Business Innovators Radio - Interview With Melissa George Founder & CEO of InvestHER Fiduciary Solutions-Selecting the Right Financial Planner

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

Melissa George is a seasoned financial expert, renowned for her mastery in financial planning, insurance, and investment strategies, specifically tailored for small business proprietors. With nearly thirty years of proven excellence in the field, Melissa has refined her ability to craft comprehensive plans that perfectly align with her client’s aspirations and objectives.As a trusted advisor, Melissa prioritizes protecting her client’s financial well-being. Notably, she is the first woman of color to achieve the prestigious CERTIFIED FINANCIAL FIDUCIARY® designation, operating under the utmost standards of integrity, confidentiality, and diligence. At the helm of InvestHER Fiduciary Solutions for the past 18 years, Melissa has guided her clients to financial prosperity, enabling them to RETIRE WITH CONFIDENCE.Melissa’s academic background includes a BBA from Georgia State University, complemented by a series of professional accreditations including ACCREDITED INVESTMENT FIDUCIARY®, CERTIFIED FUND SPECIALIST®, and FINRA® Arbitrator. Additionally, she is a Goldman Sachs One Million Black Women Business Scholar.Beyond her professional achievements, Melissa is deeply engaged in various professional and community organizations, including AAAFA (Association of African American Financial Advisors), NAWOSB (National Association of Women-Owned Small Businesses), WEOP (Women’s Entrepreneurial Opportunity Project), United Way VIP Alumni Association, Girls Inc of Greater Atlanta Board, and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, IncLearn More: https://www.investherfiduciarysolutions.com/Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-melissa-george-founder-ceo-of-investher-fiduciary-solutions-selecting-the-right-financial-planner

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, Melissa George, who's the founder and CEO of Invest Her Finuciary Solutions, and we'll be talking about selecting the right financial planner. Melissa, welcome back to the program.

Thank you so much, Mike. I'm happy to be back. Hey, so on this conversation, I don't know why it should take more than 30 seconds because you just Google and choose the first one you see and then you sign right up with the financial planner, right? I bet some people do. You know, I'm being really funny, but unfortunately and sadly, there's too many things in our life that we use the quick. AI and Google for that we really shouldn't and because it causes confusion. So let's just kind of jump even from that point right there. When you're thinking about your retirement and your financial future and you need to align yourself with someone that you respect that can guide you through the process

and you're looking for a financial planner, you really shouldn't go Googling for anyone out there. You should be really vetting them and looking for a partner. So where does that start with someone? Oh, this is such a loaded question, but, you know, while a lot of people do start with the internet or sometimes they'll start with the friend or, you know, family member asking them, you know, who are you working with? There are some, you know, some key considerations that people should consider when they are looking for a financial planner. First, I think it's important that they start to kind of research and educate themselves on the, all the letters, right, the alphabet suit behind. people's right because those letters they mean something um but what i think is important is i think they should always maybe ask get two or three names i think they should really go through an interviewing process with each of these prospective planners and there are some very specific questions that they should ask

i know very often when people find me and and people do find me on the internet we have a you know a 30-minute at Zoom. And I tell them, you know, all about me and my services and, you know, how I work with clients. But I also know that they're, they're usually not asking the right questions. And so I usually provide them a list of questions that I think they should ask all of the people that they're talking to and the questionnaire that I give them already has my answers in it. So they also kind of have something to compare it to. Yeah. But I think that's important. and looking at credentials, looking at experience, looking at approach, and the questions that they ask, I think that's a great start in terms of finding a, perhaps a lifelong financial planner that they can work with.

Yeah. You know, and let's even talk about that. You know, it's not like you're going to go to Google and put in best financial planner in my city, my town, and go, oh, now I'm confused. But what's going to happen is you're going to hear about someone. You're going to talk to your friend, your neighbor, your family member, your church member, go, who do you use? And then guess what you do? You then use Google to really dive in deep and verify. And when that is being searched and vetted online, you do want to see what kind of credentials they've got. Are there bad things, good things, other things? So that's really huge.

But I want to really talk a little bit here about what you just brought up. I want to know that list of questions because if someone is out there, you know, because listen, there's a lot of people that, you know, the old saying, you don't know what you don't know. And if I'm talking to or if a woman is talking to a lot of financial planners looking for the best one, the right fit. They don't even know the best questions asked, like you said. So what are some of those questions? So here's a short list of a few of the questions. But obviously, you know, after they get through asking what professional licenses and designations do they have, it would be beneficial for them to ask, are they or their firm licensed and registered with the state or SEC or FINRA? and FINRA is the regulatory agency for the securities industry. They could ask about how do you mitigate conflicts of interest in your practice?

So we're kind of talking about that fiduciary standard. Here's a good one. Can anyone besides you benefit from the recommendations? Can anyone besides me benefit? So if you give me a recommendation and I implement it, is the advisor the only person that's going to benefit for? or really the question is really about is there a kickback to somebody else is somebody else is going to be compensated right um here's a really really good one what has any a relationship right oh can you say that again i missed it what happens if i need to end our

professional relationship oh okay right would there be any penalties or fees associated with terminating the relationship and here's one other one that i'll throw in can i have it in writing Ooh. Good question. Yeah, that's really interesting because a couple of those, what do I know, but I wouldn't have thought of any of those. I would have thought, how long have you been in business and do you have a college degree? I don't know. But who else can benefit? And can I get it in writing?

That's putting your money where your mouth is. That's really, really huge. And when you provide to someone those questions and, the and the answers they should be looking for. And I would say that if someone is kind of fumbling and bumbling and answering and kind of all over the place, you're kind of making a note going, okay. Yeah. I see where you're.

So I think that's a really, really neat approach to helping someone as they're looking, because you should not just go Google, click, hire done. You should be talking to a couple, three people just to see who resonates best with you. Absolutely. These are questions that, you know, that advisor should have the answers, you know, right off the top of their head. They should not be hard to find. But, you know, Mike, to your point about, you know, credentials or designations or, you know, where did they go to school, those types of things, the licenses. That's actually pretty easy. But I find that probably 99.9% of the population of the public, they don't know how to vet the advisor. They don't know where to look for this information. So it's okay. Can I share that? Can I share that? information now? Yeah. Okay, so the very first place they should go was broker check. If they start typing in brokercheck.finra.com, they literally can look up any financial planning firm, any financial advisor who has a securities license, and they can see all of their credentials

in terms of, not the designations, but they can see all of their licensing, they can see what firms they've worked at. But the most important thing is they can actually look up disclosures. Disclosures are demerits, if you will. Okay. They could be insignificant or they could be really, really important. For example, if someone has maybe gone through a divorce, which many people have, and there's been some debts and those kinds of things, they may see something like that. But that's life, right?

So I wouldn't ding somebody for that. But they may see something that's more important. They may see fraud. They may see where someone actually signed, afford somebody's name. They may see where the company was operating in some fraudulent activities, things of that nature. Those would be flags, right? If you see three or four dings on someone's record. But this is all public information and most people don't know.

So, you know, in my list of questions, I actually give them. Here's the broker check website to securities component. And then also they can go to their state insurance commissioner's website and they can look up and then they can see. all of the insurance history with that particular advisor. They can see what companies they've been appointed with. They can see their continuing education record all the way back to when they very, very first got licensed. That information is out there forever.

And kind of as something fun to do, they literally could go to the broker check website and they could look up Bernie Madoff, right? Everybody knows the Bernie Madoff is. They literally can go on there and see his record is on there too. So none of us in the industry are exempt. And if they go on there and there's no record, then they are not securities licensed. That's important as well. You know, as you're describing that, it made me think, that's going to take a minute or two.

Not a month or two, but it might take 30 to 45 minutes, let's call it an hour. But it reminds me of the old saying, measure twice, cut once. That's right. You know, like if you didn't do this, you thought, I don't know, I had a nice conversation. and let's just go with this person. And then you found out like the relationship soured and that you got bad advice. And then you did these things. You would go, why didn't I know this ahead of time?

Well, you just decided not to do it. And so I think that's a huge piece that people need to think about is this could be a very long, and it should be a very long relationship. Let's go ahead and do some of these things that isn't hard to do. It doesn't cost any money. It's just a couple little clicks here and there. And you're telling them exactly where to go and look to look to look. for that's super important. Absolutely. Here's something else that I think is important for the viewers or the

listeners. Any time someone opens up a brokerage account, whether it's Schwab or E-Trade or, you know, there's obviously lots of companies out there. In the fine print, that little bitty print that's at the bottom, it talks about if there's a discrepancy between the client and the advisor that they're agreeing to arbitration. I happen to be a FINRA arbitrator, and I've sat on a few of these cases, which is really designed to make the client whole. If for some reason, something that's gone awry, they're agreeing to arbitration, a panel of three, at least one of those arbitrators would be an attorney.

The ones that I have sat on, I've sat on as the financial planner, the financial advisor, the person that's in the industry. And, you know, I've seen some really crazy things. but these types of things they end up being unless they're cleared they end up staying on that person's broker check record and you know when we make a decision it is it is binding as well and so most people don't realize that again when they're just opening that that brokerage account there are some protections in place for them and it's really designed because we know that in any industry everyone is not honest you're always going to have a couple of bad apples

right. But there's some protections in place. And so they really want to start getting familiar with FINRA, with looking at broker check, checking their advisor, checking, if they can look at advisors they've looked at it at the past and certainly advisors, the prospective advisors that they're thinking about working with because that relationship is really, really important. You're talking about someone who's going to be giving advice about your money, about your household, about insurance. It's going to really, really affect your family. And so, yes, Mike, you want to take a few extra clicks. A little bit of... Yeah, precautions.

So I know you work a lot with women. Have you ever worked with someone who didn't do this before in a previous relationship? They're looking to move from an advisor. They start talking to you and a few others. You'd mention these things. And maybe they start doing them and come back to you and go, oh, my goodness. This is so enlightening. You know, so contrast.

What is someone that you've worked with that this has come about and this is new to them? And they've really appreciated it. Yes, I am thinking of a client in particular right now. And we met, you know, just had a little introduction a while back. And then they were kind of seeking. And, you know, she went on to work with someone else. But a couple of years later, she came back to me, which obviously I knew that wasn't easy for her to do. But she went with someone.

In fact, she had been with two other people. And the second person had her replace the policies that she had, purchase with the first person. And when I went back and looked at the original policy and the second policy, there was nothing wrong with what she had. And that's actually something called churning. Because when we're replacing a policy, particularly if it's life insurance, with someone bought it when they were younger, healthier, the cost of insurance was less. We have to be very, very careful about replacements. And, you know, sometimes when we're replacing policies, they're also replacing riders. They're replacing.

benefits features that can't be, you know, that are not in the new product. And so by this time, she had already replaced what she had previously. You know, she's in a new product now. She's starting a brand new, you know, surrender period. These are all things that are to the detriment of the client. But the benefit of financial advisor number two. Absolutely, because they got paid again, right? You know, that was the whole thing is if I replace it, I'm going to get paid again. But if it's not in the best interest of the client, it should not be done. It is more beneficial to take the policy that they already have and maybe look at ways to tweak it, enhance it, make it better than to just replace it. And so by the time she came to me, that's what we did.

We didn't replace the newer policy that she had, but now it's just all about, well, how can we tweak it and make it work as efficiently and as best as possible? And those tweaks that probably you looked at and recommended didn't benefit you one dime, but she probably was going, wow. Thank you. This is correct. This is correct. There wasn't compensation there, but obviously there are other things that I'll do with her where, you know, there will be compensated. But at the end of the day, I want to make sure that she's in the best position that she can be in for her family and her future.

So, you know, again, not just about selling her a product or providing a service. You know, I'm here to, I want to impact. I want to impact her and her family in a positive way. I want her to be better for having worked with me than she was when she came to. me. So once you've gone through some of these steps and questions and vetting and now you've selected the one that you feel is the best advisor right now for you, I feel like it goes a little bit deeper to go, okay, now let's dive in to make sure that they're going to give the best advice based on my financial objectives. And I would venture to say that there are some

clients you work with that really are a little fuzzy on what their financial objectives are, kind of like, you know, hey, what's your life goal? And people are like, I don't know. how do you help a client understand and clarify their financial objectives so that the advice you give to them aligns with their financial objectives? Well, you know, part of the planning process is about really fine-tuning what these goals are. And yes, to your point, a lot of clients are not really clear about what they are. And, you know, part of my job is to help them figure out what those goals are, not to actually give them what their goal should be.

Yeah. But to coach them along, more specifically when, you know, some of the goals can be unrealistic, right? You know, in terms of how much money they want to make, you know, everybody wants to retire early, have tons and tons of money and live long. Yeah. But, you know, we have to bring reality into the situation and we have to look at the resources that they have, their disposable income, what they're able to invest or contribute on a monthly basis to reach their goals. So, yes. So a lot of it is also about just being realistic in what can. can we actually do? Obviously, none of us has a crystal ball, but we have history. We have

strategies that are tried and true. And so people can build in the discipline and the recommendations that we put in place to help them implement and monitor and make sure that we stay the people can have the retirement that they can have confidence with. Yeah, you know, you've talked several times about, you know, given the right advice and like in the example about the insurance, you know, that it was not illegal to do that, but it really wasn't the best thing to do for the client. So talk a little bit about that, the standards that you hold yourself to related to being a fiduciary because I know that we hear that a lot, but I think that there's a big difference between, you know, what's suitable to give advice to and fine, but it really doesn't adhere with some of those

deeper standards. Yes. So the financial services industry is held to the suitability standard, which just means that when we make recommendations, it's appropriate. It's appropriate for the client. But the fiduciary standard is the highest standard. And that standard is all about making sure that what I'm recommending is not only suitable, but is also in the best interest of the client. So I will never put my interest above the client, not when it refers to commissions or compensation, not when it refers to, there's no, you know, I don't receive any kickbacks. I don't have any quotas. I am not married to any particular company or product. So I have complete objectivity. And I think that's the way that it should be. You know, I did work as a captive

agent the first six years of my career where I could only sell the products and services of the company that I worked for, which became a challenge, right? Because does every company have every single product that they have is the best product for the client, you know, that doesn't happen. So once I became an independent, it really allowed me to go out and shop the market for a client. I can look at so many different products and different companies. And so I think, you know, that along with the recommendations and understanding that I'm not trying to hit a target number for the company that I work for. I own my own company. So I have complete objectivity. I think this is something that fares very, very well for clients. And there are statistics out there that show that

when someone works with a fiduciary and they don't have, you know, a lot of these underlying fees or excessive fees, they can actually add up to 20% more to their retirement, their retirement portfolio when they retire. That's a huge number. That can be a significant amount of money that they have more in retirement. Either maybe they can retire sooner. They can have a higher standard of living. They can do more things. So I think that's really, really important. And the fiduciary standard is one that is under some scrutiny right now, but the Biden-Harris administration and the Department of Labor are looking to have that across the board, which I am a proponent of. So I'd be happy that happens. But whether they do or not, that is the way that I... It should be done. Yeah. No matter who does it,

it should be done. Because at the end, at the end, it. end of the day, the client needs to be protected and taken good care of. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, so we kind of come through this conversation and going, okay, you need to know the right questions. You need to select the right advisor who aligns with your financial objectives. And then they need to give good fiduciary advice that is the best for you.

I kind of think this. Let's kind of wrap up with this thought. Talk a little bit about how you, of course, do all of that. But that almost is like the starting point for what you do, because. you really take an extra layer of serving your clients, which is educating them and empowering them to do more. And I feel like some advisors out there could just go check, check, check the box and go, here's your advice. And it's good advice, fiduciary advice, but they don't really treat them as a person and empower and educate. How do you approach that? This is so important as well,

Mike. I'm glad you brought that up. I do end up working with a lot of women. And, you know, the investor in my company name is, that wasn't accidental. Her is really an acronym that has a lot of meaning. One, obviously, I'm a female. So my company is female founded. The bulk of my clientele are women. And a lot of those women are also entrepreneurs. So her is also a acronym for helping entrepreneurs retire. So there's a lot of meaning there. But yes, education is a part of the financial planning process. I love educating clients because at the end of the day, I want them to be able to make informed decisions for their family. I want to give them all the information to make a good choice. I don't want to just tell them, hey, I think you should do this. Here are your options. Here's

the pros and cons of each option. I want them to understand what they're doing for two reasons. One, you know, they're going to sleep well, right? Because they've seen it all. They've heard it all. They know everything that's available for them and they can make a decision. I'm going to sleep very well at night because I know that I didn't just handpick something and put it in front of them. I gave them all the information. But here's the other thing. And this is win-win for me. An educated client, a well-educated client is also someone who will give me a great referral, right?

So if I've done a great job for them, you know, they're going to go tell their family and friends and their coworkers. But I also want them to rest assured that, you know, we talk through all the options. There's nothing worse than a client coming back and saying, hey, I heard about this product over here. Why didn't you ever tell me about this? You know, my friend has this. That is never going to happen with me because I'm going to be. We're walking away scratching their head going, okay, we'll do it. But I don't have any clue what you said and I don't even know.

But go ahead. I'm just confused. You beat me down. We don't want that either. Absolutely. Yep. Nothing worse than that. Well, this has been super, super helpful to kind of really clear.

that vetting research process, super educational here for us. If someone is interested in reach out, connect with you to see what you can do for them, what's the best way they can do that? Yes, they can go to my website at InvestH-H-E-R, fiduciary Solutions.com. And once they're access my calendar, they can book a free 30-minute Zoom, and I would love to connect. Excellent. Well, Melissa, thank you so much for coming back on. It's been a real pleasure chatting with you. Thank you so much, Mike. I'm happy to be back, and hopefully you'll have me back again.

Yeah, awesome. Thank you. 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.com.