Playing strong defense for client portfolios
Pearson Financial Group • SII Investments, Inc.
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Proactive Advisor Magazine: Larry, you have experience in several different positions within the financial-services industry. What are your main goals in working with clients as an independent financial advisor?Many of my clients are at a life stage where they are starting to think seriously about retirement or are already in retirement. Preparing for that next step in life isn’t always easy. I believe the combination of experience, professionalism, and access to a variety of products and services can help them meet their financial goals, estate strategies, and insurance needs.
- Helping clients identify appropriate financial goals, paying special attention to any top-of-mind concerns. My goal is to make those concerns far less of a worry point over time, ideally making them go away entirely.
- Show what is currently being done to move toward their goals. Then we present our detailed recommendations, which may include different options, for strategies that could offer a more favorable and higher-probability opportunity to meet the desired goals.
- Identify any gaps and offer solutions to fill them. We take a holistic view of financial planning. A client might work with our firm to develop a solid retirement income plan, but that means little if it is at risk due to inadequate protection planning now and in the future.
- Help clients prepare for milestone events in their lives. Whether this involves college planning, a major lifestyle change such as buying a new residence or second home, welcoming new additions to the family, charitable giving, or legacy planning, we can help clients identify the appropriate resources and think through strategies to help them achieve their goals.
Once we have ascertained a good risk assessment and what degree of market volatility a client or client couple can comfortably live with, I discuss the difference between passive and active management. The question comes up frequently given the publicity that indexing has received over the past several years. One of the core concepts I discuss is the sequence of returns. If you are approaching the distribution phase of your life, or are already in it, a large decline in your portfolio will have a bigger impact than if the decline happened when you were younger.
Providing a client with a look at the type of portfolio they may have been using in the past versus a portfolio of managed strategies that I construct can be very effective. While it is impossible to guarantee any investment outcome, I feel comfortable stating to clients that we can create an investment approach that they can stick with over the long term. Yes, we may need to make adjustments along the way, and we constantly analyze performance. But this is a very attractive approach for most people—tempering the volatility of their portfolio without sacrificing returns over complete market cycles.
There is geopolitical risk, systemic market risk, interest rate risk, inflation risk, and several other factors that need to be prudently managed. My number one goal as an advisor is to help clients build the planning and investment solutions that will work to meet their specific and customized needs, while applying modern techniques for risk management. This message resonates with clients. I think it will continue to be an important element of building strong client relationships and help in the further growth of my practice.
Larry Mathis is a financial advisor and registered representative based in Lake Oswego, Oregon. He is affiliated with Pearson Financial Group and offers securities and advisory services through SII Investments, Inc. Mr. Mathis has more than a decade of experience in the financial industry and says his goal is to “provide professional financial services to my clients by first examining their big-picture financial situation—and determining how that will make a difference in their future as we look closer at each aspect.”
Born in California, Mr. Mathis was raised in “a beautiful, rural town” in southern Oregon before moving to the Portland area in the early 1990s. He is a graduate of Walla Walla University, where he says he studied “everything I could take related to business, finance, and management, with a little bit of psychology thrown in.” He began his financial career with Ameriprise Financial, and later worked with MetLife and MassMutual. Mr. Mathis received award recognition for his mentoring skills at Ameriprise and was an investment specialist at MassMutual, helping to teach investment principles and best practices to advisors throughout Oregon.
Mr. Mathis began his current advisory practice in 2014 and appreciates working in “an open-architecture environment.” He offers a wide variety of products and services, including retirement planning, individual life, disability income planning, long-term-care insurance protection, and asset-accumulation strategies. He also has significant experience addressing “the unique financial, insurance, and planning needs of high-net-worth families, businesses, and institutions.”
Mr. Mathis is active in his local community and with charitable causes, most notably with the Friends of Doernbecher Children’s Hospital organization. An avid basketball and baseball player for many years, he has also been a member of several nationally recognized amateur softball teams. He enjoys “staying fit, being involved with animal welfare, and helping out in several capacities with youth sports leagues.”
Disclosure: Larry Mathis is a registered representative of SII Investments, Inc. Securities and advisory services offered through SII Investments, Inc., member FINRA/SIPC, a registered investment advisor. Insurance services offered through Pearson Financial Group, which is not affiliated with SII Investments, Inc., or registered as a broker dealer or investment advisor.
Post-publication note: Mr. Mathis has been registered with SagePoint Financial Inc. since 2020.
Photography by Joni Kabana
