Certified financial planners guiding clients' financial lives, with no fees for assets under management or subscription — just a one-time fee for creating a financial plan and providing advice.
That's the value proposition offered by Domain Money, an advisory founded by Adam Dell.
"We offer incredible value for our clients, and that's a very rewarding thing for a CFP," Dell maintains, explaining in an interview with ThinkAdvisor why CFPs like working at the firm.
Domain Money is targeting the mass market, especially high earners who are not rich yet — known as HENRYs — as well as high-net-worth investors fed up with AUM fees.
The flat-fee model is appealing to younger people who need guidance on, say, combining finances with a spouse or partner, or planning for a child.
Dell, 51, who was head of product at Marcus by Goldman Sachs, says tech played a big part in developing Domain Money.
"We built technology that helps us determine what a person's real values are, such as, do they care more about vacationing than retirement?" Dell points out.
Domain Money offers three levels of plans based on cost and financial advisor-engagement length: a one-pager ($2,500), a "Strategic Plan" ($4,500) — the firm's most popular — and a "Comprehensive Plan" ($7,500), the last one for the person "who wants to ensure [that] no stone is left unturned," according to the firm's website.
In the interview with Dell, who founded four companies, including Clarity Money and MessageOne, and sold all four before Domain Money, he discusses the firm's tri-level client-advisor relationships, along with the option of sticking with a dedicated advisor beyond the term of engagement.
Here are highlights of our conversation:
THINKADVISOR: How does Domain Money help clients?
ADAM DELL: We analyze everything that touches a client's financial life and distill it down to an analysis of the client's net worth, spending, investments [and so on].
Then we build that into a comprehensive model and written plan that explains what we specifically recommend to the client to act on to achieve their goals.
Who's your target client?
Mass market, especially HENRYs — high earners, not rich yet. They're people who have household incomes of between $200,000 and $500,000 but have not yet amassed meaningful investable assets.
We're also [targeting] people who have done that but don't want to pay an AUM fee.
Does the latter include investors older than millennials?
Yes, we have clients in their 50s who have $1 million in assets; they just don't want to pay an AUM fee. Our [top-level] Comprehensive Plan is well suited to them because they're thinking about retirement and estate planning.
What proportion of clients have had a financial advisor before they signed with you?
About 20% are coming to us after having "broken up" with their advisor. They weren't getting enough service, or they became frustrated with the AUM fees they were paying.
Tell me about how you categorize clients according to their "personas."
A typical client is someone who has done their homework and wants an expert to check their work. That's one persona.
Another is someone breaking up with their advisor. So they come to us as an alternative. That's a meaningful part of our client base.
They find out about us through word of mouth, referrals, Instagram, YouTube, and we have a number of partnerships with [social media] influencers.
All your advisors are certified financial planners. Is being a CFP a requirement?
To be a client-facing advisor you have to be a CFP. We have five.
Why do they like working for Domain Money?
We offer incredible value for our clients, and that's a very rewarding thing for a CFP. We have clients who rave about their experience with us.
The highest Net Promoter Score — which measures how likely [a customer is] to recommend a [company] to a friend — is 100. Ours has been 99 for the last 30 days.
And it's consistently in that range because our clients are so delighted by their experience.
We just provide advice; we're not trying to sell anything. Our clients really like that. And our advisors like that we're able to deliver so much value to clients in a very fair, cost-effective way.
