Foreign.
Speaker BWelcome to Ditch the Suits podcast where we share insights nobody in the financial services industry wants you to know about.
Speaker BWe're here to help you get the most from your money in life.
Speaker BSo buckle up and welcome to Ditch the Suits.
Speaker AAll right, Steve, we're on episode three of our four part miniseries with our, our senior VP of financial planning, Jeff Chase is in the studio today with us and he is digging into the art of being a real deal financial planner or wealth manager, not just a so called advisor.
Speaker AAnd he shared with us his story through the industry.
Speaker AI love this because I think, you know, we talk about our story all the time, but maybe we're just unicorns.
Speaker AAnd here's Jeff, another person who's walked a very similar path, ended up in the same place thinking, you know, there's gotta be a better way to do this.
Speaker ANow how do we build that better way to do this?
Speaker AAnd you know, if you hear from people who are trying to figure out how to do it better, I think it helps point out the things that you kind of ought to be focused on as a consumer.
Speaker ASo this is pretty exciting.
Speaker AWe've, we've, we've covered kind of who Jeff is.
Speaker AIn our first episode of this, our second one, we, our last episode, we talked a lot about his experience in the industry and working with some clients.
Speaker AToday we're going to shift a little bit and talk about his day job and some of the, some of the things that, you know, he kind of just some of his observations that I think are pretty interesting and intriguing.
Speaker ASo we're going to let Jeff get into that.
Speaker ABut first, Steve.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker BWelcome into Ditch the Suits.
Speaker BI'm Steve Campbell, senior marketing director at Seed Planning Group.
Speaker BThis is Travis Most, our co host and chief executive officer.
Speaker BSeed is a fee only financial planning firm and Ditch the Suits is all about us bringing our experiences in the day to day to help empower you to get the most from your money in life.
Speaker BHey guys.
Speaker BSteve Campbell, one of the co hosts here on Ditch to Suits, want to take one quick moment to tell you about something that's near and dear to my heart.
Speaker BThis is my very own podcast called the One Big Thing.
Speaker BOn the One Big Thing, I welcome guests from all walks of life.
Speaker BWe take about 30 minutes to help share their story and really culminate around this one big thing that they want to let all of you know.
Speaker BAs a listener.
Speaker BThese are going to be practical ideas and ways of looking at life that you can implement to become the best version of yourself.
Speaker BOn the One Big Thing we want to help you overcome the challenges that are holding you back.
Speaker BSo if you'd like a good, feel good story that helps you overcome challenges, check out the One Big Thing, which is available on all major podcast platforms.
Speaker BNow let's get back to the show.
Speaker AAll right, Jeff, welcome back.
Speaker AYou're not running and screaming.
Speaker CStill here.
Speaker CHanging in here.
Speaker AThis is good.
Speaker AYou're our third guest that has not quit halfway through the show.
Speaker ASo this is good.
Speaker CIt's good.
Speaker AI mean, we've never had the right halfway through the show, but, you know, we're.
Speaker AWe're figuring this out the same as everybody else is.
Speaker ASo welcome back.
Speaker ALet's talk about today.
Speaker AI want to talk about seeds approach to financial planning.
Speaker ABecause I've interviewed somebody in the past is like, yeah, I do financial planning.
Speaker AI'm like, tell me about your financial planning.
Speaker AAnd he's like, yeah, we have, like, two meetings.
Speaker AAnd I'm like, how much time does it take?
Speaker AHe's like, it's about an eight hour, eight hours total.
Speaker AWe.
Speaker AWe deliver a financial plan.
Speaker AI'm like, what happens next?
Speaker AThen we sell them life insurance.
Speaker AI'm like, okay, we're not even in the same world.
Speaker ALike, we can't talk.
Speaker AI can't talk to you.
Speaker AYou don't know.
Speaker AYou don't.
Speaker AYou think that you're like, I've met people.
Speaker AI do what you do.
Speaker AYeah, tell me exactly what I do.
Speaker AAnd then, you know, you know, they give you kind of the generic, and it's like, look, there's somewhere between 8 hours and 32 hours, something's happening for that client or not happening in your case.
Speaker AWhat's the difference here?
Speaker AThere's gotta be something that's happening in there, you know, or this.
Speaker AYou know, I've talked to people.
Speaker AI have 500 financial planning clients.
Speaker AReally?
Speaker AHow many of them do you financial Planning for?
Speaker AAll 500.
Speaker AHow often do you meet with them?
Speaker AEvery year.
Speaker AThere's not enough meetings in the week to do.
Speaker AI can attest to that.
Speaker AYou know, you get more than you know.
Speaker AWhen our planners get up to seven or eight financial planning meetings a week, whether it's new clients or reviews with clients, that's a lot of work.
Speaker AThat is a large workload.
Speaker AAnd so.
Speaker AAnd we try to meet with our clients anywhere from one to four times a year.
Speaker AAnd if there's things going on in their lives that are unique, it might even be more, but something different is happening than if it takes 18 hours a year to take care of a client and you've got 500 clients, you don't have enough time to do all that work.
Speaker ASo what's the deal here?
Speaker AYou know what I'm saying?
Speaker ASo talk to us about Seed's approach to financial planning, which is literally your job.
Speaker AYou are the gatekeeper of financial planning at Seed.
Speaker CYeah, yeah.
Speaker CSomething I'm very, you know, passionate about, grateful for.
Speaker CAbsolutely.
Speaker CSo, you know, really what we do, again, our approach to financial planning, I guess let's start.
Speaker CThere is real, straightforward advice, right, for clients.
Speaker CNo gimmicks, no selling products.
Speaker CKind of like we've been talking about the last two episodes.
Speaker CIt's planning that includes all the essential services.
Speaker CIt's not just investments, right?
Speaker CInvestments is part of the deal.
Speaker CIt's not the most important thing, right.
Speaker CThere's other things that have to go on there.
Speaker CThere's tax planning, there's health care planning, there's estate planning, there's looking at risk management.
Speaker CThat's our day job, right?
Speaker CSo when you talk about, you know, somebody having 500 clients, that's physically impossible for you to be able to do financial planning.
Speaker CSo once we get up to, you know, you know, we have a number of clients where we feel like that's, that's the max for a planner, for them to be able to actually do their job without us sacrificing the client experience.
Speaker CAnd that's a no go for us, right?
Speaker CWe're not going there.
Speaker CWe're never going to sacrifice the client experience.
Speaker CBut what we do is we bring people through a process, really a tried and true process that we've done thousands of times.
Speaker CAnd when I say that, I don't mean that we're taking you through some cookie cutter process that, you know, your neighbor went through.
Speaker CThat's not what it is.
Speaker CIt's.
Speaker CThe framework is there, right?
Speaker CThe framework is there because we know it works.
Speaker CBut everything we do from a financial planning process is customized to each client that comes in in their specific situation.
Speaker CSo I guess we'll start from the beginning, right?
Speaker CWhen you engage with us.
Speaker CWe've talked in our previous episode about the opening meeting, right?
Speaker CWe have a conversation with you, we get to know you, we get to know about your goals, right?
Speaker CThat's, you know, nothing revolutionary.
Speaker CI think most places probably do some form of that, right?
Speaker CBut when we get you in here and you actually decide, hey, you know what, this sounds good.
Speaker CSeed is a good fit for me.
Speaker CI'm engage with Seed.
Speaker CYou're a good fit for Seed.
Speaker CAnd we, we onboard you, we take you through a very specific process, right?
Speaker CSo there's a series of initial planning meetings that we take you through and those meetings are spaced about two to three weeks apart.
Speaker CAnd there's a specific reason for that.
Speaker CThe reason we do that is because there's a lot of information, a whole lot more than what, however many hours you said 18 hours that goes into financial planning in a year, right.
Speaker CWe'll take you through.
Speaker CYour first meeting is probably going to be based around a making sure that we have a good handle on your situation up front.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CTaking a look at forward looking projections for some clients.
Speaker CThat might be Social Security timing, that might be pension selection, that might be income sourcing or you know, an intro into tax planning.
Speaker COnce we have that solid baseline, we'll get you into investment planning.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CAnd we do investment planning second for a very specific reason.
Speaker CMost people, and I notice most firms, let the investments dictate everything else.
Speaker CThat is completely backwards.
Speaker CThe financial planning should dictate what the investments look like.
Speaker CSo we start with the planning, then we move on to investment planning.
Speaker CThat's where we're going to do a deep dive into what you have, what our recommendations are, getting things in the right places and then we move on to risk management.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CSo that could be a number of different things.
Speaker CBut for example, that maybe that's insurance planning.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CMaybe that's taking a look at what happens if there's unfortunate events in your life that occur.
Speaker CIs that going to take your plan off course?
Speaker CAnd then we'll get into estate planning after that to kind of close the loop on that initial series of planning.
Speaker CThat's just when someone comes to us and that's the general framework.
Speaker CThat's not the same for every single client.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CThere might be additional meetings or additional conversations in there, depending on what your situation is.
Speaker CBut then we get you into a review meeting schedule.
Speaker CAnd it's not just you come in once a year and we review your investments.
Speaker CNow we have a very specific process that we go through at certain points in the year.
Speaker CWe talk about certain things periodically throughout the year.
Speaker CWe're doing things in the background to make sure that, you know, there's no holes that aren't plugged, basically.
Speaker CSo that's really our process when it comes to financial planning from a very, very high level.
Speaker BDo you want more of Ditch the Suits?
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Speaker BIf you're wanting more announcements, notifications, even access to prior seasons, you can head to patreon.com search ditch the suits and subscribe to our channel.
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Speaker BSo visit patreon.com search ditchesuits or head to our show Notes where we got links to our channel.
Speaker AAnd I can speak to the origination of that process when seed was first started.
Speaker ASo this predates your time.
Speaker AI know that you've got less hair than me, but I'm still older than you.
Speaker ASo.
Speaker ABut if we go back to the.
Speaker AThe origination of the financial planning process that we use, my observation was every time that we did the planning out of order, the clients had meltdowns.
Speaker AWe had major, major client issues with.
Speaker AThey'd be frustrated.
Speaker AWhy am I doing this?
Speaker AWhy am I doing that?
Speaker AThey didn't have the body of knowledge.
Speaker AWhen you're talking about the way that you're doing financial planning is you are building a knowledge foundation.
Speaker ALet me give you the information that you're going to need to more advanced concepts before we get to the more advanced concepts.
Speaker AInstead of getting to the advanced concepts and saying now let's go all the way back and teach you the basics.
Speaker ASo you start with the basics.
Speaker AThis is how kind of life looks and how it's projecting based on what you've told us does.
Speaker AIs that true?
Speaker AIs that kind of what you're thinking?
Speaker AAnd then you get into and you know, here's how.
Speaker AHow you can make some tweaks to those investments to fortify that or even make it look better.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker AMaybe it's not getting to where you wanted to go.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker AYou can, you could tell us where you want to go and then we'll show you where you're headed.
Speaker AAnd then you could say, well, geez, I like that or I don't.
Speaker AAnd then we can show you how to make it even better, you know, or if you want to do things, how it might make it worse.
Speaker ASo you walk people through that process.
Speaker AYou do the investment planning.
Speaker AI think you talked about the investment planning always comes after the financial planning because the financial plan should drive the investment plan.
Speaker ACan you tell share with people a good reason why that is so?
Speaker CSure.
Speaker CI'll give you a great example.
Speaker CThat just happened this week.
Speaker CWe had a client come in who new client.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CWe're probably two planning meetings in at this point.
Speaker CCame very aggressive with his investments.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CHas always been 100% stocks.
Speaker CReally I think because very comfortable that way.
Speaker CBut I also think that, you know, in.
Speaker CIn his view.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CHe thought that that was something that was necessary.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CWhere he's very concerned which is the opposite of most clients that come in very concerned about, you know, inflation and outpacing inflation over time.
Speaker CAnd I could tell that there were things that either he had read online, right.
Speaker COr videos that he had watched, where some of this stuff was coming from, but always very, very aggressive.
Speaker CAnd when we went through the planning and we had a conversation around his actual goals, him and his wife, right.
Speaker CWhat was retirement going to actually look like?
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CThey were able to share that.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CAnd then we were able to talk through, okay, well, what do we think that's actually going to cost?
Speaker CHe had some other goals as well.
Speaker CNot just fun stuff.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CIt's not just, hey, I want to go on vacation or spend more time with family.
Speaker CSome char.
Speaker CCredible interests, A lot going on there.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CA bunch of moving parts.
Speaker CBut what we were able to do is help him to understand that, hey, if you can accomplish every single goal that you've shared with us, whether it be you having fun, you leaving money to your kids, you doing your charitable gifting and philanthropy, why would we take more risk than is necessary?
Speaker CAnd that statement right there resonated with them quite a bit.
Speaker CAnd they're like, you know what?
Speaker CThat makes perfect sense.
Speaker DRight?
Speaker CSo we kind of did a 180 on how they've been investing their whole lives.
Speaker CAnd, you know, we've got them now in a what we call a moderate plus portfolio, which is about 65% in stocks.
Speaker CAnd that's that sweet spot where they can do everything they want to do without worry of running out of money.
Speaker CWe don't have any worry of not outpacing inflation.
Speaker CIt's kind of the best of both worlds in that way.
Speaker CSo that's one example that I would give you.
Speaker AYeah, I think a lot of people don't understand that with risk, there's a sequence of return issue.
Speaker AAnd when you're looking at.
Speaker AWhenever anybody comes in, there's what you need and what you want, here's what you need, and then here's how you feel about that.
Speaker AAnd sometimes getting riskier, although you can make higher returns, actually puts you at more risk of a lower output.
Speaker AAnd sometimes getting more conservative, although it can protect your lower output, can mean you can't reach your goals.
Speaker ASo there's.
Speaker AThere's a need box there that you can draw that you can say, look, you've gotta be in this box to achieve your goals.
Speaker AYou.
Speaker AYou don't need that much risk.
Speaker AIn fact, that much risk actually puts you at jeopard.
Speaker AAnd you also don't.
Speaker AYou can't afford to be that safe.
Speaker ASo you're somewhere in this box.
Speaker AAnd maybe the box is between 75% stocks and 55% stocks.
Speaker ANow, how do you feel?
Speaker ADo you love taking risk or do you hate risk?
Speaker AWell, you know, depending on where you are on that.
Speaker AOr are you just really nervous and you're not sleeping at night?
Speaker AWell, this is as conservative as you can get and still have a fighting chance to make your goals right.
Speaker AOr this is as aggressive as you can be instead of a fighting chance to not get, you know, blown up when the market blows up, that type of thing.
Speaker ASo I think that that's really important.
Speaker AI had a client one time come in and they were working with an insurance agent too.
Speaker AAnd every time they went to the insurance, they were the collector that you were kind of explaining in the last episode.
Speaker AThey had four long term care policies, three life insurance policies with long term care riders on them, and they had just put their entire life savings in an annuity with a guaranteed income benefit, which is a fee drain.
Speaker ASo basically I pay you 3.8% a year in fees, which is roughly probably, I think what this was.
Speaker AIt was a lot of money in fees.
Speaker AAnd you're going to guarantee me for life that I could take like a 4 1/2% income stream.
Speaker AI don't remember all the details, I'm just kind of stereotyping this a little bit.
Speaker ABut I could take a 4 1/2% stream of income as long as I'm alive, starting like when I'm 70.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker AAnd it was like, okay, so you're retired already.
Speaker AYour pension and your Social Security come out to about $120,000 a year.
Speaker AYou've got this half million dollars in this retirement account that you've told us you don't need that's only going to go to your kids when you die.
Speaker AAnd you just inebriated the upside of your market for fees, basically.
Speaker AAnd in New York, the way the death benefit works is it's your cash value or your purchase price, whichever is higher.
Speaker ABut the purchase price would be minus any distributions.
Speaker ASo you bought guaranteed income that you don't need because you already have a 5,000amonth spread.
Speaker AYou're already putting that much money into savings.
Speaker ASo you bought guaranteed income for an account that you don't plan to ever spend.
Speaker AAnd the main goal of the account is to give it to your kids, which means you would invest it as if your kids are going to use it in 30 years when they're retiring.
Speaker AYou wouldn't put it in there and say, I don't want any growth on this for the next.
Speaker ABecause they can't inherit the income benefit.
Speaker AThey can only inherit the cash value of it.
Speaker AAnd that's a perfect example too of I'm collecting products before I do my financial plan.
Speaker AThen when we do the financial plan and we tell them that.
Speaker ANow the problem is that particular client, they were extremely mad with us.
Speaker AThey ended up ending the relationship because we're like, look, you've had five meetings with us.
Speaker AEvery meeting you come in, you've got a new insurance product.
Speaker AThis person is literally using you to buy cars and boats and houses.
Speaker AThat's you are dinner every time you show up.
Speaker AStop buying stuff.
Speaker AWhen you go to them, talk to us first.
Speaker AYou've bought so much long term care insurance, you can't even use it all statutorily in the contract.
Speaker AThey will not give you the benefits because you have all these other benefits that you can already claim.
Speaker AStop buying more insurance, especially because you don't need it.
Speaker AThere's nothing anybody can take from you.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker ALike if you go into the nursing home, they can take your income, but you're single and live alone and you've already got money to give to the kids.
Speaker ALet them take your income.
Speaker CExactly.
Speaker AYou know, stop buying, you know, you can't use $30,000 a month of long term care benefits.
Speaker AThey won't let you.
Speaker AIt doesn't matter how much of it you have, they're not gonna let you use it.
Speaker DYeah.
Speaker CAnd this is stuff we've run into.
Speaker CI mean, it's just, it's constant.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CI mean, even with another one that I think of is just a recent one where client had a life insurance policy that, you know, he was, you know, the overfunding.
Speaker CThe life insurance policy.
Speaker AOh, yes, right.
Speaker AI mean, it's like plan, which is frankly legal.
Speaker AThat's a, that's an industry violation if you ever hear anybody say that.
Speaker CMost and most advisors, right, that I've run into don't really understand the way that that actually works.
Speaker CRight.
Speaker CIt's.
Speaker CIt's sold to clients on this idea of, you know, whatever, creating your own bank.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CAnd you can pull money out in the.
Speaker CThe problem with this client was he was supposed to be putting like $32,000 in there, right.
Speaker CEvery year.
Speaker CHe put like 100 grand in the last two years.
Speaker CNow it's a mec.
Speaker CNow he can't pull money.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CSo now it's, it's not that he can't, but it defeats the purpose.
Speaker AYou're referencing the modified endowment contract which essentially it changed.
Speaker ALife insurance from a regulatory standpoint, has a purpose.
Speaker AAnd when you put too much money in a cash based life insurance policy, it changes the definition of what it is.
Speaker ASo it's no longer life insurance per se, it is now an investment account.
Speaker ASo now it has different rules, Correct?
Speaker CYep.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker ANo, it's.
Speaker AI, I was sitting with an insurance agent one time.
Speaker ANot to get off on another tangent, but I'm gonna, I'm sitting down with a life insurance agent one time and I'm like, you know the reason why I like you and the reason why I'm okay sending a client to talk to you is because you come right out and say, I'm an insurance agent.
Speaker AI said, but you got to understand I was a million dollar roundtable producer.
Speaker AI sold a lot of insurance.
Speaker AIf you're going to sell garbage to our clients, I'm going to know it.
Speaker AAnd we will never send you another client.
Speaker ANo, no, no, man, I will never do that.
Speaker ABut have you heard this strategy where you put money in a whole life policy and you pull it out to pay for your kids college education?
Speaker AAnd I just looked at him like, are you desperate or are you an idiot?
Speaker AHow did you not hear what I just said to you?
Speaker ASo then there's a client that I sent to them and everything's an upsell.
Speaker AOh, you better buy this.
Speaker ABuying disability rider coverage on your whole life insurance is astonishing to me.
Speaker AFor an extra 1500 dollars you can buy insurance on your whole life policy.
Speaker AThat if you get.
Speaker AAnd it's different for everybody in every policy.
Speaker ABut I remember this particular case.
Speaker AFor $1,500 you could buy a year, you could buy insurance so you don't have to pay your whole life policy if you get disabled.
Speaker AYou know what you could buy for $1,500?
Speaker AA disability policy that replaces your damn income so you could pay all your bills if you get disabled, not just your health or not just your life insurance.
Speaker ASo it's, it's just, it's crazy.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CAnd that's part of, that's part of the issue with the industry too.
Speaker CIt's not for the most part what I've run into.
Speaker CIt's.
Speaker CAnd we've, we've lived it.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CIt's not the person, it's where they are in the environment sometimes of what they're being taught to do.
Speaker CIt's an ecosystem, what's available to them.
Speaker CYeah, that's, that's the unfortunate thing about the business.
Speaker CSo.
Speaker AYeah, well, I Think you make a good point.
Speaker AIt's it.
Speaker AYou.
Speaker AYou can't get mad at a shark for being a shark.
Speaker AMaybe you shouldn't swim with certain sharks.
Speaker CCorrect.
Speaker AIf you don't know how to kind of like not get eaten, you know, it's.
Speaker AI love it when people are like, oh, I don't mind commissions.
Speaker AAnd it's like, well, if you don't mind commissions, you better know what you're negotiating on.
Speaker CWell, I think that's the key, right?
Speaker CIf you don't.
Speaker CThat that's exactly what it is.
Speaker CYou got to understand exactly what you're getting, Right.
Speaker CYou really need to know if you don't mind commissions, you got to know what you're paying for, right.
Speaker CAt the end of the day.
Speaker CAnd sometimes there's hidden fees.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CEverybody knows this, but there's.
Speaker CEven when you call.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CI've heard, we talked.
Speaker CYou talked a little bit about hearing younger.
Speaker CNot younger, but our newer planners on the phone.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker COr in meetings with clients.
Speaker CYou know, sometimes.
Speaker CI know in the past I've heard conversations where, let's say they call an annuity company with a client and they say, okay, you know, you've got this whatever, annuity, right?
Speaker CAnd the planner's on the phone with a rep from the.
Speaker CFrom customer service, and they're trying to find out about the policy.
Speaker CAnd they're like, oh, okay, so what's the fee on this policy?
Speaker CAnd they're like, you know, M And E is 1.3.
Speaker CAnd they're like, okay.
Speaker CAnd then they go on to the next thing, right?
Speaker CWhat's, what's the cost?
Speaker CBut whatever the next question would be, they're only giving you what you're asking for.
Speaker CYou need to keep asking.
Speaker CThere's investment options in there.
Speaker CWhat is the fee on the investment options?
Speaker CThey're not going to tell you unless you ask, right?
Speaker CWhat's the fee for the rider?
Speaker CAll in.
Speaker CYou end up at like 3.2% on some of these things.
Speaker CAnd, you know, that's just.
Speaker CIt's insanity.
Speaker AIt's great.
Speaker AWell, those life insurance, cash value life insurance, like if you buy variable life.
Speaker AI was shocked when I found this out.
Speaker ASo obviously when you buy life insurance, you're where you're paying a commission.
Speaker ASo you know, there's insurance costs.
Speaker ASo some of your money doesn't make it into your cash account that's being invested.
Speaker ABut the part that makes it into the cash account, if it's variable life insurance, they also, a lot of times are charging you a sales load on the Way into the mutual funds.
Speaker AIt's like, wait a second, I bought your product, and you put the investments in the product, and now you're charging me extra money for the investments in the product.
Speaker AAnd that doesn't even have anything to do with the expense ratios that are also in there.
Speaker AIt's like, holy cow.
Speaker AThere's layers upon layers upon layers of these fees.
Speaker AAll right, so we've derailed this.
Speaker APerfectly typical with me.
Speaker AI apologize.
Speaker ABut we wanted to talk about.
Speaker AAnd maybe we can save this episode for everybody.
Speaker AWe wanted to talk about, which I think has been fascinating.
Speaker AI think we've got some really interesting perspective today, which is great.
Speaker ABut we wanted to talk about.
Speaker AI think that there's a lot of risk with solo practitioners.
Speaker AAnd I don't think I pick on attorneys, and I pick on CPAs on this.
Speaker AAnd I know, like, we have a particular solar attorney that we work with, who I think is wonderful.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker ABut I do think, in general, there's a lot of risk with solo practitioners in any of the three main professions that we kind of focus on, especially with financial advisors.
Speaker AAnd I didn't know, you know, if you want to talk about, like, we manage our financial planning division to try to minimize solo practitioner risk.
Speaker ASo do you want to talk about the risks at all and maybe how we focus on reducing that risk to clients?
Speaker CAbsolutely.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CI totally agree with you.
Speaker CThere is a lot of risk when it comes to solo practitioners.
Speaker CSo specifically for financial planning, I would say one of those big risks.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CIs lack of expertise in a specialized area.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CAnd that's why we take the team approach.
Speaker CPart of why we take the team approach here at seed, Right.
Speaker CSo there's collaboration and there's a sharing of that expertise among team members.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CWhen you.
Speaker CWhen you have a team in place versus a solo practitioner, I think the other thing is the risk of disruption if an advisor leaves.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker COr is unavailable for.
Speaker CFor clients.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker AOr has a baby and they're out for.
Speaker COr has a baby.
Speaker CRight.
Speaker CYeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker CYou know, you've got.
Speaker CWe have a situation here at SEED right now where we've built.
Speaker CWe've built this in a way where anybody can step in.
Speaker CYou're not just working with me, Right.
Speaker COr Dan or Travis.
Speaker CIt's.
Speaker CYou're working with SEED if you're a client.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CAnyone could step in for anybody at any given time and pick up exactly where that planner left off.
Speaker CYou could go in to what we've created.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CThe way that we take notes, the way that we document things, the way that we work as a team in general and pick up exactly where that advisor left off.
Speaker CThere is no, oh, someone left or someone's out four months now someone has to step in and we have to kind of start all over.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CThat's a big risk for us and realistically, most importantly for clients.
Speaker CSo I think one of the things.
Speaker AThe regulatory risk too, not to interrupt you, but that's one of the things when you get an examination from the regulatory bodies that oversee financial advisors is they look at secession planning and they look at the risk of, you know, and a lot of people are like that.
Speaker AWell, you know, I was going to call my financial advisor, they're on vacation or something.
Speaker AI can't get a hold of them.
Speaker ALike, this is your money, this, this is your livelihood.
Speaker AThis is like your life's going to happen and it's going to happen when it not on schedule with your financial advisor.
Speaker AAnd if there's only one person who can service you or help you and your life happens to happen off schedule with them, what are you actually paying for?
Speaker AOr, or what if that person dies, you know what I mean?
Speaker AOr gets, it gets critically ill or something comes up with them, what do you have then?
Speaker AYou know, does anybody have that file or access to that file or know what's going on?
Speaker CYeah, and that's why, you know, I think building standards is a big, is a big part of this, right, where we can build something where we never skip a beat.
Speaker CI think the other thing that we're always kind of thinking about with a lot of the decisions that we make, especially with financial planning and not to get into corporate lingo here, because I kind of hate this word, but could this create a silo?
Speaker DRight?
Speaker CWe don't want silos here.
Speaker CWe work very much as a team.
Speaker CIt's not these two advisors work together with these clients, right?
Speaker CNo, it's everybody works together based on what the needs of the client are.
Speaker CSo, you know, to give you an example of, of one of the standards that we've put in is with our wealth management clients, right?
Speaker COver a certain threshold of, let's say assets under management that we manage for someone or a certain size of client, we always have two team members working directly with them.
Speaker CDoesn't necessarily have to be two financial planners, right?
Speaker CIt could be a financial planner and someone from our investment team if it's more investment focused client, but we have two people on there for the client's own good.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CIf one of them are out, the other person can step in, obviously.
Speaker CThere's shared work there, but it's also for our own good as well.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CIf someone's out, we have someone to step in and take on that role and be able to continue servicing that client the exact same way that they always have been serviced.
Speaker CSo that's, that's just one example of a standard that we've put in place.
Speaker ABut that brings in specialty too.
Speaker AIf, if you have a planner that is a really great planner but doesn't really get into the weeds on why we buy certain investments or something like that, that's just not part of their specialty yet or their tool set yet, having the ability to have somebody from the investment division beyond that planning team and be able to explain to you this is why we're buying and selling that particular company or that particular bond in your portfolio is extremely valuable.
Speaker AYou know, and there's an awful lot of financial advisors that I've seen out there who are like, you know, just buy index funds, that's all that matters.
Speaker AAnd, and because they're cheap and nobody can beat the market.
Speaker AThat is a, that is somebody who doesn't understand investing.
Speaker ASo you've got somebody who maybe would be very book smart with the financial planning process, but they don't know anything about investing.
Speaker AAnd I always question it like this.
Speaker AIf you don't have somebody who knows anything about investing, how do you know that the assumptions in the financial plan are correct?
Speaker AYou know what I mean?
Speaker ALike, what's going to happen?
Speaker AFidelity will do this all the time.
Speaker AWe use E MONEY as one of our technologies and they put projected investment returns every time the market crashes.
Speaker AThey're using 30 year averages.
Speaker ASo they'll come in and they'll say, oh, you know, for the next 30 years you're only going to get 5% a year on returns.
Speaker ANow if you're an investment manager, you look at that and go, that's nuts.
Speaker AYou know, the market's already undervalued 25%, so we know there's going to be a recovery, which means you're going to swallow that 25%, you're going to have a sequence of return issue, but your averages are going to return.
Speaker AWhy would you project yourself out and make yourself look extremely poor and cause all that stress or vice versa?
Speaker AYou know, flip it.
Speaker AThere hasn't been a market correction in a long time, make the averages look better that you're likely not going to achieve.
Speaker ABut now it makes you have confidence to go out and do things financially that you shouldn't be doing because you don't understand how the investment markets actually work.
Speaker AAnd you know, dirty little industry secret is vast majority of financial advisors out there are not really focused on the stock market and how the market actually works outside of just the headlines.
Speaker ACorrect.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CThere's almost not enough time in the day.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CAnd that's why we split it up.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CYou, you cannot do effective real financial planning and manage money for your clients.
Speaker CIt's, it's physically impossible.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CAnd that's why we, I mean as a, as a financial planner, not as a company.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CThat's why we've split it up where planners who come here.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CAnd you probably had this experience too, Travis, in the past.
Speaker CI know I did.
Speaker CWhere I was a financial advisor in my past life.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CAt a different company.
Speaker CAnd I was responsible for the investment strategy that we were putting in place or choosing mutual funds.
Speaker CThere's not enough time in the day to do that if you're actually doing financial planning.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker CSo we need to have a general understand of a good understanding of what's going on in the markets, good understanding of how the strategies are deployed and how that the investments drive the engine basically for the financial planning.
Speaker CBut we're not in there in the weeds making changes to people's portfolios every day.
Speaker CThat's for our investment team to handle.
Speaker ASo let's, let's, let's shut down today's episode.
Speaker AI mean, this was great.
Speaker AI think we have some really great takeaways for our listeners and we'll start out our next episode talking a little bit more about the team and kind of how you work the seeds team itself and what that looks like.
Speaker AAnd then we'll get into a little bit about what clients need to or prospects.
Speaker AYou know, people out there looking for financial planners or if they're thinking about kind of their current relationship with a financial planner, what are some of the non negotiables and which things they should be looking for.
Speaker ASo we'll kind of wrap up your day job as seed and end with your advice to everybody about kind of what they need to be doing to get this right.
Speaker BThanks for checking out.
Speaker BDitch the suits.
Speaker BBe sure to write a review or drop a comment about this episode.
Speaker BAnd if you want more like this, head over to ditchesuits.com you can send us a message and get in touch.
Speaker BLet us know how we can help and be sure to share any topics you'd be interested in having us cover on the show.
Speaker BWe're here to help you get the most from your money in life.
Speaker BThanks for being our guest and checking out.
Speaker BDitch the suits.