Professional Group
Preparing for Retirement
Planning financially for retirement is anything but easy. You have to determine how much you need to retire, your budget for healthcare costs, the best Social Security filing strategy, and how the tax impact of taking distributions from various retirement sources will effect your planning. In this presentation we will be covering:
How to plan expense-wise for retirement
How much you need to retire
Tax considerations in retirement
Social security filing strategies
Medicare and healthcare costs
Pension decisions
Preparing your investment portfolio for retirement
The most common mistakes that we see retirees make
Managing the risk of a long-term care event
Wills, Trusts, and Estate Planning
Most people realize that they should have a will, health proxy, power of attorney, and in some cases, a trust. Unfortunately, most people don’t get around to creating those documents and when a tragedy occurs it’s too late. Also, if you have parents or grandparents over the age of 70 and think you may be serving as the executor or trustee to their estate plan, it’s vital to know how these documents work and what your responsibilities entail. In this presentation we will review:
How to establish a will
Items that should be included in your will
How a health proxy works
Power of attorney documents
What is a trust and how do they work
Estate planning when you have minor children
Using trust to protect assets from a long-term event
Beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life Insurance
Most common mistakes we see people make with their estate plan
Selecting the Right Investment Advisor
Selecting the right investment advisor can be a difficult task. What questions should you be asking? How do you compare one investment advisor versus another? Since investment firms vary greatly in the services that they offer and their approach to investing, it’s important to be able to identify which type of firm is in the best position to meet your needs. In this presentation we will cover:
Questions that you should be asking when you interview an investment advisor
The different ways that investment professionals are compensated
How many investment advisors you should interview
Using an investment advisor versus self directing your investments
Common investment designations and what they mean (CFP, CPA, etc.)
The difference between an advisor and a broker
Knowing when it’s time to fire your advisor
How the investment industry has changed within the last five years
Avoiding a Ponzi scheme
The most common mistakes that people make when selecting an advisor
Advanced Tax Strategies for Business Owners and Executives
All business owners and executives have one thing in common; they all pay big dollars in taxes. This presentation is meant to highlight the tax strategies that we use to lower the tax liability for business owners and executives. We will cover:
New tax strategies that have emerged from tax reform
Advanced plan design for company retirement plans allowing larger pre-tax contributions
Windows of opportunity for Roth conversions
Leveraging your spouse’s access to various retirement accounts
Non-traditional use of HRA and HSA
Little known tax secrets about 529 plans
Putting children on the payroll
Advanced tax strategy for charitable giving
Maximizing the new 199A Deduction
Pros and cons of changing to a different corporate entity structure
Advanced Tax Planning Using Employer Sponsored Retirement Plans
Employer sponsored retirement plans can often times be the most useful tool in reducing a clients tax liability. However, it is important to note that each plan works differently and has different eligibility requirements, contribution limits, and compliance requirements. This presentation is designed to help professionals understand the difference between these type of plans at a high-level. In order to do this, we will use case studies to show advanced tax strategies that we use when implementing retirement plans for clients.
Brief overview of the different types of plans
SEP IRA vs Simple IRA vs Solo 401(k)
Contributing $300,000 pre-tax in a single tax year
Advanced plan design options
Top compliance mistakes
Understanding discrimination testing
Tax triggering events: loan defaults, excess deferrals, in plan Roth conversions
Mergers and acquisitions
Business owners with more than one company (Control group rules)
Plan establishment deadlines
Case studies: The most common mistakes we see companies make with employer sponsored retirement plans
Different Ways to Structure Ownership for Key Employees and New Equity Partners
Whether you are bringing in new partners or looking for ways to tie key employees to the business, there are multiple ways that you can structure ownership in the company. It is so important to get this decision right because the wrong decision can lead to disputes and litigation between you and your new partners. Unfortunately, this happens more frequently than you would think and we have had a front row seat to many of those disputes. This presentation will cover:
Strategies for giving the feeling of ownership without actually giving equity
Structuring the buy-in for younger owners
Key provisions that you should have in your operating agreement
Phantom stock plans
Option plans
Executive deferred comp plans
Valuing the business
Tax implications of different buy-in structures
Planning for a break up
The most common mistakes business owners make when bringing on new partners
Mergers and Acquisitions: Understanding the Impact on the Company’s Employer Sponsored Retirement Plan
When a business owner is looking to buy another company or sell their own company, very little attention is typically given to the employer sponsored retirement plan until the last minute, only to find out in the ninth inning of the deal that there is a minefield of problems that can cause buyers and sellers to walk away from the deal. These problems range from compliance problems, to difficulties merging the plans after the deal is complete, to unforeseen tax events for your employees. This presentation will cover the following:
Stock sale: Impact on the plan
Asset sale: Impact on the plan
The buyers viewpoint: What to watch out for
The sellers viewpoint: What to watch out for
The special grace period for combining the plans
Compliance issues to watch out for
Asking the seller to terminate their plan
Unforeseen consequences for the employees
The most common problems after the acquisition is complete
Special rules that apply when companies have two different types of retirement plans
Case studies: Absolute disasters
Google, SEO, and Creating a Blog that Results in More Clients
This might seem like an odd topic for a financial planner to be presenting on, but I have been on the same journey that many business owners have been on; trying to attract more prospects to their company via Google search, blogging, and social media efforts. In September 2017, we only had 100 new visitors a month coming to our website, so we sought out a specialist in Google search and SEO and had them personally train us in each discipline. By February 2018, we had over 40,000 new visitors coming to our website a month. In the past, we had only grown from traditional marketing, referrals, and word-of-mouth, but this new source of prospects is now growing exponentially and producing results beyond just attracting new clients. In this presentation I will cover.
Why traditional marketing is dying
Understanding Google search
New trends in how people are searching for information
New SEO tactics that work
Elements that you need to build your digital voice
What we learned on our journey to 40,000
Software and resources
Maximizing your time
The winning structure for blog articles
Measuring results
Doing it yourself or hiring professionals
The long tail strategy
Creating a niche: Perception is reality
Don’t assume you know how people are searching for you
Other Speaking Engagement Categories
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