Financial Advice: Racism & The Classism Crisis: Shootin' It Straight with Stan®

The topic of today is the financial advice, racism, and classism crisis. I'm talking about advisors targeting people for their skin color or their working-class situation and if they're not up on all things financial. It's driving me crazy.

Now one thing I want to just point out is that a lot of our clients are people that have worked hard their whole life and then they're looking for sage advice, and for me to tell them the truth. That's the reason that we have grown to be the top independent agent in the country because people know that they're going to come here and get the truth. The truth might be, that you don't need an annuity. But here's what's making me mad, a lot of times when people are teachers, or they're in labor unions, or they work for the government, there's an agreement with a local advisory firm that they'll come in and talk to the people that are getting close to retirement or thinking about retirement. That actually is a good thing if the people coming in are listening to the people and they're not just trying to sell one product.

Now as a disclaimer, we like Indexed Annuities. We sell more than almost everybody. But we sell them the proper way. They're CD-type products. They're principal protection products. They're not securities, they're not for market growth. We use them also as an efficient delivery system for Income Riders for future income guarantees. But they are not one-size-fits-all.

What I'm seeing is these organizations have agents or an advisory talk to their retirees, that have worked hard and have saved, and most of the time they're not financially savvy. They haven't spent a lot of time looking at the markets, or looking at products within the investment world because they've been working and they've been raising their families and they have been surviving. Then they get to the finish line and some sociopath steps in and sells them a product that they don't need. In a lot of cases that's either Variable Annuity or Indexed Annuity. Nothing against either one of those products, but it's not a one-size-fits-all. The problem is these organizations set up these people to come in and talk to the people that are getting ready to retire, and the retirees say, "Well, I guess we can trust these people because my organization, labor union, the teachers union, etc have signed off on them," and the advisors know that. It's like shooting fish in a barrel, and it makes me mad.

Let me give you a couple of examples. I was talking recently to a teacher and a sheriff in the state of Florida that was being sold an Indexed Annuity that they did not need at all. The sheriff had been working for 39 years in the sheriff's department. They were pitching this person an Indexed Annuity. They didn't need an Indexed Annuity. You know what they needed? They needed CDs, and they needed an Immediate Annuity at the time they were going to retire to solve for the income floor amount.

My advice? Wait two years until they retire and then implement that plan, whether it's with me or somebody else. Simplistic, no annual fees, highest contractual guarantee. Their dream was to go to another state, to leave Florida. They wanted to know if they had enough money to do that and I said “Absolutely you do, but you don't need what that person is pitching.” The question they had to me is “Why is that person pitching that if that's not going to work? We explained to him just like we explained to you Stan, The Annuity Man®, exactly our goals, wishes, hopes, and dreams. Why did they show us this product? You said, to not buy anything now, but to wait two years and buy it upon retirement. Why?” Here's the strategy. Because it's the damn truth. It's not a square peg into round whole selling. It's not sociopathic one-size-fits-all. It's not, "Hey, you need to start now because you get an upfront bonus and you need to make the decision." They were getting pressured and called, and the person was showing up at their doorstep to try to get the sale. If this is happening to you, tell that sociopath jerk to go away.

There's never an urgency to buy an annuity. The urgency is for you to fully understand what you're buying, the good, the bad, the limitations, and the benefits. There is no too-good-to-be-true product. There is no one-size-fits-all product. If there are any agents and advisors that are listening to me and you're doing this and you're being that sociopath that's coming in and selling that one Indexed Annuity to every damn person you sit down with, then shame on you. When people are going toward retirement they need sage advice. They need people in the financial business to act like a fiduciaries. What's a fiduciary? It's a person that puts the other person's needs ahead of theirs. That means you're not selling the hottest commission product. You're not selling the hottest bonus product. This is not one-size-fits-all. Be better than that agents and advisors and masters of the universe. Not everybody needs an annuity, and that's coming from the number one annuity agent on the planet.

Here's what makes me mad about racism and classism. I talked to a lady this morning, a wonderful lady, who worked at a university in the beautiful city of Chicago. She was being pitched a horrific product that didn't fit what she was trying to do. I'm thinking to myself, “Are they just taking advantage of people that trust other people, and that aren't financially savvy?” Now she's very smart in her line of work, but she's not a financial advisor. I'm tired of people like that getting preyed upon. I see that a lot when it comes to race. I see financial racism. I see financial classism.

Even if you don't know anything about finances and you didn't go to college and you aren't that savvy about financial products, you can work hard, and you can save and you can accumulate, and you look up at retirement and you have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars and you don't know what to do with it and you're hoping that you're going to get good advice. There are agents and advisors that prey upon these people. That only look for these people. I want to call it out. I want to call out the financial racism that's happening. I'm tired of the financial racism. I'm tired of the financial classism and advisors targeting the working class. Targeting the people that aren't making a ton of money every year, but they worked for 30 years and they accumulate a lot because they live within their means, and all of a sudden they're at retirement, and then these people like chum in the water, they are sharks looking for blood, they find them. Then they pitch them and these people trust them. They end up with products that don't work. They can't get out of, high surrender charges. They bought the dream, and they find out that they own the contractual reality and it's too damn late.

I'm calling out the advisors right now. We're coming after you from here on in. I'm going to start asking names when I hear this crap being pitched. If you're one of those people that's getting that pitch and you're going to the bad chicken dinner seminar or the person is coming to your workplace (the agent/advisor) and they're doing the seminar and talking about one product. You need to call me. You need to contact The Annuity Man® and let me know what's going on. We're going to clean this crap up. It gives the annuity industry a bad name.

That's not some socialist thing, that's not some liberal thing, that's not some progressive thing. That's an American thing of me wanting to take care of people that have worked their ass off and they get to the finish line and they fiduciary advice. They need the brutal truth. They don't need a friend. They don't need a sales pitch. They need someone to listen to their specific situation and give good, solid financial advice, even if that means that person isn't going to sell them something.

This is a callout to the industry. This is a callout to consumers. This is a callout to everybody involved in this process to clean it up or we're going to come after you somehow. Haven't figured out how we're going to do that. But we're going to do it. I'm tired of just saying, "Well, I guess that's just part of the crap environment we're in. I guess that's part of the reason that the annuity industry has earned this bad reputation. I guess that's the reason." No more. I'm too old to put up with this crap anymore. Am I perfect? No, I'm not perfect. As my grandfather said, "Stan if you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything." That's my business model. That's it. That's how stupid and low-level the business model is. We're going to tell you the truth. If that means you need an annuity, we're going to tell you. We're going to try to use as little amount of money as possible to fund that annuity if an annuity fits. But if it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit, and we're going to tell you so. Period.

Never forget to live in reality, not the dream, with annuities and contractual guarantees! You can use our calculators, get all six of my books for free, and most importantly book a call with me so we can discuss what works best for your specific situation.