Every morning we have an educational meeting at the office with the team, and I felt today's discussion was so impactful, so important, that I wanted to share it with you. The question I asked this morning was: can we make a list of all the financial advisers or the financial managers that we deal with in our lives? Here's the list that our team came up with:
- Mortgage Officers: This is the person who will help you establish your mortgage for your house or for an investment property. This person will help you make a decision on how you're going to be handling this debt for the next 15, 20, 30 years, maybe even longer.
- Social Security Representative: This person will be sitting down with you as you are nearing your retirement to figure out when to start taking social security, how to start taking social security, and what will those benefits be.
- There are also online securities retirement accounts now. These are the accounts that you are handling typically by yourself, online. You have to hope you are receiving proper advice from a random service representative, of the particular week, of the particular day, of the particular minute that your 1-800 number actually goes through to a real person.
- Health Insurance: There’s health insurance in retirement, but also health insurance before retirement. Is that being handled through an agent? Is that being handled through human resources at work? Is it being handled through the exchange online by yourself?
- Securities Representatives: They might be working through your bank or through your credit union, and you might need advice from those individuals.
- Life Insurance Agents.
- Bankers or Credit Union Savings/checking accounts representatives. How are those plans set up? Are they being set up in the most beneficial way for you?
- Stockbrokers.
- Attorneys: This person is drafting wills and trusts, limited liability companies, S-corporations, or C-corporations. They are responsible for what to do if you have legal issues and problems.
- Loan Officers. They handle other loans that you might need in your life like an automobile loan for example.
- Property and Casualty Insurance agent: This is your home, automobile, and liability protection.
- 401K that you have through work. This is sometimes handled through a registered representative, an advisor, human resources, or a third-party administrator. Who do you go to for the advice in the selection of the funds that you need?
- Credit Cards: There can be good debt, and there can be bad debt.
- Credit Unions.
- Accountants/CPA's/Tax Preparers: It has been my experience that they will document what has happened, what they are doing to prepare for your future, and how they prepared those answers for you.
- Registered Representatives: You may have hired them to handle your mutual funds.
- Collectibles. This could be gold, silver, and could be through a pawn-broker.
- Real Estate Agents: How do they handle the selection of the properties that you are looking at for either your own residential property where you are living or an investment property?
So, we came up with about 20 different “micro-managers” or “micro-advisors”. Here's the deal: with all of these different advisors, all these different representatives, the chance that all of these people will Ever be in one room to discuss your own individual situation is probably Zero to Nil. In fact, the only time that you might find any of these people in the same room might be at your funeral, and probably not even then. Maybe 1-2 will show up and another 1-2 might send a card.
The unfortunate thing is you could have something happening in one area that a “micro-manager” is handling that could inadvertently be negatively affecting another area of your life. Since these people never, ever speak with one another, you won’t ever know if there is a harmonious plan happening. Are things working in concert with one another, or not?
Wouldn't it be nice if you had a “macro-manager” or “macro-advisor”? Someone who would be looking at what everyone else is doing to see if it's working in harmony. A macro-advisor can make sure your life is not disjointed, as we often see with the vast majority of people that come in to our office. If you want a macro-advisor a macro-manager to be part of your life, then it is time to schedule your Financialoscopy.
