Invest in your future.
Exian Capital was founded on the idea that robust, personalized planning and investing strategies should be affordable and accessible to those who don’t already have significant wealth that most firms require. Unfortunately, they don’t teach this stuff in high school.
Fiduciary duty refers to the legal requirement of an advisor to act in the best interests of the client at all times. It is the highest ethical obligation in the financial services industry.
This may sound strange if you’ve previously only talked to registered representatives and insurance salesmen masquerading as “advisors” and just trying to sell you products so they can earn fat commissions. The landscape can be very confusing for you, the client. These brokers only have to meet a suitability standard, a much lower standard of conduct that vaguely suggests that any transaction or product should be “suitable” for the client.
We don’t sell products. We don’t receive commissions. Period.
Fiduciaries are product-agnostic, meaning we’re open to finding the best tool for the job to get you the best outcome. We don’t receive commissions, kickbacks, referral fees, or sales loads. And as a fully independent advisor, we aren’t bound by specific products or service offerings.
Specifically, fiduciary advisors have the following duties:
Duty of Loyalty - to act in the best interest of the client at all times without conflict of interest, and to disclose any potential conflicts of interest that may already exist.
Duty of Confidentiality - what we talk about stays between us.
Duty of Care - a responsibility of advisor competency to exercise sound judgment.
Duty to Disclose - making sure clients are aware of relevant risks and fees.
Duty of Good Faith - always acting within the law.
Fiduciary
How It Works
Discovery
1.
Initial information gathering through a couple meetings to assess mutual fit, build rapport, talk about your goals, concerns, tolerance for risk, etc. to understand your unique needs and objectives, and show you how the financial planning process works.
You’ll also have time to review and think. We understand that hiring a financial advisor is a big commitment. We want you to feel comfortable and confident in your decision.
During this time, we’re available to answer any additional questions you may have to help with your decision.
2. Planning
We roll our sleeves up and get to work compiling and analyzing. This is when we create and present your comprehensive plan including:
a snapshot of net worth, goals, targets, action items, and more.
recommendations on savings targets, cash flow opportunities, debt repayment, investment portfolio, retirement, tax planning, and credit cards.
referrals to experts in our network as needed - CPA’s, estate planning attorneys, insurance agents, etc.
You’ll have digital access to your plan and accounts so you can see them anytime.
3. Execution
We handle your investments (if you want us to) so you can focus on saving diligently and get back to living. We’ll do the trading, market analysis, rebalancing, tax loss harvesting, investment research, and monitoring.
Periodic check-ins to motivate, educate, collaborate, track your progress, and update your living financial plan, or additional meetings as needed for major life events.
You can reach out anytime via email as your situation changes or if you have any questions.
Process
Consultation
30 minutes
Initial meeting to assess mutual fit, build rapport, learn about what’s important to you, share about our firm and pricing, and show you
how the financial
planning process works.
Discovery
60 minutes
A deeper focus on your goals, concerns, values,
and desires to understand
your unique needs and objectives. We’ll talk about some high-level solutions
to address those and give you a proposal before
you sign on the dotted line.
Organization
60 minutes
Now you’re a client. This is when we gather detailed information to organize
and understand your financial circumstances
and tolerance for risk. We analyze that information
to create your financial
plan and
recommendations.
Plan Delivery
60 minutes
Reviewing a snapshot of your net worth, a few
initial action items, and recommendations on
things like savings
targets, asset allocation, investments, retirement planning, debt
repayment, credit cards, and tax planning.
Ongoing Planning
60 minutes
Periodic check-ins at least annually to track your progress and update your living financial plan, or additional meetings as needed for major life events.
Investment Philosophy
✓ We believe markets are reasonably efficient.
Markets may not perfectly price all public and private information all the time, but we believe markets are at least weak-form-efficient, meaning charting and technical analysis is just financial astrology. More importantly, this means no stock picking, sector bets, or market timing, all of which tend to underperform the market over the long term. Time in the market beats timing the market; slow and steady wins the race. Anyone telling you they can beat the market by selecting the right stocks or by knowing when to buy and sell is lying to you.
✓ We believe in maximizing diversification.
It’s said that diversification is the closest thing to a free lunch in investing. It makes little sense to have one’s entire portfolio in Apple, Microsoft, and Tesla. That’s a few eggs in a single basket. We even think it makes little sense to invest entirely in one single asset class, regardless of age, in the face of an unknowable future and deeply-rooted behavioral biases and cognitive processing errors. Most investors are likely better suited with a well-diversified portfolio across multiple asset types and geographies that allows them to stay the course, sleep easier at night, and avoid “deep risks.” We believe in eliminating unsystematic risks like single company risk, sector risk, and single country risk.
✓ We believe in a proactive, evidence-based approach.
Emotions and reactionary decisions have no place in investing and typically just cause harm. Headlines and pundits would have you believe there’s always an impending crash right around the corner or that there’s one narrow, golden segment of the market to buy “right now” (usually whatever just recently went up). We don’t believe in irrationally chasing dividend yield or the latest fad. We use systematic, tried-and-true investing strategies that have withstood the test of time. We go where the most robust evidence from financial academia points, and we don’t allocate based on performance chasing or mental accounting.
✓ We believe in focusing on things we can control.
We don’t have a crystal ball, but we can control impactful portfolio decisions like asset allocation, diversification, fees, and tax efficiency. We believe thoughtful, sophisticated portfolio construction must consider all these things while acknowledging that past performance doesn’t predict future performance. Remember, as a fee-only fiduciary, we aren’t constrained to expensive, commission-based products like other firms, so our selection universe of investments is virtually unlimited. This means we have more granular control over asset selection and placement across portfolios, which translates to lower tax liability and lower fees for our clients.
How We Work Together
Successful financial planning is a collaborative effort.
What You Can Expect From Us
An effort to develop and maintain a thorough understanding of your financial needs and goals.
Access to robust technology and tools to facilitate your financial journey.
Explanations of recommendations and answering any questions you may have.
Timely responses and updates when necessary.
Transparency, honesty, integrity, and respect.
Fiduciary duty - putting your interests first.
Protection of sensitive information.
What We Expect From You
A commitment to improving your financial well-being.
Participation in the planning process.
A dedicated effort to implementing recommendations and action items.
Full disclosure of financial affairs.
Updates as your circumstances change.
Timely notification if you need to reschedule an appointment.
John Tyler Williamson, APMA®
Bio: Analytical data nerd, investing enthusiast, fintech consultant, Boglehead, and Oxford comma advocate.
I’ve always gravitated toward numbers and I love a good spreadsheet. I got a B.S. in math and navigated my own investing journey toward financial independence and retirement for over a decade before deciding to register as a financial advisor to help others do the same.
The Why: I have a passion for education and coaching and get fulfillment from inspiring financial confidence in others and helping them achieve their goals.
After watching family and friends struggle to navigate the increasingly confusing financial landscape, I founded Exian Capital Advisors to do precisely that and to provide a judgment-free zone for Gen Y and Gen Z to get reliable, affordable, fee-only advice and guidance tailored to their specific needs, without all the stuffiness and prerequisites that accompany a traditional firm.
Specifically, I chose to go through the extra hurdles to register as a fully independent fiduciary advisor after seeing those same friends and family unknowingly get exploited by registered representatives and insurance salesmen with securities licenses masquerading as “advisors.”
I am a fiduciary. As a fiduciary, I work for you, not a corporation. Your interests come first. Further, as a fee-only advisor, I don’t receive commissions from recommending any specific stock, bond, or mutual fund. I have a fiduciary duty to recommend what is best for you based on your personal goals and circumstances. I sell advice, not products.
Credentials: I am a Series 65 license holder and an Accredited Portfolio Management Advisor®.
Personal: Outside of all this finance stuff, you can find me trying new restaurants, playing tennis, trying to hit a new PR in the gym, and enjoying the sunshine while drinking iced coffee in Charleston, SC.
