Business Innovators Radio - Interview with James Edward Durden Jr Owner of Edward Financial Group Discussing Where to Start With Retirement?

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

James Edward Durden Jr. is the owner of Edward Financial Group and a seasoned financial professional with a strong educational background. He holds a double bachelor’s degree in Finance and Risk Management, equipping him with a comprehensive understanding of financial markets and risk assessment. Known for his high ethical standards and passion for his work, James is dedicated to providing clients with reliable and informed financial guidance. Outside of the office, he enjoys hiking, bike riding, and watching NFL football, balancing his professional life with a love for outdoor activities and sports.If you’re ready to take control of your retirement planning and secure a bright financial future, we’re here to help. Visit our website at Edward Financial Group.com or call us at 404-919-8916 to schedule a free consultation. Don’t wait—start your journey to financial confidence today!”Learn more: https://edwardfinancialgroup.comInfluential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-james-edward-durden-jr-owner-of-edward-financial-group-discussing-where-to-start-with-retirement

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 James Edward Durdon Jr. who's the owner of Edward Financial Group. James, welcome to the program. Hey, thank you, Mike. I appreciate you.

have me on. Yeah, I'm looking forward to talking with you because I know you focus on helping people plan for retirement, getting to retirement, getting through retirement, having enough money and all of those great things that we need to be planning for. But before we dive into that, give us a little bit of your background and your story and how did you get into financial services? Okay. So actually, so I started 17 years ago. And I remember like it was yesterday, it was January 3rd, 2007. And so I was like anyone else. I wanted to help people and I wanted to make an above average income, all right?

And so I saw ad on, I think it was monster.com back then, if people remember monster.com, it's been a while. But it was monster.com. I saw ad and I went into the office and, you know, the guy explained to me what the business was. and I, you know, knew right away, I would, I would take into it. I always loved finance. I loved, you know, went to school for it. And I just took to it right away. You know, sometimes it really is like that whole concept of, you know, just something inside me just kind of resonates. And, and you know, you said something really important that, yeah, you need to make a living because we need to pay the bills. but you said you wanted to help people and serve, and I think that's the approach.

What really snagged me was, and this is, I want to try to make this short, long story short, I started in the business and one of the things that you do is you plan. So one of the first steps to planning a lot of times is life insurance. In other words, if a father, you know, has a family, he comes to you, hey, listen, what do I do about my future, what I do about the past? First thing you want to say is, hey, how much, you know, you? you know, where's your life insurance? What are you doing with your life insurance? Because that's the first step. Because something that happens to you tomorrow, your income has to support your family. In this case, he was a truck driver, owner-operator.

Owned a piece of land, owned a, had a trailer on a piece of land. He wouldn't be considered, you know, he would be considered kind of an average America to most folks. Little bit than that I know that he had a pretty high net worth. It just was a simple guy. Long story short, he had a wife, two kids, and he was a truck driver, tried to swerve Mr. drunk driver, rolled over six months later, passed away. And I brought his wife a check at that point for a half million dollars. And two things happened. One, she gave me a hug. That was the biggest hug and showed me the most, I swear I felt, it was almost like I felt true love for the first time.

Right. And so it was just a, it was just a, I didn't know what. I was going to do thank you. Remember she hadn't worked and she never worked because he was, you know, one of those alpha males guys take care of his family. You know, I mean, you know, she didn't know what a bill was. Okay. Yeah. So, so she was scared. And so, you know, that was a good feeling. Now, to double down on that, two months later, she called me back out. And I was like, oh, my God, you know, what happened? What was it? You know, because mind you, I'm just starting in a business. I feel real good about myself. And she hadn't cashed a check.

right. And so her next step was, okay. Now, what do I do with it? Yeah. Thank you, but what do I do with this? Right. And I'm new. And so, you know, the interesting thing about that was, geez, I didn't even think about it. You know, I'm just going to give her half a million. So anyway, long story short, we got started with her planning. She's still a client or customer to this day, but that was it for me. This was the business I was going to be in forever. Yeah. You know, and I think a lot of people would hear like, oh, you're selling insurance, you're selling this and selling that. But what you just described there, if you ever let yourself feel like, oh, I'm just selling something and I don't feel like I want to push things on people. It's that hug. It's that emotion. It's that gratitude. It's that what would I have done without this? You're you're not selling anything. You're providing these opportunities for people. I think that is just a spectacular intro there. So if someone is a pre-retiree and they're thinking about retirement, A, how long ahead of retirement should they be starting to make plans? And then what are some of those first steps? Because I do feel like some people go, oh, retirement, I'll think about that later or, oh, that'll take care of itself. And it doesn't.

You need to start as far ahead of advance as possible. So what do you say as far as timing? And then secondly, what are some of those first steps they should take? Yeah. So here's what I would say. To be honest with you, you should start retirement planning on your first paycheck. That's the right answer. That's the correct answer. That's true. Now, that's not what most people do. Life happens. The younger you are, the least important and the longer in distance it feels like. So as, you know, just human nature, we don't do that. But the right answer is right away, right? Now, with that said, when you start having those thoughts about, you know, what is it that I, you know, I'm 10 years out, maybe I'm 15 years out. And what is it that I want to accomplish in my lifestyle? I don't want to be like such and such in retirement or I just want to make sure that I'm okay. Then, you know, the best thing is, in my opinion, is to get

yourself with a strong financial professional. And I'm going to tell you the path that we walk around. We call it present position, future position, right? So essentially what we do is that when somebody comes in, we say, if you don't do anything different than what you're doing now, here's what your retirement looks like. And we walk you through it. Okay. Here's how much income you have. Here's how much money you make. Here's how much money you make based upon the rate of returns that you're receiving now.

That type. We have those conversations and go through that. You want to do that with everybody. And, you know, you want to introduce the concept of risk. What does risk mean in each one of these categories? What if something else happens in a bad side? You literally going through step by step what it looks like. And then we come back and we do something called future position.

Future position is just simply, listen, with my years of experience, we've made it to this point. We've showed you what the present position look like. You either have a good feeling for our firm or not or the financial question you're dealing with or not. If you do have a good feeling, then the next step is that, okay, here is future position. Future position is what I would do based upon everything that I know in order to help you. Okay. And so you look at the present position, look at the future position, look at the things as you do, walk down whatever financial tools that we decide is best for you.

And at that moment, it will be very, very clear as to what you want to climb. I love that present and future position. And I would venture to say if we had a whiteboard, we could kind of put a line in one spot for present, align in future. And the difference between the two is the gap. And I know we can talk for about an hour and a half on that, but that's exactly what you described, which is like, okay, here's where you are, here's where you want to be, but you ain't there yet. So what's you going to take to get there? Well, now let's close the gap by considering this and considering that. And I would venture to say that there is not one solution that you present to every single person

the exact same way, because everyone is different and their needs are different. Exactly. Yeah. And And also the tools that you use are different, just depending on the customer. So yes. So let's think now, let's say that someone goes through that exercise. How can they gauge if they're ready to retire or not? Because I would think, too, that if they've got that president future position and the gap field and some of the tools, you know, maybe they're on their way, but maybe they're not quite there yet. But what are some of those indicators? So, you know, Mike, I do this all the time. I hate to answer a question with a question, but here's what is exactly what I'll run through with a client. So first, in most people's situation, they've never been asked, in my opinion, one of the four most important questions. Okay. And so here's question number one. What rate of return do you have to earn on your savings and investment dollars to be able to retire at your current standard of living and have your money last through your life expectancy?

That was a mouthful. Essentially, what rate of return do you have to live to live like you want to live forever, right? How much do you need to save on a monthful, your annual basis to be able to retire just current standard of living and your money not last life expect to see? A lot of times when we think about retirement or we get to that point, our thing is whatever our favorite financial product or a lot of times is just all we know. So everything that we go, we're going to put as much money into it as possible. And my experience tells me a lot of times that's not the solution. So if we know what the goal is, if we know we're going to end up at, then it's a lot easier to make it. There's two more questions. Do you want to do doing what you're currently doing now, pause as, how long will you have to work to be able to retire and live at your current standard of living? Yeah. life expectancy, right? And the last one is if you don't do anything different than you're doing today, how much would you have to reduce your standard of living in retirement for your money to last life expectancy?

Those are four questions, in my opinion, four are the most important questions, and those questions should be asked when we're 20, but a lot of times we don't find out how about it. And then re-asked at 30 and re-asked it 40. So that's a really interesting point. And I'll kind of take a step back from a 30,000-foot view and it sounds to me like so far we're talking about things that aren't stock spots, mutual funds, rate of return, all these. You're like a light coach. You're literally going, let me, let me ask you, what does retirement look like feel like? What is it? And all of a sudden, you're now working backwards and then, oh, well, if we want to accomplish this that we just came through, here's some tools and investments and whatever to consider. But that's the last thing that you're

going through. And most people, I would venture to say they jump right to put your money here, put your money there and that, and you might be jumping the gun. You absolutely. What I find out, I'm going to say 90% of the time you're jumping a gun. Yeah. It's about what that individual person's goals are, working those goals backwards, and then understanding the financial products as to how they fit the goal. And, you know, and so I've had a lot of success doing that. And I venture to say that's probably the best way to do it. Yeah. Now, do you ever find when you're walking clients through that process that they're saying,

oh, here's what I feel retirement should be. And then you're able to say to them, have you considered this? Have you considered that? Because maybe there's some things that they haven't considered like, oh, in retirement, I'm not going to spend as much money. But in reality, maybe you've got way more time on your hands to go and spend money on the things that you have not been able to do now. you're able to travel more. So maybe their number that they would say, oh, I need this much,

it might be a little bit off base when you kind of bring it full picture. Have you seen that come up before? Oh, all the time. Here's what I'm the thing. I've never, everyone, and this is going to sound, this is going to sound backwards. When folks get ready to retire, the first thing that they think about is how much do I have to reduce my lifestyle to make this work? Yeah. That's the first thing that pops in her head. And what I tell them from the, from day one and from the beginning, that is the absolute last thing that you should pop in your head. What you're popping your head is, how much is it possible with my assets to do the things that I want to do in this last phase of my life? Okay. So dream big, not the other way around. All right. And so don't restrict. And I know there's,

there's a lot of popular, you know, financial professionals out there. And I say, hey, you know, rice and beans, you know, minimize your lifestyle, that type of deal. Well, I don't, I don't know one, one client that that's comfortable for. Not to say that sacrifice can't happen and shouldn't happen in some cases, but I think we should look at it a little bit different. Yeah, 100%. And I think the other aspect, too, is just those, those, a variety of perspectives to make sure that the answers to those questions are really accurate, because, again, you might think

your number is X. And kind of what I was thinking up to is way back in the day when people would say, oh, you retire at this age and you need your money to last to that age, whatever those numbers are. Well, these days, health care is a little bit better. We're taking better care of ourselves. We're eating better. And maybe we're living a little bit longer. So now those numbers kind of get skewed from the old, old models. And your money needs to last longer than it used to a couple decades ago.

Yeah, that's a given. We were definitely, I think you hit it right on the head. we're living a lot longer, especially those folks that are, the type of folks that are, that are looking for a plan for the retirement. And bottom line is, since we're doing that, at the end of the day, we've got to, you know, we've got to make this money last. This is the, these are the things that we want to enjoy. Rather, it's when again, you know, it's annual trips to Disney World or with the grandkids. Rather, it's, you know, backpacking around Europe at 60, at 65, you know, whatever. those things are is what I think that, what I think that, you know, individual clients should, should want to do and, and we should help them get there. Yep. So let's talk about, I'm sure this is few and far between, but what mistakes have other people made, not your clients, but other people that you have seen, right? But what are the typical mistakes that you see that pre-retirees make so that then you can say, hey, look, I've seen people make this and this and this mistake, so I'm

and help you, you know, navigate around that. Yeah. And I'm going to change mistakes to risks, right? And so, you know, and I tell most of my clients, essentially I'm a risk management firm. In other words, what are the risks that you know and that you don't know? Yeah. And how do you avoid it? And we're planning for those risks day one. That's really, in my opinion, it's really, important, right? And so there's seven main risks that we discuss at nauseam at my firm. And we kind of, you know, break that down as far as we can and make sure that that you understand it. We definitely come from an educational standpoint. And here's one of the seven is longevity risk. longevity risk is kind of what we mentioned a minute ago, which is the longer you live, the worse, you know, the more likelihood that other bad things could happen with your money. Okay. And so we've got to have a plan for how to combat longevity risk.

Inflation, that's just your purchasing power, your spinning power, right? If you need $50,000 worth of income at a standard 3% inflation in 24 years, that would mean that you need $100,000. a year, right? And that's just the cost of goods going up, right? Now, if inflation was at 6%, we just went through a higher period, although it's calming down a little bit. Now, if your inflation's at 6%, that 50,000 needs to be 10012 years. That will devastate your retirement if you don't understand that that silent killer inflation is out there. Sequence of returns risk. I'm going to come back and touch on that one a little bit. Withdraw rate risk, right? How much money do you take down? on a drawdown strategy off of your portfolio. Social Security risk, health care, right? What happens if there is a, I have to go into a nursing home, right? Taxation, right? What happens if,

you know, our country, unfortunately, is not an really great financial strength. You know, we're not at the best place financially, right? They got a whole lot of debt, right? And so what's the government? Where does the government get the money in tax from? Well, guess what? It's you. So they're going to tax you or they're going to lower your benefits, both which hurts the retiree.

So, you know, these are just some of the risk. And, you know, and as I stated, I'm going to come back. Sequence of return risk is a really, really big one. Essentially, all that says is that if I retire today, right, I got a million dollars. Maybe my sister's going to retire three years from now. She has a million dollars. I can get safely, you know, $40,000 a year off that. I'm going to take 3% a year and increase it every year.

So take $40,000 and increase that by 3% every year to make up for inflation and use that as a base. And the goal is to have that million dollars grow. Well, if I retire during a down period, so four years after retirement, typically four years, after four years before and there's a down market. I have a bare market within any of those time periods. I'm at a extremely high risk of run it out of money. Right. Now, the problem with Secrets of Returns risk, I call it one of the most insidious risks out there, is that no one can predict when it is. Okay? So no one can predict when the down market is going to happen. Or control it. Yeah. And I don't care who they are. And if they tell you they are, then stand up and walk out of office because they're not,

they're not telling the truth. All right. And so if that's the case, then we've got to have a plan for that. What is our plan for that? How do we do that? So, so, you know, it's, it's really about avoiding those seven risks to retire. You know, I love that you bring those up. And the big thing that I'll kind of wrap it up with here as we, as we wrap up the conversation is so many of those risks are things that we can not control because you were not saying, oh, one risk is you're spending. You can control your own personal spending. You can budget and all of that. But, taxes and inflation and sequence of returns and market volatility. The individual family, husband and wife, the retiree, they cannot control that, but you can plan for that to mitigate as much as possible how that impacts your retirement, but you got

to do it more than a month and a half before you retire. So you got to have some runway. You got to make some plans. You got to check them and recheck them and make sure everything is working together. So I'll tell you, James, you've just laid out such a clear plan there. and if someone is listening, thinking maybe I need to have a second opinion or look at what my plan is, what's the best way they can learn more and then also reach out and connect with you? Yeah.

So it's www. www. Edwardfinancialgroup.com. Again, that's www. Edwardfinancial group.com. And Edward is no, no S. And, yeah, you definitely can connect with us on there. There's an email tool on that website.

Also, there's a start here link that I'll set up a 15-minute conversation with me if you're concerned about some of these things that we talked about on retirement. Excellent. Well, James, thank you so much for coming on today. It's been a real pleasure talking with you. All right. Thank you so much, 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.com.competial Entrepreneurs, Radio.com.