Comprehensive fee-only financial planning with no product sales

The Financial Mentor partners with our clients to provide plans that meet your financial goals and ensure lifelong security of income support.

Our Services

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Discretionary Portfolio Management

Introductions to qualified firms

Advisory Investment Management

Introductions to qualified firms

Fee-only Professional Financial Planners

Introductions or referrals

Estate Planning & Risk Management

Introductions and mentoring

Consulting
Litigation Support
“As someone who has mentored and supervised many financial planners, Ken’s financial plan submission for his R.F.P. designation, is the most comprehensive and easy to read document I’ve ever read.”
Russell Todd

Compensation

All planning and consulting services of Ken Doll / The Financial Mentor are fee-based. The Financial Mentor follows an hourly fee scale for consulting services, beginning with the initial consultation with a new client.

Primary service areas include financial plans, projections of cash flow and capital growth, implementation, assistance with selecting service providers, and ongoing mentoring updating strategies.

We ensure the clients understand:

  • Our consulting and mentoring services are provided on a fee-only basis from client payment only.
  • The Financial Mentor does not accept or solicit compensation from any investment, legal, or accounting firm they introduce to the clients for needed services.

About Us

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Kenneth Doll

BA, B.Comm., MA, CFP, CLU, TEP, ICD.D

Fee-Only Financial Planning Consultant
Ken@TheFinancialMentor.ca

Ken’s specialties include:

  • Retirement Planning
  • Tax Minimization
  • Income, Wealth and Asset Protection
  • Risk Management
  • Life Insurance
  • Estate and Legacy Planning
  • Generational Wealth Transfer
  • Financial Advice
  • Financial Consulting
  • Insurance Consulting

Ken has been providing financial, retirement and estate planning solutions for 28 years. He has worked with High Net Worth ($2M – $25M) and Ultra High Net Worth ($25M – $100M+) clients, including prominent families, professional athletes (NHL Hockey Players), executives, business owners, professionals, and farmers and ranchers. He has also built financial plans for Canadians across the country, including those with property in the U.S.

Ken’s industry education includes earning the Certified Financial Planning (CFP), Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU) and Trust and Estate Practitioner (TEP) designations, along with having completed the Canadian Securities Course (CSC) and the Canadian Investment Funds Course (IFIC). He holds three degrees from the University of Alberta in business, economics and political science and has completed the Institute of Corporate Directors designation (ICD.D). Ken has also served as an expert witness on life insurance matters and conducted presentations on Investments, Insurance, Financial and Estate Planning and Philanthropy.

Ken works closely with clients to identify unique financial, retirement, tax and estate planning solutions that help them build and protect their wealth, while also minimizing tax. He is an advocate of holistic financial planning that not only encompasses a client’s financial situation, but also considers the importance of family dynamics and sensitive issues around wealth transfer.

Russell Todd

RFP (Retired)

Founder of The Financial Mentor
Russell@TheFinancialMentor.ca

Russell Todd began consulting as a fee-only financial planner in 1997. His consulting focused on helping clients meet retirement income security goals. When clients sought advice and assistance in selecting the best portfolio management services before they retired, Russell added this service. Without exception it was challenging and rewarding for clients changing their role from investment selection and management to working with investment professionals better suited to these duties. This transition allowed clients to see better total returns with less volatility, with more income certainty and capital preservation, plus ongoing financial mentoring services.

In the last 10 years Russell helped to mentor young financial planners in these areas while earning their professional RFP certification. The new planners became better professional planners through mentoring clients and providing financial plans tailored to client goals.

One planner, Ken Doll, asked to become owner and successor of The Financial Mentor, providing the opportunity for Russell to step back and pursue other lifestyle interests, while retaining a mentor role for Ken.

Ken’s future with TFM clients is bright and exciting. The path ahead is exciting and we believe present and future TFM clients will benefit from working together with The new Financial Mentor, Ken Doll.

Our Process

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Knowledge, advice, and introductions

The Financial Mentor works with clients first by helping clients understand the issues – ‘knowledge’.

Our ‘advice’ provided applies the knowledge to client needs we have identified – step two.

But advice is recognizing that the services of investment counsel, legal counsel, and tax professionals will also be needed, in most instances, to complete the total solution for the client.

Thus step three – ‘the introduction’.

Why introductions and not referrals?

The Financial Mentor / Ken Doll do NOT make referrals to firms and professionals to provide services or advice required by the client. We have found by experience it is more effective to make a personal introduction to each firm they recommend to the clients.

Our introductions come from in-house research and experience in dealing with the firms and individuals we recommend to help the clients complete their financial planning goals. This way ensures both parties are fully aware of the issues and ready to work together in starting the task, following their appointment.

Ken has met and worked with a wide range of firms and professionals who have been able to help other clients in areas critical to their financial security. These relationships have been developed, fostered and built over many years to provide our select clients with premium access to the high quality expertise they require.

During the financial planning project these introductions could be included, for example:

  • Wills and estate planning lawyers
  • Tax and business accounting CPA’s
  • Business coaches and valuation experts
  • Discretionary portfolio management firms
  • Advisory investment service firms or licenced advisors
  • Insurance professionals
  • Cross border tax advisors
  • Divorce and family law mediation specialists
  • Professional executors and trust advisory

Financial Mentoring

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Our philosophy on client mentoring

It is the client’s wealth and their desire for future financial security that matters.

We invest time learning how the client and their family identifies the financial needs they can achieve by working with The Financial Mentor.

We gather all financial data and client profile data needed to craft solutions for future financial security.

We identify qualified professionals who can help our clients with critical needs, such as legal advice, tax and accounting services, risk and wealth management.

We believe qualified professionals can be best identified by our office as a client advocate, more effectively than if our client tries to make contact directly via the internet and social media. In this approach, often key information is not accurately presented or easily accessed, and client engagement is the marketing intent of social media information.

We place high value on intangibles that matter, such as ethics, qualifications, philosophy, experience, track record, service cost, client communication, and empathy.

Our Introduction process

As a Financial Mentor, we use our financial services knowledge, experience, education, and training to prioritize client concerns, quantify long-term financial goals, and the roles clients want to delegate or retain in managing their wealth.

The process could be compared to an independent audit of services, intended to match service results to client identified holistic needs.

This introduction process applies to selecting new qualified, experienced professionals and firms for needed services such as portfolio management, financial planning, estate and tax planning.

From our client meetings we develop a short list of candidates we think can meet client needs and all related parameters. We provide the clients with background on the firms and individuals, with our assessment of suitability, before any client interview is undertaken.

This is not “speed dating”

This is not “speed dating”, as we are helping clients enter a long-term relationship with the firm they will choose after our research and interviews are completed.

We provide selected firms a Request for Proposal, detailing client profile and needs. Each firm then makes their presentation to our client and The Financial Mentor on their proposed services and benefits.

The clients must select at least two firms to make service presentations to them. We attend as observers and participants, helping the client gain a full understanding of what services and benefits they will gain from each candidate.

Following presentations, we assist clients in assessing the proposals and selecting the firm they want to work with in the future. Further information is collected as needed from each firm.

As The Financial Mentor we remain impartial in the evaluation process.

It is the clients selecting the most suitable candidate, and it is always challenging.

Ending current business relationships

We assist our clients in terminating present business relationship, an exercise most clients do not find comfortable. However, we have experience in making this a professional transition from one firm to another in an orderly, cordial, and professional manner.

We manage the transition and start-up work required to begin the new relationship, including asset transfers to the new service firm.  This includes reviewing the Investment Policy Statement and other management documents that reflect the client needs.

We use a similar approach in ensuring clients get the best professional advisors needed for estate planning, tax planning, and financial planning services.

We provide these services based upon 25+ years plus of working around the investment industry, the trust industry, and with the legal and accounting professionals in Western Canada.

Mentoring clients is a partnership

Working with clients to craft the solution to their needs requires trust and understanding.

I work in understanding the client and their needs. I ask the clients trust me with their information and their concerns. Full disclosure is always the best solution, especially when making decisions on all matters that will affect your family, your partner and yourself.

There will be a level of discomfort when it becomes necessary to end a current relationship with an existing advisor, but we help make this transition cordial and cooperative when possible.

Managing change

We have learned some clients have difficulty giving up the role of managing their own investments. Often it is because the client finds it challenging to trust better qualified professionals to do a cost-effective job of this work.

We help clients to recognize they are still going to be involved with their investments, more in the role of management rather than security selection and timing etc.

We provide more detail after our initial client meetings as to the criteria used in assessing firms for discretionary portfolio management as well as for advisory management firms, where the client will be more actively involved in changes made to their portfolio.

We work to understand what each investment management firm can offer our clients,  including people, process, products, pricing, performance, and reporting. This knowledge helps our clients in making their selection of their next investment manager for the future.

Clients will still play an active role in discussions on funding plans, required withdrawals coming out of accounts, tax planning and any unique cash flow needs in the future.

We spend time with clients identifying how to make their investments tax effective going forward.

Ongoing client support

The Financial Mentor / Ken Doll’s initial client work is the preparation of a Financial Plan and Cash Flow Projection. The financial plan provides the analysis of the current circumstance and the recommended actions needed to help the clients meet their goals. The supporting cash flow projection confirms the impact on cash flow, capital growth, taxes and estate planning values, over a lifetime.

The Financial Mentor provides a fee-based option for clients to access – including:

  1. implementation of report recommendations
  2. interviews and assistance on soliciting and selecting service providers
  3. periodic reviews of investment services and performances to agreed-upon benchmarks
  4. updates to estate planning documents and
  5. plan and projection revisions to changed circumstance.

When the Consulting Engagement Agreement is signed, Ken will provide a secure way to collect key financial documents during the initial fact-finding process. This is combined with initial meetings and discussions to better understand all the issues at hand and determine what your financial goals and objectives are.

At all times – Ken Doll, The Financial Mentor, recognizes it is the clients money and goals and we are working together as a mentor to you, our clients in designing the best solution and steps to follow for achieving your financial security.

Your Next Step...

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Service agreements - a key first step

Our client engagement begins with a written Consulting Engagement Agreement on client needs and goals, services to be provided, the cost of service and the payment options. Our clients always have the option to end the services following notice.

Please email me to set up a time to discuss what you are seeking, and I will help you get there.

After our initial contact I advise the information we need, and how we can collaborate with you as your Financial Mentor.

As a financial planner, I follow the steps of financial planning:

1. Identify Your Needs and Objectives
2. Gather Information
3. Analyze Information and Develop Plan
4. Plan Presentation and Delivery
5. Implement Plan
6. Review Progress and Update

You will never know the cost of free advice, but good advice is priceless.