Member of the Month - Fighting for Seniors

John Silvestri views himself as a modern-day Don Quixote. However, unlike Cervantes’ errant knight, Silvestri does not tilt at windmills. Rather, he fights to provide the best financial advice he can to the clients of Secure Assets Management, LTD, the senior planning firm he owns in Rosemont, Illinois.

“I have a passion for making things better,” he says. “There’s a big need out there for sound, ethical financial advice for seniors. I’ve seen way too much of the other side of the coin.”

As an idealist, Silvestri has built his business on a foundation of strongly held beliefs. The first is his desire to serve the whole person, providing a combination of advice and services customized to a person’s life stage and concerns. Older seniors, for example, might need help finding an extended care facility or managing their finances to support a spouse in a long-term care facility. “We go beyond just taking applications for products,” Silvestri explains.

Start with Questions

A related belief is the importance of always starting a client engagement with questions, not answers. “We’ve seen far too many planners present answers such as annuities, trusts, estate life policies, or reverse mortgages before they even assess a client’s situation,” Silvestri says. “We believe in asking questions first, then working from there. When you go in with an answer in mind, you aren’t acting ethically.”

A third belief is that recommendations shouldn’t be made simply to uncover a client’s investable assets. Case in point: “trust mills.” “I can’t believe what they do,” he says. “They’re just a mechanism to uncover assets. Rather than using them as a door in, we include trusts in a list of recommendations and execute them last. By that point, there’s nothing in it for us. In other words, the trust becomes a solution to a problem, not a way to get in the door.”

A fourth philosophy is to exert tight control over any work conducted for a client. For example, he sometimes recommends home-equity conversion programs, but, with special licensing, handles the entire process in-house.

Finally, Silvestri believes that anyone who counsels seniors should have empathy for seniors. Silvestri and his team have no trouble on that score. Most of them are seniors themselves. “I’ve had cataract surgery,” explains Silvestri. “If my clients want to talk about cataract surgery, we can talk about it.” But many times, their conversation will veer from senior medical issues to fun stuff. For example, Silvestri is a G-scale train hobbyist and participates in local garden railway societies. Plus, he loves to restore Ford Model A cars. Some of his clients share his interest in model trains and antique cars, which makes for great conversations and stronger client bonds.

Like many NEB members, Silvestri distinguished himself in a prior career before getting into financial services. After earning a B.S. degree from Loyola University, he went to work for the Marshall Field organization in Chicago as a financial systems developer. He also taught systems development at several local colleges before launching a software firm that created investment management software for cities and towns. He later sold that venture to apply his financial expertise to individuals, joining Prudential Financial, where he built a large practice and qualified for MDRT. A number of years later, he put up his own shingle, serving seniors in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin.

Building Trust

As a long-term NEB member, Silvestri has found that NEB membership has helped him to become a trusted advisor more quickly than when he wasn’t a member.  “NEB membership speaks to the greatest fear that seniors have—that they’re working with someone who is unethical,” he says. “Anything we can do to let them know we are ethical is helpful.”

Silvestri adds that he is careful to advise prospective clients about his qualifications and licenses. But then they pick up the NEB approved member brochure and say, “Your qualifications are great, but this makes me feel better about working with you.”

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