Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Ron Roberts Founder and CEO of Roberts Retirement Group Discussing Longevity Planning for Retirement

Episode Date: November 18, 2024

Ron was born in Burbank California and grew up in the Mojave Desert. Being the first of six children born to deaf parents, he learned responsibility at an early age. His commitment to family and faith is unwavering. It’s the essence of who he is and the foundation of his business success. Living for a higher purpose and caring for others has always been Ron’s focus.After high school, he joined the United States Coast Guard where he learned about hard work, discipline, and duty. He enjoyed serving his country and helping to keep people safe. He grew in experience through training, education, and travel. He developed a love for the sea and enjoys boating and sailing with friends and family.After completing his time with the Coast Guard, Ron served on a mission for the deaf in Chicago for his church. While there, he formed the first deaf scout troop in Chicago for the Boy Scouts of America. Returning from Chicago, Ron attended college in Stockton, California where he met his wife, Julie. They were married in the spring of 1984. In 1991, Ron and Julie moved to Amador County where they enjoyed raising their four daughters in a close knit community. Ron’s hobbies include reading, boating, sports, and traveling with his family. Ron also volunteered at a private school where he taught history and American Sign Language. Family, faith, and community are the most important things that define Ron.Ron’s chosen vocation as a Retirement Planning Professional allows him to use his experience, his gifts, and his love for family to help people in a very special way. Ron has been in the retirement planning industry since 1990. Founded in 2002, Roberts Retirement has grown over the years to serve families in northern California and around the country.Ron has served as President of the California Estate Planning Counsel and continues to mentor other retirement planning professionals all across the United States. He is constantly educating himself on the most up-to-date investment strategies and changes in the financial industry. Ron is recognized as a leader in the industry, is a sought-after speaker, and has been featured in Senior Market Advisor MagazineLearn more: https://www.robertsretirement.com/Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-ron-roberts-founder-and-ceo-of-roberts-retirement-group-discussing-longevity-planning-for-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 Ron Roberts, who's the founder and CEO of Robert's Retirement Group. Ron, welcome to the program. Well, thank you, Mike. glad to be here.

Hey, I'm excited to talk with you. I always love to hear people's perspectives on different retirement planning strategies. And I know today we want to talk about longevity planning, which is really interesting because I think that these days, we are all taking better care of ourselves and eating better and living a little bit longer statistically. But before we dive into your views and strategies on longevity planning, tell us a little bit about your story and background. And how did you get into financial services? Well, I've been financial services going on in 35 years. I was about 30 years of age and I was looking for a career change and had a friend named Andy. And he had a brand new BMW and I said, Andy, what do you do?

to get that BMW. And he said, well, I'm in financial planning. I said, my goodness, I've never thought about that, but how do you get in something like this? And he explained the processing. And so that's how I actually started. This was back in 1990, how I started in the financial industry because of a friend. Neat. You know, isn't that interesting? I've heard statistics before that most jobs are gotten by 85% of the time through personal networks, not posting or going to monster.com or indeed, but it's that personal touch. So that was really neat that you got into the industry from seeing a friend.

So as you started into the industry and developed your own kind of methodology and framework for how you're advising your clients, you start this topic here of longevity planning. and I think before we start talking about that, let's define it. What actually is longevity planning? Well, when I started my practice in 1990, back then, 76% of the United States workforce had pensions provide to them by their employers. And that means when they retired that they had this guaranteed income for life.

And regardless of how long they may live, they always had a. paycheck every month. Now, some of those pensions or leveled pensions means that the money's, the income state leveled. And then there are other types of pensions that would increase with inflation. But it was guaranteed. And then that number started to drop off suddenly because companies have decided they would no longer offer pensions to their employees. And so it was replaced with a concept called a 401K. And the difference is a 401k is not a guaranteed instrument that they would give you a guaranteed lifetime income. So the retirement climate has changed dramatically. So now people are concerned because there is longevity now because people

are taking better care of themselves, the advance of medicine, people are living longer lives. And more and more concerns is with my current plan, as I have the ability to offer me a lifetime income, regardless how long I may live. So their concern is, well, I run out of money. And so that's why people are looking for ways of innovation that we have, currently to replace a 401k that is market driven to something that will give them a guaranteed lifetime income, regardless of their life expectancy, and also have a type of plan that will increase with inflation every year so they'll be able to maintain their standard of living

for the rest of their lives. So that's the reason why longevity is a crucial part in retirement planning. Yeah, I think that you bring up a huge point about people taking better care of themselves. And also, I think I remember reading some statistics where women tend to live longer than men. And that plays another factor in longevity planning when you're putting together a plan for retirement, wouldn't it? Exactly. In fact, when there is a spouse involved, husband and wife, we talk about retirement plan.

planning for both husband and wife. So as you mentioned, statistically, women tend to live longer than men. So we want to be sure that the longevity plan is in place in case when the husband does exit that his wife will have the plan in place that she will basically be taken care of for the rest of her life. And so that's what we do. And it does give a couple a warm feeling that we call it stress-free retirement, that the stress has been taken away,

knowing that a plan has been implemented, knowing that no matter how long they may live, they have income, and they're able to maintain their standard of living for their balance of their lifetime. So this gives them a sense of comfort and sense of that they know they have a plan in place that will be in place because a lot of folks don't have a plan to address this. And so that's why longevity plan is crucial.

Yeah, you know, you mentioned something really a powerful, stress-free retirement. People these days don't want stress. They don't want drama. They want that peace of mind. And because we know that people are living longer, what are some of the key strengths? strategies that you're recommending to make sure that that financial security extends through the retirement years because I feel like sometimes people just have on their horizon, you know, I need to get to retirement age, which is X for me. So I get there. But they don't really factor in that longevity side of things, which is, okay, now I need my money to last a lot longer than what I thought. But what are some of those strategies that you're beginning to educate

your clients on to make sure that they're going to be secure and stress-free? Well, that's a great question. One of the things I looked at is where do companies that have pensions? What companies manage those pension plans? And I found out if they're called legal reserve companies. Legal reserve companies are insurance companies, and their primary purpose is to protect pensions. And so these legal reserve companies have adequate, what they call, reserves in place to protect the retirees pensions.

So regardless how the markets are, regardless how the economy is, they are guaranteed a pension for life. So these legal reserve companies protect their pensions. So today, people have 401Ks or IRAs, those type of plans. They can transfer their money from, say, a Schwab account. or a fidelity account that is set up to grow, but also has the ability to lose money based on the economy, and they roll that money over from a Schwab account or a Fidelity account over into a legal reserve account,

or now they know that their principal is protected, and also their growth is protected. So every 12 months, their growth is called a reset and that growth is now protected. So you never go backwards. You always go forward every year. And knowing that the growth that you have has the ability to beat inflation, that's a key component is knowing that your growth is outperforming inflation.

So that, therefore, every year you can step up your growth and then step up your income to stay with inflation so you can maintain your standard of living. Yeah, that's pretty huge. And I think that one of the big wins that your clients get is when you have that planned, you have a path forward, you have that peace of mind. So in terms of investment, what are some of those long-term growth strategies that you're finding that are really effective that retirees can be looking at to maintain and grow their wealth over several decades?

Yeah, so one of the growth aspects is we use what they call indexes. Indexes, people are familiar with, be like the S&P 500 index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average Index, the NASDAQ Index, and they're primarily what we call stock indexes. But however, today, with innovation and advancement in retirement planning, there are now currently over 300 indexes available in the country. And what's happening, we're seeing that indexes are becoming a more of a more of a place to grow your money because people have always been in traditional mutual funds and traditional exchange traded funds for the retirement plans.

But now people are learning that index funds or index planning is better because, as an example, one of the indexes I use currently is not a stock index. So therefore, the objective is to grow regardless of market conditions or regardless of the stock market, the objective is growth every year. So with the growth every year, without worried about the stock market, they know now their future, their accounts are growing based on regardless of the markets or the economy. So anyway, that's the key component is to be sure that their growth is indexed and a certain type of index. Yes.

Yeah, that's a good strategy to make sure it's tied to an index, but also make sure there's that protection and guarantee so that you don't have. that punch in the gut that, oops, my portfolio dropped. You know, one thing that came to my mind as we were talking about longevity and making it to retirement age, but then looking over the next horizon, which is how long in retirement do I need my money to last. I feel that a lot of times people would estimate that I need X number of dollars per month in retirement and to last this many years, but maybe they underestimate it because they aren't factoring in now. they have more time to spend more money to do things or travel or go visit family or start that charity. What are some of the things you're guiding your clients in making sure that they're

really articulating their need, their expenses to make sure longevity is accomplished? Yeah. One of the things we do factor in is the client, what their plans are in their retirement years. And, of course, one of the bigger ones is traveling. I would love to travel. And so we factor in what their needs are financially to match their financial goals and travels. So we factor in that where we can draw that kind of money out every year to be able to afford traveling. Another thing we factor in is, you know, home maintenance. They have a home and they may need to, you know, pay for maintenance.

They may need to put a new roof. They may have to replace an automobile car. Those kind of things are factored in our retirement planning. So we do the big picture planning, and we talk about, you know, how often do we, where our plans are in replacing an automobile, whether they're current plans on maintenance of their home, and how often we need that kind of funds to be able to meet that need. And a charitable plan is another thing.

So the client is very charitable. We talk about charitable planning. If they're tithe payers, we talk about that. If they like to give offerings or to their church or if they have a charity that they love, we factor in that, all that in that big planning process as we talk about their future plans for retirement. Yeah, I think that probably if you see. sat down with someone at the beginning of that meeting and said, how much do you think you need? And they wrote down a number. And then you took them through that process. That number would change

quite a bit because they don't really realize the full extent of opportunity in front of them. Oh, now I could start that charity. I always wanted to or travel or whatnot. One thing that I also have heard of is, aren't there statistics that show if you retire and don't really have that goal or purpose or plan lifespan actually is shortened. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting as I interview folks. A lot of them, a lot of folks don't have a plan in place. And so when we bring out these different instances that can happen once retirement, they go, oh, my gosh, I never thought of that or I never thought of this or never thought of this. And I said, that's a great reason why we're having this meeting. This is a great reason we're having this discussion

that we could put a plan in place because we're planning to succeed, not planning to fail. And so once a plan is in place on paper, and then we do what we call the annual reviews, because that's important reviewing your plan every year because things can happen. and we may have to tweak this or tweak that. Maybe some things have happened dramatically with family or other things that may have come up during that past year. So is gauging and following your plan on a year-by-year basis? That's a successful plan. That's what we do.

You know, that makes a big point. And my mind was going right there before you even said it, which is annual review. sometimes maybe even every six months, but at least an annual review to make sure that that plan that we put into place is still performing the way that it needs to be. And it might not be that the plan was wrong and needs to be changed. It just might be that your needs changed or tax rates change or inflation adjusted. So there could be external forces that would necessitate the plan to change, right? That's exactly right, Mike. as we all know,

what constantly changes is change. And so, yeah, it's vitally important to gauge the plan on at least an annual basis. Our clients are trained to do this. We reach out there once a year. It's like you have an annual checkup when you go see your doctor or you meet with your dentist

maybe once every year or once every six months. We do have clients who like the come for a meeting like once a quarter or once every six months. So we do cater to the client needs, but it tends that most clients are like, I'm good meeting once a year. And that that is enough. And so anyway, yes, absolutely. It reminds me of that quote that I believe is attributed to Benjamin Franklin. and an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Yes, absolutely. So it's much better to put a plan in place and to be out in front of it and proactive rather than, oops, I guess I should have done this six months ago, and now we've got to scramble to fix it. So putting that plan into place, making sure that each one of the elements are dialed in correctly and then checking to make sure. And if you come in for the review and everything is still thumbs up,

good, at least now we know. Exactly. Absolutely. I would say 80% of the time, that's what that is. Another 20% of the time, that's when we need to do some tweaking or making some updates and changes. But you're absolutely correct. Excellent. Well, I think this has been some really, really helpful mindset tips on longevity planning. Are there any final thoughts that you would like to make as we wrap up this kind of of planning your retirement with respect of longevity in mind? No, we wish all our clients that they have a long fulfilling life. And it's exciting that they have the plan in place. And that just gives them comfort, gives them peace of mind.

It causes it stress-free. That's the objective. of you want to enjoy your retirement years, and you want to focus on that. Money should not be a huge issue because you have plans in place to address all of that. So you can pay full attention to your retirement. You can pay full attention with your spouse,

your family, traveling, doing the things you enjoy doing. That's where you should be. So, yes, we take a little time each year to go over the plan, but it's worth the time. And then once we cover that once a year, then the client is happy and so I can spend the rest of the year doing the things I enjoy doing.

Perfect. Well, Ron, that's been just spectacular. If someone is interested in learning a little bit more about what you guys do, what's the best way that they can learn more and also reach out and connect with you? Yeah, we have an email address, which is Roberts, R-O-B-E-R-T-S,

at Roberts. Again, R-O-B-R-T-S-R-T-S retirement.com. We also have a website, and it's Robertsretirement.com. And also we have a number, phone number, which is Aerecoe 209, 223-7870. Excellent. Well, Ron, thank you so much for coming on today. It's been a real pleasure discussing these topics with you. Oh, thank you, Mike. It's a pleasure to be here. 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 EntrepreneursRadio.com.