April 22, 2025 • 31 mins
Our special guest, Jeff Chase, Senior Vice President of Financial Planning at S.E.E.D. Planning Group, is back! In this episode, we're diving deep into financial planning and exposing financial advisors and professionals who might be more about sales than sound advice.
We'll break down how to distinguish experienced, qualified financial planners from those who are just in it for the commission—because when it comes to your financial future, you deserve a true professional, not just a salesperson.
We discuss how to find someone who’s not only got your back but also understands the game, helping you make sound decisions for your future. It's your money and life!
Takeaways:
- Navigating the financial world can feel like a treasure hunt with no map; we need to be wise and cautious about who we trust with our cash.
- A good financial advisor isn't just selling you products; they should be helping you level up in life and finances, like your personal finance Yoda.
- Don't let financial jargon trip you up; understanding your own money situation is more important than ever in this complicated world.
- The key to financial planning is more than just numbers; it's about helping clients prioritize their goals and navigate life's financial rollercoaster with empathy.
About Jeff
Jeff is the Senior Vice President of Financial Planning at S.E.E.D. Planning Group, a fee-only financial firm committed to acting in its clients' best interests as a fiduciary.
He joined S.E.E.D. in 2020 and is a key member of the firm's leadership team. He currently oversees and leads the financial planning team, which consists of nine financial planners and wealth managers.
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Thanks to our sponsor, S.E.E.D. Planning Group! S.E.E.D. is a fee-only financial planning firm with a fiduciary obligation to put your best interest first. Schedule your free discovery meeting at www.seedpg.com
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About Your Co-Hosts:
Travis Maus has been in financial services for over fifteen years. He is a Senior Wealth Manager and Chief Executive Officer at S.E.E.D. Planning Group. Travis also hosts the Unleashing Leadership Podcast, where he dissects some of his favorite books on leadership and how you can apply it to your business or life.
Steve Campbell has over a decade of industry experience and is a Senior Marketing Director at S.E.E.D. Planning Group. Steve also hosts the One Big Thing Podcast, an interview-style show meant to inspire and encourage 30 and 40-year-olds going through difficult seasons of navigating marriage, raising kids, and growing personally.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Foreign.
Welcome to Ditch the SuitsPodcast where we share insights nobody
in the financial servicesindustry wants you to know about.
We're here to help you get themost from your money in life.
So buckle up and welcome toDitch the Suits.
(00:20):
So we're picking up where weleft off with Jeff Chase, our vp,
our senior VP of financialplanning services.
And we've been talking aboutreally, how do you identify a so
called financial advisor overreally the real deal?
So when you talk to somebodyand say, I got a guy or you meet
(00:40):
somebody at a party and theysay, you know, I can be your guy
or your Gail or whatever, andthis is what I do, how do you know
they're the real deal?
And how do you know they'renot just selling you a bunch of fluff?
I think it's really important.
Why I wanted Jeff to join usis that if you understand what it
takes to be a good financialadvisor or what we think it takes
(01:02):
to be a good financialadvisor, the way that we work with
our people to develop them.
If your financial advisor isnot developing as a person and as
a professional, how can theypossibly be there to guide you to
develop as a person and as a family?
Because that's really a lot ofwhat financial planning is, is helping
families make good decisions.
(01:23):
And so, you know, it's one ofthose things where it can't be just
do as I say, not as I do.
You know, you really, ifyou're taking life advice from somebody
and making, having somebodyinfluence, shaping these decisions,
you really want to know thatyou're working with somebody who
is striving themselves to bebetter for something other than just
money.
(01:43):
And so I think that this app,this series is going to help people,
our listeners kind of have abetter idea of what to look for,
even subconsciously.
Like, I want somebody thatsounds like that.
I want somebody who believesin those things type of stuff.
And so we've got a four part miniseries.
We've done episode one.
We're moving into episode two.
We left off with a cliffhangeroff of episode one.
(02:06):
So we're going to get intoreally what Jeff thinks a little
bit more and get into a littlebit more of his experience and some
of the things that, that he'sdone through the years today.
But before we do, Steve, Ithink we've got some intros.
Make sure everybody knowswhere they are today.
Yeah.
Welcome to Digital Suits Podcast.
My name is Steve Campbell.
I serve as a senior marketingdirector at Seed Planning Group.
(02:28):
Guy you just heard from TravisMoss is our Chief Executive Officer.
For those that don't know,Seed is a fee only financial planning
firm.
So this show is all about usbringing our collective experience
of what we do every day tohelp empower you to get the most
from your money in life.
Let's take a break to hear aword from our sponsor.
This episode is brought to youby the Unleashing Leadership Podcast.
Join Travis Moss, seasonedentrepreneur and business leader,
(02:51):
on a transformational journeyof leadership exploration.
In this thought provokingpodcast, Travis shares his invaluable
insights and experiencesgained from two decades of managing
diverse businesses whichinclude small family enterprises,
Fortune 500 companies, and hisown successful startups.
Through candid storytelling inreal life examples, he unveils the
(03:12):
profound truth that success orfailure ultimately rests upon a leader's
ability to to recognize andunleash the potential in others.
Start listening to theUnleashing Leadership Podcast today,
available on all major podcast platforms.
And Jeff, one of the thingsthat we had left as a teaser in episode
one was a question that wewant to lead off because I think
it's going to be pretty telling.
(03:34):
What is one thing that JeffChase would change about the industry?
Yeah, so the one thing Ichange about the industry is really
the, I think this, this goeswithout probably not a surprise,
right?
I would change the salesaspect of it.
And really the conflicts ofinterest that exist in financial
planning.
Financial planners should notbe pressured to sell products.
That is, that should not bepart of what a financial planner's
(03:56):
responsibilities are.
There's nothing wrong withsales, Right.
I just don't think salesshould be part of the responsibilities
of a financial planner.
And clients shouldn't have towonder either, right.
When they're sitting acrossthe table from us, they shouldn't
have to sit there and wonder,you know, is what this guy's telling
me right now, is that reallywhat's in my best interest or is
he just trying to sell me something?
Right.
And I'll tell you, because Ihave experience in that world, people
(04:21):
can feel that.
Right.
And that's something thatwe've done here at Seed, is we've
eliminated that conflict of interest.
You know, we can certainlyexpand on that a little bit more.
And I know you asked me forone thing, but I'll give you another.
Another thing that I justcan't stand about the industry in
general is, is this kind ofthe stuffiness, right.
(04:41):
Of like, oh, you're going tosee a financial advisor.
It doesn't have to be that way.
Right.
We're on a podcast right nowcalled Ditch the suits.
You see us sitting here inquarter zips.
We're not sitting here in suits.
And, you know, everything iscomfortable, it's relaxed.
When you come in and meet withus, the end of the day, we're all
just people.
Right?
We just do financial planningfor a living.
That's it.
(05:02):
Yeah.
There's this idea within theindustry, and I've heard people talk
about it before, that, youknow, in order to give good advice.
So let's say that you're aclient with $5 million.
Their perception is in orderto give good advice to a client with
$5 million, somebody has tohave $5 million.
And I don't think thateverybody who has $5 million has
had the same life experience.
(05:24):
We have $5 million.
So if you make $5 millionselling products to people, and I
made $5 million being anentrepreneur, we do not have anything
in common.
The way you look at your $5million and the way I look at my
$5 million are you're faking it.
Right?
It's just you're being dishonest.
It's not true.
(05:44):
So the goal with a financialplanner really ought to be, how do
I just help people understandhow the game works so that they can
make good decisions and howcan I help understand what their
values are so that whenthey're making a decision that's
contrary to.
To what they've told us, youknow, is their ultimate objective,
(06:04):
I can kind of slap their handand say, no, that's not what you
were trying to do.
Remember, you were trying todo this over here.
If you do that, it's going toderail you.
Not that you can't do itbecause it's your life and your money,
but that's going to get youmaybe not where you want it to be.
Absolutely, yeah.
There was one thing you saidback in the first episode, and I.
(06:27):
Let me see what, I wrote it down.
You said in college you tookthese classes on financial planning
and then you said what theythought was financial planning.
Talk about that more.
What's happening at thecollege level?
And this isn't.
We're not going to pick onwhatever college it is, because I've.
I actually think that this happens.
(06:48):
A lot of kids that I'veinterviewed coming out of school
have a misconception on whatfinancial planning actually is.
And they've taken classes.
Now, certainly those classeshave given them kind of a leg up
because they've got some basicknowledge like mutual funds and cash
flow analysis and stuff like that.
But there seems to be Adisconnect with how the industry
(07:10):
works.
The college might be accuratein an ideal world, what it should
be like.
But, and I'm not, you know,I'm just speculating.
But in the real world, whatit's actually like, the two things,
like there's no, there's.
There's a very limitedconnection or spotty connection at
best.
So talk about what you meant,you know, by that.
(07:32):
You know, like, just explainthat experience to us.
Yeah.
And I guess partly what Isaid, I don't really necessarily
mean it in a, in a negative way.
Kind of like what you werejust saying.
Some of it was behavioralfinance based, which I actually thought
was pretty cool.
That was actually very helpful information.
But a lot of it was, you know,they would talk about mutual funds
(07:54):
or cash flow type of analysisor life insurance or hey, these are
some things when someone goesto retire that you're going to have
to think about.
Right.
So it was, it was very, veryhigh level or very surface level.
When I say what they thoughtwas financial planning, when I actually
got into it, I guessoriginally when I went into my first
(08:17):
role, it was nothing like that.
It was all just go sell thisannuity, go sell this life insurance.
It'll be an asset gatherer.
Right?
Yeah.
And now as I have progressedinto the role here, it's just a lot
more deep.
There's a lot more to it than,you know, here's some basic information
(08:37):
about what financial planning is.
Right.
There's so much more to it.
And I think that's the beautyof it too.
Right.
That's one of the things Ilove about financial planning is
there isn't redundancy.
I hate redundancy in general.
Right.
If I have to do the same thingover and over and over again, not
real fun.
Right.
So the, the variety that yousee from clients, it's always something
(09:02):
new.
In general, we're doing thesame thing.
Right.
We're doing financialplanning, but everyone's situation
is different.
So that's one of the things Ireally love about it.
Do you want more of Ditch the Suits?
Well, let's take a break totell you about our Patreon channel.
If you're wanting moreannouncements, notifications, even
access to prior seasons, youcan head to patreon.com, search ditch
(09:23):
the Suits and subscribe to our channel.
You'll get notifications ofall episodes right in your inbox.
So visit patreon.com searchditch the suits or head to our show
Notes where we got links toour channel.
Yeah, I Think where I wasgoing to with the school stuff is
(09:43):
you don't come right out ofschool and all of a sudden start
telling somebody 35 yearsolder than you what to do and that
you know life better than they do.
Right.
You know, and when we'retalking about money and stuff like
that, it's not whether or notyou have as much money as them, it's
whether or not you understandand you have perspective and you
have empathy and, and youlisten and you can help prioritize
(10:09):
and you can help them weighdecisions because most people we
work with have the ability tomake the right decisions.
When you go out and you Googlefor financial planning advice and
you say, can I do this?
Or what's this?
Or how's the rules work?
Everything is so complicated.
And the way that searchengines work anymore, you don't know
(10:32):
if you're getting goodinformation or bad information.
So the role, a lot of times agood financial planner, even from
the right out of school, is,you know, learning how to help people
sort through problems, youknow, or sort through challenges
or not understand where tostart in a calculation, you know,
(10:53):
or run the software so peoplecan see how it actually looks in
real life, you know, that typeof thing.
I think that there's.
And when you come out ofcollege, because we've had people
come right out of financialplanning programs before, there seems
to be a little bit of frictionthere because, well, I have a degree
in this and it's like.
But your degree, although itgave you knowledge, is not really
applicable to anybody you'regoing to be sitting down in front
(11:15):
of.
That's not how the real world works.
People's lives are messy andtheir decisions are not always rational
or they're rational based ontheir circumstances and they would
be irrational based on anybodyelse's circumstances.
And so you have to be carefulabout projecting guilt on people
and all those other thingsbecause they're not doing it the
(11:36):
way the book said, you know,and to me, that, that's a big, that's
a big issue for, for anybodyworking with a planner is how well
are they able to kind of adaptand learn and develop and like we
talked about in the lastepisode, personally and professionally,
consistently be developing sothat they can lead you better.
Steve, do you want to get inon this?
(11:57):
Yeah, so.
So we've been talking a lotabout so called financial advisor.
How do you recognize the real deal?
Jeff, help somebody sayfinancial planner or wealth manager.
What does that mean to you?
What do those terms really mean?
Yeah, so I think you know,when, when you think about a financial
planner or wealth manager, right?
At the end of the day, all youare, is you're a guide on somebody's
journey, right?
And, and you're, you're thereto help them to figure out where
(12:19):
they are now, help them thinkthrough where they want to be, right?
So that goes kind of back towhat you were just saying, Travis,
about everything isn't blackand white.
You got to understand how tocommunicate and help people to get
to the point where they canrecognize, okay, you know, here's
really where I want to go, right?
And then we come in and we'reable to put together, you know, the
(12:41):
scope of work that we're ableto do for people is unlocking that
for them.
That's what a financialplanner or wealth manager is, right?
Is you're able to guidesomebody on their journey, make things
understandable for them, andmaybe take things off their plate.
I mean, Travis, you had justkind of alluded to it.
(13:01):
A lot of our clients who comein, they have the capability to do
a lot of these things on theirown, or they have been for a long
time sometimes, right?
They'll come in and for thelast 20 or 30 years, they've been
doing this on their own.
But what happens a lot oftimes is when they get to, let's
say, retirement, right?
Things might change.
They may say, you know what, Idon't really want to do this anymore,
(13:24):
right.
I don't want theresponsibility or the time commitment
of handling the day to day.
Or there could be other thingsthat are now involved in their lives,
right?
Maybe they're heading intoretirement and, you know, tax planning
is becoming very prevalent andthey just don't know where to start,
right?
So that's where we come in andwe can really help them to, to improve
(13:47):
their lives in that way.
So that's what I would say afinancial planner or a wealth manager
really is outside of that,Steve, at the end of the day, whether
you're a financial planner oryou're a wealth manager, we have
a duty, right, to act inpeople's best interest.
It just so happens to be withtheir financial situation.
(14:08):
That's our job, Right?
That's what a financialplanner is.
Yeah.
And I think, you know, there'sa lot of people who will say they're
a financial planner, financialadvisor, do financial planning, and
to them it's a job.
It's the way that they get paid.
And I've worked with peoplelike this before.
It's an honor for you to workwith me.
And this is why you pay mewhat you pay me regardless of the
(14:30):
work product.
You know, when you think aboutsociety today and you think about
a lot of the challenges thatwe have, you know, like, there's
this sense of entitlementeverywhere, and it permeates even
into the financial industryto, you know, I'm a big deal.
Look at all these clients Iwork with, all these assets I manage
or how much I get paid.
(14:50):
You know, it's.
It's a.
You should be honored to workwith me.
So you're going to pay xyz and.
And there's very little that'sbeing done at the firm levels to
say, well, what was.
What was the product providedto the actual client for the cost
of the goods actually sold?
And it.
(15:10):
There's zero.
The way that the industrymeasures quality is how many new
assets did you bring in last year?
As if being a good salespersonis the only things that matters.
And they said, well, you know,if they're bringing in more assets,
it must be because they'redoing a really good job with the
other assets.
Yeah.
Well, Ponzi schemes, you know,bring in tons and tons of assets
(15:33):
because people are good atselling it, not because there's any
results, you know, because ifyou did due diligence, there's no
results.
People are just really, reallygood at selling an idea to somebody.
And so they get, you know,they get into the Ponzi scheme thing.
So, you know, it's.
There just.
There is a lot more to it, Ithink, than just this person's license
(15:54):
and they work at a firm and whatever.
You know, I think that thewhole quality and the desire to make
sure that if you're paying us$10,000, that you're getting $10,000
of value and we can actuallypoint to it and say, here's where
that value is.
I think that that is so important.
Yeah.
And that should be transparenttoo, right?
I mean, that you should beable to see it.
Yeah.
You should be able to see thebenefit and the pay.
(16:16):
Yeah, yeah.
And think about it.
When.
When clients come in and we do.
We do a proposal for them for services.
That's exactly what we do.
Right.
Here's what I heard from you.
Here's what we're going to dofor you.
Here's what it costs, period.
Right.
Number one argument with thehealthcare industry, Right.
You don't know what anything costs.
You can't shop.
Well, the financial industryis almost exactly like that.
(16:37):
You know, if you actually sawhow all the Numbers get carved up
in the background.
Most people think when they goand they meet with somebody that
they are getting paid a salaryby whatever the company on the door
is.
And the vast majority ofadvisors have some kind of commission
orientation to it or assetgathering, compensation structure,
you know, and they're simplygetting rated on how much new assets
(16:57):
they bring into the company orhow much new product they sell versus
how much better of a plannerthey are from one year to another.
And I think that that's thedifference between a financial planner
and a wealth manager.
Right.
In our lexicon.
So I didn't ask you about thisor Steve didn't ask you about, you
know, at Seed, how do you seethis just in general, but in, in
our company, there is a bigdifference between a financial planner
(17:19):
and a wealth manager.
And as far as skilldevelopment, it's not a 10 year issue,
it's a skill development issue.
And in a lot of firms it's atenure issue.
That's right, yep.
Our wealth managers havebasically, you know, they've come
to the point in their careerwhere they can handle most situations.
(17:40):
Right.
And they've also tried to notjust the complex situations, but
most of them have kind ofspecialized almost in an area.
Right.
They become a subject matterexpert in a certain area.
We just had Jess on or youjust had Jess on a couple weeks ago.
Right.
When it comes to estateplanning, she's kind of our in house
expert in estate planning.
Right.
That's where her background is.
She's passionate about it.
(18:00):
You know, she's going down theline now and, you know, educate herself
even more in those areas and others.
And that's really when, youknow, clients come in and they have
very complex situations, theyneed that expertise.
That's where a wealth managercomes in.
It's not that a financialplanner can't do it.
Right.
Our financial planners, I'dput them up against pretty much every
anybody, but it's just forthose very complex situations, the
(18:24):
wealth managers are really,they just have the expertise to handle
them.
Gotcha.
So let's talk about then.
I'm sure you've got some war stories.
Let's share with our listenerssome fun war stories about experiences
that people have had.
Because when I was part ofonboarding new clients, which I'm
not anymore, but when I was apart of the onboarding process with
(18:45):
new clients, we would getpeople all the time that would come
in and go, you know, I workwith a planner and I'm here because
I need somebody to do myretirement plan.
For me.
And I'm like, well, what kindof financial planner do you work
with that doesn't do aretirement planner?
They'd say something like,yeah, I have a financial planner.
He did my retirement plan, buthe doesn't do anything about college
planning or, you know, helpingme understand my tax withholdings
(19:07):
or anything like this.
And it's like, what kind offinancial planner do you have?
Like, I'm kind of thinkingfinancial planning is as you go in
with a financial question andthey can answer it, they don't say,
well, go talk to some other professional.
I don't touch that.
You know, I'm like, with.
With the college planning, alot of times they go in and say,
how do I say for college?
Well, we don't do that.
We just do the retirement plan.
The reason is, is because in alot of states, when you estate 529
(19:31):
plan, the advisor can't get paid.
So it's like one of themthings like, I don't do that because
I don't get paid.
I don't do Social Securitybecause Social Security won't write
a check to me.
You know what I mean?
And it's like, okay, well thenyou're not really a financial planner.
You're a product salesperson.
And you'll give enough advicearound the sale of the product.
So I would love, you know, totake next 10 minutes or so and like,
or five minutes, or howevermany stories you can share with us
(19:53):
and like, what are some reallife experiences where you had some
people come in that are like,man, I got this covered.
And you're just looking atgoing, oh, really?
How's that work?
We had a client recently whocame in, you know, he talked a lot
about diversification, right?
That was like his buzzword inour opener.
(20:14):
He's like, yeah, well diversified.
You know, I've got multipledifferent advisors, multiple different
companies, all these different products.
Yeah, I got mutual funds, Igot stocks.
So, you know, we get into it, right?
Our.
Our opening meetings withclients usually take a while.
I mean, they could be twohours, right?
Depending on what's going on.
(20:34):
He's got a ton of differentaccounts, right?
There ended up being 21different different accounts, 17
different companies, twodifferent advisors, right?
So again, he's talking aboutdiversification quite a bit.
And part of that, you know,not that we're giving advice in that
opening meeting, but part ofit is there's an artwork to it, right?
Of educating them along theway as you're having a conversation
(20:56):
around, you know, okay, maybeMaybe this isn't the best way to
think about this.
Right.
Let me educate you on whatdiversification actually means in
a nice and respectable, youknow, respectful way during the conversation.
But, you know, he had mutualfunds, he had stocks, he had a ton
of annuities, ton of differenttypes of annuities.
(21:17):
He had life insurance.
He was retired and still haddisability insurance.
There was a lot going on there.
There's all the usual suspects.
I call them collectors.
He's a collector.
He's.
Exactly.
So he was collecting.
It was product overload, whichis what we see with a lot of people.
Right.
I would say the common issues.
Just to go off on a sidetangent, common issues that we see
(21:40):
a lot are misaligned goals,you know, people not understanding
what they actually own and whytons of products.
And then, of course, notknowing what you don't know.
Right.
But he had, you know, annuity.
He had an.
He had an annuity where therewas an IRA inside of an annuity with
(22:02):
no rider on it at all.
So it was just kind of sitting.
Nothing.
No guaranteed death benefit,no income benefit, no nothing.
Don't even know how I got through.
The really dumbly, say, double tax.
The double tax benefits of anannuity inside an IRA is like, no,
once.
Once you get the tax benefitsof the ira, you don't get double.
Correct.
(22:22):
Correct.
So that, you know, that wassitting in there.
He had an indexed annuity thathe was like, yep.
You know, markets are, youknow, markets are volatile.
Right.
I've got downside protection.
And, you know, as we gothrough it, he lost, like, you know,
he.
He ended up giving up, like,48% return.
Right.
Not that it's about returns,but that was part of the education.
Right?
Okay, let me unpack this foryou and help you to understand exactly
(22:45):
what this is.
He's like, well, there's nofee on that annuity.
I'm like, no, no, there's a fee.
You have 48% fee actually onthat thing.
Yeah.
And then, you know, just abunch of.
Just a conglomeration of products.
Right.
With no real coordinationhappening there.
So really, what we were ableto do for him was to help him understand,
(23:06):
you know, first and foremost,the benefit of what he owned or first
and foremost, what he owned.
Right.
Understand what you own, whatyour fees are, why you're paying
the fees.
Second of all, help them toget, you know, organized.
Which one of those accountsare actually serving a purpose for
him, and what is that purpose?
(23:27):
And then once we were able toget organized, that's where we were
to get it, we were able to getinto some of the real meaningful
planning for him.
He had not, in all the timethat we had talked, we're talking
about a high net worthindividual, hadn't talked about taxes
one single time.
All this other stuff reallynot even an issue in his life.
(23:49):
He would have been fine.
He could have kept it.
He would have been fine.
Right.
But when we were able to showhim the impact of actually doing
proactive tax planning forwhat his situation was, um, I mean,
mind blowing amount of, of, ofvalue that we were able to provide
for him and that's reallywhere the reward is on our end, right?
Where you feel, you feel sogreat that you're able to actually
(24:13):
help somebody in that way.
Um, so that was, that was abig win for us just being able to
kind of educate him and helphim to, to get things in a better
spot.
For anybody listening whodoesn't, who, who has been told there's
no fee or thinks there's nofee on, on anything that they have
in there.
If you have an account with afinancial company or an account that's
(24:36):
provided by an annuity orsomething, right?
You, the sales job that's beendone on you for you to believe that
there's no fee is shocking.
You know, even in a brokerageaccount, oh, there's no fee.
I put my money in there.
They're making a spread offyour cash.
There's all kinds of otherstuff they could be doing behind
(24:57):
the scenes.
There is no such thing as afree lunch.
If everything's free, nobodycan afford to be in business.
This isn't social media, right?
You don't log into your Schwabaccount and see a bunch of advertisements
for, you know, Walmart andstuff like that.
They're not going to pay to,to advertise to you.
They're.
They make money off your moneyone way or another.
There is no free lunch.
And the sales job that hasbeen done to people and the, you
(25:21):
know, I think the abuse thathas happened is just ridiculous.
Where people truly believethere's no fees on these products.
It's like there's this, NewYork did this years ago.
New York has had budgetproblems for a long time.
So years ago they came out andthey said everybody's gonna get a
new license plate.
And it, you know, you had topay 60 bucks for your new license
(25:43):
plate or something like that.
And they're like, we didn'traise taxes this year.
Yeah, but you required me topay $60 for a new License plate.
That's a tax.
I don't have an option.
I have to pay it if I'm goingto drive in New York, right?
I'm required to buy that.
That's a tax.
You know, call it a fee, callit whatever you want.
You're forcing me to givemoney, more money over to the government.
(26:04):
So that's taxation through adifferent name.
Fees are the same way.
If I tell you, look, I'm notgoing to charge you any fees, Jeff,
because I really like you and,you know, I'm just a good guy, I'm
not gonna charge you any fees,but I'm gonna put you in this product.
And this product is also gonnaguarantee that you can't lose any
money.
(26:24):
And you say, okay, so what'sthe catch?
Well, the catch is you canonly make up to 6% a year.
And how do I make that 6%?
That 6% is indexed to the market.
So basically, we buy you amarket, an option that looks.
They don't even buy you anything.
Basically, we just track anindex based on the price movements.
(26:45):
And if that price goes up, wegive you a percentage of that price
movement up to a cap.
These companies are not stupid.
It's Vegas.
The house is winning almostevery time.
They know what the odds are.
They are making so much moneyoff of those products, it's ridiculous.
(27:05):
Because when you start to dothe math, the fee is the fact that
the market made 15% last yearand you got 3.
That's the fee.
You got it 12%.
Somebody kept the other 12%.
You didn't need to pay for that.
You could have just bought aCD someplace.
And yes, CDs are not free either.
(27:26):
When you give your money tothe bank, the reason why the bank
gives one bank gives you fourand one bank gives you a four and
a half is because one bank'smaking a half percent more than the
other bank.
Right?
That's your fee.
It's your opportunity cost.
It's taxation through another name.
I did have, Jeff, you and Iwork hand in hand as part of our
onboarding team in the waythat we for call ins and people that
(27:49):
reach out to us, we do have aprocess to give clients a great experience.
And I think with what Traviswas asking about this real life experience,
what's interesting, we have acouple of camps.
When they reach out to us,referrals that are all in, they're
ready to jump right in.
They're excited about planning.
You have people that we wouldconsider not fits, just unrealistic
expectations, not Wanting topay for planning, whatever it is,
(28:09):
we deem them as a not fit.
Then you have kind of skepticsor they're not quite sure.
And I have seen you, I've seenJess, I've seen our other planners
take people that have reachedout to us to say, I need help.
You meet with them, you lineup a proposal of services and they
go, I'm not sure I really needall of these things.
And then they sign up forplanning and they get into a couple
of meetings with us.
(28:30):
I love when you guys call meafter these meetings and say, that
was incredible.
We were able to help them withthis, in this, in this.
And they didn't even realizethat they weren't getting these things.
Can you just kind of speak tothe excitement about planning with
some of these real lifeexperiences when people think they
got things covered, but from aplanner or wealth manager's perspective,
(28:53):
how you're able to show themthings that they're not even aware
that they could be takingadvantage of.
Because I think that's one ofthe most exciting things about the
job.
Yeah, absolutely, it is.
And that goes back to notknowing what you don't know.
Right.
It's not anyone's fault.
How would they know that?
Right.
They've had a career inanother field for however many years.
But a lot of times that does happen.
People come in and they, theythink they have it figured out.
(29:15):
They're like, hey, I'm justlooking for a spot check on this
one thing.
And then we're able to kind ofplant that seed of, hey, have you
thought about this, this and this?
And then as we get intoplanning normally, right.
And this is definitely themajority of the time we'll get to
the end of planning.
And they're like, I didn'tthink that this was going to be that,
you know, enlightening for me, right.
(29:36):
Of now.
I understand what you weretalking about four months ago when
we were starting this initialplanning process about whatever it
is.
A lot of times for the most ofthe clients who we meet with, a lot
of that deals with tax planning.
Right.
And we're able to really digin with them and help them there.
But I think there's some otherareas as well where that does come
(29:58):
into play.
One of the big ones is estate planning.
Right.
And Jess talked about thatquite a bit in her episode there.
But those two areas seem to beplaces where clients are kind of
either misinformed,uninformed, or they're just kind
of, they don't even know thatthere's an opportunity there that
can be had.
So that is absolutely one ofthe most exciting parts of our job
(30:22):
is being able to to have thatimpact on their lives and have them
actually recognize it andthink back to when we first brought
it up to them.
So yeah, thanks for checkingout Ditch the Suits.
Be sure to write a review ordrop a comment about this episode.
And if you want more likethis, head over to ditchesuits.com
you can send us a message andget in touch.
(30:42):
Let us know how we can helpand be sure to share any any topics
you'd be interested in havingus cover on the show.
We're here to help you get themost from your money in life.
Thanks for being our guest andchecking out Ditch the Suits.
Foreign.
Welcome to Ditch the SuitsPodcast where we share insights nobody
in the financial servicesindustry wants you to know about.
We're here to help you get themost from your money in life.
So buckle up and welcome toDitch the Suits.
(00:20):
So we're picking up where weleft off with Jeff Chase, our vp,
our senior VP of financialplanning services.
And we've been talking aboutreally, how do you identify a so
called financial advisor overreally the real deal?
So when you talk to somebodyand say, I got a guy or you meet
(00:40):
somebody at a party and theysay, you know, I can be your guy
or your Gail or whatever, andthis is what I do, how do you know
they're the real deal?
And how do you know they'renot just selling you a bunch of fluff?
I think it's really important.
Why I wanted Jeff to join usis that if you understand what it
takes to be a good financialadvisor or what we think it takes
(01:02):
to be a good financialadvisor, the way that we work with
our people to develop them.
If your financial advisor isnot developing as a person and as
a professional, how can theypossibly be there to guide you to
develop as a person and as a family?
Because that's really a lot ofwhat financial planning is, is helping
families make good decisions.
(01:23):
And so, you know, it's one ofthose things where it can't be just
do as I say, not as I do.
You know, you really, ifyou're taking life advice from somebody
and making, having somebodyinfluence, shaping these decisions,
you really want to know thatyou're working with somebody who
is striving themselves to bebetter for something other than just
money.
(01:43):
And so I think that this app,this series is going to help people,
our listeners kind of have abetter idea of what to look for,
even subconsciously.
Like, I want somebody thatsounds like that.
I want somebody who believesin those things type of stuff.
And so we've got a four part miniseries.
We've done episode one.
We're moving into episode two.
We left off with a cliffhangeroff of episode one.
(02:06):
So we're going to get intoreally what Jeff thinks a little
bit more and get into a littlebit more of his experience and some
of the things that, that he'sdone through the years today.
But before we do, Steve, Ithink we've got some intros.
Make sure everybody knowswhere they are today.
Yeah.
Welcome to Digital Suits Podcast.
My name is Steve Campbell.
I serve as a senior marketingdirector at Seed Planning Group.
(02:28):
Guy you just heard from TravisMoss is our Chief Executive Officer.
For those that don't know,Seed is a fee only financial planning
firm.
So this show is all about usbringing our collective experience
of what we do every day tohelp empower you to get the most
from your money in life.
Let's take a break to hear aword from our sponsor.
This episode is brought to youby the Unleashing Leadership Podcast.
Join Travis Moss, seasonedentrepreneur and business leader,
(02:51):
on a transformational journeyof leadership exploration.
In this thought provokingpodcast, Travis shares his invaluable
insights and experiencesgained from two decades of managing
diverse businesses whichinclude small family enterprises,
Fortune 500 companies, and hisown successful startups.
Through candid storytelling inreal life examples, he unveils the
(03:12):
profound truth that success orfailure ultimately rests upon a leader's
ability to to recognize andunleash the potential in others.
Start listening to theUnleashing Leadership Podcast today,
available on all major podcast platforms.
And Jeff, one of the thingsthat we had left as a teaser in episode
one was a question that wewant to lead off because I think
it's going to be pretty telling.
(03:34):
What is one thing that JeffChase would change about the industry?
Yeah, so the one thing Ichange about the industry is really
the, I think this, this goeswithout probably not a surprise,
right?
I would change the salesaspect of it.
And really the conflicts ofinterest that exist in financial
planning.
Financial planners should notbe pressured to sell products.
That is, that should not bepart of what a financial planner's
(03:56):
responsibilities are.
There's nothing wrong withsales, Right.
I just don't think salesshould be part of the responsibilities
of a financial planner.
And clients shouldn't have towonder either, right.
When they're sitting acrossthe table from us, they shouldn't
have to sit there and wonder,you know, is what this guy's telling
me right now, is that reallywhat's in my best interest or is
he just trying to sell me something?
Right.
And I'll tell you, because Ihave experience in that world, people
(04:21):
can feel that.
Right.
And that's something thatwe've done here at Seed, is we've
eliminated that conflict of interest.
You know, we can certainlyexpand on that a little bit more.
And I know you asked me forone thing, but I'll give you another.
Another thing that I justcan't stand about the industry in
general is, is this kind ofthe stuffiness, right.
(04:41):
Of like, oh, you're going tosee a financial advisor.
It doesn't have to be that way.
Right.
We're on a podcast right nowcalled Ditch the suits.
You see us sitting here inquarter zips.
We're not sitting here in suits.
And, you know, everything iscomfortable, it's relaxed.
When you come in and meet withus, the end of the day, we're all
just people.
Right?
We just do financial planningfor a living.
That's it.
(05:02):
Yeah.
There's this idea within theindustry, and I've heard people talk
about it before, that, youknow, in order to give good advice.
So let's say that you're aclient with $5 million.
Their perception is in orderto give good advice to a client with
$5 million, somebody has tohave $5 million.
And I don't think thateverybody who has $5 million has
had the same life experience.
(05:24):
We have $5 million.
So if you make $5 millionselling products to people, and I
made $5 million being anentrepreneur, we do not have anything
in common.
The way you look at your $5million and the way I look at my
$5 million are you're faking it.
Right?
It's just you're being dishonest.
It's not true.
(05:44):
So the goal with a financialplanner really ought to be, how do
I just help people understandhow the game works so that they can
make good decisions and howcan I help understand what their
values are so that whenthey're making a decision that's
contrary to.
To what they've told us, youknow, is their ultimate objective,
(06:04):
I can kind of slap their handand say, no, that's not what you
were trying to do.
Remember, you were trying todo this over here.
If you do that, it's going toderail you.
Not that you can't do itbecause it's your life and your money,
but that's going to get youmaybe not where you want it to be.
Absolutely, yeah.
There was one thing you saidback in the first episode, and I.
(06:27):
Let me see what, I wrote it down.
You said in college you tookthese classes on financial planning
and then you said what theythought was financial planning.
Talk about that more.
What's happening at thecollege level?
And this isn't.
We're not going to pick onwhatever college it is, because I've.
I actually think that this happens.
(06:48):
A lot of kids that I'veinterviewed coming out of school
have a misconception on whatfinancial planning actually is.
And they've taken classes.
Now, certainly those classeshave given them kind of a leg up
because they've got some basicknowledge like mutual funds and cash
flow analysis and stuff like that.
But there seems to be Adisconnect with how the industry
(07:10):
works.
The college might be accuratein an ideal world, what it should
be like.
But, and I'm not, you know,I'm just speculating.
But in the real world, whatit's actually like, the two things,
like there's no, there's.
There's a very limitedconnection or spotty connection at
best.
So talk about what you meant,you know, by that.
(07:32):
You know, like, just explainthat experience to us.
Yeah.
And I guess partly what Isaid, I don't really necessarily
mean it in a, in a negative way.
Kind of like what you werejust saying.
Some of it was behavioralfinance based, which I actually thought
was pretty cool.
That was actually very helpful information.
But a lot of it was, you know,they would talk about mutual funds
(07:54):
or cash flow type of analysisor life insurance or hey, these are
some things when someone goesto retire that you're going to have
to think about.
Right.
So it was, it was very, veryhigh level or very surface level.
When I say what they thoughtwas financial planning, when I actually
got into it, I guessoriginally when I went into my first
(08:17):
role, it was nothing like that.
It was all just go sell thisannuity, go sell this life insurance.
It'll be an asset gatherer.
Right?
Yeah.
And now as I have progressedinto the role here, it's just a lot
more deep.
There's a lot more to it than,you know, here's some basic information
(08:37):
about what financial planning is.
Right.
There's so much more to it.
And I think that's the beautyof it too.
Right.
That's one of the things Ilove about financial planning is
there isn't redundancy.
I hate redundancy in general.
Right.
If I have to do the same thingover and over and over again, not
real fun.
Right.
So the, the variety that yousee from clients, it's always something
(09:02):
new.
In general, we're doing thesame thing.
Right.
We're doing financialplanning, but everyone's situation
is different.
So that's one of the things Ireally love about it.
Do you want more of Ditch the Suits?
Well, let's take a break totell you about our Patreon channel.
If you're wanting moreannouncements, notifications, even
access to prior seasons, youcan head to patreon.com, search ditch
(09:23):
the Suits and subscribe to our channel.
You'll get notifications ofall episodes right in your inbox.
So visit patreon.com searchditch the suits or head to our show
Notes where we got links toour channel.
Yeah, I Think where I wasgoing to with the school stuff is
(09:43):
you don't come right out ofschool and all of a sudden start
telling somebody 35 yearsolder than you what to do and that
you know life better than they do.
Right.
You know, and when we'retalking about money and stuff like
that, it's not whether or notyou have as much money as them, it's
whether or not you understandand you have perspective and you
have empathy and, and youlisten and you can help prioritize
(10:09):
and you can help them weighdecisions because most people we
work with have the ability tomake the right decisions.
When you go out and you Googlefor financial planning advice and
you say, can I do this?
Or what's this?
Or how's the rules work?
Everything is so complicated.
And the way that searchengines work anymore, you don't know
(10:32):
if you're getting goodinformation or bad information.
So the role, a lot of times agood financial planner, even from
the right out of school, is,you know, learning how to help people
sort through problems, youknow, or sort through challenges
or not understand where tostart in a calculation, you know,
(10:53):
or run the software so peoplecan see how it actually looks in
real life, you know, that typeof thing.
I think that there's.
And when you come out ofcollege, because we've had people
come right out of financialplanning programs before, there seems
to be a little bit of frictionthere because, well, I have a degree
in this and it's like.
But your degree, although itgave you knowledge, is not really
applicable to anybody you'regoing to be sitting down in front
(11:15):
of.
That's not how the real world works.
People's lives are messy andtheir decisions are not always rational
or they're rational based ontheir circumstances and they would
be irrational based on anybodyelse's circumstances.
And so you have to be carefulabout projecting guilt on people
and all those other thingsbecause they're not doing it the
(11:36):
way the book said, you know,and to me, that, that's a big, that's
a big issue for, for anybodyworking with a planner is how well
are they able to kind of adaptand learn and develop and like we
talked about in the lastepisode, personally and professionally,
consistently be developing sothat they can lead you better.
Steve, do you want to get inon this?
(11:57):
Yeah, so.
So we've been talking a lotabout so called financial advisor.
How do you recognize the real deal?
Jeff, help somebody sayfinancial planner or wealth manager.
What does that mean to you?
What do those terms really mean?
Yeah, so I think you know,when, when you think about a financial
planner or wealth manager, right?
At the end of the day, all youare, is you're a guide on somebody's
journey, right?
And, and you're, you're thereto help them to figure out where
(12:19):
they are now, help them thinkthrough where they want to be, right?
So that goes kind of back towhat you were just saying, Travis,
about everything isn't blackand white.
You got to understand how tocommunicate and help people to get
to the point where they canrecognize, okay, you know, here's
really where I want to go, right?
And then we come in and we'reable to put together, you know, the
(12:41):
scope of work that we're ableto do for people is unlocking that
for them.
That's what a financialplanner or wealth manager is, right?
Is you're able to guidesomebody on their journey, make things
understandable for them, andmaybe take things off their plate.
I mean, Travis, you had justkind of alluded to it.
(13:01):
A lot of our clients who comein, they have the capability to do
a lot of these things on theirown, or they have been for a long
time sometimes, right?
They'll come in and for thelast 20 or 30 years, they've been
doing this on their own.
But what happens a lot oftimes is when they get to, let's
say, retirement, right?
Things might change.
They may say, you know what, Idon't really want to do this anymore,
(13:24):
right.
I don't want theresponsibility or the time commitment
of handling the day to day.
Or there could be other thingsthat are now involved in their lives,
right?
Maybe they're heading intoretirement and, you know, tax planning
is becoming very prevalent andthey just don't know where to start,
right?
So that's where we come in andwe can really help them to, to improve
(13:47):
their lives in that way.
So that's what I would say afinancial planner or a wealth manager
really is outside of that,Steve, at the end of the day, whether
you're a financial planner oryou're a wealth manager, we have
a duty, right, to act inpeople's best interest.
It just so happens to be withtheir financial situation.
(14:08):
That's our job, Right?
That's what a financialplanner is.
Yeah.
And I think, you know, there'sa lot of people who will say they're
a financial planner, financialadvisor, do financial planning, and
to them it's a job.
It's the way that they get paid.
And I've worked with peoplelike this before.
It's an honor for you to workwith me.
And this is why you pay mewhat you pay me regardless of the
(14:30):
work product.
You know, when you think aboutsociety today and you think about
a lot of the challenges thatwe have, you know, like, there's
this sense of entitlementeverywhere, and it permeates even
into the financial industryto, you know, I'm a big deal.
Look at all these clients Iwork with, all these assets I manage
or how much I get paid.
(14:50):
You know, it's.
It's a.
You should be honored to workwith me.
So you're going to pay xyz and.
And there's very little that'sbeing done at the firm levels to
say, well, what was.
What was the product providedto the actual client for the cost
of the goods actually sold?
And it.
(15:10):
There's zero.
The way that the industrymeasures quality is how many new
assets did you bring in last year?
As if being a good salespersonis the only things that matters.
And they said, well, you know,if they're bringing in more assets,
it must be because they'redoing a really good job with the
other assets.
Yeah.
Well, Ponzi schemes, you know,bring in tons and tons of assets
(15:33):
because people are good atselling it, not because there's any
results, you know, because ifyou did due diligence, there's no
results.
People are just really, reallygood at selling an idea to somebody.
And so they get, you know,they get into the Ponzi scheme thing.
So, you know, it's.
There just.
There is a lot more to it, Ithink, than just this person's license
(15:54):
and they work at a firm and whatever.
You know, I think that thewhole quality and the desire to make
sure that if you're paying us$10,000, that you're getting $10,000
of value and we can actuallypoint to it and say, here's where
that value is.
I think that that is so important.
Yeah.
And that should be transparenttoo, right?
I mean, that you should beable to see it.
Yeah.
You should be able to see thebenefit and the pay.
(16:16):
Yeah, yeah.
And think about it.
When.
When clients come in and we do.
We do a proposal for them for services.
That's exactly what we do.
Right.
Here's what I heard from you.
Here's what we're going to dofor you.
Here's what it costs, period.
Right.
Number one argument with thehealthcare industry, Right.
You don't know what anything costs.
You can't shop.
Well, the financial industryis almost exactly like that.
(16:37):
You know, if you actually sawhow all the Numbers get carved up
in the background.
Most people think when they goand they meet with somebody that
they are getting paid a salaryby whatever the company on the door
is.
And the vast majority ofadvisors have some kind of commission
orientation to it or assetgathering, compensation structure,
you know, and they're simplygetting rated on how much new assets
(16:57):
they bring into the company orhow much new product they sell versus
how much better of a plannerthey are from one year to another.
And I think that that's thedifference between a financial planner
and a wealth manager.
Right.
In our lexicon.
So I didn't ask you about thisor Steve didn't ask you about, you
know, at Seed, how do you seethis just in general, but in, in
our company, there is a bigdifference between a financial planner
(17:19):
and a wealth manager.
And as far as skilldevelopment, it's not a 10 year issue,
it's a skill development issue.
And in a lot of firms it's atenure issue.
That's right, yep.
Our wealth managers havebasically, you know, they've come
to the point in their careerwhere they can handle most situations.
(17:40):
Right.
And they've also tried to notjust the complex situations, but
most of them have kind ofspecialized almost in an area.
Right.
They become a subject matterexpert in a certain area.
We just had Jess on or youjust had Jess on a couple weeks ago.
Right.
When it comes to estateplanning, she's kind of our in house
expert in estate planning.
Right.
That's where her background is.
She's passionate about it.
(18:00):
You know, she's going down theline now and, you know, educate herself
even more in those areas and others.
And that's really when, youknow, clients come in and they have
very complex situations, theyneed that expertise.
That's where a wealth managercomes in.
It's not that a financialplanner can't do it.
Right.
Our financial planners, I'dput them up against pretty much every
anybody, but it's just forthose very complex situations, the
(18:24):
wealth managers are really,they just have the expertise to handle
them.
Gotcha.
So let's talk about then.
I'm sure you've got some war stories.
Let's share with our listenerssome fun war stories about experiences
that people have had.
Because when I was part ofonboarding new clients, which I'm
not anymore, but when I was apart of the onboarding process with
(18:45):
new clients, we would getpeople all the time that would come
in and go, you know, I workwith a planner and I'm here because
I need somebody to do myretirement plan.
For me.
And I'm like, well, what kindof financial planner do you work
with that doesn't do aretirement planner?
They'd say something like,yeah, I have a financial planner.
He did my retirement plan, buthe doesn't do anything about college
planning or, you know, helpingme understand my tax withholdings
(19:07):
or anything like this.
And it's like, what kind offinancial planner do you have?
Like, I'm kind of thinkingfinancial planning is as you go in
with a financial question andthey can answer it, they don't say,
well, go talk to some other professional.
I don't touch that.
You know, I'm like, with.
With the college planning, alot of times they go in and say,
how do I say for college?
Well, we don't do that.
We just do the retirement plan.
The reason is, is because in alot of states, when you estate 529
(19:31):
plan, the advisor can't get paid.
So it's like one of themthings like, I don't do that because
I don't get paid.
I don't do Social Securitybecause Social Security won't write
a check to me.
You know what I mean?
And it's like, okay, well thenyou're not really a financial planner.
You're a product salesperson.
And you'll give enough advicearound the sale of the product.
So I would love, you know, totake next 10 minutes or so and like,
or five minutes, or howevermany stories you can share with us
(19:53):
and like, what are some reallife experiences where you had some
people come in that are like,man, I got this covered.
And you're just looking atgoing, oh, really?
How's that work?
We had a client recently whocame in, you know, he talked a lot
about diversification, right?
That was like his buzzword inour opener.
(20:14):
He's like, yeah, well diversified.
You know, I've got multipledifferent advisors, multiple different
companies, all these different products.
Yeah, I got mutual funds, Igot stocks.
So, you know, we get into it, right?
Our.
Our opening meetings withclients usually take a while.
I mean, they could be twohours, right?
Depending on what's going on.
(20:34):
He's got a ton of differentaccounts, right?
There ended up being 21different different accounts, 17
different companies, twodifferent advisors, right?
So again, he's talking aboutdiversification quite a bit.
And part of that, you know,not that we're giving advice in that
opening meeting, but part ofit is there's an artwork to it, right?
Of educating them along theway as you're having a conversation
(20:56):
around, you know, okay, maybeMaybe this isn't the best way to
think about this.
Right.
Let me educate you on whatdiversification actually means in
a nice and respectable, youknow, respectful way during the conversation.
But, you know, he had mutualfunds, he had stocks, he had a ton
of annuities, ton of differenttypes of annuities.
(21:17):
He had life insurance.
He was retired and still haddisability insurance.
There was a lot going on there.
There's all the usual suspects.
I call them collectors.
He's a collector.
He's.
Exactly.
So he was collecting.
It was product overload, whichis what we see with a lot of people.
Right.
I would say the common issues.
Just to go off on a sidetangent, common issues that we see
(21:40):
a lot are misaligned goals,you know, people not understanding
what they actually own and whytons of products.
And then, of course, notknowing what you don't know.
Right.
But he had, you know, annuity.
He had an.
He had an annuity where therewas an IRA inside of an annuity with
(22:02):
no rider on it at all.
So it was just kind of sitting.
Nothing.
No guaranteed death benefit,no income benefit, no nothing.
Don't even know how I got through.
The really dumbly, say, double tax.
The double tax benefits of anannuity inside an IRA is like, no,
once.
Once you get the tax benefitsof the ira, you don't get double.
Correct.
(22:22):
Correct.
So that, you know, that wassitting in there.
He had an indexed annuity thathe was like, yep.
You know, markets are, youknow, markets are volatile.
Right.
I've got downside protection.
And, you know, as we gothrough it, he lost, like, you know,
he.
He ended up giving up, like,48% return.
Right.
Not that it's about returns,but that was part of the education.
Right?
Okay, let me unpack this foryou and help you to understand exactly
(22:45):
what this is.
He's like, well, there's nofee on that annuity.
I'm like, no, no, there's a fee.
You have 48% fee actually onthat thing.
Yeah.
And then, you know, just abunch of.
Just a conglomeration of products.
Right.
With no real coordinationhappening there.
So really, what we were ableto do for him was to help him understand,
(23:06):
you know, first and foremost,the benefit of what he owned or first
and foremost, what he owned.
Right.
Understand what you own, whatyour fees are, why you're paying
the fees.
Second of all, help them toget, you know, organized.
Which one of those accountsare actually serving a purpose for
him, and what is that purpose?
(23:27):
And then once we were able toget organized, that's where we were
to get it, we were able to getinto some of the real meaningful
planning for him.
He had not, in all the timethat we had talked, we're talking
about a high net worthindividual, hadn't talked about taxes
one single time.
All this other stuff reallynot even an issue in his life.
(23:49):
He would have been fine.
He could have kept it.
He would have been fine.
Right.
But when we were able to showhim the impact of actually doing
proactive tax planning forwhat his situation was, um, I mean,
mind blowing amount of, of, ofvalue that we were able to provide
for him and that's reallywhere the reward is on our end, right?
Where you feel, you feel sogreat that you're able to actually
(24:13):
help somebody in that way.
Um, so that was, that was abig win for us just being able to
kind of educate him and helphim to, to get things in a better
spot.
For anybody listening whodoesn't, who, who has been told there's
no fee or thinks there's nofee on, on anything that they have
in there.
If you have an account with afinancial company or an account that's
(24:36):
provided by an annuity orsomething, right?
You, the sales job that's beendone on you for you to believe that
there's no fee is shocking.
You know, even in a brokerageaccount, oh, there's no fee.
I put my money in there.
They're making a spread offyour cash.
There's all kinds of otherstuff they could be doing behind
(24:57):
the scenes.
There is no such thing as afree lunch.
If everything's free, nobodycan afford to be in business.
This isn't social media, right?
You don't log into your Schwabaccount and see a bunch of advertisements
for, you know, Walmart andstuff like that.
They're not going to pay to,to advertise to you.
They're.
They make money off your moneyone way or another.
There is no free lunch.
And the sales job that hasbeen done to people and the, you
(25:21):
know, I think the abuse thathas happened is just ridiculous.
Where people truly believethere's no fees on these products.
It's like there's this, NewYork did this years ago.
New York has had budgetproblems for a long time.
So years ago they came out andthey said everybody's gonna get a
new license plate.
And it, you know, you had topay 60 bucks for your new license
(25:43):
plate or something like that.
And they're like, we didn'traise taxes this year.
Yeah, but you required me topay $60 for a new License plate.
That's a tax.
I don't have an option.
I have to pay it if I'm goingto drive in New York, right?
I'm required to buy that.
That's a tax.
You know, call it a fee, callit whatever you want.
You're forcing me to givemoney, more money over to the government.
(26:04):
So that's taxation through adifferent name.
Fees are the same way.
If I tell you, look, I'm notgoing to charge you any fees, Jeff,
because I really like you and,you know, I'm just a good guy, I'm
not gonna charge you any fees,but I'm gonna put you in this product.
And this product is also gonnaguarantee that you can't lose any
money.
(26:24):
And you say, okay, so what'sthe catch?
Well, the catch is you canonly make up to 6% a year.
And how do I make that 6%?
That 6% is indexed to the market.
So basically, we buy you amarket, an option that looks.
They don't even buy you anything.
Basically, we just track anindex based on the price movements.
(26:45):
And if that price goes up, wegive you a percentage of that price
movement up to a cap.
These companies are not stupid.
It's Vegas.
The house is winning almostevery time.
They know what the odds are.
They are making so much moneyoff of those products, it's ridiculous.
(27:05):
Because when you start to dothe math, the fee is the fact that
the market made 15% last yearand you got 3.
That's the fee.
You got it 12%.
Somebody kept the other 12%.
You didn't need to pay for that.
You could have just bought aCD someplace.
And yes, CDs are not free either.
(27:26):
When you give your money tothe bank, the reason why the bank
gives one bank gives you fourand one bank gives you a four and
a half is because one bank'smaking a half percent more than the
other bank.
Right?
That's your fee.
It's your opportunity cost.
It's taxation through another name.
I did have, Jeff, you and Iwork hand in hand as part of our
onboarding team in the waythat we for call ins and people that
(27:49):
reach out to us, we do have aprocess to give clients a great experience.
And I think with what Traviswas asking about this real life experience,
what's interesting, we have acouple of camps.
When they reach out to us,referrals that are all in, they're
ready to jump right in.
They're excited about planning.
You have people that we wouldconsider not fits, just unrealistic
expectations, not Wanting topay for planning, whatever it is,
(28:09):
we deem them as a not fit.
Then you have kind of skepticsor they're not quite sure.
And I have seen you, I've seenJess, I've seen our other planners
take people that have reachedout to us to say, I need help.
You meet with them, you lineup a proposal of services and they
go, I'm not sure I really needall of these things.
And then they sign up forplanning and they get into a couple
of meetings with us.
(28:30):
I love when you guys call meafter these meetings and say, that
was incredible.
We were able to help them withthis, in this, in this.
And they didn't even realizethat they weren't getting these things.
Can you just kind of speak tothe excitement about planning with
some of these real lifeexperiences when people think they
got things covered, but from aplanner or wealth manager's perspective,
(28:53):
how you're able to show themthings that they're not even aware
that they could be takingadvantage of.
Because I think that's one ofthe most exciting things about the
job.
Yeah, absolutely, it is.
And that goes back to notknowing what you don't know.
Right.
It's not anyone's fault.
How would they know that?
Right.
They've had a career inanother field for however many years.
But a lot of times that does happen.
People come in and they, theythink they have it figured out.
(29:15):
They're like, hey, I'm justlooking for a spot check on this
one thing.
And then we're able to kind ofplant that seed of, hey, have you
thought about this, this and this?
And then as we get intoplanning normally, right.
And this is definitely themajority of the time we'll get to
the end of planning.
And they're like, I didn'tthink that this was going to be that,
you know, enlightening for me, right.
(29:36):
Of now.
I understand what you weretalking about four months ago when
we were starting this initialplanning process about whatever it
is.
A lot of times for the most ofthe clients who we meet with, a lot
of that deals with tax planning.
Right.
And we're able to really digin with them and help them there.
But I think there's some otherareas as well where that does come
(29:58):
into play.
One of the big ones is estate planning.
Right.
And Jess talked about thatquite a bit in her episode there.
But those two areas seem to beplaces where clients are kind of
either misinformed,uninformed, or they're just kind
of, they don't even know thatthere's an opportunity there that
can be had.
So that is absolutely one ofthe most exciting parts of our job
(30:22):
is being able to to have thatimpact on their lives and have them
actually recognize it andthink back to when we first brought
it up to them.
So yeah, thanks for checkingout Ditch the Suits.
Be sure to write a review ordrop a comment about this episode.
And if you want more likethis, head over to ditchesuits.com
you can send us a message andget in touch.
(30:42):
Let us know how we can helpand be sure to share any any topics
you'd be interested in havingus cover on the show.
We're here to help you get themost from your money in life.
Thanks for being our guest andchecking out Ditch the Suits.
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