About Financial Planning Consultants

Video Transcript

"Financial Planning Consultants. It seems as though in this day and age they come in all shapes and sizes. You've got the insurance agent that says I help people plan for their future. You've got the securities person who is trying to help them do better with the stocks. You've got a mortgage person that's trying to give them the best deal on the mortgage. You've got the CPA that's trying to save them money on their taxes. You've got your Tax Consultant or Tax Attorney for estate planning issues. You've got a Real Estate Agent that's going to try to help em' get a great deal on a house. And you take all these people and you put em' at a table together, and you say what's the, what should I be doing, and you get a lot of different answers. And so, that's kind of left up to the individual to figure out how to win the money game. And it is a vexing problem, and proof of the lack of success that people have, if you take a hundred people at age twenty five they'll all tell you they want to be successful and they want to have a great retirement and not have money issues. And check back with them at age sixty five; thirty six are dead, fifty four are broke, five are still working, four are financially independent, one is wealthy. So, you've got five out of a hundred, and that statistic hasn't changed materially in thirty five years. And so, I would make the case that a true financial planner doesn't specialize in any one of those areas. That that financial planner learns about all of those areas, which is what I've done, over time. I got my insurance license back in 1987; got my real estate license a year later. Got my securities license in 1995; got in the mortgage business in 2001, all to educate myself. And by the way, just being in those businesses doesn't mean I'm going to be successful, cause' being successful is more about my spending habits and what's between my ears, and how I view money and my relationship to money. And to that end, we need to have a relationship with somebody like Ted Klontz, who wrote a book, and he's a financial therapist, and the book talks about the ten money scripts that we were brought up with that kind of mess up our lives. The forward was written by Naomi Judd. You wouldn't think she needs help having a good relationship with money, but she did. And so, a good financial planner understands about these things, and he understands and she understands about how to deal with people's issues not just today, because when we sit down with people we take a data sheet and it's about seven pages, and essentially we're asking hey, tell me where it hurts, and we're going to attack things, based on, obviously, what our client wants us to do first. But, we always want to keep in mind that there's six steps to financial security; increase cash flow, manage debt, build liquid reserves, properly protect assets, and create strategic wealth, and preserve that wealth. How many people are doing all six? There's a lot going on here. Should they teach this stuff in college? I think they should."