Hi, I’m Eric Figueroa, CFP®, a financial advisor and the Founding Wealth Manager of Hesperian Wealth. What differentiates me and my firm from most financial advisors?
Appointment Flexibility
Many financial advisors work standard M-F hours, but probably so do you. I’ve opened up evening and weekend time slots on my calendar. You shouldn’t have to take off work to meet with your financial advisor. I’m here to serve: Let me work around your schedule.
Virtual Meetings
Being a virtual-first advisor means you don’t have to waste time driving to and from my office. Get advice from me right from your own home and wherever you are in the country. Even after COVID-19, it’s about saving you time and money (especially in a time with super-high gas prices!), not to mention the environment. I’ve found that engaging with people over Zoom has been great.
No Investment Minimum + Flat-Fee Option
Traditional advisors charge a fee solely based on the investment assets they manage. So, it’s difficult for them to serve two groups of people that would greatly benefit from financial advice:
- Those early in their saving journey (even when they are high earners and will be able to achieve a lot over the next few decades); and
- Those who possess illiquid wealth (which a traditional financial advisor can’t easily bill on), whether it’s real estate, land, a farm, a winery, a business, or stock options.
If you find yourself in either of these two camps, you may have had a hard time finding a financial advisor.
Hesperian’s mission is to democratize access to great financial advice. That’s why I’ve structured my practice to make this possible:
- I’ve truly eliminated any investment minimum to work with me (some advisors technically have no minimum but still screen out prospects with portfolios below a certain “shadow minimum”).
- I charge flat planning fees based on your unique advice needs in place of an asset-based fee on the first $50,000 of your portfolio, then a traditional asset-based fee to manage investment amounts above that. This allows me to offer my services to folks with limited (for now, at least!) liquid investment assets, while still serving clients with larger portfolios for effectively the same fee as a traditional advisor would charge.
Impact & Values Focus
I care deeply about offering clients the ability to support their causes, express their values, and importantly, make a positive impact on the world with their money if they so choose. I don’t spend the time I allot to investment analysis trying to find funds that can “beat the market” (which is extremely hard to do). Instead, I’m working to figure out which impact-oriented or socially responsible funds are truly working for a better world or will live up to clients’ values.
Extending Your Reach
I don’t stop at building impact portfolios or addressing personal responsibility in investing. I also try to extend your impact and reach in four additional ways:
- By pledging my firm’s assets to letter-writing campaigns related to causes you care about (in consultation with you)
- By staying virtual and maintaining a low-carbon footprint (both professionally and personally)
- By providing pro bono advice each year to underserved communities
- And by donating 10% of my investment management fees each year to organizations working to reform capitalism (or in the unique case of 2022, supporting a charity sending non-military and medical supplies to Ukraine)
Democratizing Access to Sophisticated Investment Options
My mission to expand access to financial advice includes doing the same for sophisticated investment options.
- “Sophisticated” could mean strategies that have a track record of improving traditional stock/bond portfolios, but which have been previously unavailable to the average investor, may not be well-known, and thus still require a professional’s deep due diligence to evaluate.
- “Sophisticated” could also now mean personalization. If you’re interested in investing based on your faith, values, or the issues you care about, personalization is essential. Prepackaged investment funds select the investment restrictions for you, many of which you may not care about or even outright oppose.
However, as recently as last year, personalized portfolios were only really available to the very wealthy. I spent months searching for and then evaluating the sub-advisor that can now enable me to offer personalized, diversified portfolios with investment minimums as low as $25,000. This service comes with all the standard features and potential benefits of a directly held portfolio of securities:
- unique personal investment screens;
- regular values/impact portfolio reports;
- optimization to lower the “cost of looking different” that arises whenever you screen out certain securities from an index;
- the ability to diversify concentrated holdings;
- the ability to offset your exposure to your employer or industry of employment; and
- potential benefits from tax-smart trading.
In fact, my sub-advisor will go one step further than competing firms by also voting your shares based on either their impact-oriented policy or your own wishes and engaging with the corporations you own stock in as an activist. This way you can build a values-based portfolio and invest for impact too.
Choosing a Personal Financial Advisor Is, Well, Personal
These are the main things I think differentiate me and Hesperian Wealth. What’s most important, though, is the personal relationship you have with your wealth manager. That’s why I usually offer at least two 45-minute (and free) consultations (what I call Discovery Meetings) to make sure our personalities match, we get along and like each other, we’re on the same wavelength, and we feel a high level of mutual trust and confidence in each other. These intangibles are essential for future success.
Let’s talk! You can schedule your first consultation here: