We recently connected with Joel Marius and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Joel, thanks for joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
Being in the financial and insurance industry for over 20 years, I have been blessed with incredible relationships with my clients, business partners, and centers of influences. I have seen a lot and the financial industry does not stop from going through challenges, growing, expanding. Also, having the opportunity to every day learn new information to help me continue grow my financial and insurance practice, striving to stay ahead of the competition and to be able to provide exceptional personalized services to my clients across the country. I have also maintained great long-term relationships with some of my competitors as I love to learn what others do and how it can continue helping me grow my knowledge and skills. I have been able to build and maintain relationships with people and businesses that have trusted me for many years and have been very happy with the services that I provide.
My goal has always been to help people and businesses build wealth, maintain, and preserve their wealth. However, sometimes, I come across very complex financial and insurance situations for the clients personally or for a business. The financial and insurance industry has become extremely competitive and can sometimes be complicated due to terminologies, process, finding the right information, etc. It is always changing and evolving due to increase in demand from people and businesses for financial and insurance products and advice, technology, rules and regulations, and much more. Although many companies offer self-directed financial products and services, the demand for partnering with a financial planner continues to increase due to people and businesses not having the proper knowledge, lack of information, don’t have the time or the inclination to do it by themselves and require the help of a professional financial expert. Especially in complex financial and insurance situations in the areas of divorce planning, retirement planning, asset protection, income planning, investment management, wealth management, estate planning and insurance planning. Partnerships with professionals in the areas of accounting and legal services has also helped me to help my clients overcome financial planning challenges that in the end, helped them pursue their goals.
Some of the major challenges I see today with many people and businesses include:
Debt Challenges – At Financial Colors Wealth Management, we focus on helping our clients build wealth, maintain, and preserve their wealth. Mainly for individuals and families, being debt free is very important during the wealth building process. When I talk about wealth building process, I mean saving money in a savings account, saving money in your retirement accounts, saving money to start a business, etc. Many people that we meet with, we see that they have credit card debt, student loan debt, car loans and other types of debt. We recommend that they start saving at least $1000 to $5000 in an emergency fund and then start paying off their debts aggressively. Why the emergency fund? Because if something happens, the emergency savings can possibly help cover any emergencies or unforeseen expenses. At the same time, it helps the client not get distracted in becoming debt free and continue paying down their debts. People talk about good debt and bad debt. In my opinion, debt is just debt and can hold you back financially. What I have seen is that debt for a purpose in good times is good. But if you are not able to cover that debt in bad times, it is not good at all and can set you back. Most of the wealthy individuals and families that I work with, they have very little to no debt at all and allows them to save more and invest their money. Having no debt puts you in financial control. It gives you the freedom to do whatever you want with your money versus paying back a creditor.
Financial Planning Challenges – Juts like it sounds. Financial planning is something that in my opinion, everyone should have and is crucial to live an organized financial life. I have always told my clients that if you have a well thought out financial plan, it does not matter whether the stock market is up or down. Your financial plan will be designed to help you through the bad times and help you through the good times. In today’s world, money equals choices. The more money that you have, the more choices that you can have. If you make little to no money, then you have little to no choices of what you want or need. Of course, there are some things that you can get at little or no cost. But, having what you want, or need will require money to get it unless someone else paid for it. An example of this is like when buying a car. If you have saved enough money, depending on how much money you have saved, it can be the difference between buying a new car versus a used car. Many people don’t have a financial plan and it is not clear where they are at financially today and they don’t know where they want to be financially. Putting them in a position to live on a day-by-day basis with their finances which can become a concern when planning for their future. Having a financial plan can provide clarity, give you a road map of where you are today and where you want to be financially. It helps you with pursuing financial goals for yourself, your family, or your business and much more. When we onboard a new client at Financial Colors Wealth Management, we work on a financial plan for the client. Depending on the stage in life where the client is at or the complexity of the financial plan, we do an annual review or a review at least once every 2 to 3.
Retirement Planning Challenges – This is a challenge that has affected many Americans and it can be a hard challenge to overcome. Especially if you start planning for retirement later in life. We are now in the year 2022 and people are facing lots of obstacles that are getting in the way of planning for their retirement. Obstacles such as high inflation, expensive real estate, a volatile stock market, high taxes, and high interest rates. To me, retirement planning is not to be taken lightly and people should stay the course with a discipline retirement planning strategy. You want to and need to enjoy your life and buy the things that you want to buy. But also focus on your retirement plan and start as soon as you can. In today’s world, parents can set up a retirement plan for their newborn or a young individual can start their retirement plan as soon as they want to. There are many options for a young individual to start saving for retirement at an early stage in their life. Retirement planning does not have to start when you get your first job that offers a 401k. A 16-year-old working part time can start contributing to an individual retirement account which is part of the process for retirement planning. Based on what I have seen, many people don’t think about planning for retirement during their young days, but it certainly becomes a concern when turning 40 years or older. For those individuals that never planned for retirement and are 55 to 60 years or older, seriously regret no planning for retirement and think that its too late and that they have to work for the remainder of their lives. At Financial Colors Wealth Management, we help our clients to plan for their retirement no matter what stage in life they are at. We have a process and tools that can help our clients determine and implement a retirement planning strategy plus address questions and concerns when it comes to retirement planning.
I love what I do every day in helping people build wealth, maintain, and preserve their wealth. That’s why I created Financial Colors Wealth Management with offices in Texas and in Florida. We work with clients across the country. Helping them overcome their financial challenges and help our clients build wealth, maintain, and preserve their wealth. We work hard, we don’t stop learning so that we can help our clients. Sometimes, it is not as easy as it sounds and it requires a lot of brain power, knowledge, skills, important contacts, having the right tools and resources. Our clients are very satisfied with our services and the value that we bring to them by partnering with Financial Colors Wealth Management.
Joel, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Joel Marius loves partnering with people and businesses to help them build, maintain, and preserve their wealth. Joel has over 20 years of experience in the financial industry, is a business owner and entrepreneur. Joel has been securities, investments and life insurance licensed since 2010 and working for some of the largest financial institutions in the country as a top performer. Joel provides valuable resource, knowledge, and experience to help his clients with personal and business financial planning, retirement, investments, portfolio management, estate planning and insurance. Additionally, Joel loves teaching and helping people turn their passion into income through entrepreneurship. Joel is highly dedicated to his clients as his clients are like family. Joel’s top priority is for his clients to have peace of mind.
Joel holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and finance from the University of South Florida. Outside Financial Colors Wealth Management, Joel enjoys spending time with his family, his dogs, playing sports, fishing, and traveling.
On May 11, 2020, Joel Marius was awarded the Ethics Approved Status and earned the Registered Financial Consultant (RFC®) designation by the International Association of Registered Financial Consultants (IARFC®).
Financial Colors Wealth Management has offices in Texas and in Florida. We provide access to a wide variety of financial and insurance products and services. Helping people build wealth, maintain, and preserve their wealth through financial, investment, retirement, estate, and insurance planning.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
While I was attending college, I was not sure what I wanted to do. I was interested in becoming a veterinarian due to my love for dogs. Then I changed to studying engineering. Then I changed to wanting to become an oncologist or cardiologist. However, after starting a part time job making phone calls for a financial advisor, I fell in love with the financial industry. I realized that no matter where you live in the world, people need money to live, and I wanted to understand why people are poor and why people are rich. How do people build wealth and how to invest? I changed my major to business administration and finance and the rest is history. I wanted to be in an industry where I can help people. I wanted to be a doctor, but I was more passionate about financial planning. So, I became a Financial Doctor.
I was able to work as an intern or part time with many of the major financial firms where then my name started to grow within the financial industry and I became a top performer in banking, credit management and then in financial planning and investments. Today, at the age of 40, I now own my own financial practice by the name of Financial Colors Wealth Management. This was not an easy road, and it took a lot of time to get to where I am today. Plus, a lot of sacrifice, long hours at work, and getting through a lot of challenges. I believe that your network is your net worth. I started to meet people that were doing well in the financial industry. I got several mentors that helped me and gave me great guidance. By putting all that formula together, I was able to get to where I am today. But again, I did not have a silver spoon, everything I have done has been through hard work and many challenges. Some challenges held me back for even 2 years until I overcame it.
I learned the financial and insurance industry by seeing what successful people in the industry do. I don’t stop reading and understanding our industry. I have become obsessed with the financial and insurance industry I love what I do. I continue to learn and continue to grow and improve. If I find something that I have not heard of, I go learn it and understand it. People skills are very important and it’s something that I recommend everyone to build on. The art of meeting people, treating people right, talking to people, socializing, listening, building, and maintaining great relationships, respecting people and constantly learning how to increase your people skills. Other skills including understanding what is important to people. Finding solutions to their financial and insurance problems is very important in our industry which never stops growing, expanding, and continuing to get more complicated.
Some of the obstacles that I have come across in the financial industry is that there is too much noise. Meaning, too much information and misinformation which at times it confuses people in trying to make the right decision for themselves, their families, or their business. I must constantly take things that I read and learn, take it apart to make sure that the information is real, accurate or even, to find out if its worthy or worthless.
In my opinion, more and more people are now realizing that the noise of doing your own financial planning is not working for everyone. That’s why today, even many of the self-directed financial firms are now hiring financial advisors/planners because they are realizing that a computer or information on a website is not enough. People see the value of partnering with a good financial planner/advisor that has the necessary knowledge, skills, and expertise to help them with their financial goals. Therefore, people and businesses are coming to Financial Colors Wealth Management.
Financial Colors Wealth Management has offices in Texas and in Florida. We provide access to a wide variety of financial and insurance products and services. Helping people build wealth, maintain, and preserve their wealth through financial, investment, retirement, estate, and insurance planning.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
Referrals from current clients has been the best source of new clients and growth for us at Financial Colors Wealth Management. Our current clients see the value we bring to them in helping them pursue their financial, retirement and insurance goals. In return, our current clients refer Financial Colors Wealth Management to their friends, families colleagues and other people that they know. We have been honored and grateful to work with clients that trust us and our financial and insurance services across the country.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.financialcolorswm.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/financialcolorswm/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/financialcolors
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/financialcolors
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/financialcolors