Foreign.

Welcome to Ditch the Suits podcast, where we share insights nobody in the financial services industry wants you to know about.

We're here to help you get the most from your money in life.

So buckle up and welcome to Ditch the Suits.

All right, let's talk about estate planning.

Today, people work really hard.

We save up the things that are important to us.

We build a life for us and our families.

We want to leave a great final impression on our heirs.

And one of the ways that we kind of mess all that up is by not having an adequate estate plan.

So we're going to talk about what that actually means because a lot of people are confused about what the term estate plan actually is.

It's not just getting a will, it's not just buying life insurance.

There's a lot to do with it.

And we're really, really excited because we have a special guest for the next four episodes and we're going to talk about avoiding a lot of the common mistakes.

And we're going to get the perspective of one of our senior wealth managers, Jessica Blake, who is also a.

And we're going to learn about this, a ctfa.

So a little bit of a credential after her name there.

But Jessica really has a specialty in estate planning.

She's been doing it for a long time.

She's worked for a trust company in the past.

She's got a lot of insight.

And one of the things that we wanted to do this year to, for our listeners is to bring additional perspective from somebody in the field doing it every single day.

What are the experiences she's having with real life clients?

Yeah.

And so with that, we want to say welcome to Ditch the Suits.

I'm Steve Campbell, your senior marketing director at Seed Planning Group, obviously joined by Travis Moss, our incredible co host and CEO of See if you're not familiar, Seed is a fee only financial planning firm.

And this show is all about us bringing our ideas, helping you get the most from your money in life.

And so really excited, as Travis said, to get into a four part miniseries talking about estate planning.

And so, Jess, welcome into Ditch the Suits.

Excited to have you here today, working as a senior wealth manager at Seed.

Why don't you give listeners a little bit of a intro as to who you are.

This is great.

I'm so excited to be able to participate in this.

This is so much fun.

I am, as you've already mention, a wealth manager that works here.

My previous life was, as Travis already mentioned, I worked at a local bank within their trust and estate department.

Have a lot of experience both in helping clients kind of pull together stuff for trust and estates, estate planning related things.

But the bulk of what I did was in administration of trust, administration of estates.

So I have seen firsthand some of the worst possible scenarios that could come into light.

It's always fun having powwows with local attorneys and things of like the horror stories that kind of come out of certain estates.

So it's been a really big advantage for me to be able to kind of have that experience to be able to help people with their estate planning, to try to eliminate some of the issues that are going to come out of it.

So.

And as Travis mentioned, have, you know, the Alphabet soup after my name for the ctfa and really what that is is a certified trust and fiduciary advisor is what that stands for.

It's just additional credentialing that allows me to be able to.

It was just a deep dive into more information so I could learn more about how taxes intertwine, just investment stuff to be able to make that more applicable for clients.

So it's just, you know, Alphabet soup that really helps, helps the game.

So you're kind of like the Dirty Harry of estate planning.

You've seen the good, the bad and the ugly, Right.

Oh my gosh, you've been through the wringer.

Before you came to seed and embarked on a career as a wealth manager, you had a real career.

Yes, A real.

In depth.

I mean, like I consider a career, you spend more than 10 years working on something, but you, you were at a trust department.

Yes.

Doing pretty much working with people through their estate plans and setting things up for their kids and their families and doing trusts and dealing with.

When it doesn't get done.

Right.

And you're trying to settle things with the family.

And did you ever.

Not that we'll save the examples for later, but did you ever see any family conflict?

All the time.

Okay.

So that's kind of common.

Especially when, if there's a corporate trustee or corporate executor involved, that's.

There's always conflict.

Like, that's always conflict.

It's never a good scenario or rarely a good scenario.

Yeah.

A lot of times people go to a corporate trustee when maybe they don't have a.

Yes, gotcha.

That's correct.

Yeah.

They don't have a lot of agreement internally or they don't have somebody strong enough within the family unit to handle the role.

Yes.

So let's talk a little bit more about you just to get you kind of a little bit Better introduced, you're a wealth manager, which means you do all things financial planning at Seed now.

Yes.

Okay.

And you got this year you are a senior, which does not indicate how old you are.

Oh, I'm old.

Okay.

Well, you could be old.

Okay.

But that is more so an indication that you're on the leadership team at Seed and that you're a shareholder in Seed.

So Seed's an employee owned company and so that you are now one of those employees.

And then you mentioned ctfa, Certified Trust Fiduciary Advisor.

Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Is that like, what does it take to get that designation?

Oh, gosh.

So for me specifically, I went through.

There is a specific trust school that you go through for like trustees or if you want to be kind of a corporate trustee.

I went through Canon Trust School.

So there's Canon.

There's three different classes that you have to do.

They're a week long each.

You have to actually take a test at the end of those weeks.

You have to pass it in order to be able to kind of move along to the next one at the end of that three course course meal, I guess at the end of those three courses.

So trust one, trust two, trust three, then you are eligible to take, to sit down and take the test for the ctfa.

So you're going through a lot of schooling to be able to get that credentialing.

And then that credentialing test is, you know, it's a different.

And it's only estate planning.

So I, I've seen credentials before coming from the insurance industry where it's like the credential is pretty much about selling insurance to people and calling that estate planning.

So the CTFA is much broader than insurance.

Right.

It's not an insurance based designation.

It's.

Oh, that is correct.

There is a huge, I mean it's law.

There's a ton of law that's based in it.

Taxes.

You know, it's, it's, it was an interesting transition coming here because you're working with a lot of personal taxes.

I had a lot more experience when it comes to like trust return taxes and there's so many different components with that.

And then investments.

Because it's a fiduciary based certification, you want to make sure that you know all the, I mean, the investments and how you treat them, et cetera and you know, best practices.

So that's really what it is.

One more thing that I wanted to know, I just wanted to get out there because I know obviously I know a little bit about your background and I thought it was really interesting and I think our listeners would like to hear about it before we kind of start to dig in and talk more about experience and how you found us.

And I think Steve's got a lot of questions for you that he wants to get through.

But you also.

Do you still serve on.

There was some kind of fiduciary board that you served on?

Yes, the Fiduciary Education foundation, which right now.

Because so there is a group called the Fiduciary Education foundation that is an entity in Pennsylvania that really is just trying to help give people who have CTFAs and other designations CE credits be able to use towards the credentialing and stuff like that.

So I had joined the board, had been the VP of the board.

Still technically am just due to the nature of after when Covid hit and all that kind of stuff.

Like it is looking like it's going to be absorbed into another group.

So we're trying to, you know, trying to manage that whole thing.

But it's been such an awesome opportunity for me to be able to connections and just being able to be involved in continuing education.

Being on the board.

You get to help pick all the speakers that are coming to this conference.

It was a three day conference that we basically organize and.

And be able to move through.

So it was a great way to.

To get involved and make sure I got to learn about the stuff I wanted to learn.

Well, I think that's important because a lot of times we, you know, we talk about so called financial advisors a lot on this podcast and a lot of times people are talking about their advisor.

And you know, I think one of the questions about any advisor is what how are you expanding your knowledge and how are you becoming an expert in what you do?

And that's just, that's an extracurricular activity.

But that is really rooted in a lot of the things that we talk about and how many people are members.

Not to get too far into Fiduciary Education foundation, but how many people are members of that group as far as.

On the board itself or.

Well, do you have membership or is it just pretty much the board and.

You just push the board and then we would push the event.

So just attend the conference.

So we would have gotcha.

You know, and that was another struggle we were having is having enough participation on the board to be able to manage being able to put on this entire event.

Yeah.

You know, but we would just have people attend the conference.

We made it so Reasonably, the cost was so effective.

It was very cost effective to go.

So you pay like $600 for three days, included your meal.

So people had the opportunity to learn more.

So it was just you paid for the conference, you came, and, you know, we'd get, you know, 50 to 100 people that would come.

We had people coming from across the country.

It was really cool.

So wonderful.

Good thing.

Well, we love fiduciaries.

You know, we've put our flag in the stand and said we don't believe a client should work with anybody other than a fiduciary.

So.

Amen.

Yes.

I think that that's one of the big draws which I think we're gonna talk about in a little bit, that probably connected all of us together.

So, Steve, do you wanna.

I'll give you a chance now to cross examine our witness.

Do you wanna get what a witness?

By the way, Travis, I want to thank you though, for asking Jess about her credential.

Because I think that is one thing.

Over the years, as we've been doing DTS and even just being first point of contact when people reach, you know, individuals, consumers see these Alphabet soup next to professionals names and they don't know what it means.

And we've talked about the pageantry of the financial services industry and how certain certifications can be used to sell stories or to tell people, I'm.

I'm good at this because look at my three letters.

And so I remember when we first, when Jess joined us at Seed and we saw that certification and I asked lots of questions like, hey, what is this?

Like, how.

How does somebody use this?

I've never come across anybody or industry that has that particular credential.

So I just appreciate you g her the space to explain what that means because consumers really are trying to tell the difference between what some of these certifications are.

But Jess, you know, it's been a number of years that you've been with us.

Now you and I get to interact quite a bit.

Right?

Because a big thing here at Seed is, you know, matching up the right people with the right planner based on personality, professionalism.

And you get a feel, right, on a, on a first call with a person and their background and what they're interested in, a little bit about their life.

And so then we go to work and we say, man, who on our team would be a great fit for this individual or this couple based on their needs and the way that they are looking and what kind of experience do we want to give them?

And so you and I interact Quite a bit.

Because I'll come to you and say, jess, I got one for you.

Here's the situation.

And.

And I think it's your joy and your energy as a planner that just jumps off the screen to me and why I just appreciate you not only as a colleague, but as a friend.

But, you know, it's been a few years, so I think it'd be great to hear you had mentioned kind of the previous roles that you were in at your previous stops, but it's been a few years at Seed.

What is the overall been like for you so far?

It's incredible.

And I'm just going to say in this space right now, because normally, like, when I get excited, I move a lot.

And I'm like, trying to tell myself, like, don't move too much right now.

But normally I'm like, I don't.

This is crazy.

So I worked at a trust department trust in the State Department.

I had full intention to work there forever.

I loved what I did.

I was very good at what I did.

I With the credentialing thing, for me, the bigger driver in that is I got to learn more.

I always have wanted to be able to.

How can I help clients more?

How can we be better?

How can we keep, like, improving things for our clients and getting better at stuff?

And while I was working there, one of the things that you have to do and how I kind of ended up over here at Seed Planning Group is I was in the process of taking over as trustee for a client.

When we do that, we have to marshal assets.

So we basically have to take their assets, you know, wherever they are, and kind of move them over under the umbrella in the trust department.

And usually that's a really, really horrible thing to have to do because you're taking money away from somebody, you're taking commissions away out of their pocket, and it's usually a bad, bad experience.

And in this particular case, it happened to be a Seed PG employee that I.

And y'all know who it was.

And she was just delightful.

Like, it was one of those things.

It was such a great interaction.

She was so helpful.

She just was like, no, we want to do what's in best interest of this client.

This is fantastic.

I'm so glad you guys are helping them and getting involved.

And it was such a wonderful experience.

And over the course of just a couple conversations with her, I was like, oh, my God.

I feel like I've told this girl my entire life story.

Like, she was just one of those people that kind of Drew it out of you.

And like, she started telling me about SEED and what you did, you know, what it stood for, which, you know, just everything about it.

And I just remember, I'm like, oh, my gosh, you were so lucky to be able to work in an environment like that.

And then she said a few words that changed my life.

She's like, send me your resume.

I was like, giddy up, let's go.

So it was just.

And then, you know, got into the meet and greet thing and just kind of just started talking people and it was awesome to have a conversation with Dave Nerchi and just.

I've always been a big book reader of sorts, and so that's a huge thing here.

So we just kind of like, it was wonderful to see what you did and how you did it, and it just really lined up with my values and how I like to work and how I knew I'd be able to kind of be effective.

And it's been everything that I expected and far more on many, many different levels and good.

You know, like, it's, it's been pretty wild.

The, the biggest difference in other companies in here for me is it's just the continued drive for growth because again, why I always want to keep learning, I always want to keep doing better.

What more can I learn to bring to the table to help out clients?

And, you know, I have a base knowledge of this and how can I do better?

And clearly everything about this company that is the driver of this company.

So it's just really been a great experience for me to be able to kind of really embrace that and just kind of make it bigger and better.

It's cool.

You, you had to make, you made a big jump though, because I remember when we first met you, you were, you were doing a lot of financial planning stuff with your estate planning.

I mean, you really can't not do any financial planning in estate plan.

You know, when you're doing estate planning and even a little bit of multi generational estate planning.

So really a more sophisticated type of.

When you work on an estate plan, let's pretend that you are my mom and Steve is my dad.

We could, we could do an estate plan for you two that's just about your lives.

Or we can do an estate plan that's about your lives and your children's lives.

Right?

And that's multi generational and that's a lot more sophisticated than the former.

But then when you came here, we're much deeper financial planning oriented and you brought some, let's say, advanced estate planning skills to the table for us.

But that was a big jump because you had to fill in like, okay, I'm starting as a financial planner looking at a client situation versus a estate plan or looking at a client situation.

Very different perspectives.

One is you're looking almost from the beginning of life.

The other one is you're looking at the end of life.

So what was that transition like?

Because that was a big jump that you made.

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Yes, it was pretty wild.

And one of the draws for me is that when I was there I was always, because we did a lot of investment management for clients as well.

So it was more than just trust administration or estate administration.

We were also, I was very involved in account or investment management and that type of stuff as well, but just not to the degree that I am here.

And we were always trying to be able to help clients out with Roth conversions, like things like that, that we saw all of this value add and we're like, man, you really need to be able to take advantage of this.

But in an environment like that, it's like they have to go to their cpa, they have to go here.

Even for an estate planning thing.

I could talk through things with clients, but from the higher ups would be, no, send them to the attorney.

You, you know, like it's a risk thing.

Like we don't, we're not taking the risk of being able to give them advice necessarily.

And it was hard for me because I knew enough where I'm just like, you need more, you need, you can do better than this.

But I just have, you know, handcuffs on to be able to do this.

And I saw the opportunity here that would allow me much more have the ability to be able to do those things.

And that was the draw.

And again, I was fully prepared to retire at that place, but it was, I don't know, I couldn't pass up an opportunity to do more.

And it was definitely worth the jump because this is freaking cool.

We're glad that you have the ambition.

So that couldn't be any better.

I mean, like, we're just so thankful that our paths have crossed.

But you mentioned something there, the risk of giving advice.

So this is not a knock on where you were previous, because this is kind of categorically how the industry kind of operates.

The risk of giving advice.

So I talk about this all the time.

It's kind of like, Steve, you've got all the kids.

It's like, you could tell the kids one thing, and then they go to school and the teacher tells them and they come back and they're like, look what we learned today.

And you're like, yeah, I told you that five times last week.

And they're like, yeah, but dad, you don't know, right?

So, Jess, can you talk a little bit about.

Just give us a minute or two more embellishing on the risk of giving advice.

And you, as a fiduciary, somebody who's got a special credential as a fiduciary, somebody who goes through extra continuing education, somebody who's on a board of an organization focused on promoting fiduciary principles.

What do you think, as a practitioner, when you want to help a client and you're told you can't give that advice because they could sue us if you give them bad advice or something?

Like, what is that?

That.

And that was the.

For me, that was one of the most difficult things there is.

Just seeing.

You could see the writing on the wall and the negative things and how you're holding clients back and not being able to help them to the extent you could.

It.

It was unfortunate, but I mean, I'm just going to use the Roth conversion as a really good example because that was whole thing with.

With that place is that they were like.

And granted it as a corporate environment, a corporate trustee, a corporate whatever, right?

It was all about risk management.

Like, because we get sued all the time for a whole variety of reasons, whether that, you know, it made sense or not.

And so it was like, we just need to mitigate the risk.

Don't even kind of put yourself in a position, just send them over to the proper people.

But, like, I would have clients.

Like, I knew that you have these massive IRAs, need tax planning, you need to do Roth conversions.

I know that you need to do this.

So I would actually help them and coordinate calls with their CPAs, trying to kind of like, be the Bridge to be able to make it happen.

But I was not allowed to actually be able to kind of assist with that or do anything with that.

But they would.

And I honestly, like, if they, I mean, you know, they hear this, they're going to be like, you did what?

You know, so it was just a huge, huge negative thing to.

To do any of that.

They didn't want us to take part in any of that.

They're just like, nope, send them over to the attorney, send them over to the cpa.

Your job is done here, period.

Yeah, and like I said, that's not.

I would not cast any shade on that particular organization.

I think that's 99% of the organizations in our industry compartmentalize everything that you know, here's.

And that's why we always talk to clients about or anybody listening to this podcast, reading the contract and understanding the scope of work, because within that contractor scope of work or the disclosures that you're provided by whoever you're engaging for planning is going to be the limitations of where they say, look, this is really where we live.

Because the concern is if we give you tax advice and it doesn't go well, you could come back and sue us.

One of the things that I really think organizations are saying in general, I don't know anything about the organization where you came from, but organizations in general are saying, as we don't train people on that stuff, we can't back the advice they're giving.

So therefore they're not allowed to give you advice on it.

Which comes back to the definition of a financial planner.

It's like, I have a planner.

Do you?

Because they're not trained on xyz.

In fact, their company puts it in writing.

So.

So anyway, well, and Travis, if I.

Can, you know, just kind of speak to what you just said, I think that does a really nice recap of over the years.

Have you shared about the scope of work and how many people that have hired somebody that don't know what they don't know?

And so just, just revealing that at the prior place there was limitations as far as she could go.

The client assumes then, well, then there's nothing that I can do in my given situation because this person who I entrust is not telling me that I can do this or def the, you know, blame to somebody else.

And so I think now being on this side, you know, Jess, there is a, you know, an evolution for people that first join our team and we, we get join our team requests and resumes constantly now because of the practice that Travis envisioned and what he's built and how different it is.

And so you are very selective, though, in who you bring into this thing.

And I think the first time you and I met, I knew immediately from talking to you, you already had the desire to be a fiduciary.

You were doing the things you were doing.

You just needed to be aligned with a place that could release or, you know, set you free in a way to do the things you wanted to do.

And so I think it's been great, you know, being here with you and working together, how the.

The moral principles that you have have now met the company that is going to release those things and just say, go do what you're really good at.

And so I guess that was kind of my why.

I appreciate you bringing that up because it is good for listeners out there to know that when you can marry those two things, the right person with the right situation, that you can really get the most from your money in life.

And so, you know, that's kind of one of the things I think we wanted to talk to is maybe some of your favorite parts now, being at Seed and what you have the capacity to do that maybe you didn't before.

So what's been the favorite part now?

Being on this side as a professional with the freedoms that you have to be an unleashed fiduciary.

Hey guys, Steve Campbell with Ditch the Suits.

Want to take one quick moment to make a big ask.

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Ooh, unleashed fiduciary.

That's nice.

Oh, I wanna.

Oh, that's a tattoo right there.

Yes.

I have known, you know, as some of the books that we have read or talked about, it's like, you know, Simon Sinekin, you know, find your why.

And I have known for a very, very long time what my why is what my purpose is.

My whole shtick in life is I want to have an impact.

I want to have an impact on the lives of others in some way, shape or form.

Like that is my driver for everything.

So it's been.

That has been unleashed in so many ways here and both with Internal, the team here is incredible.

Like, I love my co workers, even Travis.

No I'm just kidding.

You know, I mean, look at that face.

There's good parts and bad parts, you know.

Well, same with me, but I, I.

Freaking take the crazy with the good.

Okay?

I love.

You're crazy.

I love, love, love, love my teammates here.

Everyone here is absolutely incredible.

Everyone here works as a team.

I.

That has been one of my whole drivers.

Anybody who knows me really, really well knows all I care about is the team.

I will literally do anything for the team.

I will push the team forward.

I just want us all to work as a team and just be incredible and be impactful as a team.

And that I've been able to help out with new mentoring and just a, like bringing a value.

Like, I know I have a value set with estate planning.

I can help people out with that where people might not necessarily be strong in that area.

I'm able to help my team members with that.

I'm able to bring a lot to the table and be impactful in that way.

And then you have the whole part of being able to help out and be impactful with clients.

It's such a cool opportunity to have my.

Why just really explode all over the place, both internally, externally, and I've never worked in a place that allowed for so much of that to really be in alignment.

So it's been fantastic.

And one of my, you know, my sayings, I guess, that I've had in life and if you talk to my stepdaughter, this is something that she, if you ask her, what did Jess say to you all the time growing up, she'd be like, do the right thing no matter where it lands you, you know, and so like, she would always joke about that, but it's just been such a thing.

You always do the right thing no matter where it lands you, period.

It.

There is no gray area.

Do the right thing.

And so acting as the fiduciary here, especially much more than any other place, you can do the right thing no matter where it lands you.

I can tell people, you know what, like, this is a bad idea.

This is a good idea.

And it might not be good for the company because, oh, we're not going to get asset under management over, under our umbrella.

You know what?

It's not the right thing for you.

Don't do it.

So I have the ability to say those things, give people that advice and do, do the right thing no matter where it lands me.

So it's been all good stuff for me.

I think that's fascinating.

That's the, the unleashed fiduciary uncensored there.

I love it.

It just, it so matches up with so much of, just the, the ethos of, of how we aspire to help people overcome challenges.

You know, I mean, like the two things, it's, it's gasoline on a fire.

So we're gonna do, we're gonna have three more episodes with you.

So we're gonna get into some different topics.

We're gonna kind of build this out a little bit.

But to leave this episode kind of with a bow on top.

We've, we've made the transition to financial planning.

We've brought that subject matter expertise of estate planning with us.

We're in a place where we can be that unleashed fiduciary and follow our mission.

And that drive that you have.

What is your absolute favorite part of being a financial planning?

Like, if you could, you know, just, if you could, if you had one sentence to explain it to somebody.

This is why I love being a financial planner.

Oh, this is going to be a long sentence.

Coming up with creative solutions to improve people's situations.

That's it in a nutshell.

I, I love puzzles.

I love them.

I don't know, it's so much fun, but I just love, love, love coming up with like really creative solutions to be able to help people out.

That's why people come to us.

They're like, I have a problem, I need help with it.

And it's like, oh, giddy up, let's go.

Piggity pow.

Piggity pow with a donkey kick, guys.

That's what I was gonna say.

I, I feel a little cheated over here, Jess, that you said.

You know, there's one statement that's course my entire life that I've shared with my daughter and I'm waiting for piggity pal.

And then you give me this heartwarming do the right thing, which is right.

But the cool thing about.

There's probably a piggity power in there.

Oh, there's always a piggity pow.

Yeah, that's like the period.

What, what does that mean?

Piggity pow.

You know, Jess has done a good thing.

You know, with a new client or a client when you're like, how did it go?

And you just get an emoji or a piggity pow.

That's her power move, which truthfully has embodied.

I did the right thing and I feel really good about it.

And as we bring this episode to a close, one thing that I thought was really impactful that you just said is the non threatening culture that we have Here, all three of us came from brokerage firms where you were in direct competition to the person in the door next next to you.

Everyone was out for the same commissions, the same kinds of things.

And there is no cross sharing of information.

No one wants to help anybody get a leg ahead because they're afraid you're going to get another client that they won't.

And so to have you say that you're here giving backwards to newer hires and in trainings, it's a non threatening environment where because of our structure, you're able to do that.

If you get better, we all get better.

And so for those that don't understand the makeup of our industry and how it works, that is not a normal thing to have happen.

Mentorship and giving back with no what's in it for me.

And so I just want to thank you because that leaps off the screen, that leaps off meetings when we're together.

What you are giving back to all of us and helping us get better is strengthening all, all of us for the people that we, we deal with and come across.

So I'm very excited for the next three episodes.

I think anytime we can talk with you is a win for us.

And I think it's going to illuminate over the next three series really around estate planning.

Maybe when we say that word adequate, what does that really mean?

So stay tuned.

We got three more episodes with the wonderful Jess Blake.

Until next time, pick it, pal.