My Promise

I promise to invest your capital as carefully as I do my own, because I know that your hopes for your family's future are every bit as sacred to you as mine are to me. 

I commit to tell you the plain, unvarnished truth all the time, especially when you may not want to hear it.  When you ask me a question the answer to which I do not know, I promise always to say “I don't know”--and then I will move heaven and earth to get you the answer. 

Finally, I will never tell you I can do something that I cannot, nor will I tell you I am going to do something and then not do it. 

You will surely encounter financial advisors “smarter” than me, and just as surely you will run across advisors who are cheaper than me.  But you will never in your life find an advisor you can trust more implicitly than you can trust me. 

If we work together, in that spirit of mutual trust, there is nothing within reason that we cannot accomplish.  And perhaps the most important thing is:  you will never have to worry anymore. 

You see, I insist that my clients plan, and then stick to the plan.  But I absolutely forbid my clients to worry, because in a very real sense that is what you are hiring me to do for you.  If you are going to pay for my financial counsel, and then worry about it, you haven't really accepted my advice, which in effect means you do not trust me.  I cannot handle your business on that basis as it would not be fair to either of us. 

Understand clearly that you are being asked to entrust your family's financial future to me. Not to a particular financial plan, not to an investment portfolio, but to me.  And I, for my part, am offering to accept that responsibility.

—Thomas Payne