“I analyze (examine) the resources of the client, listening to understand their goals, objectives and learn their values. Then I share my recommendations to meet the client’s objectives and goals, sooner than they could on their own, using their values and the financial techniques that I have learned in my earlier years as a financial investment advisor. This cuts years of frustration out of the process for them and is improving out comes. Then I groom, train, teach you and mint you as a financial planner with one client and that client is you. I am no longer interested in being hired just to do a formal financial plan for a fee nor charging hourly like I use to do. I no longer believe in the concept to be a valid practice. That is to sell a client a "financial plan" as a "product" which is not associated with what I call "client empowerment." It needs to be done as part of the process of helping and train a client to become stronger and more confident and financial self-sufficient, to not need outside help in satisfying one's financial needs. This is my role in life, and to groom, train and providing ongoing mentoring you through this process and transition.
Note: My income primarily comes from accounts I have sold over the last 40 year or more and this site is to provide education and reminders of the benefits of those products or programs to those clients. I still offer a limited number of products (compatible with my client profile) and services as solutions to clients for which I receive a commission paid direct from the institution, not the client. So, when I help you, it helps me. So, I play the role of a salesperson in this area. I am not saying I have learned everything or am totally smart, but I assure you, that you will have my loyalty. I work under the law as a Fiduciary when I help you with your retirement plan. I will bore you as I document my work to prove all the paths I suggested as your options were in your best interest or explain why they were not.
Ironically, I have been getting more business and doing better for myself since, I have retired from being an IA (Investment Advisor), where I charged a fee for doing financial plans and charged hourly for ongoing support. As I explained above, I no longer believe in providing a standalone, so called "financial plan" as a "financial product" nor anything I want to be associated with along with all of its conflicts of interest. Hmmm, to be honest I work hard to minimize conflicts of interest. Soon in the near future working directly with IA may have that happen, but never totally with humans, lol. Ha!, I really think the company funding the IA will be wanting to sell products too, and advertising.
Although, I stay current on the knowledge associated with it, I terminated that Investment Advisor registration for six reasons:
I felt it was too challenging to overcome the conflicts of interest to charge fees for time when my clients needed financial products that I was licensed for although it was allowed with the proper disclosures. Then in my heart I began to feel that the “financial plan” was not a good nor an honest product for me because over the last several years, I was rarely calling on new planning clients. Then, also since my more influential clients in some ways taught me half of what I know it would not be fair to have them pay a fee to teach me, Lol. No I am serious about that. Now I will share that information with you and without a fee. My thinking shifted to believing in my client empowerment concept. Previously, it was somewhat, controversial slowing down the process with the prospective client wondering, “Why should they pay a fee if they might know more than me.” That was a valid question. While I am still learning everyday, finanally after all these years, it is clear my prospective clients always learn a lot from a few meetings with me. It is a great value for the time they invest when there is no fee charged. It is good for me because it does not scare away business and completely removes all the true "core" conflicts of interest professionally. So I am now back to just being a sales person, as far as how I get paid.
Plus, as my clients average age became over age 62 my ever growing belief that once you obtain this age group you need to re-think risk, which lead me to retiring the stock brokering component of my practice as well. As the direction of my practice changed to working with people who are either retired, or strongly thinking about it, or at least wishing they could afford to, my work migrated to new methods to help clients accommodate retirement funds and provide income in retirement. It went from helping clients accumulate retirement capital in risky investments, to helping them retain what they have built and accumulated and having income from that capital that they can never out live using SPIA's for the most part. This all lead to a more conservative portfolio of products and programs. So here we are. I can demonstate using software and back testing historical results, that over most periods, my clients can capture more than 75% of the profits (sometimes more than 100%), in the stock market (using specifically the S&P 500 index) without the traditional capital risk of that the traditional investors, expose themselves to.
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