Life is good. Consumer confidence is high. Housing starts are up. Bond rates are increasing. Seems like all is well with the world.
From my chair, folks seem to be optimistic about our future as a nation. The rhetoric has calmed down over our new president. Federal taxes are different. Some folks will see nice savings; some, not so much. Teachers are back to work with a raise in pay close to where they were 10 years ago. The federal unemployment rate is at a record low. Millennials are getting off their parents’ couches and getting to work. Things are looking up!
So, what now?
As you may know, from reading years of this publication, I’m an eternal optimist. I live in my own little world. I made it myself. The company, American Retirement Advisors, was built to “see a need, fill a need.” (Name that cartoon). That’s exactly what we do. Our company was built to help folks detangle the ridiculously complex. The selfish part for me is, I like to have the correct answer to every problem I tackle. Our processes assure that we use every available option to get the correct answer for our clients, even if we are not paid for our efforts. You should see the faces on my peers when I share that little tidbit of information. I sleep very well every night in knowing we always correctly and most appropriately solve problems for nice people. And we have an improvement process in place to make adjustments as life changes.
From a business perspective, the contrarian approach has paid us in bushels for every grain we gave away incorrect, but not compensated, advice. Someone way smarter than me once said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Those words have been quite golden in my experience.
Our little company has helped tens of thousands of people all over the United States. We are looking to start two-way video broadcasts of our brand new Social Security workshop, as well as our Retirement Income Planning workshop, to our offices in Las Vegas, Mesa, and all over Texas beginning in June. This will allow folks a more convenient, closer to home, opportunity to get the latest information when retirement planning, as well as work with our top experts via video conference.
As we grow, I am proud to say we have hired a Chief Financial Officer to help manage our growth from an internal financial perspective. More about Mike in an upcoming edition. Additionally, we are hiring more licensed client care folks to help our clients via phone, email, chat, and video calls. Operationally, we are preparing for the Medicare annual election period beginning October 15th through December 7th. Last year we were able to serve 100% of the folks that needed to make a change, without a wait in the lobby, all while having humans answer our phones. Speaking of phones, we managed over 40,000 inbound phone calls, in a 45-day period. Big numbers for a little company.
To all our clients and future clients and fans of our little company, thank you for allowing us to “do what we do” for you!