HL February 19,13

Retirement living and debt are major issues for baby boomers. Many are half a million dollars short on retirement savings and will have to work longer or cut back on their lifestyle. Debt elimination is crucial for a comfortable retirement. Many boomers are still carrying debt and are at risk of bankruptcy. Social Security alone is not enough to support them. Delayed retirement limits opportunities for younger people. The rising cost of being old makes it necessary to eliminate debt and have a solid retirement plan. Building a business in financial services can provide a solution and help boomers in need. Hey, good day everybody. Hey, listen, we want to talk a little bit about retirement living and debt that holds many boomers back. This is just amazing, these numbers about what's holding people back. It's just crazy. And the reason I want to share this with you is because it just speaks so loudly. It screams at the opportunity that we have at Primerica. It screams. Look, if you just start opening your mind here with this and start looking at what the issues are. Remember I said before, money flows to those people who solve other people's most pressing problems. There's hardly anything more pressing for the majority of people than financial problems, retirement, all these things. It's a huge issue for people. We have the ability to solve those issues for a group of people, the middle market. That no financial service company is serving. They don't see it as being a valuable group of people to talk to. So I want to talk to you, but I want to basically read this article and comment on it about the situation. But the way I want you to listen to this is if I get really good at this business, and I know what I'm doing. I know how to do F&As. I know all the products. I know how to present it. I know how to get people to implement and change their financial situation. If I get great at this and I get great at teaching this, I can make big money. I can get really wealthy here. That's the way you should hear this message today. So with the average baby boomer half a million dollars short on retirement savings, the prospects for actually retiring look slim. So what do we do about it? Now look, the baby boomers is like a gigantic 80 million people or something like that. They're going to be a half a million dollars short. Folks, that means they either can't ever retire, which is going to be a big percentage of them. Or if they do, they're going to have to cut back on the way they live dramatically. So baby boomers forget about retirement. They'll be working for the rest of their lives, a lot of them. Okay, that may be an exaggeration, but not by much. Look, we have not saved enough money. And worse, because I'm one of those baby boomers, by the way, and thank God I saved enough money. Worse, many of us will still be up to our eyeballs in debt when we do retire, which is another reason why our F&A is so important. Implementing a debt elimination program for your clients is so critical because if they're ever going to want to retire, one of the things you're going to do is be debt free. But if they're completely debt free, they don't even have to save as much money because they don't have any debt. And they don't have to service that debt, so the amount of money they'll actually have to save for retirement becomes less, which is another reason. It's an argument when you're talking to a client why they should do an F&A and why they should have a debt elimination strategy, because if they want to retire, it makes retirement much more probable and much more comfortable because they're not going to have that debt. Look, most people are up to their eyeballs in debt when they do retire, and they're just one medical emergency away from bankruptcy. The majority of Americans are one medical emergency away from being bankrupt. According to Boomers in Retirement, a new survey by TD Ameritrade, the average baby boomer is about half a million dollars short on retirement savings. And 74% of boomers in the survey say they will have to rely heavily on Social Security in retirement. You know what the average Social Security check is, by the way? It's $1,230 a month. What can you do with $1,230 a month? Folks, it's nothing. That's like, it's poverty level. Retirement living, college towns, lure baby boomers in retirement, money, quick tips, okay, so you don't run short. USA Today reported last week that the more people are delaying retirement and continue to work past 65, mostly because they need the money. People that could retire, right, they don't want to keep working. They'd rather do things that they enjoy doing, right? According to 2010 Census data, the share of workers 65 and older in the labor force rose to 16% up from 12% in 1990. So the number of people, so now another problem that makes, right, is that it limits opportunity for younger people because older people are staying in the workforce longer, so those younger people need, they need jobs or they need more income, which makes our business, right, more attractive from a recruiting standpoint. You see, every issue, whatever happens to make somebody sad, it makes somebody happy. That there are these problems, it's a sad thing, but for us, if you have a solution, it's a good thing, okay? Not that I'm saying that it's a good thing for them. I'm just saying it's a good thing for us that we have the ability to solve those issues. Look, what they're saying, we'll have to work a lot longer and get by with us is Olivia Mitchell, Professor of Economics and Executive Director of the Pension Research Council at Wharton School of Business. It's just getting a lot more expensive to be old than it used to be, she says. The National Foundation for Credit Counseling, which helps people who are having trouble paying their bills, says that one-third of its three million clients nationwide last year were 55 or older, up seven percentage points in two years. Nearly 15% are over 65. Boy, that's scary because those people cannot retire, folks. That is a point in life when most folks thought debt would be the last thing on their minds. Even more troubling, nearly a third of the NFCC clients who file for bankruptcy are 50 and older. A third, a 50, can you imagine when you're 50 and you're filing bankruptcy? At 50, you should be more than halfway towards your retirement goal. In their golden years, they're filing bankruptcy. It's very disturbing, folks. American Consumer Credit Counseling, which says 25% of its clients are 55 and older, paints a similar picture. Seniors are going into retirement still carrying debt. Again, why is it important for you to do an F&A and put together a debt elimination strategy for these people? Because you don't want your clients to be part of this equation, part of this group. You should be talking to them about this stuff and say, look, you don't want to be in this situation. We need to do this F&A. We need to put you into a debt elimination strategy. This is not like a joke. You need to be doing this because if you don't, you're going to be hating life. When you talk to me right now, you're 40 years old or 45, whatever the age is. You don't want to be looking back and saying, doggone, I should have listened to Hexer about doing this thing. You want to make sure you've got this stuff handled because this is relatively painless to do this. It's really just about having a strategy and implementing that strategy. I'm going to put that strategy together for you, and I'm going to help you implement that thing. This is a thing that you cannot say no to. This is critical for your future. Look, as we get older, we lose energy. We don't want to keep doing the things that we're doing. I'm not old, but I'm going to be 56 on Valentine's Day, right? I have a lot of energy still. I'm healthy. I'm not overweight. I take good care of myself. But I'll be honest with you. I don't have the energy I had when I was 30. I just don't. As you get older, one of the reasons you want to get rid of your debt is because you're just not going to have the same kind of energy to put in the hours and do the things you have to do. Why not put yourself in a position where you can do more things that you enjoy doing, have more leisure time, more leisure activity, be able to travel, be able to do the things you enjoy doing? Look, what they're doing, right, they're still carrying debt on their mortgages, credit card debt, student loan debt. They're depleting their savings and retirement accounts just to make ends meet. Seniors are not able to retire when they're eligible to retire because they can't afford to make ends meet, says Katie Ross, Education Development Manager at ACCC. They're still paying student loans and debt off for their family members. Another troubling find, right, is most workers in a survey by Employee Benefit Research Institute say they have virtually no savings or investments. 37% of those surveyed in 2012 Retirement Confidence Survey think they'll have to wait until after age 65. Most workers in the survey have no savings, virtually no savings or investments. Folks, that is a bonanza for you to build a business. You have the solution to that. Look, you've got to be looking at this opportunity of yours like, oh my God, if I just get good at it, I work on my skill sets and I work on my knowledge base and I know how to do this thing and I know how to do an F&A and I just prospect, I'm going to make a fortune. And then if I teach other people to do this, man, I'm going to make a mega fortune. That's how you should be looking at your opportunity. The way I looked at it, 34% of older Americans use credit cards to pay for basic living expenses such as mortgage payments, groceries, utilities. Can you imagine using a credit card to pay for your groceries and having it accrue interest or your mortgage or your utilities? Folks, that is just criminal. It's sad. You have the solution to this. You could be hearing this and getting depressed or you could be hearing this say, thank God for our company and for me knowing how to do this because I'm going to change a lot of people's lives and if I build a big organization in sales, I'm going to save thousands of lives. My life is going to have meaning. It's going to make a difference for so many people. That's the way you should look at this. According to a research conducted by AARP, as a result, they had average credit card debt of about $8,248. About half of the people over 50 in the survey were called by debt collectors. Half of them did not even pay their bills. They're getting called by debt collectors. The new data from EBRI showed debt has actually increased for retirees 75 and older. People who are 75 and older don't have a long time for this planet. Including housing debt. Craig Copeland, Senior Research Associate, says it's not clear why but it may be because of health care costs. It probably is. Health care costs have doubled since 2009. In four years, they were supposed to go down. That's what this whole Obamacare thing was about. They've actually doubled and they're going to double again. New data from EBRI showed debt has actually increased for retirees. This is not what baby boomers expected. You'd expect more people to incur more debt early in life rather than later, Mitchell says. That's when you might not have a lot of money. You have student loans, a family, a mortgage payment. You're not making big money yet. The idea was that you would pay off your house as you grow older. You would pay off your credit cards when you hit peak earning years. And when you moved into retirement, you would do it in a mortgage-free and debt-free. Folks, we have the ability to do that for people. There's no reason every single one of your clients, if you did an F&A and you put them into a debt elimination program, every one of your clients would hit those peak earning years with no debt, no mortgage, and know they're going to be able to retire and not be stressed out about it. Right now, every time you meet with somebody, you should be talking about this stuff. But that changed in a dramatic fashion partly because of the financial meltdown and housing crisis. Many people thought they had savings in their equity in their homes. People refinanced. They took out home equity loans, and they spent it. Folks, that's why counting on your house is crazy. People need to be investing money in some sort of an investment instrument. The deflating of the housing bubble meant boomers were hitting retirement age with less in assets than they expected. That was a cold bath of water. So how can we get out of this mess? One is that we can start getting an F&A done on every single client and putting together a debt elimination program. We can turn more to financial planners. Financial planners, they can turn more to Primerica and consumer organizations for health and retirement planning. Folks, we're the answer. We're the answer. That's why you need to master this stuff. That's why you have to master those seven fundamentals. That's why you need to keep working on your self-development. Work on your skills. Work on your knowledge. Learn how to do F&As. Learn how to do that really, really well. Make sure you've got that down so you can help more people. Look, saving. How much do you need to retire? Look, that F&A helps people put together an action plan, a retirement plan. Folks, if you're not doing F&As, folks, it's criminal. It's criminal for you not to do an F&A. I can't believe that you could be in this business and care about other people and not be doing F&As. It's just ridiculous. How could you do that to these clients of yours? Some people may have to take part on a part-time job, says the University of Oklahoma. They may have to alter what they thought they would do. They certainly aren't going to be able to take a lot of vacations. Look, I don't know that recruiting retirees is the best thing to do, but why not? I mean, if they're there, a lot of them need to be doing something. Maybe some of them could be good. I would definitely approach those people. One possible answer is they just shouldn't retire. Another possible answer is they just shouldn't retire. That's terrible, right? They should just wait. If you claim Social Security benefits at 70% instead of 62%, your benefits are 70% higher. Some people can't put off retirement, but many people can do it. That's what they're saying. You should plan to do that. Those are the things that are happening right now, folks out there. They just scream to me. I mean, I'm reading this, and I'm just going, Oh, my God! How could you not build an amazing, incredible business in Prime America with what's happening out there? This environment, as sad as it is, right? Unemployment is at an all-time high. Debt is at an all-time high. All kinds of issues. But the reality is, folks, is that it's an opportunity. It's just like t-ball. It's like they just set the ball up on the tee, and you can whack at it. Instead of trying to hit a 98-mile-per-hour fastball, it's like a piece of cake. But you've got to do two things. You've got to grow the skill sets, and you've got to grow your knowledge base. And then you've got to become a great teacher on top of that. I would say three things, right? You've got to teach people how to do this, folks. This is an amazing time for our business. I mean, if you're thinking correctly, right, you should be so excited about your future, you can't stand it. All right. We'll talk to you guys next week. Tear it up.