Should you trust Wenzel Analytics?
Financial advisers often deal with
trusts and trustees. Here I want to talk about you trusting me.
Most of us have been hurt by trusting someone who in some way was untrustworthy.
Therefore, you should be careful and cautious before entering a relationship,
especially one having to do with important matters such as money.
This is an outline of my philosophy
for developing and maintaining a trustworthy relationship.
Who is Lee Wenzel?
Trust is built on getting to know
another person – their style, credentials and history. While formal
credentials are important, we often decide to trust people based on their
personal style, compatibility and life experiences that relate to our situation.
The decision to work with Wenzel
Analytics, Inc. is really a decision to trust me, Lee Wenzel, President (and
everything else) for
Wenzel Analytics, Inc.
I have expertise in investing and fundamental business analysis, technical patterns and statistical research used
in investing. I have broad experience in organizing finances and the
strategizing and planning important for average families. Most of my
experience is in equities, real estate, and personal or family loans, with
limited experience in bonds. Complementary to that, I have a background
working with families, facilitating meetings, career and business development
and managing lifestyle or everyday spending.
Wenzel Analytics, Inc. is a Registered
Investment Adviser. This involved my passing a Series 65 exam from the
National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) and meeting other financial
and reporting requirements of the Minnesota Department of Commerce.[1] I
became a serious equities investor in 1995, subscribing to several data and
software services, doing extensive statistical research with a data mining tool
called KnowledgeSEEKER, reading extensively, and attending many ongoing
investment groups and seminars. I have written many research reports and led
several seminars on equity investing. I have experience in residential
real estate, having owned and managed twenty eight units at one time.
I have a master’s degree in
social group work and completed the coursework and orals for a Ph.D. from the
University of Minnesota focused on financing healthcare. I began doing financial counseling in the 70s at
Family and Children's Service of Minneapolis,
did considerable public speaking and training on family dynamics and personal
financial management, and served on related boards. I returned to
financial consulting after a corporate career in employee assistance services
and administration at Honeywell, independent behavioral health care consulting,
and work in information technology as a software developer and data warehouse
business analyst.
I have served as board member and
board chair of several non-profit organizations and foundations, including the
Preserve Association in Eden Prairie where I have lived since 1974 and the North
Star Ski Touring Club. I was president of the Twin Cities Chapter of
the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) from 2006 through 2020 which
involved finding and introducing speakers for our six programs each year.
We invited many nationally renowned speakers and had an average attendance of
about 85.
I am an analytical person—easy-going,
deliberate, thorough, questioning and goal-oriented. I do my research, get
organized, and then act. I am comfortable teaching, explaining and
advising—with you asking questions and making decisions. However, I know
that you wouldn’t be hiring me if you had the time to learn everything you are
expecting from me.
Please ask if you are interested in further detail,
especially about my investing experience and philosophy. There are a lot of things I am not, including an accountant, lawyer or certified
financial planner.
My business motivation is to deserve
your trust and respect, to see consistent and high returns for you, and to
maintain my own financial independence. I thoroughly enjoy investing.
Criteria for Trust
Trust is a credibility decision.
Since being trustworthy is so
important and at the heart of the relationship I want to have with you, I will
spell out some of my personal work standards.
Trust is built on 4 Cs of caring,
competence, context and continuity. Caring means that you matter to
me. I'm not just managing money, I'm managing your money. Competence means that I can do what I say I will do.
Context
means putting big and little things into a proper context for forming
appropriate perspectives to make decisions. We don’t want a bunch of pieces
but rather an integrated whole. Our logo is about context, how one thing
fits within another, and that within another. And continuity means
to reliably be there in the future and keep commitments. (If something
unforeseen happens to me, you will receive an invitation from another credible
firm with whom I have an agreement. Almost all investments could be held for
three months or longer without requiring action while most are collecting
dividends.)
The following questions form my
personal standards for being trustworthy:
-
Caring
-
Do I listen such that you
are understood and know it?
-
Do I make decisions
appropriate to your specific situation?
-
Am I relating in a way that
we can enjoy working together?
If these things are not
happening, we need to talk about it.
-
Competence
-
Do I have both the knowledge
and skills necessary to deliver what you are asking for?
-
Do I have the appropriate
tools, along with methodical ways of doing business and reaching decisions,
to ensure accuracy and good use of our time?
-
Context
-
Do we have the priorities right? Since finances are about juggling
competing options for where the money might come from or go, am I able to
give perspective so that things fit together?
-
Are questions being asked at the appropriate level of depth to assure me
that major implications are not being overlooked?
-
How will our creation grow and adapt in the future?
-
Continuity
-
What degree of
business organization is necessary for me to reliably fulfill client
commitments?
-
Is my personal life being managed so that it does not intrude on my ability to be
here for my clients? How do I guard against becoming over-extended or in
other ways burn out?
-
How can I maintain a viable business so that I can keep long-term commitments
to you? If something should happen to me, what succession plans are in
place?
Trust Selectively – Especially Regarding Money
So even if I hold these standards, can
you trust me? To answer that, you will gather data and make
judgments about me. The level of trust will change over time. But
even in our relationship, trust is appropriate in some areas and not others.
I may be able to think and work on your behalf in most areas, which is part of
being professional, while in other areas we may have a conflict of interests.
For example, if my fee is $1,000 rather than $500, that is in my interest and
not yours. (If the lower fee would put me out of business and you would lose a resource
you value, the lower fee would not be in your interest.)
My experience in corporate purchasing
of counseling services was that if the vendor is financially driven, it is
important to closely watch contract performance (if indeed they are the best
vendor). If the vendor is service driven, it was sometimes necessary to
raise compensation in order to maintain viable vendors. Interestingly,
people on many different selection teams always agreed on whether the vendor was
financially driven or service driven. I believe this is a service-driven practice.
I have no intention of becoming a business with additional staff and growth
beyond what I can do personally.
Creating a Trustworthy Relationship
How do you decide that you can trust
me to work for your best interest when I am also in it for my own interest?
In addition to the four Cs, I suggest the following criteria:
Trust works when:
-
We have clearly defined
expectations and responsibilities.
-
Each party is capable of
fulfilling those responsibilities.
-
There is a history, plus other
reasons, to believe that each party not only can, but will keep their end of
the bargain.
-
There are minimal reasons or
incentives built into the situation, causing the other person to not fully
cooperate for our best interest.
-
Good data on performance and
events are reviewed closely, and we share in decisions as much as possible.
-
We can talk about the
relationship.
I believe the primary purpose of every
contract, whether spoken or written, is to create a more trustworthy
relationship. Written agreements are helpful to clarify expectations,
although too much attention to detailed written agreements makes me suspicious.
I am honored by the trust clients
have placed in me.
In becoming a client you are making very important decisions about who to trust,
how far, and with how much. I am aware that in choosing an independent
practitioner you are choosing personal credibility over that of a large
financial institution. I will do my best to be worthy of your trust.
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