Why Retirement Planning For Teachers Is Important - Brett Moore

This is the Beyond the Story podcast, a show that goes way beyond the story. And now, Sebastian Rusk. Welcome to the show, man. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Hey, it's great to have you here, man. We were just trying to figure out how we met and well, we blame the internets.

Sebastian Rusk

We blame the internets for sure. For sure.

Brett Moore

Well, it's great to connect with you. I love, I mean, for the past 15 years, this is how I meet new people is by interviewing them and telling their story and network. and then empowering them to do the same thing. So great that you took a few minutes out of your day to hang out with me. I love telling people's stories on the show. So for some context, let's back up to the beginning of your story, wherever the beginning is for you, that's different for everyone. And what really brought you to present day with what you do and how you help people.

Sebastian Rusk

Well, I'll tell you this, man. The beginning, all right? Little brother's always following around big brother, especially if big brother's making big money, right? And my older brother is, I actually did my senior year project on my older brother. He was the only person that I knew personally that was making $100,000 plus. And this is like 1998, 1999. He was in the real estate industry, and he was a realtor, and then he added mortgages to his business as opposed to taking these families to a house that he doesn't know if they can get approved or not. He said, okay, let me add the mortgage component to it so I know they can get approved for this house. And someone approached him and said, hey, listen, why don't you add financial services to your book of business? You're already proving to the bank beyond a reasonable doubt that these families can qualify for this home. You're already taking a look at their finances. Why not make a couple of recommendations as far as protecting the breadwinner, God forbid if something were to happen, or sending the kids to college, or making sure that they're going to be able to save some money for retirement? And sure enough, that's what he did. being able to make an extra $2,000 or $4,000 per transaction. He was already helping a bunch of families on an annual basis anyway. He says, why not bring this or add this component, the financial services component, to my real estate mortgage booking business? And I mean, I just looked at what he was creating and I said, man, there's a whole lot of... What are my options here as... I was a sports medicine major in college and my freshman year. And I said, well, I asked my advisor, I said, what's the most I can make? And she said like 120,000. I said, well, either I could try to become the very best in sports medicine that's ever done it, or I could get in business with my older brother. And I mean, cause he was making well above that at that time. And so we got in business together and I just, I honestly, you know, as a young person, and thinking about my friends and their their parents, you look at their, their setup, they have a house, they've got two cars and two jobs, you think they have it all figured out financially. That wasn't the case. When we were sitting down, I was shadowing my brother, we were sitting down and we were, I was sitting on these financial services appointments and we're going over things that I began to clearly understand. Things like compound interest, things like taxation, things like 401Ks, 432Bs, IRAs, Roth IRAs. I saw so many families that it was almost like deer in headlights that they glazed over almost. They didn't understand these concepts, these strategies that I thought they figured it out already because they had the setup, right? So, you know, and being in financial services from there, um, I shadowed my brother for a long time. And I just said that, cause I mean, I got licensed at 20 years old, but who's going to listen to the 20 year old financial advisor? Uh, nobody. And so I, I shadowed for a long time and it really wasn't until we stumbled upon and the school district market, a niche market working with teachers and school district staff, where I really found, you know, my, my market that I felt as if, hey, I could really help this market that really does need the help. And so my brother co-founded a company here, Appreciation Financial, and we set out to say, hey, this is our mission, helping teachers and other school district staff gain a better understanding of what their retirement and their outlook is going to look like because they also have a state-funded pension that makes it even more confusing for them, right? Even though it's going to represent a majority of their retirement income and gone are the days of pensions, but they don't understand how it works. So even if it's going to represent a majority of their income, they have no idea how it works. And so this is where myself and my brother, we set out on this mission to really help them gain a better understanding and be able to retire with dignity. If you think about it, would you want your kids in a classroom where the teacher is upset or disgruntled because they're not going to be able to retire? Or would you want them in a classroom where they're going to be able to retire with dignity and they're pretty happy about it?

Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's great. I mean, that's, well, we all know that teachers are, uh, grossly, uh, underpaid and, uh, and, and resource. So you being able to provide and carve out this niche, uh, is, is fantastic. So, so how long have you been in business doing this? 16 years now. Wow. Yeah. Very cool. What's the best part about the business?

The best part, I think, is honestly just the fulfillment part of helping someone get to that retirement stage and preparing them for retirement. I mean, here it is in March, and I'm excited about the clients that I have. that are embarking upon retirement, right? And so I'm, in fact, going to be looking to do a retirement party at the end of the calendar year for all my retiree clients. And so super excited, that part, that fulfillment, and having them have the peace of mind that they can retire. We also protect their retirements with, you know, what we call living benefits life insurance. It's not your typical life insurance, but it has something in place, God forbid, if they were to get sick. So now the retiree can retire and say, you know what? Hey, I've got, I've got enough money coming in for the rest of my life. That's great. Right. I have income. I'm not going to outlive my money. Then number two, I've got something in place, God forbid, about when I get sick, because the reality is we're not just healthy one minute and killing over the next, right? Our bodies deteriorate over time. So we all know we're going to get sick at some point, but the question is, do you have something in place, God forbid, when you do get sick, right? So that fulfillment piece and helping people get to that stage, and then What really, really became a lot more fulfilling for me was turning around teaching and training others. So I've been able to create a team of individuals and partnerships with mortgage professionals and other mortgage professionals, real estate professionals, as well as tax professionals and helping out their clients as well. So just having that fulfillment piece and saying, teaching other, if you say you're a mortgage or real estate professional, you're struggling in industry. Yeah. You know, you help five or 10 clients last year, but unless those five or 10 clients are going to buy another house this year, what are you going to do? You got to go find another five or 10 clients or it has in our business. You can actually add that to their current book of business as that's your current client database and actually make a great income and better help them. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. So after 16 years, I, I, I I'm venturing to believe that you have a tremendous referral network of, of, of being able to gain new business. Is that how you actually gain new business?

Oh yeah. I mean, you know, just like we were, when we were in school, uh, you know, the, the, the good news travels fast and the bad news travels faster. And so honestly, the way that we're in schools, I, I, I believe I give away more business than the most advisors do on an annual basis. Just because I've got so many clients that are constantly referring me business, um, texting me, introducing me to new clients. When I step on a school campus, it's, Hey, there's Brett, the retirement guy. You got to meet with him, right? You're the new teacher here. You got to meet with him. Hey, you're going to retire soon. You got to meet with him. He's the one that helped me. And he's yes. A ton of referrals coming in for sure.

Love it. And, um, where are you based at? You're in Southern California.

Yeah, I'm in San Diego, in San Diego, but my team is, is from California as well as Texas, Nevada, Arizona. So yeah, we're, we're all over the place. And we expanded, we became like a nationwide company about 2014, in fact.

Love it. So, um, has social media played a part into what you do?

Yeah, social media has definitely played a part. I'll tell you, we had a pivot. Zoom has played a tremendous part because, you know, we thought, hey, working with teachers and school district staff, this is certainly, this has to be a foolproof plan. There's nothing in the world that could affect this business. And then COVID happened. And of course, schools are shut down. But Zoom was a great tool for us in online meetings, because teachers were already doing this and gaining familiarity with with meetings online and that sort of thing. And so we transitioned or pivoted to doing all of our appointments online. And so we were weather the storm from there the content that's being created on social media from all of our online appointments the training that we're able to compose and put together for agents and be able to learn in a faster format you know online here but yes definitely social media plays a part lots of networking lots of messaging teachers and admin and setting up even just going, using it as a tool, but then even setting up in person. We had an administrator's luncheon this week where our agents got in contact with the administrators in a particular city online, but then we went and did the event in person. But yeah, it definitely plays a role.

Yeah. I was wondering, that's a, that's pretty common practice. I think I've gone to a couple of free lunches, you know, get, get some information about, uh, about what's going on. That's because I think when it comes to this, you're, you're, you're talking about very personal. financial decisions and people shake your hand, look in your eye, talk to you, get to know you, get an idea what you're all about, but they're going to be willing to do business with you.

I mean, I think as, as yes, we've progressed as the world and social media and zoom and emails and texting all that stuff. But I think that, In this space, putting the human factor in play is a big deal, right? And so meaning that there are some people that want to meet on Zoom, but they also want to see my face, right? They're going to definitely want to know that I'm a real person. We're not going to do the whole transaction just over text or email at all whatsoever. But going in person is, you know, I'll tell you post pandemic, how many schools and teachers were really, really receptive to having someone physically back on their school campus. They were happy to see people and put that human factor in play. That's one of the reasons for our success.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, man, I love what you're up to. This, this is a very unique model helping teachers out. I don't think there's any person that you tell that to, but they're like, that is fantastic because I mean, it's, it's, I don't know how long it's been that they're, you know, the most underpaid professionals on the planet and they're out there shaping our next generations, you know?

Right, right. Exactly. I mean, think about it. They are a highly trusted resource, right? Almost more so than a doctor, right? Doctors get sued for malpractice all the time. We leave our most prized possessions with teachers all day long, right? We leave our kids there. And oftentimes, you know, because of the different denominations and things, it's almost like schools are the cornerstone of our communities. Right. And so really going to helping out that K through 12 market, and we certainly help charter and private, it's a little different, but, you know, helping out that K through 12 space and working with that special niche market. And from there, and you got to think about it like this, one of the reasons why we decided to set out helping teachers, obviously there's a huge need, but you know, who hasn't met a teacher before? Right. So every single person knows a teacher. And so it's just being able to work in that space, to me, it's amazing, amazing opportunity. There's no shortage of schools. There's no shortage of teachers at all whatsoever. So we're always busy.

Yeah. Are you doing private and public?

Yeah, for the most part, we're doing public, but private schools can work. They kind of pick and choose how they want it set up.

Private schools actually pay their teachers.

Yeah, well, they'll pay them, but then a lot of the private schools won't have a state-funded pension, though, you know? So it's like they got to pay them more to supplement the not having a pension, right? And so some of my teacher clients have gotten out and gotten in the private sector and back in the public sector. It's like, no, I wasn't able to put enough of that extra pay into my own supplemental savings account, my own 401k through that private school. So I went back into the public sector to get the state-funded pension because, you know, it's pretty powerful.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Not to get not to get political, but you think you guys are going to save the state out there?

Man, I yeah, I don't know about that. I think some issues and challenges to come for sure.

I was out there. I was in Orange County for about 10 years. I had a nice little 10 year vacation in Newport Beach. Nice. Nice. That's awesome. Yeah. The furthest from reality you can get.

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, it is, man. That's one of my favorite restaurants is down that way. I love getting in that area. What spot is that? Javier's, man. They just did a remodel and all the good stuff. It's it's beautiful, man. I love that spot.

Some of the best mole I've ever had. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

There's one out in Newport Coast. I went to the one in the Irvine Spectrum back in the day. Yeah.

I mean, I love the restaurant so dang much. I've been to like five other locations.

Yeah, it's good stuff. I remember Javier's. I definitely remember that. Well, Brett, it's been great to meet you, man. Great to get to know you, what you got going on here. Wish you ongoing success here and look forward to staying connected with you. Any final thoughts for our listeners?

I mean, final thoughts is this, if you have something in place or you don't have something, if you have something in place, make sure it's enough to be there income-wise for you in the future. If you don't have anything in place in case you were to get sick, certainly reach out, find some solutions around that. Free consultations, we're willing to help anybody and everybody, even outside the teacher market. But that's primarily where we focus, but we're able to help everybody.

Love it. Well, be sure to include your LinkedIn on the show notes here so our listeners can connect with you on the internet. But hey, thanks again for your time, Brett. Great to chat with you. Great to learn more about what you got going on. Keep rocking and rolling, man. Yeah, thank you. Great talking with you as well. Likewise. Until next time, friends. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Beyond the Story podcast. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. We sure do appreciate it. Signing off from the podcast, launchlab.com studios. We'll talk to you next time.