October 27, 2023 • 56 mins
Step into the world of finance as we sit down with Alison Wealth's newest team member, Conrad Levesque, CFP®, CPA, BPC, a seasoned professional who has been navigating the intricate labyrinth of the finance industry since he was a mere 16 years old. Conrad’s journey is an intriguing one and brings a fresh perspective to our show.
Join us as we unravel the concept of holistic wealth management, a principle that has over time shaped the foundation of our practice. Listen as we bring to light five pillars that serve as the backbone of our approach and discusses how these can positively influence high net worth and ultra-high net worth families. As the conversation progresses, we delve into the crux of coordinated wealth management and the need for a more synergistic approach among professionals from different fields such as financial advisors, investment advisors, tax advisors, business advisors, insurance agent and attorneys. We will also give you a quick assessment to rank the execution of holistic wealth management in your own personal financial lives.
In the latter part of our discussion, we spotlight the value of having a personalized financial plan. With an emphasis on the benefits of the bucket plan, our bespoke strategy designed to provide retirement income, long-term growth, and legacy planning. We also touch on the vital role of asset management and protection planning, while exploring the cost-benefit of transferring liability to an insurance company or self-insuring. Don’t miss out on this insightful episode as we uncover the many layers of wealth management and financial planning.
For more episodes of our podcast, visit:
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To learn more about Alison Wealth Management, please visit our website at: https://alisonwealth.com
The information provided in this podcast is not intended to be individual investment advice or legal advice. The information provided is for informational and training purposes only.
Investment advisory services are provided through Prosperity Capital Advisors LLC (“PCA”) an investment advisor registered with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). For a detailed discussion of PCA and its investment advisory fees, see the firm’s Form ADV and Form CRS on file with the SEC at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov. The views expressed herein represent the opinions of PCA and are not intended to predict or depict performance of any particular investment.
Advisory services are provided through Prosperity Capital Advisors LLC (“PCA”) an investment advisor registered with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Views expressed herein represent the opinions of PCA and are not intended to predict or depict performance of any particular investment.
All data provided, including any reference to specific securities or sectors, is provided for informational purposes and should not be construed as investment advice. It does not constitute an offer, solicitation, or recommendation to purchase any security. Consider your investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses before investing. These views are as of the date of this publication and are subject to change. Past performance is no guarantee of future performance.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hey everyone, welcome to the Complete Wealth
Management Podcast.
I'm your host, dave Allison.
Today I've got my twocolleagues as usual, conrad and
David, joining us.
How are you, fellas, doingtoday?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Doing wonderful.
How are you, Dave?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I am doing awesome.
How about you, David?
Yeah, I'm doing great.
Yeah, the weather turning upthere in Boston.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Yeah, it's a beautiful 60 degrees in the
middle of October.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Nice, Conrad and I were just talking.
We got the 80s down here, don'twe Conrad, down here in the
south it's a little bit hotter.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
It's not exactly football weather right now, so
we'll get there Exactly.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Well, hey, I want to kick things off, conrad, I know
you've been on a couple of theprevious episodes now, but some
of our clients, some of ourfollowers, some of our
traditional listeners, areprobably like who the heck is
this Conrad guy?
And, of course, some of yourclients that may be starting to
jump on this podcast and listenand interact with Allison Wealth
(01:09):
might be like, hey, who theheck are these Dave and David
guys?
And so we want to kind of bringsome of that together and talk
a little bit about yourbackground.
In this episode.
You joining the team at AllisonWealth Management and also
something that I think thelisteners and viewers will find
just a ton of value in, and it'sthis concept of kind of the
(01:31):
five pillars of holistic wealthmanagement.
Really, you know the principlesthat I built Allison Wealth
Management off of initially, andI know one of the big reasons
David joined the team threeyears ago.
So, conrad, share a little bitabout your background, tell us
who you are.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Yeah, sure, I'm happy to be here.
I'll try to keep my backgroundas high level as I can because
we can go down the winding pathmuch like everybody else.
But you know, I'll start withsaying I started my journey as a
16 year old in the tax industryand I want you guys to just
take a step back in a prettygood way.
Would you misbehave as a childa lot when?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
your parents were punishing you.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, I was a glutton for punishment.
I started working and somehowenjoyed myself working with
clients as a tax preparer for aLiberty tax service here locally
.
Hey, listen, it was an awesomeexperience.
I got to meet a lot of peopleand I found out that I have a
passion for actually helpingpeople right.
And so fast forward 10, 12years, I'm through college and
(02:38):
really I'm kind of working as ain the accounting industry not
as a CPA yet, but workingtowards the CPA license and I
figured out I don't really likedoing corporate accounting right
, I don't want to sit behind adesk and be looking at a screen
and not helping people.
And so I kind of startedlooking at where my passion is
(02:59):
and I've always remained kind ofkept a foot in the tax industry
.
I decided it's time to reallypush further into it and so I
opened my own firm, startedhelping clients on the
individual level and even somesmall businesses, and then
ultimately just continue to growand expand from there.
It was always referral.
It was originally designed as aside business and turned into a
(03:22):
full time gig, right.
But along that journey I reallyfigured out that clients always
come to me with about 10 to 15questions a year, right, and
they were always repetitive andI always thought why is nobody
answering these questions?
These are something that, if Ilooked at somebody that said
they're a financial advisor orwealth manager, those are the
(03:45):
questions they should get right.
But they're always coming to meas the tax preparer or, at the
time, CPA.
And so I started looking at whatis a wealth manager, right?
What's a financial advisor andwhat are they supposed to be
doing and what do I think theyshould be doing, right?
And so, along the way, Idecided I'm going to become a
(04:06):
CFP.
I think that's a gold standardfor fiduciary financial planning
, right.
And so I earned the CFP mark.
I got my series 65, seriesseven, got licensed in the
industry and started trying tohelp clients along the way.
But let's kind of rewind there.
Right, I initially got into theindustry, much like most people
(04:28):
.
Right, you go and you'rerecruited by one of these.
What I'm going to I'm not goingto name names, right.
These large insurance providersthat say, hey, you should go
out and sell life insurance.
Right, I made my mistake,stopped it pretty quickly.
Have you tell me if you've heardthat story before.
It's pretty unique, right.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
It is a pretty commonplace.
I did not start on that side ofit, I came through a different
channel, but I'm definitely inthe minority in the financial
services industry.
Those are breeding grounds ofrecruiting kids out of college
and trying to get them to gosell their friends and family.
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Absolutely, and so when I got into that, you know I
was sold.
Hey, we want to do realfinancial planning, I thought
this is it.
This is the ticket, this iswhere I want to be, and I
figured out they really justwant to sell insurance and
there's nothing wrong with that.
But that's not what I wanted.
And so I spent the next coupleyears really what I'm going to
say designing and refining right, I wanted to design how I
(05:28):
expected my clients to gothrough a process and then
ultimately refining that towhere I think it would work well
for them right.
And along the way, I didn'treally define it as well as I
should until I found C2P right,and this is going to be my
shameless plug for why we'rehere today right.
And actually, what we're goingto talk about today, which is
(05:50):
perfect, right.
I looked at it and said what doI really want to do for clients?
And I want to number one, helpthem make good decisions
financially.
Number two, I want to help themaccomplish their goals right.
And then, number three, alongthe way, let's have some fun.
Right.
Let's enjoy life.
Let's not worry about leavingmillions of dollars to your kids
(06:12):
, but eating dog food today,right, you better enjoy it along
the way.
And so, really, when I had theopportunity to join C2P and then
further Alice in wealthmanagement right.
I found that standardizedprocess to say these are the
five pillars, this is what webuild your financial house on
(06:32):
right, and this is what we'regoing to do for you not just one
time, but throughout time.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, and I'll share just a couple of things.
When you mentioned C2P, so forthose of you who don't know, c2p
is a national financialservices company that I founded
with a couple partners about 12years ago and we have about 60
plus offices around the countryand really help them scale
holistic financial serviceswithin their business.
(06:58):
And I remember it like it wasyesterday, conrad.
I think the first time you andI really got to meet face to
face.
We were at dinner.
I think we were sharing acouple bottles of wine together
and I was just really impressedwith your technical background.
I mean that always attracts mebecause I'm kind of a nerd and,
david, I'll call you a nerd too,because you would call yourself
(07:18):
a nerd.
I mean that was what attractedme for David to join the team is
.
He was just very technicallycapable and I thought he would
bring a ton of value to ourclients.
And I remember meeting you andyou were the same way.
I was just really, reallyimpressed with your technical
expertise and capabilities andthinking outside the box and
(07:39):
bringing unique strategies toyour clients.
And I was super proud to haveyou on the team at C2P and our
national registered investmentadvisory firm, prosperity
capital advisors.
But then when you reached outto me I think it was in like
June or something I was actuallyin my office in Palo Alto,
california, and you were likehey, is there a bigger
(08:01):
opportunity that maybe we canpartner together and I can join
Alice in wealth?
And you know, really kind ofcome and work with the clientele
you're dealing with and be partof a bigger team and have
access to more capabilities andreally transform what we're
doing to in a much moresystematic and process driven
way.
Bring these five pillars ofholistic wealth management.
(08:23):
Like I just couldn't believe it.
I remember calling David andbeing like I think our team's
going to expand in a really goodway and having you join and
having.
Brittany join, of course, hasbeen a game changer just in the
short, you know, two months thatwe've been working together and
you've been coming into a lotof our client meetings with some
of our high net worth and ultrahigh net worth families.
(08:45):
You know taking that, you knowwhat I always consider us to be
that household CFO approach toreally helping them manage their
family finances, just like aCFO would help a business manage
the business finances for theCEO.
I've always used that analogyover my career is that you know,
(09:06):
as a person building wealthwhich you all are you're like
the CEO of your own family, ofyour own company.
And again, at a certain level,while you're small, while you
don't have maybe much wealth,while you're just building
things, you know you might bejust fine to be the CFO and the
CEO of your family.
But once you get to a certainsize, a certain amount of
(09:29):
complexity or just limitedresources and knowledge, skill
set or, quite frankly, time,it's now time to go hire a CFO
like Conrad I know.
You know, just being a taxexpert and a business advisor,
you do a lot of, you know kindof fractional CFO work for
companies that are looking toexpand, grow, scale or exit.
(09:51):
And again, I've always lookedat what we do on the personal
side, very, very similar kind ofthat fractional CFO that that
CEO, the head of the householdyou know, the husband and wife,
can essentially kind ofoutsource to us on.
So, just so excited to have youon the team.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, I am as well.
And listen, I I appreciate thefact that you call me a nerd.
That's probably putting itlightly.
I'm a.
I'm a bit of a reader, soyou'll find me and I think you
got a glimpse right.
I have about 30 open tabs on mycomputer.
Any publication that comesthrough my email.
I'm gonna try to pull up andread.
So, yeah, I appreciate that youmade me busy, conrad.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Conrad shared a screen with me yesterday and I
was like how many tabs do youhave open on your computer right
now?
It was like 30 is anunderstatement.
It was closer to like a hundred, I think.
I'm surprised your browserdidn't crash.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
It did this morning, so don't worry, it just took a
little bit more time to crash.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Nice Well, and you know the same thing, david.
I remember distinctly, likewhat set you apart when we were
interviewing and talking aboutjoining forces is you made a
comment to me and I Couldtotally relate to it, because
you're like, yeah, I'm the kindof guy that goes on vacation and
I read tax Quate court cases onthe beach, you know, instead of
like a sci-fi book or a few,you know.
(11:14):
So it was just like I was likeyou're the guy, we need you on
the team also.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Now let's turn into instead of late night scrolling,
tick-tock, it's late nightreading tax court cases.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Exactly, I always hesitate.
Be careful on the financialadvice you get on tick-tock.
I see some of the tax stuffthat's posted on tick-tock and
I'm like, oh my god, that's soillegal yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
We need five more episodes just to talk about what
is wrong with tick-tock advice.
Yeah, we're not gonna go downthat rabbit trail today.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
We're not going down that rabbit trail.
Well, let's talk a little bitabout stuff I think our
listeners can use.
I want to talk about kind ofgoing a little bit deeper into
these, these five kind ofpillars of holistic wealth
management.
I'm gonna go kind of screen onfor a second here to show our
viewers a Visual that we use inour planning process with our
clients.
And again, this is what Ireally deemed to be the
(12:08):
foundation of what I wanted tobring together for our clients.
Because what I saw in workingwith clients initially almost
all of our clients were out ofthe San Francisco Bay Area.
They were in tech, they wereearning a ton of money, they had
all this complication likerestricted stock units and
incentive stock options andpaying 50% marginal rates
(12:31):
between state and federalTaxation and being able to buy
real estate in a hyper inflatedenvironment.
And obviously, since then we'vecontinued to grow Alice and
wealth management across theUnited States.
We have clients all over thecountry.
Of course, conrad, your officein the Atlanta area we're gonna
be continuing to grow and expandthere.
I'm in Charleston, southCarolina.
(12:52):
David's up in the Boston areanow, so we really have a pretty
good reach.
But what I saw was that, youknow, these five pillars were
Insurmountable and kind ofhaving an efficient plan and
building and maximizing wealth,whether you were in the
accumulation phase of the moneycycle or you are maybe getting
ready to retire or stop workingor at least leave your full-time
(13:16):
job and maybe tap into thatdistribution phase of the money
cycle.
And so much of this for theTraditional consumer is not
coordinated because, conrad, asyou mentioned earlier, most
Professionals, they operate insilos and you know what we've
seen is the ultra, ultra highnet worth.
(13:37):
You know the Jeff Bezos, theMark Zuckerbergs, the Elon
Musk's of the world.
They have what's called atraditional family office.
That family office is a staffof team members that Only work
on behalf of that family, andit's a huge amount of money to
(13:57):
run a family office, right, itcould cost hundreds of thousands
, if not millions of dollars.
And so what the benefit of thatfamily office approach was is
that it was a team ofprofessionals sitting down at
the table all working in Incoordination on behalf of the
client.
The attorney was talking to theinvestment advisor, who is
(14:19):
talking to the tax experts, whowere talking to the business
advisors who are helping withthe overall planning, advisory
and strategy, and what we sawwas that, for anybody else,
right, if you weren't the theTitans of the world when it
comes to capitalism you were notgetting that coordinated
approach.
(14:39):
Your financial advisor Wasn'treally coordinating with your
investment advisor orstockbroker or Maybe you were
doing it yourself on, you know,e-trade or Schwab that wasn't
all being coordinated with theCPA or tax advisor, that wasn't
being coordinated with yourinsurance advisor and, last but
(15:02):
not least, it certainly wasn'tbeing coordinated with your
attorney who drafted maybe yourwill or your trust or other
legal documents like LL C's, tomake sure all of these things
were really working in harmonyand that they were being kept up
to date.
The up-to-date part is the bigissue, because what we've seen
(15:23):
is you could have all of thisstuff put in place Three, four,
five years ago, but two bigthings happen.
Number one, your life changesand number two, certain laws
change.
Right, if you set up, let's say, a living, revocable trust five
or six years ago, there's agood chance it's out of date,
(15:43):
because we've seen two massivelaws Secure act 1.0 and secure
act 2.0 that Dramaticallychanged the way we use trust,
and so that's just one exampleof you know, if your legacy
planning, your estate planningisn't well Coordinated with your
asset management, your taxmanagement, your protection
(16:05):
planning in your financialplanning.
You may have gaps in your planand not even know it.
You could pay excessive taxes,fees or just have lack of
efficiency as you're buildingand growing wealth.
So we want to dive into theseand kind of talk through some
common things that we see withclients that maybe they're doing
well, that you could take awayMaybe they're not doing so well,
(16:28):
might give you an action itemto kind of revisit your own plan
and just kind of some of thevalue of Working with a holistic
wealth management offering.
And I know, conrad, you knowjust kind of looking at this
visual here, this was big foryou because you know I think
like being a CPA and David and Iare both enrolled agents as
well, which is the highestdesignation that the IRS awards
(16:52):
but you know it really focuses alot more on Individual income
taxation, where the CPA is likethe mecca of taxes, right, like
you can do public accounting,you guys are individual tax
experts, you can do audit, butyou were like Excelling at tax
management.
You know that was one of theattractions of you joining our
team is.
(17:12):
You know you know more abouttaxes on your little finger.
Then you know a lot of taxprofessionals know over their
whole career of experience andso you really had that pillar
down pat.
But you know you were lookingto expand your team and your
resources on asset management,financial planning, legacy and
estate planning, protectionplanning.
(17:33):
So talk about kind of yourexperience coming through the
industry and what you've seen,you know just in the last two
months of joining Allison wealthand how you think this can Help
some of your existing clients,whether you know it's just a tax
only client that maybe hasentrusted you for tax planning
or tax preparation and you knowWe'll talk about the difference
(17:56):
of tax management from tax prepand tax planning in just a few
minutes here.
But you know, just love to hearsome insight from you on this,
absolutely you know, and inseeing this, this visual to me
is so powerful, right?
Speaker 2 (18:10):
This is really why I joined C2B and Allison.
Well, when you look at thesefive things right, look at and
look at what's happening, right,it's like a dial you and you're
turning it.
Let's go the opposite way.
What's unwinding, what happensright, and this is what I've
seen so many times, right, whenyou unwind it, you have the
individual pieces that don'twork together, and so a lot of
(18:33):
times, what I'll have issomebody say hey, you know, I
want to do this, what should Ibe doing?
Well, here's your tax advice.
That may not be good from anasset management perspective,
right, it may not actually begood from a legacy planning
perspective, but from a taxperspective it works really well
.
Does that mean it's good forthe client?
And the answer is no, right.
The other part of that is I cangive really, really good,
(18:55):
valuable advice, but if we're,if you've ever played the game
telephone, you know by the timeyou get to the fourth and fifth
person, what's actually happened.
It doesn't work, right.
And so I think what you can dois take, replace holistic wealth
management.
Clients can look at this and saythat's me, that's me and I have
all of these things surroundingme and I have a team that works
(19:17):
together to actually accomplishthis From a tax management
perspective.
I see it all the time, right,clients come into my office and
say, hey, should I be doing this?
And I always tell them, hey, Ican tell you if we haven't gone
through, really, the bucket plan.
I can't tell you if this isreally good or bad for you, but
(19:38):
I can tell you whether it makessense from a tax perspective.
Right, and I hate having to dothat because I wish every client
had a bucket plan that we canpull up and say this is really
good for you, we should be doingthis and we should do more of
it.
Or this doesn't accomplish thefact that you want to pass on
these assets to your kids orgrandkids, right, it's going to
(19:59):
be the exact opposite.
So I think seeing this is huge,but I think clients, as we
start to unwind it and talkabout it, I think we're going to
see why.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
So I just had a visual.
So I'm not the most handyperson in the world, but I just
had to build a bench and somestorage in my garage and I went
and bought a circular saw.
Conrad, I know you're a handyperson, so you're just going to
laugh at me here, but itreminded me when you just said
that of if you put the blade onthe circular saw the right way,
(20:32):
it's going to cut a reallyefficient cut through the piece
of wood.
But imagine if you put that sawblade on backwards right, it's
not going to be very efficient.
And when we look at holisticwealth management, this is a
visual of kind of putting thatsaw blade on the right way.
Financial planning as thefoundation leading into asset
(20:52):
management.
We all want to grow ourinvestments, earn the best rates
of return we can, given theright amount of risk we're
willing to take.
We want to pay the least amountof taxes legally possible, not
just in our lifetime but uponour passing as we transfer our
money to that next generation.
We want to make sure we haveproper protection planning so
(21:13):
that all the what ifs in lifeare covered.
And, last but not least, wewant to ensure legacy planning
is set up, because none of uslike to think about our own
demise or passing, but we needto ensure that when we're no
longer here, our money goes toour intended beneficiaries under
the set of rules that we wantthem to abide by right.
(21:36):
We don't want unintendedbeneficiaries like the IRS, the
Internal Revenue Service, taxes,state taxes or, even worse in
some cases, probate court, whereassets can get tangled up for
months and months and months andit can be extremely costly.
And so just kind of a greatvisual as you're talking about
(21:57):
it, and I want to just jump intothe bucket plan.
You mentioned that terminologyand, for those of you who aren't
familiar, that is thefoundation of our financial
planning process.
So for every new client, whenthey decide to work with Alice
in Wealth Management, you cansee the bucket plan up on the
screen If you're watching rightnow.
If you're not, I'll verballyjust walk you through this.
(22:18):
But this is really our clienton boarding to help really
deliver holistic planning thatis in your best interest.
See, at Alice in Wealth we areall fiduciaries, meaning we are
legally obligated to serve yourbest interest and your best
interest alone, not sellproducts, not represent a
certain company, but really toadvise, and one of the things
(22:41):
that I've really distilled inthe culture of the company and
it's the most important thing tome is we're educators.
We educate you on the trade-off, because personal finance is
more personal than it is finance.
There's not two people that canmake the same decision and have
the same outcome, and so whatwe do with the bucket plan is we
(23:03):
start with an introductorymeeting.
It's called our DiscoverMeeting.
It's all about where you wantto go, learning about you, your
goals and objectives, yourcurrent finances and taxes and
your priorities and whatservices we might need to
prioritize on your behalf todeliver to you, to start to lay
the foundation for a reallysolid financial plan.
(23:25):
From there we move into ourdesign phase.
This is where I lean on David alot, and Conrad, bringing your
expertise in, because this iswhere we start to crunch the
numbers.
Analyze the data, organize yourfinancial life, understand your
net worth, assess your cashflow, review your taxes to see
(23:45):
if there's any areas ofoptimization or improvement, not
just today, but your futurelifetime taxes.
Analyze the risks that you'retaking both in your investments
as well as liability risks inyour life Simple things like
understanding if you have anumbrella policy.
Again, I have little kids, Ihave a swimming pool, they have
(24:08):
friends over all the time.
Boy, is something as simple asan umbrella policy very, very
important.
We take a look at all of thoserisks that you could be faced
with and we focus on tailoring acustomized plan for you.
Then, in step three, we deliverthat customized bucket plan to
you.
The foundation is your assets,really simplifying them into
(24:32):
three buckets and now, soon andlater.
The now is the money that youmay need or will need in the
next year or so.
The soon bucket is the moneyyou may need or will need in the
near term, maybe the next three, five or 10 years If you're
retired or about to retire.
That soon bucket is designed toprovide you that reliable
(24:54):
retirement income in the firstphase of retirement.
Then, of course, the laterbucket, where we have long-term
growth and legacy planning.
This is where we want toaccelerate the growth of our
money, because we know we have along time horizon before we're
going to need to tap into it.
It's also where we look atlegacy planning, not just for
the kids, the grandkids or thecharities, but, if you're a
(25:17):
married couple, most importantlyfor the surviving spouse,
because Conrad and David, weknow as tax professionals what
happens when one spouse passesaway.
What is it, conrad?
Huh, taxes go up and taxes goup right.
Taxes go up, you go from marriedfiling jointly to a single
filer, and then not only that,for a retired couple, social
(25:41):
security could go down, becauseyou would lose the lower of the
two, and so we need to make surethere's a plan in place for
that.
So we finalize your bucket plan.
We align your investments withyour market volatility tolerance
how much risk you actually wantto take.
You know right now, the lastthree years have been a
tremendous test of volatility.
The markets have been all overthe place, and so, again, it's
(26:05):
ensuring that you're taking theright amount of risk.
But not only are you taking theright amount of risk, you're
actually getting compensated anappropriate return For the
amount of risk you're taking.
We'll look at optimizing yourcash flow.
If you're working, it'sfiguring out how to optimize
your cash flow for anaccumulation plan for the goals
(26:26):
that you have in life.
If you're going into retirement, it's an optimized retirement
income distribution plan.
How do you take the rightamount of money out of the right
account so that you couldmaximize your purchasing power
in retirement, your reliableincome in retirement and,
ultimately, minimize your taxes?
And we lay out all thosesolutions and we educate you on
(26:49):
them and we lay out a transitionand implementation plan to get
you from where you are right nowto how you should be, based on
our expertise.
And then, last but not least,step four is our dedicated
service and support.
This is where you are now anactive wealth management client.
We're here to provide Continual, active plan management,
because this is not a set it andforget it and put the plan in a
(27:12):
drawer and let it, you know,pile up dust.
You're gonna get our team forongoing advice, proactive
communication and education andreally just the Continual focus
on these five pillars ofholistic wealth management.
And so that's just a quickoverview of the bucket plan, as
(27:32):
Conrad mentioned, because, again, you know, sometimes we'll use
terminology like the bucket plan, and so I thought it'd be good
to spend five or six minutesthere just explaining what that
process actually is when a newclient comes on board with Alice
in wealth, so that then we canhave all of the foundational
information to actually Optimizethese other areas.
(27:57):
Right, that was financialplanning.
Right there, understanding yourgoals, your objectives and how
to get you there in the mostefficient manner.
David, you know I'd love tohear from you here, because
you've brought some greatperspective that, like, I think
the industry is a little bitBackwards where you know, the
financial services industry iskind of set on Selling
(28:18):
investments first.
Right, they look to, hey, letme be able to manage your money,
let me buy, let me sell youthis product or this vehicle to
put your money into.
And they do that without reallykind of diving into financial
planning.
And you know, do you have anykind of insight into?
You know, when you establishthat plan first Even though
(28:40):
maybe it's a little more timeconsuming to go through than
just buying an investment whatthat really does kind of on the
back end of helping you expediteachieving your goals and
objectives.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Yeah, and just to kind of take a step back is I
love how you laid out the wholeFour-step process and how it
goes through, but one question Ialways like to ask myself or
ask, ask clients, is do theyhave a well-defined Strategic
financial plan?
Is it simple, easy tounderstand, is it written down
and is it up to date?
That's the key one.
(29:11):
And, dave, what you werementioning is is it, how do
these integrate?
And and what's?
Is it an investment?
First approach as it attacksfirst approach and, as we've
mentioned before, they reallyinterplay with one another and
we've seen it many times wherewe've come With a new, new
(29:32):
person who comes in and they'll,they'll come in and they'll say
we have these investments.
We don't know why we have them,we don't know what they're
doing, we don't know if they fitour situation, if they're,
they're tax efficient, we justknow they're there.
We haven't touched to touch onthem in the last, however many
years.
It could be one, two, three,four, five, and that gets back
to that last point Is it up todate?
(29:52):
So, even if you do have afinancial plan, if you set it
into place one time, is it up todate, is it current?
And that's one thing that Ireally like about this
integrated approach is that, aswe go through each year, each
quarter, whenever we have thesereviews, we can always update
and continually make adjustmentsto the plan.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yeah, I would say for everybody listening you know,
grab a pen and piece of paper,except for if you're driving
right now I know that's where Inormally listen to my podcast
but if you have a pen and apiece of paper, write down that
first pillar financial planningand Score yourself on a scale of
one to ten, which means youknow one is you don't have a
(30:30):
plan at all, right, you're justflying by the seat of your pants
.
A ten is Everything David justmentioned.
Do you have a well documented,simplified plan?
You understand all of theinvestments and why you have
them and what their purpose isand when you might access them
and what your exit plan is, andso, again, that's a ten.
(30:53):
A one is you have nothing.
And I just kind of close out thefinancial planning section with
.
It's like going on across-country journey.
If I was going to drive fromCharleston, south Carolina, to
my Palo Alto California officewhich I would never want to do I
Would certainly want a GPS thatshowed me Directionally the
(31:16):
right way to get there.
Now, could I take detours alongthe way?
Of course I could, that's life.
But I still want that plan thathelps me directionally get
there the most efficient way, orelse I'm going to be zigzagging
all across the world, and so,again, that's exactly what a
financial plan does for you.
Any additional comments, conrador David, on the financial
(31:39):
planning aspect?
Before we jump into pillarnumber two?
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Listen, I think the most important thing that we can
reiterate and you've said ittwice, I'm gonna say a third
time I what's the science?
Yeah, here's seven times beforeit actually sinks in, maybe we
should just all say it anothertime is Is it up to date?
I can't tell you how many timesI've had clients come in and
say hey, you know, I've got thiswill great.
(32:04):
When's it?
When?
When's the last time it's beenupdated?
Oh, it was updated just acouple years ago, 1993, that's
not a couple years ago.
What's, shane, since then?
You got married.
Yet kids Start a business,close business, all of those
things happen in the in themeantime.
So keeping something out todate and kind of creating as it
is, this is active management.
This is not a creative once andhope for the best and hope it
(32:29):
stays there.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Well, and I would say this too, I hear from people
yeah, I had a financial plan soand so, developed it for me, but
so and so might have only beenan expert in one discipline like
investment management.
Right, and that's one of thethings I've been really proud of
of our team, too, of advisors.
We have CFPs.
All of us do certifiedfinancial planner, gold standard
(32:50):
and personal financial planning.
We're all investment advisorRepresentatives under an SEC
registered investment advisoryfirm, so we have expertise on
investment advisory solutions.
We're all insurance licensed sothat we could look and analyze
the risks or protection productsto optimize.
(33:12):
We're all tax experts.
Conrad, you're a CPA, david andI are enrolled agents admitted
to practice before the IRS, andAll of us have a deep expertise
in legacy planning and estateplanning.
And while none of us areattorneys, we have an attorney,
a couple attorneys, depending onwhat our clients need that come
(33:33):
into the planning process andwork with our clients on the
drafting of legal documents.
And so again, you got to reallychallenge the advisor if you're
working with somebody alreadyon what their expertise is,
because if you know, againthey're a hammer, everything's
going to look like a nail andthe plan might not actually
(33:55):
account for all of thesedifferent areas that are so
important to your personalfinancial situation.
And so let's let's chat alittle bit about asset
management.
You know, this one, I alwayssay, is kind of the no-brainer,
because the goal of assetmanagement, in my opinion, is
just to earn the most amount ofmoney that we can write.
(34:16):
We want to maximize ourperformance, but Do it within
the confines of the amount ofrisk that you're personally
comfortable with taking.
I had a mentor this is going tobe kind of gross, but he used
to say no, two people can eattacos before riding a roller
coaster and have the sameoutcome, and the stock market is
(34:37):
the same way, right?
Just because you might want totry to earn 10% annualized
returns and that sounds greatyou might not have the stomach
for that type of volatility,because to be able to earn 10%
annualized returns, you mighthave to see your account
balances fall by 50% or more.
If we have a big black swanevent like the great financial
(35:00):
crisis or the pandemic of 2020,the dot-com bubble of 2000 and
2001 or, quite frankly, some ofthe volatility we saw last year
in the markets with the Fed andtheir Historic rise in interest
rates to try to fight inflation,and so Investment management is
not a cookie cutterone-size-fits-all approach for
(35:22):
everybody.
It's very individualized andcustomized, and not only for
optimizing performance.
But it's not just about whatyou make, it's about what you
keep.
And, conrad and David, what canbe one of the biggest Errosions
of wealth when it comes tofolks that have non retirement
(35:43):
assets and they're thinkingabout investing it?
Whether it's the stock market,the bond market, real estate, it
doesn't matter.
What can erode wealth quickerthan anything?
Tax Taxes right.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
I mean taxes are likely your, and both people
don't realize because we paythem so far over time.
Taxes, if we calculate trueimpact, is going to be your
biggest expense in what 99% ofpeople's lives?
That's a massive amount.
Why not focus on that?
I want to take a step back,though, and really, outside of
(36:19):
taxes, let's take a look at whatasset management really is
right.
Assets aren't only marketinvestments.
How many times have we advisedclients on real estate?
How about small businessholdings?
I have so many clients thatlook at it and say, yeah, I know
I need to have passive income.
How do I deploy assets in themarket?
(36:41):
But I know my industry.
I've started a business, I'verun it successfully and sold it.
I want to go buy, build andsell those assets right.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
But I need to have 100%.
I mean, I look at myself.
My biggest assets are my twobusinesses that I have Allison
Wealth Management and C2P.
Honestly, if I had a financialadvisor I do some people on this
team here but if I had anoutside financial advisor and
they weren't incorporating oradvising or helping me with
(37:13):
strategy and direction on my twobiggest assets, I'd be looking
for a new advisor pretty quickly, right, and the same goes with
your home equity.
That's an incredibly valuableasset that needs to be optimized
within an overall retirementand holistic financial plan.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Right, yeah, david, I think you've sent it out to one
of the clients.
Last you ran an analysis on arental property, right?
And this person they're not arental management company, but
talk through some of thedecisions that you actually
looked at and how to say, hey,is this a good thing or a bad
thing?
Right now, it's a very valuableconversation we can have that
(37:53):
clients can probably understand.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
Yeah, I mean and just from a high level, you look at
it like any other investment iswhat is the initial outlay,
what's gonna be your yearlyincome and what's gonna be the
overall return on investmentwhen you're through with this
property?
So you can take any asset,whether it's a rental property,
an alternative investment,traditional stocks, and say what
is the true cost of having thisand what's the true risk and
(38:18):
what is your expected outcome,and then you can take and look
at it and say is the risk worththe reward of this for any
investment, Not just yourtraditional assets that you
would buy in the stock market,but, like you said, real estate
or anything else.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Yeah, and for all my clients listening, I have to
tell you this is exactly why Iwas so excited to join House
wealth.
Most of the time I hear peopletalk about their advisor that
shies away or says we don't dothat, we as a team lean in and
say we're gonna figure it out.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Yeah, I mean I share.
When it comes to assets, ournumber one goal is helping our
clients maximize their wealth,and there's a lot of ways to do
that.
There could be stock marketassets, there could be bond
market assets, there could bereal estate assets, there could
be private equity assets, therecould be life insurance assets,
right, and so there's a lot ofdifferent ways to optimize
somebody's financial situation.
(39:13):
Let's transition over to taxmanagement, and I know we spoke
about taxes a little bit, butwhen I think of tax management,
there's a big difference betweentax preparation, tax planning
and tax management.
So tax preparation is thescorecard.
It's if you're a golfer, whenyou're in the clubhouse adding
(39:33):
up your score and seeing howwell you did, but you can't do
anything at that point.
There's very little strategythat could be implemented after
the clock strikes midnight onDecember 31st.
It's a use it or lose it taxcode, and so tax preparation is
necessary.
It's like if I were gonna gobuild a home, the first thing
(39:57):
that I would do is I would hirean architect to design a
blueprint.
That's a service.
I pay the architect.
I'm doing it right now for aproject we're working on in our
backyard.
The architect charged me a fee.
They're gonna design and writeup the blueprint.
That's very much like taxplanning.
You could hire us at AllisonWealth Management for a tax plan
(40:21):
.
It's traditionally a one-timeevent.
Hey, I have this big situation,I'm gonna sell my business.
Help me think through this taxplan.
We'll design a blueprint, we'lldeliver it.
The next step is implementation, though.
Once I hire that architect andthey design my blueprint, now I
need somebody to go build it forme and do it.
(40:41):
I'm gonna hire a builder Ialready have one and they're
actually gonna take care of theconstruction, the building, the
implementation and the upkeep ofthe renovation that we're gonna
do.
The third component is theinspector signing off to make
sure everything's up to code.
That's like tax preparationjust signing off to make sure
(41:02):
it's up to code right.
Tax planning is like thearchitect, tax management is
like the builder, and then taxpreparation is like the
inspector.
Now, we're a little bitdifferent at Allison Wealth in
that we offer all three of thoseunder one roof.
We're CPAs and enrolled agents.
Of course, we can do the taxpreparation that's the least fun
(41:24):
side of it but we engage in alot of tax planning specifically
for clients that have bigone-time events that they just
need an expert to help themguide on the right decision.
Then, of course, our biggestarea of focus, and where I feel
we provide the most value, istax management.
There's three areas of taxmanagement how do we maximize
(41:47):
your tax situation each andevery year?
How do we maximize yourlifetime tax situation, meaning,
how do we get the most valueout of your wealth with paying
the least amount of taxeslegally?
And then the third is upontransfer, because if you've been
successful at building wealth,there's estate taxes that you
(42:10):
could be subject to Now.
Today they're only for ourclients, over 24 to $25 million,
but in 2026, that is set tosunset and get cut by half, and
so 2024 and 2025 are some of themost important years to get
your estate in order fortransfer tax.
(42:30):
And that really integrates withlegacy planning because, again,
I know for my legacy that Iwanna live, leave to my family.
I don't want the government tobe part of that.
I wanted to go to my threelittle girls and other charities
and causes that are importantto me, but not to the IRS.
And when it comes to legacyplanning and tax management upon
(42:52):
your passing, there's threeplaces your money can go.
There's your family, there'scharities that are important to
you, and then there's to taxes,to IRS, and you always have to
pick two of the three.
So is it your family andcharities?
Is it your family in the IRS oris it charities in the IRS?
(43:13):
And these are the decisionsthat we help clients think about
, because news flash, if youpass away, it's too late to make
any of these decisions.
You're going on the governmentplan at that point and they're
gonna try to take as much asthey can.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
I have someone very unfortunate what I'm gonna call
horror stories, right.
And there's one recently that Ihave a client that his catalyst
, unfortunately, was what causedhis passing.
He decided that it was time,after getting diagnosed with a
blood disorder, that he neededto really do some financial plan
.
Right, he wasn't working withanybody and his estate was not
(43:51):
in good order, hadn't beenupdated in 25 years.
Well, what, simply?
What happened was he started abusiness that grew to a 20 plus
million dollar valuation in thattime, right.
And so we started the process.
We literally went through thefirst Discover meeting and he
passed away, right.
And so we're now scramblingtrying to figure out well, we've
(44:14):
got this bomb that just wentoff, how do we address it?
Right.
And then the remaining spousehow do we now mention that 24 to
25 million?
Well, that's now cut in half,right.
Even if we roll forward aspousal exemption, we still have
a problem.
So we better start planningtoday, because in 2026, if we
(44:36):
don't do anything right, thinkabout what the government's
going to get if we don't reallyinvolve charity Millions of
dollars of that business in thatestate.
And so I think that to me, I'vegot a couple of those
unfortunate stories whereplanning was not done timely
100%, and I want to show theimportance of how these three
(44:59):
things integrate together.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
So again, financial planning rank yourself one out
of 10.
10 is the best one.
You need some work.
Asset management all of yourassets, not just your stock and
bond portfolio or your 401k.
Rank yourself or your advisor.
You're currently working withOne out of 10.
Tax management helping youmaximize your wealth and
(45:23):
minimize your taxes each andevery year your lifetime taxes
and, ultimately, the potentialtransfer tax.
Rank that one out of 10.
Protection planning is the nextone.
This is for all the what ifs inlife, and it's not just
insurance, right.
There's core insurance that Ithink is very important for
(45:45):
everybody.
If you're a high income earneror the wage earner and provider
for your family and you have ayoung family and you're not
financially independent andwealthy, life insurance is
critical, right?
If you were to pass away, Ialways joke and say if the
Budweiser truck was driving downthe street and ran you over,
(46:06):
how much money would you wantyour family to sue Budweiser for
?
Well, how you think about thatis what was kind of your human
life value If you were tocontinue to work for the next 20
or 30 years.
That's your human life value.
That's what you would want yourfamily to sue Budweiser for.
That's probably the amount oflife insurance coverage that you
(46:27):
should have, if you're reallyworth that much.
Now you could dial it back andsay, yeah, but you know what?
I don't need that much.
I just need enough to make suremy family can live the
lifestyle that we wanted them tolive had I been around and
that's a fair statement as well.
There's disability insurance.
If you were to become disabledand not be able to go to work,
(46:47):
how do you make sure thepaycheck comes in?
There's property and casualtyinsurance.
I have a boat.
I have boat insurance if I wereto do something out on the
water.
Of course, we have cars.
We have car insurance, we havehomeowners insurance and we have
an almighty umbrella policythat protects us for a lot of
things.
That is incredibly cheap.
My umbrella policy for $5million of coverage is less than
(47:11):
$600 a year.
So these are things that areno-brainers.
But there's also protectionplanning around things like
market volatility.
There's portfolio insurance.
We have investments that canprovide complete downside
protection so that if the marketcrashes, you don't experience
those losses.
(47:31):
There's protection planningagainst longevity risk.
Some people are worried what ifI live into my 90s or hundreds,
or even later?
How do I ensure that I don'trun out of money?
Well, there's protectionplanning for longevity risk.
There's long-term care planningright, the big unknowns of
healthcare and retirement andthe things that traditional
(47:53):
Medicare doesn't cover, and soprotection planning encompasses
all of these different thingstogether to be able to analyze
and mitigate risks.
Because there's only two waysyou can do this you either
self-insure or you shift thatliability to an insurance
company for a cost, and you needto weigh that cost-benefit
(48:16):
analysis For some people.
They don't have the stomach toself-insure.
They'd rather carve off a smallpiece of their portfolio or
their income for the shifting ofliability.
For my house, I have homeownersinsurance because I don't think
a fire is going to happen, butboy I know, if it did, I would
(48:37):
certainly want an insurancecompany to be able to cover the
cost of rebuilding this house.
And so those are just examplesof protection planning and how
they fit into a financial plan,how they fit into your asset
management, and we didn't evendiscuss but there's a lot of
benefits from a tax perspectiveof some of these things, like
(48:59):
life insurance in an estate plan, because the biggest purchases
of a life insurance aren'tsomebody who's looking to
replace lost wages If a wageearner passes away.
It's the ultra, ultra wealthywho are looking at creating
dynamistical, tax-efficientwealth, because life insurance
is the only product that canpass on to the next generation
(49:22):
income tax-free as well asestate tax-free.
And so these are all the thingsthat we think about in
combining tax management, assetmanagement, protection planning
and legacy planning.
Fellas, anything to add onprotection planning as we go to
kind of land the airplane here.
Speaker 3 (49:40):
I would just go back to that question Is your
protection planning up to date?
It changes year to year and Ican't tell you how many times
we've gone through and it's not.
Do you have protection planning?
Is it up to date?
Because the rates change everyyear for some products, so does
a landscape, that's a greatpoint.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
I just fired my property and casualty agent
because I was frustrated theyweren't proactively updating my
policies.
I shopped it around.
I found a new company,independent Property and
Casualty Brokerage, that endedup saving me $4,000 a year on my
homeowners, my auto, my boat,my umbrella and my personal
(50:21):
liability insurance $4,000 ayear and improved my coverage.
And the other company was justbeing lazy.
Right, they knew I was acustomer so they weren't
proactively doing that.
And so again, we don't doproperty and casualty in-house,
but we help you coordinate thatwith the right experts who can
(50:43):
understand coverage in yourstate, because that is a very
state-specific thing.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
Clients in California might have earthquakes, we here
in Charleston, south Carolina,have hurricanes and floods, so
let's I'd like to add one morething that we also do and we did
it recently with a client istalk through business liability
right, the use of LLCs orescorts or whatever structure.
How do we separate liability sothat assets that are personal
(51:11):
stay personal and that arebusiness stay business and they
don't affect each other?
Speaker 1 (51:17):
Absolutely.
And then the last but not leastof the five pillars.
So go ahead and rank yourselfon protection planning, one
through 10.
The final pillar is legacyplanning.
Legacy planning for thissurviving spouse, if you're a
married couple.
How do we protect theirlifestyle?
How do we protect theirpurchasing power?
(51:37):
How do we continue to drawassets in the most efficient way
for their supplementalretirement income?
How do we deal with, maybe, alost pension or social security?
But also legacy planning forthat next generation.
Right Asking those simplequestions of when you're gone,
where does your money go, who'sin charge and what are the rules
(52:01):
?
Where does your money go, who'sin charge and what are the rules
?
And there's a lot of strategythat you could think about while
you're alive that help reallydirect and achieve your goals
and objectives.
One of the exercises Ipersonally do and I think this
is incredibly important for anybusiness owner is every year I
(52:23):
kill myself off.
Not really I'm still here, butevery year I hypothetically kill
myself off and I say where doesmy money go, who's in charge
and what are the rules?
Who's the trustee of my money?
In this case it's my olderbrother.
He's going to be the fiduciaryto make sure that the trust is
invested and managed anddistributing the right amount of
(52:45):
money for the benefit of mythree children.
What happens to my businesses?
Who's going to be put in charge?
Who's that next succession?
Who's going to be able to makesure all of our clients are
served and that the businesscarries on its goals and its
objectives?
And so these are things that,again, I would say if you're
(53:06):
working with a big wire house oran investment advisor, these
are not the things they'retypically doing and these are
the conversations we're havingwith our clients all day long in
helping be that household CFOor that fractional CFO in their
business.
And I'll just close with thisfrom my perspective, one of the
biggest benefits that we havethe amazing fortune of at
(53:30):
Allison Wealth Management Icould speak for myself, conrad
David is we get to see what'sgoing on in the lives of other
very successful families who aredealing with these same issues.
And while we can't prescribe aone size fits all answer, we can
help educate you on thetradeoffs of the decisions that
(53:51):
are in front of you and I wantto share with you.
Hey, we had another family thatwent through something similar.
Here's what they did, here'swhat worked.
Here's what didn't work.
Here's how it changes a littlebit based on your situation, and
all we do is help bringperspective, and that
perspective could mean a huge,huge difference in the outcome
(54:12):
and in your total wealth andwhat you're able to do to
achieve your goals andobjectives throughout your
lifetime.
So, conrad, again, I'm soexcited for you to be on the
team here.
David Conrad, any kind of wordsof wisdom as we close out here?
Speaker 2 (54:29):
No, I think you landed the plane brilliantly
with with legacy planning out.
Well, we could probably spend awhole episode on that alone, I
think.
For today, I just want to closewith I'm excited to be here,
I'm excited for what we can doas a team, and I've, for the
first time in a long time,really, really look forward to
(54:50):
coming back into work every dayand learning.
I think it's a great thing.
We're going to do really goodthings together.
Speaker 3 (54:57):
Yeah, I'm really excited to have you on the team,
conrad, and looking forward tocontinuing to grow.
Speaker 1 (55:02):
Yeah, all right.
Well, don't forget, subscribeto our channel here.
Don't miss an episode.
Follow us on YouTube.
Follow us on social media.
We're always putting outcontent, even if it's not the
right time for you to hire aholistic wealth advisor.
We put out tons of contentblogs, podcasts, social media
posts that can continue to helpbring value to your situation,
(55:23):
and we'll see you on the nextepisode.
Speaker 4 (55:53):
I have been created by a third party and was not
written or created by a PCAaffiliated advisor and does not
represent the views and opinionsof PCA or its subsidiary.
For information pertaining tothe registration status of PCA,
please contact the firm or referto the Investment Advisor
Public Disclosure website.
For additional informationabout PCA, including fees and
(56:13):
services, send for ourdisclosure statement as set
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Please read the disclosurestatement carefully before you
invest or send money.
Hey everyone, welcome to the Complete Wealth
Management Podcast.
I'm your host, dave Allison.
Today I've got my twocolleagues as usual, conrad and
David, joining us.
How are you, fellas, doingtoday?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Doing wonderful.
How are you, Dave?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I am doing awesome.
How about you, David?
Yeah, I'm doing great.
Yeah, the weather turning upthere in Boston.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Yeah, it's a beautiful 60 degrees in the
middle of October.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Nice, Conrad and I were just talking.
We got the 80s down here, don'twe Conrad, down here in the
south it's a little bit hotter.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
It's not exactly football weather right now, so
we'll get there Exactly.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Well, hey, I want to kick things off, conrad, I know
you've been on a couple of theprevious episodes now, but some
of our clients, some of ourfollowers, some of our
traditional listeners, areprobably like who the heck is
this Conrad guy?
And, of course, some of yourclients that may be starting to
jump on this podcast and listenand interact with Allison Wealth
(01:09):
might be like, hey, who theheck are these Dave and David
guys?
And so we want to kind of bringsome of that together and talk
a little bit about yourbackground.
In this episode.
You joining the team at AllisonWealth Management and also
something that I think thelisteners and viewers will find
just a ton of value in, and it'sthis concept of kind of the
(01:31):
five pillars of holistic wealthmanagement.
Really, you know the principlesthat I built Allison Wealth
Management off of initially, andI know one of the big reasons
David joined the team threeyears ago.
So, conrad, share a little bitabout your background, tell us
who you are.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Yeah, sure, I'm happy to be here.
I'll try to keep my backgroundas high level as I can because
we can go down the winding pathmuch like everybody else.
But you know, I'll start withsaying I started my journey as a
16 year old in the tax industryand I want you guys to just
take a step back in a prettygood way.
Would you misbehave as a childa lot when?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
your parents were punishing you.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, I was a glutton for punishment.
I started working and somehowenjoyed myself working with
clients as a tax preparer for aLiberty tax service here locally
.
Hey, listen, it was an awesomeexperience.
I got to meet a lot of peopleand I found out that I have a
passion for actually helpingpeople right.
And so fast forward 10, 12years, I'm through college and
(02:38):
really I'm kind of working as ain the accounting industry not
as a CPA yet, but workingtowards the CPA license and I
figured out I don't really likedoing corporate accounting right
, I don't want to sit behind adesk and be looking at a screen
and not helping people.
And so I kind of startedlooking at where my passion is
(02:59):
and I've always remained kind ofkept a foot in the tax industry
.
I decided it's time to reallypush further into it and so I
opened my own firm, startedhelping clients on the
individual level and even somesmall businesses, and then
ultimately just continue to growand expand from there.
It was always referral.
It was originally designed as aside business and turned into a
(03:22):
full time gig, right.
But along that journey I reallyfigured out that clients always
come to me with about 10 to 15questions a year, right, and
they were always repetitive andI always thought why is nobody
answering these questions?
These are something that, if Ilooked at somebody that said
they're a financial advisor orwealth manager, those are the
(03:45):
questions they should get right.
But they're always coming to meas the tax preparer or, at the
time, CPA.
And so I started looking at whatis a wealth manager, right?
What's a financial advisor andwhat are they supposed to be
doing and what do I think theyshould be doing, right?
And so, along the way, Idecided I'm going to become a
(04:06):
CFP.
I think that's a gold standardfor fiduciary financial planning
, right.
And so I earned the CFP mark.
I got my series 65, seriesseven, got licensed in the
industry and started trying tohelp clients along the way.
But let's kind of rewind there.
Right, I initially got into theindustry, much like most people
(04:28):
.
Right, you go and you'rerecruited by one of these.
What I'm going to I'm not goingto name names, right.
These large insurance providersthat say, hey, you should go
out and sell life insurance.
Right, I made my mistake,stopped it pretty quickly.
Have you tell me if you've heardthat story before.
It's pretty unique, right.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
It is a pretty commonplace.
I did not start on that side ofit, I came through a different
channel, but I'm definitely inthe minority in the financial
services industry.
Those are breeding grounds ofrecruiting kids out of college
and trying to get them to gosell their friends and family.
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Absolutely, and so when I got into that, you know I
was sold.
Hey, we want to do realfinancial planning, I thought
this is it.
This is the ticket, this iswhere I want to be, and I
figured out they really justwant to sell insurance and
there's nothing wrong with that.
But that's not what I wanted.
And so I spent the next coupleyears really what I'm going to
say designing and refining right, I wanted to design how I
(05:28):
expected my clients to gothrough a process and then
ultimately refining that towhere I think it would work well
for them right.
And along the way, I didn'treally define it as well as I
should until I found C2P right,and this is going to be my
shameless plug for why we'rehere today right.
And actually, what we're goingto talk about today, which is
(05:50):
perfect, right.
I looked at it and said what doI really want to do for clients?
And I want to number one, helpthem make good decisions
financially.
Number two, I want to help themaccomplish their goals right.
And then, number three, alongthe way, let's have some fun.
Right.
Let's enjoy life.
Let's not worry about leavingmillions of dollars to your kids
(06:12):
, but eating dog food today,right, you better enjoy it along
the way.
And so, really, when I had theopportunity to join C2P and then
further Alice in wealthmanagement right.
I found that standardizedprocess to say these are the
five pillars, this is what webuild your financial house on
(06:32):
right, and this is what we'regoing to do for you not just one
time, but throughout time.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, and I'll share just a couple of things.
When you mentioned C2P, so forthose of you who don't know, c2p
is a national financialservices company that I founded
with a couple partners about 12years ago and we have about 60
plus offices around the countryand really help them scale
holistic financial serviceswithin their business.
(06:58):
And I remember it like it wasyesterday, conrad.
I think the first time you andI really got to meet face to
face.
We were at dinner.
I think we were sharing acouple bottles of wine together
and I was just really impressedwith your technical background.
I mean that always attracts mebecause I'm kind of a nerd and,
david, I'll call you a nerd too,because you would call yourself
(07:18):
a nerd.
I mean that was what attractedme for David to join the team is
.
He was just very technicallycapable and I thought he would
bring a ton of value to ourclients.
And I remember meeting you andyou were the same way.
I was just really, reallyimpressed with your technical
expertise and capabilities andthinking outside the box and
(07:39):
bringing unique strategies toyour clients.
And I was super proud to haveyou on the team at C2P and our
national registered investmentadvisory firm, prosperity
capital advisors.
But then when you reached outto me I think it was in like
June or something I was actuallyin my office in Palo Alto,
california, and you were likehey, is there a bigger
(08:01):
opportunity that maybe we canpartner together and I can join
Alice in wealth?
And you know, really kind ofcome and work with the clientele
you're dealing with and be partof a bigger team and have
access to more capabilities andreally transform what we're
doing to in a much moresystematic and process driven
way.
Bring these five pillars ofholistic wealth management.
(08:23):
Like I just couldn't believe it.
I remember calling David andbeing like I think our team's
going to expand in a really goodway and having you join and
having.
Brittany join, of course, hasbeen a game changer just in the
short, you know, two months thatwe've been working together and
you've been coming into a lotof our client meetings with some
of our high net worth and ultrahigh net worth families.
(08:45):
You know taking that, you knowwhat I always consider us to be
that household CFO approach toreally helping them manage their
family finances, just like aCFO would help a business manage
the business finances for theCEO.
I've always used that analogyover my career is that you know,
(09:06):
as a person building wealthwhich you all are you're like
the CEO of your own family, ofyour own company.
And again, at a certain level,while you're small, while you
don't have maybe much wealth,while you're just building
things, you know you might bejust fine to be the CFO and the
CEO of your family.
But once you get to a certainsize, a certain amount of
(09:29):
complexity or just limitedresources and knowledge, skill
set or, quite frankly, time,it's now time to go hire a CFO
like Conrad I know.
You know, just being a taxexpert and a business advisor,
you do a lot of, you know kindof fractional CFO work for
companies that are looking toexpand, grow, scale or exit.
(09:51):
And again, I've always lookedat what we do on the personal
side, very, very similar kind ofthat fractional CFO that that
CEO, the head of the householdyou know, the husband and wife,
can essentially kind ofoutsource to us on.
So, just so excited to have youon the team.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, I am as well.
And listen, I I appreciate thefact that you call me a nerd.
That's probably putting itlightly.
I'm a.
I'm a bit of a reader, soyou'll find me and I think you
got a glimpse right.
I have about 30 open tabs on mycomputer.
Any publication that comesthrough my email.
I'm gonna try to pull up andread.
So, yeah, I appreciate that youmade me busy, conrad.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Conrad shared a screen with me yesterday and I
was like how many tabs do youhave open on your computer right
now?
It was like 30 is anunderstatement.
It was closer to like a hundred, I think.
I'm surprised your browserdidn't crash.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
It did this morning, so don't worry, it just took a
little bit more time to crash.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Nice Well, and you know the same thing, david.
I remember distinctly, likewhat set you apart when we were
interviewing and talking aboutjoining forces is you made a
comment to me and I Couldtotally relate to it, because
you're like, yeah, I'm the kindof guy that goes on vacation and
I read tax Quate court cases onthe beach, you know, instead of
like a sci-fi book or a few,you know.
(11:14):
So it was just like I was likeyou're the guy, we need you on
the team also.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Now let's turn into instead of late night scrolling,
tick-tock, it's late nightreading tax court cases.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Exactly, I always hesitate.
Be careful on the financialadvice you get on tick-tock.
I see some of the tax stuffthat's posted on tick-tock and
I'm like, oh my god, that's soillegal yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
We need five more episodes just to talk about what
is wrong with tick-tock advice.
Yeah, we're not gonna go downthat rabbit trail today.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
We're not going down that rabbit trail.
Well, let's talk a little bitabout stuff I think our
listeners can use.
I want to talk about kind ofgoing a little bit deeper into
these, these five kind ofpillars of holistic wealth
management.
I'm gonna go kind of screen onfor a second here to show our
viewers a Visual that we use inour planning process with our
clients.
And again, this is what Ireally deemed to be the
(12:08):
foundation of what I wanted tobring together for our clients.
Because what I saw in workingwith clients initially almost
all of our clients were out ofthe San Francisco Bay Area.
They were in tech, they wereearning a ton of money, they had
all this complication likerestricted stock units and
incentive stock options andpaying 50% marginal rates
(12:31):
between state and federalTaxation and being able to buy
real estate in a hyper inflatedenvironment.
And obviously, since then we'vecontinued to grow Alice and
wealth management across theUnited States.
We have clients all over thecountry.
Of course, conrad, your officein the Atlanta area we're gonna
be continuing to grow and expandthere.
I'm in Charleston, southCarolina.
(12:52):
David's up in the Boston areanow, so we really have a pretty
good reach.
But what I saw was that, youknow, these five pillars were
Insurmountable and kind ofhaving an efficient plan and
building and maximizing wealth,whether you were in the
accumulation phase of the moneycycle or you are maybe getting
ready to retire or stop workingor at least leave your full-time
(13:16):
job and maybe tap into thatdistribution phase of the money
cycle.
And so much of this for theTraditional consumer is not
coordinated because, conrad, asyou mentioned earlier, most
Professionals, they operate insilos and you know what we've
seen is the ultra, ultra highnet worth.
(13:37):
You know the Jeff Bezos, theMark Zuckerbergs, the Elon
Musk's of the world.
They have what's called atraditional family office.
That family office is a staffof team members that Only work
on behalf of that family, andit's a huge amount of money to
(13:57):
run a family office, right, itcould cost hundreds of thousands
, if not millions of dollars.
And so what the benefit of thatfamily office approach was is
that it was a team ofprofessionals sitting down at
the table all working in Incoordination on behalf of the
client.
The attorney was talking to theinvestment advisor, who is
(14:19):
talking to the tax experts, whowere talking to the business
advisors who are helping withthe overall planning, advisory
and strategy, and what we sawwas that, for anybody else,
right, if you weren't the theTitans of the world when it
comes to capitalism you were notgetting that coordinated
approach.
(14:39):
Your financial advisor Wasn'treally coordinating with your
investment advisor orstockbroker or Maybe you were
doing it yourself on, you know,e-trade or Schwab that wasn't
all being coordinated with theCPA or tax advisor, that wasn't
being coordinated with yourinsurance advisor and, last but
(15:02):
not least, it certainly wasn'tbeing coordinated with your
attorney who drafted maybe yourwill or your trust or other
legal documents like LL C's, tomake sure all of these things
were really working in harmonyand that they were being kept up
to date.
The up-to-date part is the bigissue, because what we've seen
(15:23):
is you could have all of thisstuff put in place Three, four,
five years ago, but two bigthings happen.
Number one, your life changesand number two, certain laws
change.
Right, if you set up, let's say, a living, revocable trust five
or six years ago, there's agood chance it's out of date,
(15:43):
because we've seen two massivelaws Secure act 1.0 and secure
act 2.0 that Dramaticallychanged the way we use trust,
and so that's just one exampleof you know, if your legacy
planning, your estate planningisn't well Coordinated with your
asset management, your taxmanagement, your protection
(16:05):
planning in your financialplanning.
You may have gaps in your planand not even know it.
You could pay excessive taxes,fees or just have lack of
efficiency as you're buildingand growing wealth.
So we want to dive into theseand kind of talk through some
common things that we see withclients that maybe they're doing
well, that you could take awayMaybe they're not doing so well,
(16:28):
might give you an action itemto kind of revisit your own plan
and just kind of some of thevalue of Working with a holistic
wealth management offering.
And I know, conrad, you knowjust kind of looking at this
visual here, this was big foryou because you know I think
like being a CPA and David and Iare both enrolled agents as
well, which is the highestdesignation that the IRS awards
(16:52):
but you know it really focuses alot more on Individual income
taxation, where the CPA is likethe mecca of taxes, right, like
you can do public accounting,you guys are individual tax
experts, you can do audit, butyou were like Excelling at tax
management.
You know that was one of theattractions of you joining our
team is.
(17:12):
You know you know more abouttaxes on your little finger.
Then you know a lot of taxprofessionals know over their
whole career of experience andso you really had that pillar
down pat.
But you know you were lookingto expand your team and your
resources on asset management,financial planning, legacy and
estate planning, protectionplanning.
(17:33):
So talk about kind of yourexperience coming through the
industry and what you've seen,you know just in the last two
months of joining Allison wealthand how you think this can Help
some of your existing clients,whether you know it's just a tax
only client that maybe hasentrusted you for tax planning
or tax preparation and you knowWe'll talk about the difference
(17:56):
of tax management from tax prepand tax planning in just a few
minutes here.
But you know, just love to hearsome insight from you on this,
absolutely you know, and inseeing this, this visual to me
is so powerful, right?
Speaker 2 (18:10):
This is really why I joined C2B and Allison.
Well, when you look at thesefive things right, look at and
look at what's happening, right,it's like a dial you and you're
turning it.
Let's go the opposite way.
What's unwinding, what happensright, and this is what I've
seen so many times, right, whenyou unwind it, you have the
individual pieces that don'twork together, and so a lot of
(18:33):
times, what I'll have issomebody say hey, you know, I
want to do this, what should Ibe doing?
Well, here's your tax advice.
That may not be good from anasset management perspective,
right, it may not actually begood from a legacy planning
perspective, but from a taxperspective it works really well
.
Does that mean it's good forthe client?
And the answer is no, right.
The other part of that is I cangive really, really good,
(18:55):
valuable advice, but if we're,if you've ever played the game
telephone, you know by the timeyou get to the fourth and fifth
person, what's actually happened.
It doesn't work, right.
And so I think what you can dois take, replace holistic wealth
management.
Clients can look at this and saythat's me, that's me and I have
all of these things surroundingme and I have a team that works
(19:17):
together to actually accomplishthis From a tax management
perspective.
I see it all the time, right,clients come into my office and
say, hey, should I be doing this?
And I always tell them, hey, Ican tell you if we haven't gone
through, really, the bucket plan.
I can't tell you if this isreally good or bad for you, but
(19:38):
I can tell you whether it makessense from a tax perspective.
Right, and I hate having to dothat because I wish every client
had a bucket plan that we canpull up and say this is really
good for you, we should be doingthis and we should do more of
it.
Or this doesn't accomplish thefact that you want to pass on
these assets to your kids orgrandkids, right, it's going to
(19:59):
be the exact opposite.
So I think seeing this is huge,but I think clients, as we
start to unwind it and talkabout it, I think we're going to
see why.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
So I just had a visual.
So I'm not the most handyperson in the world, but I just
had to build a bench and somestorage in my garage and I went
and bought a circular saw.
Conrad, I know you're a handyperson, so you're just going to
laugh at me here, but itreminded me when you just said
that of if you put the blade onthe circular saw the right way,
(20:32):
it's going to cut a reallyefficient cut through the piece
of wood.
But imagine if you put that sawblade on backwards right, it's
not going to be very efficient.
And when we look at holisticwealth management, this is a
visual of kind of putting thatsaw blade on the right way.
Financial planning as thefoundation leading into asset
(20:52):
management.
We all want to grow ourinvestments, earn the best rates
of return we can, given theright amount of risk we're
willing to take.
We want to pay the least amountof taxes legally possible, not
just in our lifetime but uponour passing as we transfer our
money to that next generation.
We want to make sure we haveproper protection planning so
(21:13):
that all the what ifs in lifeare covered.
And, last but not least, wewant to ensure legacy planning
is set up, because none of uslike to think about our own
demise or passing, but we needto ensure that when we're no
longer here, our money goes toour intended beneficiaries under
the set of rules that we wantthem to abide by right.
(21:36):
We don't want unintendedbeneficiaries like the IRS, the
Internal Revenue Service, taxes,state taxes or, even worse in
some cases, probate court, whereassets can get tangled up for
months and months and months andit can be extremely costly.
And so just kind of a greatvisual as you're talking about
(21:57):
it, and I want to just jump intothe bucket plan.
You mentioned that terminologyand, for those of you who aren't
familiar, that is thefoundation of our financial
planning process.
So for every new client, whenthey decide to work with Alice
in Wealth Management, you cansee the bucket plan up on the
screen If you're watching rightnow.
If you're not, I'll verballyjust walk you through this.
(22:18):
But this is really our clienton boarding to help really
deliver holistic planning thatis in your best interest.
See, at Alice in Wealth we areall fiduciaries, meaning we are
legally obligated to serve yourbest interest and your best
interest alone, not sellproducts, not represent a
certain company, but really toadvise, and one of the things
(22:41):
that I've really distilled inthe culture of the company and
it's the most important thing tome is we're educators.
We educate you on the trade-off, because personal finance is
more personal than it is finance.
There's not two people that canmake the same decision and have
the same outcome, and so whatwe do with the bucket plan is we
(23:03):
start with an introductorymeeting.
It's called our DiscoverMeeting.
It's all about where you wantto go, learning about you, your
goals and objectives, yourcurrent finances and taxes and
your priorities and whatservices we might need to
prioritize on your behalf todeliver to you, to start to lay
the foundation for a reallysolid financial plan.
(23:25):
From there we move into ourdesign phase.
This is where I lean on David alot, and Conrad, bringing your
expertise in, because this iswhere we start to crunch the
numbers.
Analyze the data, organize yourfinancial life, understand your
net worth, assess your cashflow, review your taxes to see
(23:45):
if there's any areas ofoptimization or improvement, not
just today, but your futurelifetime taxes.
Analyze the risks that you'retaking both in your investments
as well as liability risks inyour life Simple things like
understanding if you have anumbrella policy.
Again, I have little kids, Ihave a swimming pool, they have
(24:08):
friends over all the time.
Boy, is something as simple asan umbrella policy very, very
important.
We take a look at all of thoserisks that you could be faced
with and we focus on tailoring acustomized plan for you.
Then, in step three, we deliverthat customized bucket plan to
you.
The foundation is your assets,really simplifying them into
(24:32):
three buckets and now, soon andlater.
The now is the money that youmay need or will need in the
next year or so.
The soon bucket is the moneyyou may need or will need in the
near term, maybe the next three, five or 10 years If you're
retired or about to retire.
That soon bucket is designed toprovide you that reliable
(24:54):
retirement income in the firstphase of retirement.
Then, of course, the laterbucket, where we have long-term
growth and legacy planning.
This is where we want toaccelerate the growth of our
money, because we know we have along time horizon before we're
going to need to tap into it.
It's also where we look atlegacy planning, not just for
the kids, the grandkids or thecharities, but, if you're a
(25:17):
married couple, most importantlyfor the surviving spouse,
because Conrad and David, weknow as tax professionals what
happens when one spouse passesaway.
What is it, conrad?
Huh, taxes go up and taxes goup right.
Taxes go up, you go from marriedfiling jointly to a single
filer, and then not only that,for a retired couple, social
(25:41):
security could go down, becauseyou would lose the lower of the
two, and so we need to make surethere's a plan in place for
that.
So we finalize your bucket plan.
We align your investments withyour market volatility tolerance
how much risk you actually wantto take.
You know right now, the lastthree years have been a
tremendous test of volatility.
The markets have been all overthe place, and so, again, it's
(26:05):
ensuring that you're taking theright amount of risk.
But not only are you taking theright amount of risk, you're
actually getting compensated anappropriate return For the
amount of risk you're taking.
We'll look at optimizing yourcash flow.
If you're working, it'sfiguring out how to optimize
your cash flow for anaccumulation plan for the goals
(26:26):
that you have in life.
If you're going into retirement, it's an optimized retirement
income distribution plan.
How do you take the rightamount of money out of the right
account so that you couldmaximize your purchasing power
in retirement, your reliableincome in retirement and,
ultimately, minimize your taxes?
And we lay out all thosesolutions and we educate you on
(26:49):
them and we lay out a transitionand implementation plan to get
you from where you are right nowto how you should be, based on
our expertise.
And then, last but not least,step four is our dedicated
service and support.
This is where you are now anactive wealth management client.
We're here to provide Continual, active plan management,
because this is not a set it andforget it and put the plan in a
(27:12):
drawer and let it, you know,pile up dust.
You're gonna get our team forongoing advice, proactive
communication and education andreally just the Continual focus
on these five pillars ofholistic wealth management.
And so that's just a quickoverview of the bucket plan, as
(27:32):
Conrad mentioned, because, again, you know, sometimes we'll use
terminology like the bucket plan, and so I thought it'd be good
to spend five or six minutesthere just explaining what that
process actually is when a newclient comes on board with Alice
in wealth, so that then we canhave all of the foundational
information to actually Optimizethese other areas.
(27:57):
Right, that was financialplanning.
Right there, understanding yourgoals, your objectives and how
to get you there in the mostefficient manner.
David, you know I'd love tohear from you here, because
you've brought some greatperspective that, like, I think
the industry is a little bitBackwards where you know, the
financial services industry iskind of set on Selling
(28:18):
investments first.
Right, they look to, hey, letme be able to manage your money,
let me buy, let me sell youthis product or this vehicle to
put your money into.
And they do that without reallykind of diving into financial
planning.
And you know, do you have anykind of insight into?
You know, when you establishthat plan first Even though
(28:40):
maybe it's a little more timeconsuming to go through than
just buying an investment whatthat really does kind of on the
back end of helping you expediteachieving your goals and
objectives.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Yeah, and just to kind of take a step back is I
love how you laid out the wholeFour-step process and how it
goes through, but one question Ialways like to ask myself or
ask, ask clients, is do theyhave a well-defined Strategic
financial plan?
Is it simple, easy tounderstand, is it written down
and is it up to date?
That's the key one.
(29:11):
And, dave, what you werementioning is is it, how do
these integrate?
And and what's?
Is it an investment?
First approach as it attacksfirst approach and, as we've
mentioned before, they reallyinterplay with one another and
we've seen it many times wherewe've come With a new, new
(29:32):
person who comes in and they'll,they'll come in and they'll say
we have these investments.
We don't know why we have them,we don't know what they're
doing, we don't know if they fitour situation, if they're,
they're tax efficient, we justknow they're there.
We haven't touched to touch onthem in the last, however many
years.
It could be one, two, three,four, five, and that gets back
to that last point Is it up todate?
(29:52):
So, even if you do have afinancial plan, if you set it
into place one time, is it up todate, is it current?
And that's one thing that Ireally like about this
integrated approach is that, aswe go through each year, each
quarter, whenever we have thesereviews, we can always update
and continually make adjustmentsto the plan.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yeah, I would say for everybody listening you know,
grab a pen and piece of paper,except for if you're driving
right now I know that's where Inormally listen to my podcast
but if you have a pen and apiece of paper, write down that
first pillar financial planningand Score yourself on a scale of
one to ten, which means youknow one is you don't have a
(30:30):
plan at all, right, you're justflying by the seat of your pants
.
A ten is Everything David justmentioned.
Do you have a well documented,simplified plan?
You understand all of theinvestments and why you have
them and what their purpose isand when you might access them
and what your exit plan is, andso, again, that's a ten.
(30:53):
A one is you have nothing.
And I just kind of close out thefinancial planning section with
.
It's like going on across-country journey.
If I was going to drive fromCharleston, south Carolina, to
my Palo Alto California officewhich I would never want to do I
Would certainly want a GPS thatshowed me Directionally the
(31:16):
right way to get there.
Now, could I take detours alongthe way?
Of course I could, that's life.
But I still want that plan thathelps me directionally get
there the most efficient way, orelse I'm going to be zigzagging
all across the world, and so,again, that's exactly what a
financial plan does for you.
Any additional comments, conrador David, on the financial
(31:39):
planning aspect?
Before we jump into pillarnumber two?
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Listen, I think the most important thing that we can
reiterate and you've said ittwice, I'm gonna say a third
time I what's the science?
Yeah, here's seven times beforeit actually sinks in, maybe we
should just all say it anothertime is Is it up to date?
I can't tell you how many timesI've had clients come in and
say hey, you know, I've got thiswill great.
(32:04):
When's it?
When?
When's the last time it's beenupdated?
Oh, it was updated just acouple years ago, 1993, that's
not a couple years ago.
What's, shane, since then?
You got married.
Yet kids Start a business,close business, all of those
things happen in the in themeantime.
So keeping something out todate and kind of creating as it
is, this is active management.
This is not a creative once andhope for the best and hope it
(32:29):
stays there.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Well, and I would say this too, I hear from people
yeah, I had a financial plan soand so, developed it for me, but
so and so might have only beenan expert in one discipline like
investment management.
Right, and that's one of thethings I've been really proud of
of our team, too, of advisors.
We have CFPs.
All of us do certifiedfinancial planner, gold standard
(32:50):
and personal financial planning.
We're all investment advisorRepresentatives under an SEC
registered investment advisoryfirm, so we have expertise on
investment advisory solutions.
We're all insurance licensed sothat we could look and analyze
the risks or protection productsto optimize.
(33:12):
We're all tax experts.
Conrad, you're a CPA, david andI are enrolled agents admitted
to practice before the IRS, andAll of us have a deep expertise
in legacy planning and estateplanning.
And while none of us areattorneys, we have an attorney,
a couple attorneys, depending onwhat our clients need that come
(33:33):
into the planning process andwork with our clients on the
drafting of legal documents.
And so again, you got to reallychallenge the advisor if you're
working with somebody alreadyon what their expertise is,
because if you know, againthey're a hammer, everything's
going to look like a nail andthe plan might not actually
(33:55):
account for all of thesedifferent areas that are so
important to your personalfinancial situation.
And so let's let's chat alittle bit about asset
management.
You know, this one, I alwayssay, is kind of the no-brainer,
because the goal of assetmanagement, in my opinion, is
just to earn the most amount ofmoney that we can write.
(34:16):
We want to maximize ourperformance, but Do it within
the confines of the amount ofrisk that you're personally
comfortable with taking.
I had a mentor this is going tobe kind of gross, but he used
to say no, two people can eattacos before riding a roller
coaster and have the sameoutcome, and the stock market is
(34:37):
the same way, right?
Just because you might want totry to earn 10% annualized
returns and that sounds greatyou might not have the stomach
for that type of volatility,because to be able to earn 10%
annualized returns, you mighthave to see your account
balances fall by 50% or more.
If we have a big black swanevent like the great financial
(35:00):
crisis or the pandemic of 2020,the dot-com bubble of 2000 and
2001 or, quite frankly, some ofthe volatility we saw last year
in the markets with the Fed andtheir Historic rise in interest
rates to try to fight inflation,and so Investment management is
not a cookie cutterone-size-fits-all approach for
(35:22):
everybody.
It's very individualized andcustomized, and not only for
optimizing performance.
But it's not just about whatyou make, it's about what you
keep.
And, conrad and David, what canbe one of the biggest Errosions
of wealth when it comes tofolks that have non retirement
(35:43):
assets and they're thinkingabout investing it?
Whether it's the stock market,the bond market, real estate, it
doesn't matter.
What can erode wealth quickerthan anything?
Tax Taxes right.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
I mean taxes are likely your, and both people
don't realize because we paythem so far over time.
Taxes, if we calculate trueimpact, is going to be your
biggest expense in what 99% ofpeople's lives?
That's a massive amount.
Why not focus on that?
I want to take a step back,though, and really, outside of
(36:19):
taxes, let's take a look at whatasset management really is
right.
Assets aren't only marketinvestments.
How many times have we advisedclients on real estate?
How about small businessholdings?
I have so many clients thatlook at it and say, yeah, I know
I need to have passive income.
How do I deploy assets in themarket?
(36:41):
But I know my industry.
I've started a business, I'verun it successfully and sold it.
I want to go buy, build andsell those assets right.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
But I need to have 100%.
I mean, I look at myself.
My biggest assets are my twobusinesses that I have Allison
Wealth Management and C2P.
Honestly, if I had a financialadvisor I do some people on this
team here but if I had anoutside financial advisor and
they weren't incorporating oradvising or helping me with
(37:13):
strategy and direction on my twobiggest assets, I'd be looking
for a new advisor pretty quickly, right, and the same goes with
your home equity.
That's an incredibly valuableasset that needs to be optimized
within an overall retirementand holistic financial plan.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Right, yeah, david, I think you've sent it out to one
of the clients.
Last you ran an analysis on arental property, right?
And this person they're not arental management company, but
talk through some of thedecisions that you actually
looked at and how to say, hey,is this a good thing or a bad
thing?
Right now, it's a very valuableconversation we can have that
(37:53):
clients can probably understand.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
Yeah, I mean and just from a high level, you look at
it like any other investment iswhat is the initial outlay,
what's gonna be your yearlyincome and what's gonna be the
overall return on investmentwhen you're through with this
property?
So you can take any asset,whether it's a rental property,
an alternative investment,traditional stocks, and say what
is the true cost of having thisand what's the true risk and
(38:18):
what is your expected outcome,and then you can take and look
at it and say is the risk worththe reward of this for any
investment, Not just yourtraditional assets that you
would buy in the stock market,but, like you said, real estate
or anything else.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Yeah, and for all my clients listening, I have to
tell you this is exactly why Iwas so excited to join House
wealth.
Most of the time I hear peopletalk about their advisor that
shies away or says we don't dothat, we as a team lean in and
say we're gonna figure it out.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Yeah, I mean I share.
When it comes to assets, ournumber one goal is helping our
clients maximize their wealth,and there's a lot of ways to do
that.
There could be stock marketassets, there could be bond
market assets, there could bereal estate assets, there could
be private equity assets, therecould be life insurance assets,
right, and so there's a lot ofdifferent ways to optimize
somebody's financial situation.
(39:13):
Let's transition over to taxmanagement, and I know we spoke
about taxes a little bit, butwhen I think of tax management,
there's a big difference betweentax preparation, tax planning
and tax management.
So tax preparation is thescorecard.
It's if you're a golfer, whenyou're in the clubhouse adding
(39:33):
up your score and seeing howwell you did, but you can't do
anything at that point.
There's very little strategythat could be implemented after
the clock strikes midnight onDecember 31st.
It's a use it or lose it taxcode, and so tax preparation is
necessary.
It's like if I were gonna gobuild a home, the first thing
(39:57):
that I would do is I would hirean architect to design a
blueprint.
That's a service.
I pay the architect.
I'm doing it right now for aproject we're working on in our
backyard.
The architect charged me a fee.
They're gonna design and writeup the blueprint.
That's very much like taxplanning.
You could hire us at AllisonWealth Management for a tax plan
(40:21):
.
It's traditionally a one-timeevent.
Hey, I have this big situation,I'm gonna sell my business.
Help me think through this taxplan.
We'll design a blueprint, we'lldeliver it.
The next step is implementation, though.
Once I hire that architect andthey design my blueprint, now I
need somebody to go build it forme and do it.
(40:41):
I'm gonna hire a builder Ialready have one and they're
actually gonna take care of theconstruction, the building, the
implementation and the upkeep ofthe renovation that we're gonna
do.
The third component is theinspector signing off to make
sure everything's up to code.
That's like tax preparationjust signing off to make sure
(41:02):
it's up to code right.
Tax planning is like thearchitect, tax management is
like the builder, and then taxpreparation is like the
inspector.
Now, we're a little bitdifferent at Allison Wealth in
that we offer all three of thoseunder one roof.
We're CPAs and enrolled agents.
Of course, we can do the taxpreparation that's the least fun
(41:24):
side of it but we engage in alot of tax planning specifically
for clients that have bigone-time events that they just
need an expert to help themguide on the right decision.
Then, of course, our biggestarea of focus, and where I feel
we provide the most value, istax management.
There's three areas of taxmanagement how do we maximize
(41:47):
your tax situation each andevery year?
How do we maximize yourlifetime tax situation, meaning,
how do we get the most valueout of your wealth with paying
the least amount of taxeslegally?
And then the third is upontransfer, because if you've been
successful at building wealth,there's estate taxes that you
(42:10):
could be subject to Now.
Today they're only for ourclients, over 24 to $25 million,
but in 2026, that is set tosunset and get cut by half, and
so 2024 and 2025 are some of themost important years to get
your estate in order fortransfer tax.
(42:30):
And that really integrates withlegacy planning because, again,
I know for my legacy that Iwanna live, leave to my family.
I don't want the government tobe part of that.
I wanted to go to my threelittle girls and other charities
and causes that are importantto me, but not to the IRS.
And when it comes to legacyplanning and tax management upon
(42:52):
your passing, there's threeplaces your money can go.
There's your family, there'scharities that are important to
you, and then there's to taxes,to IRS, and you always have to
pick two of the three.
So is it your family andcharities?
Is it your family in the IRS oris it charities in the IRS?
(43:13):
And these are the decisionsthat we help clients think about
, because news flash, if youpass away, it's too late to make
any of these decisions.
You're going on the governmentplan at that point and they're
gonna try to take as much asthey can.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
I have someone very unfortunate what I'm gonna call
horror stories, right.
And there's one recently that Ihave a client that his catalyst
, unfortunately, was what causedhis passing.
He decided that it was time,after getting diagnosed with a
blood disorder, that he neededto really do some financial plan
.
Right, he wasn't working withanybody and his estate was not
(43:51):
in good order, hadn't beenupdated in 25 years.
Well, what, simply?
What happened was he started abusiness that grew to a 20 plus
million dollar valuation in thattime, right.
And so we started the process.
We literally went through thefirst Discover meeting and he
passed away, right.
And so we're now scramblingtrying to figure out well, we've
(44:14):
got this bomb that just wentoff, how do we address it?
Right.
And then the remaining spousehow do we now mention that 24 to
25 million?
Well, that's now cut in half,right.
Even if we roll forward aspousal exemption, we still have
a problem.
So we better start planningtoday, because in 2026, if we
(44:36):
don't do anything right, thinkabout what the government's
going to get if we don't reallyinvolve charity Millions of
dollars of that business in thatestate.
And so I think that to me, I'vegot a couple of those
unfortunate stories whereplanning was not done timely
100%, and I want to show theimportance of how these three
(44:59):
things integrate together.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
So again, financial planning rank yourself one out
of 10.
10 is the best one.
You need some work.
Asset management all of yourassets, not just your stock and
bond portfolio or your 401k.
Rank yourself or your advisor.
You're currently working withOne out of 10.
Tax management helping youmaximize your wealth and
(45:23):
minimize your taxes each andevery year your lifetime taxes
and, ultimately, the potentialtransfer tax.
Rank that one out of 10.
Protection planning is the nextone.
This is for all the what ifs inlife, and it's not just
insurance, right.
There's core insurance that Ithink is very important for
(45:45):
everybody.
If you're a high income earneror the wage earner and provider
for your family and you have ayoung family and you're not
financially independent andwealthy, life insurance is
critical, right?
If you were to pass away, Ialways joke and say if the
Budweiser truck was driving downthe street and ran you over,
(46:06):
how much money would you wantyour family to sue Budweiser for
?
Well, how you think about thatis what was kind of your human
life value If you were tocontinue to work for the next 20
or 30 years.
That's your human life value.
That's what you would want yourfamily to sue Budweiser for.
That's probably the amount oflife insurance coverage that you
(46:27):
should have, if you're reallyworth that much.
Now you could dial it back andsay, yeah, but you know what?
I don't need that much.
I just need enough to make suremy family can live the
lifestyle that we wanted them tolive had I been around and
that's a fair statement as well.
There's disability insurance.
If you were to become disabledand not be able to go to work,
(46:47):
how do you make sure thepaycheck comes in?
There's property and casualtyinsurance.
I have a boat.
I have boat insurance if I wereto do something out on the
water.
Of course, we have cars.
We have car insurance, we havehomeowners insurance and we have
an almighty umbrella policythat protects us for a lot of
things.
That is incredibly cheap.
My umbrella policy for $5million of coverage is less than
(47:11):
$600 a year.
So these are things that areno-brainers.
But there's also protectionplanning around things like
market volatility.
There's portfolio insurance.
We have investments that canprovide complete downside
protection so that if the marketcrashes, you don't experience
those losses.
(47:31):
There's protection planningagainst longevity risk.
Some people are worried what ifI live into my 90s or hundreds,
or even later?
How do I ensure that I don'trun out of money?
Well, there's protectionplanning for longevity risk.
There's long-term care planningright, the big unknowns of
healthcare and retirement andthe things that traditional
(47:53):
Medicare doesn't cover, and soprotection planning encompasses
all of these different thingstogether to be able to analyze
and mitigate risks.
Because there's only two waysyou can do this you either
self-insure or you shift thatliability to an insurance
company for a cost, and you needto weigh that cost-benefit
(48:16):
analysis For some people.
They don't have the stomach toself-insure.
They'd rather carve off a smallpiece of their portfolio or
their income for the shifting ofliability.
For my house, I have homeownersinsurance because I don't think
a fire is going to happen, butboy I know, if it did, I would
(48:37):
certainly want an insurancecompany to be able to cover the
cost of rebuilding this house.
And so those are just examplesof protection planning and how
they fit into a financial plan,how they fit into your asset
management, and we didn't evendiscuss but there's a lot of
benefits from a tax perspectiveof some of these things, like
(48:59):
life insurance in an estate plan, because the biggest purchases
of a life insurance aren'tsomebody who's looking to
replace lost wages If a wageearner passes away.
It's the ultra, ultra wealthywho are looking at creating
dynamistical, tax-efficientwealth, because life insurance
is the only product that canpass on to the next generation
(49:22):
income tax-free as well asestate tax-free.
And so these are all the thingsthat we think about in
combining tax management, assetmanagement, protection planning
and legacy planning.
Fellas, anything to add onprotection planning as we go to
kind of land the airplane here.
Speaker 3 (49:40):
I would just go back to that question Is your
protection planning up to date?
It changes year to year and Ican't tell you how many times
we've gone through and it's not.
Do you have protection planning?
Is it up to date?
Because the rates change everyyear for some products, so does
a landscape, that's a greatpoint.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
I just fired my property and casualty agent
because I was frustrated theyweren't proactively updating my
policies.
I shopped it around.
I found a new company,independent Property and
Casualty Brokerage, that endedup saving me $4,000 a year on my
homeowners, my auto, my boat,my umbrella and my personal
(50:21):
liability insurance $4,000 ayear and improved my coverage.
And the other company was justbeing lazy.
Right, they knew I was acustomer so they weren't
proactively doing that.
And so again, we don't doproperty and casualty in-house,
but we help you coordinate thatwith the right experts who can
(50:43):
understand coverage in yourstate, because that is a very
state-specific thing.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
Clients in California might have earthquakes, we here
in Charleston, south Carolina,have hurricanes and floods, so
let's I'd like to add one morething that we also do and we did
it recently with a client istalk through business liability
right, the use of LLCs orescorts or whatever structure.
How do we separate liability sothat assets that are personal
(51:11):
stay personal and that arebusiness stay business and they
don't affect each other?
Speaker 1 (51:17):
Absolutely.
And then the last but not leastof the five pillars.
So go ahead and rank yourselfon protection planning, one
through 10.
The final pillar is legacyplanning.
Legacy planning for thissurviving spouse, if you're a
married couple.
How do we protect theirlifestyle?
How do we protect theirpurchasing power?
(51:37):
How do we continue to drawassets in the most efficient way
for their supplementalretirement income?
How do we deal with, maybe, alost pension or social security?
But also legacy planning forthat next generation.
Right Asking those simplequestions of when you're gone,
where does your money go, who'sin charge and what are the rules
(52:01):
?
Where does your money go, who'sin charge and what are the rules
?
And there's a lot of strategythat you could think about while
you're alive that help reallydirect and achieve your goals
and objectives.
One of the exercises Ipersonally do and I think this
is incredibly important for anybusiness owner is every year I
(52:23):
kill myself off.
Not really I'm still here, butevery year I hypothetically kill
myself off and I say where doesmy money go, who's in charge
and what are the rules?
Who's the trustee of my money?
In this case it's my olderbrother.
He's going to be the fiduciaryto make sure that the trust is
invested and managed anddistributing the right amount of
(52:45):
money for the benefit of mythree children.
What happens to my businesses?
Who's going to be put in charge?
Who's that next succession?
Who's going to be able to makesure all of our clients are
served and that the businesscarries on its goals and its
objectives?
And so these are things that,again, I would say if you're
(53:06):
working with a big wire house oran investment advisor, these
are not the things they'retypically doing and these are
the conversations we're havingwith our clients all day long in
helping be that household CFOor that fractional CFO in their
business.
And I'll just close with thisfrom my perspective, one of the
biggest benefits that we havethe amazing fortune of at
(53:30):
Allison Wealth Management Icould speak for myself, conrad
David is we get to see what'sgoing on in the lives of other
very successful families who aredealing with these same issues.
And while we can't prescribe aone size fits all answer, we can
help educate you on thetradeoffs of the decisions that
(53:51):
are in front of you and I wantto share with you.
Hey, we had another family thatwent through something similar.
Here's what they did, here'swhat worked.
Here's what didn't work.
Here's how it changes a littlebit based on your situation, and
all we do is help bringperspective, and that
perspective could mean a huge,huge difference in the outcome
(54:12):
and in your total wealth andwhat you're able to do to
achieve your goals andobjectives throughout your
lifetime.
So, conrad, again, I'm soexcited for you to be on the
team here.
David Conrad, any kind of wordsof wisdom as we close out here?
Speaker 2 (54:29):
No, I think you landed the plane brilliantly
with with legacy planning out.
Well, we could probably spend awhole episode on that alone, I
think.
For today, I just want to closewith I'm excited to be here,
I'm excited for what we can doas a team, and I've, for the
first time in a long time,really, really look forward to
(54:50):
coming back into work every dayand learning.
I think it's a great thing.
We're going to do really goodthings together.
Speaker 3 (54:57):
Yeah, I'm really excited to have you on the team,
conrad, and looking forward tocontinuing to grow.
Speaker 1 (55:02):
Yeah, all right.
Well, don't forget, subscribeto our channel here.
Don't miss an episode.
Follow us on YouTube.
Follow us on social media.
We're always putting outcontent, even if it's not the
right time for you to hire aholistic wealth advisor.
We put out tons of contentblogs, podcasts, social media
posts that can continue to helpbring value to your situation,
(55:23):
and we'll see you on the nextepisode.
Speaker 4 (55:53):
I have been created by a third party and was not
written or created by a PCAaffiliated advisor and does not
represent the views and opinionsof PCA or its subsidiary.
For information pertaining tothe registration status of PCA,
please contact the firm or referto the Investment Advisor
Public Disclosure website.
For additional informationabout PCA, including fees and
(56:13):
services, send for ourdisclosure statement as set
forth on Form A-B from PCA usingthe contact information here.
Please read the disclosurestatement carefully before you
invest or send money.
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