Douglas Goldstein, CFP®, Financial Planner & Investment Advisor
David Holland is a radio show host and a financial planner based in Florida.
In 1997, he founded Holland Financial, a company that helps provide solid advice to retirees
and baby boomers.
Douglas Goldstein, financial planner & investment advisor, interviewed Holland on Arutz Sheva
Radio.
Douglas Goldstein: You help people to reduce the stress in terms of retirement.
How do you help people to remove the stress from the issue?
David Holland: The key part is like you said asking the right questions and for a lot of
people, retirement planning is just they didn’t know where to start and I think that’s probably
the biggest thing is to start to remove some of that stress and start to get going and
they need to be thinking about where they want to be and really develop a plan to get
there.
That’s really it.
I know that sounds like over simplification but you’ve got to plan it because if you
don’t plan it then how you’re going to get there.
Douglas Goldstein: A guy comes in and he says “David, I hardly even know what I had.
Where should I start?”
What is the first thing that you’re going to do?
David Holland: The first step I would take and I think it’s a good place for everybody
to start is “Where are you right now?”
If I want to plan a trip to see Jerusalem, how am I going to get there?
You can’t answer that question unless I tell you where I am right now.
You can’t tell me which plane to get on unless let’s say I’m in Daytona Beach,
Florida then you can tell me which plane and you can tell me what the best route is.
So the first place for anybody to start is where are you right now, take an inventory
and you know for a lot of people this isn’t as pleasant a part of the process because
they don’t like admitting perhaps that they don’t have as much as they would like.
In fact, I’ve never met a person yet who wouldn’t like a little more no matter how
much they’ve got.
So where are you right now and then we could start understanding about the things you do
or how you get where you want to be and even define the things that you can do with what
you have or what you will have by the time you retire.
Douglas Goldstein: I want people to walk away with something that they can actually do.
Just like you describe tell the client and they have the same conversation.
I’ll say let’s talk about what you have and sometimes you know you can see their eyes
kind of gazing over or they giggle because they don’t really know.
So how do you help them to make this inventory, to take this financial snapshot?
David Holland: What makes it difficult is people don’t really have their arms around
what they have.
For example, I had a couple come in recently and I think they have like 15 different accounts
and the money is all over the place and they say “We feel like we’re okay but we’re
not really sure.”
So one of the things that people can do, an action step, is to get a second opinion from
an experienced, qualified and certified advisor to actually give them a true independent objective
second opinion and take all of these accounts, bring them together and analyze them as one
thing because when you have these accounts spread out, you really don’t know where
you are.
You’re just kind of a combination of these things but you don’t [clear it].
So first step very specifically is to get a second opinion and understand what you’ve
got in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, different diversification, where is your money around
the world, what sectors are you invested in, how well rated are your funds, what are they
costing you, what are all these things and get a really clear picture and then you can
think about what to do next but start with that second opinion about
what you have.
Douglas Goldstein: One of the problems people have is a year later, they
still have 15 accounts and I think very early on is you want to begin to consolidate because
it’s just impossible for a normal person to keep track of so many things going on all
over the place.
Has that been your experience as well?
David Holland: One step further as an advisor and having done this for 20 some years, I
would have 15 different accounts myself.
You can’t keep track of it.
Another case some point, I had a couple not long ago that had all these various accounts
and they realized that they had like 70% of their money in one category of investing high
yield bonds, otherwise called junk bonds, but they didn’t realize they had such a
large percentage because it was spread out and it was hiding in all of these various
different accounts and because it was spread out, they had no way of really getting a true
measure of the risks that they were taking in their overall portfolio.
Douglas Goldstein: One of your books is called How To Get Great Advice and Avoid Financial
Scams.
Can you give us some tips on avoiding a financial scam?
David Holland: It’s probably something that people have not paid attention to as much
after you know the memories have faded on the Wall Street scams and the Bernie Madoff
and all of these things that happened but I can give people a real cautionary message
here and that is if you hear these three things to being describe for an investment, you know
that there is a good chance that it is a scam: high return, high return, liquid investment
that is safe.
Those three things do not come together and except the most extreme circumstances, high
return, principal protection or security of your money and liquidity.
If somebody tells you that run, fly but do not go anywhere near, that’s a big warning
sign.
Douglas Goldstein: What other sorts of issues do you see arising?
David Holland: It’s a fraud that we see where you know people try to weigh their way
through all the messages that are out there about where to get advice and often where
fraud and scams occur is they use the fraudsters use networks of people and people say “I
had a good experience with this person” and they refer their friends and it becomes
kind of a little network.
You know frauds know no bounds, they have committed by all sorts of people, not just
advisors who maybe have some bad behavior from time to time, it’s other people and
people get scammed because they rely on the testimony of another person who themselves
may have been scammed but just doesn’t know it yet.
Douglas Goldstein: Normally people do ask for referrals, what would be a good way to
find someone?
David Holland: The first thing that I would recommend to somebody if they are looking
for a professional they can work with is they first do some background checking.
Go to the better business bureau or some sort of regulatory oversight and check out the
advisor first and foremost before you meet with them.
Also you can do a search, like for example certified financial planner, you can go to
the website www.cfp.net and do a search for an advisor in your area and I know you have
the same thing in Israel, you have the same sort of registry where people can do searches,
find out about that and then go and meet with them, show up for your appointment early,
do they have an office, how’s the staff, go and meet with them, interview more than
one.
I tell people don’t just interview with me, go meet with two more advisors so you
can get a sense for the differences between the people and at some point, you can certainly
ask for testimonials but let’s be honest what advisor is going to give you three people
that are going to say bad things about you.
Those only have limited value.
It’s really listen to your gut and pay attention to your surroundings and where the advisor
is and what they’re doing.
Douglas Goldstein: One of the issues that we often see is that people are getting very
close to retirement.
They are in their 50s or even early 60s and they haven’t really started planning.
Do you have any advice for someone in that situation, not only that he may not have started
planning but he actually may not have started saving seriously?
David Holland: I’m actually more concerned about the second part of that as opposed to
save.
If you’re approaching retirement and you really haven’t saved a lot, there’s not
a whole lot of planning, you can do other than the first, you know get yourself in gear
and start putting money aside.
Life expectancy has lengthen to just really amazing numbers of how long people are living
today versus a century ago and people may have to work longer to get those savings so
put as much as you can, even just putting it in a checking or savings or money market
account and accumulating it until you have the right time, that’s better than just
saying “Maybe I’ll do something someday.”
Get the money put to the side so you have something to plan with at some point.
Douglas Goldstein: How can people follow you, follow your work or get your books?
David Holland: There’s a lot of great information over to our website www.planstronger.com.
We’ve got videos, old radio shows and a lot of timely stuff there that people can
get some good information, information about the books and the books are also available
on Amazon.com.