Ep. 44: Retirement Roundtable: Parley with Planners

I'm joined here by Kerry Stamp and welcome to Horizons.

Thanks, Lindsay.

It's really good to be in Orlando with the American College.

We're so happy that you could be here, which leads me to my first question is what made you decide to join Horizons?

You know, I've always been a lifelong learner, and especially when I got into the financial industry 36 years ago, I knew that in order for me to stay ahead of the competition and also do a great job for our clients, that I had to be current and on my game.

And the Horizons Conference provides me exactly that type of environment and experience, which is why I'm here.

So I'm learning new things, I'm meeting new people, and I've got some great resources for where I can go to get information about financial planning and retirement income planning for my clients.

That is so important.

At the college, we really focus on that applied financial knowledge.

Now, Kerry, you've built a large practice and firm.

And so the question I have for you is, how has your approach to retirement income planning helped you grow and scale your practice?

Well, you know, the first thing is that my approach to retirement income planning has to not only be me learning, but me teaching.

And so I have a fairly large team spread across the country and I spend a lot of time with them teaching them topics.

Every Tuesday morning we have a training call with the younger members of the team.

I go through topics that they're probably not getting just by sitting at their desk and answering phone calls or doing research or reports.

It's how to interact with clients, how to make clients feel comfortable, how to make sure that they understand what the rules and regulations are, and how do you generate retirement income for somebody, and also make sure that you can communicate and convey that to the people that you're talking to.

So I think I answered your question, but my approach is learn it myself, transfer that information and then let the rest of the team help the clients as well.

It is so important to do that training and development.

We recently did a Gen Z research study and this emerging talent really feels like they aren't receiving the best training and onboarding experience.

And so that's so important.

And when you're also talking about education, we're talking about educating clients.

So what is a common retirement income question that you get from clients and how do you answer it?

So I would tell you that one of the most common questions, and honest to God, my brother just asked me this question last week.

He's like, I'm putting all this money into retirement accounts.

How do I get the money out? What do I do when I need to start taking money out of my retirement accounts? And so every financial advisor has their own secret sauce or whatever methodology for how you provide someone with retirement income.