On the heels of a new hire at the executive level yesterday, Retirement Funding Solutions (RFS) is targeting further growth in the training arena through a new deal with Longevity View, LLC, a consulting firm owned by reverse mortgage industry veteran Shelley Giordano.
As part of the exclusive agreement announced Tuesday, Giordano will provide comprehensive educational training, sales, coaching and mentoring services to support originators at RFS, the reverse mortgage division of Synergy One Lending led by Torrey Larsen.
“Shelley has distinguished herself as the preeminent thought leader as it relates to equity wealth and other leading retirement topics,” said Larsen, who formerly headed Security One Lending, in a written statement. “Until recently, Shelley has been focused almost entirely on the HECM product as a viable retirement solution for the mass affluent.”
Longevity View has been engaged to collaborate with the sales force and marketing arm of RFS to create a “learning community,” the result of which RFS says will differentiate its originators by giving them the proficiency in both product knowledge and relationship sales theory to earn them the trust, and resulting referrals, from the financial service providers in their local markets.
“Longevity View, under Shelley’s direction, will now take a wider view on aging and retirement that impacts the Boomer generation,” Larsen said. “Retirement Funding Solutions will work closely with Shelley in order to identify and address the ever changing needs of this demographic.”
Additionally, RFS will help fund other collaborative activities such as the Funding Longevity Task Force, a group comprising distinguished members of the financial planning community, including Barry Sacks, former director of the Mature Market Institute; and John Salter, CFP and associate professor of financial planning at Texas Tech University.
Other members include Rita Cheng, CFP with Blue Ocean Global Wealth; Sandra Timmermann, former director of the Mature Market Institute; Tom Davison, CFP; and Wade Pfau, professor of retirement income at the American College.
The selection of RFS was both strategic and relational for Giordano, as she has worked closely with the company’s leadership team for the past several years, including co-founding the Task Force in late 2012 with Larsen.
“When we started, the objective was simple: develop an advisory board that could influence how the use of housing wealth was viewed by the Financial Advisor community by using quantitative analysis as the basis of our research,” Giordano said in a written statement. “I believe the Team has made great progress to date and the tide of acceptance has begun to turn. There is still more work to be done, but I am seeing a significant opportunity ahead for the industry.”
Written by Jason Oliva
