Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Maurice Bailey, President of Wealthy Way Financial Discussing Guaranteed Income

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

As the Safe Money Coach I have been helping individuals, families, and business owners BULLETT Proof their assets through Safe and Tax Efficient Strategies since 2003. I grew up in Massachusetts where I attained two Associate degrees in Business Marketing and Business Management. I currently live in Montgomery County, Maryland with my two daughters ages 11 and 17. I currently specialize in Optimal Income Strategies, that assures my clients pay less in income taxes while providing a Guaranteed Income streams for Life. My Social Security Income Strategies provide a way for my clients to clearly envision their Retirement from the first to their last day. I am a Certified Financial Educator (CFED) and a member of the National Ethics Association as well as the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (NAIFA).Learn More: https://wealthywayfinancial.com/Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-maurice-bailey-president-of-wealthy-way-financial-discussing-guaranteed-income

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, Maurice Bailey. He's the president of Wealthy Way Financial and we'll be talking about guaranteed income. Maurice, welcome to the program. Mike, thank you very much for having me. Thank you for having me.

Hey, you are welcome. And, you know, I always, I'm kind of like a word smith. I love how words flow. And when I hear the word guarantee, it just really makes, you know, your eyes light up. And when you couple that with guaranteed income, it's like, I want to learn about that. So I'm excited to hear your perspectives on guaranteed income. But before we dive in there, give us a little bit of your story and your background. And how did you get into financial services? Well, I got into financial services via the life insurance industry, if you will. Many, many years ago, I lost a couple of friends who died at young ages. And the common theme at that point was that there was no life insurance.

So I got into that industry specifically because I wanted to help families who needed help but they didn't know that they needed it. And that actually led me to a deeper dive, if you will, into financial services where I would meet with, you know, I would meet with an older couple and the couple may say something like, hey, you know, where were you 15 years ago when I needed your help to figure how I can have a better retirement? And at that point, I said, you know what? I was just going to say, you have so far said the word help twice, which is so refreshing because there's so many times that I'm sure that people would say, oh, well, I wanted to get into an industry that makes a lot of money. So I went in, you know, no, you, you recounted a situation where you could help someone

and this couple asked for your help. And so that's just a refreshing focus. Absolutely. Absolutely. So it led me to where I am now, which is really loving to help families, plan for their future for the last part, if you will, you know, the second half of your of their life, which is probably the most important part because they essentially are cutting off a earned income and they're going to using their assets now for a way of income. And we have to make sure that if we can, we can help every family to have a comfortable, stress-free, worry-free retirement. And that is my aim to provide for my clients. You know, I love it. And I think that, you know, the time for taking risks is in the early years,

20s, 30s. But at some point, you're like, okay, we need to downshift and let's get into some protected strategy. So talk a little bit about guaranteed income. What is it? And why is it so important to putting into place in a financial plan for retirement? Well, guaranteed income essentially is a set amount of money that someone can receive in the form of a monthly, quarterly, quarterly, or annually amount that they receive for the rest of their life. The key word there, Mike, is guaranteed. Yeah. There are many different ways in retirement that you can collect income, but the most important ones are the ones that are actually going to give you that peace of mind that lay down and sleep well at night kind of feeling

that you get when you have income that you know each month, no matter how much you spend, going to be able to get another check the following month. That's what guaranteed income is. You know, I think that that is what people would suspect, but I would say that if we were to poll 100 people, that 99 out of 100 would say, yeah, it sounds like pie in the sky. Is that even possible? You know? Absolutely. And it, it's a good, it's a good question for them to ask, but there's certainly some ways that we can prove to them that guaranteed income is the best source for them as far as being able to reliably collect a check at the time when you need it most when you're no longer working.

Yep. Oh, yeah. So talk a little bit about how guaranteed income is different than other kinds of income because I think there's nothing wrong with, you know, investing in the markets per se in your 20s, 30s, that kind of thing. when you have plenty of time to take the volatility on the chin, but when you start shifting into guaranteed income, how is that different than the other kinds of income people might have been told from their advisor in years past? So when it comes to how guaranteed income differs from other types

of income, I think a good example would be if you have someone who's got, say, a million dollars that they have in assets. Now, they have that with a brokerage firm and that brokerage firm would safely say, hey, look, you know, based on this million dollars that you have, based on our expected rate of return, we're going to be able to get you to draw from that pool of money, say, 4% per year is the average rule. Per year that that client is somewhat counting on, the following year, it may not be to their advantage to pull out 4%. because the market could have gone down 20%.

So that makes the amount of capital that they have less usable for their future income. So rather than go up and down, and really that's living that just in case retirement, rather than go up and down in the market, what you want is you want that steady stream of income that whether the market goes up, down or sideways, you know that the, the, the expenses that you have are going to be covered by that guaranteed income. You know, unfortunately, the traditional advisor strategy of, oh, let's put it in these sector of stocks and mutual funds and all that, they can't use that word guarantee because, you know, there is no guarantee in the market. And I would suspect that one of the things you get with your clients is they tell you that it just, it's wonderful to understand logically the guarantee. but I think emotionally for them to say,

I can watch the news and not get a pit in my stomach when I see the market tanked. I can open up my quarterly statements from my retirement portfolio and not see negative, you know, big drops in my numbers. So that piece of mind is just something that almost can't be put a dollar figure on, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. Let me share with you a client that I actually have. He's a heart surgeon in this area.

when I met this guy he was in his mid-50s. And, you know, we've known each other for 18 years or so. And over the years, he stretched, hey, look, I'm not going to ever retire. I'm not going to retire. Finally, he decided in his early 70s that he's ready to retire now. Now, this guy had significant assets because he was earning, you know, over a million dollars a year. But, you know, in two years or so into retirement, I happened to give him a call just to check to see how he was doing, you know, how retirement. was treating him. And he said, you know, Maurice, I can't really sleep well at night because I

always have stress over the market. How can I fix that? Wow. That, I think, is a problem that a lot of people face, but because they don't know what is available to them, then they choose to go down the same path that they're going down now, which could end up putting them in a position where either, A, they don't get that sleep at night that they need to be comfortable in retirement. That is primary, if you will, to what they need to have to have a relaxed retirement where you don't have to stress over where money's coming from and how it may impact your life next year. Yeah. And then when you start tying in things like, oh, you hear that inflation is, you know, going running rampant,

well, you put that in with maybe your portfolio taking a hit, and now your money's not buying what it used to buy last year, and your portfolio went down. And all of that risk and volatility, and you mentioned insurance is how you got into the industry. It's kind of like, you know, this is not real, but it's just kind of makes me think you kind of provide people sleep insurance because you help them sleep better at night because they know their money is protected. That's a neat example. I love that sleep insurance. That is exactly what's provided via guaranteed income. So you didn't mention that client's name, which is wonderful. Of course, we would never talk about specific clients. But think about that phone call and what you were able to do with them because it makes me think about, well, what are some sources of guaranteed income? So when you had this person say, I can't sleep well at night, I've got a bunch of money in the market, what are some of the things that you would recommend when it fall? comes to guaranteed income. What does that actually look like? So let's talk about a few different sources of guaranteed income, right? Some of these things people don't really think about. But one good source would be Social Security. That's a source that everybody knows about, but they don't think about it in the way of it is providing, in fact, a guaranteed income for the rest of their lives. People don't think about it that way,

but Social Security is one of the surest ways for guaranteed income. Another would be a pension. A pension is another guaranteed source of income that a lot of people rely on, especially I'm in the district, the Washington, D.C. area where there's a lot of federal employees. So I have a lot of people, a lot of clients who actually have a pension that they're relying on, and they can actually couple that in most cases with their Social Security, providing two good sources of guaranteed income for them. Hmm.

Yeah. So I think a lot of times people think, oh, well, yeah, pension. That's guaranteed income. But I don't know statistically how many people are able to get pensions because that's kind of a thing of the past. But it's pretty slim. Social Security, that's a great one because that's a steady check that comes in. What are some of the other financial tools that people could be considering?

And again, I think I like, I think that you would agree with this. There is never one specific solution and formula that works for every single person. It's all different. You need to see what would benefit people and you would show them some options and let them make that decision. But what are some of those things that you would bring to their attention to consider? So one of those things would be what's called a personal, what I call a personal pension. A personal pension would be in the form of an annuity. people may not understand fully what an annuity is and what it does. But essentially, if you go back to

Social Security, which I mentioned earlier, that is an annuity that pays an income for life. If you go back to pension, that is an annuity that pays an income for life. So when you actually get to the annuity offered by a life insurance company, that also is a guaranteed income for life. So that's probably one of the best ways to look at guaranteed income is through that annuity. Yeah, that's a really good point. And I think that we're not going to go into the weeds on what that would look like and all the options. But that's just something I think that people should tuck away in their mind to go. You know, I've heard about that and maybe even have heard some, you know, things they don't understand about anewy.

Oh, I've heard that they're bad or good or whatever. but I think that it would make sense to look closer. I know myself, I've got a large annuity for that exact same reason because I don't want to worry that, you know, I could lose principle. And with an annuity, you'll never, ever lose principle. And you can choose one that has a fixed component to it where you know that you're going to get X percent every single year. And that really is a good feeling. Absolutely. I would say, so the conversation I had when we were talking earlier about the client that I helped the heart surgeon,

that is a major piece that we actually helped him with, which was make sure that no matter what happens to his money that he has in the market, he knows now that not only are his expenses covered, but also his play money, his money that he uses to go help. you know, go on vacation with the kids or go see his grandkids across the country or take a trip around the world with his wife. All those things we were able to actually cover with that source, that guaranteed income source. Well, and also, isn't it true that the income, guaranteed income stream, the cash flow, the amount you get every month from that annuity because it's based on, you know, the way it's set up and all that. But that is not tapping into the principle. You know, like if you had X number of dollars in the market and you took out Y number of dollars every month, then, you know, you might be dipping into the principal.

Whereas when you're getting cash flow from that annuity, your principal is still there. So it helps bridge that gap of people worrying about running out of money in retirement. 100% agreed, absolutely. That's pretty huge. So can you think of another example of maybe someone that came to you and they were doing a different strategy? and then now this is really helping them really have a clear focus on their retirement strategy? So, yeah, I do have another example that I can give of another client who essentially what they needed to do was to find a way to end up paying less in their overall taxes.

So we were able to put together a strategy for them that enabled them to not only get more income. Because if you think about it, usually when you're using investment money for income, you get a smaller percentage that you're able to pull out of your money each and every month versus the annuity where you actually are able to pull out a larger percentage. So a good example would be if someone has that million dollars in their portfolio, if they use the market for their income, they have to use that entire million. when in fact if they have an annuity, they may be able to use 600,000, 700,000 at best to be able to draw the same amount of income that they would have needed to draw from a million dollars from the market. So it's much easier for that client to be able to say, hey, look, let me set aside some money for guaranteed income and still keep some money in the market. So they satisfy both ends of it that sleep at night, plus they actually do have some funds that's growing. Yeah, that's a really, really good point. And I think that once you can start thinking, wait a minute, what about that?

That sounds like really interesting. Well, maybe you need to sit down and see how that looks in your situation because everyone a situation is different. The doctor you mentioned that made a million a year, not many people at that level. But I'm sure that if you can put together a guaranteed income plan for someone making, you know, owning their own business or, you know, things like that, it's going to feel a whole lot different than what they initially suspected because I really do feel like people are worried that they're not going to be able to retire at the age they want or have enough money to last

through retirement because isn't it true that we're all taking better care of herself and eating better and better health care and we might be living a little bit longer than those tables showed decades ago? Not only that, Mike. one, there's many studies out there that scientifically and mathematically show that people who have guaranteed income sources, they not only have a happier lifestyle, but they live longer. And there's studies that show that those same people, they go to the doctors more, they get checkups more, you know why?

They want to get as much of that income as they can. And when that guarantee kicks in, they don't have much to worry about. So they want to live longer. They want to have a better lifestyle. And guaranteed income provides that for them. You know, that couldn't be a better way to wrap up that conversation. So, Maurice, if someone is interested in learning more about how they might be able to benefit from guaranteed income, what's the best way that they can learn more and then also reach out and connect with you? Sure.

Well, they can reach me at wealthywayfinancial.com. That's wealthywayfinancial.com. com. Excellent. Well, Maurice, thank you so much for coming on the show today. It's been a real pleasure talking with you. Thank you for having me, Mike. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders.

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