Our Philosophy

Why Work With Us?

We coach investors instead of selling investment products for commissions.

Coaching is different from traditional financial advice. How is it different? An investment coach is a financial professional who goes beyond typical financial planning and advice to help you identify your investment philosophy, understand your investment strategy and provide discipline throughout your investment experience. A coach will not only help you identify the right strategy for you but help you keep your decisions and behavior regarding your investments on track for achieving the results you want. An example of this is the Portfolio MRI Video.

So, how do you distinguish whether you are working with a coach or not? A coach helps you answer ‘yes’ to the 20 questions that you must be able to answer to have peace of mind with your money. See our Investor Quiz for examples of some of these key questions.

We refuse to sell investment products for commissions since we firmly believe this poses a clear conflict of interest. Traditional financial advisors and investment brokers are representatives of brokerage firms, and, as such, they have a duty to increase business for the firms. If they do not do so, they may ultimately be fired (minimum production quotas are a part of most of the contracts between registered representatives and their brokerage firms). The firm makes money only when their advisor or broker sells you an investment product. Therefore, they provide a huge incentive for them to do just that: they pay a big commission on each sale, whether you see it or not. This puts the advisor or broker in a very difficult position: recommend what’s best for the client or recommend what pays them a higher commission. We refuse to work under that blatant conflict of interest.

Just like doctors, accountants, engineers and lawyers, we charge fees for our knowledge, advice and services. This allows us to be completely objective in our recommendations, since our level of compensation is not related to what we recommend to the client.

We are more focused on our existing clients than on new ones.

Financial planners and brokers who work on a commission basis must continuously find new clients, because the commissions earned from new clients are huge compared to the commissions earned from existing clients. In fact, on the large majority of cases, most broker or financial planner compensation is related to new clients. This explains why most investors do not hear again from their advisor or broker after the initial sale, unless they want to sell them a new investment product. If they do not find new clients, their families could go hungry. They simply do not have the time to spend with existing clients.

Most of our compensation comes from our current clients. This allows us to focus more on our existing clients than on getting new ones. We coach our clients throughout their investing lives, mostly via informational presentations that help them increase their level of understanding and peace of mind with their investments. Our whole process is designed for us to maintain frequent contact with our clients and make sure that their needs are always being met. Since our current clients pay the large majority of our compensation, we have a huge incentive to do the best for them on an ongoing basis and make sure they are completely satisfied.

If a new client comes along, great! We helped save another investor. If he or she decides to utilize our services on an ongoing basis, even better! Our compensation will now be higher every year. But our focus is clearly on our existing clients.

We are experts in retirement plans.

We know more about how to design U.S. retirement plans than the majority of financial planners and CPAs. This is a highly technical area, requiring advisors to understand many details and to keep themselves up-to-date with new laws and regulations that continuously affect retirement plans. Many of our clients have chosen to set up and invest in retirement plans, with great tax and savings benefits.

To schedule a time to discuss your financial future and the possible role of insurance or investments in your financial strategy, contact us at Ray@WeRetireSmart.com or call us at 800-464-4941 today!

By contacting us, you may be offered information regarding the purchase of insurance and investment products.