How a Financial Advisor Builds Wealth That Lasts Generations

from the working years to the retirement years. So it's important that you have a plan and

place that's ready for whatever the world wants to throw it. And since 1972, we've helped retirees who are looking out preserve their wealth and leave a legacy. Craig Kirstner is a trusted financial advisor, author, speaker, and the president of Kirstner Wealth Management, drawing from decades of experience in retirement planning and wealth preservation, he helps clients protect what they build and create a lasting legacy for their families.

It's our latest book, and it's called IRA Owners, helped to fuse your ticking tax time bomb. When it comes to the IRA, it's either pay the government now or pay the government later. The taxes are due at some point, and there's so many reasons now to start thinking about doing some proactive tax planning around your IRA in conjunction with your account. Even though information now is kind of cheap, because it's all out there, people still need guidance.

Knowledge doesn't give people power, so it's important that they have a plan and a plan, or so that they can... The living your legacy podcast, for those who live to leave a legacy. Hey, welcome back everyone to another episode of Living Your Legacy Podcast,

where we've got the privilege to speak to some of the greatest minds and trendsetters and amazing

entrepreneurs from all around the country that fly into our new Miami studios. And we've got another guest here, looking quite dapper, I'd say, and with his nice suit and tie.

“Yeah, Matt, and the cuff links too. So yeah, what's your name?”

Where you from? What do you do? So my name is Craig Kirstner, and we are located near Boca, Tone Florida, and our company's Kirstner Wealth Management, and since 1972, we've helped retirees who are looking out to preserve their wealth and leave a legacy. Okay, nice, man. So yeah, helping retirees in Boca, Tone's a spot to be, right? Yes. Yeah, and so how do you do that? What are the first steps for retirees to kind of

conserve their wealth? Well, you know, diversifying their investments, right? I would say.

Well, the first step is to learn more about us. They come to a dinner workshop,

but either Bruce Chris, steakhouse, or even Louis steakhouse. All right. And that way, they get a feel for who we are and who the attorney is that we work with for the estate planning. And if they like us, and they want to hear more, that we meet with me personally at our office. Okay. And then we want to figure out, as food isheries, how much risk they're comfortable taking, then we can show them how much risk they have. And then, of course, diversifying is a

“very important part of having a proper retirement plan. Yeah. Yeah. So first, you wind and”

dynam, and then you do a risk assessment in the office, right? Correct. All right. Yeah. So they got to see, okay, what is my risk? How's my portfolio looking now? Yeah. And then you can say, all right. Well, we can make this better. We can make that. You know, do you guys dump them into three columns under your safe investments and kind of, you know, I guess general investments, and then the risky investments? So we do believe in a three bucket approach,

you invest in. So you have some safe money, and then you'll have some growth money. And yes, in general, that's a good, you know, big picture way of looking at it. And then it's very important on the growth bucket that most people have been trained to just buy and hold that in a long run, you know, things generally go up. However, because our clients are all retired, they don't have time on their side like they did when they're younger. Yeah.

So they typically want their growth bucket to be more actively managed. So that way when things

“do go from good to bad, you know, that we help minimize losses. So that's typically important”

to our clients. Yeah. What do you typically see during the risk assessment where you're just like, you know, uh, another case of this, and we got to fix that right away. So there are two main things that we see. Number one is potentially having too much risk for a client that doesn't has a lot more risk than they're comfortable with. Because again, we've been going up in our market almost straight up in the stock market since the last major crash of 2008, nine. Yeah. We've been

going almost straight up for 17 years. So people this kind of assume maybe the market will keep going 12, 14 per cent a year up. But obviously that doesn't happen forever, right? And some play it was. It would be nice, but it's not, you know, again, the past doesn't predict the future, but history does rise. So can dynamics, you've got wars, you've got, you know, not even our wars, you got

that definitely makes an impact. And so that's that. And then the second thing we look at our

fees, you know, that's a big deal. A lot of people might be paying more and fees on their current retirement plan than they're thinking. And over time, those fees can really eat away at the return. So it's important that you're not paying too much in fees. Gotcha. Gotcha. So I mean, there must be a lot of trust, right, because a lot of people are looking at retirees and they're just trying to, it's almost like hungry hungry hippos have tried to get as much of their,

of their money, right, with, you know, like a healthcare situation, old folks homes, and how do you

“build that trust with them? Well, that's an interesting point. The fact is that over 10,000 baby”

boomers every day are turning age 65. So they are massive amounts of people in America are transitioning from the working years to the retirement years. So you're right, that there is a change. It's happening. And all these people are moving into the next stage of their life where they need different retirement plans. They need maybe long-term care plans like you're mentioning. And these things are expensive. And they're getting more expensive every day. So it's important that you have a plan

in place that's ready for whatever the world wants to throw at. Yeah, that plan builds the trust. Exactly. That plan builds trust. I mean, it's going to be difficult for them to go at it alone, right? Everyone needs, I feel like, at some point, a good money guy, right, correct, honestly.

Like, I've never seen a financial dude. That's broke. Yeah. So there's got to be a good reason

for that, right? So, yeah, I mean, when people are doing their own thing, you know, they can't be good at everything. But now we got the internet. Uh, our people more knowledgeable about deals. Our, our, our people saying, that's good. But I heard, you know, some influencers talking about

“the SpaceX or, or Tesla or, I mean, how do you see things going? How's the new conversation?”

So there's more access to information now than ever before with things like chat, GPT, even literally ask it questions to get answers. Now, I don't know if the answers are always right. That's the other thing. But, but at the end of the day, even though information now is kind of cheap because it's all out there, you know, people still need guidance. You know what I mean? Everyone knows how to get fit. They eat less and they exercise more. But the diet

industry is the, a multi-billion dollar industry because that knowledge doesn't give people power, right?

Yeah, yeah. So it's important that they have a plan and a plan or so that they can, you know, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. So it's important that you educate people so that they can take action. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a great way to say it. Because everyone does know how to do that, right? It's like, honestly, if you really want it to lose weight and get fit, eat better, right? And just start working out more and you're going to

see the results in three months, right? It's bad easy, you know? And then people get bogged down by other information and you just need someone to keep you on top of it, right? Correct. So talk about your business, right? What are, uh, do you guys do marketing or are you on billboards? How do you get the word out there? It's a lot of word of mouth. So we, uh, we do dinner workshops, uh, two to three a month that stay couses so people can cover to learn more about us. Gotcha. And we have

advertised for those. We have clients that bring friends, you know, we get for all tonner for all thankfully. But also we advertise, uh, in the newspaper, we send out invitations to our target market, thankfully in the area there are tens of thousands of people that there are potential clients for us. So we send them invitations and then we do Facebook advertising. That mix of assets, you know, keeps this busy thing. Yeah. Yeah. But those dinners, uh, that's a little bit out of the box and

it's good. You know, uh, and you offer those for free just to get the information out there. Yeah. And then get some face to face action. Correct. Yeah. And then, uh, yeah, when they've been wind and dying, they're like, hey, feeling good, you know, but no, that's, that's great. We like, we like learning about out of the box marketing. You know, it's not just pumping dump into Facebook ads, right? You got to sometimes stand out sometime, right? Oh, exactly. Yeah. I mean, the world is so

competitive. And you throw a rock out your door. You hit 10 financial advisors if you know what I mean.

“Yeah. And so it's important that they have a chance to learn about us and, you know, be educated”

in in a fun way. And, uh, and then, you know, a certain percentage like to meet with us and become clients. So thankfully, uh, we got our market fair. I had another guy that was really interesting. Kind of along the same lines as that, right? He had a roofing company, but an in Texas, where it's super competitive, right? Sure. Uh, I guess it got like golf ball size, hail, and stuff, right? So for him to stand out, uh, what he did was he had a box at one of the stadiums out there for football.

at a, you know, because he was focusing on luxury homes, right? Um, and maybe you're focusing on

luxury estates and people that have money, right? Um, and everyone who doesn't like to go to a game, right? And be in the VIP box. And hey, I got a friend that would be a great client of yours. And yeah, she just, that's his only marketing, right? They're out of your way. Out of the box. Exactly. Got to be different nowadays. Absolutely. So I see you got a, you got a book here. Um, nice. What's this all about? So I've written, uh, a number of books and, um, my last book was in the

sixth edition, but this is our latest book. And it's called IRA owners helped to fuse your ticking tax time bomb. And so there's certain time bombs that we want to help our clients avoid. And one of

“them are taxes. And the fact is, when it comes to your IRA, you know, we've been told our whole life”

to save money in your 401(k) or IRA, get a tax deduction. And then in retirement, you might be

in a lower tax bracket. But now my clients find that they might, you know, many people find they're in a higher or similar tax bracket, because they're income still pretty high. So that the, when it comes to the IRA, it's either pay the government now or pay the government later. The taxes are due at some point. Yeah. And there's so many reasons now to start thinking about, you know, pay, you know, doing some proactive tax planning around your IRA in conjunction with your

account. All right. Yeah. Checking out chapter is charity, ability and client. You know, it's talking about, yeah, charitable aspects of, you know, who doesn't want to give back if they got

to get a state, right? Sure. You also got a nice venn diagram here of money, health, and time,

“and then in the middle of all that's act now, right? Exactly. Yes. So honestly, yeah, this, this”

looks like a lot of good information. You can consider having a personal umbrella, liability, insurance policy. So, I mean, yeah, do you want your advisor or financial advisor who wrote the book or who didn't write the book? And then choose a guy that wrote the book, right? Yeah, you got a whole team back here. And they're all dapper. Yes, we are at very fortunate. We have nine people on our team. And everybody cares about our clients just like I do. So it's a nice family

firm. My dad started it 1972. So we're continuing that family tradition. Yeah, a good mix, diverse mix, you know, men, women, Asians, and Latinos. And yeah, it looks like a great, great crew here. Is that a great crew? Very proud. And how long you've been in business, huh? Since 1972, my dad started. Yeah, you dad started my life. 54 years. Okay. So yes. And in your team, right?

“How long does it take to develop a solid team and choose the members on your team?”

That's very important. You know, you could have everything, everything in business is having the right people behind you and their right teams. So I'm very blessed of nine people on my team. I'm very blessed that our back office that supports us has over a thousand people that supports us and other top financial advisors around the country. So we really have a deep bench to go to to get questions answered on any topic from a state planning with the attorneys, tax planning with the

counts and the myriad of all the other financial planning that we do. Yeah. So real quick, what would be your top three tips for, you know, someone over 65 looking for a planner and you would tell them, hey, you know, you're trying to sell them on choosing you, right? And you're going to say, hey, my top three tips or whatever, and this is very generalized, right? But what would you say? Sure. So top three tips, number one would be asked the advisor if there are fiduciary. They

have to act in your best interest. That's important. Tip number two would be, do they have a nice office? Do they have a nice staff? Do you get a good feeling, you know, when you're when you're in the room? And then tip number three have they written books? So they have they've been on TV, they've been around a long time, they've written articles, you know, these are things where you you want to thought leader, you know, not just a follower, you really want to somebody that's

creating content. And I guess that's a good three tip because like also you got you got to trust the guy, but you got to be, you know, kind of like he's got to be your homie, right? Like he's got to be the guy that you don't mind picking up the phone call and just like talking about your money, right? Exactly. I mean, and it should be someone that you enjoy talking to and being like, oh, that's a good idea. I'm going to look into it, you know, this guy's making me money. He's

also making me smile on the on the time off because we just like to hang out and talk about, he's got my best interest at heart. Sure. So the better that he does, the better that you do, right? Correct. It's a win-win. It's a win, right? You know, we do a lot of things for our clients

go see a play together or go to a museum together or we, we're going to have the VIP box together.

“VIP box. Well, ladies flat of them. You'll be the Jacksonville Jaguars in, right?”

We're actually Boko. Let's see the more money Dalton. So yeah, so, you know, we do things, you know, involving hundreds of our clients and that way we give back to them. We really treat them like family and take great care of them. Nice. Nice. And so I guess having your father start to business, what are the pressures of getting the business passed down to you? Well, a lot of pressure. I mean, it seems like you're doing well. So passionately for eight years later, we're bigger than

everything now. So we're really growing the business tremendously. Dad's very proud and I'm proud to carry on the legacy. Yeah. Yeah. It's been an honor. What do you most excited about right now? I ask everyone. So a couple of things. I love my family. I'm in a father and son camping group. So every six weeks I take my boys camping and it gives my wife a weekend alone, which she likes. Not six weeks at one time. No, no, every six weeks we go for every six weeks. We go for a weekend.

Yeah. So weekend at camping. Usually about every six weeks. Yeah. So I love doing that. I love to travel with my family. And then, you know, I love what we do. We're take great care of our clients and nowadays people more than ever need help and need proper guidance. So it's really a pleasure and an honor to be able to do that for them. Yeah. How many kids you got? My boys, my wife and

“our boys are 12 and 14 years old. Okay. And are you starting to give them little financial responsibilities?”

Sure. We've been training them. My son actually helped intern for us this summer. Like I grew up in the business with my dad and he helped out with the business this summer. And then we do our client court of events. If the kids are available, they come and interact with our clients. So yeah. You're going to go back home and you're going to tell them, you know, the podcast guy said something

well that, you know, he's never seen a financial guy be broke. So you learn your finances, right?

Learn about a credit. Learn about investing. Come on now. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. That's a good one. So yeah, what else you got cooking on the back burner? So we have dinner workshops at Avan Louis, steakhouse in Boca, Bruce Chris, steakhouse. We continue to. That's a good steakhouse. Oh, it's Avan Louis is one of the best at it. But even better than one of the best in Boca hotel in Boca. And so yeah, so we do those regularly. Oh, and then in November about two weeks before

Thanksgiving, we do our annual Thanksgiving client appreciation luncheon where we have three to four hundred clients come. We have a big luncheon with spices and food and wine and beer. So yeah, it's very exciting.

400 people. Wow. That's that's amazing. It's quite spectacular. All right. So well, thanks.

But how do people find you? So you can go to our website, kersonerwealth.com. Okay. I are SNERwealth.com. Or call us at 1-800-807-555-8-1-800-755-8. Yeah. You can also go on Amazon and buy our latest book. If you'd like to learn more, and we could do a Zoom meeting with people or come to our office, whatever works for them. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us. And yeah, I did. I got to take some style tips. A nice, nice suit advice for you, man. You maybe should have a

workshop with our team here and get some proper, you know, or suit advice, man. Thank you so much.

“I think good. Look at good. So yeah, he's looking good. He's making money. He's making other people money.”

And yeah, hit up his website or call that number. But thank you so much for joining us here today. Been a pleasure. Yeah, thank you so much. And thank you guys for joining us. And yeah, keep on saying

too. And I mean, all week, I've had the pleasure of talking to some amazing people. And we'd

like to have you down too. So, you know, your success, your industry, just roughder, leader, anything. You know, go on inside success.com and check it out. All right. Cheers, everyone.