Choosing A Financial Advisor

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And welcome everyone to the Great Hicks Show. We're so
glad you tuned in in the hot month of June.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
We're pretty hot.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Greg Kicks Certified Financial Planner, along with Bo Nicholson the
CFP as well and our female version of the radio show,
Wanda Cooper is missing an action, but guess what's happening.
Wanda's daughter's having a baby, baby number two. Wanda and
her husband as grandparents are doing their duty and going

(00:29):
down to South Carolina and helping out and everything is
exciting and fun. And as Bow knows from his parents
reaction to his young kids, being a grandparents about the
greatest thing in the world. And having to take care
of grandkids is.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Fun but tiring.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
But we give all our prayers and hopes for Wanda
and her daughter Jordan and the new grand baby. So
kudos for Wanda and all of her family. Anyway, we're
glad you tune in today. We are excited. Today. We're
going to have a show called Choosing a Financial Advisor
and you know, hint, hint, you might want to choose us,

(01:08):
but we can't say that, right Bo, We're just going
to be quiet about that. But anyway, but we're so
excited you tuned in. A lot of you guys are
listeners regularly. I was at church the other day and
a couple of guys came up and said, I really
like your show. It's so much fun and we enjoy
hearing it, and we pre recorded on Thursdays. But they're funny,

(01:31):
they'll say. They said something like I teach the Sunday
school class, and they said, we see at church and
then we go home and hear you at three at two. Anyway,
So anyway, we're so glad you tuned in for you
old listeners, and we're thankful for you because we've met
so many radio listeners over the years and it's just

(01:51):
been so much fun. Many of them have become clients,
but even if not, it's just fun. I love hearing
the story of people and their background and their goals.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Fun to me.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
But also we realize because of the population immigration from
many places around the country in the world actually into
North Carolina, particularly Raleigh and the beach area, Moorhead City,
Crystal Coast, all the way down the beach. We are
glad you tuned in some of you for the first time.
And the Great Kicks Show is all about money, but
it's about every conceivable idea. It's not just about investing

(02:25):
or buying an annuity or buying insurance or anything, but
it's about multiple things. We have about sixty or sixty
five show topics we rotate all through the year, year
and a half whatever. Sometimes we come back on a
holiday and play the best of the Great Kicks Show
to repeat a show. But if you're new, you'll enjoy this.

(02:46):
Everything we do is practical. We talk about real life
situations all the time, and we're just here to help
people meet their goals and be of service to them
and not just promote ourselves. But anyway, you can also
pick up all kinds of topics. I mentioned all the
topics we do. You can pick those up on if

(03:07):
you tune in to one o six one FM radio
and Raleigh. The radio station has the Greg Hicks Show
listed in the archiveum for about fifty or fifty two weeks.
And then our website, which we'll mention several times. F
rm NC dot com also has a radio tab, so
you can go back and listen to topics that really

(03:28):
are on your mind and heart at the moment. So,
but let's talk about what's going.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
On in the world.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Other than Israel and Iran killing each other and Russian
and Ukrainians killing each other. Everything's real peaceful out there.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
You know.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
It's interesting. On Wednesday morning, the Ayatola basically said we're
not going to back down, and if the US gets involved,
there's going to be a major day of reckoning. And
the market actually responded positively on that news, like, oh,
he's not going to back down, All right, let's go oil.
This is are probably going to go up a little bit.
It's interesting to see what Wall Street likes and doesn't like.

(04:04):
So I want to talk a little bit about this
Big Beautiful Bill, which kind of reminds me. You remember
LeVar Ball, who was the dad of Lamello Ball, you know,
the basketball NBA star and what was.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
His brother, I don't know, Ball, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
So you know, he had three kids in in NCAA basketball,
and I think two of them went on to the NBA.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
One of them plays for the Hornets.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
And he created this Big Baller brand to make money
off of his kids effectively, and he used to sit
courtside and wear his Big BBB shirts. And I hear
the Big Beautiful Bill created obviously by Trump, who has
arguably a similar personality to LeVar Ball, and it's it's
hard not to see the parallels. But in this big,
beautiful bill, there are certainly some things that we like.

(04:52):
One of them, one of the big ones, is extending
and making permanent the federal estate tax exemption to fift
teen million per person thirty million for a family. And
so if it passes, then some high level of state
planning for anyone who has thirty million dollars in assets
are below is probably not going to be necessary anymore.
And so it simplifies things that, let's your state, your

(05:13):
your beneficiaries, keep more of your money, you give less
to the government. One thing I didn't know, Greg. Do
you know Oregon and Washington have state a state taxes?

Speaker 1 (05:22):
They do now every state used to years ago, North.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
Oregon over a million, over a million, you pay taxes
to the state of and you.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
Get to watch Portland burn every summer.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Oh, that's what are they doing with that money? Right?

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Another one is five twenty nine plans, And so five
twenty nine plans have expanded recently. And these are near
and dear to me, obviously because I have two new kids.
As Greg just mentioned and anyone out there with kids
or grandkids, five twenty nine plans are a great way
to save tax deferred for college. Well now it's not
just college. You know, you can save for kindergarten through college.
And you know they've opened it up actually to trade schools.

(05:58):
If this big beautiful bill passes and so so hvac EMTs, electricians,
cosmetology school all those things are now under the realm
of it's okay to spend this money, the five twenty
nine money on tutoring Satact prep. So we like the
fact that the need for student loans is going down

(06:18):
because there's basically two trillion dollars of debt outstanding in
student loans right now, and five hundred thousand people over
the age of sixty two have student loan debt.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
What does that mean.

Speaker 3 (06:30):
That means once student loan payments come back, they're going
to be taken out of their Social Security payments and
so criminal we talked about this. We can get on
that rabbit hole. But we like the fact that five
twenty nine are opening up to reduce the need for
student debt.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
It is just to identify for people that don't know
if five twenty nine is are almost like roth IRA.
If you put the money in at gross tax free,
you pull it out, it's never tax as long as education.
I have two for my grandkids who are now in
high school, and they're just fantastic. So the percentage of
people that own them is I think it's below ten percent,

(07:05):
which is like, why wouldn't you want to bless your grain?

Speaker 3 (07:08):
And I have a lot of clients that are bankrolling
college for their kids and they can, but there was
a better way to use that money, right, Well.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
I have about seventy thousand built up for my two grandkids,
just throwing in one thousand or two a year all
along the way, and it's.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
All tax free. It's all tax free.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
So this five twenty nine is really underused, and I'm
glad you brought up.

Speaker 3 (07:30):
And if it's not used, you can now with some
previous rules that were introduced a few years ago, you
can basically transfer five twenty nine balances up to a
certain point to a raw IRA. So if your daughter
or son gets a scholarship to college, or you're in
Georgia and you get the Hope scholarship or whatever, and
there's money left over, well you could change the beneficiary
to the next youngest child, or you could convert that

(07:52):
into a raw IRA with contribution limits and everything in effect. Okay,
the last thing on the big beautiful bill, I want
to talk about a Social Security So that was big
promise that Trump made to a lot of Americans. I'm
gonna erase taxes on Social Security. Well he didn't actually
do that. Instead of removing taxes, it offers a four
thousand dollars bonus deduction for seniors, and that deduction runs

(08:15):
from twenty twenty five to twenty twenty eight. It's not
permanent retirees with six who are sixty five and older
with modest incomes under seventy five thousand dollars single or
under one hundred and fifty thousand dollars married, that's who's
really gonna benefit. It phases out if you make more
than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars as a married
couple or one hundred and seventy five.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
Joint.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
So which most seniors, Which most seniors don't, Most senders
don't have a few seniors with incredible pensions.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
So I'll tell you what I.

Speaker 3 (08:47):
So, social Security taxes likely weren't repealed, because the devil's
in the details, as it often is. Full appearal would
cost over one hundred billion dollars a year. Not that
this nation can't handle debt, I hope, and the bill
can't legally impact the Social Security Trust Fund due to
how it's structured, and so it was kind of a
partial fulfillment or a compromise of his promise. But at

(09:09):
least he's working towards that, and at least he's doing
something for those seniors out there, because they need all
the breaks that they can get now, but they're in
the phase of their life where they're spending down their money,
and so it's still a modest win in my opinion.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
Well, and the Dems, remember the campaigned on he's going
to destroy Social Security and take it.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
Away, cut Medicare and Compecticut.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
That's pretty boldface lying, but everybody does that in politics.
But anyway, Yeah, and of course Trump is the president.
We still have something called the Constitution, which divides power
between the courts, the legislature, and the president's chief executive.
So he could promise and push it, but it has

(09:50):
to go through the Senate in Congress, and that's where
it got watered down, so anyway, but any help for seniors,
We're all for one thousand percent. Thank goodness. Now we're
going to take quick break, come back, and we're going
to do the next three segments on choosing a financial advisor.
How in the world do you do that? And how
do you know it's the right one. We're going to
answer those question. Stay tuned and welcome back to the

(10:13):
Great Hicks Show. We're in segment two of today's shows.
I hope you're warm and toasting on this June and afternoon.
Want to Cooper our other advisor with Financial Resource Management
our company is with her daughter who's having a baby
this week and they're all excited as grand baby number
two with her daughter and best wishes for one in Jordan,

(10:36):
her daughter in South Carolina. But Bo and I are here.
We're both certified financial planners, and today's show is kind
of about us, but we do it anyway because you
need to know the topic in general, and you can
choose us. You can talk to us actually by calling
nine one nine eight five six nineteen sixty eight. And

(11:00):
I all work for the same small business which I
started on a wing in a prayer about forty years
ago financial resource management. So anyway, we're going to get
after it today and give you some great helpful hints
on choosing a financial advisor if you don't have one,
but also if you already have one, what should you
look for, what should you be comfortable with? All those

(11:22):
things are going to show up today in the show. Now,
since Bow and I both are cfps, we'll talk about
the alphabet soup CFP. That just simply means certified financial planner.
A lot of people are CPAs, but some people don't
know what CPA stands for Certified p public account account account. Yeah, CPA,

(11:44):
So CFPS. There's about one hundred and three thousand cfps
in the United States, So it's not every financial advisor
can have multiple licenses or one or two. They could
be like special and both. I'd sometimes liken it to
the medical field. There's the general fat practitioner, family doctor

(12:07):
we used to call them, and then if you have
a broken arm or something, you go to the orthopedic specialist,
or if you have some disease, you go to the
oncologists if it's blood. So the financial world is a
little like that there. We are much broader in our
business model. We cover everything. We're multi license, but there's

(12:29):
nothing wrong with having a specialist either. So a CFP
we have to take high testing and disciplines and insurance
and risk and investments and tax planning and whatever whatever.
It's multiple layered. So that's just to clarify who BO
and I are. We're cfps.

Speaker 3 (12:48):
But to your example about doctors, we know enough in
those areas of taxes and estate planning and insurance and
the like, but we use specialists. And I've mentioned that
sum our show several times. We have added specialists kind
of to our external team. We have several state planning attorneys,
several CPAs, medicare advisors. We have a whole insurance team

(13:12):
behind us. We have investment advisors who we sometimes farm
out investment management to. We have whole trust departments, and
so we understand the need for specialists because not everybody
comes in with a plain vanilla financial situation. Everybody's needs
are different. Sometimes they have a high level need, maybe
they have a special needs child, maybe they have you know,

(13:35):
maybe they just got a divorce. We have several divorce
attorneys that we work with, and so we like to
be the person who can oversee a client's financial life
and then tap in those specialists in the various areas
when necessary so that the client can get the best
possible service. But they can do it in a sense
through us, or at least through kind of one of
our our pathways. So if that sounds like something you'd

(13:58):
be interested in kind of a full service financial planning relationship,
we'd love to meet you. We'd love to hear your
story and see how we might be able to help out.
Nine one nine eight five six one nine six eight
is the number to call.

Speaker 1 (14:09):
That's right, And speaking of people who may need a
financial planner or financial advisor of some sort, I look
up some demographic demographics and stats and it's very interesting.
About ten percent of retirees in the United States have
retirement accounts worth over a million dollars. So there is

(14:32):
that top ten percent level that you hear sometimes you
hear a congressman sometimes griping about the tax cuts only
go to the rich. Well, there's only rich people that
would get them, because the bottom forty nine percent of
Americans pay less than ten or fifteen percent of all
the revenues in taxes. So if, of course, if you

(14:52):
get a tax cut, to people who make money are
going to get it ten percent. The average retiree in
the United States have around three hundred and fifty to
four hundred thousand of retirement assets. That would be things
like four oh one k ira roth iras and so forth.
Here's an interesting stat too. In North Carolina, about fifty

(15:12):
to fifty thirty percent of adults over sixty five have
financial advisors. That surprised me. But what they didn't clarify
was what kind of financial advisor. It may be just
a CPA that does our taxes. Now Here's here's one
that's interesting. About thirty to thirty five percent of people
over sixty five in North Carolina have no advisor. Now,

(15:37):
sometimes their income or assets are low enough to where
they don't need an advisor helping them. But some of
those fairly wealthy people are doing yourself. There's nothing wrong
with that if you're good at it. But I can
tell you this, Bowen Wanda and I we spend I
don't even I don't know the percentage of time we
spend looking out. We're like radars on a submarine man.

(16:00):
We don't look for enemies. We look for things that
are changing. The tax law the Congress changes tax law
every day. It seems like the rules change. You just
read some of the rules on five twenty nine that
are going to change. So how an individual goes through
that is beyond me. I tried to help my wife's
mother when she went onto Medicare years ago, and I

(16:24):
was a certified financial planner, and I tell you I
got confused going over Medicare and helping her. I don't
know how a layperson does this by themselves. I mean,
there's some geniuses out there. There are a few Elon
Musk out there. I get it, but I'm just thinking,
you know, you might need an advisor and not even
realize it.

Speaker 3 (16:43):
And another big thing we do for clients that kind
of the do it yourselfers are without is we behavior
coach oftentimes, especially when the market goes down or the
market goes way up. You know, we cautioned against chasing
the newest, hottest trend and when the market's down. I
was surprised pleasantly in April when the market dropped after

(17:03):
the Liberation Day and the tariffs and the market went
down top to bottom, I was twenty percent. We only
had a couple clients call that we're concerned. A lot
of our clients, I think, because of the coaching that
we've given them over the years, called with the kind
of opposite sentiment and said, hey, I see Nvidia is
down you know, forty percent? Should I buy some of that?
Should I buy some of this? They were kind of
bargain hunting, and that's the way to think about it.

(17:25):
But when something happens like the COVID crisis that is
out of nowhere, nothing like we've ever experienced before. Remember,
unprecedented was a really big word during that time.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
People were terrified.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
You turn on your TV and CNBC was talking about
how it was going to be the next lost decade.
We weren't going to get back to the highs. We
just left in the market for another ten years at least.
And here's why. And they all had compelling cases. If
you hear that and you're in these echo chambers and
you look at your retirement situation, your retirement's maybe two, three,
four years away, You've got all your money in a

(17:55):
target date fund and a four oh one K and
it's down thirty two percent.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
What do you do?

Speaker 3 (18:00):
Well, maybe you panic, Maybe you just rip the band
aid off and say I can't take this anymore. I'm
going to cash. I can't lose any more money. That
is the worst way to act in those times, but
it's human emotion, and oftentimes that's what your emotions are
telling you to do when things are happening like that
and there's blood in the streets. Instead, if you have
someone you can trust in your corner, in your family's corner,

(18:21):
on your team, you can call them and say, all right,
what is the situation here, how does this relate to
our plan? What has history showed us before? I just
need somebody to talk to, And in a way, we're
like a financial therapist in that time, and we can
help talk people out of making these these terrible decisions
which can really impact their financial future in the worst way.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
I've met a lot of people.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
Even recently, as probably a year and a half ago,
who pulled a substantial amount of their money out in
two thousand and eight. If you remember back in two
thousand and eight, things were very grim. You know, big
banks were closing their doors, falling apart. It was close
to the Great Depression in the term of how it
felt to the average American stocks were down almost fifty percent.

(19:06):
Top to bottom. Some people's portfolios were a lot worse
than that. And again, if you pulled your money out,
you missed a nine hundred percent return bounce back in
the s and P five hundred, you're just locking in
those losses. And so I think behavioral coaching and also
savings discipline. That's another big one that we do for clients.
So when we sit down and we review their goals

(19:27):
and we say, okay, you're on track or you're a
little bit behind, and here's the additional amount of money
you need to put in your four to oh one
K and your simple IRA and your investment account on
an annual basis, just keeping people honest, making them commit
to a savings rate, a savings goal, adjusting their risk
and their portfolio, making sure everything lines up with the

(19:47):
money they have and where they want to be in
two years and in twenty years. That is where we
can really be an objective sounding board and give people
that peace of mind. And I think that's what everybody's
after in their financial life is just peace of mind
knowing that things are going to be okay. What do
I need to do to make things okay? That those
are the questions that we answer for all of our
clients when we meet with them, and so again, our

(20:09):
number nine one nine eighty five six one nine six
eight is a good place to start. If you don't
yet have a relationship with someone who's doing that, we'd
love to meet you. Nine one nine eight five six
one nine six eight.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
And the truth is is, generally things are never okay.
This idea that we live in a utopia, I mean,
everybody wants that, but but get real, Hey, there's always
something wrong. I've I've seen really neat graphs that show
all the reasons that Wall Street is laid out over
the years that you shouldn't be in the market, crisis

(20:43):
after crisis. I mean there's dozens of them per year,
like right now the Israel Iranian war. Should you be
in the market or not? I don't know. There's always something.

Speaker 3 (20:53):
For centuries, there's been a reason the world is going
to end, right.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
Yeah, Yeah, And so Bo mentioned an objective person. Listen,
bow and wine and I are also emotional. You don't
think we get excited when one of our team wins something.
We're emotional and we feel bad. But Bo, you mentioned
the eighth nine crash is one and then recently the
COVID crash. For people who were level headed and agreed

(21:20):
to this, we can't. By the way, we don't do
anything against the client's wishes. We always talk to them.
But I remember, I'll give you one example, and I'm
not saying do this. I'm just saying I bought IBM
for about twelve or fifteen people in COVID, and today
it had doubled. And that was twenty twenty. So five

(21:40):
years later, I got a double in an old, boring
tech company that nobody wanted. I bought it for the dividend.
So now I bought some stuff that didn't double. So
I'm not saying I'm a genius, but that's an example
buying when you think it's all going to end. But anyway,
we've got to take another break. Already, it's halftime in
our show. We're going to be back in just a
minute and talk more about choosing a financial advisor. And

(22:02):
welcome to the second half of the Great Kicks Show.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
Today.

Speaker 1 (22:04):
We're talking about choosing a financial advisor of all things,
and that's what Bo and Wanda and I are. That's
hard to say, and I are, by the way, I
mentioned early in the show that we have a bunch
of topics we go over. So let me give you
a little heads up. Next week is fourth of July weekend,
so we're going to do the best of the Grey

(22:25):
Kicks show, and the show topic that day is the
magic of dividends. Dividends are like paid out a lot
of times on stocks, old stocks especially, and dividends are
often overlooked and neglected, whether you reinvest them into the
same stock over and over and multiply compound your growth,

(22:45):
or you're retired and you need cash flow. Dividends are
a big deal. So we did a whole show on that.
It's kind of a new show. We've only done it once.
We did it in February. That's going to be up
next week on the fourth of July weekend, and then
during the lest of the month of July, we're going
to really hit the family world. The show titles are

(23:07):
blended families meaning second marriages, the loss of a spouse,
which is a rough show, but it happens in the
real world. And then the third show is funny. I
always love this title, Financial issues and marriage. Do you
think there's any financial issues in marriage? And then and
then we follow that with divorce because our divorce attorney

(23:30):
friend always says that the top two things that cause
divorce are affairs and the next one is money issues.
So we're going to follow financial issues in marriage show
with divorce. So how about that? So the next four weeks,
after the fourth of July, we're going to really talk

(23:51):
about families. And now you if you just tuned into
our show on financial planning and financial advice, you might
be wondering why do we talk about family issues? Because
everything you do in your family has a financial connection somehow.
Every financial decision you make affects your family too. So
those are very important things and how you react to

(24:14):
those issues are a big, big deal. So that's coming up,
So stay tuned for those good shows. Wind he'll be
back by then she'll have another grandkid and she'll be
all smiley faced. Okay, today we're talking about choosing a
financial advisor. We talked about the certifications models that are
out there. We talked about objective planning and objective coaching.

(24:36):
Advisor gives you all kinds of interesting things to bounce
off of. But one thing before I leave that topic,
I don't know how many you and wan to have
I've got about forty or fifty single women that are
either single or maybe they're divorced, or maybe they're spouse
passed away. And this is an interesting thing, and always

(24:58):
it always makes me pause. They'll say, you know, I
don't have a husband to talk to. In some cases
they'll say my dad passed away who I used to
bounce financial ideas off of. But if you're a single
woman out there, one advantage of a financial advisor is
that sounding board that you don't naturally have in your

(25:19):
family or your parents. And the reason I bring it
up is I've been amazed. I bet you ten or
twelve times I've had women say that to me. I
didn't ask for it, they just said it. So I
just want to say heads up to you single women.
I love working with single women. Y'all are smart people,
but you also might need a help an advisor.

Speaker 3 (25:42):
I'll take that a step further in relating it back
to how to choose a financial advisor. If you are
a woman out there who's maybe married and you're financial,
you don't know your financial advisor. They just meet with
your husband. And it's been that way for ten fifteen years.
I meet a lot of couples where oftentimes the husband
is the financial decision maker, and there's nothing wrong with that.
That's fine. However, here's the issue. Women live longer than

(26:07):
men do. Right, everybody knows that oftentimes the spouse, the
wife is a little younger, and so there could easily
be ten, fifteen, twenty years of that wife's financial life
where the husband's not around anymore. And talking about losing
a spouse. It's morbid. Nobody likes to think about it,
but these are the truths of life. You want to
make sure that you have built up rapport trust with

(26:31):
an advisor or an advisory team before that situation arises.
And so in those situations where the husband is the
financial decision maker and he's the one coming to all
the meetings, I say, look, let's bring in miss Smith
next meeting. I just I want to catch up with her.
I want to sit down, give her the high level
version of the plan, everything that we've done for you,

(26:52):
how it all works. She doesn't have to understand the
nitty gritty all the stuff that we talk about. Sure,
I'm sure that would bore her, but it's just giving
her that feeling of comfort with our team. So that
if and when something happens to you, she feels comfortable
picking up the phone, calling us offloading a lot of
the financial stresses that come at that kind of time
so she can deal with the emotional side. This is

(27:13):
also true with the next generation. So for clients in
mind that are over seventy, I often recommend a family call,
and this is mom and dad, Mom or dad on
the phone with son and daughter, son or daughter, son
or daughter, or oftentimes other people they see as families.
So maybe they don't have kids, but they have a
neighbor or a great friend that they really trust and

(27:35):
that's going to be the executor of their estate whatever.
I like to have family phone calls with those two
generations and kind of layout as much detail as a
client wants me to, but more than anything else, just
like that previous example, build rapport with these other people
so that they can call me and understand that we

(27:55):
are going to take care of all those logistics once
something happens to mom or dad or whoever it is.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
And we have a few clients every year. We have
people in their seventies, eighties, and nineties. We have two
people that are over one hundred right now, it's client
and it's night and day. When somebody dies and their
spouse comes in and they already know what's here, they
already know us. We move forward. It's much smoother. And
I've met with people that their husband passed away and

(28:25):
he did everything, and that widow when she comes to
my office is literally paralyzed with fear. She has no
clue what to do where her assets are. So it's
night and day. So what both said is very important.
Make sure your spouse. Now, I have a few really
super sharp women that they're so sharp their husband doesn't
want to know anything about the finances. So I have

(28:46):
the off set.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
Of course.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
Yeah, so I have them bring their and I'll say
bring him in. He's going to complain, he's gonna lillygag,
but I'll get him excited. I'll get him into the conversation.
You let me do that, but you need to bring
your husband in.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
I have a guy who makes his wife do all
the spreadsheets.

Speaker 3 (29:01):
He's like, you know, I'll do the financial stuff, but
you just handle like the back end spreadsheets and everything.
And it's a way of keeping her involved in. It's
an intentional thing that he did to set it up.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
That way.

Speaker 1 (29:10):
Well, Laurie and I my wife, Laurie never had to
do a lot with We both lost our spouses, so
we have a second marriage. We've been married six years now.
So she started doing the bills. And that's the same
thing Bo you mentioned. I do all, she says. Matter
of fact, she was a school teacher and second grade teacher.
When she told her teacher friends about me that, they said, well,

(29:32):
what does he do? And she said, he's a financial planner,
she said. Every one of them busted out laughing because
Laurie was.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
Not into financial so anyway, it's tracked.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
So anyway, Laurie's doing our bills now online and stuff,
and I love that she's now involved. And she asked
me questions.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
Now.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
One thing I want to say too, And I thought
of this driving into the studio today. Here's the word
that's thrown around. I heard it thrown around driving in
on an ad I'm a fiduciary. I'm even a certified fiduciary.
And I'm like, okay, maybe there's a new you know,
certification out there, but a certified financial planner and a

(30:12):
financial advisor who manages money for a fee, they have
to be fiduciary is that word's thrown around. Fiduciary means
I only do stuff in your best interests. I don't
do it for my best interests or am I. I
don't do something to get a bigger fee or a
bigger commission or anything like that. I do it in
your best interest. So I will say this when you're

(30:34):
talking to an advisor, ask that question, are you a
fiduciary under under regulations? Meaning they have to do what's
in your best interests? And I think that's a big deal.
And so I just want you to understand the fiduciary
thing is thrown around by everybody in the world, but
make sure you understand it.

Speaker 3 (30:53):
So here's my thought on fiduciary. Yes, I'm a fiduciary.
Greg's a fiduciary. Want is a fiduciary in multiple capacities
like Greg just mentioned. But it has become kind of
a marketing play recently. You know a lot of people
out there have been told to look for a fiduciary,
and so there are people out there who don't act
like fiduciaries, who are marketing themselves as such. You've heard

(31:14):
the commercials we put ourselves on the same side of
a table as the clients, so we do better.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
When they do better. We're not like other advisors. Yes
you are. You just charge one.

Speaker 3 (31:22):
And a half percent, and you like it when the
account goes from a million to one point five just
like they do, because you're making one point five percent
on that. Here's the other question to ask, who are
you governed by? Are you governed by FENRA? Are you
governed by the SEC? Are you governed by the Insurance Commission?
Anyone else? Because the SEC, which is a Securities and

(31:43):
Exchange Commission and FENRA financial, well, what does it stand
for fi NRI.

Speaker 1 (31:49):
It's the federal regulators for a financial plan or financial advisors.

Speaker 3 (31:53):
Yeah, so the people the SEC they manage. They manage
people who manage money for a fee. They like the
broker dealer side. It's important that whoever you are working
with is kind of governed by both of those arms,
or one or two of those arms, because they have
very stringent regulation that the advisors have to abide by.

(32:13):
And they also do audits occasionally randomly, they'll come in
your office and they'll look at all your client data,
make sure you're not doing anything sketchy and that's good, right.
We want a little bit of checking in this industry
accountability exactly. There are a lot of quote advisors, quote
fiduciaries out there who drop their licenses with FENRA in
the SEC and maintain an insurance license.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
What does that allow them to do? Well?

Speaker 3 (32:38):
That allows them to say outrageous things on the radio
or anywhere else about these products, oftentimes fixed index annuities
that can give you a massive bonus on the upside
and double your money. You know, you get a ten
percent guaranteed rate of return, You're never going to run
out of money. Make all these promises about these investments

(32:58):
in hoodwink clients into doing something and locking their money
up for ten to fifteen years. We have seen it.
We see it far too often. And I've looked into
some of these people, and what they've done is they've
dropped their licenses. So they're no longer governed by FINRA,
They're no longer governed by the SEC. They don't have
to abide by these stringent regulations. They instead are only

(33:20):
governed by the Insurance Commission, who is a little more
lax in the Investment department. And so just understand what
type of a person you are working with and what
their designations are, what their license to do. Ask them, Hey,
if I wanted to buy some stocks, would you be
able to manage those stocks for me? The answer for
us is yes. The answer for those people is no. Hey,

(33:42):
if I wanted some mutual funds or I wanted you
know whatever, are you going to be able to do
that for me? Or is that something that you're going
to farm out to someone else? Those are important questions
to ask. And I know there's a lot of nuances
in this business, but not understanding those nuances before you
commit to a relationship can get you in trouble. So
we're here trying to protect you and how to choose
a good financial advisor. And in addition to the fiduciary piece,

(34:05):
what I'll often tell people is, yes, I'm a fiduciary,
but I think after spending some time with me and
Greg and Wander are the same way, you'll understand what
kind of a person I am. You'll understand where my
moral compass is, what my ethics are, and I want
you to have that warm and fuzzy feeling before we
move forward, not just the stamp of approval. Yes, he's
a fiduciary. So with that soapbox speech, we got to

(34:26):
take our last break. We will be right back, y'all.
Stick with us. We got a lot more to talk
about on how to choose a financial advisor.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
Welcome back to the last segment of the Great Hicks Show. Today,
we're talking about choosing a financial advisor, how to do it,
how to not do it, what to ask, what to
look for, how does it feel? And this applies to
people that have never had a financial advisor and are
looking and they know they need one, But it also
applies to you folks that have one. About half or
so of our radio listeners that we end up meeting

(34:54):
with have an advisor. So sometimes they come in because
they're just they're just making sure they're doing the right thing.
So they're just getting a second opinion like a doctor
would or other people in other professions. The second opinion
sometimes is helpful because it's a little more objective. And
also we meet people who have an advisor that have

(35:15):
this feeling inside that it doesn't feel quite comfortable, or
something is not comfortable, and that's just unfortunately that's true,
But there's an answer to that. You can come and
get another opinion and meet another advisor. So if you're
in that category, we're happy to talk to you have
an appointment with us. We have offices in Raleigh, kind

(35:38):
of close to the North Hills shopping Center if you're
familiar with Raleigh. And then also at the Beach Office
Atlantic Beach. As you cross from Morehead City to Atlantic Beach,
right on that causeway, right a block after you cross
that bridge is our office in Atlantic Beach. It's the
office with the best view. It's not the biggest one,
but it's the best view. So if you're in the

(36:00):
harbor reviews, that Beach Office is a fun place to meet.
So give us a call nine one nine eight five
six nineteen sixty eight to set your appointment up. Leave
a voicemail if you're calling on a weekend, and we'll
call you back. We have three great administrators that are
very good at their job, so they'll get in touch
and we'll set up a time and meet and we'll
just talk about your stuff. We'll send you a little

(36:21):
financial sheet to fill out and bring your stuff in
and you can ask us one question or one hundred
questions in that appointment. We don't care. We just want
to help people, So take advantage of that. Nine one, nine, eight,
five six nineteen sixty eight. And I mentioned our website
earlier in the show, but let me go back to that.
It's initials f rm NC dot com. The FRM is

(36:47):
Financial Resource Management, the name of our business, and then
NC is of course we're headquartered in North Carolina. FRM
NC dot com. All kinds of great info there about
Wanda bo and I about offices. We do newsletters, We
have all kinds of stuff on there. It's fun, it's
We've been told this one of the better websites out
there by an independent coach of financial planners. So take

(37:11):
advantage of that.

Speaker 3 (37:12):
Now, Greg, I want to I want to jump off
on something you just said. Clients can come in and
you can ask our prospects. Radio listeners can come in
and ask us any questions they want to. Obviously we
want that. We are open books. But let's talk about
the dynamic of a first meeting. When you go in
to meet that new advisor. But it's been referred to
you by a friend, that's been recommended to you, that
you heard on the radio, that you found on the internet.

(37:32):
However you got in touch with them, what should that
first meeting be like who should be.

Speaker 2 (37:38):
Doing most of it talking? What is a red flag?

Speaker 3 (37:41):
Typically in the first meeting it should be about ninety
ten ninety percent you doing the first talk to doing
the talking, and ten percent of the advisor potential advisor
doing the talking. The talking the advisor should be doing
should be answering your questions obviously that you have and
also asking you follow up questions to the answers you provide,

(38:02):
doing active listening. Because our job in that first meeting
is finding out everything we can about you and your
financial life and your financial values, what your goals are,
who you are, how you grew up, what's important to
you in the financial world. We have to have all
that information. Figures on your social Security, your accounts, that
you have, any other retirement income that's expected. All that

(38:26):
stuff is important for us to gather in the first meeting.
We don't talk about products or really any kind of
solutions at all. I might recommend something small like a
client redirects there pre tax four oh one K contributions
over into the WROTH side in the first meeting, but
outside of something broad based like that, we're not going
to make any recommendations we're not going to talk about
any products. Certainly, if that's something you're getting in the

(38:49):
first meeting with an advisor, you go see red flag
fimidor tell them thanks for your time, don't go see
them again.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
We meet with you.

Speaker 3 (38:58):
For an hour, hour and a half, collect all your information,
get an understanding of who you are and why you
came into our office. There's a reason that you're in
our office. Then what we do is we take about
a week and we put a plan together. We involve
some of those people I mentioned earlier, potentially the estate
planning attorneys, the CPAs, the insurance department. We might make

(39:18):
some calls to some of our partners who have a
higher understanding of some of those nuanced levels. We put
a plan together, you come back in, we review that plan.
Oftentimes that's not even decision day because you're effectively drinking
out of a fire hose. We're taking a snapshot of
forty to sixty years of your savings and we're condensing
it and do an hour and a half long meeting.

(39:40):
We don't expect you to wrap your head all the
way around it. Nine out of ten of your questions
will come when you're lying in bed that night. After
you leave our office. We are sensitive to that. We're
going to go at your pace. We will have a
follow up meeting. That follow up meeting. What questions do
you have? What do you feel good about? Are there
any hesitations? We want to answer everything. We don't want
to move forward until you understand it, and until you're

(40:03):
comfortable with it. You can't be comfortable with it until
you understand it, and we're sensitive to all that. This
is a relationship based business. We want the relationship to
feel good for you. We want the relationship to feel
good for us. We're not trying to make a quick
buck off of anybody, and you'll get that feeling when
you come into our office. We are your partner walking
through this journey with you, and that is kind of

(40:24):
what we want to show and what we want you
to feel at every meeting. And so again, if you
don't have that feeling with your current advisor, here's a
number to call nine one nine eight five six one
nine six eight so we can sit down and hear
your story and see how we might make some improvements
in your plan.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
One of the interesting questions I have sometimes from clients
and prospective clients is do you do the same thing.
Do you own an annuity? Do you buy stock? Do
you do mesal funds? Do you do tax sheltering ideas?
And I always, with some pride, say I sure do.
Now I don't own stock that our clients. We buy

(41:01):
for our clients. I don't do every annuity that's out there.
But we are real people. We have real kids and
real futures and real retirements. So we are doing a
lot of the very same things that we are sharing
with our clients. So that's interesting to know. And you
could ask that question at your first meeting, do you
do any of this stuff? Okay, another one. Here's something

(41:24):
that's kind of intuitive, but it's very important. And I
know this happens because we meet a lot of people
who meet with other financial advisors from the radio show.
In that first meeting, do you get a sense of
salesmanship going on or servantthood going on? And what I
mean by that, the financial advisor you're talking to is

(41:46):
either motive by motivated by being a servant to their clients,
or a salesperson. The salesperson motivation is about money. It's
about commission here, it's about yeah, it's about hype. So
if you and I know this happens because my radio
listeners tell me you're in a meeting and you sense
that you're getting sold something in the very first meeting.

(42:08):
This is particularly important in the first meeting. If they
go on a sales pitch, you need to say it's
been great talking to you. I'll get back in touch.
Just walk out, just because the first meeting of any
good financial planner or financial advisor is data gathering. It's
called it's literally called data gathering. We want to know

(42:29):
all about you. Out of one of your questions, we're
going to ask seven. We're going to ask you everything
we can about your life, your goals, your money, your kids,
your families, inheritances, whatever.

Speaker 2 (42:40):
It may be.

Speaker 1 (42:41):
And if I start in a sales pitch that first meeting,
shame on me. I might mention a product. I'll say
there is a product that fits that goal, but I'm
not going to pitch it to you. And that's why
I both said. We have two or three meetings sometimes
four occasionally before a person ever becomes a client. We
are not in a hurry to bum rush you into

(43:03):
being our client. That's the last thing on our mind.
I never. I've never, maybe once out of thirty eight years,
I've had a client say where's the paperwork? I'm ready
to roll, and I purposely don't do that. I want
them to come back. I want them to think a
few weeks. It's a slow motion process. But believe me,
that's how the relationship should be, and it'll be good

(43:25):
for a long time if it starts that way.

Speaker 3 (43:27):
Yeah, and oftentimes that's exactly right. You will be able
to identify a salesman by kind of the vibe in
the first meeting. What they're talking about, you know, are
they talking about the conflict in Israel and Iran? And Hey,
the market's going to fall apart this summer. There's gonna
be tons of volatility. We got to protect your money. Now.

(43:47):
I'm just watching out for you. Let's move forward. We've
got this thing that you can't lose any money in,
and it's going to give you all this awesome income.
And it sounds kind of nice because what they've done
is they've scared you and they've used all these you know,
all this market data and kind of back to you
into a corner where you might feel like your only
way out is to do this awesome Swiss army knife

(44:08):
type of investment that they have that is going to
give you some protection. Peter Lynch is a legendary investor
and has a quote that I love. More money has
been lost preparing for market corrections than in the market
corrections himself. So do not fall for the fear migring.
Don't read the all caps headlines. And if you're a
radio listener to this show, I imagine you've probably heard
some other radio, you know, talk shows on finances that

(44:32):
are in the Triangle area or down at the beach.
Some of them are laid in with fear. Just be
cautious if you go see one of those people, because
they are likely going to be talking about a product
that may or may not suit your needs. And you know,
you probably shouldn't put more than I don't know, if

(44:52):
you were to do it, twenty five to thirty percent
of your liquid assets in. And so we always recommend
people get second opinions too, And so oftentimes people will
come into our office and say, Hey, just to let
you know, I'm going to see somebody else too, and
you know, I want to get several opinions on this
because this is a major decision for my spouse and
I and we are looking for partners for the next

(45:13):
chapter of our life. And I say, I fully endorse
that you know that is something that you should do.
We also have the confidence in knowing that we're going
to take a very robust snapshot of your life and
give you an incredibly detailed proposal that hopefully checks the
box on everything that you're looking for. So anyways, our
number again nine one nine eight five six one nine

(45:36):
six eight.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
And the last thing I'm going to say before we
wrap our show up is ask ask the advisor how
they're paid in detail, how were you paid, commission fee?
How are you paid? And if you do that, that's
bottom line stuff, So don't forget to do that. We
had a great show today. Next week we're going to
talk about all kinds of neat stuff regarding the family situation.

(45:57):
And remember the number to call nine one, nine eight
five six nineteen sixty eight. It's your money, it's your future,
don't blow it.

Speaker 3 (46:06):
Advisory services through Capital Investment Advisory Services LLC. Security is
offered through Capital Investment Group Bank remember Finra and SIPIC
one thousand, et six Forks Road, Raleigh, North Carolina nine
one nine eight three one twenty three seventy.

Speaker 2 (46:16):
Past performance is not indicative of future results.