Member Insights - To Serve and Protect

An Interview with NEB Member Beth Blecker

For Beth Blecker, CEO of Eastern Planning in Nanuet, NY, serving and protecting clients comes naturally.  That’s because she entered financial planning after a 16-year career as an accountant. Back in those days, she did financial planning for a fee and then referred clients to product specialists for execution. Today, she does not charge fees for planning, but rather works on an asset-based fee basis. With some clients, Beth utilizes “level annual load” products when suitable and appropriate.

Eastern Planning specializes in educating near-retirees on the importance of proper and proactive financial management. Typical issues Beth addresses include retirement income needs, qualified plan distribution planning, estate planning, education planning, and inheritance management. Beth is the financial planning guru and relationship manager, and her son Matt Blecker, both a CFP and a CFA, manages clients’ assets and handles all phases of research and due diligence.

For Beth, it all boils down to providing personalized client service and truly understanding client needs. She strives to assist clients in accumulating assets and then providing detailed plans to provide income from those assets during their retirement years. She helps them anticipate and minimize “bumps in the road” through use of appropriate risk management strategies and suitable investments. 

Given the level of growth that Eastern Planning has experienced, it’s no surprise that Beth joined the National Ethics Bureau two years ago. She wanted a third party verifying her background and communicating that information to prospective clients. This is a great public service, she says, because the financial services industry “has many good people, but some who aren’t so good.”

“Honestly, I think NEB membership should be a requirement in the industry,” Beth says. “On the securities side, there are a lot of shaky U4s out there. You can’t tell when you go into someone’s office that their U4 is filled with complaints. No client should enter blindly into a relationship with a financial adviser or planner.”

In addition to providing the public with advisor background information, Beth also likes the perks of NEB membership, including the ability to purchase consumer education materials on topics such as investment scams and identity theft. In fact, Beth recently developed a seminar about identity theft in part inspired by NEB’s new brochure, “Consumer’s Guide to Identity Theft Prevention.”

“My daughter has a master’s degree in engineering and use to work for the Department of Homeland Security in their cyberspace division,” Beth explains. “As an expert, it made sense for her to help me design a seminar on identity theft.” At a recent session, 25 clients learned how to protect themselves against the common scams and how to request a free credit report.  They also received a copy of the NEB booklet.

How did it go? “It was very well received,” Beth said. “In fact, it was oversubscribed. We’ll definitely be doing another one. . . . I like to help my clients in all aspects of their finances, including ones that aren’t necessarily areas I’d cover in my practice. Identity theft is a natural extension.”

How are you maximizing your NEB membership to grow your business? Would you like to be featured in our newsletter? The National Ethics Bureau welcomes your input. Send your comments to: hlew@ethicscheck.com