Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Andrew Hanson Vice President of Generations Wealth Management Discussing Finding the Right Investment Vehicle

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

Two generations of trusted Hanson financial professionals serve multiple generations of clients concerned with financial goals, wealth management, safety, security, and estate planning. Richard Hanson, President of Generations Financial & Insurance Services, began his career in 1983. He is currently an educational speaker on retirement and money management. Mr. Hanson is Designated as a Certified Senior Advisor (CSA). He Currently Holds a membership with the National Association of Life Underwriters. 2011 Insurmark Hall of Fame Inductee. Andrew Hanson, Vice President of Generations Financial began his career in January 2016. He is the Head of Case Design Team & Digital Outreach. He hosts numerous Seminars educating our community on such subjects as; Social Security, RMD’s, Asset Protection, Legacy Protection, College Funding and IRA / 401(k) Analysis.Learn more: https://www.generationswealthmgt.com/Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-andrew-hanson-vice-president-of-generations-wealth-management-discussing-finding-the-right-investment-vehicle

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of Influential Entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have with us, Andrew Hansen, who's vice president of Generation's Wealth Management and will be talking about finding the right investment. Andrew, welcome to the program. Hey, Mike, thanks for having me. Looking forward to getting a chance to hang out with you.

You know, I always love talking to new people and learning about their experiences and certain things jump out at me. And when I was saying, finding the right investment vehicle, it kind of made me think, you know what, for retirement, we do need investment vehicles to take us places and they need to be specially chosen. So I'm excited to learn what you have to teach us. But before we dive into that, give us a little bit of your story and background and how did you get into the financial services industry? Absolutely, Mike.

Yeah, I came on board about eight years ago, not just out of the blue. I came into the family business. Richard, my father's been doing it for about 40 years now. And so I was always kind of like trepidacious about getting it into the business just because I've always been, you know, not a numbers guy or like an accountant guy or like a wolf of all streets. I did a lot of volunteer work with Special Olympics. I grew up in San Clement, California. So we were close to the Camp Pendleton based out there with the Marines. So I would always go down there for Thanksgiving.

During the summers, I would cut grass for all the guys who were out on deployment. So I was just a very, like, you know, like a Peace Corps kind of, I was really interested in that kind of aspect of life. But eventually, you know, I started doing a lot of. of, you know, I was in my 20s, probably 25, 27. I was doing a lot of warehouse jobs and make a lay. And my back is just starting to hurt a lot more. Okay, Rich, what's this thing that you do?

Tell me more about it. You know, he's kind of always been not pushing me to do it, but he's just like, hey, it's there if you want to do it. I'd love to have you bored. So he brought me in, and I'll keep it short. I'll do kind of like a retrospect my first day, But I had the opportunity to work with an insurance company and one of the major ones, I won't say their name. But that was my very first experience that year in just to kind of get my boots wet.

And I just hated it. You know, it was just phone calls, you know, just names and numbers, call the next one. Okay, call the next one, call the next one. It was kind of like, you know, I mentioned Wolf of Wall Street. It was kind of like that. It felt like that. There was no personal connection. There was no relationship building.

So that first day coming into Rich's office, I was not very optimistic, but, you know, I had my full brand suit done. I'm like, all right, let's just, you know, let's do this thing. I got dad here. We're going to make some real magic. He looks at me and he goes, get in the filing cabinet room. I need you to do all the files. I'm like, okay. Cool.

But that was, you know, in that filing cabinet looking through the client list, I saw a lot of people I was familiar with, you know, family friends, my T-ball coach. you know, my my friends parents, you know, people we went to church with. And for me, that was kind of like an eye opening. And I learned a lot in that first month and first couple of years and a lot of instances in which I'll cover later. But that really helped really motivate me and kind of change my perspective and outlook on the industry. So I'm very fortunate. Yeah, you know, have someone that you can model when, as they say, success leaves clues. And you can model with you know, hey, show me the system, show me the ropes. And then he started here in the quote unquote mailroom, so to speak, but not really the

mailroom, but learning from the bottom up. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And I thought that was important because, you know, I'm very fortunate in this situation that I'm in. And I think anybody who's going into family business, it's always, you know, you want to, you got to remember how lucky you are. Not a lot of people in this industry have this kind of initial welcome to the door.

So, you know, that's one thing I never forget every day and take for granted the opportunity that I have and continue the legacy. So obviously, if the name of the company that you guys are owned and work with is generations of wealth management, we're talking about building wealth for retirement. And the topic we want to talk about today is finding the right investment vehicle. Where do you start with the people that you're working with to help them even explain, you know, what investment vehicles to consider? but like someone in their 30s and 40s might be different than someone in their 60s or 70s related to investment vehicles. So where do you start there? Well, it's funny that you mentioned the word vehicle. And I think that you can, if people are kind of trepidious with investment, think of vehicle.

That word vehicle alone. I mean, you're talking about a car or a van. You can go to any dealership. They can offer you this vehicle. They can offer you the new Tesla. They can offer you the new Kia. But what is it that kind of separate? You know, certain dealerships or certain car salesmen that are different from all the other ones because there's thousands of them, but they all offer the same vehicles.

It's building that trust and that confidence and feeling safe and knowing that you're going to take this car off the lot. And if there's ever any issues or any questions you have, you can just bring it back. That guy's going to take care of it for you. That kind of just came to mind to me right now. But, you know, first and foremost, you've got to have a relationship with the client. And you've got to make sure and understand not just the numbers and goals and risk management. That's all very, very, very important. But I think, you know, first and the main thing is to understand what their overall goals are.

Yes. What do they imagine their future to look like? So if it's, you know, if it's something that they foresee, I want to spend more time with the grandkids, I want to do vacations every summer. You know, you've got to build that out for them. But every, you know, investment vehicle like any car, it's not a one-size-fits-all approach. So you want to have an open-discussion. You know, you bring up an interesting point about understanding and relationship.

And the example about, you know, like an actual car dealership, anyone can send an email to a car dealership and say, I need a vehicle, please sell it to me. And here's my credit card. But if you don't know what they need it for. So when you are sitting down with a new client, you're going through and asking them questions to make sure even before you talk about strategies, rate of return, all of those things that you need to get into. But first, you've got to figure out where they're headed and what they need and what they want to craft that unique solution for them, right? Yeah. I mean, any competent advisor who's been doing it for a long period of time, they all can relatively, you know, give or take a couple of percentages.

on and off, they can sell the same things that I do. They can get the returns of the same way that I do. The difference is, you know, like you said, just because any, especially with a, most of the work that we do is through referrals. So there's kind of a relationship and an understanding there before they even step into the office. But, you know, people that I get with seminars and workshops, this is the first time they're, they're meeting me.

And so for me, I will never take for granted or never look past the vulnerability that it takes for clients, especially the first one, to come in and just lay everything out on the table. I mean, that in itself is just, I mean, I'm getting vulnerable just even talking about it. It's just, here's my life, help me. And you don't know if I come back and say, oh, this is the worst thing in the world or, you know, this is the greatest thing in the world because they're coming to you, for the most part, they have an idea, but they don't, they're seeking, you know, professional opinion.

and it's up to you to kind of guide them through it and understand that most clients aren't going to be, they're not going to want to know everything. You know, I think you really the relationship and understanding the clients, you know, individual needs and wants. And as most of my guys, I find out pretty quickly if they want to have a constant contact and informational relationship. So like I tell, I talk to them almost on a qualitative basis and I go, hey, you know, your accounts are doing this.

And, you know, if we can project in the future, what does this look like? And I really think that we're managed well in this position. And quarterly, this is how it's going to project going forward. And, you know, after a certain time, the client feels comfortable with enough with us. And he goes, hey, man, I love chatting with you. But, you know, I trust you. I don't need all this information. Just I know you're going to take care of me.

Just keep me updated every now and then. But I think, yeah, it's funny. It takes a minute to develop that level of trust. And sometimes it needs to be proven, not just set. Yeah, because, you know, these, there's a lot of other options out there. I mean, you can drop a dot in Google Maps and you can find, you know, five or ten people who do what I do. It's just what I will always stand by and I will always promise that separates us is we're going to do that extra stuff. We're going to find a step that really matters to you and we're going to break it down because once you understand that and once you understand your goals, putting the numbers together are relatively easy.

I mean, there's, you know, you got to do risk management. You got to make sure that we're projecting and we're staying on top of certain performances. But you really want confidence as to cue with the client. And through confidence a lot, the main tool we use to establish confidence in a client is knowledge and understanding. A lot of these clients, a lot of these new prospective clients specifically, they come in and, you know, I ask for the statement. And that's another thing about, you know, another stage of vulnerability is just, hey, here's my. statement. You know, it could be bad. It could be good. I don't know. My guy's telling me it's good, but who knows, I, he, Andrew might come back to me and say this is the worst thing in the world.

And, you know, there's a lot of dread and fear. So, yeah, it's just understanding, except analyzing and making sure that it's tailored to that specific client's needs and wants. And we know that one specific financial plan for retirement is not the cookie cutter, template for every single person. So you've got to craft it for their unique situation. What are some of the high level differences for working with someone in their 30s or 40s versus someone even in 50s to 60s? Because there could be some nuanced differences that you're looking for to make recommendations in those two age demographics. That's a great question. So I, you know, I get the opportunity to work with, you know, 30 and 40 year olds like my age. And then I get the

opportunity to individuals who have achieved that goal pretty much they're at the top of the mountain so their goals and their needs and wants are going to be they're i mean it's night and day um but specifically i want to get back to kind of like our age group or my age groups is 30 and 40 um it's usually they just got they just established the family like they have young kids they're married they just got a brand new house and they really haven't had the opportunity um so sort of build a financial plan when it comes to the budgeting, you know, how are we going to establish retirements and what funds do we need to put away? How are the kids going to be situated? So I think it's important to, you know, and it took me a while to do this too because it's the first

kind of like big step. You know, I had a client, a younger client come in to me or give me a call the other day. And she goes, yeah, I need you to teach us how to be adults. I don't, I don't know how to budget this thing or anything like that. And so, you know, there's certain goals, but the main thing is, is it's their first step. And it's the first step's always going to be the hardest. And so once you get past that first step and you look at your expenses, I know that's the toughest thing in the world. I'm looking at my expenses and I'm going, you know, why, where are all these trips going to?

What are we doing? Why are we spending this much on this? So it does get, you know, it's a little overwhelming sometimes. So but versus someone in their 60s, you're not necessarily working with them on budget, maybe sometimes, but it kind of shifts. And then their needs shift. And so makes me think about this when we're talking about, you know, finding that right investment vehicle. What are some of those key factors once you get to that next step of explaining what they

need to be doing. What are some of those key factors that they need to be considering when looking at the best investment vehicles to get them where they want to go? Yeah. And I think the main difference between, you know, the younger generation versus an older generation is time. So when you're younger, you've got plenty of time. There's no, I mean, you always want to be just on top of your investments and your strategy. You always want to make sure you're following it, but you have time in case something, in case you were to experience volatility. But if you look at somebody who's getting closer to retirement or even at the top of the mountain in retirement, time is the worst is your enemy.

It used to be your best friend. You used to, you know, be young, free, put your money away. You know, you hardly ever looked at your accounts. But when you get closer to the finish line, time is you don't have that time to make up or, you know, let's just say any sort of loss that you experience in the market. So, and again, it's not a cook. you cut your answer, but depending on the, on the individual, the situation is always going to be different if they want. There's so many different more concerns as opposed to later in life and

earlier. And earlier, there's not a whole lot. It's just about building those assets. You're at the end. Okay, I have the assets. Now my fear is, you know, long-term care, losing all this money that I've worked in the market. So one of the main tools that we really see a lot is fixed indexed annuities. And I think, you know, and again, not one size fits all. For most individuals, it's a great vehicle. For others, it wouldn't, it wouldn't suit them. And that's fine. But we find a lot of fixed index annuities are the best for achieving a lot of different goals. Fixed index annuities. There's so many different, I mean, I could spend another three hours on the different benefits and how they're structured. There's so many different, I guess, Tesla, as you could say,

vehicles in that sense. They all have their own different components and this one's got, you know, an extra battery that makes it last longer. This one's got, you know, a bigger screen in the middle. So, but based on, you can tailor a fixed index annuity based on the client's concerns. So if they have a concern with long-term care, we have a fixed index annuity that can help address that specific long-term care need should that arise. They have a concern with losing.

using, you know, having their social security, you know, whether it disappear or get lowered. There's a fixed index annuity for that. You know, is there a concern for leaving enough for my kids? I want to make sure that my kids have enough for when I pass. There's a fixed index annuity for that. If they want guaranteed income for the rest of their life, there's a fixed index annuity for that. So it kind of ties back to that first original meeting is we want to figure out what is it that scares you? Is it long-term care?

Is it leaving enough for the kids? Is do you, are you fine with what you have? And you just, your main concern is principal protection. You don't want to, you don't necessarily need it to grow because you don't want to expose yourself. So it all ties back to that first one because fixed index annuities, we've seen are the greatest thing in the world for a lot of clients if it's the perfect match. I've had clients come in and it's the worst thing in the world because it has nothing to do with what they wanted or what they're, you know, it doesn't suit their goal. It doesn't make the fixed indexed annuity a bad product. it just means that it doesn't fit what they need.

Yeah, I mean, there are some fixed index annuities that are bad products, but the overall concept of it generally is not a bad concept. It's just you have to make sure you're finding the right company, the right specific product and policy. And, you know, like I said, you could, I could spend three hours on the multiple different annuities and what they do, but you have to find a relationship in some of the, that you're comfortable with, an advisor that can show you and be transparent and show you those how this specifically addresses your needs. This might be from a company named Alleyons, North American,

Athene, but this is yours. This isn't North Americans policy. This is, you know, let's just say, team Mike. Mike, this is Mike's annuity. This isn't North American. That's a relationship you have with that company, but this is specifically Mike's annuity. So let's customize it for what what is needed. Yeah. You know, you mentioned long-term care and we don't need to get into the weeds of all of the intricacies there, but aren't I correct in thinking that if someone sets up a standalone long-term care policy, it's similar to your homeowners or car insurance where you pay it.

And if you need to make a claim, you make a claim. But if you don't, you don't get your money back versus what you just described with certain types of how annuities are structured. if there's a long-term care provision there. If you need the long-term care, it's there for you. But if you don't, then your money is still sitting there earning. So it kind of gives you the best of both worlds. Yeah.

And I think, you know, like you said, it's just like either term or home or car. If you don't use it, you're going to lose it. So especially if you're talking about an individual that's, you know, let's just say towards the end, they're at the finish line of retirement. So they're, their concern for long-term care is already, you know, at age 30. And so if your options at that age are very limited, and if you even glance at a long-term care strict policy where it's just long-term higher, you're not only have a fixed index annuity that can also provide you, you know, growth as well. So it, you know, and you come to that crossroads. So let's just say we do have an issue with long-term care.

We can either let this account keep growing or if we need to access it, we're going to have to it. Yep. Yeah, it's just nice just to know that it's there. You know, I think a lot of times people, when you're, when we're talking about investment vehicles and to perform in the future for retirement, we think of risk and security. So comment a little bit on balancing. the risk and security because a couple of the points you just made about this option of

annuities is it gives you guarantees. And so how does how does that risk and security get balanced out when making some of these decisions? Yeah, that's a great question. I, you know, we do seminars specifically, you know, we do a bunch of different seminars on certain topics, but annuities have been the top of the list for a lot of people. And yeah, like you said, annuities have that principle protection. But there's so yes, it's great that we don't lose any money, but we want to be in a position to where if the market does go up, we want to be able to participate in that grove. So you want to make sure that we're, you know, you have participation rates. You want to make sure that your participation rate within your annuity is higher than 100%. Because, you know,

I've seen if a participation rate has 50% and that specific index goes up. 10%. You don't get 10%. You only get 5%. And so that's one of the things that we achieve with or with knowledge and providing confidence with our clients is we teach them and help them understand what the difference between these mechanisms within annuities is participation rates and caps. So caps are pretty standard. If I have a cap of 10, 10 and I jump up 11 feet, only same thing with the market. If the market goes up 20 and your cap that's Seven and a half. You're only getting seven and a half regardless of what the market does. So, yeah, that's kind of the thing. And that gets back to your point about knowing the trust level with your advisor to realize that, okay, it's wonderful that I am not going to lose money. That's great. It's wonderful that I see this fixed rate of return. But if you're capped out and that index goes up, you know, more than you initially thought, you want to participate in that and not get capped out of that ceiling. So that's a really good.

really good point. Yeah, and you want to make sure that you're in, you know, the company or the annuity has the ability, you know, to diverse themselves with multiple indexes. And they all have their different goals. But you talk about risk and reward. I mean, you, again, with a fixed index annuities, there's little to no risk. I mean, you're going to get 0% if the market goes down. But that reward is important because I mentioned it earlier. You don't want to go broke safely. because if you have a fixed index annuity, great. I'm not losing anything, but my index performance so terribly. I can't even talk about inflation the last two years.

I would have loved to have gotten those numbers on inflation with a couple of accounts that we had or we had coming across my desk. So again, that's just another thing that a lot of people have concerns with. Inflation is you want to make sure you address those specific needs. Yep, exactly. Well, can you think of an example where you've worked with the client that needed that correct guidance for the best investment vehicle? And you sat down with them and laid something out that really impacted their financial trajectory in a positive way. Yeah, absolutely.

So I love bringing this one up. We had, it was in 2019. So it was kind of right before the big 2020. And we had a client that or a referral coming to our office down in. Encombenny, he used to work on the, uh, the lot of the, what do you call those? The loading docks down in a long beach. So, you know, where they bring the ships in and the harbors and I think he was longshoremen. That was it.

Um, and he'd been working there for forever, you know, 30 plus years. And finally he just retired and they basically just said, okay, here's your 401k. You figure it out. And, you know, not so blunt, but, you know, that's kind of what it feels like. You know, you're, you're working there for 30 plus years. You're putting your money away. You're basically building this up. This is what's going to carry you on to the golden years.

Like, and it's precious because, again, like, you just handed this amount of money in this asset and says, okay, you make it last, bud. And so him coming into our office was eye opening and kind of understanding that, you know, this is very, very important to us. We understand how important that is, and it's overwhelming. It's key. It's overwhelming. You get all this. You do not want to screw this up. You've worked the last 30 years.

You know, you hear horror stories. Like, it could be gone in five years. So, our, his main concern was about working on this nest egg. He didn't want to see it even spike down a little bit. So it was in 2019. We were able to reposition it into a fixed index annuity. That had a couple of benefits. benefits that we were able to include in there just to address his specific needs.

But, you know, thank God we did that because in 2019 we had, or in early 2020, we had the market dropped down the way it did. So, you know, that's, I'm not going to say I'm genius. Taking that conservative approach sure paid off. That's a great, a great point. Yeah. And, you know, I've seen clients coming to my office. where, you know, yeah, they have an annuity, but it's a variable annuity.

And they, they didn't need to be exposed to market. They have all the assets. They don't need to be exposed. They don't need to be chasing those gains. You know, out here in Vegas, you have all the slot machines. And it's like, life is kind of like that. You've been playing the game. You're at retirement.

Why keep playing? Just take your money, walk out of the casino. Just save that and just, you know, keep, because that's your, baby. That's the nest egg that's going to continue on for the best years of your life. Perfect. Well, Andrew, it's been a real pleasure chatting with you about this. If someone is interested in reaching out and learning more and connecting with you, what's the best way they can do that? They can visit us at www.Generationswealthmgat com. There we have a link to our podcast, YouTube, all the cool stuff that the kids are into today. So yeah, thank you, Mike. I really appreciate

you having me on and I look forward to further conversations. Excellent. Thank you. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www.com.