Part of a Series: Meet a team of financial planners whose retirement planning process helps clients to better prepare for the next steps.
Editor’s Note: This is part of a “Business Resource Guide” series that highlights several locally owned business-to-business service providers in our region.
Retirement can be an exciting time for many people. It can also come with plenty of financial questions about the future. One of the best ways to be prepared for that day is working with a financial planner, someone like Paula Dorion-Gray, CEO of Dorion-Gray Retirement Planning, 2602 Illinois Route 176 in Crystal Lake.
The firm focuses on all facets of financial planning: estate planning, tax planning, life insurance, long-term care, portfolio design, Social Security strategies and retirement planning. The firm’s specialty, however, is the latter.
“Most of our clients are in retirement or near retirement,” says Dorion-Gray. “We spend a lot of time talking with our clients, because at the end of the day, they are hiring us to guide them through retirement.”
Dorion-Gray serves as a sounding board, guiding clients through the pros and cons of every financial decision they make. “It’s a matter of matching a client’s needs with risk tolerance,” she says. “We use different models and services to help our clients achieve their goals. Every client has a different portfolio breakdown.”
When a potential client walks into Dorion-Gray’s office, the team walks them through an eight-step process. During initial meetings with prospective clients, Dorion-Gray looks at everything, including insurance, taxes, investments and the cost of Medicare.
“Many times, clients either haven’t thought of or had the time for these discussions,” she says. “We can focus on what the future looks like. We lay out the entire income strategy, from the time they retire to the time they’re 95 or 100. We take the emotion off the table.”
Dorion-Gray encourages clients to be sure their advisor is proactive in financial matters. “Are you going to meet with him or her once a year or every five years?” she says. “One of the biggest reasons we see people leave their advisor is because they don’t have much contact with them. They’re not as proactive as they’d like them to be. This is a very personalized business.”
To learn more about how Dorion-Gray can guide your financial strategies, visit doriongray.com or call (815) 459-6800.