WELCOME TO SCENARIO ONE

If you are here that means that your training facilitator has directed your team to work through this exciting and challenging scenario. This is an actual, real life scenario where only the names have been changed to protect the actual people.

Going through the scenario as you will see, is no easy task, not a walk in the park. You and your team will be challenged to break your knowledge barrier and go beyond your current investment knowledge to recommend a solid investment portfolio to your client based on sound, researched investment knowledge.

Many Financial Planners such as yourself have worked through this scenario and have been able to effectively apply the skills and knowledge they have learned through this exercise to recommend greatly enhanced investment portfolios to their clients.

The team will work as though they have been assigned this client scenario in their own corporate office. You will work collaboratively as an investment team with the same tools that are available to you in your own offices. No restrictions on what you can use or where you can go, the sky is the limit.

CHALLENGE TO THE TEAM MEMBERS

To work collaboratively to provide the a best fit investment portfolio for the client based on the analysis that the team conducts.

ALLOTTED TIME FRAME

Your team will be provided 4 days during your training program to work on the scenario. On the last day at 3:00, a client portfolio should be submitted to your training facilitator.

One night Gerald and Chantal were talking about their future, and many questions came up regarding the way they have been investing. The idea cam about to have a financial expert advise them and help them with investment strategies and their investment portfolio.

The next morning Gerald makes a few telephone calls and schedules a meeting with Denis Brickman a Financial Advisor from XYZ Investments, Inc.

A week later, Gerald and Chantal are in Jack's office and their meeting plays out like this,

Denis: Its seems as though you had many questions when we talked over the telephone. Lets start by telling me your investment goals.

Chantal: We have so many different goals, long term, short term, for us, for our children, retirement, education, and so many other things.

Denis: What do you think are the three most important goals?

Gerald: If you put it that way, it would be getting the best return on savings, education for our children and retiring with a comfortable income.

Denis then asks a series of questions, Gerald and Chantal provide the following information:

Gerald a 42 year old web designer working full-time and consults with a few clients on the weekends. Chantal is a registered nurse working full time at the local hospital. Chantal is 39 and making $65k a year and Gerald between his job and consulting is making approximately $130k. Chantal mentions that she is not sure how they will make it when they must provide for college education for their three children Mary Kay, age 2, Kevin, age 4, and Brenda, age 7. Gerald says "the children are getting older by the minute and I am so concerned that we are not saving enough to pay for their college education." It will cost us so much money just for the kids' education, how we will save enough money for retirement? we're not sure that we'll be able to achieve either of them.

We are both saving as much as we can into our company retirement plans, and Gerald's company matches what he contributes up to 6% of his income. Gerald has accumulated about $54k in his 401(k) retirement plan, which is all invested in an aggressive, high risk mutual funds. Chantal has only been able to save half as much, and she does not get matched on her contributions. Chantal said that she is not a risk taker and wants to keep her retirement money in a money market fund, unless Denis can come up with some good investment ideas. We want to be able to retire around the same time, so we can enjoy life together.

We are trying to save everything we can, but we have so many expenses, the cars, the mortgage, and the rental unit in Cumberland, that needs constant up keep and maintenance, I don't even know if we are making money on that property.We also have to pay for Gerald's heart medication, he had a mild attack two years ago. Gerald says "How can I protect my family if something happens to me? I want to leave them financially independent, so they wont rely on family or welfare."

Denis thinks that the first meeting was successful, but also lets Gerald and Chantal know that he still needs to gather much more information before he can start making recommendations.

Denis and Gerald schedule a meeting the following week.

Sounds interesting, right ?

well now you are in Denis's shoes and you have to perform as a financial planner in a an authentic, ill-structured domain and problem.

Collaborate, explore your options, your resources, your experts, put it together and come up with your recommendations for Gerald and Chantal.