An approachable investment environment

Mar. 26—Investing today for a comfortable and secure retirement might be intimidating for some.

"I just find there's a lot of people that it kind of scares them," financial advisor Kyle Poling said about words like "markets" and "risks."

But the confusion of creating the right plan for future financial needs can be lessened, Poling said, with proper explanation and guidance.

"A lot of advisors talk over their (clients') heads or they don't think they understand so they don't explain at all," he said. "You have to be somebody who wants to put it into a language that people can understand."

That's one of the reasons, he said, he made the decision to return to his hometown of Beckley to open Poling Wealth Management.

After receiving an undergraduate degree in business from Concord University, Poling traveled to Winston Salem, N.C., where he received a master's in accounting from Wake Forest.

Within a few months, he realized his goal of working in investment management when he was hired by the North Carolina-based BB&T, now known as Truist Wealth.

"I was a portfolio manager with what is now the biggest team in the country for Truist," he said.

In that role, Poling explained he worked with a team that managed more than $1 billion in assets.

"My role was to do equity or stock research, helping manage client portfolios and putting together client financial plans," he said.

But following the birth of his now 19-month-old daughter Olivia, he said he and his wife Courtney, a native of Wyoming County, began to reassess their lives.

"We just kind of sat back and said, 'Hey, what's the next step for us?'" he said. "And at the end of the day, we decided we wanted to be closer to family and, quite frankly, serve the community that gave me a lot."

"And at the end of the day, we decided we wanted to be closer to family and, quite frankly, serve the community that gave me a lot."

Though Poling said he enjoyed his time with Truist, he said he wanted the opportunity to make his own way in business while helping a larger segment of the financial population.

"Truist and most financial institutions are structured in a way that they don't really incentivize advisors to help people with smaller accounts," he said.

"They really aren't targeting people with under half a million dollars to invest."

That's why, Poling said, when he returned to his hometown, he decided to go the independent route.

"If I put my name on the door, if I go the independent route," he explained,

"yeah I have to make this massive investment up-front and I have to finance myself for some time, but at the end of the day, it allows me to serve an entire demographic of people who just get overlooked by the current financial system.

"I know that sounds dramatic, but I've seen it happen," he continued. "If you're at a bank and you have a checking account and nobody has come to you and said, 'Hey, do you want help with your investments?' it's because you didn't meet their thresholds."

Poling commented that potential clients sometimes stay away from wealth management because they don't think they have enough money to consider planning.

But he said he takes pride in offering services to clients at all ends of the financial spectrum.

"It doesn't matter your personal level of wealth," he said. "If you've got money, I can help you.

"...I'm here to serve the people of my community, to make everybody's financial future a little brighter if they want to come and talk to me."

It's with that conversation, he said, that future financial security begins.

"You give people numbers so they can understand what their money is doing for them," he stated.

"And then you say, 'OK, we're going to put this much into our retirement every year and if we do that, at retirement, we can expect that we can spend this much a year."

"That's simple. People get that."

Poling said he's watched awareness grow in the short time since opening his own business and he looks forward to continuing to spread the message.

"What I hope to see is more and more people come to me who have never really sat down with an advisor and say, 'Hey, I want to plan out my financial future. I want to understand what my money is doing for me."

"Anyone can benefit from understanding how their money is going to provide for them one day."

Poling Wealth is located at 330 Harper Park Drive in Beckley.

— Email: mjames@register-herald.com