Author: Celeste McLaughlin

By Celeste McLaughlin

William Morales of Edward Jones Financial Services, located across Bruce B. Downs Blvd. from Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel can help you with your retirement and other financial planning needs…and much more.

Morales and office administrator Nancy Carazo previously worked together at the Edward Jones office in Tampa Palms before moving to their current Wesley Chapel location.

Financial advisor William Morales, AAMS (Accredited Asset Management Specialist), and longtime branch office administrator Nancy Carazo make up the Edward Jones Financial Services team in the Windfair Professional Center, located across Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. from Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel (FHWC).

Morales and Carazo have been serving clients in this location since 2012, when they closed their Tampa Palms office and moved it to Wesley Chapel. Morales had joined the company in 2009, while Carazo celebrated her 21st anniversary with Edward Jones this fall.

“I always wanted a Wesley Chapel branch,” says Morales, who lives in Meadow Pointe with his wife and two daughters, both of whom attend the Pasco-Hernando State College Porter Campus at Wiregrass Ranch. Carazo also lives in Meadow Pointe, making the Wesley Chapel office a convenient locale for the pair to serve their neighbors and community.

“We are a full-service agency, and I wear many different hats,” explains Morales. “When I work with clients, I may serve as their stock broker, insurance agent and bond dealer. At its core, my work is as a financial planner.”

He explains that he helps his clients in any of five different core areas, depending upon each client’s stage of life and their individual needs:

• Planning for a comfortable retirement (for those who are currently working)
• Enjoying retirement (for those who have already retired)
• Paying for education
• Preparing for the unexpected
• Saving money on taxes

 

“In 1922, Edward Jones, Sr., founded the firm, which he passed on to his son, Ted,” explains Morales. “When Ted passed, he left the company to the employees, making it the only financial services firm of its size that is held privately.”

Morales explains that this means Edward Jones is unique in the industry, as it is not a publicly traded company itself, and has no Board of Directors and no shareholders, so his singular focus can be on pleasing his clients. Edward Jones branches are independently owned and small, but they are not franchises. All 11,500 branches throughout the U.S. and Canada are held by Edward Jones, which is headquartered in St. Louis, MO.

Morales works with his clients through a five-step process, starting with “Where am I today?” and “Where would I like to be?” Then, he says, the next steps — “Can I get there?” and “How do I get there?” — are his job. Once he’s worked with his clients through those steps, Morales says he continues to advise them to determine, “How can I stay on track?”

“I take care of financial affairs for a select group of families in our area,” he says, “with about half of my clients working families, and the other half already retired.”

He says this “select group” of both working families and retirees is limited not by any particular criteria, but because he limits himself to maintaining a small group of clients so that he can manage all of their needs well.

“If we get too big, we lose that personal touch,” he says. “(It makes it) tough to deliver the same level of service.”

Morales says the most important thing to do when you’re looking for a financial advisor is to find someone you can trust and can hopefully work with for the rest of your life.

“The person has to be someone you like, someone who makes you feel comfortable,” he says.

Another piece of advice he gives is this: “Don’t let your emotions drive your financial decisions. For example, if your favorite store has a 50 percent off sale, you’d probably run to go shopping. Yet, with stocks, many people get scared when the price drops, so they want to sell, rather than buy.” In other words, he adds, “to meet your long-term goals, don’t let your emotions get you off track.”

Morales also says that many people see the stock market in their daily lives but don’t know what it actually is or how it affects them. For example, you may hear a change in the Dow Jones Industrial Average reported on the nightly news. But, the Dow only tracks the price of 30 large companies, he explains. If you don’t own any stock in those companies, what happens with the Dow is less relevant to you. “It’s much more important to understand what financial products you’re invested in,” he says.

And, educating his clients about those companies (and financial products) is a big part of what Morales does every day. In addition to equity investments, such as stocks, Morales also offers his expertise regarding annuities, retirement plans, estate considerations, education savings, fixed-income investments such as bonds and certificates of deposit, individual retirement accounts, life insurance, mutual funds, as well as saving, spending and borrowing solutions.

Satisfied Customers…

Roy and Jane Spencer first encountered Morales when they moved two years ago to the Wesley Chapel subdivision of Watergrass from Arizona. They were working with a financial planner there, but say they weren’t happy with the service they were getting. They had a life insurance policy managed by Edward Jones, so Morales reached out to them, asked them a few questions about the policy, and invited them in to talk.

The Spencers agreed to meet with him, but thought they might be setting themselves up for little more than a sales pitch. They were soon thrilled to find out that they were completely wrong.

“William isn’t a sales guy,” says Spencer. “I’m in sales, so I know when someone’s trying to sell me something. Sitting with him really feels like chatting in someone’s living room. He knows his stuff, and he really cares. ”

Spencer says he left that initial meeting saying to his wife, “This is the type of (customer) service we’ve been missing.” He continues, “The stuff William knows is crazy. I try to do some research on my own, but after I spend an hour with him, I feel smarter and a lot more confident about the future.”

He says his entire experience with Morales has been positive, and unlike anything he’s had experienced in the past.

“I used to think I needed to have millions of dollars to get this kind of advice,” he says. “To have access to this level of service with a more middle income is amazing. And it’s important, because my future is in his hands.”

Morales concurs. “My job is relationship driven. I have to do the ‘nerd work’ and crunch the numbers, but most of what I do is serve my clients, and there’s no cost for advice.”

Morales explains a first-time appointment with him is similar to visiting a new doctor. “I’m going to ask you a lot of personal questions, so I can really understand what’s going on with you financially,” adding that he uses financial questionnaires and conversation to help determine his clients’ needs.

Once someone becomes Morales’ customer, they can choose to pay a flat annual fee for Edward Jones to manage all their assets or the more traditional method, where Morales receives his payment from the mutual funds, insurance policies and other investments he sells.

“One thing that makes us unique from our competition is that there are no Edward Jones investments to sell,” says Morales. “We sell the products of all the other companies, such as Fidelity, for the same cost to you as if you bought directly from them.”

Morales recommends working with a large firm, such as Edward Jones, “because the big firms have oversight. Unlike independent financial planners who don’t work for a larger company, Edward Jones has measures in place to watch what I do.”

Before joining Edward Jones, Morales was president of a mortgage company in New Tampa and served six years in the U.S. Army Ordinance Corps, spending four years stationed in and around Kuwait. Originally from New York City, Morales and his family moved to Tampa, where he graduated from Chamberlain High.

For more information, call branch office administrator Nancy Carazo at 991-7034, and she’ll schedule your appointment with Morales at the Edward Jones office in Wesley Chapel. You can also stop by the office at 2748 Windguard Circle, Suite 101 (in the office plaza behind The Hungry Greek).