors many different tools that can deploy during the financial planning process to help educate their clients on how to structure their future financial goals properly.
These tools include books, videos, and even recognized certification courses financial advisors can use to increase the profitability of their practice while creating a more holistic planning service for their clients.
The Bucket Plan® BookAuthored by the CEO and Founder of C2P, Jason L. Smith, The Bucket Plan® Book is a tool that Bucket Plan Certified Advisors can use to build customer confidence.
What does success mean to you? Is it growing your client base? Is it expanding the reach of your firm? Through our training courses, we provide a broad selection of live, on-demand, and virtual training resources that cover everything from proven and repeatable turnkey planning processes for best interest financial planning and documentation to operational strategies that assist in increasing client conversion and retention.
Are you an advisor dedicated to offering your clients a holistic financial plan? Are you looking for proven processes to help you simplify financial advisor strategies so your clients can easily understand and accept them?
During the Bucket Plan® 1.0 training financial planning professionals learn how to navigate market volatility, taxes, inflation, and increasing life expectancies that challenge their clients financial goals. The processes during this two day training addresses these challenges by providing a proven process to effectively segment clients’ assets, accounting for income needs, time horizon, and tax qualifications during the different phases of retirement. This process provides everything and advisor needs to document and implement the bucket plan process in their own offices including:
Demonstrate your commitment to professional education and holistic planning and REGISTER FOR THIS TRAINING EVENT TODAY.
Expanding upon The Bucket Plan® process, this process will teach you how to monetize your wisdom and provide a competitive breadth of service to you clients in all areas of their financial well-being including:
This step-by-step process for providing holistic planning simplifies the service you can provide all while focusing on your clients’ best interest. During the event financial planning professionals learn how to:
Take the next step to becoming a top financial advisor, REGISTER FOR THIS TRAINING EVENT TODAY.
“Time well spent to learn Bucket Plan® training. The 2 days flew by. I have immediate take-aways to incorporate into my practice that will significantly impact my deliverable and overall client experience. The processes and tools you utilize and share spikes my confidence as an advisor. Thank you.”
-Betty J. Albitz, CLU®, ChFC®
“The Bucket Plan® training will motivate you to build an even more successful business. I’ve learned from Jason Smith and Dave Alison that you just can’t wing it. They provide a simple process that will turn the challenges of a crowded marketplace into an opportunity to stand out from your competition. When you cross paths with them, seize the opportunity!”
-Charles Welde, CFP®, CPA
Following The Bucket Plan® training, you will have the opportunity to increase your credibility by earning the BPC designation and CE credits.
The Bucket Plan Certified® designation is a FINRA-recognized professional designation, which indicates to clients that you have elevated your skillset to that of a truly holistic advisor, delivering a best-interest planning process and a holistic financial plan.
To become BPC, Advisors are required to have a bachelor’s degree or at least two years of industry experience, a Life Insurance license, and must hold at least one of the following:
Additionally, advisors must complete introductory and advanced eLearning courses and pass the included knowledge assessment, fully attend The Bucket Plan® 1.0 two-day training, and pass a comprehensive and proctored final exam. The BPC designation is active for one year, and equivalent requirements combined with additional coursework are then required to maintain the designation.
BPC advisors are taught to use a set of planning tools that ensure a holistic financial planning process for the client. Because an informed consumer makes better decisions, The Bucket Plan® emphasizes how to educate clients on key concepts such as The Money Cycle and sequence of returns risk.
The resulting plan accounts for a client’s income needs, time horizon, volatility tolerance, and tax situation for a personalized and product-agnostic financial plan.
