Frequently Asked Questions

To be honest, we're not sure if you should work with us, or any other financial advisor for that matter. What you should do is interview several financial professionals before you decide to work with anyone. You need to understand their philosophy, process, personality—and you need to like each one of those traits. Our clients are looking for a long-term partnership with a trusted expert – not a high-pressure sales pitch, hot stock tip, or get-rich-quick scheme. Most of our clients are either:

a.Long-time savers approaching or in retirement who are seeking guidance on how to turn their nest-egg into income that could potentially last the rest of their life. They understand that there are some pivotal decisions to make that could be the difference between an ideal retirement and just surviving. They want to work with someone who will look out for their best interests.

b.High income professionals looking to invest wisely, minimize taxes, and grow their wealth. They understand the value of delegating, but want to get value for their dollar and don’t want conflicted advice or hidden fees.

Regardless of age, our clients are "young at heart" and live active lifestyles. Their primary financial motivation is to live their lives on their own terms and to be confident in their pursuit of financial independence. They don’t necessarily ever want to "retire" in the traditional sense. Although secondary to planning their own best life, they place a high value on leaving behind a legacy to children and grandchildren in a efficient and cost-conscious manner. So, if that's you, we might be a good place to start.

Ignite is designed so that we can work with people where they are. As such, we have the ability to meet almost entirely on a virtual basis (video calls, phone calls, email, etc). If you are local to the Greenville or Charleston regions of South Carolina, we would be happy to come meet you in a place where you are most comfortable. Ultimately, we feel we can offer a more efficient, streamlined and cost-effective experience by utilizing the sophisticated technology that is available to us. If it is important to you to meet with your Advisor in a big fancy office with mahogany desks (that you're paying for 😉), we may not be the firm for you. While we do have branch locations, these are used mostly for administrative purposes.

We believe that, ultimately, many investors' returns are negatively impacted by high costs, inefficient trading and poor tax awareness. In order to help our clients attempt to avoid such a fate, we develop strategies that seek to lower taxes and other costs, while taking advantage of experienced money managers and market research.

Our investment approach is based on a belief in markets. Rather than attempting to predict the future or out-guess others, we draw information about expected returns from the market itself— leveraging the collective knowledge of millions of buyers and sellers as they set security prices. The approach we take is grounded in economic theory and backed by decades of empirical research.

Every day the portfolio managers and traders we use seek to balance costs against expected returns and diversification. We pursue the slightest expected gain, as every incremental improvement can add up over time.

This meeting is used to determine if we are a match from a philosophy, process and personality standpoint. We will talk more about you, us, and see if we are a good "Fit" to work together. Outside of being able to talk in general about your financial situation, there is no other prep work you need to do. There is no cost for this meeting and no obligation to work together moving forward. We hate sales pitches as much as you, so rest assured, there will not be one.

Ignite Wealth does not hold your money. A financial institution, called a custodian, will hold your securities for safekeeping to minimize the risk of their theft or loss. The custodian we use at Ignite is Fidelity.

A custodian is a financial institution that holds and manages a client's securities or other assets on his/her behalf. This reduces the risk of the client losing his/her assets or having them stolen. They are also available to the brokerage to sell at the client's demand. Like a bank, a custodian provides an investor a place to store assets. Please note that custodians protect your assets against theft, they do not protect against market loss.

At Ignite Wealth we avoid sending sensitive information via E-mail and encourage our clients to do the same. All our hardware is protected with strong passwords and full-disk encryption. Most of the client data we have is stored by the following providers (click to see each company’s own security policy).

Right Capital (Financial Planning Portal)

Wealthbox (Customer Relationship Management)