Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Scott Staschke President of Guilford Financial Group Discussing Wealth Management

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

Scott A. Staschke CFP®, RFC®, President of Guilford Financial Group Inc. has been with the firm since 2000. Guilford Financial Group, Inc. is a family business celebrating 37 years of serving the shoreline community.Scott’s areas of concentration include Estate Planning, Business Retirement, and Succession Planning, Individual/Couple Retirement planning, Client Portfolio Design and Investment Analysis, Retirement Income Planning/Withdrawal Strategies, and Advanced Options Strategies along with insurance, life, disability to long-term health care, business pension plans, and employee benefits coordination. Scott holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Elon University. Also holds the Series 7, 4, 24, 53, 63 securities registrations through LPL Financial, and separately, Life & Health and Variable Annuity licenses. Scott is a Registered Representative with LPL Financial. Further, Scott is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ Professional and a Registered Financial Consultant®. CFP CertificateScott lives in Madison with his wife Karin and his three wonderful children. On the weekends Scott is busy going to his children soccer games, theater rehearsals and other activities. In his free time he enjoys golfing, biking, hiking and any other outdoor activity. Is an active member of the local Rotary Club.Learn More: https://www.gfgadvisor.com/Securities and Advisory services offered through LPL Financial, a Registered Investment Advisor. Member FINRA & SIPC.The LPL Financial representative(s) associated with this website may discuss and/or transact securities business only with residents of the states in which they are properly registered or licensed. No offers may be made or accepted from any resident of any other state.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-scott-staschke-president-of-guilford-financial-group-discussing-wealth-management

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 Scott Stashke, who's the president of Guilford Financial Group, and we'll be talking about wealth management and preservation. for soon to be retirees. Scott, welcome to the program. Thanks, Mike.

How are you? Hey, you doing awesome. I'm looking forward to chatting with you because it's so neat to hear perspectives. And you can ask 10 people their perspective on wealth management and preservation and probably get quite a few opinions from their research and their experience.

So I want to draw from your decades of experience and learn about how you're guiding your clients on these really timely topics. Before we dive into that, give us a little bit of your story and background. How did you get into the financial services industry? Sure, Mike. So actually, my father started a Gilbert Financial Group with a firm back in 87. And he was a certified financial planner.

He actually at one point had his own broker-dealer. Things were quite a bit different back than they are today. And I joined up with them after college and been working with him. for about 25 years, he's since as retired, and, you know, I've taken over the practice. So I received my CFP back in 2004 and had been working with his clients and been developing my own clients, which now they're all my clients. And it's been a very fulfilling experience. One thing I have to say is working with people, you start to understand and start seeing the human dynamics.

that go behind there. There's a lot more than just numbers and financial services. You know, we could probably do a whole episode on that one comment you just made. People want to be treated like people. And it just seems like these days, organizations treat people like numbers. And unfortunately, the results you get are those kind of cookie cutter, static, non-feeling robotic kind of results. when you can treat someone like family, like, you know, I'd give this advice to my parents or my, you know, aunt and uncle. And it just really comes across as very genuine. So I think that's a wonderful approach to take. Let's go ahead and dive into something when you're talking about

wealth management for soon to be retirees. Obviously, the time to make a plan for retirement is not when you're already in retirement because you might not have as much runway. But what are some of your thoughts on how soon-to-be retirees should look at their current strategy for wealth management and make sure that it's aligned with their retirement goals. Well, it's a lot like baking. You know, you got a lot of steps that you should fall, which sometimes takes a little bit longer than, hey, I'm retiring next week. Let's get serious about things. You know, when I look at the retirees, and I do a lot of education meetings with groups of

people on retirement, you know, I would say at a minimum you want to start thinking five, ten years before that retirement date is out and say, hey, let's start looking at what that landscape is. Because, you know, it's not just about how much money you are able to save or how much income home you'll have coming in or how big your pension will be. A lot of it is, you know, what are you going to do with yourself once you are no longer doing whatever profession you are currently doing? Yeah.

You know, how do you want to live? How well can you live with what you have done? So those are things, you know, the emotional things are really things that people need to start thinking about and get a good feeling of, you know, how does my expectations for retire and meet up with the reality of where I'm at. You know, that's a really big point. And I want to dive in a little bit deeper there because I think a lot of times people make assumptions.

And they're like, oh, I just want to retire at this age. And retirement is going to be, you know, less stressful and more fun. And these really broad strokes. But in reality, you need to dive in deep to really articulate what you want out of retirement. And what I mean by that is you almost are acting like a life coach. like, hey, what does retirement look like for you? And do you want to just literally punch out and sit back and do nothing because you had such a hard career?

Some people might want that. Do you want to start a nonprofit? Do you want to start a second job and just kind of work on your own pace? Do you want more travel time? So when you think about the retirement goals that someone has, first of all, in order to make your wealth management strategy align with the goals, you need to know where you're headed and have the clarity behind setting those goals, right? So where do you start with your clients helping them to paint that picture?

Well, it usually starts with our first meaning. I mean, that's, we call it our interview meeting. There's no cost for them. It's simply, hey, we want to get to know you. I'll tell you a little bit about what we do, but let's start getting the wheels turning. And we start asking some questions. You know, what do you see yourself doing in retirement?

What do you want to be doing? You know, do you have children? Do you think you want to be helping them out? You know, those type of questions, whether they're actionable items right now. It's important for them to start thinking about these things. And more times than not, they're not thinking about everything. And really, you know, most people who are sitting in front of me, they probably have done pretty well for themselves. otherwise they would have ruled themselves out and wouldn't have met.

You know, they would have been, you know what? Yeah. You know, so, you know, they're proud of their their portfolios that they bill and their accomplishments. And these are generally very successful people by any measure. But a lot of times they do not realize the various risks or the complexity. What does it really mean to walk away from maybe that business you've been building for the past 30 years of your life or, you know, that job that you've been spending 60, 70 hours a week on for the past 30 years, you know, how are you going to fill that? And like, what is that life going to be like

when you're not there? You know, that's important because what we do know is that the people who can visualize what they're going to be doing and staying active, ones that have a plan do far better than just, well, I'm just going to maybe go on vacation and we'll figure it out. You know, I know there's research behind what you just said, and we don't need to dive into the weeds of that, but I know that there, I've seen headlines about when someone retires, their lifespan just takes a nosedive because they don't feel like they're contributing to, you know, work or projects or whatever the case is and they feel like they're lost. And then all of a sudden now they just start winding down.

So you need to have that plan. And that plan might not be, let's pack in 10 hours a day worth of something like work or you don't need to start the nonprofit or start a business. But have a plan. You know, maybe you're going to get back to society and work in the community or whatever, but have that plan because it's going to help literally preserve lifespan. Absolutely. I mean, that's, I mean, the data is actually quite startle.

I mean, it goes right there with not having enough sleep. Yeah. And while that takes a toll of your life expectancy. You know, we've always educated our clients. Your retirement is right there probably second next to a divorce or a loss of a spouse. Like, it's a high stress endeavor. Yeah. So let's think about something we're talking about wealth management and preservation.

What are some of the key elements of risk management? And the reason that I want to really emphasize that phrase risk management is because I think that for decades, people just grind and grow and put away and squirrel away and build their retirement nest egg. And that's what they're focused on. It's accumulation. And in their 20s, 40s, you know, if market volatility is, you know, rear in its ugly head, it's like, I got time to recover. You know, the market took a dip. Oh, I'll get some time. But at a certain age and maybe early 60s or whatever time frame, it's like we need to start mitigating that.

risk. How do you guide your clients in understanding how to mitigate that risk? Well, you know, we try to use as many stories as possible. But, you know, the first, the first thing is understanding the risk that the one's already accepting and maybe in their portfolios or 401Ks. And you're absolutely right. A lot of times, you know, I see individuals that they have large accounts, investment accounts or 401Ks if they haven't rolled them over to IRAs. that, you know, they were more growth-oriented. They have done great over the past 30 years of accumulation, but now you're looking at, okay, this is where our income,

our majority of our income is going to be generated. You know, how much risk is in there? What assumptions are we making on that portfolio? Are we comfortable with that? And then that's just just a starting point of, you know, understanding, you know, what do you own, you know, is it appropriate for what we're trying to accomplish here? You know, that's really big is, it's kind of like knowing what you have to start with and then knowing where you want to get to and then where's the gap, right? So like,

here's what I want retirement to look like. And I want to have X number of dollars by X age, but I only have Y right now. How do we get there? And I think that's a really, really big helpful thing and unfortunately AI and Google are not our friend when it comes to putting together a detailed plan like that. I mean, we can ask those kind of tools like, hey, how do I fix my, you know, CD player

that's glitching? But working with an advisor that really is dialed into changes and updates and inflation and taxes and all of that really helps someone articulate that. So how does working with someone like yourself

really help to bring the light those of numbers. And the result is when you have that picture painted and a plan put into place, it should give you some confidence and peace of mind. Well, that's the goal. Peace of mind is in my mind is so important. A couple of things typically happens. An individual could tell me I'm thrilled in my portfolio. It's averaging 10, 15, 20%, 10%, it's doing great. and they don't mind the market volatility and everything's good while they're working. But interesting things happen as soon as they're no longer working. And now that portfolio is what they got to live on.

It's like putting a spotlight on that. And all of a sudden, they're tuned to every little hiccup and pull back. It gets magnified. And, you know, there's been a few times when markets are volatile. So I've gotten phone calls, not so much from current clients, but from people saying, hey, I'm not sleeping anymore. Wow. I need to figure this out. Can I come and see you?

And, you know, that's what we try to hammer out because, you know, who wants to go through retirement worried, right? That's not, you know, let's see if we can reduce the worry. Yeah. And when you do that, it kind of adds into that research you were mentioning, you know, the lack of sleep or the increased stress that really is. impacts lifespan. And so we don't want to have that worry. And what is it going to take to get that worry gone? Well, let's map it out.

Roll up your sleeves and sharpen the pencil. When you're working with someone, maybe for the first time they come to you and they've got, you know, decades of working with, you know, another plan or another planner. What are you finding or some of the low-hanging fruit opportunities to fix? You know, let's not say massive mistakes. But I'm sure you see some people that are like, oh, we need to fix them. this. We've got an opportunity to really plug that hole or polish this up. What are some of those common pitfalls that you see that people have made in the past? Well, that's a very good point.

So a lot of times we find that they're very not tax efficient, meaning that, you know, whatever they're doing isn't optimal. They end up paying too much taxes. Maybe it's there, you know, taking too much out of their IRA when they could be using some other non-qualification. account, you know, often not understanding how does Social Security work with their current plan, and just understanding the rules. I mean, there's a big difference when, and like I said, most of the people were working with, they didn't really worry about, you know, being efficient. You know, they had high-paying jobs or they were making good money.

A lot of times, but the first thing we start with individuals is, hey, we need to work with a budget. We got to create one. A lot of times they have no idea how much they're spending to live. They just, at the end of the month, they pay everything. Now, but to build any type of plan,

you've got to know how much is it cost for me to be doing what I'm doing. So we start with a three-month. We're going to start keeping track of your expenses. And then you're going to report it back to us. you know, they'll estimate, oh, this is, you know, we think we're spending X amount a month. Usually it's 20, 30 percent less than they're actually spending. And without a good budget, though, and it doesn't matter how great or how fancy your financial plan is. If you don't have a real budget with real numbers, it's just not going to work.

You know, you bring up something that, as you were describing that, the thought crossed my mind is if you sit down with someone and say, hey, let's, let's, let's, articulate how much you need in retirement. So what are your bills and what do you need and what do you need to spend and they give you this number? I'll bet you that many times when you really dig in deep, it is completely off base from a variety of reasons. Maybe people assume, oh, well, I'm only spending, you know, 50 a month on fast food. And it turns out to be 350.

But also, I feel like people now have more time on the hands to spend the money. You know, you work your nine to five and maybe half a day on Saturday. And it's like, I don't have time to spend money now. I do. And I'm online. I'm going out, you know, to stores. How do you help people reconcile when you do that budgeting exercise? Because A, these people are in their late 50s and 60s going, I don't need a budget.

I'm good to go. And you guide them through that exercise. And maybe it's shining a light on some inadequacies, right? I mean, that could be a revelation to them. Yeah. It's, I mean, I get a couple new people a year, and I call my retirement rescue, you know, where their expenses are getting out of control. And they're liquidating their retirement savings to try to cover their costs. And, you know, more times than not, it's simple things like subscriptions.

Yeah. I had one nice lady where I was working with her trying to get her budget under control. It was just she had literally close to a thousand a month dollars in subscriptions, these digital ads, digital this, digital that, you know, and then we, you know, paying for dog care and all sorts of things that were piling on a lot of expenses. So we do an audit, you know, and, hey, we were able to quickly find, hey, what was the last time you even used this service? Yeah.

Let's get rid of that. But in general, people underestimate how much money actually a month cost to live comfortably. You know, and let's even add into that once you do dial that in and get that number and check on it in quarterly or every six months, make sure everything's set there. There are some external forces working against us that could really chip into that. And we don't need to get into the details of it, but I'm sure you would agree with inflation. we can't control that. Taxes, we can't control that. But that number that you need to, you know, sustain your retirement lifestyle, even if just inflation rears its ugly head, then now you need more because your money doesn't go as far. Yeah. And that's, you know, that's the other side of it.

You know, I mentioned earlier on the conversation about, you know, often I find people who are taking out more risk than they probably should. I find on the other side. And a lot of times, it's the spouse. Like there's like a duality there. It's on the other spectrum where, you know, they want to have extremely conservative assets for good reasons. No one wants to lose money. But, you know, is it going to keep you in tune with inflation, the cost of living?

Is it going to be able to grow that we know that you need to grow? Are you going to find out, you know, 20 years down the road, we're not able to do it? Yeah. you know and and the sooner that you put in some contingencies and if you plan for higher inflation or more in taxes and your retirement plan slash budget is dialed in and baked in for that then good because if it doesn't happen that way then you're prepared but if it does you're you know if it doesn't happen that way you're ahead of the game if it does happen that way you're prepared so i think that too many times people just you know assume they throw things against the

wall, oh, I'm good to go. And then it's too late. So to your point, you need to be starting these planning, you know, dialing this in, clarifying, you know, well ahead of retirement so that your wealth management is dialed in, that you're preserving your wealth and you're not making bad decisions. And I think that there's so many times that people just go, you know, I remember way back in the day the term fuzzy math came up. Well, maybe there's some fuzzy math in my retirement planning because I really don't understand everything. And if someone is interested, in, you know, clarifying their retirement plan. How can they learn a little bit more about what you guys provide and then reach out and

connect with you? Yeah. So, you know, like I said, we have a website. I do a lot of educational seminars. You know, things that come from, you know, from accountants that I work with. You know, they know that we do a good job, making sure that our clients are well positioned. especially when it comes to retirement accounts. They got what they call required minimum distributions.

We do a lot of planning ahead of time. Sometimes it means taking conversion, sometimes taking more out in the earlier years than later. You know, not everyone is in fantastic financial shape, meaning that they're going to be retired one way or the other. They're getting older. They're going to hit retirement. So at least, you know, if you're not going to be able, if your retirement at the dollars of the models say, hey, you're going to, you're going to have to make some life choice changes.

It'd be good to know about that ahead of time versus, you know, we're getting way down the road in life and now there's a financial problem. You know, and on the other spectrum of it, we have plenty of clients who have more than enough money for their retirement needs. but it's, you know, it's, how do we make sure that we just don't wipe it out? I mean, it takes a second before you're either on some sort of liability issue or, you know, some oversight. I mean, that's where we're looking for, hey, where's your pitfalls? Where's the holes? How can we, you know, I actually saw this the other day on CNBC.

I watched, you know, Kramer Mad Money over there. He mentioned, you know, you only need, his phrase said, you only need. to get rich once, meaning that, you know, you don't want to lose your money and then try to, you know, gain wealth back. So there's a lot of things that you can be doing and should be doing to help protect that. 100%. Well, I tell you, it's been really helpful to kind of see your perspective on how these things impact retirement. That's really, really awesome how you're serving your clients. and we will make sure to put your website link in the show notes for anyone to reach out and

connect with you, Scott. Thank you so much for coming on today. It's been a real pleasure chatting with you. Thank you, Mike. It was good talking to you, too. 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.influentialentrepreneursradio.com.