Are you an open-minded person?
By: Cory Carlton
When I ask this question to a room full of people, I would say 90% of them raise their hands and identify themselves as being open-minded.
However, most people do not seem to be comfortable with change.
We have had people come to us because they are not happy with the current insurance or investments, and they are looking for guidance. Then, we suggest something “new” or “different” and that change scares some people.
Often, it’s because whoever we are talking to “heard something” that causes them to be concerned. It’s fine to be concerned but you need to make sure you are basing your insurance and investment decisions on sound information.
Friends and family, unless they are in the industry, are generally not good resources of information.
Of course, you can ask them questions about their experience with their Medicare, or life insurance, or investments but you need to base all your decisions on what makes sense for you.
Medicare is one of the places where people get easily, and unintentionally, misguided by friends and family because everyone’s situation is different.
Here are a few of the questions we like to ask people and the reasons behind the questions…
Would you be open-minded to see how you can receive above-average returns without taking unnecessary risks?
Most people like the sound of this but we do it differently than your “mainstream” and the big firms. There is nothing wrong with them, we just have a different philosophy.
We do something called tactically managed money and that means that we have money managers watching our client’s money every minute the market is open.
Historically, you had to have millions and billions of dollars to get that kind of management but thanks to technology, our clients get that kind of attention.
We sum up the strategy with what we call the 80% Approach. Meaning, that the money managers are watching our clients’ money and when they see the market going down for good reason, and it will keep going down, they get out and go to cash. They don’t call and ask us; they don’t call and ask our clients. They just do it to avoid any unnecessary losses.
Then, when they see the market going back up, they get back in. So, if you miss 80% of the market downturn and catch 80% of the market upturn, you are in a pretty good place.
This is contrary to the old “buy and hold” method many advisors use that just has their clients ride the roller coaster to the bottom.
The next question…
Would you be open-minded to see if we can help you save money on your medications?
This is generally for those on Medicare and most people are wanting to save as much money as possible.
We review our clients’ Medicare plan every year and often we can save people money on their medications.
We saved an average of $1,407 per client by doing these reviews. We saved one lady over $20,000 on her medications.
The reviews are free and could save you thousands.
So, if one of our agents is not already helping you with your Medicare, let me know and I can get you connected with one.
Another question to consider…
Would you be open to seeing how you can never lose a penny again due to a market correction and get good consistent returns?
People remember now that the market can be volatile and don’t like losing what they have earned and saved over the last several years and want to know how to protect it.
We have a product that you can put a portion of your retirement savings into that guarantees you never lose a penny when the market does what it is currently doing.
Then, when things start to go back up you capture all those gains from right where you left off and never have to make up for lost money.
This is a fixed indexed annuity that does this, and this is perhaps one of the products where we hear “I don’t like annuities” or “I’ve heard bad things about annuities” most.
It’s fine to not like something, but how come you don’t like it? What lead you to that decision? And what bad things have you heard or experienced?
The fact is there are annuities that we do not recommend because of poor performance, high fees, or low caps. In fact, we replace those kinds of annuities on a regular basis.
We’ve all had a bad experience at a restaurant but that has not kept us from going to another one, right? We’ve all had car trouble, but I would bet most of you reading this don’t walk everywhere.
Annuities can work the same way. There are ones that have worked really well for our clients and continue to give good returns and protection and those are the ones we use. We stay away from the others.
So, if you would still like your money to grow and be protected are you open to considering a fixed indexed annuity?
Last one here: Would you be open to seeing how you can get 60% more income in retirement from the money you are saving right now?
So, we’re talking about not having to save any more than you are right now at this money but giving you a lot more income.
People hear this and say, “this must be too good to be true.” It’s not. It’s tax law. Specifically, Section 7702 of the tax code is just a few pages back from Section 401K which most everyone uses to save for retirement.
Section 7702 is not new; it is just not well known. But it can give you a tax-free income that is significantly more than what you would get from a 401K or IRA and has zero market risk.
So, be open-minded to new ideas. They could end up providing a lot of value for you and your family.
Change is scary, but necessary if you don’t want to settle and follow the herd when it comes to planning your future.
We do insurance and investments. We believe they work together for the benefit of our clients. Whatever our clients’ goals are, we use the products to help them achieve their goals.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Cory Carlton is the CEO and Co-Founder of Both Hands Financial Group. He specializes in Tax-Free Retirement Accounts, Secure Guaranteed Retirement Accounts, Strategic Income Planning, and Section 7702 plans. Cory loves what he does and gets really excited when he can help someone find a way to achieve their goals when they didn't seem possible.