Rodney Amicone • Palm Harbor, FL
Southern Financial Wealth Management • Innovation Partners LLC
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Proactive Advisor Magazine: Rod, talk about your experience in financial services.

I have believed in the value of hard work and saving money since I was young. My grandparents owned a campground in Canfield, Ohio, and I started working there as a kid. I moved up from doing simple tasks around the camp to eventually becoming head lifeguard. I put most of my earnings in the bank and saved quite a bit to help pay for college. I saw the power of money compounding. That really started me thinking about working in the financial area.

I graduated from Youngstown State University, earning a bachelor’s degree in business and majoring in finance. My first position after college was working in business development for a company focused on consumer and mortgage lending, as well as various types of insurance. I went on to hold positions of increasing management responsibility at several banks, including Bank One, NationsBank, and Union Savings Bank. I was also a regional manager for a division of Merrill Lynch, handling business development in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. I became an independent financial advisor in 2008 and have been a financial advisor and regional marketing director with the Florida office of Southern Financial Consultants for several years. I have now rebranded my own practice as Southern Financial Wealth Management, where I am the principal advisor and president.

I believe in continuing education and building my base of professional knowledge. I am certified in the areas of Medicare, long-term-care planning, and college planning. I have also been an instructor with the American Retirement Institute. I think my diverse experience in consumer finance, insurance, retirement planning, and investments provides a valuable benefit to our clients. I like to think of my advisory practice as providing customized, concierge-level service to clients. This means providing guidance to clients in all areas of their financial lives, often going beyond the traditional financial plan.

Describe your target segments and financial-planning process.

Financial and retirement planning is our core focus for individual clients, using programs and concepts that encompass managed accounts, mutual funds, risk-management and retirement-income strategies, and a variety of other wealth-management products. In addition, I can work with clients to assess their individual and group employee benefits, such as health, life, and retirement plans or, if appropriate, analyze their Medicare needs. I also work with businesses, managing 401(k) plans and helping business owners with their overall financial-planning needs.

Our clients come from all walks of life and are primarily pre-retirees and retirees. I work with a good number of clients employed in the medical and health-care field, which is a growing segment in the U.S. overall. I also am looking to work with more federal government employees.

We have a blueprint of the process we use for almost all clients, but I do not like to pigeonhole anyone into our process. I’ve seen a lot of advisors do that, more or less saying, “This is my process, and we will follow it to the letter and in this order.” We kind of reverse that. We first try to understand what each client is looking for and analyze their needs: What are their priorities, pain points, and most aspirational goals? Then we’ll fit the process to their specific objectives.

Our process blueprint includes six major elements, which we address with each client in a way that is appropriate to their situation: 1. We have an introductory conversation that covers what to expect in terms of the relationship and how we work. We actively listen to clients to understand what matters most to them in terms of their lives and finances. 2. We engage in qualitative and quantitative discovery. During this stage, we discuss all aspects of the client’s current financial situation—learning more about their goals and objectives, identifying potential hurdles, and pointing out areas of opportunity. 3. We create a planning draft to confirm that our planning is aligned with a client’s goals and objectives before presenting our recommendations. We often work closely with outside strategic partners—for example, attorneys or CPAs—to develop the plan. 4. We present our analysis and recommendations, along with a plan of action. 5. We carefully implement strategies as outlined in the financial plan. 6. We monitor the plan versus objectives and schedule regular reviews, which may lead to adjustments due to the client’s changing life circumstances or external factors. Throughout the planning process, we are also looking for the most tax-efficient ways for clients to achieve their goals. Changing tax rates and regulations are other factors we consider in the ongoing monitoring of clients’ financial or retirement plans.

How do you approach investment planning for clients?

Each client has different investment-planning priorities. There is no one best place for a client to put their retirement money because each individual and couple has unique requirements, risk tolerances, and financial time frames.

We first carefully consider their risk profile, time horizon, financial balance sheet, current and future income sources, and achievable objectives for their income needs in retirement. I do not consider traditional investments such as stocks and bonds to be our only tools as we think about recommendations for creating retirement income and legacy planning. Certain types of annuities can provide dependable income with low risk, while also delivering some upside market exposure. Insurance strategies can also play an important role—both in a family’s risk-management planning and in providing risk-managed market exposure and tax-efficient legacy planning. We may also consider stable, dividend-paying stocks for long-term strategic asset growth and steady income. And for some clients, certain types of bond strategies might be another appropriate income strategy as part of a diversified portfolio.

In terms of client exposure to equity markets, I would characterize my philosophy as seeking steadier returns with less volatility over full market cycles. There is no guarantee that clients can fully avoid market risk, but I do believe risk can be mitigated. I work with different third-party investment managers, each with its own investment philosophies and strategies, but most of those strategies emphasize risk management. For clients, this might mean that they do not always see the highest returns of a strong bull market, but the objective is to achieve competitive returns while avoiding the steep declines that passive investments can experience. Some of these third-party strategies use active portfolio-management models and indicators that can adjust investment allocations based on current market conditions, trends, and the relative strengths of different asset classes and sectors. This type of objective, rules-based approach is based on empirical data, not emotion, bias, or manager discretion.

In all cases, when I recommend a particular portfolio approach to clients, I make sure we have a thorough discussion of their potential risk exposure. For most retirement-planning clients with a need for income, I believe that seeking risk-managed portfolio growth can help protect them against the possibility of running out of money during their retirement. A wealth-management strategy that manages risk first—focusing on preserving wealth and minimizing losses—is the key to our clients achieving their objectives over the long term.

“Our mission is to serve individuals and couples in all areas of retirement planning.”

How would you summarize your core philosophy in guiding clients?

Our mission is to serve individuals and couples in all areas of retirement planning. Whether it is sophisticated investment strategies or analyzing their home mortgage financing or their Medicare options, we are available to help answer any financial question—or to direct them to the appropriate professional resource. Retirees today face a number of risk factors, including market risk, withdrawal rate and sequence-of-returns risk, longevity risk, tax-exposure risk, and the financial risks associated with health-care and long-term-care costs as they age. We develop customized financial strategies to help address these and other risks as clients work toward achieving their long-term goals. Our commitment to clients is to provide the guidance, tools, and personalized service necessary to help prepare them for a more secure retirement.