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These days, people are living longer which, of course, is a good thing. But it also means retirees’ savings must stretch further to last throughout retirement. Throw in the recent surge in inflation, rising long-term care costs, and the unfortunate reality that many retirees are not financially prepared for retirement, and we have the makings of a retirement crisis ahead. 

On the bright side for older-adult homeowners, housing wealth has been on the rise. According to the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association (NRMLA), U.S. homeowners aged 62+ saw their home equity soar to a record $10 trillion in 2021. It can be prudent for homeowners and their advisors to discuss ways to incorporate housing wealth into retirement planning decisions. 

For your clients who are homeowners aged 62+, a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM, commonly called a reverse mortgage) loan offers some distinct advantages over other types of home-equity-release loans.

According to a survey conducted by Clever,* about half (51 percent) of retirees believe they will outlive their savings. Perhaps even more worrisome, the study also found that 65 percent of retirees say they are not financially secure. They may be facing any number of financial challenges, including how to best pay for long-term care or combat recent jumps in the prices of food, gas, and just about everything else.

As a financial professional, you want to give your clients the best chance at financial success. For most homeowners aged 62 and older, home equity represents the largest portion of their overall net wealth, usually dwarfing their other assets (e.g., retirement savings). While home equity is good, unless the home is sold or the equity is tapped, it is of essentially no functional value to a homeowner in retirement because it is generally very illiquid.

Don't miss NAIFA partner ReminderMedia's webinar "How to Turn Clients into Raving Fans"! ReminderMedia President Luke Acree will outline the importance of focusing on relationships, not transactions.

In the webinar, Acree will help you:

• Discover why you need to be known, liked, and trusted before you can do business
• Find out how one psychological trigger will guarantee a desired response
• Learn why focusing on transactions rather than relationships will kill your business

The webinar will take place on March 24th at 1 pm eastern.

If you run a company with fewer than 500 employees, you have a small business. According to the SBA, small businesses make up 99.7% of the businesses in the country, so you have good company.

But how do you remain a successful small business – one that doesn’t fail within the first 18 months? Here are 5 things you must know.

If you are a financial advisor trying to grow your practice, Dean Thurman, Senior Partner of InvestWise Financial and Co-Founder of White Glove, has a few growth hacks for you.

While many advisors were down in revenue during 2020, Dean’s office showed a 5% increase.  So far in 2021, Dean’s office is showing 53% revenue growth.

Dean attributes much of his success to these 7 growth hacks that his office has put into place over the last few years.

Technology might not seem like a likely tool a financial advisor can use to build client relationships. It almost goes without saying that older generations prefer human interaction versus digital services when it comes to their finances. And surveys have found that even tech-savvy millennials are more likely to get help with their finances from real-life advisors than from robo-advisors. 

So how can technology help financial advisors strengthen and add value to their relationships with clients—especially older clients—when it lacks the human touch? After all, a computer can’t hold your hand during a market downturn. 

But there is new technology that can enable advisors to build their businesses by giving them the ability to better assist aging clients and clients taking care of aging parents at the stage of their financial lives where they need the most help. That new technology is Carefull.

Are you leaving money on the table?

If you aren’t nurturing and engaging with your leads and clients, the answer is yes. According to Invesp, “Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads at a 33% lower cost.”

Lead generation is only the first step in a well-rounded, efficient marketing plan. To maximize your lead generating efforts, you need to interact with those leads and connect with your clients. If you don’t keep in touch with them, they’re likely to forget about you, and that leaves the door wide open for your competition to creep in. 

Your company’s workplace culture and brand are permanently linked. Business leaders often view it as a one-or-the-other undertaking, but that’s a mistake. If you want to build or refresh one, you should couple them both together.

Impossible, you say? Too much of a heavy administrative lift? Keep reading, you’re in for a surprise.

While the stock market tends to dominate news cycles surrounding any current large-scale event, too many average Americans are uneducated when it comes to investing. When many people see reports of record market highs and losses, massive government bailouts, and changing legislation regarding interest rates and taxes, they do not have the educational background or investing experience to translate these headlines into meaningful analyses and applications for their daily lives. Investing education is critical for all Americans, particularly in times of economic turmoil. Consider these benefits of investing education when making financial decisions with your clients.

Many prominent surveys have shown that most employees want a permanently hybrid work environment – or at least more flexible workplaces. This is a shift that has been coming for some time – the pandemic simply accelerated it.

For employees, hybrid workplaces combine in-person work and telecommuting. For organizations, this shift brings many questions about how to manage the new hybrid workplace. For many leaders, managing a distributed team of people engaging in various work modes – such as in-office, hybrid, remote and outside sales – is unfamiliar.