We recently connected with D’Andre Clayton and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, D’Andre thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s the best advice you ever gave to a client? How did they benefit / what was the result?

So, when I first started as a retirement specialist in the school system I would perform calculations to help these state employees decipher what their state pension actually would be by performing the calculations for them.

This particular teacher like many hadn’t saved anything for retirement because they assumed they were going to receive the same thing that their salary was.

In our state the pension calculation is based on the top 4 consecutive years.
Due to the client being in her 25th year with no college degree and looking to retire in the next 5 years she was set to receive only $11,500 as her pension.

She wanted to save to close that gap but the truth was she wasn’t in a position to make that happen and I told her frankly my counsel is worth more than the accounts she can set up.

I sat down with her and opened up the state government site for jobs found her a job that started at $48K as a senior assistant administrator.
She looked at me like I was crazy and I told her to apply.

2 months later she called me to inform me that she actually landed the job.
I then performed the calculation for her and showed her that her new pension was set to be 27K.

She couldn’t believe it and thanked me greatly. This catapulted my career even though I didn’t make money from my advice I made ton from her referrals!!!

D’Andre, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My background was originally in Electronic Engineering Technician so I’ve always been pretty good with numbers and troubleshooting however I received no fulfillment in working on machines. As an extrovert I love people so I searched an ad one day for a change of pace.
That ad led me to getting my insurance license and becoming a retirement specialist who served 77 different schools in my county.
There is nothing cooler than helping your Principal or teacher when you were younger to make better financial decisions.
I was constantly bombarded with questions about access to the money they were saving in their retirement mainly because they were trying to payoff their student loans.
Frankly I knew I had answered I just didn’t like them for the most part. To add to that I was being asked a million questions about this thing called Medicare.
This changed my perspective of retirement vehicles completely.
I realized that most financial advisors failed to see their clients as people who aged. I vowed to find what would be the best case scenario for retirement savings where the client would be ecstatic about the choice they made long-term.
Like does the 65 year old version of me really want to pay more taxes than the 30 year old me? If I had choice when would I actually want to retire?
After studying this I realized that many invest in retirement products that they don’t really want understand or want.
So mentally I go back to the days of the young retirement guy who was walking through the schools.
I began to ask is it possible to grow money without a 59 1/2 rule and if so would it be comparable growth without the chance of loss.
I had experience designing IUL’s admittedly so I wanted to make sure I could limit the cost and then I read Become Your Own Banker and it blew my mind away.
All this time to think there was a Whole Life Policy to give the client immediate access to capital and do the one thing that is the key to ending the chance of being apart of the 45% of seniors who have to live under the poverty level.
Why? Because it’s the one place that ACCUMALATE while DISTRIBUTION is taking place.
This change so much for me because I was advising something that provides so much value and living it everyday. It landed me on a Podcast because I started helping people using the Insurance Policy Loan as a MASTER of their credit profile.
I then helped many to be on the path of paying off the HOMES in many cases in no longer than 7 years with a huge savings combined with full liquidity. This gave me opportunities I could have never imagine where I now can even help clients with partnerships with Banks that are even boosted my profile because of the advise I’ve given them and their platform.

The thing I want every potential client to know about me is that I actually care. I hate my clients losing money and I imagine that every client lives locally to me to keep me honest.
My philosophy is if I see you in the grocery store or out and about I will never have to avoid you because you will know that I treated you like my family and not like a prospect.

I only advise what I do and what I’ve seen work for myself and those closest to me.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

The funny thing about this question is many may assume that I would say I built my reputation because of working in the 77 schools the truth is I believe my reputation built as a byproduct of my time in the school.

My career took a twist when I was working in the schools because I was new to the market. As a young insurance agent I didn’t read my contract but I knew that I didn’t want barriers on what I could do for my clients.

I went to the company I was affiliated with because I felt like I wasn’t a real retirement specialist if I didn’t know anything about MEDICARE.

So me young in the industry I decided I shouldn’t have any problem getting new contracts for Medicare so I contracted with a company and all of sudden my contract was terminated with the company that allowed me to work in the Schools because they were afraid of me taking their clients.
Then took my entire book of business and let go of me.
I thought I hit rock bottom because I was just learning Medicare.

Eventually I started receiving multiple calls from my clients needing help requesting loans. I knew that they were technically no longer my clients because I didn’t get paid to service them.

But I felt like it wouldn’t be honorable to not assist with them because I knew how hard I worked to get them and the promises I made at that time.

So one day one of my clients called and asked me to meet them at the school. I walked in and it was a room full of my clients at this particular school that found out I was no longer their agent.
They gifted me with a cake because I passed the test of being a good person in their eyes because they called me to see if I would service them but caught on to my situation because I wasn’t able to call on their behalf and I would three-way them with the carrier.
They knew that my integrity surpassed my income and I had jump start in my Medicare business because of it!!

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

It would depend mostly on what niche market I’m servicing. If it’s Medicare I have a set of Doctors Offices that let me and my agents set up and help their patients nationwide as a resource to educate seniors.

When it comes to life Insurance my number lead source is YouTube because of the Podcast I was featured on.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.claytonfinancialsolutions.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/d-andre-clayton-6ab8237a/
• Other: This is the link to the video that picked up really good traction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpDt7okUw1I&list=PLMgpVklTHvsNHqo21rxW-9Wp_fs-bRENd&index=2

Image Credits
Nelson Nash for the Book Becoming Your Own Banker