Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Leslie Hammock, Founder of Retire By Design Discussing Sequence of Return

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

Leslie Hammock was born in Perry, Georgia, graduated from Stratford Academy, and later graduated from Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. He began his career with Mass Mutual. After a number of successful years, Leslie founded his own firm. Leslie has extensive personal and professional experience with an emphasis on Retirement and Estate planning strategies for professionals, business owners, and individuals working in both private and government sectors.Leslie has been the recipient of the National Quality Award. He is also a long-time member of the International Association of Registered Financial Consultants (RFC), a member of the National Ethics Association, and an Independent Fiduciary Investment Advisor.Leslie is an approved adult financial education instructor and holds classes at numerous local colleges on the subjects of Investment Planning, Retirement Planning, Social Security Maximization, Estate Planning, and many other topics.Leslie is dedicated to developing lasting relationships with all his clients in their wealth accumulation and preservation objectives. He takes pride in his ability to provide clear, easily understood strategies using various financial products, services, and cutting-edge analytical technology.Learn more: http://www.retirebydesign.com/Disclosure:Securities and investment advisory services offered through Integrity Alliance, LLC, Member SIPC. Integrity Wealth is a marketing name for Integrity Alliance, LLC. Retire By Design is not affiliated with Integrity Wealth.IUL Disclosure:Indexed Universal Life Insurance is an insurance contract that, depending on the contract, may offer a guaranteed annual interest rate and some participation growth, if any, of a stock market index. Such contracts have substantial variation in terms, costs of guarantees and features and may cap participation or returns in significant ways. Any guarantees offered are backed by the financial strength of the insurance company, not an outside entity. Investors are cautioned to carefully review an indexed universal life insurance for its features, costs, risks, and how the variables are calculated.SSA & SSA Max Disclosures:Not associated with or endorsed by the Social Security Administration, Medicare or any other government agency. Maximizing your Social Security Benefits assumes foreknowledge of your date of death. If as an example you wait to claim a higher monthly benefit amount but predecease your average life expectancy, it would have been better to claim your benefits at an earlier age with reduced benefits.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-leslie-hammock-founder-of-retire-by-design-discussing-sequence-of-return

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 Leslie Hammack, who's the founder of Retire by Design, and we'll be talking about the risks of retirement. Leslie, welcome to the program. Thank you. Glad to be here. Hey, I'm looking forward to talking with you because I know that sometimes people don't like to hear negative things like risks in anything.

But if we know some of the risk of retirement, then we can be prepared and put some things in place. So I know that I want to learn from what your years of experience have provided that you provide to your clients. But before we dive into that, give us a little bit of your background and story and how did you get into the financial service? industry? Well, it started on a sad note. My father at age 50 was killed by a drunk driver when I was in college. But we were fortunate enough that he had had a good advisor, especially on the estate planning side of the equation and life insurance side of the equation. And it made a big impression on me. And I felt like it was a noble, noble business to go into. So I started my career on the insurance side of the equation with mass mutual right out of college and spent about 13 years with them before I broke off and went independent and spread out and went back to school, so to speak, and got additional licenses for fee-based planning and assets under management, as well as my insurance and estate planning background.

And then how long have you been in the industry? A little over 40 years, as I said, started right to college. Wow. That's been a minute or two. And I know you've seen a lot of trends and changes. I think it's really neat that you got into the industry because you saw something that happened and your parents were protected. And so you got into that side of the business, the insurance side. And then as time went by, you thought, you know, insurance is just one small piece of a full, you know, finance.

financial plan or planning for retirement and then you got into more. So I know today we want to talk about risks in retirement. Talk a little bit about some of these risks. I know that, you know, when you think about retirement, you people typically think, I put my money in the market. Well, that could be risky, right? Oh, exactly. I talk about the four colors of money with new clients or new prospective clients all the time.

and I refer to the money in the market as red money, meaning that it's, you know, people invest in it for the primary reason that hope to make better returns than anywhere else, but they have to be aware and willing to accept risk on the other side of the equation. I like to talk about five risks over time. There's market risk, which you're referring to now. There's tax risks, there's longevity risk,

interest rate and inflation risk, and one more big risk is the lack of planning for long-term care. Yeah. Yeah, I want to touch on all of those because obviously you can probably do a weekend seminar on this and still not be going past scratching the surface. But let's talk just a little bit more about that market risk because it sounds to me like when money is in the market, you said it's red money because it's kind of like almost stop or be careful or, you know, because that volatility, you know, you turn the news on every day and you see the stock market's just up down and all around. How do you advise your clients to

address that risk of volatility in the market? Well, first of all, the proper diversification is really critical. Sometimes having investments in things that are non-correlated to the market on the down side. I refer to retirement planning as three phases, the accumulation phase, the preservation phase, which is right at retirement, and the distribution phase, which is the most critical part. And without proper planning with diversification and having some different type of asset classes in your portfolio, you could suffer some severe damage to your retirement income if it happens if the downside happens at the wrong time.

Yeah, I'll get into a little later talking about sequence of returns and the risk of sequence of returns a little bit. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, I know that it would be nice if we all had a crystal ball and knew when the market's going up and down because then we'd get in and out, but we don't. So you have to take some precautionary measures. I know the other risk you were talking about is tax risk. And, you know, some of these things we're talking.

about these risks like market and tax and long-term care and inflation, these are things we cannot control. You know, if we were talking about the risk of our exercise routine, well, we can just control that. We can eat better and we can exercise more. But these other risks like taxes, we don't control those. How do you advise your clients in addressing tax risk? Well, first of all, everyone needs to be aware and realize that tax laws change frequently. We've seen dramatic changes in the estate tax laws over the years. And right now, the hold-up on the big beautiful bill, as they talk about it, is some provisions in there about the debt, as well as the desire by one party to renew the tax cuts that happened back in

2017. Otherwise, if that doesn't happen, we're going to see probably the largest tax increase in history. And clients have no control over that. So I think it's important to understand that you can't ignore taxes in your retirement. You've got to plan, try to plan for it as best you can. One example that I give of that is something called Irma. It has to do with Medicare. And people don't realize, a lot of people don't realize, don't know what Irma's all about. It's spelled IRMAA, but it has to do with the amount of income that you have in retirement versus what your Social Security benefits are going to be and the cost of Medicare. This is a problem that if you have excess income over certain limits,

you could literally lose your entire Social Security benefits by being up by the cost of Medicare. But we talk about that a good debt as well. That's a really good point. That's part of the taxes question there because not having to pay more, no more Medicare. That's like another tax, more tax on your Social Security. You know, and it kind of brings to my mind, you know, I like that you use word pictures. Like we call that red money, you know, and when I think about, you know, money and retirement

and risk, sometimes that picture of the water bucket comes to mind with holes in it. And you can't plug up all the holes because you can never elit. eliminate taxes or inflation, but you can mitigate and lessen them as much as possible. So with these taxes, you know, the old joke is there's only two things, you know, guaranteed in life, death and taxes. Well, we know taxes are there. We know we have to deal with it. And many people have money in an IRA or a 401k that's never been taxed. Well, when the taxman comes calling at certain times, you've got to deal with it. And there's just some things that you need to plan ahead of time. And I know that if a client comes to you enough ahead, you can put some good

things in place to make it as lessened as possible. Exactly. And there are ways to make your retirement income tax-free. They're limited number of ways, but with proper planning and proper strategizing with it with clients, don't wait too late. Roth IRAs are a great way to have tax-free income. Of course, everybody knows about municipal bonds, which are federally tax-free, maybe federal and state tax-free, the bonds which are in your state. And then some, then a little known strategy is that life insurance income can be tax-free, talking about income while you're living on life insurance. And we can talk about that a little later. You know, I think that it's really interesting at this point to have this thought in mind.

we're never going to talk about specific, you know, recommendations or things because everyone is different. If you sat down with 10 people in a row and listened to what they need and gave recommendations, you would hear 10 different stories. So I think that the big thing that is really helpful for people to understand is you might hear some things or, you know, bond or annuity or life insurance, all these things out there. But it's it's what benefits you best. It's what you need and where are you right now and what is the end result in retirement that you're desiring? And then what would that proper plan look like to you? So some of these thoughts and ideas are just things to keep in mind. But there is never one plan that fits for every single person like a cookie cutter, right?

Never. I never have in the meetings I have every week. No meeting is exactly alike. No situation calls for the same thing. Yeah. I look at strategies in investing in retirement. It's like a golf bag with your golf clubs in it. There's a reason there's 14 different golf clubs in your golf bag.

No one in a one clubs is going to be used for everything. It'll be fit for every situation. Yeah, that's a really good point. So, you know, let's move on to another risk that you already mentioned. But what I said was these are. so frustrating because you can't control them, like interest rate and inflation. So when rates go up, that could impact things like your CDs, your bonds, the stock market, all these, you know, like a seesaw. When you push up on down on it, it goes up somewhere else. Talk a little bit

about the risk of interest rate and inflation and how you could be prepared for that. Well, yes, interest rates is something that's largely beyond any of our, any of us, anybody's control. But they do affect, they can affect your stock portfolio in a positive way or a negative way. I think they help fuel the stock market when the interest rates were real low to a large extent. When interest rates started rising up, some stocks got hit pretty bad. And so you have to be aware of the interest rate effects on your, on your portfolio, as well as effects of it on your income.

You know, back 15 years ago, people will live, People were living fairly comfortably. Average income people were living fairly comfortably on their Social Security check. And they may have had $300,000 or $400,000 in the bank earning 6% or 7% interest, which was making a big subsidy in helping them live comfortably in retirement. Well, that changed dramatically about 10 years ago. And people suddenly saw that income evaporate when interest rates went practically to zero. So you have to be aware of the effects that interest rates can have, you know,

on your portfolio and on your retirement income. Inflation risk is on the other side of the equation. And, of course, that's, you've got to be, you've got to have some exposure to ways to have your income. Your portfolio increase in value over time. It's offset the effects of inflation because it will. It is occurring every year, some years more than others. But if you don't plan for it,

you'll be caught shortchanged on your retirement down the road. Okay. That's a really good point. You know, and I think that planning, you know, when you hear the word retirement planning or planning for the future, there's so many things that I know that you would recommend, you know, hey, you can't plan two days before you retire. You've got to have some of these things in place and be looking well ahead so that, so that you know exactly what could happen. And then you have a plan in place for that. You don't want to go, wow, inflation reared its ugly head. and rates are high, what should I do, and then start planning? You should know that if and when inflation goes up and interest rates go up, here's what we will calmly do because we have this plan in place. So I think that that's some of those great points that you're bringing up there, is just being ready. That's exactly right. And I think that's the role than an advisor than an advisor plays. If you're trying to do it by yourself without a professional advice, you could find yourself stepping on a booby trap.

You know, and I know we touched on the point that there is never one plan for every single person. We know that. But let's even, you brought that up, and I think it made me think of something else. So many times in our technology world that we're in today, I feel like people just go to technology and Google and go, oh, what should I do about? oh, should I invest in? Oh, the market is doing this. What should I do? You'll get 4,327 trillion answers and get so confused. So that's where sitting down with someone like yourself that can say, okay, here's where you are. Here's where you want to be. Here's all the factors that we know about. Now, let's see if this fits right. How would this make you feel? So I think that's the big thing is having someone that you can trust and sit down with rather than listening to all that. ways that could really confuse you. Well, that's where the fiduciary advisor comes into play. Because as a fiduciary, we're committed to doing, always doing what's in the client's best

interest. That's the fiduciary rule as opposed to the suitability rule, which doesn't hold to that high of a standard. So, yes, I very much agree with what you just said there. and it is important that people, you know, I think it's really helpful to, I think it is helpful to get another third-party fiduciary opinion about what they're doing right now, what could be better, how it could be made better. And, you know, I know a lot of times people hear a word like fiduciary and I'll take care of you,

but there's actually a compliance and legal responsibility that that holds advisors like yourself to where if you give advice that's not beneficial to someone, it could come back on you. So not only do you want to do the right thing because it's the right thing, but you're held to that fiduciary responsibility. So when clients are working with a fiduciary advisor, they know that they're getting some good, solid advice. Exactly.

It's called the best interest rule. And it came into strong compliance and enforcement, several years ago and and you got to be you don't have a choice if you're a producer you have to comply with it. Yep. You know, you mentioned another risk of longevity risk and I know it sounds kind of strange to go, hey, we're living longer and that's a risk. Well, yes, we are taking better care of ourselves. We're exercising better, eating better, have better health care. So that means that we're living longer. I know back in the 40s or 50s, the the life expectancy tables for financial planning and retirement showed people retiring, you know, at a much, or living past

retirement at a much lower age than it is now. Talk a little bit about the risks that living longer brings. Oh, wow. Well, there is something like over 150,000 or 200,000 centenarians in this country right now, people over 100 years old. When I started out on the like insurance side of the equation in the business profession in years ago, we didn't run illustrations past about age 90. And if you had a permanent life insurance policy, you made it to 90, they cashed you out. Now, modern life insurance policies are designed to carry as far out as age 120. And that's all accredited to the, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to,

science and it's keeping us alive longer. That means we're not needing. even more less surgeries, but most of us are living longer. And if you hadn't planned for that, if you hadn't planned for the effects of inflation, and then some other planning for some other unexpected things, you could run out of money well before your demise. Yep. That's the point right there that I was thinking.

I was thinking correctly is, you know, yeah, you're living longer, but ooh, did you plan the right way? Do you have enough money? So make sure that, you know, well ahead of the day you punch that last clock and say, I'm retiring, make sure that you have put that plan into place to have enough money to last two and through retirement. And, you know, you mentioned long-term care. And I know that there's some statistics saying that a huge percentage of us at some point will need some kind of long-term care. Talk a little bit about how that risk should be factored into planning. Well, you know, we all deal with, you know, ensuring this, ensuring that, ensuring the boat, insuring the car, insuring the house, a lot of which is required, of course. But the biggest, most probable, likely to happen risk is that most of us are going to need some sort of care at some point in our lives if we don't pass away due to some dread disease or accident like my father was in and not a little bill. and I mean like the chances of a couple one one of two one of one of one of one

one of one spouse of a couple eating long term care this day and time is like 75% versus the chances of the your house burning down is like in the single digits and yet a lot of people are just don't realize that risk is there and the cost is the care not the of it, not of reinsuring the risk

but the cost of paying for that risk out of your own pocket is enormous and it can literally destroy your retirement if you don't make provisions for it some way or the other. And I tell clients all the time,

you know, it's your choice whether you decide to re-insure the risk and buy some sort of long-term care coverage in some shape of form or do it yourself.

Just make sure you make provisions one way or the other, because if you don't, it can devastate your retirement. Yeah, and like we've said, oh, go ahead. To that end, I offer every potential client a complementary analysis of their retirement picture with a state-of-the-art retirement analysis program that I purchased a number of years ago, has been updated many times, to keep up at the times. and it shows scenarios of what inflation can do to your retirement based upon your current planning. Well, that's amazing.

What long-term care can do to your retirement if it happens to you or to your spouse if you're married? And what its lack of estate planning can do to your retirement in the end of your debt and without proper liquidity. So it's a great program. And most people that just about everybody we do it for is like amazed at it. And frankly, about 85% of the time, most people find out they've got a problem they didn't realize. Yeah. But if you have that problem, you didn't realize and you do that well ahead of time, you can make some plans. So I think that's a wonderful place to stop here, Leslie, and say, hey, if someone is thinking about some of these risks we've talked about and said, I wonder how they impact my retirement.

what's the best way that they can reach out to you and learn more and get that complementary analysis? Well, they can reach us by phone at the following number, 478, 329-0339. Or they can email us at Leslie, L-E-S-L-E-S-L-I-E at Retire by Design.com. Either way. Excellent. They can also visit my website. They can also visit my website at Retirebydesign.com. Retiredbydesign.com.

And I'll make sure to put that link in the show notes so that people can click right on it and visit your website. So thank you so much for coming on. It's been a real pleasure talking with you today. My pleasure. 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.

www. influential entrepreneurs radio.com.