Tell us about your business and the role you play in it.
DTH: I have decades of experience in tackling financial goals and multi-generational planning, while Lynn has been hands-on in the health field and child and family advocacy since the Clinton administration.
LHH: People have more complex needs beyond financial planning. They are now demanding comprehensive plans along a continuum of aging needs which include things like healthcare and housing, and staying social and mobile.
Where did your vision begin, and how has it grown?
DTH: The epiphany came from working with one of my most candid clients who wasn’t interested in any of the statements or pie charts the big firms were sending. She kept asking things like will the kids be taken care of? Where are we going to live? What if something happens to us right now? Can we pay for family getaways with the grandkids? Who’s going to pay the bills when we start forgetting?
LHH: Okay yes, I’ll admit it. That client was me. I thought those bank reports were meaningless. S&P this and NASDAQ that… like I’m qualified to know if this is good for me. My money is supposed to serve a purpose for all the things I want in life, including the unknowns and what-ifs through every stage of life.
We want to answer those questions most important to our clients’ lives, like my questions were to me and my family.
What made you choose the Asheville area?
LHH: There’s something so beautiful and magical about the mountains. It’s soul-healing. As a family, we started spending our summers here; it gave us a chance to escape the hustle and bustle of Philadelphia and just breathe. Eventually, we saw an opportunity to make it permanent when our children enrolled at two of the local boarding schools. We moved the whole family here full-time in 2018.
DTH: And with the boom of retirees relocating to Asheville, it was clearly a perfect time and place to expand professionally. The food and beer scene is here is definitely a nice little perk.
What’s a little known fact or trivia about your business?
PRESERVE is a woman-owned, minority-owned business. We’re a unique hybrid model that combines traditional wealth management with the role of a longevity adviser.
How did you decide on a name?
LHH: When we say PRESERVE, we have to quickly tell people we’re not a wildlife sanctuary or a jelly company!
DTH: PRESERVE actually came from what we were hearing over and over again from our clients: preserve my standard of living, preserve my independence, preserve my dignity. So, PRESERVE Wealth Management sounded just perfect to us.
From your perspective, how has coronavirus and a shifting economy affected the investment industry?
DTH: The most important message we offer echoes all the good communication the Chamber has been doing around COVID-19. Everyone needs to take this crisis seriously, and we can help one another get through it faster by staying home, dramatically decreasing outings, washing hands frequently, practicing social distancing, and helping vulnerable neighbors when you can.
As for the investing environment, global financial markets have been whipsawed in recent weeks by coronavirus worries. With the shutdown of schools, businesses, travel and leisure, it’s now clear the coronavirus outbreak is set to deliver a sharp and deep economic shock. These market moves remind us of the 2008 crisis.
Business closings and social distancing policies will bring economic activity to a near standstill. Hopefully, the Federal government’s aggressive fiscal policy and monetary actions will help bridge businesses and households through the shock. It’s all educated guesses right now. No one has definitive answers and that has the country on edge.
What steps has your company taken to respond to this change?
With containment and recovery, we believe activity should return rapidly with little permanent economic damage.
In the meantime, our “Living and Giving” approach to money management has really helped our clients with anxiety over the last couple months. We plan for times like this because something unforeseen always happens. Our Living Vault plans for the next three years of cash flow … we always know exactly how the next 36 months of bills are going to be met.
Not only does that keep us from having to sell stocks in this environment, it keeps the long-term investment plan in place for full recovery. The best benefit, however, may be the peace of mind it offers clients.
Anyone can take steps to use this prudent approach. We wrote in more detail about all three vaults and how to use them in a recent blog post: How do I invest in this environment?
Connect with PRESERVE Wealth Management on their website and Facebook page