One City Built to Last

y peter suciu
GUIDING CLIENTS
COMMUNCIATION IS KEY
As a Certified Financial Planner, Radon Stancil of Diversified Estate Services has long
worked by the mantra that communication is crucial to ensuring that clients feel confident
that they’ll have money to last through their golden years. That has proven to be especially
true following the “Great Recession,” when fear became the biggest issue for many investors.
“What we learned is
that, when we go
through a 2008 scenario,
we have to communicate
more than you
would ever think,” said
Stancil, an associate with
the Raleigh, N.C.-based
Diversified Estate Services.
“Even if our clients
are not losing money, we
communicate with them
so that they know exactly
what is going on.”
Over the course of 14
years, the firm, which
first started to work with
retirees and those close
to retirement, has now
evolved into a full financial
planning firm. Today,
it is still aimed primarily
providing four core areas
for the older investor, including
helping clients
with investment strategy,
retirement income plans,
tax mitigation and even
estate planning.
It is also very much built
around the concept of
“TEAM” – “Together Everyone
Achieves More.”
This also includes building
client confidence, to
not only help reassure investors
following the 2008
downturn, but also during
subsequent scandals such
as the Bernie Madoff
ponzi scheme, which may
have given some retirees a
cause for concern.
“We’ve partnered with
institutions that people
would know – such as
Fidelity and Schwab,”
added Stancil, who noted
that clients are instructed
in the fundamentals of
working with an advisor.
“The biggest issue is that
you don’t write a check to
an advisor. Make sure that
the advisor never touches
the money and that it is an
arm’s length transaction.”
Stancil also stressed
how concerns from 2008
have not been completely
forgotten, and he noted
that Diversified Estate
Services continues to
work with clients to help
alleviate some of this worry.
Part of his approach has been
to guide clients away from the
“Alpha” approach and toward
a more conservative path for
investing.
“Financial confidence is returning,
but people have not
forgotten 2008. They understand
how it was sold by a lot
of financial advisors as a fluke
and a once in a lifetime event,
but the reality when you look
at the numbers is that, we have
a 2008-type market about every
five years,” Stancil explained.
“Maybe not to that extreme,
but we have a pullback average
of 38 percent.”
To this end, he highlighted
that clients can be shown a
path to achieving a good return
without taking on excessive
risk to get it.
According to Stancil, “If the
stock market goes up 15 percent
but they only get 12 percent,
quite frankly they don’t
care, because when the market
falls 20 percent they don’t fall
20 percent. Our focus is wealth
preservation, so people who
want high risk returns are not
going to be attracted to us –
and quite frankly, we’re not the
right firm for them.”
www.desllc.org
THE SUIT MAGAZINE p.77