Birmingham, Alabama-based financial guru Jeff Roberts, who was recently named one of the top private wealth advisors in the nation by Barron’s®, came on Yellowhammer Radio to lay out the facts so people can decide for themselves.
The full conversation with Mr. Roberts can be heard on the Yellowhammer Radio podcast or in the video above, and a lightly edited transcript of his interview with Yellowhammer’s Andrea Tice and Scott Chambers can be read below.
Subscribe to the Yellowhammer Radio Podcast on iTunes. Learn more about Jeff Roberts’ private wealth advisory practice at JeffRobertsAndAssociates.com.
Scott Chambers:
Welcome back. It’s Yellow Hammer Radio, Super Station 101 WYDE. Andrea Tice, Scott Chambers. On the show with us today is our local financial guru, Jeff Roberts. He’s the founder of Jeff Roberts and Associates. He and his team of seven advisors can help simplify your complex wealth management needs. They are exceptional financial advisors who have provided sophisticated financial planning and advice, helped out with many high net worth clients for 131 years combined. That’s a long time. Jeff, how are you doing today man?
Jeff Roberts:
Fantastic. Beautiful blue sky. Love it.
Scott Chambers:
It’s a gorgeous day.
Andrea Tice:
It’s a beautiful day.
Scott Chambers:
Gorgeous day. Well Jeff, good to have you back with us here on the program today. We got so much, you know we were talking last week. Some really important stuff and today I understand you’ve got some impactful things you want to talk to us about and you want to talk about some examples of maybe people you’ve worked with and maybe how you’ve helped people out over the last month or so. Kind of help our listeners understand what it is you do there.
Jeff Roberts:
Yeah, I can give four examples of situations or cases we’ve worked on in the last month. One, for example, is a 29 year old couple, fairly newly married, both in the military. And we basically crafted out a plan for them where within the next 12 months, they’re going to be able to have 100% of their debt paid down. They will pay cash for the car that they need and they will put 20% down on their first home. And they’re going to be saving 15% of everything they make long term towards retirement and they’re 29.
Andrea Tice:
Wow.
Jeff Roberts:
So, you think about just that alone. You think, those people are gonna be set if we can just get a plan like that in place, which they’re on track to do so. Met with a 60 year old client that we worked with for probably 17, 18 years and showed her that if she will work for six more years, which is kind of a part of her financial plan, she will be able to retire at 66 in six years and she’ll have more income in retirement than she has now, and she’ll be able to accomplish her goal of traveling the world at least once a year, anywhere she wants to go.
Scott Chambers:
Wow.
Jeff Roberts:
And ideally take her sister, which is again an accomplishment of life goal, but being able to show the client that that’s possible and we have a target and a place that we can hit. That’s a great example. We’ve rebalanced a portfolio with a client that has 75 million dollars inside of it and designed an allocation to on board an additional five million. The fourth example is work with two different clients within a day of each other, appointments. Both of them were 58 years of age. Both have been working with my practice for over 20 years and both were people that we identified this July, ironically. They will each be able to retire at 58 years of age for the rest of their life with financial independence and dignity. It was amazing because one of the meetings was literally, we’re slapping high fives and we’re happy and the other one was a very emotional meeting with tears of happiness where somebody is able to achieve a dream that they thought they’d never be able to do. Those are four examples and totally different directions of how we design a plan and help people to accomplish their goals in a wide range of situations.
Andrea Tice:
Yeah. Wide range for sure. Both in age and it seems in income because the first couple you used as an example, they’re two people in the military and that’s not a lucrative business.
Scott Chambers:
No.
Andrea Tice:
But yet, they’re able to do some incredible things with your guidance.
Jeff Roberts:
And contrast that to the client that has a 75 million dollar portfolio. So, we work with obviously different people with shapes and sizes, but they all have a common goal and that is to pursue something in the future that’s important to them.
Scott Chambers:
That’s incredible Jeff and I don’t think I’ve ever actually asked you this, but I’m curious to know. What is it that got you into the business Jeff?
Jeff Roberts:
Wow. This is a good story. Go back to … To understand the history, we got to go back and talk about a couple in Knoxville, Tennessee. A school teacher that was married to a man that worked in the steel industry. Back in the day, when you worked for a company for years and years, you would retire with a pension and these two clients or these two people, I should say, retired in their 70’s. Lynn and Girly is their name. Well Lynn, he worked in a steel company and he retired with a monthly pension and social security. And Girly retired. She had her social security and as you know, many teachers have pensions as well.
And we found that clients in that situation would retire and have more money in income in retirement than they did when they were working cause the mortgage was paid off, kids were out from under them. Here they were in the 70’s and actually saving money. They built up about 40,000 dollars of money, which in the 70’s was a decent amount of money and they said, “We want to set this money aside for our grandsons.” And they had four. And so they said they met with a financial advisor of sorts and said, “We want to put this money away for our grandsons, so that no matter what happens and they say, screw up their lives financially, they’ll have a big nest egg down the road.” And so, that was what was put in place.
Well, as it turns out, these people that we’re talking about are my grandparents. And they are now deceased and so, fast forward years later. Well, the story was, I remember being told at 6 or 7 years of age that no matter what you do, you screw up your life financially, you’re gonna be a millionaire down the road with what was put in place. And I remember after finishing my business degree in finance at Stanford and I was talking to my mom about wanting to see some of these documents or what this was, as it was set up. They’re like, “This is a trust. You’re not even supposed to … You’re not even supposed to remember that. That’s for you down the road. Forget about it.” Well, I kept pressing and long story short, they allowed me to sit down and look with my mom and my grandmother. My grandfather had been deceased at that time and we looked at what was set up. And come to find out that this was nothing more than 40,000 dollars that they had invested into four life insurance policies with a 10,000 dollar front end premium payment into each of them. So, four policies, 10,000 dollars up front on the lives of four boys, which is in this case were ranging from like age seven to eight or something like that. Or seven to nine.
And so, if you remember in the 70’s, where was inflation and interest rates at that time? Crazy high.
Andrea Tice:
Yeah.
Jeff Roberts:
So, you might have seen like, 12% interest rates. Well, sure. If you took 10,000 dollars and stuck it in some life insurance policy and you grew it out and project it into the future at 12%, sure that 10,000 dollars would be a million bucks 60 years down the road. But what happened to interest rates?
Andrea Tice:
The 80’s came.
Jeff Roberts:
They came down. They came down dramatically. So, what happened was the policy was not growing at nearly the rate that it had been projected to. In fact, it was not growing enough to cover the cost internally of the insurance that was coming out of the cash. By the time I uncovered this when I was just out of school, the policies were worth maybe 14, 15 hundred dollars in cash. And it had eroded away this quote, trust that had been set up for the grandsons. And I shared this information with my mom and my grandmother and I will never forget. It was that life changing moment when my grandmother got this information and she wept. She literally cried and she said, “How could this happen? How could someone do this? Why didn’t someone tell us?” You know, statements weren’t sent out on insurance policies on a regular basis back at that time. No one ever picked up and said, “Hey, interest rates have changed. Something’s been adjusted.”
So, I immediately saw the impact of bad service or lack of service, lack of advice in a situation impacting somebody that was truly trying to pass a legacy to their survivors. In this case, me. So, that was a green light moment for me where I recognized that there is a service that is needed. I literally set out on this industry to try and make sure that that never happens again, and here’s the quick summary. I believe that everyone wants an amazing relationship with a financial advisor. They just don’t know who to turn to. And my grandmother wanted a great relationship with a financial advisor, and she would have said she had a financial advisor, but obviously it wasn’t the type of relationship or service model that led to good outcomes.
Scott Chambers:
Exactly.
Jeff Roberts:
And so, we created a company that has a vision that is to be the obvious choice for guiding clients to joyfully steward their resources. And until my last breath, I’m gonna continue to make sure we protect clients from making the big mistake, and be that obvious choice for them.
Scott Chambers:
Wow.
Andrea Tice:
It sounds to me like you’ve got the one essential ingredient. It’s that integrity because you want the truth to be given to your clients about where their money’s at, what they need to do and all of that.
Jeff Roberts:
Well, thank you. That certainly is the objective and when things like you’d mentioned, the Barron’s Recognition seven times or Financial Times Magazine recognizing us in the top 400, those things to me are nothing more than a symptom of us trying … National recognition for us trying to create a client experience that is second to none. And so, our objective is gonna be the same today as it was back then when I started 25 years ago and that is just to make sure our quality of service is exceptional.
Scott Chambers:
Wow.
Jeff Roberts:
Making the exceptional achievable.
Scott Chambers:
Well, if people want to do that and make the exceptional achievable, as you just mentioned, how do they get in touch with you Jeff?
Jeff Roberts:
Look us up on jeffrobertsandassociates.com or give us a buzz at 313-9150, area code 205.
Scott Chambers:
All right. They can come see you guys in person. 33 Inverness Center Parkway, Suite 300, right?
Jeff Roberts:
You got it.
Scott Chambers:
All right.
Jeff Roberts:
Or in Tuscaloosa as well.
Scott Chambers:
Tuscaloosa as well. Nice. Very cool.
Andrea Tice:
All right.
Scott Chambers:
Well, give Jeff and his team a call. Jeff, we appreciate it and that was a fantastic story man. I hate that it worked out the way it did in the end, but that … It’s great. Now you’re able to work with other people. Beautiful story Jeff.
Andrea Tice:
I think it’s wonderful for people listening to know that you’re coming at it from a relational standpoint. You know? Hearing this story of how people are effected and how you wanted to step in and help people. It’s not about money. Money’s the tool, but it’s about people.
Jeff Roberts:
That’s correct and that relationship that we experience early on has changed many lives because of the work that we do. So, true.
Scott Chambers:
Awesome. Jeff Roberts. Jeff Roberts and Associates. Appreciate you being with us. We’ll chat again next Wednesday.
Jeff Roberts:
Good to talk to you guys.
Scott Chambers:
All right. Jeff Roberts there. Yellow Hammer Radio. We’re gonna be back in just a moment live from the call, KS.com Heating and Air Studio.
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