Questions to Ask a Financial Advisor with Eunicia Peret

Come on Bob Leffler. This is George G. And the time is right to welcome today’s guest strong, powerful yuneisia Paret yuneisia, you’re ready to do this?

Eunicia Peret 0:19
You weren’t I totally Yeah, let’s do it.

george grombacher 0:22
Let’s Let’s go, Denise, he is a wealth strategist and financial expert. She’s helping business owners and executives, grow, protect and keep more of their wealth. yuneisia tell us a little about your personal life more about your work and why you do what you do.

Eunicia Peret 0:37
A little bit about my personal life, I am a a recovering corporate executive, trying to figure out what life looks like on the other side. And that’s a job for No, but on a real note, I’ve been a business owner for several years now. And in my prior life, from a corporate perspective, I’ve always been focused on finances, I’ve always been dealing with CFO CEOs, my area of focus primarily being the office of the CFO, and the finance organization. But as you can imagine, with that also come to finances, finances, as in terms of what happens actually happens with the money. I did that for many, many years on the corporate side working with Fortune 500, companies, helping some of the biggest, most renowned brand names in the world. And the last several years have been working on taking all of that knowledge and really putting it to use in helping individuals and small businesses truly make a difference to their personal and their small businesses. Bottom line.

george grombacher 1:42
You like it better?

Eunicia Peret 1:44
I love it. I love having the control. But most importantly, what I love is just seeing the joy in my clients eyes. Because in my prior world, certainly they were paying a lot of money for myself and my teams to be boots on the ground as you as you will. But in my in my current environment, those individuals are are all in it on their own. And oftentimes they don’t have anywhere to turn. Or if they turn to somewhere, they don’t get all the answers that they want and or they need and they’re frustrated. And so seeing that joy, the joy that our conversations brings to their face, just lights me up.

george grombacher 2:24
Yeah, I certainly appreciate that. What a fascinating experience, it must have been to be working with some of the largest consulting firms in the world, and then working with Fortune 500 companies, super interesting, super rewarding. And then to be able to take the knowledge and skill sets and processes, and to be able to deliver that to people that would never have access to that kind of they wouldn’t be able to work with those firms you used to work with.

Eunicia Peret 2:52
Absolutely. And honestly, George, looking back in my in my career, when I made that shift. I personally thought that a lot of that strategy consulting, kind of mindset that in some ways, leaving it behind and what’s happened over the last several, several years. I couldn’t help but ask questions, because that’s what any good strategy consultant does, they ask a lot of questions. And generally, they’re not meant to poke and pry but rather to try to define the root cause of the problem so that you can then design the solution and ultimately implement that solution so that we fix the problem. And when we’re looking at personal finances, the world of financial advisory is is fairly cut and dry for the most part. But when I came in, looking at our personal situation, I started just poking around and asking more and more questions. And what I found was that there are these these black boxes, these black holes that individuals just don’t know about these blind spots, if you will. And because of those blind spots, there’s only so much headway that anybody can make. Because they don’t know that what they don’t know. And so it very quickly reverted back to me using a lot of that expertise that I had honed in for so many years, helping a lot of those companies. And so oftentimes, individuals will ask me, Well, do you regret and I’ll tell them, the only thing that I maybe regret is perhaps not evaluating my choices sooner. But at the same time, every single minute, every single second that I spent in that environment was a blessing because it helped me be the person that I am and have the strength to plow through for my clients on this other side.

george grombacher 4:39
Is there value in regret anyway?

Eunicia Peret 4:42
No, I Well, it’s all a matter of perspective, right? A lot of individuals. We have a choice in life, we have a choice of looking at things that happen to us is happening to us or happening for us. And what I found is that the more we look at and perceive things as having For us, and some way somehow for our benefit, the better off we are in the long run, because otherwise we end up stewing in, in a bunch of, you know, sadness, and what if and what if this could have happened? And that could have happened? And that doesn’t help us move forward? For sure.

george grombacher 5:17
Not super productive? No, not at all. So I really resonate with with everything you were describing, talking about how we all have blind spots, certainly within personal finance, and it’s so enormous, it’s investing in taxes and estate planning, and all this. And so there’s these black boxes. And I don’t know what I don’t know. So sometimes, sometimes I do know, as as, as a user of money, that I’m supposed to be doing things, but I don’t. So I consciously do that. But sometimes I just don’t know. So talk about asking questions. To get to the bottom of problems or to uncover problems. Let’s talk a little bit about that. Because we didn’t want to offend people, we don’t want to be too aggressive.

Eunicia Peret 6:01
No, absolutely. And here’s what I’ll tell you. I’ll take it from two different angles. When I first started working with individuals, a good friend of mine said, Well, you know, don’t finances are so personal. What if people don’t want to share information with you what then. And so I was able to use my personal example, because I had gone through that I had worked with so many different financial advisors in all of all shapes and sizes and forms and different philosophies and different approaches that it’s always want, it was always one of those things where I gave them just as much as I thought that they needed. And it wasn’t until many, many years ago when we sat down with one of our mentors at that time, on the financial side. And he just asked questions on a personal blog, and it was really all focused on our goals upon what we were trying to achieve. Why, you know, if one of the questions that sticks with me was what kind of interest rate of return are you looking for? And I, you know, I came up with this in particular number or percentage, and he said, why? Tell me a little bit more about that. And so, what what I will tell you is that, in working with individuals, it’s all a matter of how you ask the questions, because all too often, many folks do not want to talk to a financial person. For that reason, they feel pulled, they feel pride, they feel like the person sitting on the other side of the table, is OSA modality. And so the approach that I’ve always taken with my clients is just really having a dialogue having a conversation. And I don’t even have to tell them at the beginning, hey, it’s not going to feel weird, it’s not going to feel because it doesn’t. And so what I found over the years, for for a long time, is that people just open up, they open up not because, again, they feel poked in private, but because on the contrary, they feel like somebody for the first time understanding understands them. But more importantly, somebody really cares. And so that’s on the client side. That’s that’s the interaction between us and our clients. But I what I will tell you, for our listeners is, it’s okay to ask questions. As a matter of fact, I encourage my clients to always ask questions. And oftentimes people say, Well, I’d want to ask a stupid question. There is no such thing as a stupid question. Unless you truly make it stupid, or you don’t ask it. Because chances are, if it’s in your mind, it’s in other people’s minds as well. And chances are if somebody else has asked it, there is an answer for it. And if there is no answer for it, it has to be found. That’s an amazing question. Because now you just don’t cover something big. So always ask questions, because you asking questions will absolutely lead to you identifying new opportunities, identifying new ways to save money, minimize on taxes, and who tell you which taxes right, minimize on taxes and different things. But it all starts with that desire, you have to have the desire to want to know more to wants to discover more. I like it.

george grombacher 9:04
What what, what great thoughts that if something pops into your head, that’s just a sure sign that you need to ask the question. It’s your body saying, hey, this has been been rattling around up here for so long, please let it out of your mouth, ask yuneisia she’ll, you know if she doesn’t know the answer, but she probably does certainly be able to find it and you’ll be able to work together to get the solution.

Eunicia Peret 9:32
Absolutely. 100%.

george grombacher 9:35
You know, it’s a and to your point, it’s never as bad as we sort of build it up to be it’s like we’re nervous to go to the doctor because we don’t know what we’re gonna find. We were nervous to go to the dentist, whatever. We’re nervous to talk to our financial person. But it’s it’s it’s it’s never that bad. It’s just a conversation.

Eunicia Peret 9:54
It is just a conversation. And similarly, I love the analogy. I do a lot of Doctor analogies similar to doctrine analogy when you’re going to the doctor, if you withhold information, who knows, maybe you get on the wrong medication, maybe you don’t get on the right treatment, maybe you don’t get a treatment at all, maybe you get, who knows what ends up happening. And so similarly to that, right, it’s not, it may not be uncomfortable. But you know, think of the doctor, think of the financial expert as someone that cares. But But the caveat here is, of course, make sure that you do work with somebody, somebody that cares. Because just like with any industry, when you pick your doctor, you’re very choosy as to who you’re going to see, right, you want to make sure that you get the best of the best is the same thing on the financial side, make sure that you’re also surrounding yourself with individuals that not just scare, but that have the right teams in place, whether they’re in house, or they’re an extension of them to help you excel for work. That’s, that’s a huge, huge thing. Because, again, go back to the doctor analogy, if you’ve got a hard problem, you probably don’t want to go to the podiatrist, or vice versa, right? There’s, there’s, those are very, very different areas of specialty. And so hopefully, your primary care physician is the kind of person that wants to get involved with all of your specialists. So that together, they come up to the to what the best solution what the best course of treatment is for you. Similarly, your finances, it’s not just a one person show. It’s not just your CPA or your tax person or your book keeper or your financial person, nor your attorney or whomever it is, they are not going to get there without the questions and without the desire to say, Hey, I know that I’m leaving something on the table. What is it? And where is it out? That’s winded?

george grombacher 11:50
I like it. How do I know if if the professionals I’m working with actually do care?

Eunicia Peret 12:01
Well, we have to follow our gut or gut instinct. And if if there’s any sort of a lingering thought in your mind

if there’s any sort of a but in their mind guidance is make sure that you get a second opinion, have a conversation with someone, ask some of the other people on your financial team, right, hopefully have one and kind of get their thoughts. And if you see that there are either incongruence is or things are not adding up, or there’s again, you’ve got just telling you there’s something missing here, chances are there’s something missing, it’s time to find somebody that that you can pick the brain and see if maybe they’re the right person for you.

george grombacher 12:54
Appreciate that. Are there? Are there common areas that that that that people are missing, that business owners and executives are missing? From a planning standpoint, they say I really wish people would pay closer attention to this or do more of that?

Eunicia Peret 13:09
Absolutely. I think one of the big big ones is taxes. And that’s this is part of what takes me back to my corporate my corporate days, right and strategy consulting, because as a financial expert, taxes shouldn’t necessarily be on my radar, right? You’re a finance person just handle the money and everything else, right? Or how do we invest the money? How do we go about doing something so that the money works harder for us? But the reality is that we first have to figure out where is it that we have leakages, and especially for business owners, but not only I would encourage individuals, especially high net worth, high income earners? That are W two, they have to really take a step back to understand what’s happening with their taxes. And the reason I say that is not it’s not to scare anyone, but I know how it feels to be paying hundreds of 1000s of dollars in taxes, and not really get any relief because it just comes out of your out of your paycheck. Right? You don’t you really, it’s perceived as we don’t have any control. But what if you did? What if you’re making 234 or $500,000? In your corporate job? Or we work with a lot of doctors, we work with a lot of engineers, we work with a lot of high paid professionals. What if you could change things around in such a way where you can actually not pay so much in taxes? Legitimately we’re not talking about tax evasion, we’re talking about just paying what it is that we need to be paying up to the legal minimum, right. But too many individuals Number one, don’t know about it. Number two, don’t ask questions because they don’t even think that it’s possible. And number three when we’re dealing on the tech side The tax industry as a whole is not necessarily focused on tax planning, or asking the tough questions, they’re focused on really falling for the taxes. So then if we need answers, the question then is okay, well, what are we missing? Well, how can we change our tax status? How can we go about figuring out ways to stop leaving so much money on the table to taxes? And when we ask those questions, we start identifying the need to perhaps have somebody yet somebody else on the speaking on our team, right on our financial team, but then the question is, who is that person? And that’s a lot of what we do with our clients, simply because when we started asking those questions, we realize that not any one person will handle everything. And so our area of expertise is bringing our financial or clients, financial teams to talk to each other, to make sure that when it comes to taxes as an example, that we’re talking about, no, we’re not leaving taxes on the table, we’re not leaving money to taxes, we’re pulling that back, because that’s money that we work hard for. So that’s one of the big, big areas where I see it’s a huge need, again, not just for business owners with high net worth individuals as well and or high income earners.

george grombacher 16:15
Talk about a black box, right? If I have a team of advisors, but none of them have any idea what the others are doing, then, it doesn’t need not be. But we’ve created our own black box.

Eunicia Peret 16:26
We haven’t and, you know, George, a lot of people have asked me over the years, you know, what, why do you think that is? Why don’t these people because they should be talking? Yes, they should be. But let’s also think about, you know, for our listeners, think about your own area of expertise. You do what you do best. And that’s what you do, right? For job for business, etc. Those individuals do the same thing. So it’s not we won’t live individuals, let’s blame the industries, because the industries they’re not, nobody’s compensated to be making sure that everybody else is talking about whatever the other person is doing. Right? Let’s think about, for example, how we set money aside from an investment perspective, there are so many traditional and non traditional waste invest money, well, what’s the right answer? For example, when it comes to taxes, right, we can just invest money and expect some sort of a rate of return and whatever the choice of investments is. But again, the question then becomes, how is that impacting taxes, those conversations, especially for individuals that do have quite a bit of money saved up or are looking to get into different types of investment classes and asset classes and all of that? It, they have to start asking the question of, okay, if if my taxes and my investments are coordinated? What’s missing? What’s missing? Where are we leaving money on the table today, but it’s also for the future. So it’s a kind of a balance? And what we just talked about to two things, right? How do we put the money to work for ourselves. And earlier, we talked about taxes, most people do not ever really bridge the gap between the two. And that’s where my unique skill set comes into play. Because in my history, I’ve been forced, and I’ve been in so many situations, we’re bridging the gap even between different functional areas within companies think about the front office sales organization for a large companies think about one of the bigger banks in the world, and their back office, which is their finance function. How do they work? It’s the same thing when we’re talking about the financial team. It’s really making sure that we bridge that gap. And it’s not as easy as it sounds, unfortunately,

george grombacher 18:32
No, certainly not. Certainly not. All yuneisia people are ready for difference making tip, what do you have for them?

Eunicia Peret 18:39
I don’t like difference making tip is it’s really going back to if you don’t, if you already have a financial team, ask yourself the question. How are they talking? How often are they talking together to make a difference to your bottom line? And if they’re not talking, you probably have a world of mess on your hands. It’s not, I’m not telling you that to be scared to scare you. I’m telling you that as an encouragement that it’s time to start asking some of those questions. If you don’t have a financial team on your side. And if you’re thinking well, I don’t make enough money, or maybe I’m not at the point where I should have a financial team. What I would tell you is, I would encourage you to think again, because your tax preparer, even if you just do the tax repair is someone that has huge influence over what can or should happen when it comes to how you think about retirement planning, but that’s not in their wheelhouse. And the person that’s helping you with your retirement planning is nothing about taxes. And so at a minimum if we’re just looking at something as simple as that, you still do need a financial team, and you need those people talking. So that’s, that’s my, my tip for our listeners for today. Well, I

george grombacher 19:52
think that is great stuff that definitely gets come up and easier. Thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you and how can they engage with you

Eunicia Peret 20:00
Doris, thank you so much for having me. For individuals that want to engage with us and learn more. You can find us on social media, I’m sure George, you’re gonna put some of those handles in, in the description. And also, you can follow us on our website, www dot empowered financial planner.com. And for those of you that want a little bit more information about what are some of the pitfalls that perhaps you could be avoiding in order to make sure that you maximize money when it comes to your retirement planning and your long term financial planning, you can go to empowered financial planner.com forward slash pitfalls, and get your your checklist to the five biggest pitfalls you should be avoiding. Make sure when we do communicate you let us know that you heard about it here on George’s podcast on the lifeblood podcast, because I would love to be able to give George A big thank you for for whoever you are, that might be reaching out

george grombacher 20:58
of it. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did, show us your your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas, follow them on social media, go to empowered financial planner calm and then check out the free resource of the five pitfalls to avoid at empowered financial planner.com/pitfalls Thanks Kenny. Nice. Yeah. Thank you, George. And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. It’s we’re all in this together.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai