You’re watching Retirement Talk with Eric Kearney in Cape Coral, FL. Eric Kearney is an author, a radio host, a fiduciary and Southwest Florida’s premier investment advisor.
People don’t want to know where they actually are. This year, I think for the past 12 months, we’ve encouraged people to challenge your financial status quo and people have really stepped up to the plate. And we’re seeing this year where a lot of people are making some significant changes for themselves and saying, look, I want to put myself in a better position.
And so that really makes me happy because I mean, this is really what we’re passionate about. Putting someone in a significantly better financial situation, especially long term. So with all the challenges that we’ve had, we’re ready to take on that task and really help these people.
And that’s really what it comes down to, is just coming in. Going over having some questions, getting to know each other and then go from there. What clients really love is the fact that you take the time to listen to them.
I think I learned a lot of that from my mom, Cynthia, because she owned two tax works offices and then also was an investment advisor later on in her life. My mom always had a passion for helping people when she sat down. She did their taxes.
When she got into investment planning, she did the same thing. She took that same capability of helping that client and putting them into a better position. So, I learned a lot through my parents and basically we want to listen to that client because right now I feel like there’s a lot of people out there who really are not being paid attention to.
There’s a lot of people out there who are working with advisors, who they feel are not listening to them. Yeah. They’re like, Hey, Eric. You know what you’re finally listening to me. You’re writing down, you’re building a plan for me, and this is really what people want. They want to have that positive forward direction.
And I really think that we’ve built an incredible team. Donna is a certified financial planner. You got Joey, you have Autumn on our concierge side. Everyone’s taking care of that client. And so again, we’re giving them what they want and this year more than ever, we have seen so many people say, Eric, no one’s ever offered us this before.
What your advisor did or didn’t do in March of 2020, really set the tone for the rest of the year. You either did very well or you suffered. Our clients ended up having an incredible year.
There’s a lot of people that did very well. And then there’s a lot of people that didn’t do very well and those are the people that are coming in and they’re saying, okay, now we want to go through the process. Now we’re willing to invest the time in building that financial plan, as well as that income plan.
We always ask, what are your top three concerns and running out of money is the number one thing. And so how do you do that without a financial plan? How do you list all of your goals and objectives, and you want to make sure that you’re heading in the right direction?
The one thing that that financial plan does is it answers all of your questions. My client base doesn’t have a lot of questions now because they’re able to go back to that financial plan that was custom written for them.
I’ve already told them that the markets are going to go up and down. There’s going to be volatility. You’ve got low interest rates, but guess what? Your goals and objectives are going to. You’re going to be just fine.
They have savings accounts. They have bills that they have to pay, but nothing is really working and being congruent. So what we’re trying to do is condense and organize everything you want to be mentally organized. You also want to be financially organized. This is something that the financial plan actually does.
I really think that at around 50 years old, you have to have a financial plan in place. Up until that point, you’ve been accumulating, socking away money in your 401k, but now you have to start taking a look at more accumulation. Are you actually, um, set up for strong alpha, which is that horsepower in your portfolio.
That’s the ability to accumulate over the next 10 or 15, 20 years. And then you also want to prepare for taxes. Taxes are always changing. Can you contribute to a Roth IRA? Maybe you want to do a Roth conversion. There’s a lot of different things that you can take a look at the bottom line is it takes us five years to get a client properly, retired for retirement.
You’re getting them used to their lifestyle expenses. You want to control their taxes. You want to make sure that you’re containing healthcare in there. So, there’s a lot of different pieces of that puzzle that we have to put together. And there’s a lot of times that we have to connect the dots that a lot of clients aren’t able to connect themselves because don’t forget this is a priority for us because this is what we do.
But for everyone else out there, they’re raising kids. They might be taking care of parents. They’re trying to take care of their own career. Maybe all of a sudden someone gets sick in the family and may have to take care of them. There’s all of these moving pieces that are going on in our lives. And so financial planning typically goes on the back burner.
Questions about your retirement are normal. So come into our office, sit down with us and let us help you find those answers. Eric and his team can answer your questions with a complimentary review of your retirement and income plan. And it all starts with getting to know you. We specialize in helping people, just like you.
Prepare for the retirement that they’ve always dreamed of. They’ll do exactly that by going over your current strategy to expose the weaknesses that may exist in your retirement portfolio. Plus they’ll explain potential risks and possible strategies to you and easy to understand terms and help get you reacquainted with your portfolio when income strategy, what I enjoy most about retirement planning is sitting down with you and having real conversations about your retirement dreams and goals.
Once they understand your retirement goals, objectives, and dreams. They’ll work to custom, build a retirement plan to help ensure that you cannot outlive your income in retirement. Retirement. Doesn’t have to be scary. Let us help you retire confidently because every dream needs a plan. Call Eric today and schedule your visit.
You only retire. So let’s get it right the first time.
And welcome back to retirement talk TV. My name is Cynthia DeFazio. I’m joined today by Eric Kearney and Eric is the president and the CEO of Retirement Wealth Advisors. Eric, a great first segment of the show. And again, talking about the importa. Planning for retirement and how that is something that cannot be skipped.
It has to be addressed. If you have a retirement plan in place, let me ask you, does it help you identify your long term income needs? Oh yeah. So the number one main concern with people again is running out of money. M so that’s where the lifestyle income plan comes. More than likely you’ve got social security.
You might be married. You may have a small pension, then you’re going to get into your assets. Are they qualified? Non-qualified are they taxable? Are they tax free? We’re putting together all these buckets. The average millionaire has seven streams of income. So what we’re trying to do is create income streams for that client that we will.
Sustainable through all different kinds of markets when the market’s correct and get tumultuous. The one thing that is our concern is we never want to turn off income. We still have bills to pay. It doesn’t matter what happens in the world, whether it’s a terrorist attack, a pullback in the market. COVID 19.
We still have bills to pay that falls on us. That’s our responsibility. It doesn’t matter if you’re 60, 70, 80, or in your nineties, or actually getting close to a hundred, you still need income. So that’s why I say we still had to go into the office every single day because we have to fight for our client every single day and make sure that they’re still on.
To meet their goals. Mm, absolutely. Thank you, Eric. It’s very important to also talk about you talk about this as well. Don’t be blindsided by financial events. Can we dive into that a little bit more? Would that be something like UN um, unforeseen dental expenses, if you will, or air conditioners breaking down?
Is that what you mean by that? Well, blindsided events are actually, um, events that happen in the market. Okay. And so if we go back in 1999, Tech bubble, which was very devastating for a lot of people. Okay. All of a sudden the markets start to come back and then all of a sudden you have a terrorist attack, like nine 11 m fast forward.
You had the market meltdown of 2008 in between that two, Cynthia we’ve had multiple. Pullbacks and corrections that are kind of unfitting for a lot of people. They’re, they’re, they’re unsettling for a lot of people because they don’t expect that to happen. Sure. Even as of late of 2018 in December, you had a market crash that happened in December where the markets were dropping 500 points, 500 points, and then a thousand points.
Mm. So the bottom line is, is that when you come into something like COVID 19. People are blindsided by that. Yeah. And again, you have to be prepared every single day to tackle these markets, to tackle all the volatility. And so what happened again? I go back to March of 2020, because that was such a crucial month for people.
That’s when they really saw the value in their advisor or no value in their advisor. So there’s a lot of people where, when we went to work, we’re taking a look at all the income streams, turning off some income stream. Having the ability to turn on other income streams. What we did was we created options.
People come to us for strategic planning. That’s what you’re going to get. So when you’re ever blindsided by an event, guess what we’re prepared for it. And so the bottom line is, is that we have a lot of people coming in the office right now. I had a blindsided. My advisor was not prepared and I suffered through this.
I’ve had it with them. I’m moving on. M and you know, Cynthia, it may not be us that they come to m and pretty much everybody that comes in my office. I’m very clear about one thing you should be interviewing at least three different advisors. M because you are entering into a financial relationship with this person.
Sure. And so there’s a lot of people who have. Battered in the past. They’re like, eh, I think all you guys are the same. Well, that’s not true. M right. I mean, there there’s, there’s all different kinds of levels of investment advisors. You want find a fiduciary, you want to find someone who’s independent.
You want find someone who has all the strategic planning in place. Mm. And so that’s where people are coming to us because we’re, we’re taking people away from large firms. small firms. national firms. And these people are coming to us after we write that financial plan and that income plan, they become some of our very best advocates.
I’m sure. And they’re like, Eric have them call me, tell them about my situation, tell them how you fixed it. Yeah. And so that’s what we appreciate because when we take something that’s. Uh, that a portfolio that’s not so good or that’s CR incredibly outdated. We’re fixing that we’re allowing the client to move forward, but also they have that confidence, that financial confidence that they’ve never had before.
Sure. And that’s really, what is so gratifying for our practice is that we can give somebody back that confidence that they’re looking for in that long. Eric. There’s nothing better than having a client referral, client testimonial. I mean, that speaks volumes. You can do all the advertising in the world, but there is nothing better than having a satisfied client.
And you have so many of those. Yeah. Yeah. We’re we are so grateful to our clients. I want to thank all my clients for the past 12 months. It’s been an incredible year. M I know that we over communicated with you a little bit, but that’s just how we were. We wanted to make sure that everyone was in place.
I also want to say thank you to all my staff members. We have worked. Tirelessly this past 12 months and our clients have remained very happy, very satisfied. And again, kudos to my staff. Incredible people. Eric, let me ask you, what do you mean by position investments for growth? So there’s a lot of people, Cynthia, you know, there’s 27.
Trillion dollars out there in assets. And I almost slipped and said 27 billion, but what a difference? Right? Right. $27 trillion out there in retirement assets. The sad thing is, is that a lot of people are in outdated mutual funds. A lot of times their 20 year rate of return has been about 4.5, 7% horrific numbers because now you’re.
Three and a half percent less than what the S and P 500 did. So we’re seeing a lot of people where they have a loss of opportunity. That’s very difficult to make up. And so, because they never changed advisors that has hurt them for a very long time. And so now what we have to do is we have to do a portfolio recovery strategy, update the portfolio.
Lower their fees. And when people come in, we actually do a personal financial blueprint. And the interesting thing is it shows all the strengths and the weaknesses about their portfolio. And so everyone gets one of these. Yeah. It’s explaining all the risk of the volatility of their fees. Their performance.
They’re going to know more about their portfolio than, than ever before. M and it’s actually an eye opening experience, but to a lot of people, it’s also very overwhelming. I’m sure. And they’re like, geez, Eric, I wish I knew this again. Four and five years ago. Yeah. And I know I’ve brought that up in the past.
But this is the problem people procrastinate because they don’t know something better to do. Sure. There also are people that are embarrassed about their situation. So they’re afraid to call us. Yeah, don’t be embarrassed about your situation. Get it fixed. This is for your benefit. So the thing is, is that I want to be able to put you in a better position.
I want to provide financial planning for you. This is what we do. We fix portfolios all the time, every single day. So there’s a lot of people out there that say I’ve been wanting to call, and now we’re telling you, give us a call. This is what we do. Eric. That is the perfect segue for us to open up the phone lines to the second.
For the second time to the viewing audience this week to the viewers at home, the phone number is (800) 779-1942. What Eric is offering you today to the first send callers, of course, is a complimentary consultation. Come into the office, meet via zoom and let him take a look at what your goals are and your plans are for the retirement years.
Stay tuned. What does your retirement look like? Is it filled with travel, spending time with family uninterrupted rounds at the golf course? Or are you too worried to even think about your hopes and dreams? Questions about your retirement are normal. So come into our office, sit down with us and let us help you find those answers.
Eric and his team can answer your questions with a complimentary review of your retirement and income plan. And it all starts with getting to know you. We specialize in helping people, just like you. Prepare for the retirement that they’ve always dreamed of. They’ll do exactly that by going over your current strategy to expose the weaknesses that may exist in your retirement portfolio.
Plus they’ll explain potential risks and possible strategies to you and easy to understand terms and help get you reacquainted with your portfolio when income strategy, what I enjoy most about retirement planning is sitting down with you and having real conversations about your retirement dreams and goals.
Once they understand your retirement goals, objectives, and dreams. They’ll work to custom, build a retirement plan to help ensure that you cannot outlive your income in retirement. Retirement. Doesn’t have to be scary. Let us help you retire confidently because every dream needs a plan. Call Eric today and schedule your visit.
You only retire. So let’s get it right the first time.
And welcome back to retirement talk television. My name is Cynthia DeFazio and I’m joined today by Eric Carney. And Eric is the president and CEO of retirement wealth advisors. Eric, a great show. And I just, I want to keep going on this because you’re, you’re really sharing so much great information. Of course, as we were going to the commercial break, I love watching the phone lines light up as well.
So I know the viewers are enjoying it also. Want to talk about the importance of understanding what you own and why you own it when it comes to investments. Can we dive into that a little bit? Uh, sure. Cynthia, so I think this is one of the biggest problems. So interestingly enough, a lot of times after a radio show or a TV show, people will say to me, Eric, you really know you don’t.
Really talk about investments that much. Well that’s because the financial plan is so critical, but what’s interesting is that there’s a lot of people who want to outperform their retirement. They think, well, if I get a high enough rate of return, I’m going to be okay. Well, that’s not the truth. The fact of the matter is, is that people that don’t believe in panoramic.
Planning. That’s just short term thinking my real clients that are actually very serious about their finances want to do a plan because once that plan is built, every time their situation ebbs and flows, it goes up and down. It changes a little bit. That plan is going to change with them. And then all of a sudden, we go into the lifestyle, income plan, purpose determines placement.
So whatever the purpose of your life is, what you want to accomplish, what you want to. Who you want to take care of? That’s the purpose, purpose, determines placement of what investments are actually appropriate for you. So another thing that’s been interesting about this past 12 months, Cynthia is m how many people are in inappropriate products.
Sure. For their own situation. Yeah. They’re in loaded mutual funds, super high fees. Low performance they’re in non-trad res, which by the way, my assistant autumn will get you outta those non-trad res she actually has a nickname in the office. It’s the REIT queen . And, uh, so I don’t know if she likes it or not, but that’s her new nickname.
And, um, also variable annuities. We’ve gotten a lot of people out of very expensive variable Annu. That have been very detrimental to them. And so the bottom line is, is that what we tell everyone is you want to lower your risk. You want to lower your volatility, and that should give you a smoother rate of return.
People don’t really understand what risk and volatility they have in their portfolios. Sure. And that’s the very first thing that we’re identifying to them. So you want to understand what you own in your portfolio. Remember, these people have hundreds of thousands of dollars. If not millions of dollars.
And when I ask them, what do you actually own? They say, honestly, Eric, I really don’t know. Yeah. When we show them the proposed portfolio, I’ll ask them, do you understand all these investments? They’re like, absolutely. I’m like, well, that’s our portfolio. So people are surprised at how transparent our portfolio is, but that’s really the way it has to be.
I mean, people, people want to understand what they own. They want to understand that financial direction that they’re going in. So again, People have dealt with a lot of licensed salespeople for a long time. If you’re really looking for a solid investment advisor who understands how to manage money, that’s what we do.
So building that plan and then building that wealth management side is exactly what we do. And that’s really what people are craving right now. Absolutely. I agree Eric, 100%, let’s talk a little bit about simulating endless scenarios for financial success. What is that? Exactly. So basically what we’re doing is, is.
The financial plan is smarter than me. Um, my financial planner, Donna is very analytic. She takes financial planning very seriously. And I love Donna for that. The bottom line is, is. I think that we’re incredibly smart people. Um, especially Donna with her whole financial planning department, they do an amazing job, but the financial planning software is running a thousand different scenarios.
So what it’s doing is there’s no way that I could come up with a thousand different scenarios. but the financial planning is smart enough to understand that. So again, we talk about being blindsided by events. How can we actually combat that? So the financial planning software is showing us how we can get over financial hurdles that come our way, that we never even expected.
And so we’re relying on building that financial plan first to be able to get through difficult events. And again, Keep people moving forward financially. Absolutely. And Eric, should people be planning for healthcare costs? I know we only have about a minute and a half left in the show, but is that something important to consider as well?
Healthcare costs are the number two concern for retirees right now tied with taxes. So you want to factor in about 15% of your annual salary or in retire. 15% of your annual income, that’s going to go towards healthcare costs. So it’s a really big one for sure. Mm. Is it because people are living longer, Eric?
It is. We’re actually finding where people are living longer. Yeah. And you think, well, that person’s really healthy, but what’s actually happening is. There’s a lot of things that happen. People have frozen shoulder, people have hip replacements, people have knee replacements, all that stuff requires extra money.
And remember, there’s a lot of things that Medicare doesn’t cover, massage therapy, dental work, hearing aids, foot care. We want to be comfortable in retirement. So we got to factor that in. Absolutely. So again, this putting it all into the most important component, which is the plan that’s going to encompass all of those different facets, right?
Absolutely. Eric, I can’t believe that our time is almost up again this week. Cuz every time we’re together, it goes by. So quickly, and I love watching the phones light up. I know the viewers are enjoying the show as well. So again, thank you so much for coming in. Thank you for spending time with me today.
Hey Southwest Florida, Eric here. Thanks so much for watching. If you are interested in a second opinion or a fully blown written financial plan, let’s get you reacquainted with your portfolio. And again, without any. If you’re interested in your very own income plan, let’s get you reacquainted with that as well.
Give us a call today. Strive for excellence. Your wealth deserves it.
This information is designed to provide general information on the subjects covered, it is not, however, intended to provide specific legal or tax advice and cannot be used to avoid tax penalties or to promote, market, or recommend any tax plan or arrangement. Please note that Eric Kearney Advisor, LLC, Retirement Wealth Advisors, LLC and their affiliates do not give legal or tax advice. You are encouraged to consult your tax advisor or attorney.
