Category Archives: Life Coach

Will you be able to retire? Good Question!


  • Your combined income is around $250,000.
  • Savings in retirement plans totals about $400,000.

Can you?

Unless you have prepared a retirement plan you don’t know.


  • Your basic living expenses; your “needs.”
  • Life, disability, health and long term care insurance.


  • The age at which you want to retire.
  • The number of years in retirement.
  • What happens when one of you passes on?

What are your income sources in retirement?

  • Your pension benefits.
  • The age at which you apply for Social Security.

What are your personal investment assets to supplement your income sources?

  • The value of your investment assets at retirement.
  • The estimated return on your investment assets.
  • Your risk tolerance.
  • The rate of inflation during retirement.


The time to start planning is now.

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7 Services that a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) Provides

Investing is serious business.  How well you manage your investments can make the difference between a comfortable retirement and working ‘till you drop.  Most people use a financial advisor of some kind.

Back in the day, people opened an account with a major investment firm and used a broker who would call and make recommendations to buy or sell.  They were essentially stock and bond salesmen whose loyalty was to their firms.

That has all changed.

The trend now is away from the major firms and toward Registered Investment Advisors – RIAs.  RIAs are fiduciaries whose duty is to put their clients’ interests ahead of their own.  They help people plan their future and take over the every-day investing decisions for them.

What can an individual expect from an RIA?

  • Asset management. This means creating a portfolio appropriate to the client, making changes in the best interest of the client, and reacting to market conditions.
  • Financial planning. Organizing a client’s financial affairs.  Determining the best way of achieving the client’s objective.  Reviewing the client’s insurance and estate planning needs.
  • Reporting and record keeping. Maintaining the organization of finances.  Performance reporting.  Maintaining cost and purchase data.
  • Life planning. Helping the client uncover what they really want to accomplish and creating a roadmap to getting there.
  • Retirement planning. Providing a path to living well once the paycheck stops and people are dependent on fixed income sources and their personal savings.  Retirement is a major life change.  RIAs typically offer comprehensive retirement plans that help people decide when to retire and what how well they can live.
  • Estate planning. Leaving money to heirs and charities must be carefully planned or large portions of an estate can go to taxes or the wrong individuals.
  • Concierge services. This can include attending meetings with attorney, accountants or bankers.  It can include services such as buying cars, arranging for travel or hiring someone to pay bills.  Relations between an RIA and a client are often so close that they are even consulted on issues such are marriage or divorce.
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Why do smart people use financial advisors?

What is the real value to hiring a financial advisor, and who uses them?  What is the value proposition?  What makes one car with four doors and wheels worth $300,000 and other $30,000?  Although we might have an answer, the answer differs from person to person.

People use financial advisors for many reasons.  Some use them because they absolutely need them, others because they want them. Paying a fee for advice and guidance to a professional who uses the tools and tactics of a CFP™ (CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™) and an experienced Registered Investment Advisor who is a fiduciary can add meaningful value compared to what the average investor experiences.

Many middle-class investors are anxious about their finances and are not interested in learning the details of managing their money.  This anxiety often results with money left on the sidelines because they don’t know what to do or are afraid of making mistakes. That means earning a fraction of 1% at the bank when the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) is up over 25% in the last 12 months.

There are others who are interested in learning about investing and may want to hire an advisor to “look over their shoulder.”  They want to hire an “investment coach.”

A third category are people who hire professionals because they are busy doing things that are more important to them: building a career or a business, being with family, or living an active retirement.  They hire an expert to manage their money the same way they hire a lawyer for estate planning, a CPA to prepare their taxes, and a doctor to keep them healthy.

A fourth category is people who were making their own investment decisions but ended up making a huge financial mistake.  This leads me to a story about a really smart, highly paid high tech executive who is very knowledgeable about investing; but he hired an advisor:

It’s not because he lacks the knowledge or interest, obviously. Rather, he figured out he had behavioral blind spots and understood he was at risk of great financial loss. He’s paying someone just to take that risk off his plate.

Determining your goals, controlling risk, managing portfolios well, and knowing your limitations – knowing you have “blind spots” – has led many smart people to hire an advisor.

Vanguard, the hugely successful purveyor or no-load mutual funds (that appeal to do-it-yourselfers) estimates that a financial advisor is worth about 3% net in annual returns.  They attribute this to the seven services that a good advisor provides:

  1. Creating a suitable asset allocation strategy.
  2. Cost-effective implementation.
  3. Rebalancing
  4. Behavioral coaching
  5. Asset location
  6. Spending strategy.
  7. Total return versus income investing.

If you have an advisor but he is not meeting your objectives, ask us for a second opinion.  If you don’t have an advisor but may want one, we offer a free one-hour consultation to see if we are compatible.

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A good Registered Investment Advisor is a “Life Coach.”

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People who are not familiar with Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs) too often view them as stock brokers.  They are not; they are held to a higher standard and are focused on the client, not the money.  RIAs are trusted advisors who put their clients ahead of themselves.    They are fiduciaries that are skilled in the art making good financial decisions.

Younger professionals who are building careers would do well to find an RIA as their financial guru, a “Life Coach.”  It takes time, experience and a high level of expertise to manage money well.  The young lack that expertise but have the biggest advantage of all: time.  They are in a perfect position to build wealth with the least amount of effort if they can lean on experts who can show them how to navigate the risky ocean of investing.  Just as important, they need a wise guide who can advise them on managing their income.  Too many people, even those with six figure salaries, live paycheck to paycheck.  Knowing what to spend and how to save is the role of the advisor.

This is very important for the independent professional – the doctor or lawyer.  Focused on building a practice, they need someone to advise them on managing their money wisely.

For the business owner, the entrepreneur, it’s even more important.  There is no career track and the challenge of building a business often results in poor money management.  Excessive debt can lead to bankruptcy, a common result in many industries that depend on debt financing.  A good advisor can help the business owner create a personal portfolio that’s independent of his business.  At the same time he can advise the owner the best way of financing his growth.

Once the business is established the owner needs guidance setting up retirement and benefit plans for himself and his employees.  This all part of the RIA’s skill set. And finally, as the business matures and the owner starts thinking of retirement, the advisor provides the guidance to transition the individual and his family to life beyond work.

That’s the point at which the coach gets the pleasure of knowing he’s done a good job as part of a winning team.

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