What are the most common retirement planning mistakes and how can you help customers avoid them?

The most common retirement planning mistake is - thinking it is too late to start planning! It's never too late to plan and save for your future.

In my experience with small groups preparing for retirement, I found that many individuals focus on finishing their employment and enjoying a life of inactivity. While this is not a useless pursuit, it clearly represents the tip of the iceberg. Over many years of research and conversations, I have found that a more trusting strategy is to focus on the next exciting area of engagement and activity. Retirement is a transition process to another life stage; not an endpoint to work. Paid employment may no longer be the objective; but, active engagement should be. Encourage clients to invest in personal development discussions-individually or group). Discovering life ambitions and values is the key to a happy retirement and a productive life.

In my experience, there is often a lack of planning and discipline when it comes to long-term financial goals. Too many people try to build their retirement savings without a solid blueprint or budget to follow. Without clear targets and priorities, it's easy to underestimate how much needs to be saved over the course of a 30+ year career in order to maintain your lifestyle in retirement. Retirement savings is often neglected in favor of more immediate spending priorities. Understanding the power of compound growth over decades of investing is also key - small, consistent contributions today can potentially grow into much larger balance given enough time and reasonable returns.

Diversification of investments is important, but so is diversification of savings. Too many individuals save solely within their company's DC plan, mostly in the tax-deferred IRA portion. This causes huge issues when they reach retirement - large RMDs forcing excess income and IRMAA surcharges, forcing them into higher tax brackets. Advisors need to start retirement income planning with clients in their 30's and 40's to ensure they are saving enough and contributing to non-qualified and tax free accounts such as Roth's as well as tax-deferred accounts.

Many miss out on wealth-building due to inadequate financial education from advisors, leading to overly conservative investments that reduce returns over decades of saving. With proper guidance on managing risk and timeline, more would invest appropriately and reap the long-run rewards.

The rich ensure wealth by first earning substantial income, then promptly retaining sharp tax experts to legally minimize liabilities. My advice - proactively partner with an advisor to forecast taxes alongside comprehensive financial planning, enabling strategic moves that legally optimize take-home pay.

Updating beneficiaries is important, but advisors must also ensure that the named beneficiaries and distribution amounts are consistent with clients' wills. If there is a mis-match, the custodian of the individual's retirement assets will rely on the beneficiary designation in its files regardless of what the individual's Will or Trust says.

HUGE mistake. Retirement is complex and even advisors are not experts in all the areas that need to be considered. Individuals seeking a retirement plan should look for an advisor who has a network of trusted experts he/she gets advice from to ensure costly mistakes are not made while creating and managing the individual's income plan.

Not seeking professional advice is the common mistake in retirement planning. Most of the customers makes plan without getting guidance and their planning goes wrong.In order to avoid such mistakes take the offers from experts and follow.