Nick Foulks is an Advisor and Director of Communications Strategy and Client Engagement for Great Waters Financial, a Minnesota-based financial planning firm that specializes in providing holistic financial planning and strategic retirement solutions to pre-retirees and to retirees. As a seasoned leader and communicator, Nick develops and enhances the company’s client experience and, with a focus on education, he takes pride in helping his clients create retirement roadmaps to to give them peace of mind in good, bad and even difficult economic times.
Russ Alan Prince: At a time when interest rates, inflation and the general economic outlook are far from bright, your company has chosen to redefine the retirement planning experience. Tell me about your business and why you decided to change the way you approach retirement planning with your clients.
Nick Foulks: At Great Waters Financial, we specialize in serving people who are or are about to retire, working to create financial plans that focus on the major transition people go through when they move from their professional career to what they envision for retirement.
Historically, traditional planning companies have focused primarily on the technical aspects of creating a financial plan, which is a necessity and continues to provide great value today. However, over the past decade, we have learned that today’s retirement planning landscape is very different, and that retirees are experiencing far greater changes than just the source of their salary.
We’ve spent years listening to our customers to better understand their perspective as these changes happen in real time, and through countless conversations we’ve uncovered multiple areas of life that can be uprooted or impacted when someone leaves their professional career. We’ve also seen how a person’s confidence in their financial plan to weather the good, the bad, and the bad times directly correlates to their confidence and ability to engage in all areas of life.
Thanks to these discoveries, we have changed or redefined the way we approach retirement planning. While our first order of business is always to create a solid financial plan for our clients, we go beyond the numbers and begin the process to help them create definitions around the importance of this next season of life. Our goal here is to help them see retirement not as the end of something, but rather as the beginning of something amazing. Our goal is to help our customers not just withdraw from something, but rather aspire to something. By redefining what retirement planning means and addressing more areas of their lives, we can better serve our clients in their best interests.
Prince: How does the “redefine” experience go beyond the typical financial plan that most advisors create? What “non-financial” areas do you discuss with clients to ensure their retirement plan is truly comprehensive?
Foulks: We set the tone of our planning approach right away by first asking clients, “What is the money really for? Our goal is to help customers look beyond covering their monthly expenses and seize the ocean of opportunities that lie before them.
As an advisor, understanding what money means to them creates a much larger context around their transition to retirement. The accounts our customers have created over their lifetime are more than just a dollar amount; they symbolize sacrifice, hopes, dreams and aspirations. They are the reflection of countless hours exchanged during a professional career. While it is our duty to remove emotion from financial planning, it is our responsibility as trustees to understand how a loss in a financial account is not just a reduction in a client’s balance. , but also a direct impact on its vision of the future. . By taking this step back to see the big picture, we can help bring a clearer definition to a client’s personal vision for the future.
We look at several key areas that are seeing change during this time and explain how to redirect finances to the areas of life that matter – areas such as health, family relationships, values and more. As a counselor it can seem difficult to bring up topics like family and relationships, but we’ve found that educating pre-retirees about the life changes they’re about to experience can help tremendously.
For example, as individuals, we spend an average of about 2,400 hours a year away from some of the most important relationships in our lives. When our clients retire, that time is rewarded. The question is how they will use that time and how their finances will help them do so.
We often talk with our clients about putting their money where their values are. Many people struggle with the idea of spending when they have saved their whole life. The necessary mental shift really requires a careful assessment of what matters most and how your finances can be used to express it.
Prince: Do you think this type of approach will become an industry standard in the future? Will consumers expect this level of service from their advisor?
Foulks: There has been a shift in society as more and more people wonder how they are spending their time, especially as they approach retirement. As careers come to an end, we believe more and more people are trying to answer the question, “Why did I trade hours of my life for income?”
In the search for a more meaningful life, clients want to have a detailed plan that will bring them fulfillment and a sense of purpose. The value of a financial advisor is not just the strategy they provide from a technical perspective, but rather the human care. We believe that customers need more than calculations; they need guidance and therefore we believe that consumers will expect this level of guidance from their advisor.
RUSS ALAN PRINCE is executive director of Private Wealth magazine (pw-mag.com) and chief content officer for High-Net-Worth Genius (hnwgenius.com). He consults family offices, quick-and-rich entrepreneurs and selected professionals.