Garrett Planning Network is an international group of independent fee-only financial planners and advisors. To be a member you must be a fee-only advisor, meaning your compensation can only come from the client not from commissions, referral fees, or sales incentives. That independence ensures no outside influences affect the recommendations. Another important distinction of the Garrett Planning Network is that the members primarily deliver advice on an hourly as-needed basis.
The Garrett Planning Network is a professional organization, like the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) or the Financial Planning Association (FPA). However, it is so much more; it is a way to jumpstart your practice and better serve your clients.
Jumpstart
When I started Clark Hourly Financial Planning, I had definite ideas about the types of services I wanted to provide clients and the kinds of relationships I wanted to build. But I didn’t want to spend a lot of time or thought process on what the forms should look like and other the minutiae of setting up a new business from scratch. Therefore I purchased the forms, manuals, and suggestions for processes from Garrett Planning Network, so that I could tweak them to make them my own and get started sooner on my favorite part of the business, working with clients.
Better serve
The reason I stay a member is the ongoing support that I get from the community of more than 300 independent financial planners. We are all connected through an intranet Knowledge Bank, which we can post to whenever we want to get a second opinion on a case we are working on or to share ideas. I can tap into this group of financial planners, some of whom have been planners for their whole careers, while others have a background as CPAs, or attorneys, have been in human resources, insurance, or mortgage lending. This is an invaluable resource which benefits my clients and me.
I have the benefit of being an independent financial planning business owner and the advantage of having colleagues to bounce my ideas off of – the best of both worlds!