Ben Reynolds of Sure Dividend gives us his two-cents on long-term investing

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Have you ever wondered about dividend investing? Well, I was thinking of writing about it and was wandering the internet one day when I found Ben – an expert in these things :). So I just asked him what’s the deal and why he’s so into dividend investing. Enjoy

Meet the Mind Over Matter interview series

I am a big proponent of focusing on what works best and the best things don’t waste your time. You readers are busy people with big aspirations and I want to help you succeed quickly without sacrificing your sleep.

Whether succeeding is retirement or enough riches to have a team of assistants tail you around, I want to rocket you there quickly with financial tactics!

With that in mind, I think I know the best ways to invest, make money and save money. BUT the world is a big place so I’m always looking for people to change my mind. The best places to look are from those people doing “out there” work.

So I hunt down people who should have different ideas and let them try to wow me.

It’s called the mind over matter series because everyone has objects and knick-nacks but I want to discover the knowledge that’s worth far more.

Here goes!

  1. 1-Minute Elevator Speech: Who are you and why do I care?
    My name is Ben Reynolds, I founded Sure Dividend in 2014 to help individual investors find high quality dividend growth stocks for rising passive income over the long run.
  1. What led you down this path? Why aren’t you doing something ‘normal’?
    I’ve been interested in investing since my college days.  After researching different ‘market anomalies’ and what successful value investors focus on, I wanted to create a strategy that would be both very low cost to implement (no big assets under management fees) and effective for building long-term wealth.

FYFE edit: I also fall into this invested-since-collage boat but ended up in another place. As far as I can see, anyone who invests seriously for a while stops playing with hype stocks eventually.

  1. How is this special and better than what’s normal? Explain the magic in <10 sentences.
    Sure Dividend now analyzes more than 600 income paying securities (stocks, REITs, MLPs, and BDCs) quartlery in our Sure Analysis Research Database.  Our team of researchers uses metrics like 5 year forward expected total returns and Dividend Risk scores to allow for comparison between different securities.  We put in the work to find high quality income investments trading at attractive valuations and pass that work on to our members.
  1. Why do you think this is better than just buying a dividend ETF or general market ETF?
    It’s about customization.  If you are looking for dividend growth and a specific yield level, you can achieve that with individual dividend stocks. You can’t achieve the same things with broad ETFs.  You can also take advantage of the volatility of individual stocks by buying in when they are trading for historically high yields (and low P/Es), and selling when the opposite is true.
    Mr FYFE edit: I get it. I like the lack of customization and lack of choices you get from ETFs but I get how it’s attractive. 
  1. What are the 3 most common pieces of advice you find yourself giving?
    1.  Invest for the long run
    2.  Don’t panic sell
    3.  When you buy a stock, you are getting fractional ownership in a real business; it’s more than just an arbitrary number on a screen.
  1. What’s been your most surprising finding in your work?
    It’s been very interesting that quality dividend stocks have largely not seen a significant price run up in today’s overvalued market despite having characteristics (growing income) that appeal to the reason why most people invest (retirement / financial freedom).  
  1. What #1 piece of advice would you give someone just starting out on their explosive growth path? (Assume the person has a good job, some money, is smart and doesn’t have a pile of time to #HustleGrind).
    It’s far too easy to get caught up in the excitement of starting something new.  Think about what you are doing, and why you are doing it, before acting.  Think about the value you are providing to others.  Time is our most limited resource, think about what activities create the most value for others relative to the time you spend.

FYFE edit: Time is our most valuable resource. Hallelujah! Preaching to the choir here!

  1. How are you going to change the world? Charitable, professional, anything goes!
    Changing the world is a monumental task.  I only have control (and imperfect control at that) over myself, so I focus on changing and improving myself.  At Sure Dividend, we focus on helping individual investors generate passive income through investing in quality income securities.
  1. If you had Scrooge McDuck levels of money what would you be doing right now?
    I’d probably spend more time reading and thinking.  The real answer here is I don’t know.
  2. How did your parents influence your success? (As a parent I really want to know how to help my kids more).
    My dad told me that we needed to work harder than everyone else to get ahead.  My mom homeschooled me through part of elementary school and taught me to not blindly follow authority or the consensus, but to think for myself.  Additionally, that formative time in my life taught me how to learn on my own.

FYFE edit: I am trying to instill hard work into my kids for sure. It seems like a strong correlation to success. Homeschooling though. Nope! Not a chance.

  1. Your top book recommendation and why? On any topic!
    I am an avid reader, so this is a question I’m very happy to answer!  A few of my favorite books are below.  These books aren’t particularly related to the dividend investing world, but they are excellent reads for general improvement and/or understanding business and entrepreneurship.

    – The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson & Naval Ravikant
    – The Billion Dollar Secret by Rafael Badziag
    – 7 Strategies for Wealth & Happiness by Jim Rohn
    – The Outsiders by William Thorndike
    – The Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg
  2. What’s the best way to get more of you?!
    You can see the Sure Dividend team’s work on suredividend.com! And we have a lot of popular articles at https://www.suredividend.com/archives/.

Thank you so much for your time!


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