Retirement Readiness Solutions for Nearly Any Scenario

Doug Massey, CLU, ChFC of OFG Financial Services shares some of his success stories from using The Retirement Analysis Kit (TRAK) retirement planning software.
In Doug’s words, “[Other advisors] need to give TRAK software a test run…it’s probably the easiest, up-to-date tool for nearly any scenario.”

Transcript

TELL ME WHO YOU ARE?

Doug Massey, with OFG Financial Services. Live and work in San Angelo Texas, mostly in the western half of the state of Texas. Been in business for 31 years- primarily in the retirement planning and life insurance business.

TELL US ABOUT THE RETIREMENT PLANNING BUSINESS

My retirement planning business mostly revolves around the K-12 and Texas higher education. The optional retirement program, probably make up about 65-75% of my business, life insurance and other products probably round out that.

WHAT TOOLS DO YOU USE WITH YOUR CLIENTS?

I use a number of tools, but my favorite tool is obviously TRAK software. TRAK has become a bigger and bigger part of my process and the tools that I use with my clients. The more I use it the more I learn about it, and the more opportunities I see to get to use the software.

WHICH TRAK CALCULATORS DO YOU USE MOST?

My favorite part of TRAK software is the Gap Analysis. That’s something that I use almost every time I sit down with a client, unless it’s just for a specific need. Gap Analysis process lets me paint a picture and lets my clients visually see it, rather than numbers on a note pad or me telling them everything is going to be ok. I can visually show them and print out that analysis and show them if they have a shortfall or where that shortfall is. It’s also so robust that I have not yet run into a scenario that I couldn’t make work or that wasn’t already in the Gap Analysis. I believe there are somewhere around 450 different defined benefit plans that are in there, that are up to date. When you can input those it paints a picture that they can take with them and they can see. It also has, what I really like about it is I can change the assumption with just a toggle or just a change in a value as far as an inflation factor, or projected interest rate factor, I can just change that whole scenario and show them how their plan or the plan we have put together will work under different scenarios.

TELL US A SUCCESS STORY USING TRAK

One of the success stories that I certainly would like to share is I sat down with a single lady- she was probably in her mid-fifties, felt like she was going to have to work another 7-10 more years. She had accumulated good bit of rental property and some other assets that she really didn’t consider a part of her retirement plan. We put it all together, put those assets into her plan, and showed her how we could take those assets along with the qualified plans and the IRA’s and savings that she had, and showed her how that would all play out, how that could all work as the different pieces of her retirement plan. We were able to determine that she would probably be able to retirement in 3-5 years rather than 5-7 or 7-10 years. We really shortened her time – of course she was very, very thrilled about it. Another part of that story, a week to ten days later she called me and she says what if? Well I still had her profile loaded in my software and made that little assumption change and emailed it to her in just a matter of minutes. And she was just tickled. She told one of her co-workers about it and who I’ve showed the program to her, she was much younger and had many more years but she was really impressed with how it showed her a plan that she never really, she knew she was saving money and she knew she needed to put money away, but she never really realized how the plan would work and what it would mean to her in retirement.

THE REPORTS FROM TRAK, HOW DO YOU MAKE USE OF THOSE?

I do. I become more and more comfortable using TRAK in front of my clients. Typically though I have some of their information all ready, you know their birthdate, the different defined benefit plans and some of the assets, and maybe, in my book of business already loaded in there- but when I sit down with a new client we can add another asset, or they can tell me about an IRA that I didn’t know about, another account that they had maybe somewhere else. So I’ve uncovered a number of assets just sitting down and going with them and putting all those assets in their plan. It’s allowed me to also gather some of those assets.

TELL US ABOUT GETTING SUPPORT FOR TRAK

I have had on a couple of occasions, I’ve had a few questions, how do you do this, I knew it could be done, just hadn’t done it yet, and I’ve called and my question was usually answered within a matter of minutes and I was up and running again. I’ve had no technical difficulties at all. The support is usually my ignorance of what all it can do. That being said I’ve also, every time that I’ve used the software it’s seems like peeling back an onion, I learn something else or find a new module, or find somethings been updated or somethings been added to. So the more I use it the more I see other opportunities to use it.

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO ANOTHER ADVISOR REGARDING TRAK?

I’d tell them they need to give TRAK software a test run. They need to show it, they need to pull it out and use it and put it to work for them. Cause it’s probably the easiest up to date tool for nearly any scenario. From my favorite the Gap Analysis to Life insurance planning to Roth conversions. Just a number of things that you can use the scenarios software in.