A lifetime of financial planning across four clear guides.
Buying a home, supporting a family, stepping back from work and passing wealth on all create different demands on a financial plan. I took the lead developing four life-stages guides to give high-net-worth clients a companion asset, and help them get more from conversations with their financial planner and investment manager at Charles Stanley/Raymond James.
SECTOR
Wealth management
DELIVERABLE
4 brochures, 4 web pages
ROLE
Content development and writing
AUDIENCE
HNWIs and prospective clients
IN USE
The most important topics for client conversations in the wealth manager’s most prominent guides.
The guides feature in the ‘About you’ area of Charles Stanley/Raymond James’s website. Readers can download a relevant guide and arrange a conversation with the firm. For existing clients, the series aids their financial planning discussions.
4
guides
8
expert contributors
88
pages (without AI)
BRIEF AND APPROACH
Arranging content that truly mattered to the reader
The series was intended to get clients contacting the firm and to support advisers with client readiness to discuss subjects. The firm’s research into high-net-worth clients pointed to segmenting clients by life stage. In this series, by shedding light on the difficult life decisions and financial trappings at each life stage, it could show where the firm’s financial planners and investment managers would be useful. These largely-evergreen guides make clear the inter-generational wealth transfer.
The initial expectation was mainly long-form text. But I’ve never handed over content like that.
I brought page concepts into the writing process, having previously worked with graphic designers on “guiding the eye.” Sometimes, readers benefitted from an analogy, a story, a comparison, a worked example or a question to pause over. I love bringing these ideas into content.
These largely-evergreen guides make clear the inter-generational wealth transfer.
I worked closely with four financial planners and four investment managers to develop the content. I shaped their input around each guide’s purpose. All of my work on the project was also done by hand, with no AI used, including the later adaptation of the guides and supporting web copy to Raymond James’s tone of voice.
Ages 25–35
Building strong foundations
The first guide puts cash reserves and protection before investing, then builds towards diversification and managing debt.
For compounding, I paired the story of rice doubling on a chessboard with worked examples of starting at different ages. The later starter contributes twice as much each month and still finishes behind in the illustration, hopefully making the cost of delay visible.
← Click on the front cover to see the full guide.
Ages 35–50
Growing wealth and building resilience
A larger home, school fees, and ageing parents can all put demands on the same financial plan. And rising earnings also bring a tax trap into play.
This guide brings those pressures together. Mortgage myths introduce the complications of borrowing with irregular earnings or tying up cash in property. A real client’s experience of divorce shows the personal side of the firm’s support. And the protection section considers how families and businesses would cope if there was an interruption to income.
← Click on the front cover to see the full guide.
Ages 50-60
Protecting your nest egg and retirement
This guide begins with what the reader owns and how accessible it is. For someone whose wealth includes a business or property, funding retirement can depend on decisions made years before any kind of pension withdrawal.
The guide then works through different ways to retire, setting out full, semi and active retirement side by side. This gives clients a way to describe the life they want before getting into too much detail. The pension IHT changes are tied to decisions about which assets to draw on and what to leave to heirs.
← Click on the front cover to see the full guide.
Ages 60+
Leaving a lasting legacy
Legacy planning involves decisions about who should benefit, when to make a gift and how much control to retain. Alongside the obvious IHT concerns, this guide makes room for the generations who will eventually receive the wealth.
I carried the story through to preparing heirs. The closing prompts ask whether they understand what is coming, know which advisers to speak to and are ready for the responsibility. Those questions give the adviser a way to involve the family early, including people who may be dealing with serious wealth for the first time.
← Click on the front cover to see the full guide.
NEED SOMETHING SIMILAR?
I can help you build a body of financial content around your clients’ needs.
Bring me in while you’re working out what the content needs to do. I can help develop the approach and work with your specialists through the writing.
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