Guided Retirement Income Planning- Chapter 21

You always need to confront important financial and non-financial decisions. This is in the pursuit of effectively implementing investment decisions, tax strategies, and legacy planning. Financial mistakes in planning, or not planning, for that matter, can lead to huge consequences in retirement. It is important to design and monitor an income plan that calms your emotions, and manages risk factors and income shortfalls.

Advising clients is both an art and a science. The art reflects practicality, suitability, customized advice, and superior service. This is valuable and instills confidence. The science reflects retirement planning and working through complexity. Our advisory firm brings them both together so that you may go and live the life you want to live.

Not all advisors and advisory firms are created equally nor do they have “The GRIP Roadmap.” It took the length of this entire book to describe your potential priorities, relevant concerns, and the necessary steps associated with retirement income planning. “The GRIP Roadmap” philosophy and process are defined throughout this book and can be viewed as The Guided Retirement Income Plan (GRIP) Flowchart – Chart 5.1 (end of chapter).

The following values will help you evaluate an advisory firm:

• Advisory firms need to be trustworthy and act as fiduciaries, putting the client first and working in their best interest.
  
  
• Credentials such as professional designations and years of experience reflect competence.
  
  
• Long-term vision and a succession plan should align with your time horizon.
  
  
• Clear disclosure of the advisors’ areas of expertise, services they provide, and compensation.
  
  
• Willingness to communicate when something is not in their line of expertise.
  
  
• Service structure should include multiple members of the firm.
  
  
• Promote ethics, integrity, and professionalism in their practice and for their clientele. Pursue higher standards of responsibility beyond mandated regulatory requirements.
  
  
• Diligence: care and attention to detail.
  
  
• Commitment to a lifelong practice of ongoing learning and research in current and relevant financial planning topics, law, product choices, changing demographics and social trends, and the macroeconomic environment.
  
  
• An advisor should have a definable, executable, and repeatable planning process, either formalized in writing or agreed upon in other ways.
  
  
• Compatibility with the adviser(s) is of the utmost importance.

Are you getting the rhythm of all of this?

Here are additional services that advisory firms provide, much of which has been covered in this book:

• First and foremost, the advisors have an obligation to build a dynamic retirement plan that provides enduring confidence over periods of uncertainty and severe market corrections.

• Concentrate on clients’ goals.
  
  
• Act as coaches to help clients identify, understand, and overcome behavioral biases that lead to impulsive and irrational decisions.
  
  
• Be honest when the plan is or is not on target.
  
  
• Manage clients’ expectations and help them stay focused.
  
  
• Assist clients in assessing and meeting their current and future income needs.
  
  
• Help clients understand and plan around the various risks in retirement.
  
  
• Provide clients with clarity and a path forward.
  
  
• Manage withdrawal strategies.
  
  
• Incorporate tax efficiency in the retirement plan and work with clients’ tax professionals.
  
  
• Assist with maximizing social security claiming strategies.
  
  
• Recommend and implement suitable and sustainable investment and insurance portfolios.
  
  
• Monitor and manage the plan as needed.
  
  
• Initiate regular contact for planning and reviews.
  
  
• Provide consistent communications regarding the economy, market, and tax law.
  
  
• Produce educational and fun events to build upon and preserve ongoing relationships.
  
  
• Comfort clients in times of turbulence and uncertainty by keeping things in perspective and staying rational; help clients stay calm, worry less, and sleep at night.
  
  
• Guide clients with their legacy planning that includes protecting the needs of loved ones, ensuring that wills and beneficiary designations are current, working through charitable intentions, and interfacing with the clients’ estate planning attorneys.

While we have summarized many of your potential tangible needs and expectations from a financial advisor and their firm, the greatest advisors help their clients with intangibles and make the ongoing experience personal. Every good advisor and their firm should endeavor to help you create the retirement plan you need for your ultimate retirement.