Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Ben Green Co-Founder of Ready2Retire™ Discussing Preserving Black wealth

Episode Date: August 18, 2023

A native of Columbia, SC, Ben is a Co-Founder of Ready2Retire™, the leading retirement planning firm for people who want to retire with confidence. Ben greatly appreciates customer service and client satisfaction, honed from over 20 years of experience, and is recognized nationwide as a top retirement, insurance, Medicare, and Social Security planner.He has over 2,000 clients and has educated over 10,000 people. Ben is also President and COO of Insurance Advantage, an employee benefits agency he co-founded 13 years ago. Ben has previously served as COO of a human resources staffing firm and as Vice President of Asia and Europe for an American software company.Ben has extensive experience in economic development and consulting and worked as a Business Recruiter for South Carolina. Since Ben opened the Japan office in 2012, South Carolina has received over $2.2 billion in investment. In 2014, he was hired to write the Strategic Plan for the State of South Carolina.Based on ten years working overseas in Japan, Brazil, & Spain, he wrote the Amazon Best Seller The Global Superstar: How Your Students Can Develop an Advantage over Global Competition to help students prepare for careers in this changing economy. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Finance from Morehouse College, an International MBA from The University of South Carolina, and certificates from UNC and Temple University.He’s conversant in Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish. He has served on numerous boards, including the South Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities Association, the SC Chamber of Commerce, and the Columbia (SC) Chamber of Commerce. He’s a member of the Nashville City Club and the Nashville Kiwanis Club.Ben splits time between his homes in Nashville, TN, and Columbia, SC, with his wife and their two wonderful daughters. He loves traveling, spending time with friends and family, and helping his clients win.Learn More:https://www.ready2retire.net/Investment Advisory Services offered by James Jurica CFP® CLU® CHFC® RICP® through Wealth Watch Advisors, an SEC Registered Investment Advisor. Wealth Watch Advisors has no affiliation with the website represented. Wealth Watch Advisors is not responsible for their views and opinions, and makes no representations or warranties about the accuracy, reliability, completeness or timeliness of the content and does not recommend or endorse any specific information herein. NJM Wealth Preservation Strategies is not affiliated. Investing involves risk including the potential loss of principal. No investment strategy can guarantee a profit or protect against loss in periods of declining values. Opinions expressed as written or recorded are subject to change at any time without notice and are not intended to be used as investment advice or to predict future performance. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Consult your financial professional before making any investment decision.This information is designed to provide general information on the subjects covered. Pursuant to IRS Circular 230, it is not, however, intended to provide specific legal or tax advice and cannot be used to avoid tax penalties or to promote, market, or recommend any tax plan or arrangement. Please note that NJM Wealth Preservation Strategies and its affiliates do not give legal or tax advice. You are encouraged to consult your tax advisor or attorney for any legal or tax advice.Annuity guarantees rely on the financial strength and claims-paying ability of the issuing insurer. Any comments regarding safe and secure investments, and guaranteed income streams refer only to fixed insurance products. They do not refer, in any way, to securities or investment advisory products. Fixed Insurance and Annuity product guarantees are subject to the claims‐paying ability of the issuing company and are not offered by Wealth Watch Advisors.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-ben-green-co-founder-of-ready2retire-discussing-preserving-black-wealth

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 back with us Ben Green, who's the co-founder of Ready to Retire and we'll be talking about preserving black wealth. Ben, welcome back to the program. Mike, thank you so much for having me back again. It's great to be on.

You're welcome. And, you know, I think this is such a timely topic because everyone wants to build wealth. And now we want to talk about preserving it for this specific segment of society. So why is this so important to you and black Americans? Yeah, so Mike, to be simple and go down to the fundamental base. So on it, no one is really talking about it. You know, no politician has really talked about it at all with the exception of Andrew Yang back when he was running for president. And in 2020, he gave the number that really stuck out to me, which is, was that by 2053, the average black American family was going to have a net worth that was going to go from $11,000, which is abysmal down to zero.

Okay. Wow. 2053. And that was really before COVID got cranked up. And you had all these additional things that have come into play like inflation, of course, you know, the debt ceiling for the U.S. It's going to be impacting, really, it's impacting interest rates for everybody, you know, taxes that are going to be potentially going up and lots of other types of volatility. So this is a really important issue for black Americans, but really it's important for every American because, you know, as one go all go in terms of our economy in terms of the future of the country. You know, I love that you mentioned a statistic from a reputable source that triggered something for you to go, hold on.

Let's not let that just go in one ear and out the other because if that statistic is even half true, you know, like if it's going to be, you know, take longer to get to from 11 to zero, maybe it's, I mean, there's, there's validity to that given who brought that to your attention. And you're jumping on that going, let's see if I can help to prevent it. And maybe not wipe it away because, come on, we can't change the world, but we can one person at a time and change their world. So talk a little bit about what makes your firm different overall and specifically who you serve because I know we're talking about black wealth, but there's a lot of wealth that needs to be preserved. It's just that you're taking this kind of as a crusade to go, you know, in all the clients I work with, here is a segment that does have unique needs given the statistics that you just mentioned. Yeah, and Mike, you know, I actually, I'm born, I was born raised in South Carolina. I grew up on a farm outside of a Columbia, South Carolina. And, you know, I'm kind of an original country boy who now is, you know, a big, a big city boy.

But we never talked about any of these topics, really, in my family and even in my, my larger and extended family, that was actually very, you know, certainly first generation and second. generations that had, you know, had college educations. My mom has a, you know, a master's degree and education and a PhD. My dad had a, you know, a master's degree, all that good stuff. And both are educators. But we never talked about any of these topics. And so, so really when we began insurance advantage, which is our insurance brokerage, still one of the largest in the Southeast, we began working on health insurance for folks under the age of 35 to really provide anyone that was under the age of 35 with an affordable affordable health insurance plan. The Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010 and really kind of destroyed that business

for us, but we retooled and found out that the Affordable Care Act was actually going to open up great health insurance options for everyone. And so we worked on that and then kind of transitioned to adding Medicare consultations, Social Security consultation, life insurance, long-term care, and on into full-on retirement planning where we can talk about annuities. We can talk about estate planning and tax planning, Mike, over the last 14 years, with ready to retire here now being founded in last year. And essentially, we absolutely help black Americans, but we have a really diverse set of clients that we work with across federal state county governments. We work with lots of major

corporations. We work with hospitals, doctors, nurses, teachers, firefighters, policemen, NFL coaches, actually, Hall of Famers, you name it. We work with them. You know, CIA agents, Department of Defense folks, lots of folks in the military. So we work with everyone. And the point that we tell everyone is that there are no, there are no dumb questions when it comes to finances. And we do not just force products like, you know, 401Ks or Roth IRAs. down folks or, you know, life insurance or annuities or CDs, down people's throats. We, we educate, educate, educate, and meet people where they are, whether they're age 25, age 45, age 74 like my mom is.

You know, that's a, when you were describing that, it made me think of something where you said you never talked about such issues when you were growing up. You know, it's almost like, you know, don't talk about religion, politics or money, you know, So it's kind of like you just do what you do, but how are you supposed to learn? And then you just said you like to educate, educate, educate. Well, people don't like to be sold something. They like to buy something. And the precursor to buying is understanding.

So I think that's such a huge thing that you're doing to help close that gap of misunderstanding of information. And really there is that wealth gap that you describe that you experience that is across the whole country. you're serving and noticing some of these statistics in black Americans. But talk a little bit about that wealth gap as it impacts black Americans as well as the country as a whole. Absolutely. And just I can really take myself and my mom as an example of kind of where the gaps are and how they begin. So Mike, I began my career after I graduated from Morehouse with a BA in finance, ironically, not knowing anything about insurance, you know, retirement planning or any

anything along those lines. I spent a couple of years over in Japan teaching English. And at that time, I did not care at all about the benefits, right? The health insurance, life insurance, anything like that. And thankfully, that was all provided by my high school that I was teaching English in in Japan. And when I, when I returned to the U.S., you know, worked for the South Carolina Department of Commerce. And my 20s and early 30s, once again, didn't care at all about, you know, about benefits. And it was not really thinking about this really up until a point where we, we, we, we, founded the company. And the bottom line is, you know, now I'm in my, my 40s. I have, you know, I have two kids, have a wife, you know, have a house, all those things. And so I have taken that

evolution myself through kind of the life cycle where we have the life insurance in place. We have disability insurance in place. We have a long-term care plan. And we, I helped my mom sort of set all that stuff up as well over the last 25 years from the 401 case to the long-term care to the whole life insurance and looking at it, annuities for it and everything else. And so it's really important to let people understand that there are no stupid questions when it comes to this. And when you look at how this wealth gap is going to impact the country in general, if black Americans have basically zero net worth and that's going to impact everyone in terms of the housing markets, that's going to impact everyone in terms of how the stock market

it performs that's going to impact lots of people when it comes to long-term care needs. And so it really is an issue for the entire country. Yeah. You know, because it becomes a ripple effect, domino effect. Think of it, however you want to call it, butterfly effect. You know, if it affects one person, you know, like if it affects your little toe, boy, your whole body hurts. So when one segment of society is impacted negatively, boy, it's just going to have that ripple effect.

And then conversely, if you start to make some change and positive change, it can then have a reverse positive effect. So I think that is a huge mindset shift that people haven't thought about. So talking a little bit about what you're laying the groundwork here as a backdrop for building wealth, black wealth, and preserving it. Because it doesn't do much good to build it if you don't know how to preserve it. So that's kind of where you focus. What are some of the big broad challenges like macroeconomic challenges? I know that people throw on terms like inflation and things like that. What are some of the things that we all can be looking toward over the next few years to be aware of and prepare for?

Yes, Mike, that's a great question. So one big one that all of us face is that the U.S. national debt now stands at about $32 trillion total. And it's going up by millions of dollars a day. It's projected to potentially be around $140 trillion, Mike, by 2050. actually. So that's going to impact all manner of things like, you know, it's going to obviously provide stressors to programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. It's going to provide stressors in terms of where taxes might go, of course. And then, you know, every one of us can feel inflation impact every day when we go to fill up our car with gas. It's, you know, three used to be a dollar, I believe, when I was back at Moore House in college, now it's $4 per gallon. So that's certainly. a lot of inflation there. If you look at Medicare premiums in 1985, they were $15 per month, Mike. They're for Part B premiums now. They're up to $164.90 per month. So inflation is a real deal. And then other demographic challenges like the birth rate dropping 20% since 2007. That's going to impact a lot of things.

Who's going to buy the cars? Who's going to buy the toys? You know, who's going to buy lots of consumer goods. And then we have the graying of America, of course, where you have 10,000 people a day turning 65. They're retiring. They go on on Medicare. They have questions about Social Security. And they're taking on Social Security and have long-term care needs. So those are just some of the challenges that are going on. And then, of course, the stock market this year has really only been bullied by the impacts of and the prospects of artificial intelligence.

And so that's one of the mega trends that's going to create. opportunities, also disrupt the economy, but certainly create some opportunities that we want folks to know about, but you also have continued supply chain issues. You have still geopolitical turmoil, whether it's between Russia and the U.S. or China and the U.S., and then that mega trend of the graying of America and understanding the investment impacts of that error. These are all trends that people need to be. So basically, we shouldn't get out of bed. The problem is that people don't know what they don't know.

And when you start noticing some of these trends and then you pick up on a new story here and then you listen to someone going, but here's what you can do about it. And that's the awareness is the first step. I like that you lay that out. So where do you start? Where are some of the first steps toward building wealth in black America and then kind of build on that question with where do you, where do you kind of look at to put your effort to build and preserve? generational wealth because here's the thing. Stephen Covey was known for saying begin with the end of mind. And if someone starts thinking about building wealth, that kind of is a circle around you. Like, I want to build my wealth. But if you can focus on building generational wealth, now I'm

focused on my family and generations to follow. And if I'm looking toward that, it's going to affect me positively myself now. But I like the juxtaposition of where do you start in the journey to building, generational wealth because then that means that if I want to achieve something down the road for my family legacy, then I need to start right here. Absolutely. At ready to retire, we are economic and I guess macroeconomic and investing and insurance and risk management nerds, if you will. We're we're experts in it. We love to do it. We do it day in and day out. I would actually do this as a hobby if I weren't doing it for my career, Mike. And so it's important.

We like to make sure that folks are aware of some of the challenges, but we turn a lot of those challenges into opportunities. Okay. And so when we're looking at, you know, kind of the first steps towards building and then preserving wealth really for anyone, including Black Americans, it's one of the first big decisions is picking the right college, Mike. Yes.

That for a lot of people is going to be the first big business decision, kind of like buying your home that a lot of us will make. And 25 years ago or 30 years ago, when I went to Moorehouse, it was about $14,000 a year total. It's up to about $50,000 a year now. Wow. That's sort of the mid-price point for a lot of these colleges and universities. And so if you screw that decision up now with those numbers as high as they are and the student loans that can be as high as they are, it can all be sort of downhill from there. and certainly if you don't graduate within a four-year period as well,

ditto on that. And then assuming you do get a great education, hopefully at a reasonable cost or at no cost, getting a good paying job, obviously is going to be an important deal. And then kind of from there building a rainy day savings fund, half of Americans don't have more than $400 in their bank account to just handle, you know, simple, small emergencies.

And so we work with folks on kind of on those basics. and budgeting basics. And then from there, you know, taking advantage of your organization's matches, whether it's in the retirement accounts, whether it's 401Ks or TSP's, taking advantage of Roth components in a TSP, for example, or a Roth, you know, 401K that's available to you or setting up a Roth IRA on your own. And then taking care of the highly probable what ifs that we really like to focus on at Ready to Retire, Mike, which includes.

things like, you know, what if you become disabled for a couple of years and your paycheck stops? Do you have a plan in place for that? What if, God forbid, you know, you're married or, you're a, you're a single person, single mom, single dad with kids and you pass away what is going to happen in terms of the income necessary to take care of your loved ones? Long-term care down the line. That can happen. A long-term care situation can happen 40% of the time now. It's happening for folks that are under the age of 65, Mike. And so taking care of that situation. And then certainly, as you get older, taking care of long-term care. We, we look at those highly probable what ifs, and we take care of those. And then you can, of course, look at things like real estate, you know,

taking a look at your home, taking a look at rental properties. And then kind of the last one that a lot of folks do not put in place because they think that only old people, quote, unquote, need to worry about it are estate plans. So whether it's, you know, health care directors, health care directives, wills, or hopefully putting a trust in place for your estate, you know, there are lots of famous black Americans like Chadwick Bowman, you know, Prince, even Aretha Franklin, they all passed away without an estate plan in place. And that costs money, that drains money.

from their families and from the community. So all of these things that I mentioned are the basics that people can get started on as they're building wealth and preserving wealth. Yeah, I mean, it's really amazing that any of these things you mentioned make logical sense. It's like, oh, yeah, I've heard of that. But what's easy to do is easy not to do. And sometimes it's now that you're aware of it, you just got to take the time and plan and do it out of love for your family. So I think that's huge. So, you know, when we think of some of these big, you know, like detractors, like weapons of mass destruction of wealth, you know, for all Americans, especially black Americans, what are some of those?

And then what can black pre-retirees or retirees need to consider about them and handling them? Yeah. So the WMDs, we like to call them for everyone, Mike, weapons of mass destruction of wealth are. are three or fourfold. So taxes are just a huge, huge destroyer of wealth, not just your federal income taxes. Depending on the state you're in, you may not have to pay income taxes in Tennessee, Texas, Florida, for example, we see folks kind of moving around or having residences in some of those states to avoid state income tax.

So that's a big deal. But you have additional auto taxes, property taxes, et cetera, that stuff adds up. then that could eat up 50, 55% of your overall income. Inflation is a huge one, of course. As I said before, it was a dollar per gallon for gas back in 1999. I distinctly remember it. It's $4 now, all right? It's $5 in some parts of the country.

And then fees, fees, fees, whether it is for your cable bills, whether it's for your phone bills, you're not looking at those. And the big ones, kind of the huge. hidden fee where they just take a penny or two out per day or a dollar out per day are broker fees and investment management fees. And so we really hone in on those, especially for a lot of the folks we serve that are 60, 65, 75 years old. We focus on those fees and try to bring those fees down as much as possible, not only on the investor and the financial planning side, but also on the mutual funds that have been picked for you.

Those have hidden fees in them as well that can add up to 1 to 1.5% even 2% per year costing you and compounded over time. That can cost you 30% of your wealth that you're going to build in your retirement account. And then it is. Those fees really do kind of get you. When you look at them, it's like, I don't even know what some of these names are, but man, that's a lot. Absolutely, Mike.

And compounded over a third. 30 or 40 year period. Albert Einstein said that compounding is the eighth wonder of the world. It works for you. If you understand it, it can work really against you. If you do not understand it, it can take 30, 35%, 40% away from the retirement accounts that you have at your company or at, you know, at your organization or, you know, with a broker. So you really need to understand that.

And then the last one, when it comes to preserving wealth for pre-referrales, retirees and retirees is volatility. So if you do not understand volatility and the difference between the growth portion of your time here on earth when you're, you know, 20 to 60 years old and you're working, you have some time on your side to let let that volatility go up and down. If you do not understand the mind shift that is, that is required to think more about income, okay, and how the income is going to fuel your lifestyle in retirement as you transition into 60, 65, 70 years old, then volatility might can destroy your retirement. It can

destroy really your entire lifestyle. Yeah. You know, one, one, uh, punch in the gut from any one of those things can just be a big, huge needle mover. That's just amazing. So kind of wrapping up all of these thought processes here. It makes you realize that there's a lot of things that people don't know. You need to be educated about. What are some of the historically time-tested solutions that black retirees or all Americans can use to prepare as well as maintain their retirement plans? Yep. So, Mike, one of the fundamentals that we educate folks on is the fact that your 401k product, that you have access to or your 457 product that you have access to, your TSP product or even your IRA product, those are all products and not financial or retirement plans. Okay.

So people really need to understand and I want them to write this down. Products versus plans. If you have a 401K, that's a product. If you have a TSP, that is a product. If you have an IRA, that is a product. And if someone is just a piece of the puzzle, it's just a piece of the puzzle. A plan includes really about a 13 point process checklist that we go through, Mike. And that includes looking at your retirement accounts, like your 401K, your 47s, looking at your life insurance and the taxes, your tax planning, okay, looking at Roth conversions for you, looking at your long term care, pulling in your Medicare and making sure.

sure you're not going to be impacted by Irma and having to pay more for your part B, looking at your Social Security and when we're going to put that into play. And if that's going to be taxed, okay, and then looking at your estate plan, even doing something like looking at your property and casualty insurance policies to make sure you have umbrella insurance and you can't be sued for a million dollars and basically have everything taken away from you in an instant because of, you know, a $200 policy that you could have put in place and no one told you about. So that's really.

it's really important to understand products versus plans, Mike. And then the other thing that people need to understand is we like at ready to retire, we provide options. And so they really need to understand that they have, you should have an option for a taxable bucket of money that you can pull from like your 401K or 457s,

okay, your TSPs as opposed to non-taxable buckets of money like your Roth IRAs, okay, cash vets. life insurance. There are a few other non-taxable buckets of money. And then shifting from that, the growth and the at-risk investments, like your 401k's and your retirement plans when you're, you know, 25 or 45 or 55 years old over to safe money and low risk or even no risk options, like annuities, like guaranteed annuities, like CDs, for example. You know, life insurance, cash value, life insurance can also fit in that, that safe money. But

So understanding that shift or that opportunity and option of taxable versus non-taxable and growth versus kind of safe money and income, Mike, is really, really important. And those are a couple of the unique things that we bring to the table at ready to retire. You know, through this conversation, it's just apparent that you don't know what you don't know. So get educated. Get with someone that can look at your situation and give you options. Teach you, show you, not push you, but just show you. what some options are and make sure that those pieces of the puzzle fit together to provide that wealth building as well as wealth preserving. So I think it's just been so eye-opening for us here

today, Ben. Thank you so much for coming on. What is the best way that someone can reach out and learn more as well as connect with you? Absolutely. So they can email me at Benjamin at ready to retire.net. That's ready the number to retire.net. Or they can visit our website at Ready to Retire.net schedule a complimentary consultation. And we will kind of walk through the process. The process usually involves your current situation where we kind of put together a sort of a model for where you are right now. Look at projections of retirement income and expenses.

We look at your goals, Mike. So what's important to you now? What's going to be important to you 20 years from now? And then we manage for risk. And it really is based on your life. lifestyle, your age, and what your goals are down the line. Excellent. Well, Ben, we'll make sure to have that hot linked to your website in the show notes. So thank you so much for coming back on today. It was a real pleasure talking with you.

Thank you, Mike. 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.com. EntrepreneursRadio.com.