The following interview appeared in The Planner, which is published quarterly by the Jacksonville CFP Society.

"To a client we often say....
              'What we offer is a good night's sleep'.............."

In this issue Allan Cohen, CFP, and his partner, Jan Butensky share their philosophy and concepts of financial planning with THE PLANNER. Both earned accounting degrees at Jacksonvile University and after practicing their accounting discipline, joined Prudential Securities. They moved from retail to portfolio management with Prudential and after working together a short ten years, moved from Prudential to the formation of Butensky & Cohen Financial Security, Inc. Outside the office, Allan cycles, in fact, competes every year in the MS 150. Jan confesses that he gets his money's worth, in terms of strokes, on the golf course.

The Planner: Gentlemen, tell us about your clients. Who comes to you for financial advice and why?

B&C: Our typical client has a high net worth and comes to us for conventional financial planning. We do offer a range of services, estate planning for example, and will craft an insurance trust by coordinating our work with the client's attorney and CPA. But the real focus of our work is money management on a fee basis. Usually our client is not attuned to the stock market and is seeking expert money management. Their main interest is in preserving wealth.

The Planner: How do you strive to set yourself apart from the crowd?

B&C: What differentiates our firm is trust and confidence. One can get investment products anywhere... and there is plenty of thoughtful, good advice out there... but total trust and confidence is in short supply. Our many referrals evidences the trust and confidence our clientele feels. Our best source of business is our clients.

The Planner: How do you make an equity allocation with someone who has never invested directly in the market, who is in the third financial stage... and focused on conserving and preserving wealth?

B&C: Well... we have several models ranging from 80 percent equities and 20 percent fixed income... to a model that has no exposure to stocks. We base the allocation on the client's objectives, but most important on their risk tolerance. This decision comes after hours of conversation with the client. We often say to the client "what we offer you is a good night's sleep." We work to get the portfolio to a comfortable mix. We must be certain the client feels comfortable and we stress the negatives much more than the positives. By negatives, we mean volatility. We spend a tremendous amount of time with a client making it clear that a portion of their portfolio is going to fluctuate, and emphasize a long term view.