Episode 165
The Business of Financial Planning - EP. 165
Today, we're diving deep into the nitty-gritty of what makes a financial planner the "real deal." Our special series guest, Jeff Chase, VP of Financial Planning and Senior Wealth Manager at S.E.E.D. Planning Group is back with us, and together we're about to drop some insights that’ll help you see through all the shiny sales pitches out there.
We’re breaking down the art of financial planning and why it’s not just about throwing money at investments and calling it a day. Instead, it’s about crafting a tailored strategy that considers everything from taxes to healthcare, ensuring your financial future isn’t left to chance.
If you’re tired of cookie-cutter advice and pushy sales professionals and want to understand how to get the most out of your money, stick around because this episode is packed with insights that could change your financial game!
Takeaways:
- In financial planning, knowing your goals is key; without it, you're just guessing.
- A solid financial plan should dictate your investments, not the other way around, folks.
- Meeting with clients regularly is essential; it's not just about selling products, it's about relationships.
- Solo practitioners in finance face unique risks, so having a team can be a game changer for clients.
- Understanding risk is crucial; sometimes being conservative can protect you better than chasing high returns.
- Navigating the world of financial products requires a keen eye to avoid unnecessary fees and pitfalls.
About Jeff
Jeff is the Senior Vice President of Financial Planning at S.E.E.D. Planning Group, a fee-only financial firm committed to acting in its clients' best interests as a fiduciary.
He joined S.E.E.D. in 2020 and is a key member of the firm's leadership team. He currently oversees and leads the financial planning team, which consists of nine financial planners and wealth managers.
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About Your Co-Hosts:
Travis Maus has been in financial services for over fifteen years. He is a Senior Wealth Manager and Chief Executive Officer at S.E.E.D. Planning Group. Travis also hosts the Unleashing Leadership Podcast, where he dissects some of his favorite books on leadership and how you can apply it to your business or life.
Steve Campbell has over a decade of industry experience and is a Senior Marketing Director at S.E.E.D. Planning Group. Steve also hosts the One Big Thing Podcast, an interview-style show meant to inspire and encourage 30 and 40-year-olds going through difficult seasons of navigating marriage, raising kids, and growing personally.
Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker B:Welcome to Ditch the Suits podcast where we share insights nobody in the financial services industry wants you to know about.
Speaker B:We're here to help you get the most from your money in life.
Speaker B:So buckle up and welcome to Ditch the Suits.
Speaker A:All 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 A:And he shared with us his story through the industry.
Speaker A:I love this because I think, you know, we talk about our story all the time, but maybe we're just unicorns.
Speaker A:And 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 A:Now how do we build that better way to do this?
Speaker A:And 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 A:So this is pretty exciting.
Speaker A:We've, we've, we've covered kind of who Jeff is.
Speaker A:In 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 A:Today 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 A:So we're going to let Jeff get into that.
Speaker A:But first, Steve.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Welcome into Ditch the Suits.
Speaker B:I'm Steve Campbell, senior marketing director at Seed Planning Group.
Speaker B:This is Travis Most, our co host and chief executive officer.
Speaker B:Seed 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 B:Hey guys.
Speaker B:Steve 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 B:This is my very own podcast called the One Big Thing.
Speaker B:On the One Big Thing, I welcome guests from all walks of life.
Speaker B:We 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 B:As a listener.
Speaker B:These are going to be practical ideas and ways of looking at life that you can implement to become the best version of yourself.
Speaker B:On the One Big Thing we want to help you overcome the challenges that are holding you back.
Speaker B:So 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 B:Now let's get back to the show.
Speaker A:All right, Jeff, welcome back.
Speaker A:You're not running and screaming.
Speaker C:Still here.
Speaker C:Hanging in here.
Speaker A:This is good.
Speaker A:You're our third guest that has not quit halfway through the show.
Speaker A:So this is good.
Speaker C:It's good.
Speaker A:I mean, we've never had the right halfway through the show, but, you know, we're.
Speaker A:We're figuring this out the same as everybody else is.
Speaker A:So welcome back.
Speaker A:Let's talk about today.
Speaker A:I want to talk about seeds approach to financial planning.
Speaker A:Because I've interviewed somebody in the past is like, yeah, I do financial planning.
Speaker A:I'm like, tell me about your financial planning.
Speaker A:And he's like, yeah, we have, like, two meetings.
Speaker A:And I'm like, how much time does it take?
Speaker A:He's like, it's about an eight hour, eight hours total.
Speaker A:We.
Speaker A:We deliver a financial plan.
Speaker A:I'm like, what happens next?
Speaker A:Then we sell them life insurance.
Speaker A:I'm like, okay, we're not even in the same world.
Speaker A:Like, we can't talk.
Speaker A:I can't talk to you.
Speaker A:You don't know.
Speaker A:You don't.
Speaker A:You think that you're like, I've met people.
Speaker A:I do what you do.
Speaker A:Yeah, tell me exactly what I do.
Speaker A:And 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 A:What's the difference here?
Speaker A:There's gotta be something that's happening in there, you know, or this.
Speaker A:You know, I've talked to people.
Speaker A:I have 500 financial planning clients.
Speaker A:Really?
Speaker A:How many of them do you financial Planning for?
Speaker A:All 500.
Speaker A:How often do you meet with them?
Speaker A:Every year.
Speaker A:There's not enough meetings in the week to do.
Speaker A:I can attest to that.
Speaker A:You know, you get more than you know.
Speaker A:When 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 A:That is a large workload.
Speaker A:And so.
Speaker A:And we try to meet with our clients anywhere from one to four times a year.
Speaker A:And 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 A:So what's the deal here?
Speaker A:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker A:So talk to us about Seed's approach to financial planning, which is literally your job.
Speaker A:You are the gatekeeper of financial planning at Seed.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:Something I'm very, you know, passionate about, grateful for.
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:So, you know, really what we do, again, our approach to financial planning, I guess let's start.
Speaker C:There is real, straightforward advice, right, for clients.
Speaker C:No gimmicks, no selling products.
Speaker C:Kind of like we've been talking about the last two episodes.
Speaker C:It's planning that includes all the essential services.
Speaker C:It's not just investments, right?
Speaker C:Investments is part of the deal.
Speaker C:It's not the most important thing, right.
Speaker C:There's other things that have to go on there.
Speaker C:There's tax planning, there's health care planning, there's estate planning, there's looking at risk management.
Speaker C:That's our day job, right?
Speaker C:So when you talk about, you know, somebody having 500 clients, that's physically impossible for you to be able to do financial planning.
Speaker C:So 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 C:And that's a no go for us, right?
Speaker C:We're not going there.
Speaker C:We're never going to sacrifice the client experience.
Speaker C:But what we do is we bring people through a process, really a tried and true process that we've done thousands of times.
Speaker C:And 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 C:That's not what it is.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:The framework is there, right?
Speaker C:The framework is there because we know it works.
Speaker C:But everything we do from a financial planning process is customized to each client that comes in in their specific situation.
Speaker C:So I guess we'll start from the beginning, right?
Speaker C:When you engage with us.
Speaker C:We've talked in our previous episode about the opening meeting, right?
Speaker C:We have a conversation with you, we get to know you, we get to know about your goals, right?
Speaker C:That's, you know, nothing revolutionary.
Speaker C:I think most places probably do some form of that, right?
Speaker C:But when we get you in here and you actually decide, hey, you know what, this sounds good.
Speaker C:Seed is a good fit for me.
Speaker C:I'm engage with Seed.
Speaker C:You're a good fit for Seed.
Speaker C:And we, we onboard you, we take you through a very specific process, right?
Speaker C:So 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 C:And there's a specific reason for that.
Speaker C:The 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 C:We'll take you through.
Speaker C:Your first meeting is probably going to be based around a making sure that we have a good handle on your situation up front.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:Taking a look at forward looking projections for some clients.
Speaker C:That might be Social Security timing, that might be pension selection, that might be income sourcing or you know, an intro into tax planning.
Speaker C:Once we have that solid baseline, we'll get you into investment planning.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:And we do investment planning second for a very specific reason.
Speaker C:Most people, and I notice most firms, let the investments dictate everything else.
Speaker C:That is completely backwards.
Speaker C:The financial planning should dictate what the investments look like.
Speaker C:So we start with the planning, then we move on to investment planning.
Speaker C:That'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 D:Right.
Speaker C:So that could be a number of different things.
Speaker C:But for example, that maybe that's insurance planning.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:Maybe that's taking a look at what happens if there's unfortunate events in your life that occur.
Speaker C:Is that going to take your plan off course?
Speaker C:And then we'll get into estate planning after that to kind of close the loop on that initial series of planning.
Speaker C:That's just when someone comes to us and that's the general framework.
Speaker C:That's not the same for every single client.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:There might be additional meetings or additional conversations in there, depending on what your situation is.
Speaker C:But then we get you into a review meeting schedule.
Speaker C:And it's not just you come in once a year and we review your investments.
Speaker C:Now we have a very specific process that we go through at certain points in the year.
Speaker C:We talk about certain things periodically throughout the year.
Speaker C:We're doing things in the background to make sure that, you know, there's no holes that aren't plugged, basically.
Speaker C:So that's really our process when it comes to financial planning from a very, very high level.
Speaker B:Do you want more of Ditch the Suits?
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Speaker B:If 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 B:So visit patreon.com search ditchesuits or head to our show Notes where we got links to our channel.
Speaker A:And I can speak to the origination of that process when seed was first started.
Speaker A:So this predates your time.
Speaker A:I know that you've got less hair than me, but I'm still older than you.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:But if we go back to the.
Speaker A:The 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 A:We had major, major client issues with.
Speaker A:They'd be frustrated.
Speaker A:Why am I doing this?
Speaker A:Why am I doing that?
Speaker A:They didn't have the body of knowledge.
Speaker A:When you're talking about the way that you're doing financial planning is you are building a knowledge foundation.
Speaker A:Let me give you the information that you're going to need to more advanced concepts before we get to the more advanced concepts.
Speaker A:Instead of getting to the advanced concepts and saying now let's go all the way back and teach you the basics.
Speaker A:So you start with the basics.
Speaker A:This is how kind of life looks and how it's projecting based on what you've told us does.
Speaker A:Is that true?
Speaker A:Is that kind of what you're thinking?
Speaker A:And then you get into and you know, here's how.
Speaker A:How you can make some tweaks to those investments to fortify that or even make it look better.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Maybe it's not getting to where you wanted to go.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker A:You can, you could tell us where you want to go and then we'll show you where you're headed.
Speaker A:And then you could say, well, geez, I like that or I don't.
Speaker A:And 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 A:So you walk people through that process.
Speaker A:You do the investment planning.
Speaker A:I think you talked about the investment planning always comes after the financial planning because the financial plan should drive the investment plan.
Speaker A:Can you tell share with people a good reason why that is so?
Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker C:I'll give you a great example.
Speaker C:That just happened this week.
Speaker C:We had a client come in who new client.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:We're probably two planning meetings in at this point.
Speaker C:Came very aggressive with his investments.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:Has always been 100% stocks.
Speaker C:Really I think because very comfortable that way.
Speaker C:But I also think that, you know, in.
Speaker C:In his view.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:He thought that that was something that was necessary.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:Where 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 C:And I could tell that there were things that either he had read online, right.
Speaker C:Or videos that he had watched, where some of this stuff was coming from, but always very, very aggressive.
Speaker C:And when we went through the planning and we had a conversation around his actual goals, him and his wife, right.
Speaker C:What was retirement going to actually look like?
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:They were able to share that.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:And then we were able to talk through, okay, well, what do we think that's actually going to cost?
Speaker C:He had some other goals as well.
Speaker C:Not just fun stuff.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:It's not just, hey, I want to go on vacation or spend more time with family.
Speaker C:Some char.
Speaker C:Credible interests, A lot going on there.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:A bunch of moving parts.
Speaker C:But 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 C:And that statement right there resonated with them quite a bit.
Speaker C:And they're like, you know what?
Speaker C:That makes perfect sense.
Speaker D:Right?
Speaker C:So we kind of did a 180 on how they've been investing their whole lives.
Speaker C:And, you know, we've got them now in a what we call a moderate plus portfolio, which is about 65% in stocks.
Speaker C:And that's that sweet spot where they can do everything they want to do without worry of running out of money.
Speaker C:We don't have any worry of not outpacing inflation.
Speaker C:It's kind of the best of both worlds in that way.
Speaker C:So that's one example that I would give you.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think a lot of people don't understand that with risk, there's a sequence of return issue.
Speaker A:And when you're looking at.
Speaker A:Whenever 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 A:And sometimes getting riskier, although you can make higher returns, actually puts you at more risk of a lower output.
Speaker A:And sometimes getting more conservative, although it can protect your lower output, can mean you can't reach your goals.
Speaker A:So there's.
Speaker A:There'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 A:You.
Speaker A:You don't need that much risk.
Speaker A:In fact, that much risk actually puts you at jeopard.
Speaker A:And you also don't.
Speaker A:You can't afford to be that safe.
Speaker A:So you're somewhere in this box.
Speaker A:And maybe the box is between 75% stocks and 55% stocks.
Speaker A:Now, how do you feel?
Speaker A:Do you love taking risk or do you hate risk?
Speaker A:Well, you know, depending on where you are on that.
Speaker A:Or are you just really nervous and you're not sleeping at night?
Speaker A:Well, this is as conservative as you can get and still have a fighting chance to make your goals right.
Speaker A:Or 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 A:So I think that that's really important.
Speaker A:I had a client one time come in and they were working with an insurance agent too.
Speaker A:And every time they went to the insurance, they were the collector that you were kind of explaining in the last episode.
Speaker A:They 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 A:So basically I pay you 3.8% a year in fees, which is roughly probably, I think what this was.
Speaker A:It was a lot of money in fees.
Speaker A:And you're going to guarantee me for life that I could take like a 4 1/2% income stream.
Speaker A:I don't remember all the details, I'm just kind of stereotyping this a little bit.
Speaker A:But I could take a 4 1/2% stream of income as long as I'm alive, starting like when I'm 70.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And it was like, okay, so you're retired already.
Speaker A:Your pension and your Social Security come out to about $120,000 a year.
Speaker A:You'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 A:And you just inebriated the upside of your market for fees, basically.
Speaker A:And in New York, the way the death benefit works is it's your cash value or your purchase price, whichever is higher.
Speaker A:But the purchase price would be minus any distributions.
Speaker A:So you bought guaranteed income that you don't need because you already have a 5,000amonth spread.
Speaker A:You're already putting that much money into savings.
Speaker A:So you bought guaranteed income for an account that you don't plan to ever spend.
Speaker A:And 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 A:You wouldn't put it in there and say, I don't want any growth on this for the next.
Speaker A:Because they can't inherit the income benefit.
Speaker A:They can only inherit the cash value of it.
Speaker A:And that's a perfect example too of I'm collecting products before I do my financial plan.
Speaker A:Then when we do the financial plan and we tell them that.
Speaker A:Now the problem is that particular client, they were extremely mad with us.
Speaker A:They ended up ending the relationship because we're like, look, you've had five meetings with us.
Speaker A:Every meeting you come in, you've got a new insurance product.
Speaker A:This person is literally using you to buy cars and boats and houses.
Speaker A:That's you are dinner every time you show up.
Speaker A:Stop buying stuff.
Speaker A:When you go to them, talk to us first.
Speaker A:You've bought so much long term care insurance, you can't even use it all statutorily in the contract.
Speaker A:They will not give you the benefits because you have all these other benefits that you can already claim.
Speaker A:Stop buying more insurance, especially because you don't need it.
Speaker A:There's nothing anybody can take from you.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like 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 A:Let them take your income.
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker A:You know, stop buying, you know, you can't use $30,000 a month of long term care benefits.
Speaker A:They won't let you.
Speaker A:It doesn't matter how much of it you have, they're not gonna let you use it.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And this is stuff we've run into.
Speaker C:I mean, it's just, it's constant.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:I 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 C:The life insurance policy.
Speaker A:Oh, yes, right.
Speaker A:I mean, it's like plan, which is frankly legal.
Speaker A:That's a, that's an industry violation if you ever hear anybody say that.
Speaker C:Most and most advisors, right, that I've run into don't really understand the way that that actually works.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:It's sold to clients on this idea of, you know, whatever, creating your own bank.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:And you can pull money out in the.
Speaker C:The problem with this client was he was supposed to be putting like $32,000 in there, right.
Speaker C:Every year.
Speaker C:He put like 100 grand in the last two years.
Speaker C:Now it's a mec.
Speaker C:Now he can't pull money.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:So now it's, it's not that he can't, but it defeats the purpose.
Speaker A:You're referencing the modified endowment contract which essentially it changed.
Speaker A:Life insurance from a regulatory standpoint, has a purpose.
Speaker A:And when you put too much money in a cash based life insurance policy, it changes the definition of what it is.
Speaker A:So it's no longer life insurance per se, it is now an investment account.
Speaker A:So now it has different rules, Correct?
Speaker C:Yep.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:No, it's.
Speaker A:I, I was sitting with an insurance agent one time.
Speaker A:Not 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 A:I said, but you got to understand I was a million dollar roundtable producer.
Speaker A:I sold a lot of insurance.
Speaker A:If you're going to sell garbage to our clients, I'm going to know it.
Speaker A:And we will never send you another client.
Speaker A:No, no, no, man, I will never do that.
Speaker A:But 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 A:And I just looked at him like, are you desperate or are you an idiot?
Speaker A:How did you not hear what I just said to you?
Speaker A:So then there's a client that I sent to them and everything's an upsell.
Speaker A:Oh, you better buy this.
Speaker A:Buying disability rider coverage on your whole life insurance is astonishing to me.
Speaker A: For an extra: Speaker A:That if you get.
Speaker A:And it's different for everybody in every policy.
Speaker A:But I remember this particular case.
Speaker A:For $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 A:You know what you could buy for $1,500?
Speaker A:A 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 A:So it's, it's just, it's crazy.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And that's part of, that's part of the issue with the industry too.
Speaker C:It's not for the most part what I've run into.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:And we've, we've lived it.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:It's not the person, it's where they are in the environment sometimes of what they're being taught to do.
Speaker C:It's an ecosystem, what's available to them.
Speaker C:Yeah, that's, that's the unfortunate thing about the business.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, I Think you make a good point.
Speaker A:It's it.
Speaker A:You.
Speaker A:You can't get mad at a shark for being a shark.
Speaker A:Maybe you shouldn't swim with certain sharks.
Speaker C:Correct.
Speaker A:If you don't know how to kind of like not get eaten, you know, it's.
Speaker A:I love it when people are like, oh, I don't mind commissions.
Speaker A:And it's like, well, if you don't mind commissions, you better know what you're negotiating on.
Speaker C:Well, I think that's the key, right?
Speaker C:If you don't.
Speaker C:That that's exactly what it is.
Speaker C:You got to understand exactly what you're getting, Right.
Speaker C:You really need to know if you don't mind commissions, you got to know what you're paying for, right.
Speaker C:At the end of the day.
Speaker C:And sometimes there's hidden fees.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:Everybody knows this, but there's.
Speaker C:Even when you call.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:I've heard, we talked.
Speaker C:You talked a little bit about hearing younger.
Speaker C:Not younger, but our newer planners on the phone.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:Or in meetings with clients.
Speaker C:You know, sometimes.
Speaker C:I 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 C:And the planner's on the phone with a rep from the.
Speaker C:From customer service, and they're trying to find out about the policy.
Speaker C:And they're like, oh, okay, so what's the fee on this policy?
Speaker C:And they're like, you know, M And E is 1.3.
Speaker C:And they're like, okay.
Speaker C:And then they go on to the next thing, right?
Speaker C:What's, what's the cost?
Speaker C:But whatever the next question would be, they're only giving you what you're asking for.
Speaker C:You need to keep asking.
Speaker C:There's investment options in there.
Speaker C:What is the fee on the investment options?
Speaker C:They're not going to tell you unless you ask, right?
Speaker C:What's the fee for the rider?
Speaker C:All in.
Speaker C:You end up at like 3.2% on some of these things.
Speaker C:And, you know, that's just.
Speaker C:It's insanity.
Speaker A:It's great.
Speaker A:Well, those life insurance, cash value life insurance, like if you buy variable life.
Speaker A:I was shocked when I found this out.
Speaker A:So obviously when you buy life insurance, you're where you're paying a commission.
Speaker A:So you know, there's insurance costs.
Speaker A:So some of your money doesn't make it into your cash account that's being invested.
Speaker A:But 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 A:It'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 A:And that doesn't even have anything to do with the expense ratios that are also in there.
Speaker A:It's like, holy cow.
Speaker A:There's layers upon layers upon layers of these fees.
Speaker A:All right, so we've derailed this.
Speaker A:Perfectly typical with me.
Speaker A:I apologize.
Speaker A:But we wanted to talk about.
Speaker A:And maybe we can save this episode for everybody.
Speaker A:We wanted to talk about, which I think has been fascinating.
Speaker A:I think we've got some really interesting perspective today, which is great.
Speaker A:But we wanted to talk about.
Speaker A:I think that there's a lot of risk with solo practitioners.
Speaker A:And I don't think I pick on attorneys, and I pick on CPAs on this.
Speaker A:And I know, like, we have a particular solar attorney that we work with, who I think is wonderful.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But 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 A:And 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 A:So do you want to talk about the risks at all and maybe how we focus on reducing that risk to clients?
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:I totally agree with you.
Speaker C:There is a lot of risk when it comes to solo practitioners.
Speaker C:So specifically for financial planning, I would say one of those big risks.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:Is lack of expertise in a specialized area.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:And that's why we take the team approach.
Speaker C:Part of why we take the team approach here at seed, Right.
Speaker C:So there's collaboration and there's a sharing of that expertise among team members.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:When you.
Speaker C:When 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 D:Right.
Speaker C:Or is unavailable for.
Speaker C:For clients.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker A:Or has a baby and they're out for.
Speaker C:Or has a baby.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker C:You know, you've got.
Speaker C:We have a situation here at SEED right now where we've built.
Speaker C:We've built this in a way where anybody can step in.
Speaker C:You're not just working with me, Right.
Speaker C:Or Dan or Travis.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:You're working with SEED if you're a client.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:Anyone could step in for anybody at any given time and pick up exactly where that planner left off.
Speaker C:You could go in to what we've created.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:The 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 C:There 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 D:Right.
Speaker C:That's a big risk for us and realistically, most importantly for clients.
Speaker C:So I think one of the things.
Speaker A:The 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 A:Well, you know, I was going to call my financial advisor, they're on vacation or something.
Speaker A:I can't get a hold of them.
Speaker A:Like, this is your money, this, this is your livelihood.
Speaker A:This is like your life's going to happen and it's going to happen when it not on schedule with your financial advisor.
Speaker A:And 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 A:Or, or what if that person dies, you know what I mean?
Speaker A:Or gets, it gets critically ill or something comes up with them, what do you have then?
Speaker A:You know, does anybody have that file or access to that file or know what's going on?
Speaker C:Yeah, 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 C:I 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 D:Right?
Speaker C:We don't want silos here.
Speaker C:We work very much as a team.
Speaker C:It's not these two advisors work together with these clients, right?
Speaker C:No, it's everybody works together based on what the needs of the client are.
Speaker C:So, 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 C:Over 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 C:Doesn't necessarily have to be two financial planners, right?
Speaker C:It 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 D:Right.
Speaker C:If one of them are out, the other person can step in, obviously.
Speaker C:There's shared work there, but it's also for our own good as well.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:If 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 C:So that's, that's just one example of a standard that we've put in place.
Speaker A:But that brings in specialty too.
Speaker A:If, 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 A:You 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 A:And, and because they're cheap and nobody can beat the market.
Speaker A:That is a, that is somebody who doesn't understand investing.
Speaker A:So 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 A:And I always question it like this.
Speaker A:If you don't have somebody who knows anything about investing, how do you know that the assumptions in the financial plan are correct?
Speaker A:You know what I mean?
Speaker A:Like, what's going to happen?
Speaker A:Fidelity will do this all the time.
Speaker A:We use E MONEY as one of our technologies and they put projected investment returns every time the market crashes.
Speaker A:They're using 30 year averages.
Speaker A:So 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 A:Now if you're an investment manager, you look at that and go, that's nuts.
Speaker A:You 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 A:Why would you project yourself out and make yourself look extremely poor and cause all that stress or vice versa?
Speaker A:You know, flip it.
Speaker A:There hasn't been a market correction in a long time, make the averages look better that you're likely not going to achieve.
Speaker A:But 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 A:And 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 A:Correct.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:There's almost not enough time in the day.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:And that's why we split it up.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:You, you cannot do effective real financial planning and manage money for your clients.
Speaker C:It's, it's physically impossible.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:And that's why we, I mean as a, as a financial planner, not as a company.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:That's why we've split it up where planners who come here.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:And you probably had this experience too, Travis, in the past.
Speaker C:I know I did.
Speaker C:Where I was a financial advisor in my past life.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:At a different company.
Speaker C:And I was responsible for the investment strategy that we were putting in place or choosing mutual funds.
Speaker C:There's not enough time in the day to do that if you're actually doing financial planning.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:So 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 C:But we're not in there in the weeds making changes to people's portfolios every day.
Speaker C:That's for our investment team to handle.
Speaker A:So let's, let's, let's shut down today's episode.
Speaker A:I mean, this was great.
Speaker A:I 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 A:And then we'll get into a little bit about what clients need to or prospects.
Speaker A:You 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 A:So 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 B:Thanks for checking out.
Speaker B:Ditch the suits.
Speaker B:Be sure to write a review or drop a comment about this episode.
Speaker B:And if you want more like this, head over to ditchesuits.com you can send us a message and get in touch.
Speaker B:Let 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 B:We're here to help you get the most from your money in life.
Speaker B:Thanks for being our guest and checking out.
Speaker B:Ditch the suits.
