Common Mistakes People Make at the Time of Estate Planning

Estate planning is still at a developing stage in India. This is mainly due to the lack of awareness about the importance of estate planning. There is a common notion that only people, who have an abundance of assets can make a will, and their assets will be equally divided among their heirs. On the other hand, there are others, who procrastinate their estate planning thinking that they will do it at a later stage. In this post, we would discuss some common mistakes people that make when it comes to estate planning.

Mistakes People Usually Make

As mentioned earlier, a common notion people have that estate planning or making a will is only for wealthy families in India. While this may have been the case in the past, it isn’t necessarily same today. As India has been witnessing a thriving economy over the past decade, an increasing number of people are looking to make diversified investments and create wealth for themselves and their families. This is why estate planning is important so that assets can be transferred to your family seamlessly in the future.


Not Considering the “What If” Scenarios

People often feel that their financial situations are good enough, and don’t have to plan in advance. They commit the mistake of not considering different scenarios that may crop up in the future such as property disputes, health issues, bankruptcy and others. These circumstances are also a reminder that making a will is essential since your financial situation is likely to get affected by them. 

Putting it off for later

“Better late than never” is often used as a motivational phrase. Sadly, this does not hold true in the case of estate planning. Preparing for the worst case scenarios is essential for people, who have dependents. Keeping that in mind, it is recommended that you spend some time in evaluating your assets and then making a decision about how you want to allocate them equally with the minimum tax consequences. 

Overlooking Digital Asset Allocation

In today’s tech-savvy world, not just those from wealthy families in India, but others too have an online presence. Whether it’s in the form of your cloud-based bank accounts, or your digital assets, you should plan out well in advance to share the passwords and other important details with your spouse or your business partners, after you are gone.

Failing to Plan for Own Future
Planning for the future is not just limited to making a last will and testament to passing on the assets to your heirs. It is also equally important to ensure that in the case of any contingency, for example, health issues or otherwise so that your assets can be used for your own treatment and rehabilitation. This way there will not be any financial burden on your caregivers to pay back.

Last Few Words
Wealth creation shouldn’t be the only goal of property owners. Effectively managing wealth is an ideal way of ensuring future. Contingencies come up when you least expect them. Being prepared keeping an eye in the future is the best way to deal with it. This way, not only you take the financial burden off your family’s shoulders, but also get to decide how exactly you want your estate managed.

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Private Wealth Management: An Essential for Affluent Individuals and Families

Private wealth management provides an investment plan that incorporates portfolio management via an asset tracking solution, financial planning and many other services for high-net-worth individuals and families. Under private wealth management, a wealth manager handles the financial situation of clients to help them achieve their short-term and long-term financial goals. Wealth managers help them maintain their finances, plan an investment strategy, and guide them regarding the benefits of private wealth management.

1. Personalized Financial Plan

Wealth managers help you to manage your assets by creating an investment plan strategies exclusively for your benefit according to the available resources, risk tolerance, desired rate of return coupled with other lifetime and financial objectives.

2. Asset Identification

Wealth management program helps you to know the difference between the productive and nonproductive assets. Wealth managers ensure that your valuable assets support the quality of your life and isolate assets that pay you money instead of non-productive assets costing you money. The proper management of the wealth also helps to manage your portfolio in a productive way.

3. Financial Plan Review

Wealth managers keep a check of your assets and review your financial plan often and also examine them for change if required such as market conditions, tax liabilities, income, asset performance and spending and purchase options.

4. Target Return

An individual or an entrepreneur, besides wealth management, expects a term-based target return. Wealth manager suggests you various several target return based plans and keeps a record of your asset with the help of an asset tracking solution.

Directional Benefits

Families or Individuals

Educating the clients regarding the investment plans to secure their wealth is the primary objective of the wealth managers. Wealth managers focus on the importance of family or individual insurance protection. They help you to decide an investment plan such as Life insurance, disability insurance or long-term care insurance and provide you with an annual review to maintain your lifestyle.

Professionals and Entrepreneurs

Time and energy are required for an entrepreneur or a professional to start a successful business. Wealth managers make sure that your assets are protected and help you with various business succession plans. Financial advisers educate and assist entrepreneurs regarding their assets, retirement plans, portfolio and group health insurance strategies. Wealth managers, manage your accounts and assets in a proper way, in return provide you rewards and benefits.

Conclusion

Wealth advisers help over the financial goals that the client would like to attain. Wealth manager maintains a record of an investment plan and puts together an investment strategy to help their client to achieve their goals. Financial advisers manage the assets and invest the money in the products that make sense for the client.

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Managing Brands For Success: The Basics

In economics, luxury brands are those brands whose demand increases proportionally as incomes rise. They can also be defined as being the contrast to  "necessity goods": demand increases less in proportion to income.  Luxury brands constitute the majority of luxury products. The term 'luxury brand' is synonymous with high prices, luxury, and high quality. They are often referred to as Veblen or Superior goods. The expenditure towards advertisement for the average luxury brand is about 5-15 percent of sales revenue. This rises to about 25 percent with the inclusion of other communication expenses for efforts such as public relations, sponsorships and promotional events.

Market Characteristics

Luxury brands in India are said to have high income elasticity of demand. This is because as people become wealthier, they purchase more luxury goods. A decrease in incomes will also see a proportionate drop in demand. The elasticity is not constant at all levels, and some changes may occur at different levels of income. With time, a luxury good may become an inferior good or a normal good, depending on income levels. Luxury products are Veblen goods, with negative price elasticity of demand, for example; making an expensive perfume can increase its perceived value to such an extent that, as a luxury good, sales can go high enough, rather than down.

Market Trends

The three common trends in the global luxury goods market are consolidation, globalization and diversification. Consolidation is used to define the involvement of the ownership of brands and growth of big companies across multiple segments of luxury products. Globalization is a result of an increase in availability of these goods, tourism and additional luxury brands. Some examples include Armani, Burberry and L’Oreal, which dominate the market in areas ranging from luxury fashion to cosmetics. Leading global consumer companies also attract industry, to avail profits in the consumer goods market.

Certain brands are considered to be premium brands in India, as people believe they are of a high quality and worth every Rupee. The big question is why people are willing to pay a high price for a product when there are cheaper alternatives? There are specific tangible and intangible attributes that give this class of products such a  status:

Sensual: They arouse the senses and make people feel indulgent.

Rare: They represent an uncommon choice and draw attention.

Confident: They boost the customer's confidence level.

Quality: They are consistent and attract obsessive attention.

Conclusion 

Managing a brand is the most difficult challenge in the field of marketing. Like any other business, brands must also pursue and seek growth strategies. Unlike many businesses, brands must present themselves in such a way that their images don't dilute customers' sense of pride and exclusivity. Some strategies are off-limits in this pursuit. Brand managers must know when it is best for the brand to ignore short-term opportunities and how to brush-up the brand's long-term health.

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