Are they asking how much should I save or where can I get the money to save?

My most recent blog, “If you have the time you don’t need the money,” generated discussion in a number of different directions.  My intent was and is to find ways to get young adults interested in saving for retirement while they are still young.

Someone pointed out that we should just tell a 25 year old that they need to save $1 for every $10 they need in retirement.  Keep it simple.  I agree as long as the 25 year old has already completely accepted that they need to start saving.  This simple statement can be effective if they are just looking for guidance about how much to save.

Some young adults (and many older adults as well) have more goals than money.  They may be making $30,000 but they have goals that call for them to make $40,000. Saving $3,000 for a distant expense like financial independence may be very easy to push into the future.  After all, when I am fifty five years old I will already have furnished my home, my children will likely be out of the house and I will have reached my highest earning potential.  It will be a lot easier to save later.

These young adults have more ideas for using their money than they have money.  As they decide how to prioritize sharing, saving and spending they should realize that postponing savings requires them to save 15 times as much each year.  Will their financial situation be 15 times as rosy in the future?

It is important to help people, particularly young people, understand how time is on their side.  Most people have an intellectual understanding that starting to save when they are young is helpful.  I do not think most people (even older people) understand just how much time can help.

How is this?

Which is better, saving $1 for every $10 during financial independence or $15 for every $10?

If you want to achieve financial independence ten years into the future, you need to save $15 each year for every $10 you want to spend each year in the future.

If you want to achieve financial independence forty years into the future, you need to save $1 each year for every $10 you want to spend each year in the future.

To retire at 65, start at 25 and contribute 1/15 of what you have to contribute if you start at 55.  Interest on your contributions provides the rest of the funding for your financial independence.

How do we get there?

On pretty much every financial topic there are differences of opinion.  To make my calculations, I chose these assumptions:

• Average earnings rate 7%
• In retirement, you can spend 5% of your nest egg each year to have it last 30 or more years

If we start with a plan to draw $100,000 from our retirement savings in addition to any pension and social security we choose to consider, we need $2,000,000 at retirement.  That represents spending 5% of your retirement savings.

Next we determine how much we have to save annually to accumulate $2,000,000 at 7%.  You would have to save $144,755.01 annually. That translates into $14.48 per $10 of annual income in retirement.  I rounded to $15.

But what if we have 40 years to save the $2,000,000?  Now you would have to save $10,018.28 annually, or $1.00 per $10.

For a second example, we might find someone seeking to draw $30,000 each year.  To generate $30,000 with a 5% rule, we will need to accumulate $600,000.  Over 10 years, our client would have to save $43,426.50 or $14.48 per $10.  Over 40 years, the client would save $3005.48 per year or $1.00 per $10.

Is that a compelling way to talk about saving early?  I would love your feedback.

Recently, we have had several inquiries about updating websites.  Comer Consulting is directly involved in the project management and content creation for your website.  We work with other professionals to provide graphic design and technical installation.  We can assemble the team of other professionals or work with your team.  We will also help you create a communication strategy and execute that strategy to keep your website fresh.

Comer Consulting believes that most potential clients do not find their advisors by surfing the internet.  Most potential clients find out about you and go to the internet for validation.  Before they let you know they are considering doing business with you, they want to get a flavor for your work, for your client experience.  Prospective clients want to know:

• Your background (do you have the experience and expertise I need),
• Your services (can you help solve my problems) and
• Your approach (does your style of client experience meet my needs).

Often, a website is also used as a marketing hub.  When you speak with a prospect or client, you want to direct them to the website for more information.  When someone searches your LinkedIn profile, they are directed to your website for more information.  When someone is reading your newsletter and interested in learning more about a topic, they are directed to your website. When someone is interested in reviewing or signing up for your newsletter, they check your website.  

The purpose of marketing is to provide a positive, accurate and authentic picture of your firm. Your website should provide resources that align with the way you serve clients.  Many advisor-focused websites allow clients to research individual securities but many of those advisors encourage clients to invest primarily in mutual funds.  Providing this capability may conflict with the goal of encouraging diversified, long-term investments.  Site content that expands upon your background, your services and your approach should reinforce your client service approach.

Business activity is designed to provide business results.  A website is no different than other business activity in this regard.  Google Analytics, a free service from Google, provides tools to measure the results of your website.  By adding this service to your website you can learn which pages attract the most attention, which initiatives designed to drive traffic to your site are successful and which keywords are being used to find your site.  With data from Google Analytics you can begin to measure some of the results of your website activity. 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a current buzz phrase.  Everyone wants their website to be easy to find and SEO allows your site to be easy to find.  The key variable is the assumption about how prospects are searching for you.  We do not believe very many people initially search for a generic financial planner via the internet.  We believe they search for your firm or your staff based on a referral from a client or center of influence.  Our SEO will focus on high rankings for your firm name and names of the staff.  This is achieved by legitimate web activity for the firm and the staff:  links from professional organizations, quotes and mentions in articles and social media, updated content on the website that prospects and clients want to read, etc.  Once we have data from Google Analytics, we can begin to incorporate other keywords into the SEO mix. 

With your basic website in place, future enhancements could include postings that address your unique processes for working with clients, postings that help prospects and clients understand how to address their issues, updating newsletter content as it is created, providing a brochure for download and leveraging content created for other uses.  As a follow on project, you should consider assigning someone to update the website, establish standards for timing and develop a communication plan to guide these enhancements.  These are the activities that will keep your website fresh and help you remain high in search rankings.

Websites are important elements in the marketing mix.  In the mind of many of your potential clients, you do not exist if you are not on the internet.  If you are on the internet but do not accurately portray your business, you will lose business from prospects that are looking for a firm just like yours.

For 8 years, Comer Consulting has helped financial advisors refine their brand so more ideal clients are willing to have a conversation (get prospects in the door).  We have now found an expert performance system that will allow us to help you make the most of those conversations (eliminate follow-up-itis), RainmakerDNA.

RainmakerDNA helps advisors understand the client favored process for decision making and helps advisors become expert facilitators of decisions.  Advisors skilled in rainmaking guide their clients to understand their pain points: what the client wants to accomplish, fix or avoid.  They are skilled in gaining commitment from clients to eliminate those pain points and to eliminate follow up conversations by making decisions with the right information.

John Comer has been accredited by RainmakerDNA.  He can help financial advisors diagnose their DNA for rainmaking, help them treat their unsupportive beliefs and mitigate their symptoms of skill deficiency.

Join us September 14 to learn about the Evolution of the Advisor Rainmaker.

FOR RELEASE:       August 9, 2011

CONTACT:               Christine Richardson

                                    303-867- 7104

                                    Christine.Richardson@FPAnet.org

FPA Announces 2011 Heart of Financial Planning Award Winners

Denver - The Financial Planning Association^® (FPA^®) today announced its 2011 Heart of Financial Planning Award winners. The Awards recognize individual professionals, financial planning firms, FPA chapters, or organizations who engage in extraordinary work, contributing and giving back to the financial planning community and public through financial planning. Recipients embody the spirit of financial planning and also represent FPA's Core Values: Competence, Integrity, Relationships and Stewardship. This year’s winners are:

• Marco Chavarín – Chavarín manages the Bank on San Francisco and Payday Plus SF program for the San Francisco Treasurer’s Office of Financial Empowerment; connecting low-income San Franciscans to healthy financial products and providing culturally relevant financial education to ensure success in the mainstream. Chavarín also serves as the chair of San Francisco’s Financial Education Network, a collaborative group of nonprofit service providers, philanthropic funders, and local public sector representatives dedicated to improving the provision of financial education services city-wide. He has worked for Treasurer José Cisneros providing access for needy San Francisco residents to the financial mainstream since November 2008. For the past two years, Chavarín has served on the board of directors of HomeownershipSF, helping diverse and underserved households buy and keep homes in San Francisco.
• John Comer, CFP^® (FPA of Minnesota) – Comer serves FPA of Minnesota as a member of the Financial Literacy & Stability Committee and is on the Steering Committee for the Twin Cities Financial Planning Day event. Comer has also a past chapter board member and regularly volunteers for FPA national committees. He is on the Steering Committee for Financial Matters at Best Prep, a statewide organization with a mission to best prepare Minnesota students with business, career and financial literacy skills through experiences that inspire success in work and life. Comer manages his own business, consulting with financial planners, to assist them in providing a more focused and improved client experience.
• Robert Glovsky, JD, LLM, CFP^® (FPA of Massachusetts) – Glovsky has spent more than 20 years helping develop the CFP^® program at Boston University, and is director emeritus of its Program for Financial Planners, the fourth largest in the country. Additionally, Glovsky has been practicing as a financial planner for more than 30 years and is the president of Mintz Levin Financial Advisors, LLC in Boston, where he provides wealth management and investment advisory services to individuals and families. Glovsky was 2010 chair of the CFP Board of Standards and also led its Board of Examiners, which sets standards for professionals worldwide.
• Nicholas Nicolette, CFP^® (FPA of New Jersey) – Nicolette has been involved in the financial planning profession since 1981 and is currently a principal of Sterling Financial Planning, Inc. in Sparta, NJ. He served as the 2007 national president of the Financial Planning Association . Prior to his national service, he served as president of the FPA New Jersey chapter; and has also been awarded the chapter’s Heart of Financial Planning Award. He was honored to be the first FPA spokesperson to appear before the U.S. Senate Special Committee on the Aging and to testify before the Committee regarding fraudulent or inappropriate investment advice given to seniors. Nicolette was also active on the Post 9/11 relief effort assisting victims’ families with pro bono financial planning assistance.
• Frank Paré, CFP^® (FPA of East Bay) –While serving as co-chair of government relations for FPA of East Bay, Paré was instrumental in developing the first collaboration between local and state government to host financial planning clinics in Oakland, Calif., and cities across the country to help low-income families impacted by the economic downturn. Paré helped FPA and its partners coordinate the inaugural Financial Planning Days program that launched in 2010, resulting in thousands of Americans discovering the value of financial planning in more than 20 communities nationwide. As a result of his efforts, Paré was asked to submit a resolution on behalf of FPA to the U.S. Conference of Mayors titled, "Financial Planning Clinics for Retirement Preparedness & Financial Literacy."  The resolution was supported and adopted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and has been submitted to Congress for adoption. 
• Gary Schaer – New Jersey Assemblyman Schaer has championed state legislation that supports financial literacy in schools and protects seniors from deceptive sales techniques. As chair of the Financial Institutions and Insurance Committee, Schaer has supported legislation that introduces financial education in high school, prevents predatory annuity sales and marketing activities, and prohibits misleading use of senior citizen-specific financial certifications and professional designations. While promoting the value of financial planning in high schools, the legislation also protects consumers, especially seniors, from financial representatives that practice deceptive sales techniques.
• Judith Volkmann, Esq., CFP^® (FPA of New York) – Volkmann has worked tirelessly to create pro bono opportunities for FPA. Volkmann has established connections with nonprofit community organizations to provide financial literacy workshops for their clients. Volkmann taught planners how to give the workshops and found a successor so the committee would continue. She was instrumental in starting the Money Work$ program at a New York community college, a twelve week-course that teaches financial literacy to students; the program is in its seventh year. Additionally, Volkmann started a program at a community college for FPA members to learn how to start a viable financial planning practice; the program has been approved for next semester.

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About the Financial Planning Association

The Financial Planning Association^® (FPA^®) is the largest membership organization for personal financial planning experts in the U.S. and includes professionals from all backgrounds and business models. FPA members adhere to the highest standards of professional competence, ethical conduct and clear, complete disclosure to those they serve. Based in Denver, Colo., FPA works in alliance with academic leaders, legislative and regulatory bodies, financial services firms and consumer interest organizations. For more information about FPA, visit www.FPAnet.org or call 800.322.4237.
 

I just came back from presenting at a MetLife conference about Anticipating Client Life Events.  The presentation is an extension of the session I have been giving on enhancing Client Review Meetings.  It was really a discussion about ways to add value for clients and topics to discuss with clients.

The advisors, top advisors for MetLife, seemed to value the ideas to help them get in front of clients.  They suggested a number of topics to discuss that I had not considered.  for instance, I thought it might be helpful to discuss the impact of news events on the client--meaning media reports.  They suggested discussing personal news items as well:  their friend's illness, their relative's unemployment.

One of my topics was discussing how the financial and health situation of elderly parents might impact your clients' situation.  Do your clients' parents have enough money to last their life?  If not, would your clients want to help them financially.  If financial support would be offered, can your clients afford it?  Is there anything that can be or should be done now to prepare for the possibility?

If your clients' parents have health issues will that impact your clients' retirement?  If so, is there anything that your clients can do now to prepare?

I started thinking about the topics as items that may impact your clients' goals but are unlikely to be brought up by clients as a goal.  I thought of 22 topics that could be addressed.  What do you think about the idea of enhancing your review meetings with these kind of issues?