Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders, MBA - Interview with Shawn Mercer Founder of Mercer Financial Group Discussing Market Volatility & Sequence-of-Returns Risk

Episode Date: January 22, 2026

Mercer Financial Group is a full-service financial services firm committed to helping individuals, families, and business owners build confident, sustainable financial futures. Based in the Wichita Metro Area and proudly serving clients nationwide, we specialize in personalized retirement planning and long-term investment strategies designed to balance growth with safety.With a comprehensive suite of services—including retirement plan design, portfolio management, and access to a wide range of investment options such as stocks, bonds, and other diversified assets—Mercer Financial Group provides the guidance clients need to navigate every stage of their financial journey. Their approach centers on understanding each client’s goals, risk tolerance, and vision for retirement, allowing us to create tailored strategies that support both wealth accumulation and preservation.At Mercer Financial Group, they believe retirement should be lived with confidence. Their mission is to empower clients with clarity, thoughtful planning, and trusted expertise so people can enjoy the financial security they’ve worked hard to achieve.Learn More: http://www.mercerfg.com/Copyright 2025 – Wealth Watch Advisors (WWA) is an SEC registered investment advisory firm and only transacts business in states where it is licensed to do so or exempt from registration. Please note that registration with the SEC does not denote a particular level of skill of the advisor or imply an endorsement by the SEC. All information provided is intended to be general in nature and does not represent personal financial advice. This site is not a solicitation or an offer to invest or purchase any specific product or service. All investments involve risk of loss and are not FDIC insured or guaranteed by any governmental agency or organization. You can view and download our Privacy Policy, Disclosures, ADV Part 2A, and ADV Part 3 CRS. Shawn Mercer is an Investment Advisor Representative of Wealth Watch Advisors and Mercer Financial Group is not affiliated with Wealth Watch Advisors.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-shawn-mercer-founder-of-mercer-financial-group-discussing-market-volatility-sequence-of-returns-risk

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, Sean Mercer, who's the founder of Mercer Financial Group, and we'll be talking about market volatility and sequence of returns. risk. Sean, welcome back to the program.

Hey, Mike, thanks a lot for having me. I feel like I'm almost a regular now, now that I'm back on the program. I feel like an old zepern almost. Exactly, exactly. So I know that a lot of times when people hear the R word risk, you know, I don't want to talk about risk, but in reality, we want to talk about risk to see how we can mitigate it, lessen it, and things like that. So, you know, market volatility is so important. And I'm excited to hear. your thoughts on this because too many times we kind of get into the weeds of, oh, yeah, the markets are up, down and all around, but it'll come back. Well, that may be the case, but you need to be thinking how far ahead of retirement, how much runway do you have to allow that to happen.

So where do you start when you're working with clients educating them on the topic of market volatility? Then we'll get into what sequence of returns risk actually is. Yeah, you know, market volatility is not anything you're going to get away from in retirement, particularly if you are invested in any type of security or even bonds as well. Market volatility is going to be part of the process. It really just is an individual thing of how much volatility are you willing to stomach. Yeah. And that is a personal, that's a personal.

that's a personal question that each retiree has to figure that out for themselves. That being said, you know, kind of on our previous podcast, I'm of the belief that a person needs to be invested in some equities for the long haul. because they have got to have some horsepower in their portfolio to keep up with inflationary pressure on their portfolio because people are just living so much longer in retirement. Oftentimes, almost the exact same time frame in retirement as they were in their working career. And that puts a lot of pressure on people's retirement savings. It does. And when you think about volatility, one of the frustrating things that comes to my mind is, you know, if I did a certain action that caused an outcome I didn't like, I won't do that action again.

Well, we cannot control the markets. So when we see an experience volatility, we're sitting back as a spectator feeling like we are just having all of this come against us. So if we have the volatility that is happening outside of our control, but there's plenty of time to recover. And, you know, the dollar cost averaging concept we talked about last time, you know, if you're in your 20s or 30s, hey, volatility is not that bad of a proposition. In your 50s or 60s, you better start batting down the hatches. So where is it that you are recommending to your clients to maybe make some of the shifts, you know, have some money in equities, but maybe maybe make the percentages a little bit lessened, you know, at a certain age? Yeah, I think ultimately a person needs to take and look at their retirement as sort of a trifold type of situation. I think you really need to plan for probably 30 years, 35 years in

retirement. And so when you're on the front end of that number, okay, you do have the run. way, just like you are in your 20s. So you slice up your portfolio into percentages that one of those pieces of the pie is going to be on that 10-year, a 30-year timeframe. And it's statistically proven that basically an investment that has 10 years worth of time frame is typically going to have enough runway, as you described, to be able to recover. So a person that puts together a portfolio that takes a segment of that and says, this is my long-term money. This is what's going to replenish the safety and security side of my portfolio when I'm

spending that money out to enhance my lifestyle. and pay for my fixed expenditures, that's when a person really starts to feel comfortable with their plan and has the security to know, you know what, Mike, I'm not going to outlive my money. And that's a very good feeling. So let's dive into the sequence of returns risk. I think that if someone, if you were to ask 100 people on the street, define sequence of returns, they would scratch their head and say, have no clue. So first, define what is sequence of returns?

Well, really sequence of returns is really a risk or in danger of taking withdrawals during sort of turbulent markets or market downturn early in retirement. And when you combine basically declining markets with ongoing withdrawals, you can do damage to your portfolio that can drastically affect your retirement for years to come. Subsequently, if you retired sort of during a very good bowl market and say the first two or three years was a very nice bull market, you pretty much are on easy street and probably are going to be able to sail through without any problem. It works the opposite for you then because then when you need to pull the money out, you're, you know, you bought low and you sold high. But if the market's on a downturn and you need that $3,000 a month or whatever the money amount is to live, wow, I don't really want to pull it out, but I've got to pay the bills.

So I'm pulling it out on the downside as the markets are going down and you've really got to double whammy. you are compounding on the downside, just like dollar cost averaging on the upside when you're putting money in. You're buying more shares. So when the spring back comes, holy mackerel, your balance just goes through the roof because you're constantly buying shares, buying shares. And the springback is really pronounced. Yep.

You're kind of watching things going, oh, it'll come back. It'll come back. You know, I've got some time. Well, now you don't have time because you've. got to get that money. And you might need the money for whatever reason, required minimum withdrawals or just paying the bills or whatever the case is. But that's why it's so important to have that plan. And I think that too many times people don't think about that sequence of returns risk that we're talking about because it really is a risk. And there's no, like yes,

you said, if the market's on an upturn, then you've hit it, you know, well, there's no guarantee. that that's going to be the case. That's correct. And you bring up a very, very good point that a lot of people don't necessarily think about is that your required minimum distributions are a forced withdrawal. Yeah. So if the market is in a tailspend and you have the majority of your IRA money invested in the market, you are going to be forced out at a number that you do.

not want to be forced out at and it is going to be detrimental to your your retirement portfolio. So once again, it's not just a matter of, oh, I'm not going to pull it out. I don't need it. You know, there's there's aspects of the required minimum distribution, you know, in certain accounts that you don't have a choice. And if you don't take it out, you're penalized. Absolutely. You do not have a choice because Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam doesn't care. about where the market is. All they care about is they want their taxes. Right. And so unfortunately, unfortunately people can get caught into that. And so once again, it kind of brings

up sort of mitigating some of the volatility and what are some of the strategies or different asset classes that people can employ to be balanced. And what I like to say is kind of visualize the teeter-totter. And so in the bad years, you never, as I've stated to you before, I never ever want my clients to be in a position of weakness, having to liquidate in a weak position or things are on sale. It's never a good time when you have to put things on sale to sell them. It's much better to not have to do that,

particularly when it comes to your retirement money as well. And so you can utilize some safe, guaranteed strategies that are not going to be affected by market risk that will never lose value. And you can take all of your R&D out of that basket during a declining market. And then when the market does bounce back, you can go over to your equity side. and take all of your RMD out of that side. And then if you want to replenish some of that fixed and guaranteed side. So when the rainy day comes again, which it will, because that's just a proven fact, you are going to be balanced and you're going to be able to sleep at night and you're going to know,

hey, I'm not going to, you know, run out of money because I'm not overly invested over here, and I'm not overly invested over here. I have got a consistent playing field that I'm utilizing to be very strategic and very smart because I'm playing a game that is at least 30 years long. You know, you bring up a good point there about the types of, you know, risk or accounts or money or sectors. And it makes me think of the concept of diversification. And we don't need to get in the weeds of what, you know, specific recommendations would be. But I think that there's misconceptions where people say, oh, I'm diversified because I've got 30 different stocks, but they're all in the tech sector.

So you're really not diversified. Or I've got, you know, 20 different stocks and they're all in. and talk a little bit about how you help your clients understand and balance that risk of market volatility and sequence of returns by making sure that they are spread out properly. Yeah, really what you want to do and it comes down to trying to position a person's portfolio to where they're in non-correlated positions. Yeah. So these equities are not correlated to this. And so therefore, they can move in reverse of each other. That's ultimately what you try to do to be able to mitigate risk for people.

Then you can also utilize and create a foundation for people for their fixed expenditures by utilizing some of the best insurance carriers in the United States, AAA-rated insurance. carriers and offload the risk on them. And they will take the market risk and then create an income stream for you that is fixed and guaranteed to help cover the essentials. And that has really been a very, very nice strategy for a lot of retired people that once you've got the foundation covered, then you can utilize some of those equities and some of those positions because it's a longer term time frame. And you're going to be able to recover from that. And then that's a really good point.

It makes me think of something where if you sat down with someone and said, okay, how much money do you need to like literally put food on the table and keep the lights on? like hard living costs. And then what are the other living or expenses that you would like to have like, oh, okay, here's fun money and here's vacation funds and whatever the case is. To your point, what you're saying is, why don't we figure out the, you know, the dire, most important dollars that you must have to survive and move enough money over into some guaranteed buckets from some of these reputable sources to where you know that that's covered.

You can check that off your mind. And then all the other stuff, if you left it in equities, that's for the fun money, the, you know, world vacations or the things like that. And if there's a little bit of volatility, you can weather it because your main living expenses are covered, guaranteed. Absolutely. You know, it's not, it's not as complicated as what people think. It's just a matter of being disciplined. And then on top of that, some of this is going to be very, very new to people. because they've worked their entire career.

They are somewhat knowledgeable because pretty much everybody is dealing with a 401K. So the majority of everything that they are familiar with is all equity-based. And so then getting somebody to somewhat transitioned to look at sort of some fixed and guaranteed income sources. because you know as well as I do, unless you're a teacher, a civil servant, something along those lines, you're not going to retire with a pension. So the liability is on you now to create your own pension plan for yourself and your family and your spouse or whoever that may be. So in doing so, you are going to now be the administrator of that plan. And I don't care who you are. Everybody wants to have a little bit of a baseline that they know this is guaranteed.

I've got this coming in. I mean, just think of your paycheck. There's not a whole heck of a lot of people that just want to go out there and, you know, work and not know what they're going to have coming in. And so people are going to have Social Security. That obviously is one leg of that foundation. And then from there, utilizing what you have in retirement and appropriating it into specific different asset classes to do specific things. Each asset class is a tool on its own. And I kind of liken it to, you certainly are not.

going to hammer a nail with a saw. You're going to hammer a nail with a hammer. And so therefore, every single one of these asset classes will do what they need to do, and they will do it extremely efficiently as long as it's designed to do that task. But you can't have an asset class, for example, you can't have an asset class such as a fixed income CD and expect it to perform at double digits. Yeah. It's not going to happen. It can only do what it's programmed and designed to do.

And, you know, it brings up a final thought that I'd like to run by you. I think a lot of times we all as Americans feel like we're self-sufficient and let's just get her done and as fast as possible. And when we start thinking like, oh, I've got this much money in my whatever, 401k or whatever account and I'm going to retire in whatever years, let me just go and Google how to best And the problem with us trying to do things on our own and figuring it out is, boy, you get just will have shiny object syndrome. And you need to have someone that knows the lay of the land, asks you the right questions, can guide the process. Talk a little bit about having a professional like yourself that can help guide that and bring some good, good clarity to the equation, what that does for a peace of mind.

Well, I think ultimately what differentiates us, Mike, is when you've got roughly 30 years worth of experience, you've seen a lot of different situations come through your doorway. And so you're able to maybe see some potential speed bumps in the road and really try to mitigate that for. the client before it actually happens. Whereas if you are the one sort of researching it out, trying to do it on your own, potentially what happens is it becomes too much of an emotional decision and it doesn't become a logical decision.

And that's typically what I see over time. is there's just too much emotion involved when it's really just more of a business decision and there is a clear pathway. It's just a matter of when you're staring at it yourself, it's very tough to make that jump if that makes sense. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it makes total sense. Well, I tell you, talking about volatility and sequence of returns here,

This has been really helpful to get some clarity around that. If someone is interested in learning a little bit more and maybe putting some guardrails around their retirement to make sure that they can weather through those storms, what's the best way they can reach out and connect with you, Sean? One of the best ways to do that is they can just go straight to our website. That is www. Merser, M-E-R-B-E-R, F as in Frank, G as in George. So mercerfg.com. And they can connect with me there or any of the staff and we'll be more and happy to set up a one-on-one consultation and answer any of the questions that they may have. Excellent.

Well, Sean, thank you so much for coming back. It's been a real pleasure chatting with you again. It's been great, Mike. I really appreciate it. And I certainly hope you have a blessed day. And thanks once again for having me on. 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,

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