"What will fulfill you? What will nourish you? What will make life brilliant?"
These are the questions Justin King of MFP Wealth Management asks his clients before the planning aspect of his job even begins. For Justin, the magic word is retirement. It's his specialty. He lectures on it. He's even written a book about it. Because to him, retirement is a bit like a second chance with the one who got away.
The question is: what will you do with this second chance?
As Justin puts it, "Money is just a store of energy that will allow you to do what you've always wanted in life. It's not money, it's the experiences money can buy."
Justin has been in the financial services industry for years. Like many financial service professionals who have been around long enough, Justin began his career by selling financial products. But his career has since evolved. He's now deeply focused on the planning aspect of his job. He has both Certified Financial Planner and Chartered Financial Planner certifications.
Justin says, "It was quite early on I realized, it wasn't about the product sales. I want to deeply understand who you are. Then we'll create the financial strategy. And then we'll find the products."
Tapping into a client's deepest wishes is always important. But it becomes arguably more crucial when it comes to planning a client's retirement. Situated in the retirement destination of Christchurch, Dorset, MFP Wealth Management focuses on, you guessed it - retirees.
They come to Justin to help them figure out the massively important transition into retirement. Sometimes they've seen another financial service professional and are uninspired. Sometimes they have had their pensions managed by their employment, and they've never had to manage their finances themselves.
MFP focuses on successful clients, most of whom are married with university aged children. These are clients who can afford to retire. But what does retirement look like to them? When they come to Justin, he digs deep to find out what they really want out of this next phase of their lives.
For instance, one client stood to inherit his mother's house and vocalized how he planned to retire there, but Justin asked the simple yet pertinent question: tell me more about why you want to live there? Does that fit the lifestyle you dreamt of?
He uses Voyant to help his clients grasp what their futures will really be like:
"The first thing we do is pull up Voyant on the projector and take them straight to the overview page. They've never seen their finances laid out like that before. They see the robustness of the plan. I'll build stuff live, test a market crash, or if we can't find anything scary, model out care and estate duties."
According to Justin, a lot has been misunderstood about retirement. New legislation makes it confusing for clients, who often miss tax deadlines and other beneficial opportunities. Financial professionals don't always appreciate the gravity of the situation. For most people, career and identity are tightly coiled, leaving what to do after retirement a large question mark.
As Justin explains, this can be an opportunity to find out what you're really made of. He himself has had quite the textured series of careers, from restaurant manager to Commercial yacht master:
"I've been very lucky. I've done a lot of different things. I've got lots of skills, because I haven't had to be fearful. I've never been scared of doing stuff, but it's only because I've had a knowledge of my own resources and abilities."
Having experienced a few careers himself, Justin is passionate about encouraging people to pursue what makes them happy. Although he normally works with successful individuals, his desire to help people has led to him starting an educational program aimed toward mass market clients.
This educational program would serve people who can't afford traditional financial advice, instilling them with basic financial skills and knowledge such as, "…Compound interest, because it's amazing. A will. Some life insurance. You don't need anything too much more complicated than that."
The program will also, "Encourage people not to be scared by entrepreneurship, and to follow their ambitions."
As Justin puts it, "You've got to get the life planning piece done, and then inspire people to achieve, give them some skills . A lot of people don't need a financial adviser. We’ll give them the financial knowledge to work out how debt, investing, and pensions work."
As for Justin himself? Retirement doesn't seem to be on the horizon - by choice.
"I'm 48. And I have two young children. We are blessed to live in a beautiful part of the UK. We are next to the sea and the forest. My wife has just come in from the harbor, and they've been dinghy sailing this afternoon. As a family we sail and walk and paddleboard.
"Do I need to retire? I don't know, I don't think so. I want to keep moving and developing. I'm not convinced I ever need to retire, to be honest. I'm living my own life plan."
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