by Kate4TC | Sep 18, 2015 | 0 Comment
If you’ve ever wanted to use Truth Concepts when you weren’t near your office computer, you’ll love this announcement: We are now offering Truth Concepts Online as an optional addition to our full software package. It will let you use Truth Concepts on your tablet, ipad, laptop, even your smartphone. We have had many requests for an online version the last couple of years, but it was too cost-prohibitive until recently. The project represented much time and effort as well as technical hurdles to make it work for various devices
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by Kate4TC | Jul 27, 2015 | 0 Comment
In my conversations with advisors, I get all kinds of questions relating to the potential returns of financial vehicle “A” (investment, savings vehicle, insurance policy or property) versus financial vehicle “B.” Of course, that’s what financial software DOES, yet sometimes, it seems we don’t have all of the factors – numerical and otherwise – in the equation. At times, advisors become too focused on the trees to see the forest. (This is especially important when there is a threat of a forest fire!) Truth Concepts calculators excel at helping advisors
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by Kate4TC | Jun 19, 2015 | 0 Comment
We received this excellent question from a Truth Concepts user this week: Q. I am trying to do a comparison between using a qualified plan and a non-qualified plan. I understand pretty well how to use the Qualified Plan calculator, however I want to show an “apples to apples comparison” assuming everything else is equal i.e. ROR, management fee, etc., but with the client paying taxes each year on their investment gains, so that at retirement the money they have to spend is tax free. A. That will be easiest
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by Kate4TC | Jun 17, 2015 | 6 Comments
Marketing and Lead Generation for Financial Advisors This week, we’re going to let Kate, our marketing gal, share what she has learned over 4 years of helping financial professionals with their marketing. Kate recently implemented a content marketing strategy that helped my (Todd Langford’s) wife, Kim Butler, generate leads EVERY DAY in her financial advising practice… without making any phone calls, attending any networking meetings, or needing to ask for referrals (although she still does that, of course!) Kim is a top producer, and she does it working with clients
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by Kate4TC | Apr 27, 2015 | 0 Comment
(A note from Kate Phillips, our marketing coach): Over the last few months, Google has been warning webmasters and SEO (search engine optimization) marketers that websites need to be “mobile-friendly” in this smart-phone age. In a nutshell: Older website technology such as flash, too-tiny text and pages that aren’t appropriately formatted (or adjustable) for smaller devices are “out,” and websites designed to be compatible with iphones, windows phones and android smartphones are “in.” Why it matters: Beginning April 21st, mobile-friendly websites will begin receiving priority ranking on Google. What this
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by Kate4TC | Apr 27, 2015 | 0 Comment
Is Disaster Inevitable for Stock Market Investors? I ran across an interesting article recently on Forbes.com by economic analyst Jesse Colombo with some controversial and thought-provoking research on the matter. While many people are speculating (logically) that the stock market bull run can’t last forever, according to Colombo, the problem is potentially much worse than the possibility of a minor market correction. Laying out his case (which many charts and graphs to illustrate) in “Disaster is Inevitable When the Two-Decade-Old Stock Bubble Bursts,” Colombo argues that the stock market has
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by Kate4TC | Feb 7, 2015 | 0 Comment
Top Producing Advisor and Todd’s Truth Training partner (and wife) Kim Butler recently sat down to discuss Prosperity Economics in this series of five short videos. Hosted by Steve Savant of Let’s Get Down to Business, they had some lively discussions! Steve calls Kim an “articulate contrarian” and “controversial author” and explores why Kim considers herself a “recovering Certified Financial Planner.” What’s wrong with “typical” financial planning? As Kim explains, the many assumptions that must be made by planners and their clients can give clients with a false peace of
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by Kate4TC | Feb 7, 2015 | 0 Comment
Yes, you can save your notes! To make sure that a note stays with a particular calculator when saved, right click on it and hit “attach to” before closing the calculator.
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by Kate4TC | Feb 7, 2015 | 0 Comment
To get spread sheet detail, turn on “term ins. and emp. cost” button. (This works whether or not you have term insurance or employee costs that you wish to add.) Close anytime (top left corner of spreadsheet) and to view again, click button again and then “inputs.”
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by Kate4TC | Feb 7, 2015 | 0 Comment
To enter in an interest only loan in the real estate analysis calculator, set the months to “3000.”
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by Kate4TC | Nov 21, 2014 | 0 Comment
“Computers are smart but they have no imagination.” – Norman Baker It’s been just over 6 years since we lost Norman Baker unexpectedly at the age of 73. Norman was a truly great financial advisor, our partner in “telling the whole truth about money”, the co-founder of Truth Concepts, and our friend. This month as we focus even more so on what we are grateful for, we wanted to use our blog to put the spotlight on one of “the greats” in our industry: Norman Baker. We are truly fortunate
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by Kate4TC | Oct 23, 2014 | 0 Comment
Rahna Barthelmess is an expert in branding and personal branding and today’s guest blogger. She is celebrating the launch of her new book, Your Branding Edge: How Personal Branding Can Turbocharge Your Career with a virtual blog tour, and we are happy to host her. Personal branding can help you get more clients more quickly, as Rahna shares in this post, “Want More Clients? Effective Personal Branding for Advisors.” You’ve done all the training. You’ve got all the right credentials. You stay current in your field. You are legitimately an
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by Kate4TC | Oct 1, 2014 | 0 Comment
New Truth Concepts Client Presentations! We’ve been busy loading up our Truth Concepts YouTube channel with videos for you! Now there are 15 videos featuring Todd Langford and/or Truth Concepts software. The YouTube channel houses our Truth Concepts, Truth Concepts Academy, and Summit videos, as well as several presentation videos and Banking for Life excerpts and outtakes with Todd Langford. Eight of the newer videos are from a client event at a local insurance brokerage. We recorded and “screen captured” Todd’s presentations and divided it up by topic. (FYI, Todd’s
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by Kate4TC | Aug 29, 2014 | 0 Comment
We had the privilege of conducting a Truth Training in Salt Lake City hosted by Paradigm Life. Jay Gentry of Chandler Advisors, LLC compiled his favorite quotes from the training. (Thanks Jay!) We hope you’ll enjoy (and maybe even repeat) some of these “Truth Quotes”: “Eliminate ‘government’ from our vocabulary and replace with ‘taxpayers.’ ” “#1 job of a life insurance company is to be profitable.” “FDIC money doesn’t actually exist.” “Carriers ‘earmark’ interest up front.” “Banking is simply doing the same as all other retail – they are
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by Kate4Todd | Jul 2, 2014 | 0 Comment
When you think about it, isn’t the concept of retirement just ABSURD!? It’s absurd to think that making a growing segment of our population LESS productive (through forced or expected retirements), that there will somehow be more for everyone. It’s absurd for 95% of Americans to believe they can work and save for 40 years, then expect to live off of their savings and investments – in the manner to which they’ve become accustomed – for another 20, 30, even 40 years. We know that for most Americans, the math
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by Kate4Todd | May 14, 2014 | 0 Comment
You work hard to prepare your clients financially, with insurance policies, savings, investments, education, and more. You may assume – along with your clients – that a life insurance policy, a will, and a durable power of attorney constitute “preparedness.” But those are just part of the puzzle. The fact is that even the people who have taken such steps usually fail to leave instructions for their loved ones about dozens of seemingly small, but essential details. When a personal emergency strikes, few people know what to actually DO in
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by Kate4Todd | Mar 27, 2014 | 0 Comment
As you know, in the early months and years of a whole life policy, the PUAs are more efficient than the base premium as far as generating cash value for the policy. While the base premium alone can take years to generate a positive internal rate of return where cash value is concerned, the PUAs are converted to cash value right away, which increases the efficiency of the policy overall.
However, after 5-7 years of funding a whole life policy, the impact of the PUAs appears to lessen. Illustrations of a policy funded with maximum PUAs vs. no PUAs at all show that, several years into the policy, the PUAs no longer have a dramatic affect on the internal rate of return of the policy.
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by Kate4TC | Nov 25, 2013 | 0 Comment
All Calculators can have individual numbers changed inside the calculator when there is a bold blue line or a blue dotted line.
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by Kate4TC | Oct 20, 2013 | 0 Comment
You can use Max Potential to prove the value of an income stream when talking about Disability Income insurance.
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by Kate4TC | Sep 6, 2013 | 0 Comment
In the upper middle of the Income Tax Chart is the “Federal Income Tax / Gross Income %” Since this is mathematically correct but not technically accurate, you can click on it to hide. The reason it is not technically accurate is that our income tax does not change up or down based on averages but instead on last dollar earned or marginal rates.
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by Kate4TC | Aug 30, 2013 | 0 Comment
For an Amortization Schedule on the Loan Analysis Calculator, you can switch the “Period Number” to “Start Date” by clicking on it and then your amortization schedule will have payments dates on it which you can adjust based on when you want the first payment to be.
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by Kate4TC | Jan 27, 2013 | 0 Comment
On the Loan Analysis Calculator, if you want to show skipping a payment on the loan payback, go the the middle and click the “compare” button, then you skip payments or change them on the blue lines.
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by Kate4TC | Jan 27, 2013 | 0 Comment
You can change the “year” on the left to an “age” by clicking on “year” and typing in the age
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by Kate4TC | Jan 27, 2013 | 0 Comment
You can toggle on the “tax payment” button on the left to have it show the “tax ratio” instead.
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by Kate4TC | Jan 10, 2013 | 10 Comments
The Whole Truth about EIUL Part II By Todd Langford Go here for Part One of this blog post: https://truthconcepts.com/the-top-10-reasons-not-to-buy-equity-indexed-universal-life One of the major problems with the agents and the companies that sell EIUL (Equity Indexed Universal Life, which is what it was originally called) or IUL (Indexed Universal Life, which is what the industry is now calling it to avoid SEC scrutiny) is the gross negligence in conveying the risks to the clients. All one has to do is carefully read the full insurance illustration or proposal to
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