HELLO Lower Alabama! Hello Gulf Coast! Welcome in. Welcome to Coasting in Retirement! That’s. Right. Thanks for joining us today, we’re excited to have you! Josh Null here, joined by the one and only Michelle Lee Melton, …Michelle, how are you doing? We are back in Coastal College’s recording studio, beautiful downtown Fairhope, ready to put together another great show for those of you tuning in!Listeners: Michelle and I are here today to discuss financial topics relevant to those of you in or near retirement, living your best life along our part of the gulf coast. Here’s what we’ve got in store for you: First segment – deep dive on our topic of the day. 2nd segment - at about 25 minutes past the hour - “Michelle with the Headlines of the Week”. Then at roughly 45 minutes past the hour, stick around for our 3rd segment, we call it” Josh’s Crystal Ball and Big Mouth”. So buckle up, we’ve got a lot to get to!
Quick background on me for those new to the show. Again, my name is Josh Null, I am a fee-based financial advisor, I hold my FINRA Series 65 securities license, and I am the owner of Gulf Coast Financial Advisors, we are an independent investment management and financial planning firm with offices in Fairhope, Orange Beach, and Mobile! You can find more information on me and team at Gulf Coast Financial Advisors by visiting our website gulfcoastfa.com, or feel free to give us a call at 251-327-2124. If you missed that contact info, get a pen and pad ready because we will repeat our contact info several times throughout the show!
Alright, Michelle, today we’re going to talk about getting paid. You like getting paid, right? Regular listeners know that you supplement the millions you make off this show with a full-time career where you get paid a salary as a W2 employee, correct? Pretty straight forward? Most workers get paid in a couple of basic ways, maybe salary as a W2 employee like Michelle, maybe hourly or on commission as a 1099 subcontractor. Now, you would think my profession, financial planning and financial advising, would be the same, right? Well listeners, I’m here to tell you that it’s not, that the various advisors and agents and reps and planners in my line of work get paid in all kinds of ways, and knowing how your financial advisor is getting compensated is way more important than you probably realized. In fact, you can almost pre-determine the type of financial advice you’re going to get if you know how the advisor is paid before you meet them. Unfortunately, these various pay structures can produce all kinds of conflicts of interest, and if your advisor has the wrong set of conflicts for your particular situation, it can have devastating effects on your investment portfolio.
For sake of time, we’re going to set the salaried W2 advisors to the side in this debate, no offense. I believe many bank-based financial advisors are salary-based, nothing wrong with that. What we are going to be talking about today is the eat-what-you-kill side of our business, where a regular paycheck is never a guarantee, especially when you’re new to the business. And we’re also going to disclose how we get paid at Gulf Coast Financial Advisors, including doing my best to explain any conflicts of interest we have, because we all have them.
Again, putting my salaried peers to the side, we’re going to divide financial advisors into 2 broad camps, then discuss the pros and cons of each. On one side of this dividing line, you have the commission-based advisors, often brokers selling securities for a commission or insurance agents selling insurance products for a commission. On the other side, you have fee-for-service advisors, which is a broad umbrella encompassing a side variety of advisors. Listeners should know that there exists a certain distain between these 2 camps, which will discuss, and to be fair, there’s even disagreement among the advisors in the fee-for-service camp around what method is truly in the client’s best interest.
Listeners, if you’re confused as the type of advisor that would be best for your situation, or maybe, you’re confused as the type of advisor you currently have, we invite you to have no-obligation, no BS conversation with our team at Gulf Coast Financial Advisors. You can reach us at 251-327-2124, or through our website gulfcoastfa.com. One our site, you can choose to send us a direct message, or you can click on the blue button in the upper right-hand corner to set up a 15-minute introductory phone call on my calendar.
Alright folks, coming up next - There’s always a lot going on in the world! Particularly the world of finance, investments and money. Every week we scour the internet for financial articles related to our topic of the day, especially articles that pertain to those in or near retirement. Join us after the break to hear Michelle and I discuss this week’s relevant headlines in our “Michelle with the Headlines of the Week” segment. Stay tuned!
Segment 2 - News of the Week:
“Welcome back to Coasting in Retirement, your host Josh Null here! As we discussed before the break, every week we scour what Michelle calls the Interwebs for financial articles related to our topic of the day, especially articles that pertain to those of you in or near retirement. Our job is to help you all understand how these headlines impact you, especially when it comes to your money! Note – if you want to read our referenced articles yourself, we also include the links in our show transcript, which you can find on our website gulfcoastfa.com under the podcast tab. Now without further adieu, here’s Michelle with the Headlines of the Week!
1. Alright Josh, let’s start with industry-facing site Advisor Hub, they have a recent article titled “What Are the Benefits of a Fee-Based Financial Advisor?”. This article re-iterates the difference types of fee-for-service financial advisors that we discussed in the show opening, then goes a little deeper into why a fee-based advisor may be a good choice for an investor, including cost certainty and alignment of interests between the advisor and the client. It also gives a handy chart to help investors pick the most appropriate fee-based advisor for their situation and talks about how these different fees are often far less than investors think they are. I mean, so I’m going to be biased obviously, and think that fee-based advisors are the best, but why did you pick this particular career path?
2. Next up, our friends at Smart Asset. They have an article titled “Fee-Based vs. Commission-Based Financial Advisors”. My primary takeaway from this article is that there are a lot more conflicts of interest when commissions are introduced to financial planning, including some commission based advisors choosing a product based solely on it’s high commission, so my question to you Josh is this: if it’s so obvious that your industry is going to towards the fee-side, and it appears to work better for everyone involved, why are there still commissioned-based advisors out there? Wouldn’t they just switch to the winning side?
3. Let’s stick with Smart Asset. They have a recent article titled “6 Warning Signs You Hired the Wrong Financial Advisor”. I can tell you that there are a definitely a couple things on this list that would aggravate me if I was working with a financial advisor, such as being a pushy salesperson around an insurance product or having a confusing compensation structure, but probably nothing would piss me off more than hiring an advisor then not being able to talk to them. Does this really happen? Do advisors really bring on new clients then ignore them? How does their business survive that way?
4. Last article of the day, Josh, from U.S. News and World Report. It’s titled “Pro and Cons of Using a Fee-Only Financial Planner”. I was curious why you wanted to include this article, because as we discussed earlier in the show, you’re technically not a fee-only financial advisor. This article details the benefits of using a fee only planner, such as total transparency around compensation and zero sales commissions on any products, but also discussed some of the challenges that fee-only advisors faces, such as having to often refer out their client’s risk management needs around insurance products. So I guess I’ll just ask Josh, why did you include this article?
Listeners, I hope you learned something from our discussion around these recent financial headlines, all of this matters to your money! Speaking of money, if you would like to start the conversation with us about your investments and retirement planning, then why don’t you give us a call at 251-327-2124, I know when radio show leads call in so I’ll often answer, or you can always reach out to us via our contact page on our website, gulfcoastfa.com. Don’t forget to click the blue button in the upper right corner to put a 15-minute introductory phone call on my calendar!
Alright folks, coming up next: Josh’s Crystal Ball and Big Mouth. What have been some of my predictions? Have I been right? Was I ever wrong? How wrong? What do I think is going to affect investors in the near future, or maybe the distant future? We talk about all of these things and poke a little fun at my big mouth. Stay tuned!
Segment 3 – Josh’s Crystal Ball and Big Mouth:
Welcome back! Your host Josh Null here, alongside co-host Michelle Lee Melton. So, I am opinionated, I have strong opinions at times, I would say a radio show host that isn’t probably wouldn’t be very interesting to listen to. And I am paid in my profession to offer professional guidance and opinions to my clients, otherwise what use am I? Just replace me with AI. I like making predictions, and while I usually proved right, there are times I swing and I miss. Want to hear me eat a little crow? Then let’s get at with Josh’s Crystal Ball and Big Mouth.
Listeners, one last time, if you would like to have a free, no-obligation conversation on the investment choices in your retirement accounts, if you would like to have an honest and open, no BS, no sales-pitch conversation about your goals and dreams, and how to tie those into a comprehensive financial retirement plan, then give us a call. You can reach us at 251-327-2124, or through our website gulfcoastfa.com. One our site, you can choose to send us a direct message, or you can click on the blue button in the upper right-hand corner to set up a 15-minute introductory phone call on my calendar.
Folks, that is it for this week! I want to give a huge thank you to my lovely co-host, Michelle Lee Melton, thank you to our show sponsor, Jay Stubbs at Providence Partners, thank you to our long-time awesome radio station FM Talk 106.5 out of Mobile, and a huge welcome to those of you just tuning in on WHEP 92.5 FM & 1310 AM, many thanks to the provider of our show music, local band Sloth Racer, huge thank to the show producer, my son Payton Null, and as always my sincere appreciation for all of your out there that have been listening and joining us on this journey. We would love to be a part of your journey as well! Until we talk again next week, have a wonderful and productive week. This has been Coasting in Retirement with Josh Null!
GCFA Disclosure:
Gulf Coast Financial Advisors, LLC ("GCFA”) is a registered investment adviser offering advisory services in the State of Alabama and in such other jurisdictions where it is registered, filed the required notices, or is otherwise excluded or exempted from such registration and/or notice filing requirements. Registration does not indicate or imply that GCFA has attained a particular level of skill or ability, nor does it constitute an endorsement of the firm by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or any state securities regulator.
The Coasting in Retirement radio program serves mainly to disseminate general information including those pertaining to GCFA’s advisory services, together with access to additional investment-related information, publications, materials and links. The publication of this radio show should not be construed by any client and/or prospective client as GCFA’s solicitation to effect, or attempt to effect transactions in securities, nor should it be interpreted as GCFA providing personalized investment advice, or any type of professional advice, for compensation, wherever this program is broadcast. Any subsequent, direct communication by GCFA with a prospective client will be conducted by a representative that is either registered or qualifies for an exemption or exclusion from registration in the state where the prospective client resides.
Certain information, news stories, headlines, data, charts, graphs, figures or statistics presented on this radio program may have been obtained from third-party sources that are believed to be generally reliable but which GCFA may not have independently verified. GCFA does not and cannot guarantee the timeliness, accuracy, or reliability of any such third-party information and undertakes no obligation to update or correct any information that may become obsolete, unreliable, or inaccurate. The radio program also contains the opinions, views, and perspectives expressed by Josh Null and any other GCFA representatives which are solely their own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, or perspectives of GCFA as a firm. Such personal views and opinions should not be construed as endorsements or professional advice from GCFA. GCFA makes no representation or warranty regarding the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information on this radio program, and disclaims any liability for any direct or indirect loss or damage incurred from using or relying on such information.
GCFA, Aptus, Providence Benefits and Providence Partners are not affiliated, nor are any of their respective representatives.
