Chapter 1

Sitting on his home’s patio, overlooking the second fairway in this golf course community, Kevin Williams was very content with his life. Sipping on a soda, he thought that the past twenty years since he graduated from college had gone by in the blink of an eye. He did admit to himself that it had been financially rewarding and that he did have an interesting social life. He fondly remembered a number of things that had happened during those years as he reminisced about his life.

Kevin graduated with a business degree, but he wasn’t quite sure what he was going to do with it. The interviews with the recruiters on campus weren’t that productive. His father had talked about investing money in the stock market and this pushed Kevin to accepting a job offer that what was called a ‘stockbroker’ back then. The designation was later changed to that of a ‘Financial Advisor’ by his firm. He had secured his broker’s license, and with some additional schooling, received the designation of ‘Certified Financial Planner’.

This career was not what one would call financially rewarding initially. Finding customers was difficult and never ending as he tried to increase his number of clients. After a few years, he seriously considered whether or not this work was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. He enjoyed selecting stocks to invest in and was fairly successful in doing that, but he knew he had to increase his client list if he was going to achieve the monetary success that he was seeking.

While contemplating if this was what he wanted to do in life, he concluded that what he needed to do to increase his client base was to ‘follow the money’. But where was the money was, is the question that he constantly pondered.

It was after reading a column in the newspaper about investing for retirees that he concluded that’s where the money was. He needed to be in touch with these workers before they retired and they received in some cases large sums of money. Taking a business directory out, he called the larger corporations in the area and asked to speak with the Human Resources Manager. When that person was on the line, Kevin asked if they were holding any training seminars for their employees that would be retiring in the near future. Most of the HR Managers said that they weren’t and asked Kevin to explain what he was inquiring about or suggesting.

Off the top of his head Kevin went on to say that these people who were retiring were facing a big change in their lifestyle and one that some of them were not prepared to handle. A day’s training session for these employees and spouses could consist of someone from Social Security talking about what the person could expect from them as well as what the Medicare benefits and costs were. Maybe someone from the HR department could talk about what the pension options and what the retirement benefits would be. There could also be someone from the medical profession talking about senior healthcare. Finally, someone like Kevin could talk about investing, since most of the employees had 401Ks. Some companies who offered the employees pensions offered them the option of electing to receive what the cost of an annuity would be in a lump sum to purchase a pension in the amount of monthly benefits the retirees were entitled to. Kevin pointed out that this could be a considerable amount of money that some retirees were ill equipped to handle and invest those funds. Those retirees who received their 401K funds or opted for the lump sum needed to convert these funds they were receiving to generate income which needed to last them for the rest of their lives.

He thanked the HR managers for their time and said he would send a follow-up letter outlining what they had just discussed. He asked that if they did do these pre-retirement seminars, he hoped they would consider asking him to do the portion that covered investing. He assured them he would cover the subject adequately in the time allowed and wouldn’t turn it in to a sales pitch for him to become the retirees’ financial advisor.

Kevin thought that if he did the presentation correctly and pointed out the many intricacies and pitfalls of investing, a number of the retirees would become his clients as they realized the need for and may not be aware of any other financial advisors.

It was about three weeks after Kevin started making these phone calls and sending his letters out to these corporations when he received a phone call.

“This is Pamela Harrison from the New-West Mutual Insurance Company. I am the HR manager of our regional office here. We have considered your suggestion about pre-retirement seminars and have concluded that it is a good idea and something we should be doing. We will be having our first seminar in two weeks and are asking you to participate. Can you attend this seminar?”

Kevin listened to her talk and enjoyed hearing her very pleasant and professional voice. He wondered what she looked like.

“I will be there and thank you for the invitation. Will you be in attendance?”

“Oh, I still have some years to go before I retire, but yes, I will be there to see if this is something the employees enjoy and something we should consider doing on a regular basis.”

Pamela gave him the specifics as to location and time and ended the phone call.

Kevin spent sometime on putting an outline together on what subjects he would speak on as well has making up some slides to go in his power point presentation. He also gathered up some brochures from his firm about retiring and stapled his business card into these brochures.

Kevin’s social life at that point was not that great in how it pertained to the opposite sex. He did date and at times was successful if the measurement was how often he bedded his dates. In spite of that he felt something was missing but he didn’t quite know what ii was.

The two weeks had quickly gone by and now he found himself walking into an outlying claims office of this insurance company where the retirement seminar was being held. Kevin was scheduled to put his two hour presentation on at two thirty. The seminar had started at nine that morning. The receptionist directed him to the conference room and in entering he could see the people there were on a coffee break.

He was a little lost as to what he should do but an attractive lady in an expensive dark business suit walked up him.

She extended her hand to him and said, “Kevin Williams? I’m Pamela Harrison. I want to thank you for coming here today. This break will be over in about ten minutes and I will introduce you. Is there anything you need to make your presentation?”

“No, I see you have the equipment I need to plug in my computer into to do my power point presentation. I don’t know if I will use the blackboard here but I may. I would appreciate it if someone could hand these brochures out when I start my presentation. I can introduce myself to the group when we start or you can if you wish to. Here is a short resume on me.”

Pamela said she would introduce him and studied his resume.

Kevin went to the front of the room and started to organize himself for the presentation. While he was doing this and later in watching Pamela do his introduction, he had some nice thoughts about her. In her heels she was about five feet nine inches tall, maybe about one hundred and thirty five pounds. She had short auburn hair and a very nice figure from what he could see. Her breast size was hidden somewhat by her suit jacket, but she did have a nice bottom the jacket couldn’t hide, along with slim calves and ankles. Age-wise, she was probably a good ten years older than him, but that was a non-factor as far has he was concerned. He wondered how good of a lover she would be.

His thoughts about her ended when in concluding her introduction he heard her say, “I took a quick look at what the total of the your 401Ks and if all of the twenty eight of you soon to be retirees were to take your pensions in a lump sum what that amount would be. That total comes out to approximately nineteen million dollars. That is a lot of money and to talk about how to handle it we have invited Kevin Williams. He will address those issues as well as discuss things you need to consider in investing those funds.

Kevin rose to some applause and proceeded to give his presentation. He talked about risk and return, listing the safest investment for income to the least safe. Laddering of bonds was discussed, along with examples and results. Stocks and the need for them to offset inflation with the increasing life expectancy along with the rise in Dow Jones over the years were discussed. The need for diversification and asset allocation as well as what the retirees could reasonably expect in the way of returns was the last topic he covered.

He concluded his presentation by telling them not to be greedy or make mistakes in chasing what is hot in the market to increase their rate of return. The “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t true” axiom was followed by him saying, “It is very important that you don’t make mistakes in handling these funds. I wish you success if you are going to do the investing on your own, but consider getting professional help in managing this money if you feel you don’t have that ability to do it by yourself. I can’t emphasize enough that you can’t afford to make a mistake in handling those funds.”

He received a nice round of applause as he concluded. A number of people came up to Kevin with some questions afterwards, and asked if they could talk to him in depth about investing. He told them that his contact information was in the brochures and encouraged them to contact him.

Pamela came up to him after most of the people had left and thanked him for his presentation.

“I thought it was very informative, and I learned a few things myself. It gave me something to think about as to my individual investments. I will say that you didn’t directly solicit any business, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these people contacted you to handle their investments.”

‘Well, that’s the business I’m in and I would be less than honest if I said I wasn’t hoping that they will contact me. I hope I have given them something to think about in handling these funds. I do want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to address them. I was wondering, since it is late in the day, if I could treat you to an early dinner as my way of saying thanks for this opportunity. If that presents a problem because of you having to do something or having a significant other just say no.”

Kevin could see that Pamela was a little taken back by his dinner invitation but she recovered well.

“No, there is no problem. We could go to dinner in this area and I could let traffic clear out and not have to fight it too much on my trip home.”

He thought it would be an enjoyable dinner and it was. Pam was a very interesting person for a number of reasons. First of all, she was highly intelligent and a good conversationalist. She, without mentioning names, was not reluctant to talk about the hot topics at work. Equal pay and sexual harassment were hot button issues in the HRS department. She did volunteer that she had been divorced for ten years and asked Kevin about his status. He informed her that he was single.